The Last Israelis - an Apocalyptic, Military Thriller about an Israeli Submarine and a Nuclear Iran (7 page)

“I think so…We’ll see…You’ll know for sure when I come back.”

“I can’t wait.”

“Me too…Goodbye for now.”

“See you soon. And don’t come back here with another fake shore visit next time!”

****

According to protocol, the captain is always the last to board the submarine. This practice helped to maximize the odds that the deputy captain would need to conduct the pre-departure roll call only once. Boarding the submarine last also helped the captain to notice any stragglers who may have been left behind somehow. This practice gave Daniel some extra time to visit with Sivan and Esty.

The captain found this goodbye to be more difficult than any previous one. The foreboding in his gut had been intensifying with each additional omen suggesting that this family goodbye might be his last. He peered at his wife and daughter for a moment, as if doing so could fix their image in his mind more permanently. Sivan looked graceful and poised but sturdy, like a sculpture to which playful Esty was tethered, keeping her from flying out of safe orbit. He wished he could have seen Amir and Hila again too, and tried for a moment to imagine them present at the farewell. Their airy likenesses joined for an imaginary moment but then faded as the more compelling details of reality dominated Daniel’s senses.

He was tempted to utter parting words of love in a profound and final way, but he had resolved to keep his presentiment concealed. The captain had concluded that he had to make this as normal a goodbye as possible in order to adhere to ethical standards and to avoid distressing Sivan and Esty with what was merely his unconfirmed, albeit reasonable, speculation. Thus, for the rest of the conversation, Daniel acted as if he knew without a doubt that he was coming back in a few weeks and that everything would be fine.

He looked down at Esty. Sivan had pinned his military insignia onto her shirt, to avoid any more traumatic, accidental losses. His daughter seemed to have an extra bounce in her step when parading around with the captain’s shoulder board on her. “Thank you for making me captain, Daddy,” she cried out, just as Daniel began to prepare his parting words.

“You’re welcome, sweetie. But you still have to listen to Mommy.”

“Daddy, are you sure you don’t need it to show everyone that you’re the captain?”

“I’m sure, sweetie.”

“Because, because if you do, then…Then I can let you borrow it for this trip…But then you have to promise to give it back to me when you come home.”

“No, honey. It’s OK. I want you to have it while I’m away.”

Sivan released a chortle. “Isn’t she priceless? I don’t know how you can miss such moments.”

“I don’t either…But this is my last mission.”

“I still don’t believe it.”

“It is…Don’t forget: martial arts classes for Amir. I want to see him breaking bricks with his hand by the time I come home.”

Sivan smiled. “To celebrate your return, we’ll have a brick-breaking ceremony in the living room when you come home.”

“I mean it, Sivan. Sign him up.”

“Yes, Sir!”

“And tell Hila that there are no words for how proud she makes me. When I get back, I want to try to read through her solar patent,” he said, suppressing his dark prediction that this might never actually happen.

“Good luck trying to understand it.”

“I didn’t say I’ll try to understand it. I’m just going to try to read it…And I have some friends who are partners at venture capital funds…I want to put them in touch with her.”

“But she’s not even done with her studies yet.”

“Neither were the founders of Microsoft, Google, and Facebook. But they had better things to do.”

“Yes, but they at least graduated high school!”

“I’m not saying she shouldn’t graduate…But she could be starting down a very unique and unconventional life path. Let’s see what my VC friends say.”

Esty interrupted the discussion about her older sister’s future with a far more pressing matter that just occurred to her. “Daddy, if you see my starfish when you go down in the water, can you try to get it?”

“Esty, you know that Daddy can’t actually leave the submarine when it’s underwater, right?”

“Well, what about when it’s above the water?”

“Yes, then Daddy can go outside.”

“So if you see my starfish when you’re above the water, can you get it for me?”

“Of course I will, sweetie.”

“Thank you, Daddy.”

From where he was standing, Daniel turned around a little and surveyed the empty lawn area where the cleanup crew was already busy taking away trash and empty dishes. Except for Yisrael and Netta, who were still talking, Daniel, Sivan, and Esty were the last ones there. He looked at the zone beyond the fence and near the submarine and it too was devoid of any submariners. He looked at his watch: 1810 hours. The crew was not operationally ten minutes late because the planned sailing hour already contained a 30-minute cushion that experience had shown to be necessary when ending family gatherings at the base. But all crewmembers definitely had to be aboard the submarine by 1830 hours so that all department and systems checks could be concluded in time for an embarkation at 1900 hours. So it was certainly time for Daniel to say goodbye to his family, and hope that Yisrael would notice, take a cue, and finish up his own goodbye. Otherwise, Daniel would have the awkward task of walking over and interrupting his second-in-command’s farewell so that they could depart on time.

To lead by example, Daniel had to make his example as conspicuous as possible. So he escorted his family to the exit, taking a path that would be hard for Yisrael to miss, no matter how absorbed he was in his conversation with Netta.

They reached the exit door. Unable to ignore his instincts about the future completely, Daniel tightly embraced Sivan as if it was the last time he would ever hold her. Their lips locked and they kissed deeply and for an unusually long time. Sivan could sense that something was different about this goodbye.

Their daughter impatiently started tapping on their feet. “OK, Esty, OK,” Sivan said, looking down. She looked back up at Daniel. “Is everything OK, Daniel?” she asked, with a hint of worry.

Daniel nodded his head, trying not to talk, lest too much emotion slip out. Sivan looked at him suspiciously, waiting for more. He had to say something. “Nothing…I’ll – I’ll just miss you guys. Can’t wait to start the next phase of my life with you,” he said, as nonchalantly as he could, despite his slightly uneven voice.

“You’ll have the base call me as soon as you know that you’re heading back home?”

“Of course. Being captain has to have some privileges, right?” he replied with a forced smile.

“Daddy, the boat that we’re going to sail together in the bathtub – is it gonna go under the water too?”

“Do you want it to?”

“I don’t like that you can’t get out of the boat when it’s under the water.”

“OK, Esty-leh. We’ll get you a boat that floats on top of the water. Now give Daddy a big hug and kiss goodbye.”

Daniel bent over to scoop up his daughter and hold her up in his arms as he smothered her with little kisses.

“Daddy, you promise that you’ll come back?”

He looked at her for a moment, trying to see whether he might have inadvertently infected her with his apprehension. “Yes, sweetie. I promise.”

He reluctantly brought her back to the ground, stood back up, and waved at them while watching them leave. As they waved back at him, he clenched his jaw to stop the tears.

****

Of all the submariners’ goodbyes, the one between Yisrael and Netta was the worst: it was fraught with tension and mistrust, and it felt arbitrarily incomplete and interrupted. Protocol required that Yisrael be the penultimate sailor to board the submarine, so he knew that this convention would give them a little more time together, but it was still far less than what he felt they needed.

Yisrael still wasn’t sure how to ease into the subject that had been gnawing at him. So he reverted for a moment to more certain ground. “Thanks again for transcribing my grandfather’s diary…And bringing me what you finished so far. It really means a lot to me.”

“I knew it would. But I did it for selfish reasons too – I couldn’t wait to read it myself.”

Yisrael gave up trying to find a smooth transition and just changed the topic. “This has been on my mind for the last few hours and I decided that I shouldn’t board the sub without first talking to you about it.” Netta furrowed her brow at his sudden change in tone, bracing herself for the worst. “I don’t want this to fester in my mind for the coming weeks that we’re apart.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know if it’s because I’m away for so many weeks at a time, or because we don’t have children who can keep us tightly bonded but…I feel like we might be growing apart.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I just said.”

“But why do you think we’re growing apart?”

“It’s just a feeling I got today…I mean, are you keeping things from me?”

“No…Why…Why would you think that?”

“Because we’re not communicating as openly as usual.”

“You mean the test results? I…I just think it’s a bad idea to discuss that issue now when we have so little time together…I promise that we’ll talk about it as soon as you return.”

“No, I think I would have been OK with that, if that’s all there was.”

“What do you mean? What else is there?”

“Think hard about your behavior at today’s picnic.”

“Yisrael, I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“When we were getting food with the others.”

“I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Is there something going on between you and Daniel?”

Netta looked at him in surprised disbelief. “Is everything OK, Yisrael?”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to figure out. Is everything OK?”

“Yes, Yisrael. Everything is OK.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am. Everything’s OK on my end. But now I don’t know any more about your end. But on my end everything’s OK.”

“I’ll get as specific as I can: did you give Daniel a letter when we were at the picnic table, and I was talking to Bao and Ambesah?”

“Yisrael, I can’t believe this is how we’re saying goodbye right now.” She looked away.

Yisrael saw that Daniel’s guests had just left the premises and that Daniel had turned around to walk directly towards them. Yisrael figured that he and Netta had no more than two minutes of privacy left before Daniel would be close enough to hear them.

“Did you give him a letter?”

“Why would I do such a thing?”

“Just tell me: did you?”

“No.” As he searched for her pupils and fixed on them, it looked as if she was looking through him for a few moments, before looking to the side. It didn’t quite feel like the eye contact of truth. He suspected that she was lying, but he wanted to believe her because there was still room to doubt his conjecture and no time left to probe it further.

Yisrael noticed that Daniel’s pace was brisk. The deputy captain estimated that he and his wife had no more than another minute left of privacy, and what could possibly be accomplished in a minute?

“All we have is trust, Netta. Without that, we have nothing.”

“I know…Do you still trust me?”

“I don’t want to lose what we have.”

“I don’t either.”

“Yisrael, I’m sorry to interrupt the two of you, but we were supposed to board the submarine by 1800 hours and it’s now 1820 hours.”

“That means we still have ten minutes,” Yisrael replied coolly. He turned to Daniel for a moment, glaring into his face for clues about anything between him and Netta that she might have reason to conceal.

“Under my command, we do our best not to waste the cushion time. Especially when we’re so close to departure time.”

“I’ll sprint to the sub from here, to make up some time.”

“Yisrael, there are now thirty-four sailors, including me, waiting for you to board the submarine.” Daniel’s voice was resolute, suggesting that the negotiation had finished.

“I’m not ready to go,” Yisrael replied firmly. There was something humiliating about taking orders from a man he now suspected might have some kind of secret relationship with his wife.

Daniel stared back at Yisrael, trying as judiciously as possible to interpret Yisrael’s resistance. Something was definitely astir but he had to manage the situation in a way that would not jeopardize their relations just as they were about to enter a situation of absolute mutual dependence.

“If it’s important enough, I can tell naval command that you had a sudden medical problem that forced you to stay behind.” Sailing without his deputy was far from ideal, but Daniel had done it before and could delegate Yisrael’s duties to another senior officer. Such a suboptimal arrangement would still be better than sailing with an emotionally unstable and potentially mutinous second-in-command.

“No, I just need another minute.”

“OK.” Daniel took enough steps away from Yisrael and Netta for them to feel that they had a moment of privacy again.

Netta grabbed Yisrael’s arms, and gazed into his eyes, almost desperately. Their goodbye felt painfully wrong thus far, and now they were out of time to correct it. “Look, I don’t know what’s gotten into you today…But please know that I love you and I’ll be thinking of you every day, waiting for you to come home already.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

“Do you love me?”

“Yes…I do…That’s probably why I’m behaving this way…And there’s been a lot on my mind…I’m sorry…”

They hugged. Yisrael saw that Daniel started moving towards them again. Yisrael’s pride made it hard to want to kiss Netta at that moment but he thought it was important for Daniel to see him kissing Netta. His left hand firmly held the back of her head, as if to dominate her, and he brought her lips to his. They kissed passionately.

Through his peripheral vision, Yisrael noticed that Daniel had arrived and firmly planted his boots awkwardly nearby. It was time, so he broke off the kiss.

“Take care of yourself while I’m away,” he said.

“You take care of yourself…Because I’m waiting for you,” she replied, as Yisrael turned away and started to walk towards the submarine.