Promenade

War

War at first is like a young girl
With whom every man desires to flirt
And at the last it is an old woman
All who meet her feel grieved and hurt

Samuel Hanagid (993-1056)

In my dream, I am thrown into the driver’s seat of a moving car.

The vehicle is stuck in reverse, I can’t find the pedals. The windscreen is totally fogged up. I reach for something, some way to avert catastrophe. My hand fumbles and finds the dial for air conditioning, turns one futile click to the right. The car continues to surge backwards.

With both hands outstretched I dive head first below the steering wheel. There’s no brake. In the wing mirror I notice an approaching bend in the motorway. I know I should be using my legs, pressing down, but can’t feel them. Am I upside down? There’s nothing for it. We’re going to crash.

I wake into another day of war. After lunch, a stroll by the tayelet, the seaside promenade. There’s a section for beach volleyball, a group of youngsters in bathing suits leaps and laughs at their game.

Set back a few metres on a low wall sits a bespectacled ginger-haired youth with a wispy religious beard, spindly growth that is never shaved. According to Jewish law, no blade should touch the face. Six rifles lie piled beside him on the sand, under his supervision. I put two and two together: those are his – secular, half naked – comrades playing volleyball in the afternoon sun.

How magnificent to be young and at war. Imbued with purpose. Your whole life rising to a crescendo of places to go, roles to play. Call ups to the North, to the South. Ranks, roll calls, training courses, weekends on base. And sometimes furlough, a few hours off duty, to enjoy Tel Aviv.

A boy in flip flops walks by the sea, automatic weapon slung over his shoulder. If he tripped, he’d be so helpless. One push and that gun is choked with sea water. Just a kid playing at war, chatting to his girlfriend on his phone, flirting with the waves at his feet.

Further down the coast, at Jaffa, wetsuited surfers cluster at the tip of the bay. A solitary church tower pins the picturesque horizon. Here you can swim and snorkel and surf to the sound of the muezzin, whose voice rings out from a slim minaret abutting the shore. A stone walkway leads down to the sandy beach, where sunbathers and tattoos sprawl under a solid blue sky.

Beneath the walkway, at the bottom of the steps, spray painted in black letters: Gaza is in Flames.