She was certain that he would not be killed. Other wives at the children’s school in the moshav were puzzled, until they reminded one another that it was her first war; she’d learn to fear. Her one concern was for the children, exposed as they were to war talk, bravado, in school and even in the nursery. It was a small community. One father had been killed, it was whispered, but with no confirmation yet.
The children came home and asked her whether their father was dead, too. Of course not, she said, he couldn’t be. It wasn’t her words that reassured them, though; it was the way she behaved. She slept nights through without waking.
So it was no surprise to her when he phoned from the base to tell her — warn her perhaps to avoid shock — that he was on his way home. It was a Shabbat, so the children were there, clamouring at her knee as she nursed the baby. “I told you,” she said. “I told you he would be all right.” They nodded, respectfully.
He let himself in with his own key. How strange it was that he had taken his keys to war.
The two children jumped at him, pulling at his trousers, but he ordered them away while he took the cartridges from his rifle. They stood aside, bewildered.
The boy said: “Why are you breaking your gun?”
He gathered the children tightly to him, not quite affectionately, but as if it were a duty he had to perform, and as quickly released them.
“We made a cake for you,” said his daughter, shyly. His son...
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