“The envelope from the Sharett Foundation has arrived – I can’t wait,” she exclaimed over the phone.
Lily couldn’t and didn’t want to wait either.
“You’ve won a scholarship!” her mother announced excitedly on the other end of the line.
When she hung up, tears filled Lily’s eyes.
“You didn’t believe it, did you?” I asked rhetorically.
“No, because there were excellent works there,” she murmured, still absorbing the news.
“Maybe they won too – we don’t know how many scholarships were given.”
Lily was thrilled, but, as always, struggled to express that particular feeling. When she tried to jump for joy, I stopped her – her open wound on her leg was still vulnerable. I caught the surprised look on her face as she froze, and then suddenly she began to cry.
“I have to tell Wechsler,” she said once her tears had subsided. “He won’t believe it.”
Wechsler, one of the founders and directors of the AvniInstitute, did believe it. For the first – but not the last – time, I realized just how much Lily’s teachers valued her talent and her works, and how little she valued them herself.
Chapter 37
What Heat?
At the beginning of September 1976, I received official transfer orders to the Navy base in Eilat. Until then, I had been to Eilat only once, in the wintertime. The temperature was pleasant, and unlike in Tel-Aviv, you could swim in the sea.
When I arrived, transfer order in hand, the doors of the air-conditioned bus opened and I was stunned by the wave of heat that enveloped me as I stepped outside. In all my twenty-five years of life, I had never imagined such heat existed. Even in California’s Death Valley, it was hot – but nothing like the Eilat central bus station in September 1976.
I remembered that the head of the department had recommended Eilat as the best place in the country for Lily. He surely had no idea that such heat existed, I thought in disbelief. The heat hit you everywhere – the face, the eyes, the breath, on bare hands, and on the back. More than that, it radiated from everything around me.
The encounter with this boundless heat overwhelmed me. Every movement I made felt like a frame from a slow-motion film. The hot, dry northern desert wind burned my exposed skin and seeped in through the pores of my parched body. I felt as if an endless electric current was coursing through me, like a lightning strike.
The first thought that crossed my mind was of Lily. She could never stand such heat. The moment she stepped off the bus, she would faint. There was no way I could take her to Eilat. What would I do with this posting? What would I tell the head of the department who had recommended Eilat?
“Hi, my Lily, I’ve just arrived. It’s hot here. I’m taking a taxi tothe base; I’ll call you from there.” I spoke into the receiver as if reciting a telegram someone had forced me to read.
“Taxi?” she replied, trying to start a conversation. “What are we, millionaires?”
“My Lily, that’s the only public transport here.”
“I wonder what your mother would say if you told her you were taking a taxi in the middle of the day, just like that.” she teasingly remarked.
“I’m sure if she felt the heat here, she’d get on a plane and get out of here.” I replied in kind. “Lily, it’s so hot here, I’ve got a burn on my hand from the receiver…”
“I already want to come down to Eilat, be with you, run away from here, and start something new.” The excitement was clear in her voice.
“Remember, it’s hot here. V-E-R-Y!” I tried to warn her.
“People live there, don’t they?”
“Apparently, but barely…” I tried to soften my words.
“Of course you get used to it. I’ll get used to it too.”
“I hope so, but it’s hot here.” I wondered how many times I had repeated “It’s hot here.”
“Are you the new doctor?” a soldier with a blue beret asked me. I nodded yes.
“Then come over here,” he said, pointing to a truck parked across the road.
