Freefall Page 4

  I don’t know how she does it, but the commander’s uniform looks tailored to fit her body. She’s not fat. Not thin either. She looks like she’s made of stone slabs—except there isn’t anything smooth about her. Thick, straight strands of reddish hair jut out from under her cap. Her steady gaze passes from one to the next as she looks up, nods, and checks off something on her clipboard propped in the crook of her arm.

  “So you girls are here because you think that you are tough enough to be in a combat unit? Tough enough to stick out a few days of training? Tough enough not to be bothered by dirt under your fingernails?”

  The blond on my left glances at her red nails and discreetly closes her palms into fists.

  “Well, I have news for you: when you’re done, you’ll need a team of archaeologists to dig the grime off of you.”

  The commander gestures with her hand toward the rocky terrain. “See this place? You won’t find a coffee shop or pharmacy to buy baby wipes, but this is going to be your home for the next few days. Those of you who think you can’t hack it, it’s not too late to change your mind. Shmulik is waiting on the bus.”

  We all glance back at Shmulik. He pops his head out and waves.

  The commander waits. My mouth feels dry. I suppress the cough tickling at the back of my throat.

  “Nobody? I won’t ask you again. But if you can’t go on, just give us a sign and someone will drive you back to the base. Home-sweet-home is only a few hours away.” She pauses to let her words sink in. “No one told you to try out for combat. You’ll all have to do army service, but why choose the hard way?”

  She stands perfectly still so that even the hot desert wind passes without ruffling a sleeve of her uniform.

  There’s a collective shuffle of boots. I’m standing next to the fat girl, who’s already looking like she’s got heat exhaustion just from standing in one spot. Her cheeks are flushed red and spotty. Go, I want to tell her. Why do this to yourself?

  She doesn’t budge. Neither do I, though I’m aware of the irony of this situation. This stand of defiance in response to our commander’s taunt is an act of freedom of choice and is, if I make it through, the last free choice I’ll make for the next two years.

  “Fine. Stay if you insist. Your gear stays on the bus. Shmulik will drop it off in the evening.” She waves to Shmulik and gives him the sign to push off .

  We get a blast of exhaust, our last whiff of city life before the grind of the gears and the squeal of tires disappear and we’re on our own. Not even a tree to protect us from the sun. No place to hide. There is an eerie emptiness. A quiet so heavy that it’s as if we’ve entered into another zone not found on any map.

  Our commander walks up to a redheaded girl and stands in front of her. I hear everyone draw in a deep breath. I wonder what she’s done wrong.

  The commander glances at her clipboard and back up at the girl.

  “How’s your Hebrew?” she asks.

  It’s a strange question and one after another we bend forward to get a look at the redhead, with the Number 30 tagged to her shoulder. She has tied her hair into a tight, cheek-ironed ponytail. The few strands that have escaped are pasted with sweat to the side of her face. From the corner of my eye, I dare a sideways glance. She is solidly built. No gust of wind will blow her over.

  “I understand almost everything,” the girl answers. Her American twang sends nervous giggles down the line. A new immigrant. I can usually spot the bewildered gaze and am surprised I hadn’t noticed her earlier.

  “And you’re here on your own? Without your parents?”

  She nods her head twice.

  “Do you know the word in Hebrew for ‘yes’?”

  Again she nods twice but remembers to add, “Ken.”

  More giggles. It comes out sounding like “cane.”

  “Ken, what?”

  “Ken, Commander?” she says.

  Our commander nods, satisfied. “Okay. ‘Ken, Commander’ it’ll be from now on.” She turns and glares at us. “For all of you. Understood?”

  “Ken, Commander,” we reply.

  The commander reads off her clipboard and her scowl deepens. She’s not done with Number 30 just yet. “This says you came all the way from North Carolina to serve in the Israeli army.”

  “I was born here, near Haifa,” she says, her voice dropping to a whisper. “My parents moved to the States when I was eight. I’ve got the right to do my service just like any of these other girls.”

  “Even though you could have gotten out of it.”

  “Ken, Commander,” she says without a hint of a quiver in her voice.

  “Let’s hope that’s a decision no one regrets.”

  I straighten up and feel the girls beside me do the same. The exercises haven’t even started yet and already I feel I’m lagging behind.

  Someone sneezes. I’ve left my tissues and toilet paper in my pack, which is now driving off with Shmulik to some unknown destination. The pit that had started to grow in my stomach in the morning feels crater size. I have never gone longer than twenty-four hours without my cell phone. I pat my empty pocket nervously.

  “Now, drink up,” the commander says.

  Number 6, the girl with the blond cornrows, pulls out her canteen and takes a sip.

  “All of it,” the commander orders.

  I start guzzling.

  “When you’re done, hold the canteen over your head. If more than one drop falls, fill it up from one of those jerricans,” she says, motioning to a big black, plastic jug resting on a wagon, “and drink another full one.”

  I gulp the rest.

  “You’ve got two minutes to relieve yourselves.”

  We look around. There’s not even a bush in sight. Nobody moves.

  “Good. Now we can start. See that hill?”

  I suppose she means the one closest to us, though there are plenty others to choose from.

  “Ken, Commander,” we answer in unison.

  “Well, you should have been there and back here forty seconds ago! Now. Run!”

  We take off . I arrive third. My lungs are burning from the sudden burst of energy and the scorched air. But it wasn’t that difficult. I think of Ben and how hard he made it sound. I wait for the others to finish. Catch my breath.

  The commander looks at her watch. “That took sixty seconds. Again. Now. Run!”

  We do it ten more times—each time worse than the time before. We slow down in the middle. We pause. We don’t make it to the top of the hill. We don’t wait for the last girl. My lungs are like sandpaper. My liver is bursting. My ego, deflated.

  “Water break,” she says. “Drink.”

  I gulp back as much as I can. But what do I need more of, air or water?

  “Sip,” says Number 16. “Or it’ll slosh around inside your stomach when you run.”

  “Thanks.” I take a sip and breathe, sip and breathe, until not a drop is left.

  “My name is Amber,” she says while we hold our empty canteens over our heads. “Like the orange-yellow stone.”

  “Hi,” I say, and just as I’m about to ask her where she lives, the commander’s voice bellows.

  “See those sacks over there?” the commander points behind us. “And that pile of sand next to it? Fill the sacks with sand and seal them tight.” We nod.

  “Full to the top. Is that understood?”

  We nod again.

  “Well? Move!”

  And we’re on the move. Ten girls. We rush toward the pile of sacks and grab them.

  “Excuse me, Commander,” says the fat girl confidently. “Did you forget to hand out shovels?”

  “Number Twelve,” the commander says, jotting down something on her clipboard. “What do you think?”

  She shrugs and turns to us. “Use our hands?”

  The commander nods. “Well, I was going to give you shovels, but since you asked, Number Twelve, I think hands are a better idea.”

  Silence.

  Number 12 turns to
us again, her cheeks even redder. “My friends call me Lily,” she says apologetically.

  No one answers her.

  We kneel down and start scooping the sand and stuffing it into the bags. A fistful goes in as a handful spills out.

  “This isn’t working,” I say, rolling onto my haunches.

  The girls look at me, wondering if I’ll be the first to quit.

  “Let’s work in pairs,” I add quickly. “One holds the bag open; the other shovels sand in.”

  We get back to work. The word why threatens to tumble out of my mouth but I shove it back and tightly pack it away as tightly as the now-packed layers of sand.

  I’m hoping Lily will have the nerve to say, “What now?”

  But no one dares ask how much the bags will weigh when they’re full or what we’re supposed to do with them when we’re done.

  This is the army. We have been here barely an hour and have already learned the first two rules: Do as you’re told. Don’t ask questions.

  Chapter Four

  Besides, we find out soon enough.

  “Haul them up. On your shoulders,” the commander orders. “Remember that hill? Now get moving. Run!”

  The sandbag slides and skids over my shoulder, hanging halfway down my back.

  We tussle. The sandbag is as determined to bilk as much as I am determined to control it. The tall girl, with an Argentinean accent, rests her bag half on her head, half on her shoulder. I figure she’s trying to do some Bedouin thing like the Arab women who carry baskets on their heads. After the first few minutes, she looks like, from her pinched-eyed squint, she’s only succeeded in giving herself one major migraine.

  “How many times?” asks Lily.

  “Until I say stop.” Our commander does not look pleased. “And then you, Number Twelve, will do an extra one.”

  The girl from North Tel Aviv, with French-style polish on her fingernails, wrestles with her bag. She looks ready for a session of kickboxing.

  “My baby cousin doesn’t weigh much more,” says Lily, panting, “and doesn’t smell much better.”

  “Shh,” says the girl behind me. “It’ll just get them angry.”

  Involuntarily, I glance over at “them.” The commander has two shadows following her, who are trailing us: two soldiers who don’t look even a year older than me, holding clipboards and writing.

  I speed up and reach the top of the hill in a pant. Only the second time of walking up the hill, down the other side, and back, and my right shoulder feels like it will never even out with the other one. I consider moving it to the other side, when the Tel Aviv girl comes to a sudden stop in front of me and tosses her sandbag on the ground.

  “Stuff this!” she says. “I’m not wasting any more of my time hauling these stupid bags. I’ve got a brain. If the army needs someone to haul sand, I’ll lend them my dad’s truck or the worker who does our gardening.”

  She kicks the bag and without another look stalks off.

  We stop and watch.

  “Did I tell you girls to take a break?” The commander’s voice slices the silence.

  I step around the abandoned bag and shuffle on.

  “Nine more sacks of sand on our backs, nine more sacks of sand. If one falls, we’re one less brat and one less sack to haul,” sings Lily.

  “Enough!” the commander shouts.

  “What?” asks Lily. “What’s wrong with showing a little team spirit? I think we should be grateful to the Israel Defense Forces for training us in this very useful”—she stops to catch her breath, sees the commander looking at her, and speeds up—“task of hauling sacks.”

  I notice the scribes can’t write fast enough.

  “Stuff it, Lily,” says Number 25.

  “I’ve stuffed it as much as it’s going to stuff. In fact, if we were to compare bags, I’d say yours was looking a bit on the anemic side. Don’t suppose you feel like swapping, do you?”

  I’d noticed it, too. Number 25 was short, stocky, and sweating buckets though her sandbag looked a lot less bulky than most of the others, mine included.

  “Just teasing,” says Lily.

  We walk on.

  My back hunches forward. The smell of sand is in my nose. My throat is raw. I have blisters on my ankles and each step scrapes off another layer of skin. I bite my lip. I try and focus on Lily’s great green behind wobbling in front of me.

  “Right. Left. Right. Left,” I chant to myself. “If she can do it, I can do it. If she can do it, I can do it.”

  All we hear now is the crunching of our boots on the dry ground. We’ve got nothing in us left to spare. Even Lily has no words. My knee crumples beneath me. The second one follows. The ground feels so welcoming. I want to sit, lie down, take the weight off. Just a short rest, and I’ll be able to go on. Right now, I’ve had enough.

  The bag begins to slip from my shoulder. It feels so good to lighten the weight. I don’t even care. This isn’t for me. It’s almost on the ground when I feel someone tug at the belt loop of my pants.

  “Get up,” Lily growls. “You’ve come this far, Twiggy. No cracking now!”

  I straighten up and snarl right back at her. “Get off of me! And don’t you ever call me Twiggy.”

  I dam back the tears and trudge behind her, wanting to use her big green backside for target practice. What does she care if I quit? Pulling me up. Pushing me forward. She’s got nerve.

  This is stupid. Carrying around weights of sand, what does that prove about me? Ben was right to say I’m more like a toy action figure than a combat soldier.

  I can’t anymore.

  I can’t.

  “I—”

  “Lunch!” shouts the commander. “You’ve got forty-five minutes to eat and clear up.”

  In one orchestrated movement, nine sacks of sand plummet to the ground, followed by the sound of falling bodies.

  Someone breaks into tears. She’s snorting like a water hog. No one says anything because we’re feeling about the same.

  “I’m famished,” says Lily. “Some of us need more fuel than others. Can you dehydrate from lack of food?”

  I shrug.

  The commander orders Number 6 to bring over a rucksack. Inside are cans of corn, cans of meat, cans of peas, and plastic containers of waxy-looking chocolate spread.

  “I need meat,” says the girl with the South American accent. “I could eat half a cow.”

  Number 6 slams down a can in front of her. “This is the closest thing you’ll get to meat out here.”

  “Meat in a can?” Number 7 looks like she is about to faint. “Do you know how many preservatives there are in this? We eat only organically grown foods at home.”

  “Army rations,” says the girl whose tears have dried to blackened streaks. “Get used to it.”

  “It looks like it’s passed the ‘best before’ date,” says Amber, squinting to read the fine print. “What year is it from?”

  “Eat it or pass it here,” says Lily.

  “Do you want my peas instead?” I offer the vegetarian girl, holding out my can.

  She shakes her head. “Thanks. But I need the protein to keep going. It’s not like I’ll get sick, right?” No one answers.

  I spread a layer of the canned meat on a slice of white bread, sprinkle corn kernels on top, and bite in.

  Revolting, but I force it down. I know I need this to give me strength.

  We’re about done eating when suddenly the girl with the pigtails gasps.

  “What’s up?” asks Lily.

  “Ohmigod,” she whispers. “I think I just got my period.”

  “Oh geez,” says Argentina. “Talk about bad timing. Does anybody have anything on them?”

  “I brought,” says North Carolina. She digs her hand into one of her pockets.

  Pigtails groans again.

  “Now what?” asks Lily.

  “I need a bathroom. I need privacy.” Her voice trembles. “What am I going to do?”

  “We won’t look,”
says one of the girls.

  “I can’t. It’s too exposed.”

  I feel so bad for her. She’d carried her sand without even a grunt, not a single whine or curse.

  “It’s not fair,” she cries.

  She’s right.

  Lily points her sandwich at me. “Hey you,” she says. “Grab your sandbag and put it here on mine.”

  I hesitate for only a second. “Good idea. We’ll build her a wall.”

  “I’m not lifting sandbags on my break,” says the girl with red fingernails.

  “Yes, you are,” says Lily.

  And there is something in Lily’s tone that makes everyone respond. In a few moments, Pigtails has a small wall to hide behind.

  “I think we should all stretch out our muscles,” says North Carolina. “I’ve taught aerobics at the Y. Seriously. I know about this stuff. We need to keep our lactic acids from building up and giving us cramps.”

  North Carolina takes a deep breath and stretches her arms up and over her head. Exhaling, she rolls down and hangs like a rag doll. “The trick is to inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth.” Her words come out garbled.

  “You Americans are so conscientious,” says Argentina. “Well, how about this.” She pulls out a pack of cigarettes. “Inhale to the lungs.” She lights up. “And exhale through the mouth.”

  “Get real,” says North Carolina. “How are you going to run with lungs full of smoke?”

  “I’m with the American on this one,” says Lily. She plops herself on the ground, stretches, groans, yawns, and covers her face with her cap. “Am I stretching out all right?” she asks.

  We all laugh.

  North Carolina glances over at the commander. She lunges forward into some yoga contortion that Lily probably couldn’t do on a normal day.

  I know North Carolina is right and she’s probably scoring way too many extra points. I lie down next to Lily. “Hey, thanks for pulling me up back there. Sorry I was so snarky.”

  “Forget it.”

  I close my eyes and hear the rest of the girls filling in the space around me, worn, torn, and tired. All of us wondering: what in the world were we thinking when we volunteered for this? And are we going to make it through?