New Face in the Mirror: A Novel

New Face in the Mirror: A Novel

by Yaël Dayan
New Face in the Mirror: A Novel

New Face in the Mirror: A Novel

by Yaël Dayan

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Overview

Inspired by the author’s own experience, a novel of one female soldier’s fight to maintain her independence while serving in the Israeli army

Ariel Ron is the spoiled yet fiercely proud daughter of a renowned Israeli colonel, entering the army for her two-year period of compulsory military service. Rebellious and self-centered, she is determined to keep her independence within this highly structured system. Ariel expects that being the colonel’s daughter will win her favors in the army—but she is sorely mistaken. As she comes to terms with this reality, she embarks on a journey that forces her to look inward and reflect on her own values and connection to her homeland.
 
Based on Yaël Dayan’s own experience in the Israeli army and partly written when she was not yet twenty, this searing and honest first novel is a rare look at a young woman struggling to find her true self in a strange and uncomfortable environment.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781497698628
Publisher: Open Road Media
Publication date: 04/07/2015
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 138
File size: 840 KB

About the Author

Yaël Dayan is an Israeli author and political figure. Her father, Moshe Dayan, was the military leader who oversaw the stunning capture of Jerusalem during the Six-Day War. Like her father, Dayan served in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, of which she was a member for ten years with the Labor Party. An outspoken activist, Dayan has been involved with Peace Now and other organizations fostering the peaceful coexistence of Israelis and Palestinians. She has written five novels, including Three Weeks in October, about the Yom Kippur War. Among Dayan’s nonfiction works are Israel Journal, a memoir about the Six-Day War, and My Father, His Daughter, a biography of Moshe Dayan.

Read an Excerpt

New Face in the Mirror

A Novel


By Yaël Dayan

OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Copyright © 1959 Yaël Dayan
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4976-9862-8


CHAPTER 1

This is my house: white paint, timbered ceilings, big living room with an open fireplace and a few small bedrooms upstairs. The key really turns in its lock and closes the world behind me. My suitcases are unpacked, the lights switched on; a small fire slowly blows into damp wood, and I sip a glass of wine.

I open a window. A salty, cold draft of air, very fresh, awakens me and the fire, bringing the sound of the sea into the room, filling the corners with noise and freshness. The baby scream of the wind is lost in the bellowing of the waves; the rock cliffs echo the sound, and the first drops of rain against the windowpanes complete the harmony.

Opposite my cottage is a lighthouse, its beam flashing seaward, although not even the bravest sailor would go to sea tonight. The flash of light revolves, striking at brief intervals through the window, through the glass, and through the curtains. There is no escape, no hiding from it; it searches mechanically, confidently, permanently. Against the music of waves and wind and rain it becomes the unchanging reality, the something that cannot be disturbed, ignoring everything and me, too; and yet pausing for a second against the glass of the window, glowing against the surface of the wine glass, in the wine itself, on the metal of the pen; static for a moment, then passing on and away; but coming back again, and back again ...

The light has a steadfast, binding quality. The sounds can change, and do change; the rain can stop. The wine gets finished and I get out of my chair, go to the kitchen, and make tea. But the beam of light is just the same; with unchanging regularity it strikes deeper into me each time. I begin to feel it inside me. There is no way of getting friendly with it, but, to be frank, there is no use hiding from it. It is a discreet beam that carries things away; it sweeps off layers to engulf them in the sea, or set them down on the shores of some island, or pile them high up on a cloud.

A thought strikes me: this unfriendly beam, and the beating of the rain against the window; the revolving beam striking the window, and the rain beating ... I remember them from long ago. Long? ... two years ... an eternity ...

The revolving shaft of light from the lighthouse in Finistère, against the Atlantic, reminds me of the long, steady beam behind Tel Aviv. Two years ago, at the end of the Sinai War, it was searching for aircraft, or directing them on their way, and intermittently lighting up the inside of a big army barracks. A long and narrow room with two long rows of hard, narrow beds, covered with tightly stretched khaki blankets; the beam shining on the metal of guns, pausing at a tear in a girl's eye, quickly going on its way undisturbed by voice, smell, or look....


I hated it at first; deeply, profoundly hated it from the moment I queued up to collect my equpiment. The male stores orderly measured me with his eyes to decide the size of my clothes.

"I do not, definitely not, want underwear, or pajamas. I have my own."

"Sorry 361950, you've got to take them and sign for them all."

"My name is Ariel Ron. Shall I spell it for you?"

He turned, laughing.

"Hey, boys, the Colonel's daughter's here. She says she's got undies of her own."

I couldn't cry. I was ashamed but I couldn't cry. I collected the things, thrust them into the kitbag, put on my beret, fixed on the disk with my number, 361950, and joined another queue for medical inspection.

The girl beside me in the queue was sobbing. She looked ugly, her face red and wet with tears. The girl behind me said, "She's superstitious. The trouble is her number doesn't end with eight and she says that means bad luck."

The girl who spoke to me said she had a cream bun she was willing to share. I didn't feel like cream buns; the thought made me feel sick. But I tried to look calm and knowledgeable, as if I belonged where I was. A voice shouted a number through the microphone:

"361950!"

And then repeated it angrily:

"361950!"

A short, stocky sergeant came up and pushed me.

"That's your number. What are you waiting for?"

"I'm Ariel Ron. I've got a name. He can say it, can't he?"

"No, he can't."

I wanted to scream my name—scream it at the sobbing girl, the girl with the bun, the sergeant, at all of them. I'm Ariel Ron and nothing else. But what did they care? I longed to tear off my number, put on my dress, turn about, and leave.

Instead I got into an army truck with twenty or thirty other girls, all squared into uniform, hair tied up two inches above the collar. Hardly knowing why, I moved my lips and joined in the ditty they were singing:

Give us some food,
Our throats are so dry,
The army is good,
Day comes after night.


The truck hurried through strange groves—green and gold. Tel Aviv was behind us now, and at the gate of the camp the driver shouted, "Fresh meat!"

Trucks, equipment stores, queues, queues ...

"361950, that's your bed. No private belongings here. And in exactly five minutes you will report at the lecture hall."

Back from the lecture hall I sat on the edge of my bed, bare to the inquiring eyes of the other girls, whose efforts to draw me into conversation failed, so that one by one they decided to ignore me.

Next to me on the bed lay my gun—"You are not to lose sight of your gun for a moment. It must become part of you."

My hand recoiled as I touched the cold metal.

I took off my uniform, hung it as and where I had been told, and disregarding the noise around me slipped into bed. Two sheets, smaller than the mattress, rough blankets; and the gun next to me, so close that I could feel each of its curves, and slowly getting warmer as I clutched it to my body.

I built myself a kind of tent with the blankets. Inside it was dark and warm. The disk with my number on it between my breasts was no longer cold, the gun was not disturbing. I was alone inside the tent, alone with my thoughts, the sound of driving rain, and the muted noise of voices coming from another world.

"Then we kissed good-by, and he held me tightly and said, 'Be a good girl.'"

"Did you cry?"

"Can't you see she's crying now?"

"When do we get our first leave?"

"I'm terrified of shooting. Do you think I can get out of it?"

Then a harsh voice calling, "Lights out!"

The girls' voices sank to whispers. But every now and then the beam of the searchlight broke through and lit up the room.

"Hey, Ariel!"

I turned towards the voice. It came from the bed on my left, occupied by Leah, a rich, spoiled girl, a silk nightgown under her army pajamas and forbidden lipstick smeared on for the night.

"Ariel, what shall I do with this?" She pointed with a gesture of disgust at her gun.

"It's not 'this.' It's a gun, and it's yours ... O.K. Give it to me. And go to sleep and let me get to sleep too."

"You're very kind. Thanks."

And so to the collection of objects in my bed I added another long-barreled gun, next to mine. I could feel them through my pajamas, where I could warm them and get used to them.

But sleep was far away. Everything had happened too quickly: the war in Sinai, the hurried return from the United States, the welcome at the airport, and now the army. The army for two years, two whole years, 24 months, 730 days, 730 nights. Long nights, cold and wet, or hot and sweaty. And this was only the first of them.

The whole thing seemed so ugly to me: all these half-women, half-children ... if they could only be struck dumb for a few weeks. But this hour at least was mine. I tossed the blanket aside, put on a coat, hung my own gun on my shoulder, hid Leah's under the mattress, and went outside. I needed air and a drink of water. I realized how funny I must have looked: boots with no socks, the gun hanging upside down to keep the rain out of the barrel, a greatcoat, and the metal clatter of the disks round my neck.

In the darkness I heard, "Halt! Give the password!"

"To hell with you. I'm looking for water. I'm Ariel Ron of Company C." And I walked on.

"Halt, or I'll shoot!"

"Shoot away but let me get some water first."

Two girls came up to me, wrapped in heavy raincoats, looking sleepy and more scared by my appearance than I was by their threatening to shoot me. I gave them my number and as I walked away I heard one of them saying, "Does she think that because she's the daughter of the Area Commander she needn't know the password?"

I had my drink, breathed the wet air, and went back to bed. The night seemed as long as the beam of the searchlight. "Good night, 361950," I murmured and presently fell asleep.

I woke up with a start. It was still raining, and my hands were holding the two guns so tightly that they hurt. I had had a dream in which my uniform walked empty of me or of anyone. It was neat and straight but my body was not there, and it marched to the rhythm of metal disks ringing. The gun was hanging on the sleeve but all at once it fell, and the uniform failed to reach for it. Then, although the ringing of the disks grew louder, the uniform folded on its own and the gun fell deeper and deeper, and a voice was screaming, "Imma! Mother! Imma!"

I sat up quickly in my bed. It was the girl next to me screaming in her sleep. Her face looked troubled and wrinkled, as if fighting some horror.

The first light of dawn had brightened the room, picking out the rows of beds with the strangely wrapped figures on them, bundles with forms distorted by the outline of a gun in bed with them. A girl was muttering something in her sleep about a new dress. The one next to her snored. The room was filled with the heavy smell of bodies, sinking into the humidity of the air. I got out of bed and opened a window. The fresh air mixed with rain made me feel better.

I felt strangely alone here, with scores of people pressing in upon me, and everything strange and foreign to me. Did each of these girls feel alone? And whom did they think about when they felt so? Would I get used to it?

The air grew colder. Even in bed, under the heavy but unwarming blankets, I felt myself shivering. Those around me were sleeping, and I envied them.

Then the door snapped open and the short sergeant marched in, wide awake and full of energy. Clapping her hands and walking briskly through the room she said, "Good morning, everybody. Five minutes to morning exercises," and she pulled at blankets and patted shoulders.

I dressed quickly and prepared to face the first day. The dormitory was not a pleasant sight—all those sleepy faces, some creamed and even painted, all shivering in the cold, some of them trying to win another minute of warmth under the blankets, all of them in need of a good wash and a combing—they had looked so different two days ago. I took my gun, handed my neighbor hers, and went out into the morning.

It was gray outside at five o'clock; a gray sky, and beneath it, uniforms. I look square in my uniform, my face becomes small and round, and I have to tie my long hair back. Only at night can I let it down the way I like it.

The khaki makes my skin look green, and my eyes greener than usual; the beret on my head seems to emphasize that I am nothing but a number. But slowly I will learn to appreciate this lack of identity and to sink into it, relaxing. It will make me feel more important because, in being forced to be like all the others, I will become more conscious of my superiority.

I began to plan my days with small inventions of my own—timesavers. I took my toothbrush to breakfast and washed on the way back from the dining hall. I cleaned and greased my gun in the evening and wrapped it in a towel. I slept with my clothes on, and a sweater over them, and stretched and fixed the sheets under the blanket so that when I got up in the morning the bed looked freshly made for inspection and I could take a book and sit in the empty canteen with time on my hands.


I avoided taking an interest in "them"—the rest of the Company. I did my work and found the physical training tolerable except when it was wet. When it was raining, or after heavy showers, our exercises included crawling through mud. The wetness penetrated our uniforms to the skin, our slacks got filthy, and to make matters worse, we realized as we crawled that the slacks would have to be washed in icy water. I'd lean on my elbows and try not to touch the damp soil, and then, when my muscles tired, I'd just give up.

But the most unpleasant parts of the day were those given to mass activities such as eating or washing. The food was good, but the process of getting it took away my appetite. We had to queue for it—stand in a long line with hungry faces and clattering mess-tins—and then have quantities of potatoes, gravy, pickles, and jam piled into the same mess-tin. After carrying it to the crowded dining room I had to listen to a dozen stupid versions of the day's adventures. Unless I was first in line I preferred not to eat in the mess room but went alone to the canteen for coffee and biscuits. There I thought about a home, not my parents', but mine. One day I would have a table and cook a meal ... these domestic thoughts had never occurred to me before. Taking a shower was like eating. The cubicles were small and we had to undress in a waiting room and stay there until a cubicle was vacant.

I went once to queue for a shower, but only once. The shapeless figures pushing and pawing each other, the sly remarks followed by shrill laughter were too much for me. I felt sorry for some of the shy girls, standing in corners and waiting modestly their turn. The night after my group shower I dreamed about it. I was there again, with the long lines of naked bodies; each naked girl was soaping the back of the girl in front of her. I was fully dressed, vainly struggling to tear myself away from a girl who insisted on soaping my back, too.

After that I went to the shower late at night, when I could be alone, take my time, let the water slowly relieve me of the day's dirt, and enjoy the roughness of the towel. I took off my identity disks and for a moment, in my nakedness, felt far away from it all.

The days went quickly and I did my best to avoid becoming involved. There were moments of shame, some amusement, and a lot to be observed. I grew to like my gun. It was mine, a loyal, secure friend. I carried on long conversations with it, in which I was absolutely frank and truthful.

The best part of the week was the night watch. The others could not understand why I chose the lonely vigil; they were always trying to escape it. I awaited my turn eagerly.

"She's showing off," they said.

But it was good to be alone in a heavy winter coat, with a gun and the password. I half hoped that something would happen. All night I would find myself daydreaming of a little house with a pigeon-loft and a high wall round it. I would tell myself how nice it was that the moon was not full, because if it had been I would have felt like crying. Autumn moons should be full only when everything is really good, or really bad, not when there is sadness or a feeling of emptiness in the heart. The ring around the moon would get wider and wider somehow, and I would stare at it and think that if it got much wider it would be too wide for a crown. One night watch, while I was fighting sleep, I saw a beautiful sight—a cat silhouetted against the moonlit sky, standing erect on a fallen tree trunk. It was not afraid. I think it was a tomcat, angry with the moon, or perhaps only cold; but there we were, both staring at the light.

Things like this meant a lot to me in an environment where I looked in the mirror and didn't like what I saw, or looked about me and didn't like the sight of the other square shapes. Here where I was a number, and had escaped into it, and yet was fighting for identity—in that environment I could search for something among the clouds and in the moon. It was a kind moon, appeasing the cat. I could not tell what color the cat was.

I never thought about anything important on watches; it was thinking with the senses, slowly looking at shapes and figures, concentrating on smells and sounds; aloneness, not in thought, but in being; a lack of reality, no sense of place or time. I was disturbed occasionally by the laughing face of Gal, my brother, who came and stood near me, behind the barbed wire, and then disappeared, like the cat; or the sound of. trucks on the main road; or the smell of oranges carried in and away again by the changing wind.


(Continues...)

Excerpted from New Face in the Mirror by Yaël Dayan. Copyright © 1959 Yaël Dayan. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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