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Sunday Bells
translated from the Hebrew by Alan Sacks

Church bells ring on Sunday morning. Their peculiar tones float across the Iyoun Valley and through the hills. The heavy bells hang from vaulted spires. A devoted Maronite bellman works the rough wooden pedals at his feet.

Metula isn't far. Kiryat-Shmona also is within sight. And if the sun this warm, dry winter isn't too blinding, one can make out the pale blue outlines of the Mountains of Naftali far on the southern horizon. Narrow roads glint in valleys flashing spring greenery. Down there, the convoys pass. Cavernous "safari" buses, shifting jeeps and here and there in the column the bright car of some contractor hurrying home heedless of the danger signs around.

The air is full of the sound of bells, a weighty, metallic clang that leaves long echoes in its wake. The Jewish Israeli ear is unaccustomed to this sound. Yet it has its virtues. For example, it cuts through the short, explosive bursts of rifle fire. It dulls the piercing, startling blast of a deadly charge of dynamite. It drapes a comforting, lovely wreath over the snow-capped hills scored by deep streams. And at least for these Sunday morning hours, it makes us forget that this is no nature film for seekers of solitude. That it is neither a poetic preface to a reservist's letter to his forlorn family nor colorful background material for a roving TV cameraman. Nor even a divine sand table dazzling in its beauty.

The pocket military quids call this region: "the gateway to the valleys." Several valleys here merge like fingers on a fist. South of here, they dissolve into the warm, pleasant Hula Valley. To the north, the confluence splits into the Hatzbani, Iyoun and Litani Valleys. Farther on, below Jabal Barukh's snowy ridges, it all goes by the malevolent general name of the Lebanon Valley.

But the lyrical title, "the gateway to the valleys" arouses associations for me. The gateway of grief, for example, and the gateway to suffering and the gateway to tears. The threshold for a powerful sensation that takes hold on entering through the "nipple" gate. "It's deep inside," the young soldiers say. Deep in what? This "inside" is a shorthand term, discouraging details that add nothing. "Inside. Go on in and you'll soon feel it." You'll soon sense it for yourself. No further explanation will be necessary. Whether you tap the back of the man behind you, shrunk in the little car racing through the roadblocks. Whether you climb to the observation post atop the building, choking under your belts and gear, or you just sit here on the cliff side facing the fluttering jagged shadow of Beaufort Castle.

There are no mistakes here. This is southern Lebanon. A Sunday morning like this one, bathed in golden sunshine and flooded as far as the horizons with the sound of tolling bells. Above the cross-emblazoned steeples and the red tiled roofs of the village churches. This is Lebanon now. A dangerous pairing of sweet illusion and cruel explosion.

These have been an idle hour's thoughts. That's enough now. It's getting late and I must rush off for our patrol.

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