Masada will not fall again

Claire Hines, Year 12

I paced back and forth furiously, like a caged lion who lived for escape. Escape from the tortuously slow hours. Escape from the fear and anxiety within and about me. Escape from the question that was steadily driving me mad. Where was Hadassah?

I looked up to see the cruel sun finally start to drop behind the rugged hills of Gaza. It started to fall defeated, tainting the sky crimson as it did so. Its blood red rays lit up the busy traffic on the road below, where convoys of trucks brought soldiers to and civilians from that place beyond the hills that thundered regularly with gun and shellfire. Where was she?

No one seemed to know for sure. No one seemed to know anything anymore. There was nothing left to do but wait helplessly for her to come back, under the inferno of the noonday sun and the frozen hours of the night.

I looked again at the dying sun and remembered another night far away from here, only a few weeks ago, when I had taken her out to dinner for her 21st birthday. We had sat on the terrasse waiting for our main course, watching the setting sun and I had asked her jokingly what her countrymen hoped to gain in the Middle East. Was a barren wasteland really worth the lives?

She had turned her dusky eyes on me, flashing with pride, and answered quietly but firmly.

“It is more than just a wasteland, and they are fighting for more than a desert. They are fighting for the right to live.”

“To live?”

She had nodded slowly. “Israel is the only place where we ever truly prospered, where we were ever truly free. It’s only natural that we should go there now to make our last stand.”

I had looked at her in amazement, but she hardly seemed to notice me. She was gazing at the setting sun as she continued: “When Israel is attacked on all sides, when they make their final stand with their backs to the temple wall, when they cry out to God for help and forgiveness; then He will come.”

I had never heard her speak that way before. I simply stared, until she turned to me and whispered: “Darling, Masada will not fall again.”

I looked up at the sky, now darkened by the sun’s disappearance. Please let her be alright I begged the night. I closed my eyes and a succession of pictures flashed through my mind. Hadassah standing on the beach, laughing as the spray flew about her; Hadassah in a pale blue dress, dancing with me for the first time, the rose-scented park where we had had our first kiss; her soft smile when I had asked her to marry me…

I opened my eyes as another lorry of civilians trundled down the road towards me. I scanned it intently, desperately searching for the face I longed to see. I started as my eyes fell on someone who looked strangely familiar. I frantically searched my memory, and then I remembered. It was Rebecca, Hadassah’s cousin. I ran over as fast as I could shouting wildly as I did so. She peered over the side of the truck which did not stop, and peered at me in confusion, as well she might. My unshaven face, bloodshot eyes, cracked lips and had given me a fairly rugged and alarming appearance.

I drew level with the truck and ran alongside it shouting frantically: “Hadassah! Where is she?!”

Her face clouded and she screamed bitterly: “She’s dead! That Hamas swine filmed themselves setting her on fire!” She burst into tears and shrieked curses on the terrorists as the truck disappeared around the bend in the road leaving me behind.

I froze in my tracks, uncomprehending. Dead. Any word but that.  If she had said Hadassah is lost, I would have found her. If she had said Hadassah is gone, I could have gone after her. If she had said Hadassah is hurt, I should have gone to help her. But Dead? The word had an ominous finality to it from which I could extract no hope. Bargaining with Hades never worked.

I climbed up the sharp rocks that rose on the left side of the road slowly, and stopped to look across at Gaza from a large boulder. I suddenly cried out in anger, agony and remorse. A picture of her with her hair and clothes alight screaming in fear and agony, being filmed by indifferent terrorists made my skin crawl. I pulled my phone from my pocket and hurled it amongst the rocks below with all my might. I tore at my face and shouted out against the desolation that was engulfing me.

What would I do without her? Indeed, what could I? There was nothing left for me. It had only taken a few minutes for Hamas to destroy my entire world. I sobbed helplessly and looked up at the stars. That place beyond the hills rumbled again with the sounds of heated conflict and a red glow lit up the night sky.  My face streaming with blood and tears I remembered her soft voice:

“Darling, Masada will not fall again.”

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*Masada, Hebrew H̱orvot Meẕada (“Ruins of Masada”), ancient mountaintop fortress in southeastern Israel, site of the Jews’ last stand against the Romans after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD.” (https://www.britannica.com/place/Masada)

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