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Some months ago, a heavy, oppressive Hamsin—a desert wind—swept
over the country. The heat suffocated chickens in their coops while
trees withered and dropped their ripe fruits in the orchards. I had
trouble falling asleep at night with the heat trapped in the house.
Mosquitoes swarmed around the bed; strange insects rustled on the
floor. It seemed as if even the jays couldn't fall into that
peculiar slumber that birds sleep.
I grabbed a damp towel, went out to the porch, and lay down in the
rope hammock my neighbor had strung between the cypress trees. The
grass glowed and thick warm air wafted from deep within the bowels
of the gardens. The sloping roofs dissolved in the wind's clear
skies as a faint silvery crescent shined through the shimmering haze
and a dull rumbling drifted from the shrouded orange groves.
I rocked slowly in the hammock, listening to the woeful lowing of
penned cattle far off in the dark. I tried to flee the agonies of
insomnia, giving myself entirely to the hammock's sway, yielding
myself so completely that I forgot where I was. The Hamsin wrapped
me in its fever and I was borne aloft on the wings of misty memories
to another parched night that I had endured long ago.
A Hamsin night, much like this, between the holidays of Passover and
Shavu'ot, when the earth's vermin rose up against a tired company of
soldiers on the bright stone slopes of the mountains of Samaria.
They rebelled with such fury they very nearly conquered the troops.
A nice beginning, I thought, sinking into the rhythms of memory, and
continuing to wrestle with the legacy of that night, that Hamsin
night of scorpions. I had never seen
such an astounding spectacle in my life. All the desert's scorpions,
thousands upon thousands—you couldn't tell in the sweltering dark
whether they were yellow, black, or brown—had gathered at our
company's gritty camp of soldiers, some of whom had been hurt in an
accident and the rest tired and shriveled from thirst the week
before. The men ran around panic-stricken in their combat boots and
skimpy underwear. Even the bravest of the company's soldiers, the
proud volunteers who took pride in shooting the new machine-guns,
shouted for help. The tormented drivers jumped into their seats,
someone shouted an order and their headlights went on. The vehicles
began to plow through the camp, crushing thousands of stinger-drawn
scorpions. But beneath the ground pulp sprouted new scorpions
erupting from the sand. Column after column formed up in the furrows
left by the drivers' wheels. From the eastern sector, from the
general direction of the refreshing Jordan-Jericho, rose a strange
vapor.
Was a full moon shining over the company, illuminating each dark
segment on the tails of the hordes of scorpions? Could I hear the
insects, the cry of these small creatures or had I too lost my mind,
just like the raving soldiers of our abandoned company? The dark
tent's flickering lights calmed me down. The tranquil lowing of the
cattle skipped on the breeze, and the placid bleating of goats
betrayed no sign of fright or discontent. The poor deputy CO
summoned the platoon commanders and the incompetent orderlies, mess
hall tables were turned into improvised cots, mattresses were hung
between tent poles like large hammocks. Terrified soldiers climbed
into them as if they were sent to their rescue, while on the tables
the scorpions scrambled across their rifle butts.
That pleasant, acrid odor given off by the tingling acid of ants
spread over the encampment. Layer upon layer of the insects were
stomped and trampled, but below them, inside the fissures of the
earth, welled up fresh new battalions of swift, fearsome scorpions,
their tails unfurled and their stingers raised. Woe to him who made
the mistake of striking a match or flicking on his flashlight for a
moment, for it drew hordes of scorpions, all streaming towards the
light. Woe, and more woe to him who hadn't fled from the campfires,
into which the insects crawled endlessly and unwaveringly, to split
open in the flames.
It was only the officers' tent, set off by itself, where none of the
scorpions entered. I had been left alone in the tent, but was
besieged all the same. I couldn't go out into the sea of scorpions
rolling and seething below me. Orders were given in savage,
throat-wrenching shrieks. The dryness of the air, the burn of the
east wind, and the relentless heat radiating from the ground
scrambled the company compound, turning it into a thick stew of
lights, screams, dust, and the stench of these repulsive vermin.
Heaps of their dead were piled up everywhere.
Through the rolled-up tent flap, I saw the warm lights of the
shepherds' tents and heard the tranquil sounds of gurgling around
the dust-ridden company camp. During the day, when I sweated on the
range and followed the shooters and cursed the careless, I didn't
notice these sounds. The roar of gunfire and the range marshals'
orders blotted them out, but now on my bed, cut off from everything,
I imagined that I would even be able to hear the roosters crowing
just before sunrise.
I didn't dare get off the mattress for a minute. The canteens I had
filled and put beside me grew heavy against my rolled-up shirt. To
defend myself against the invaders, I also heaped up crinkling
sheets of newspaper around me and wedged thick board under the
mattress, a barrier against scorpions that also worked against back
pain. I tied my shoes above me in the lashing and ignored the cries
of the soldiers, the rumble of angry engines, and the screeches of
the abandoned company's radio receiver. I drifted to the cool falls
of Jordan-Jericho, to the brooks and the dripping ferns and the
secluded river's shaded recesses, all the way to the boundary of our
eastern sector, beyond which it is absolutely forbidden to shoot.
My rope hammock suddenly creaked beneath me and the trunks of the
cypresses trembled. From the closest house came a child's sudden
cry. I momentarily awakened from my nightmares and swathed myself in
the damp towel, already grown warm on my feverish brow. If I hadn't
been sleepy and lazy, I'd have gotten up and soaked it again. Bats
woozy from the heat beat on the roof of the porch. The night
of the scorpions appeared before me like a dream that had never
happened.
It had been towards morning that the desert's vermin mercifully
abated their attack on our wounded company. Their throats parched,
the men of our broken troop began to shout the good news from tent
to tent. The company CO heard of the surprise assault made by the
desert scorpions. He was already on his way back, returning from
brigade HQ with a small convoy carrying everything we needed. From
below, from the desert road, the radio picked up the doctor's
concerned voice as he hurried back with an ambulance driver. They
would be at the camp in just a few more minutes.
One platoon leader, a member of the nature society, suddenly got
an order and announced in an authoritative voice that he really
needed heroes now. He would painstakingly classify each type of
scorpion that had attacked us in the night; not one would be
overlooked. Whoever had any strength left, any fighting spirit, was
invited to sift through the piles of corpses, aided by the field
guides he pulled out of his knapsack.
Through the open flap, I heard the roosters crowing in the distance.
I saw the lights going out in the shepherds' lodges. And I heard the
flocks going out to pasture, to the glowing slopes of the eastern
mountains of Samaria. Had there been any injured, wounded, stung?
No, I don't remember; I think not a single soldier was stung. Such
strange incidents occur in nature. In the crazy desert, you always
expect surprises.
That Hamsin night between the end of Passover and the holiday of
Shavu'ot, on the ivory limestone slopes of Samaria's mountains, I
saw how the desert's insects had risen against a far-flung company
of soldiers, laying siege to the camp, blocking all routes to the
water tanks and the ammunition depot. They streamed over the cracked
earth and overran the mounds of gear meant for the final live-fire
exercise. It was as though they had a well-prepared plan for foiling
the drill. Some of them were even caught in the chair intended for
the Minister of Defense.
Their stingers held high and reeking of acidic vapors, these daring
insects had confounded all insecticides, all swatters and sprayers.
Had they not retreated, the moment was not far off when they would
have driven the company's stunned men off into the desert; a
humiliating flight that would rout soldiers wearing only skimpy
underwear and heavy combat boots.
I sat by the edge of the tent, draped in a mosquito net. If it was
good against gnats, it should be good against scorpions. Loud,
heart-rending ballads came from the shepherds' tents. I was struck
by a desert yearning that has no name. Perhaps someone had tried to
talk to me that night, and the scorpions had been a part of it. But
who was I, a frail man, that I could read the writing of insects?
I rose with the rising sun, putting the rolled netting about me like
a transparent dress.
The jays struggled awake in the dense boughs above my porch. The
brief Hamsin night had come to an end. The wet towel that I had
wrapped around me had long since dried out and the rope hammock had
pressed red creases deep into my flesh. I was all mixed up by what I
had seen and remembered. Before I escaped to my bed, I remembered,
with difficulty, where to find the switch to the air conditioner.
Elisha Porat is a Hebrew-Israeli poet and writer. Many of his
works have been translated into English, and published in many
literary venues. He was among the 1996 winners of Israel's Prime
Minister's Prize for Literature. His book, a collection of short
stories, The Messiah of La Guardia was released in 1997. His
e-book Growing Old, new and selected poems, has just been
published on the web.
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