The Israeli Soldier and the Glacier
By Daniel Homan
Imagine an ice wall stretching endlessly into snow-blanketed mountains. Listen to that boom, cannon-like, so loud it makes your heart seize as ice slabs fracture, break, disappear into a gray lake. This is the Perito Moreno glacier. I was there in March of 2004 with Yaniv Blum, a recently-released Israeli soldier who I had met on a bus ride to Puerto Natales a week prior. This was back when America was still young to the Iraq war, with the first glimmers that the conflict might one day resemble Vietnam. Like many Americans, my love for the U.S. had turned to confusion and disillusionment. Here, Yaniv would probably say, “Ack, Homan–take America, switch with Israel, and, well–you get the point.” Yaniv was different. He had served an extra year in the military and, unlike almost every Israeli I met, he refused to talk about it. Something had happened during his service and now, he wasn’t even sure he’d return home. And to an Israeli, home means more than most people can imagine.
If you’ve ever been to South America, odds are you saw them carrying their trademark army backpacks, traveling on what I came to call The Israeli Trail, along which hundreds of “Israeli Hangouts” stretch thousands upon thousands of kilometers, from the bottom of Argentina up to Ecuador. Yaniv told me that when he was alone in Buenos Aires, a group of Israelis passed him by, even though he had the trademark army cover on his backpack. Why? Because he was not with other Israelis! Imagine, then, how difficult it was for him, two weeks into hatiul hagadol, the “trip of his life,” to leave his fellow Israelis behind to travel with an American. From the moment I met Yaniv, I wanted to understand why he had lost faith in his country, how he had become so pessimistic and jaded. That night at Perito Moreno, I saw more than that. I saw the glacier in Yaniv, and in that Israeli soldier, I always saw myself.
Yaniv Blum had a strong nose and prominent cheekbones, dimples, two birthmarks, one on his left cheek, the other above his upper lip. Orange and blue sunglasses tucked to his head. A digital camera slung around his neck. On that first bus ride to Puerto Natales, a tall, clean-cut young man with deep brown eyes wearing a dark blue parka with a white zigzag across the chest had sat down beside me and began to shove a liter Coca Cola bottle in my face. After a minute, I could only say, “No…no thanks,” and wave my hand. Had I responded in Hebrew, he no doubt would have chosen a different seat.
Instead, a week later, we found ourselves on another bus, this time to the glacier.
“Do you know what I mean, Danny?” Yaniv was saying in his thick, Israeli accent, “when I say that I love Israel, it’s the Israelis I can’t stand?”
I nodded, staring out the bus window at a blurring green expanse. “If Bush wins this November, I’m moving to Canada.”
“This Sheen from West Wing,” Yaniv mused, taking a swig of Coca Cola. “Perhaps he could be president?”
Despite his constant Israeli-bashing and drowsy dreams of moving to the States, I knew Yaniv still loved his country. He would often speak with such eloquence about suicide bombings, friends who had been killed in discos, at the Sbarro in Jerusalem, and the sheer weight of the conflict, his feelings of inadequacy and helplessness. The past alone secured him firmly, invisibly, to Israel. Often he would get lost in the open, pure blue Patagonian sky and I could tell he was thinking of home.
Normally, to get from the park’s campsite to the glacier you had to drive or hike seven kilometers on a paved road, but my guidebook mentioned there was another path that wound around the edge of the lake and was more scenic. Although the last thing Yaniv wanted was to hike on cement, he was understandably hesitant to take the alternative. A week before, in the Torres del Paine, I had led him in a fruitless search for a lookout called the French Valley and almost killed the both of us. Afterwards, we had joked that our insane pursuit of the illusive valley was like Iraq itself, false horizon after false horizon, spurred by the terrible combination of misguided optimism and abject stupidity. To see, reflected in nature, one’s worries, is by no means uncommon, and Yaniv and I were continually refashioning the landscape to help make sense out of our respective obsessions.
“What do you think about this…shortcut?” Yaniv said slowly, skimming his guidebook brimming with forty-plus years of tips from ex-Israeli soldiers on “the Big Trip.” Here the past was literally heavy, with notes upon notes stuffed into a thousand-page, travel-worn guidebook. How many hands had held the book before Yaniv, I often wondered.
Instead, I volunteered, “I’m a crazy American–don’t ask me.”
Yaniv nodded. “We’ll decide after we set up your tent.”
He had been eyeing my tent skeptically since we arrived. In Santiago, the salesman had claimed it would be perfect for Patagonia and cold weather camping, but as soon as we unpacked, Yaniv began to howl. The tent had four huge vents which started halfway up and continued to the top and a rain cover that wasn’t going to protect us from anything.
“You said you got this on sale?” He smirked. “You Americans! You hear sale and you buy. Five dollars less but you get to sleep in the rain. What a deal.” He paused, scratching his head. “Maybe you are Israeli.”
Yaniv badmouthed Israelis repeatedly, but there was one I knew he felt conflicted about leaving: Galia. We had met her at the Torres del Paine. The day before Galia entered out lives, when I met Yaniv on the bus, he had said, “I have not come to South America for the sights, Danny, but to find a bride.” That was the word he used, bride. So romantic. So old-fashioned. Galia herself was startlingly gorgeous, with rosy dimpled cheeks and luscious brown hair parted in zigzags. During that first week, he would talk to me about her constantly, or disappear for hours when his longing became too great. Like the glacier, Galia stood for something more to Yaniv; in her he saw some final vestige of Israel’s beauty. Yaniv had become convinced that Galia was the answer to his troubles–that is, until we discovered she had a boyfriend back in Israel–a sergeant in the army, to make matters worse. Since then, her presence had tortured Yaniv.
After dinner, we headed to the main road. It was the end of the Argentinean summer, and knowing we’d have only an hour or so of light left to walk the seven kilometers, I started us off on a brisk pace. With his long gangly legs, Yaniv kept up easily. Half an hour later, we came to a sign. It was still five and a half kilometers to Perito Moreno, and the sun was already disappearing steadily behind the graying trees. The road led up and down hills, tall pines arching over us, but we had yet to spot the glacier.
“Let’s walk faster.”
Yaniv rubbed his legs. “Ack.”
Ten minutes later, we found the head of the trail, overgrown with reeds and barely marked, just a small, moss-covered wooden sign with an arrow. The trail led to a lake where sunlight sprinkled between the trees, casting the water a bluish-gray.
“Are you sure this is the right way?” Yaniv said.
“Not really–you don’t have to come.” I began to dig through my backpack. “I have a flashlight.”
“No no,” he said. “I’m coming–it’s just, you are American.”
I stopped in the middle of a clump of reeds. “What does that mean?”
“It means that you like to go first and ask questions later.”
“Like Iraq?”
Yaniv smirked. “I was thinking, fast food.”
The path turned suddenly up a hill towards a thick forest. Under the canopy it was dark and quiet, with occasional disturbances coming from animals darting along the forest floor. I hurried at a half-run past tall pines, oaks, masses of vines, and thorny bushes, Yaniv following stiffly behind. A few times, I lost the trail and, without telling him, ran on, temporarily relieved when I found it again.
I stopped, staring into the darkening forest. “Yaniv, we need to hurry.”
He moaned. “My legs are still hurting from the French Valley.”
“Come on, you had an entire extra year in the Israeli army,” I chided him. “You should be even more in shape than the rest.”
“Little American, if I catch you.” He limped after me. Everything about Yaniv seemed to be a clue to his army past. Even the limping. The other Israelis told me an extra year was extremely rare, that Yaniv must have done something inexcusable, but I could never get up the courage to ask him.
Now that I knew where the lake was, I cut across the forest, abandoning the trail completely. Lagging behind, Yaniv managed a sort of goofy trot. When I looked back next, I had lost him. Desperate to see the glacier before sunset, I scrambled up a small hill, hopped over some stumps, then descended as the woods thinned. I came out on a rocky beach. There was the lake again, now purple with dusk. “Yaniv, Yaniv, this way!” I screamed, scrambling up some rocks. Then I saw it, that stunning blue wall stretched across the lake and back up into the mountains. A wall of jagged blue ice crystals rose out from the water. The icy shards towered over me, and all I could do was stare at Perito Moreno. And how it stretched, that trail of blue spikes nestled between the mountains. Twenty minutes later, when Yaniv still hadn’t arrived, I began to worry. The odds that I would find him in the dark were slight, I reasoned, so I continued along the coast and down the rocks. The water became silver as the last bits of sun struck the glacier, and in the failing light, Perito Moreno began to glow like a blue coal. I ran towards it. BOOM. Chunks of ice fell into the lake. BOOM. Finding a rock to sit on, I listened, floored by its voice.
After the sun went down, my thoughts turned to Yaniv. What if he had fallen in the forest and had injured himself? Maybe he had returned to camp, cursing me for leaving. I decided to make my way to the boardwalk lookout where tourists usually viewed the glacier. The boardwalk would lead to the main road and back to camp–my best chance of finding Yaniv. Past the rocky beach, I found a small dirt path and followed it across the glacier face. The path climbed so steeply at one point that I had to hold onto exposed tree roots for balance. In the distance, the glacial cannons continued to sound, and eventually I came to a barbed wire fence and tossed my pack over, then climbed underneath.
At the edge of the boardwalk was a pentagonal area with two benches. Tired, I sat down. The glacier now looked like glass, a sheen of the darkest visible blue, with ice crashing into the water. After I had rested, I started to walk back to camp, worrying about Yaniv and hoping he was okay. It was a calm night and the sky was open and very clear, but even in the faint starlight, the road back to camp was impossibly dark, and several times my steps sent nearby creatures scurrying, conjuring up childhood nightmares. To relax, I started singing “Two of Us,” a Beatles song Yaniv and I had worked out harmonies for the day we met.
Halfway through the song, a sickly green light appeared on my shoulder, and, hearing someone else singing, I looked back to find a green light floating towards me. The light raised to the carrier’s face, illuminating that curling Israeli smile beyond doubt.
“Fucking hell,” I said, running towards him. Yaniv was laughing. “I thought you were dead!” He shook his head, covering his mouth with a hand. “God, I really thought I’d had killed you,” I told him.
“Ack, it got dark quickly,” he said. “I was glad that I had this.” Yaniv held up a small green tube. “It’s a flare–from the army.”
“Damn it’s good to see you.”
Yaniv cocked his head. “Yes, but I’m starting to think that maybe we should part ways?”
“Are you serious?”
“It’s just, well, you are,” he raised his eyes, “a lot of trouble.”
“I was so close to that glacier I could have touched it,” I told him, shielding my eyes as Yaniv held up his flare. “Did you miss it?”
“I got there after dark,” he said. “But I…touched the part that connected to the ground.” He put the flare on the cement. “Do you know that a lot of people died by the glacier? I saw a sign–I couldn’t read it, but I got the…drift.”
“Crushed by the ice,” I said. “Twelve people.”
“I’m so lucky to have an American guide,” he said sarcastically. “I think I am seeing a different South America from the other Israelis. When I get back, they will say, what continent were you on?” Yaniv struck a dramatic pose. “Oh, nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen,” he sang.
“I’m sorry I left you,” I said finally.
He straightened. “Ack, it doesn’t matter–I was in the Israeli army. They left us in the middle of nowhere for ten days without food. I can survive Perito Moreno.”
“I was worried, though.”
Yaniv pushed me. “Don’t get all gay, Danny–not that there’s anything wrong with that.” Yaniv was always quoting Seinfeld, his favorite American, one of many reasons that he wanted to live in the States. Yaniv stretched his arms. “So, what do you want to do?”
”Back to the glacier?”
Yaniv’s flare died just as we reached the glacier. The moon had since risen and was so luminous I could turn off my flashlight. In the moonlight, the ice assumed an eerie quality, slowly pulsing, the cracking and booms even louder than at dusk. We sat on the benches, listening, then Yaniv got up, leaned over the rails, and stared out. “Danny, this is what I wanted on my trip,” he said softly.
“I thought you wanted a bride.”
“Do you know I haven’t thought about her all day?” Yaniv flashed a goofy smile. “That is…until now.”
“Have you ever seen snow?” I said.
“It snows in Israel,” he said.
“Isn’t it all desert?”
Yaniv shot me a dirty look. “It snows in Ranana, and in Jerusalem, and on our mountain. Very beautiful.”
“That’s the second good thing you’ve said about Israel today.”
He went quiet as the glacier crashed. “Ken–yes.” He sounded a little sadder now, and turned as I approached the fence to join him. “You know, when I was in the woods, I thought of my army days.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No no. It wasn’t all bad,” he assured me. “There was some peace.”
The glacier broke again and we listened until the crashes subsided. “Besides, isn’t it the hard times that make us who we are?” I added hopefully.
“Americans, so optimistic.” He chuckled. “You think so?”
“Counting on it.”
The glacier crashed.
“In the woods, I was also thinking,” Yaniv said. “Just as you worry where your country is going, I worry where my country is not going. I think back to what things used to be like, and now?” In the pallid moonlight I was witness to the twisting expression on Yaniv’s face. “Danny, it’s shit,” he said. “All shit. They turned the country that I love into shit. I don’t know, there isn’t a good enough word in English. Shit.”
“At least your country isn’t mine.”
“There is little difference, Danny,” he said. “A very good man once said, I think it would go, ‘enough of blood and tears, enough.’ I always liked that–he was a wonderful man.”
“Who?”
“Yitzhak Rabin.” The way Yaniv said it, the name sounded like a prayer. Yaniv’s expression froze and his body became very still. He looked like a statue then, tall and stoic, gazing out at the lake. “Do you know him? He was the head of the army, and then Prime Minister until 1995–he was beautiful. He had vision. Enough bloodshed. Enough. He said that. And they killed him for it.”
“Who did?”
A block of ice crashed and we looked down, watching it sink into the black water.
“The far right,” Yaniv said. “They were afraid he was going to give Israel the one thing that would destroy it.”
“What?”
Perito Moreno felt impossibly close, as though we could touch it. The both of us could just hop the fence and run out onto ice and into the mountains. I wanted to, yet Yaniv’s words had a gravity to it and I was fastened in place. I knew what he was going to say but it didn’t help a thing. I knew what would destroy Israel, and I wanted to speak the word with him because it was the same thing that could destroy America. “Peace,” he said. The glacier crashed again and we looked up at the moon, then down at the ice, glittering, crystals on fire. The glacial wall stretched out, endless, further than we could ever hope to see.
“They killed this man, Danny, and for what? For land.” Yaniv spat. “If I was prime minister, I would give it back. This land, this holy land. It is just earth. What use is it with so much blood on the ground?” Perito Moreno cracked again. “I can remember the demonstrations before the peace rally.” Yaniv was gripping the railing now. “They killed Rabin at a peace rally–can you believe this?”
“That’s awful.”
“There were signs. ‘Rabin is a traitor.’ ‘Rabin is a murderer.’” Yaniv’s voice became thick with venom. “I was younger then,” he told me. “Thirteen. There was one sign of Rabin with a Gestapo uniform.” Yaniv swallowed. “They put the Prime Minister of Israel in Nazi clothes. I don’t need to tell you what that means.”
“No.”
He closed his eyes. “Now, I don’t know what to believe,” he said, soft as a breath. “My faith is shaken. Not in Judaism. But in people. In Israelis.”
“Will you go back?”
“I don’t know.” He turned to face me. “Who can have faith when they have seen what I’ve seen? When I was thirteen, my life changed. 1995. The day Rabin was shot.”
For a moment neither of us could speak. A bird glided before us then rose, roosting on an overhanging branch. The moon was high and full and very beautiful. I knew he had let me in on something significant, but it would not be until a peace parade in Buenos Aires two months later than I would truly understand what Yaniv had lost the day Rabin was shot, and what he had hoped but failed to regain in the army.
“Sometimes, the people with the greatest pain often do the greatest things,” I said. “And with the greatest love–Yaniv, maybe you’re being prepared for something big.”
“I take it back, my earlier comment–you’re no Israeli.” He sighed. “I don’t know.”
The moon hovered above Perito Moreno. “It’s a long time till sunrise,” I said. “If we meet up with the others, are we going to tell them what happened?”
He forced a laugh. “Not a word. Not a word.”
The glacier crashed and we looked out again to that eerie blue. Yaniv eyes were sparkling. I could see the glacier in them.
