My Mom & Suzy

My Mom & Suzy

HARRY CHAIM FAIBISH

Copyright ©2019 Harry Chaim Faibish

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Contents

Chapter 1   Romania

My Birth

An Unpleasant Incident

Tsuki

A Holiday in the Country

The Cart Horse

Bible School

Leaving for Israel

Chapter 2   Life in Israel

Travelling to Israel

Arrival in Israel

My Early Years in Israel

School

Baby Suzy

Losing Suzy

My Parents

The Escape Attempt

My Teen Years

Ben Gurion

Miriam

Summer Holiday

The Six-Day War

My Grandparents

High School

Joining Up

Chapter 3   Family History

Learning to Ride

Chapter 4   The Army

Training

The Land mine

Supply Job

The Yom Kippur War

The Tank Division

Leaving the Army

Chapter 5   Training

After the Army

England & Austria

Masada

America

The Riding Centre

Germany

Travels

The Death of my Father

The Kibbutz

Epilogue   My Book

Dedication

I want to take this opportunity to dedicate this book to all the people and establishments that have given me the opportunity to see their way, and to learn from them.

First I want to thank God for creating the animals and the beautiful horses, next my Grandmother without whom I would not be here today. I want to thank my parents for all that they did for me and for others, and Mr Antony Heller for all that he did for me and for Israel. Kristina de Novel for pushing me and showing me the way. Jane, Claude, Peter, Luis Valensa, Nuno Palma, Rodrigo, Master Egon von Neindorff, Master Nuno Oliveira, and head rider Hans Rieglar, from the Spanish Riding School in Vienna.

And a special dedication to all the soldiers that fell in wars all over the world fighting for peace, and for my friends that I lost in the war Yom Kippur in 1973: Shalgi, Amnon, and all the rest that fell for protecting the country. I hope that they didn’t give their life for nothing and one day we will have peace in the Middle East.

Chapter 1

Romania

My Birth

One day my Mom said that she had a big surprise. She had gone to the doctor to tell him that she had no appetite and that she felt dizzy. The doctor told her to lie on the bed so he could examine her and afterwards my Mom asked him what the problem was and he told her that there was no problem and that she was all right.

‘So why am I dizzy?’ she asked him.

‘I have good news for you,’ the Doctor told my Mom, ‘you are pregnant!’

‘It can’t be! What do you mean that I am pregnant, I am too old!’ ‘How old are you?’

‘I am forty six! I have a son that is eighteen and a daughter that is sixteen!’

‘So what? This doesn’t mean that you can’t get pregnant again!’ ‘But what shall I tell them?’ she asked.

‘Your problem is that you are shy to tell them that you are pregnant? Don’t be afraid; this not a disease, you must be happy! Go home and everything will be all right.’

My Mom went home and all the way she was crying. She didn’t know what to do! At home she told no one about the situation and she behaved as if everything was normal until her sister came to visit. She took her into the kitchen, and she told her, ‘Ana, I have bad news to tell you!’

Her sister asked my Mom why she was whispering. And my Mom told her to be quiet. ‘Don’t shout, they will hear you!’

Me at 2y old

‘So what! If you don’t want the baby I will have him! (My aunt Ana didn’t have children). By then, after all that noise, all the house knew about the baby and they all came into the kitchen—my father and my sister—and they were all very happy. My father told my aunt that she was not about to take the baby!

‘He stays here!’ he said.

Me and my Mom

When my brother heard about baby, he went out. That night my Mom went to bed, and she dreamed that her mother was talking to her and telling her that she was going to have a baby boy and that it was good!

‘Keep him!’ she said.

And when I was born, my Mom gave me the name of my grandma, ‘Haia’ (In Hebrew it means ‘living’), and my name is Chaim (‘life’ in Hebrew), and also Harry. In Romania I was called Harry, in order to protect me, and in Israel I am Chaim. My Grandma died at the age of 75 in 1947. Poor woman, she suffered so much. I remember when I was about six years old my Mom placed a tombstone on the grave; she collected money from all the brothers and sisters. Before that my grandma had had no stone on her grave!

An Unpleasant Incident

One sunny afternoon when I was a little boy I came home and I was choking. My Mom called to me to see what had happened to me and then she opened my mouth. She took me to the sink to wash my mouth and she asked me what had happened, I didn’t understand what she was saying, I didn’t know why she was angry.

She was very angry, and upset but I didn’t understand what she was talking about. Then she went to call a policeman, and she told him what the man had done and the policeman went to him and he told him that if he did anything like that again he would be arrested.

My Mom was outraged and asked the policeman, ‘What you mean ‘again!’ What about now!’

The policeman simply said that he didn’t have any evidence and he left.

My aunt Anna came to visit that afternoon and my mother told her what had happened, and my aunt was furious and she started to shout! I stood there looking at them and I didn’t know what was going on; I was a little boy, and I didn’t understand, what all this noise was about.

Almost a lifetime later, when I reached my late forties, I came home after work and I had a shower. It was a hot day, and humid, after the shower I laid down to rest, and suddenly this memory came back to me, this word, that my Mom had said to my aunt, and then I understood the meaning of it. I remembered the policeman, I remembered the shouting, and then I understood what this man had done to me.

Without even thinking about it, this came back to me like a film, and I understood what he did to me, he masturbated in my mouth.

Tsuki

I remember when I was a little boy we had a dog whose name was ‘Tsuki’. One day when he was eating I wanted to touch him but and he showed me his teeth and that was enough. I saw that they were bigger than mine, so I kept my distance from him when he was eating. Otherwise Tsuki was all right and very friendly.

One day my Mom went to do some shopping and in the market she saw a lady selling a young goat. He was a few weeks old and she bought him and took him home. He and Tsuki were the best of friends. They always played together and slept together and when one went out in the yard the other would follow. Sometimes they would go inside the house and jump on the table and from there onto the sofa.

I remember one time when the goat managed to get into the house as the door had been left open and we had a nice old cupboard with a big mirror on the door. The goat saw himself in the mirror, but he thought that his reflection was another goat. He ran into the mirror and made a hole right through the door and broke the mirror. By this time his horns had grown big, and he was bigger as well and my Mom said, ‘That’s it! Now is the time for him to go in the pot!’

I remember my Mom made a beautiful soup, with vegetables, I must admit the goat was very tasty, and the meat was soft, poor fellow!

A Holiday in the Country

One day, my parents thought it would be nice to go for few days on holiday and get out of Bucharest. I don’t know how and when they organised this, but I guess that my father had a holiday from work, and my Mom told me, ‘Tomorrow we are going to a village for few days for a break.’

We arrived there by bus in the afternoon. It was a beautiful summer’s day. The sun was shining and we walked from the bus stop to the farmer’s house. We walked along the dirt track as they didn’t have a road. On both sides of the path were big trees and in the fields there were many wild flowers. The air was wonderfully fresh and I had never smelled such clean, and beautiful air before. I still remember that it was very quiet. You were able to hear just the sounds of the farm animals and the songs of the birds in the trees. Coming from the city this was a huge difference and it was the first time that I had been out of Bucharest.

We arrived at the farm and the house was beautiful. Our holiday cottage was made of wood and we walked through the garden and went from there to the house and this was the first time that I had ever seen a place where each family had their own house without neighbours. It wasn’t a big house but it was different from what I was used to, and beside the garden they had a big yard, in the middle of which they had a beautiful well with fresh clean and cold water, and near the yard they had a big field with all the animals together running free.

This was also the first time that I had seen so many animals in one place: chickens, ducks, turkeys, a cow and a horse for puling the cart and working in the field. Only the pig was kept inside with her babies and I am sure that this was because they were so small and the farmer didn’t have suitable fencing for them.

My Mom called me into the main house to meet the farmer and his wife, and she told me, ‘You can see the animals later, come to change your clothes, they will get all dirty!’ She wanted me to do everything all at once, but I suppose this is what happens when you are a little boy. After that I changed my clothes and I ran outside and went into the yard to be with the animals. I walked into the middle of the yard. The cow was lying on the ground chewing on her grass. I approached her slowly as I didn’t want to disturb her. I patted her on the neck and she didn’t move. Then I decided to get onto her back and I sat on there for a few minutes. She didn’t mind in the beginning, but then she got fed up, and she decided to get up. She stood up with her front legs and I fell off backwards and this was the end of my ride on the cow. She walked away and she didn’t want to be ridden any more.

Then I went to see the rest of the animals. Hanging on the wall of one of the buildings I saw the long whip of the farmer. I took it and started to play with it but when the horse saw the whip he ran away. Then the farmer came over and took the whip from my hand, and he told me that I was scaring the animals. The truth is that I wasn’t doing it on purpose; I only took the whip because I thought it was a toy. I didn’t know that the animals would run away.

My Mom bought all our food from the farmer and it was really good, fresh and tasty. Every day we went walking to different places in the village, coming back to our little cottage, and my Mom would start to prepare the food. The farmer didn’t have running water in the house so, my father would fetch the water from the well. The water was cold, clean, and maybe had minerals too, but in those days nobody knew what mineral water was.

One day my parents decided to have lunch in the countryside. My parents asked the farmer where there was a nice place to have a picnic and he gave us the directions. We found the spot and it was really beautiful, with a pond and wild flowers, and the grass was tall, with many butterflies fluttering around, all of different colours and sizes. We spread out the blanket under the trees and we lay on our backs. All we could hear was the sound of the birds. This place was special, and the air was clean and sweet. My parents said that it was like heaven. I think that this was the first time that they had been on holiday since they born and that had been 52 years before. This was the problem with living in a communist country; you were in a cage.

After a few days in the country our holiday ended and we came back home to the noise and smoke of the city. We lived right on the main road and this was always full of trucks and trams that used to make a lot of noise smoke. How we missed the peace and quiet and clean fresh air of the countryside!

The Cart Horse

A few months later my Mom took me to school for my first year. The school was about two miles from our house in Bucharest. It was a strange big building with many rooms and many people. There were lots of children and plenty of noise in the break times. But it was very quiet in the learning hours, and it felt strange that there was such a big contrast. The discipline was strict.