“But why the taps?”
“I’m coming to it, Shoshana.”
Yonatan stroked her long silky hair. Her eyes closed, she nodded her head, signaling for him to continue.
“Lately, cracks have developed in Israel’s armor. Brothers have turned against their own while others have lost the resolve to survive. Diligently faithless, relentlessly untrue to their own creed, they have surrendered what little was left of their own self-esteem. Raising their hands in defeat, they dismantled the democracy they’d established and replaced it with the creeping demagoguery of dictatorship.
“But…?
“Let me finish. The slogan ‘Never Again’ has become just another meaningless phrase as thousands of Jews in their own land are about to be expelled – forcibly, mercilessly. Jewish lives are about to be shattered; homes, shops, schools synagogues – and dreams – destroyed. And the soldiers, my little one, the soldiers are wearing the blue-and-white.”
“But…”
“I know. You still don’t understand why someone is playing taps, right?”
The sleepy child nodded.
“That lone person, that bugle boy sounding that mournful melody, is laying to rest a shattered dream, a torn nation, a people bent on self-destruction.”
Breathing evenly, the little girl was fast asleep. The darkness in the room was punctured by the moon’s muted light.
Taps. An end. Requiem for a dream.
