RIFKAH GOLDBERG

'PHONE CALL FROM LEBANON Nine-thirty on Tuesday night "Mummy are you all right?" "How are you?" "It is snowing." "Are you warm enough?" "Will you be home on Thursday?" Something of the coldness of the snow Seeped into that conversation Could not help recalling His uncalled for attack on me When he was last at home I did not feel the right degree of happiness My home was not showy enough I was not the success his father was Remarried in a record time Of less than nine months Did you so quickly forget How cruel your father was to you? How he deprived you of money and love How I held on to you by the skin of my teeth To keep you in the "family"? Half an hour later I realized why my son had called Helicopter accident in the north Seventy-three young soldiers On their way to Lebanon, dead I was never more grateful At the words I had not spoken From the home scarred not by war To my son far away on the other end of a 'phone line With whom, on that frozen night, I had held my peace 1997