We Will Dance Again

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Editor’s Note: A harrowing excerpt from what author Aviva Gat describes as the first novel of 10/7 —David Michael Slater

CHAPTER 1: DANA

“Wow! Magniv!” Itai screams over the music as he points to the sky. I look up, but I’m not sure what I am looking at. Giant birds? Planes? I think about the X I took earlier and how it must have been pure. Of course it was, Itai always splurges for the best. He likes nice things and he’s generous, especially when it comes to me. I know he’d only give me the best, and it’s one of the reasons I am in love with him. He’ll do anything for me and I trust him completely.

I close my eyes and feel the music in my shoulders. I’m swaying and my head feels loose. It’s beautiful, the way the music resonates through our bodies. That’s the beautiful thing about trance. People who don’t listen to it think it’s just noise or just random beats, but for those of us who listen, really listen, we know that each note is carefully composed to move through us and guide our bodies in movements that help us transcend. It’s a type of meditation that calms our minds and creates bliss.

I’m swaying when I feel Itai plant a sloppy kiss on my lips. Without opening my eyes, I grab his neck and hold his face to mine. Itai feels the music too. The kiss brings me back to Midburn last year when we first met. It was my first rave. I went with a few girlfriends from my army unit. We’d just finished our service, but none of us had enough money for a big after-army trip. We’d all planned to work for six months and then go travel. The plan was to start in Cambodia and then travel around Asia. We’d go as soon as each of us had saved enough money for the trip, but somehow, none of us were saving enough. We didn’t even know what enough was.

So instead, we went to a rave, which wasn’t really traveling, but it was a big trip. I met Itai at the entrance and never left his side for the entire party. My girlfriends all had “rave boyfriends” for the festival and none of us thought we’d see them again until the next party, but Itai and I couldn’t separate. Two weeks later, we moved in together to a small apartment above Shuk HaCarmel in Kerem Hatemanim. My girlfriends thought I was crazy, trying to make a rave boyfriend work in real life, but it turns out I was only crazy about Itai. And he was crazy about me.

We’ve been going to monthly raves ever since and in between we function like a normal couple, splitting the cleaning and paying bills together. When tickets for the Nova Festival went on sale, we waited in front of the computer pressing refresh until we got ours. This is everything I wanted it to be. The trance music is pumping through my veins and I can hear my heart beating in sync.

“Chaim Sheli,” I say to Itai when I open my eyes. He is my life, my everything. I think it must have been divine destiny that brought us together.

“What is that?” He says, again looking up at the sky. I strain my eyes to try to see what he’s looking at. “They’re parachuting into the party!”

The crowd around us is cheering. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Sure, raves are all about extravagant performances and self-expression. You can pretty much do anything you want here and people will support it. It’s why women can proudly walk around naked with just glitter and beads covering their bodies. Or men can hold hands and scream to the sky. Anywhere else, people would stare and taunt each other for being different or “inappropriate.” But here, nobody looks twice because we know that everyone is just being themselves.

But parachuting? This is new to me. “Woo!” I scream into the air. Good for them, I think to myself, if this is the self-expression that brings them happiness, then I fully support it. Suddenly I hear a pop and the cheering of the crowd seems to shift. Some people are still cheering, but others are now screaming. The parachuters are on the ground now so I can’t see them, but it seems the crowd is bubbling away from them. Another POP! And now the crowd is crying and screaming.

“RUN!” Someone yells and Itai grabs my hand. He’s pulling me and my bare feet are slapping the ground. His arm is the only thing keeping me from falling straight on my face. POP! POP! POP! I keep hearing and I’m wondering how a parachute could have malfunctioned so badly.

“What’s happening?” People keep asking all around us, but no one has the answer. Everyone is just running in different directions, no one knowing where to go. I can’t see anything except the people running around me.

Itai pulled me so fast, it only took us minutes to get to the entrance of the party, and now I see them standing outside. Masked men with machine guns in front of their bodies. POP POP POP—they’re shooting and everyone who exits the perimeter is falling to the floor. I can’t understand what’s happening and wonder if this is some kind of performance art or something. I’ve heard of things like that happening before. Fear creates adrenaline and overcoming that fear can create a euphoria that can only be enhanced by the right drugs. Some people chase that feeling. But I just wanted to dance.

Itai yanks me in the opposite direction. “Hamas,” he yells at the same time I see the red, green, white, and black flag fluttering in the air outside the rave exit. He’s now dragging me back against the sea of people trying to get out. An arm hits me in the face, but we keep running. The music is still playing, but above it, I hear the azaka, the sound of war trying to override the sound of peace.

Itai stops in front of a dumpster and lifts the top. I don’t wait for him to tell me what to do, I just grab the bin and fling myself inside. He follows me and then the lid slams down. I’m sitting on what feels like gravel, but there is something pointy and wet under my legs. Heat radiates from the bin, only intensifying the smell of several days’ worth of trash that had been sitting in the hot sun.

“What is going on?” I ask, wondering if maybe the drugs just hit me too hard. I’m imagining this. I’m having a bad trip.

“I don’t know,” he responds. Then, we are quiet, just listening to the sounds outside. I hear shrieking, screaming, and a constant stream of pops. We came here with a group of six other friends and I wonder where they are.

“Please! Leave me alone!” I hear a female scream. It sounds like it’s right outside the dumpster and I wish I could see something, but it’s almost pitch black inside, except for a thin line of light from where the lid meets the bin. “PLEASE! NO!” the woman begs.

There’s more screaming. A man is yelling in Arabic and a woman is crying. The cries turn to shrieks of pain. I hear a thud, like something heavy is splattered, and the crying suddenly stops. The man is laughing.

“Allah Akbar!” someone yells, and then a chorus repeats the phrase. There is more screaming and crying, and more Allah Akbars. Itai squeezes my hands. I can’t see him, but I’m sure he is staring at me. His breath is quick and uneven.

A sudden BANG! rattles the dumpster and a small hole appears in the wall right next to me. I scream, but it takes me a moment to realize it.

“Shh!” Itai hushes, taking my hands, which are suddenly wet. The small hole let in just enough light for me to see the dark liquid running down my fingers—from his.

“Itai!” I croak.

“It’s OK,” he says. “It’s just my hand. Help me get my shirt off.” I let go of his hands to pull the shirt above his head and wrap it around his hand. From the minimal light, it looks like the bullet only nicked his middle finger, but blood is still oozing everywhere. Once we’ve wrapped his hand, I put my eye to the hole.

Just a meter away a naked woman is sprawled on the ground with a pool of blood between her legs. Her head is splattered like a watermelon and her limbs are bent in awkward directions. A few meters past her, there’s a crumpled t-shirt. But now I see it’s not just a t-shirt—there’s a torso inside, but the legs, arms, and head are missing. Farther still, I see more masked men running and firing weapons in every direction.

I gasp, and Itai pushes me back and away from the horrors “Don’t look,” he says, putting his his eye to the hole. “We have to stay quiet.”

The screaming hasn’t stopped, but it’s less audible now. The Allah Akbars, the laughter, and the yelling in Arabic have drowned out most everything else. We sit there unmoving, barely breathing for what feels like hours. The azaka keeps sounding over and over between blasts of whatever is exploding in the sky.

Another bang and the dumpster rattles again. A second hole appears behind me. I wonder if I’ve been shot, but I don’t think so. Again a bang, and the dumpster shakes. This time there’s a new hole behind Itai. We’re going to die, I think. In a dumpster. On the grounds of a place dedicated to acceptance.

“I love you, Dana,” Itai says.

“Chaim sheli,” I respond, and suddenly Itai tears his hands from mine and pops the top of the dumpster open. My knuckles hurt—I’ve been holding him so tightly. When he jumps out of the dumpster, I want to cry to him. Don’t leave me here! I want to say, but I have no voice. The lid slams down over me again and, through the hole, I watch Itai walk with his hands in the air toward a masked man pointing a gun at him.

“Please,” Itai says, stopping short. “I will do as you say. Please just don’t shoot. My family has money.” I wonder if the gunman even speaks Hebrew. He must have understood something because he flicks his head and allows Itai to approach him. He smacks Itai’s chest with the end of the gun and wraps his hand around Itai’s bicep. In a state of suspended animation, I watch the gunman lead Itai away from me. Drops of water and blood are running down Itai’s bare back. I refuse to let myself think I will never see him again.

When Itai is out of sight, my eyes drift to the surreal horrorscape of my worst nightmare. There are bodies everywhere. Some are shaking, and some are just limbs, but nobody is on their feet. In the distance, I see a gunman pumping himself on the ground. I don’t understand what he is doing until I notice a woman’s bare leg beneath him. I hope she is dead and not experiencing what her body is going through.

I force my eye away from the hole and sink deeper into the dumpster. I try not to cry as I lay there until there is silence. Even then, I still don’t move. I don’t know if I will ever get out. I don’t know if I want to.

Aviva is an American-Israeli author with three children less than four years apart and number four on the way. When she isn’t stepping on toys or cooking food that will end up on the floor, she writes. So far, she has written seven Amazon bestsellers, including My Family’s Survival, My Heart from Inside, The Evergreen Life Experiment, She Had To Kill Him, The Longer The Fall, Her Husband’s Son, and Sisterly Competition. Her best-selling novel, My Family’s Survival, tells the miraculous story of how her grandmother survived the Holocaust. It has 2,300+ reviews with a 4.6-star rating on Amazon.

 What are five tiny delights that lift your spirits and make you happy?

• A delicious cappuccino

• Watching my kids eat food I cooked

• Walking on the beach at sunset

• Reading books with my children

• Watching my children hug each other

What are five tiny JEWISH delights that lift your spirits and make you happy?

• Having Shabbat dinner with my family

• Making challah

• Living in Israel!

• Experiencing every holiday in Israel - walking in the streets on Yom Kippur, building a sukkah, attending a bonfire on Lag B'omer, everything!

• Seeing the Israeli flag hung in different places, in Israel and abroad