“I’m not supposed to say more until tomorrow, but you are such a good girl, such an inspiration for your efforts during the war.” He took her hand in his, tracing the lines on her palm with his finger. “I see a long life line and much romance.”
Shayndel pulled away and crossed her arms.
Nathan shrugged. “You can’t blame a man for trying. As for tomorrow, you will need to select three girls from your barrack to act as your lieutenants. I suppose you’ll pick that pretty little French girl who is your friend. And the tall, good-looking blonde, yes? Your barrack has the prettiest girls, Shayndel.”
“If I ever do meet your wife, I will be sure to tell her how friendly you have been.”
Shayndel knew she was a bad liar and worried about keeping her new secret from Leonie and Zorah, both of whom saw through her easily. As she served lunch, she found reasons to keep running back into the kitchen. When she finally did sit down, she kept her mouth full and tried to imagine how the girls at her table would fare under the pressure of the escape.
“Tedi,” Leonie said. “Tell Shayndel about your boyfriend.”
Tedi blushed and shook her head, so Leonie took up the story. “In the infirmary today, one of the Iraqi boys took a look at our friend here and fell in love at first sight! He actually sang her a song. Aliza told me that his name is Nissim, which means ‘miracles.’ Isn’t that lovely?”
“It’s foolishness, that’s what it is,” Tedi sniffed and grabbed the pitcher. “I’m going to get some more water.”
“He’s very handsome, very dark,” Leonie confided after she left. “But at least three inches shorter than her. They would make a strange couple.” Shayndel nodded, suddenly ambushed by an image of Tedi in bed with Nissim, his legs wrapped around her hips, their contrasting skin and hair flashing black and gold, ivory and silver. She imagined their children; an entirely new species of Jew, with blue eyes in a brown face, or black eyes beneath a flaxen curtain. Not European, not Moorish; sturdy and graceful, tough and sentimental, and altogether beautiful.
When Tedi returned, Leonie said, “I’m sorry if I offended you. I used to hate it when the old ladies matched up boys and girls and talked about how lovely their children would be. Here I am doing the same thing and I’m not even twenty yet.”
“Twenty,” Tedi repeated. “Isn’t it strange that twenty seems old to me?”
“That’s because we’ve seen so much death,” said Shayndel. “Usually, people are much older—fifty or sixty at least—before they know more dead people than living ones. To become young, we will have to have babies.”
“I’m not the maternal type,” said Tedi.
“Me neither,” Leonie said. “I don’t think I ever played with dolls.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Shayndel. “We’ll marry and the babies will come and they change you. I’ve seen it. Even women with numbers on their arms, the ones who never used to smile, even for them, I see the light come back to their eyes when they hold a baby.”
“That puts a terrible burden on the children,” Tedi said.
“I don’t think so. Kids don’t understand,” said Shayndel.
“Don’t fool yourself,” Leonie said. “They feel everything, even if they can’t put it into words. It’s not fair to make a child the source of its parents’ happiness. Tedi is right. It is a heavy burden. And people only make it worse by naming their children after the dead.”
Shayndel thought of her brother, Noah.
Tedi thought of Rachel, her sister.
“I like the new Hebrew names,” Leonie said. “Ora, Ehud, Idit. They sound like a blank page, though really, I won’t be having children. Not me.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Tedi. “You’ll be married and pregnant five minutes after you get out of here.”
“We’ll all marry. We’ll all have children. That’s life,” said Shayndel. “But first, we have to wash the dishes. Tirzah never showed up, so you can help me clean up the mess I made.”
Later that evening, after the lights were out, Shayndel lay in bed and tried to make herself believe that this would be her last night in Atlit. Tomorrow, everything would change forever, again.
She wished she could tell Leonie what was about to happen to them and stared at the rise and fall of her friend’s back as she slept. Her throat grew tight as she realized that they might never see each other again. People without families in Palestine— people like them—were being sent to kibbutzim all over the country for “absorption,” a word she found both funny and frightening. The idea of being soaked up like a spill in a towel made her smile. But it also seemed like an irrevocable disappearance.
Stop that, she scolded herself. The distances here are not so great. We might yet live close enough to visit one another. We could even end up raising families side by side, growing old together. Or not. In any case, we will go where we are sent.
Shayndel rolled over and closed her eyes, but before she had a chance to settle, she felt a hand on her shoulder.
Zorah was crouched beside her. “You said you would tell me what is going on.”
“Not now,” Shayndel pleaded.
“Now,” said Zorah, making it clear that she was not going to budge.
“All right, but this must go no further.”
Shayndel moved closer and whispered into Zorah’s ear, “We are escaping tomorrow night. The Palmach is planning a break-out. Everyone is going.”
Zorah’s eyes narrowed. “Esther, too?”
“I suppose so. I don’t really know.”
“She is going, too. No matter what you really know.”
“Is she even that boy’s mother?”
“What difference does it make? She risked her life to bring him here.”
“That is not the question,” Shayndel said.
“There is no other question worth asking,” Zorah said, choking back tears.
Shayndel was startled. Like almost everyone else, she had written Zorah off as bitter and unpleasant, sealed off from compassion. But Zorah’s feeling for Esther and Jacob had transformed her intensity into something different—still fierce but no longer ferocious.
“So she will be coming with us?” Zorah whispered, insisting and begging in the same breath. “And Jacob, too.”
“I will do everything I can,” Shayndel promised.
“Swear it.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Shayndel said. “You will be there to watch over them every step of the way. Now let me go to sleep.”
October 9, Tuesday
Tedi tried to linger among the pine trees, so pungent and green, in her dream. She pulled the blanket over her head but after Lotte had stirred on the cot beside her, there was no scent but hers.
Tedi sat up and saw that Shayndel was already dressed, and waved for her to follow her outside.
They said nothing until they were inside the latrine and Shayndel turned on the tap. “What did you find out about the German?” she asked, splashing her face with cold water.
“Leonie thinks she might be a Nazi,” said Tedi.
“What does Leonie have to do with it?”
“Her German is much better than mine, and it turns out that Lotte, or whoever she is, will talk only to Leonie. She calls her Claudette Colbert.”
“Why does Leonie think she’s a Nazi?”
“She says she saw an SS tattoo in the shower,” said Tedi and pointed. “Here, under the armpit.”
Shayndel frowned. “Did you see it?”
“No. She is trying to get another look to make sure,” Tedi said. “What will happen if it’s true?”
“I don’t know.”
“She cannot stay here with the very people who—”
“Of course not,” Shayndel said. “I’ll find out.”
After she left, Tedi stood in front of the cloudy mirror that hung near the door. She loosened the string holding back her long hair, now white-blonde from the sun. Combing her fingers through the broken, knotted ends, she remembered a bo
ar’s hair brush with a silver handle, a crocheted drape on the nightstand, a goblet of water with the letter P etched onto it, her mother’s hands rubbing rose-scented pomade into her scalp.
She went back to the sink and scrubbed her face with the merciless gray soap until her cheeks stung and her mind emptied and then headed back to the barrack to talk to Leonie.
She was still asleep. With her extraordinary eyes closed, she was just another girl, Tedi thought, unexceptional. She lay on her side with both arms thrust out in front of her, like a child. They were a child’s arms, too, soft and pink. Her fingers were small and tapered to the pale ovals of her nails. It took Tedi a minute to decipher the meaning of the fine, white rows across her wrists, straight and intentional as lines printed on a piece of paper.
Tedi had once believed that anyone who tried to commit suicide was insane. But now she knew how easy it could be to give up and let go; to close your eyes and just fall asleep on the frozen ground, with the moonlight on your face, the tang of diesel and smoke in your nostrils. Why get up when everyone who ever loved you is gone?
Leonie opened her eyes, pale and smoky against the pillow, and smiled at Tedi. “What is it?”
“I told Shayndel what you said … about the German.”
Leonie’s smile disappeared. “What did she say?”
“Nothing. She ran straight to the kitchen. I guess she’ll tell Tirzah.”
Leonie sat up, wrapped her arms around her knees, and changed the subject. “What do you smell in the air today? Do I still smell of rotten fruit?”
Tedi flushed. “You’re making fun of me. I shouldn’t have told you.”
“I’m not teasing. I’m really curious.”
“Today I woke up smelling pine trees. A whole forest of them.”
Leonie sniffed and grimaced. “Did it cover up the German?”
“No,” Tedi said, embarrassed to be talking of this. “What do you think is going on with those Iraqi guys? And that drama with the exercise teachers yesterday? Then Tirzah doesn’t show up to cook last night.”
“And Shayndel is so jumpy,” Leonie added. “Something must be happening. But for now, let’s go see if Tirzah made it to the kitchen this morning. Shayndel may need us.”
A few steps from the door, they nearly collided with Zorah, who was standing perfectly still and staring into the distance.
“Are you all right?” Tedi asked.
Zorah stared at them for a second before blurting, “I, uh, I have to go.” She rushed around the corner of the barrack, pressing her back against the wall, frightened and furious at herself.
She had seen other survivors standing like statues right in the middle of the dining hall or on the parade ground, suddenly overwhelmed and paralyzed by memory. But Zorah considered herself the master of her past, immune to such displays. She had even started writing lists to keep her memories clear and orderly: names from the concentration camp, the deaths she had witnessed inside her barrack and on the parade ground, ingredients in the “soups” they had been starved with, the mind-numbing work they had been forced to do. Her register of misery, humiliation, and loss covered five pieces of paper, front and back, a hedge against forgetting and also a fence to keep the past in its place. She kept it folded within the pages of her Hebrew grammar, and ran her eyes over the columns every time she studied.
But she had no way of accounting for—or fencing off—the sensation of her own hair brushing against the back of her neck, which had, that morning, summoned the memory of her mother. She used to call Zorah’s hair her “best feature” in a voice so heavy with consolation, it always made her wince.
Zorah shook herself and started for the dining hall. She would ask Leonie to take a scissors to her mop after breakfast. It would be cooler and lighter that way, and she would need all of her wits tonight.
As Zorah entered the noisy mess, Esther and Jacob waved for her to join them. “I got this for you,” said the boy, pushing a plate in front of her.
Zorah bit into a roll and was stunned by the texture between her teeth, and the aroma of yeast. The soft cheese on her tongue was a tender revelation, a salty gift. The tea, which Jacob had mixed with too much milk and sugar, answered some long-denied craving. She bit into a slice of tomato and groaned.
“What’s wrong?” asked Esther.
“Nothing,” said Zorah, bewildered by the strange, over-whelming testimony of her mouth. “It’s just that this food is … this tomato, I mean. It’s all delicious today, isn’t it?”
“Try the red pepper,” Esther urged, passing another plate. “These are the best we’ve had. Let me cut one for you.”
But Zorah was on her way out the door.
“Where are you going?” Esther called.
What is happening to me? Zorah wondered, hurrying toward the northern edge of the camp, where she could be alone. Why should I go mad now, after everything?
The answer came to her in a man’s voice. Life will not be denied.
“Hah,” Zorah roared and immediately clapped a hand over her mouth. She would not turn into one of the screamers or mutterers who caused people to turn away in pity or disgust. She started pacing, walking faster and faster, as she silently argued with herself.
Life most certainly can be denied, she thought. Life is unforgivably weak. Death is stronger than everything that breathes. I am an expert on the rottenness and hollowness of this world. Death is what cannot be denied. No one is going to tell me that life is a beautiful poem, filled with meaning, a God-given blessing.
And yet you nearly burst into tears over the miracle of a tomato.
Zorah recognized the voice. It was Meyer, who knew to woo her with cigarettes and who remained in her thoughts, no matter how often she tried to dismiss him.
I must have been hungrier than I realized. That’s all.
You are sleeping better. You have gained a little weight.
Nothing but the fruits of boredom, she countered, wondering why she had turned Meyer into the straw man inside her head. She barely knew him. The only reason he is such a worthy opponent, she decided, is because he speaks with my words.
Worthy opponent or suitor?
Zorah blushed.
Your body is returning to life and so is your heart.
A small hand slipped into hers and stilled the voices in her head. “Are you ill?” Jacob asked. “Do you want me to fetch Mama? Or the nurse? Mama says we must take care of you because you are sick in the heart. I told her the doctors should give you medicine for your heart, and she started crying. Mama cries a lot. I have never seen you cry.”
Zorah tried to smile away the worry that made him look even more like a little old man than usual. Jacob was far too small for his age, his face still thin and pinched despite a healthy appetite. Even so, Zorah was struck by the change in him; this was not the listless, silent child who had arrived in Atlit a few weeks ago.
As they walked back toward the mess hall, Jacob skipped beside her, a dervish of words and ideas. “Are you really going to be my teacher?” he asked. “That’s what Mama says. She says that you are smarter than Mr. Rostenberger. I told her that your breath is much nicer than his and that you probably wouldn’t pinch my hand if I make a mistake. When will we start, Miss Zorah? Will we continue with the page of Talmud about what time you’re supposed to say the Sh’ma in the morning? That’s where he started. Where is your book?”
“I have no Talmud,” said Zorah. “We will begin with grammar. Hebrew is very dense, you know. Compact. Full of mysteries.”
“What does that mean?”
She tried again. “Hebrew is a bit like hard candy.”
He nodded seriously. “Does Hebrew melt when it’s hot, too?”
It took Zorah a moment to realize that Jacob had made a joke. “That was very funny,” she said, again on the verge of tears. After tonight, he would become someone else’s student, someone else’s charge.
Zorah stroked his cheek gently. Now she knew that she wasn’t going mad after
all; she was mourning what she was about to lose.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” said Leonie, rushing toward them. “Would you please come to the infirmary, Zorah?” she asked slowly, in her best Hebrew. “They need a translation.”
“I’ll be right there,” Zorah said.
“How many languages do you know?” Jacob asked, taking her hand again as they walked toward the clinic.
“Four,” she said, not counting the three she understood but had never spoken out loud. “Not so many.”
“I think it’s so many,” he said, with such an emphatic shake of his head, Zorah couldn’t help but pull him close and hug his bony shoulder against her hip. “Go find your mama, now.”
She was met at the door by a skinny young man wearing a white coat. Volunteers cycled through Atlit so often, Zorah wasn’t surprised that she had never seen this doctor before, but when he extended a hand that was calloused and not entirely clean, she looked into his pale green eyes with suspicion.
“You are Zorah, yes?” he said. “I am Avi Schechter. We have two men inside babbling to each other in some prehistoric jargon, pretending not to understand me or anyone else. I’m told you’re a wonder with Polish dialects, so I’d like you to go in and find out what you can about them. They got off a boat last week and we already know they’re not Jews; we need to find out how they got here and what they’re up to and what they did during the war.”
He talked like someone who was used to giving orders, and gave her no time to think or choose not to do what he wanted. He opened the door and pointed at two thickset men, clearly brothers, sitting together on a cot. “I’ll wait for you here.”
Zorah heard one man tell the other to say nothing. “Can I get you some water?” she said, stumbling only a little over the Mazur dialect.
Their faces registered surprise and then suspicion. The older of the two asked, “You are from Danzig?”
“No, but I had cousins there,” she said. “They lived on Mirchaer Street.”
“By the synagogue,” he said. “I know the neighborhood.”
“Did you live nearby?”
He rubbed his hands over the dark stubble on his round face and asked, without hope or rancor, “So are they going to send us back or will they put us in prison?”