“Come now,” said Hannah. “You of all people must have guessed that the Palmach has eyes and ears in Atlit.”
“Me of all people?”
“I know about you,” Hannah said. “You were in the youth movement since childhood; the Young Guard, right? I also know that you fought bravely against the Germans in the forests outside of Vilnius. You’re a hero, for goodness’ sake, and anyone with eyes can see that you’re not like most of the other girls, bourgeois brats or sad cases like that little French friend of yours, who seems like her insides are made of broken glass. Besides, you know all the songs and you carry yourself like a soldier.”
“I think you might be making a mistake,” Shayndel stammered.
“I have no time to play games,” Hannah said firmly. “They aren’t going to let me stay here much longer. The pregnancy is going to show any minute. Have the others noticed yet?”
Shayndel tried not to smile. “There’s been some talk.”
“I’ll bet there has. And you can tell everyone that I am not married but I will be before the baby is born. In fact, I may be out of here by tonight, so you will be reporting to Tirzah Friedman,” Hannah said.
“The kitchen director? I wondered about her.”
“Of course you did! Which is why you are the right girl for the job,” Hannah said. “You will act as extra eyes and ears for her. Tell her anything you discover about the German woman. After that, keep a lookout for changes among the guards, their schedules, everything about them, in fact. If you have suspicions about anyone else in camp, tell Tirzah that as well; anything that you sniff out.”
“Eyes, ears, and nose, eh?”
“You’re a comedienne, too? Fine. Tirzah will be asking for a helper in the kitchen in the next few days. Make sure to volunteer so she can select you.” At that, Hannah squeezed her hand and walked off.
Shayndel was flattered to have been singled out by Hannah, who seemed the perfect pioneer woman: strong, blunt, cheerful, and confident. It made perfect sense that she would be working with the Jewish military forces. Hannah was exactly the kind of girl Shayndel had dreamed of becoming since she had followed her brother, Noah, to one of his secret meetings. She had probably been no more than twelve years old, but she still remembered the opening words of the speaker that night, an earnest young man who had actually been to Palestine. “To all of my brothers and sisters in HaShomer HaTza’ir, my comrades in the Young Guard, I bring greetings from the land of Israel.”
The applause that followed his remarks lifted her out of her seat and changed her completely. She was no longer just a girl from a small town in west-central Poland; she was a Zionist, heart and soul, and her only desire was to go to the Young Guard summer camp so she could learn Hebrew, wear pants, and work in the fields. Shayndel got her wish the following year and
became famous in that little world, not only for her command of the map of Palestine, but also for the way she forced the boys to let her march in their formations, carrying a broom on her shoulder, and for her enthusiastic, if slightly off-key, singing of folk songs. Shayndel loved every minute of camp, even when it was her turn to chop onions for her comrades’ dinner.
Of course, the ultimate dream and the purpose of the movement was to settle in Eretz Yisrael, to drain the swamps and grow oranges, to reinvent everyday life in the kibbutz—the collective farm that would do away with greed, unfairness, and even jealousy. Like her brother, Shayndel adopted Zionism as her religion.
When Noah was seventeen, he had declared himself an atheist and stopped going to synagogue with their father. Shayndel found it hard to deny her mother’s pleas to accompany her on major holidays, but on the Yom Kippur before her fifteenth birthday, the two of them slipped out of the house before their parents were out of bed. They spent most of the day walking with friends in the countryside, talking about the German threat and debating whether they should join the resistance or try to get to Palestine immediately, and how that might be done.
When their parents came home from the synagogue for a midafternoon nap, they found Shayndel and Noah in the kitchen, drinking tea and eating cold potatoes from the previous night’s dinner. Mama hurried to the window and drew the curtains. “Everyone was asking for you at shul,” she said.
“I don’t care.” Shayndel shrugged. “Don’t try to make me feel bad about it, and for heaven’s sake don’t start crying. Religion isn’t what we need now. Praying to God isn’t going to solve anything. The only true redemption of the Jews will take place in our own homeland.”
Noah smiled at her. “You sound like a pamphlet.”
“Do you disagree with me?”
“Of course not,” he said, reaching for an apple.
“You are no better than an animal,” said Papa bitterly. “Why can’t you fast like everyone else for a single day? You don’t get anywhere in life without discipline. And piety.”
“Piety?” said Noah. “Excuse me, Papa, but you are a hypocrite. Like everyone else, you go to shul because it is expected and then sleep through most of the service. Not that I blame you for dozing off. It’s all nonsense. And you know it.”
“Apologize to your father,” said Mama.
“Ach,” said Papa, and slammed the door.
The arguments continued, but after the Germans invaded Poland, Papa began to listen more than he talked. When Noah announced he’d decided to go to Riga, where he could book passage on a boat bound for the Mediterranean, their parents made no objection, though no amount of begging, threats, or tears would move them to let Shayndel go with him.
As the Nazis marched closer to their town and stories about what they were doing to the Jews became impossible to ignore, Shayndel brought home a few of her Young Guard friends to convince her parents to let her go to Vilna, a gathering place for Zionists from all over Eastern Europe. Her father walked out of the room before anyone said a word. Her mother served tea and listened to their arguments about the need for resistance and the relative safety of the city. But after they had left, she took Shayndel’s face in her hands and said, “I understand why you’re doing this. But, darling, that tall fellow is in love with the other girl, the brunette with the hazel eyes. You are making a fool of yourself.”
Shayndel left home a week later, in the middle of the night, without saying good-bye. In Warsaw, she discovered that Noah had been murdered on the road by Polish thugs and wrote home to tell her parents the terrible news and ask for their forgiveness. Later, she learned that they had been murdered with all the other Jews in town—shot and buried in a field that had been her family’s favorite picnic spot. She prayed that they had never received her letter.
As Shayndel walked along the back of the Delousing Shed, she noticed that one of the doors was unlocked. Seeing no one, she slipped inside, set the latch, and stood perfectly still, waiting to be sure she hadn’t been followed and that she was alone. A sparrow flew through the clerestory windows and landed on a beam high above her, which she took as a good omen.
There were no towels or soap and the water was freezing, but Shayndel stood under the shower and let the grit and sweat of Atlit wash away, remembering when she would have given anything for the luxury of clean water, no matter how cold, and a little privacy. When she started to shiver, she turned off the tap and shook herself dry, like a terrier, and dressed. As she slipped back into the daylight, she ran her fingers through her hair, pleased with herself; she still knew how to disappear and get what she needed.