“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.