A minute later, a man’s head appeared around the corner of the building and they were on the move again. In single file, they made for a narrow gash that had been cut in the promenade fence. Zorah thought the women were amazingly fast considering what they were carrying. She followed Esther through the jagged hole, scratching her hands on the barbwire as she held it away from the fur coat.
When Zorah stepped into the corridor that had separated the men’s and women’s barracks, the fences, which were at least twenty feet apart, seemed to close in around her. She froze, confused and trapped, staring as the others ran toward the northern fence. They leaned into the effort, kicking their heels like athletes, racing toward an exit that she could not see. Some of the overhead lights had been extinguished, so that when people reached the shadows, it appeared that they vanished into the air.
The image overwhelmed Zorah with the need to join them on the other side—whatever that might mean. She made a dash for it, tearing past Jacob and Esther, weaving to avoid suitcases, brushing against Palmach gun barrels, flying with strength and speed she had never felt before. Running away.
She nearly laughed when she reached the opening in the fence, wide enough for a truck. She didn’t stop running once she got through, savoring her momentum and the air on her face. She ran past a group of men, ignoring their hoarse whispers to “Stop. Stop!”
She would have run until daylight, but the thought of Esther and Jacob slowed her. They would be frantic if she disappeared, so she looped around and trotted back. Esther rushed into her arms. Jacob hugged her around the waist.
Once Shayndel saw Zorah, she knew that everyone in her barrack was safely out and her official duties were over. Still, she could not help but take stock of the situation, as though she were still responsible. She counted eighty refugees, including twenty women with children, standing in the dark in the middle of a chilly field. There were at least seventy Palmach rescuers as well, smoking and muttering among themselves.
Off to the east, she heard the faint whine of an engine and caught sight of a ragged line of people moving toward the road. There was another group, too—no more than ten—wandering due north. I hope these people know what they are doing, she thought, as time passed without a word of reassurance or a hint of where her group was headed.
Tedi stood beside Shayndel, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She felt the muscles in her legs tense up, as though she were about to skate down a frozen canal. She leaned forward into a crouch, grabbed her thighs, and waited for the starting gun, for someone to give the order so she could go. She swayed side to side, faster and faster, mouthing the words, ready, set, go.
Shayndel saw her rocking and noticed Leonie shivering. She walked over to the Palmachniks. “Why aren’t we going?”
A husky man glared and put a finger to his lips but one of the others leaned close and said, “One of our guys is still inside to make sure we won’t be followed.”
Shayndel nodded and returned to her friends, who were looking up toward the mountains, where a signal fire had been lit. She wondered how far away the bonfire was, and if that was where they were headed, and whether it wasn’t a tip-off to the British. He
r jaw ached with tension. If we don’t go soon, I’m going to start walking and the hell with them all, she thought as her hand flew up to her shoulder, searching for the strap of her long-lost gun.
“Look,” someone whispered. All heads turned as a man ran out of the camp. The Palmachniks immediately shouldered their packs and guns, fanned out among the escapees, and began directing them east toward the road and the mountains.
Tedi dashed over to one of the men in front and asked, “Where are we going?”
“Kibbutz Yagur,” he said. “By the time we reach the road, the trucks should be there to pick us up.”
It was a rough slog through the fields. Recently plowed, they were deeply rutted and surprisingly wet, and the children struggled in the furrows. People carrying heavy loads lost their balance and fell to their knees.
Leonie was having a hard time keeping her shoes on. After the mud sucked one of them off completely, she crouched down to search for it, but a Palmachnik grabbed her arm. “My shoe,” she explained, but he pulled her to her feet and she had no choice but to limp after him. When the other shoe disappeared, she continued in her socks, which quickly became so wet and heavy, she peeled them off and walked barefoot.
By the time she reached the road, Leonie was in tears.
“Where were you?” Shayndel asked.
“I lost my shoes,” she said, looking at her cold, aching feet. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” Shayndel said. “We’ll find you some others.”
“Leave it to me,” Tedi said, and began walking up and down the line, asking if anyone had an extra pair of shoes, filling her nose with the expectant smell of freshly turned earth, while keeping an eye out for Zorah, Esther, and Jacob.
They were still making their way through the field. Something about being out in the open had frightened Jacob badly. Esther and Zorah could only carry him for a few paces at a time, and they fell so far behind that a man was sent back to retrieve them.
“Give him to me,” he said, swinging the boy over his head and onto his shoulders as though he were no heavier than a doll.
Esther put her hand on Jacob’s leg and scrambled alongside. Zorah smiled at how much Jacob’s mount looked like a gorilla, with his bandy legs and flatfooted gait. The little boy struggled and squirmed at first, but finally settled down and rested his chin on top of the man’s head, wrapping his arms around the sides of his neck. In the darkness, they looked like a father and son on their way home from an afternoon in the park.
Will Jacob remember this? Zorah wondered. Will he someday make his grandchildren yawn with boredom as he repeats the story of how a soldier carried him away from captivity in Atlit? Zorah remembered how her mother used to carry her little brother on her hip when he was a baby, but she had no memory of being carried herself.
Zorah slipped her arm through Esther’s as they approached the road, where Tedi embraced them as though they had been lost for months. When she noticed Jacob’s sandals flop-ping against the Palmachnik’s chest, she asked, “Does he have another pair of shoes? Leonie is barefoot. Those might fit her.”
“Not for him,” Esther whispered, “but wait.” She plunged her hands into the seemingly bottomless pockets of her coat and pulled out a pair of pumps with ankle straps. “They’re red,” she apologized.
“I’m sure that won’t be a problem.” Tedi grinned and hurried back to where Leonie was sitting in the dirt, cradling her battered feet in her hands. Tedi got down on one knee and held out the shoes as though she were presenting them to a princess in a fairy tale. And, just as in a fairy tale, they fit.
Tedi tried to get Shayndel to come celebrate the miracle of the shoes, but she would not move away from her spot near the ranking Palmachniks, who were planning their next steps.