“I will take my chances here, chérie. I cannot walk another step.” She took off her shoes and showed them her swollen, bloody feet.
“We must find you a doctor,” Tedi exclaimed.
“All I need is soap, antiseptic, and some rest. But unless someone picks me up and carries me, I am not moving.” She turned to Shayndel and said, “Don’t worry about me. I know that you want to go. Please. You must.”
Shayndel watched the others file out the door, and part of her longed to follow them. But one look at Tedi and Leonie decided it. “I’m staying,” she said.
Zorah walked in, still wearing her own torn and filthy clothes. Her face was white with fatigue.
Leonie poured her a cup of tea, and Tedi buttered a slice of bread for her.
“Do you know they actually tried to wake up the children to take them God knows where?” Zorah said, between sips. “I told them that Jacob was not going anywhere; he was so tired, he was shuddering in his sleep. Esther was beside herself.
“How much can you expect of these children? The other mothers agreed with me,” said Zorah. “We made a little mutiny, and none of them are leaving either.”
“You were right to insist that they stay here,” said Leonie. “I refused to go further, too.”
“I’m staying as well,” said Tedi.
“Me, too,” Shayndel added.
Zorah bowed her head. The other three exchanged worried glances.
“Zorah?” said Leonie.
“I’m just tired,” she whispered, overwhelmed by their concern for her, and by her feelings for them. “All of you must come to my barrack—though they don’t call them barracks here; they’re ‘houses.’ There is a little shower with hot water in the room. They have fresh clothes for us, too, though I’m not sure we’re all going to turn out as well as Tedi.”
Zorah led them to a good-sized room with six narrow beds. It was simply furnished but nothing like a barrack, with rugs on the floor and curtains at the windows, bureaus and night tables. Photographs of young people squinting into the sun were all over the walls.
Leonie insisted that Shayndel be the first to bathe in the little tin stall. “We command our commander to obey.” Shayndel meant to hurry so the others could take their turns, but the lilac-scented soap and a bottle of real shampoo slowed her down. She lathered her hair twice, and nearly nodded off as the water washed the bubbles down the drain. It took all of her willpower to turn off the faucet.
Leonie was next. She sank down to the tile floor and ministered to her throbbing feet. The soap stung at first, but the warm water was soothing. She tilted her chin up and let it rain over her closed eyes and parted lips, feeling like she was a thousand miles away from Atlit, a million miles from Paris, and safe.
Zorah pulled her clothes off in a rush and started by washing her hair, thinking she would save a few moments by scrubbing her body while the shampoo rinsed off. But the soap got into her eyes and no amount of rubbing would get it out. Then the hot water ran out and suddenly her tears changed from irritation into grief. She leaned against the wall and sank slowly into a crouch, her arms folded over her head, as the icy stream stripped away the last of her defenses. Motherless, brotherless, and weary to the bone, she wept for the losses she had counted and remembered and for numberless, nameless injuries registered in her flesh.
Tedi reached in and turned off the tap. “Come,” she said, wrapping Zorah in a towel and rubbing her arms and legs until she was warm as well as dry. “Cry as much as you like,” she soothed, as she toweled off Zorah’s hair, combed out the knots, and helped her into a soft flannel nightgown. Zorah submitted meekly, even taking Tedi’s hand as she led her to a cot near Shayndel and Leonie, who were already fast asleep.
The four girls slept, undisturbed by the light or the quiet comings and goings of the kibbutz girls. They did not hear the roar and squeal of cars and trucks outside, or the shouts that followed. They woke up only when Nina, the girl with the braids, came to tell them that the British were at the gates, demanding that they surrender the escaped prisoners.
“You can stay inside if you like,” she said. “If you do come outside, you must look and act like the rest of us. So if your Hebrew isn’t good, keep your mouth shut and pretend to understand. Be strong.”
Zorah went looking for Esther and Jacob, but Shayndel, Leonie, and Tedi followed the flow of kibbutzniks headed for the entrance to Kibbutz Beit Oren. The barbwire fence and the tall wire gate were all too familiar, but the evidence of everyday life—flower beds, bicycles, clotheslines—made it clear that this was not a prison but a home.
Shayndel took the lead, snaking her way right up to the fence beside Nina, where they could see what was going on. Four British military trucks were parked across from the entrance and the road bristled with soldiers in battle gear.
Inside the kibbutz, men concealed weapons under their jackets. “I don’t know why we’re all standing around here,” complained one of the men as he stared through the fence, taking stock of the enemy. “There should be people around the whole perimeter. We don’t know where the Brits will try to break through.”
The tension thickened as an official-looking staff car with its windows rolled tight arrived, followed by two open vans that added dozens of British Military Police to the regular army force already there. Inside the kibbutz, people stopped talking and stared. Those with guns glanced at one another. Shayndel crossed her arms to keep from reaching for her phantom rifle.
Nearly everyone seemed spellbound by the arrival of the police. But a small group of men went right on chatting and smoking, barely glancing at the growing threat a few dozen yards away. There were five of them, standing under a canopy of young pine trees on a knoll that gave them a clear view of the gate. Shayndel didn’t recognize any of them from last night’s escape. She guessed they were Palmach, but didn’t want to break the silence to ask.
When the two English officers got out of the car and started toward the kibbutz, the men finished their cigarettes and headed down to meet them.
Shayndel was close enough to hear a little of their conversation. Her English was not good, but the British were clearly making demands. She made out the words “surrender” and something about the death of a constable.
Unlike the Englishmen, who stood at attention, the Palmachniks listened with their a
rms crossed or on their hips. They stepped back to confer briefly and a chuckle rose from their huddle. Four of them ambled back to their perch on the hill while one man delivered a short message to the En glishmen.