“There are plenty of other people here who speak Polish,” said Zorah, putting an end to the conversation. “Go ask one of them.”
That night, Zorah lay awake for hours listening to the high, thin whistle of Jacob’s breath. He was lying on Esther’s bed, where he often slept, curled around her legs like a puppy.
She did not understand why these two bothered her so much. Why should she be offended by the irony of a Polish gentile trying to pass as a Jew? Maybe Esther had promised the father that she would take the boy to Palestine, which Zorah supposed would make her a Zionist hero.
Or maybe she disliked Esther just because she was a Pole. The Poles had been just as monstrous as the Germans. The Nazis did not require her neighbors to spit on her family the day they were taken away. They had spit again when she returned, after the war, to see if anyone else had survived.
Her father had been right on this point: the Polish people were blockheaded boors who hated Jews from the soles of their feet. I do not have to be nice to Poles, Zorah decided. Not even a Pole with a half-Jewish child in Palestine.
A low groan rose from the bed beside her. Esther was sitting straight up on her bed, panting and clutching at her stomach. Grabbing her dress, she rushed to the door.
Zorah realized she would not get much sleep that night, which meant she would be too tired to finish the story she was working through: an ancient fable woven around the first chapters of Genesis, recounting an argument between the sun and the moon about which was to be more powerful.
She glanced over at Jacob and saw that he was lying facedown on Esther’s pillow, clutching the sides of the bed as though it were a life raft. Zorah watched his shoulders heave as he sobbed without making a sound.
He is afraid his mother has left him, she thought, and counted to sixty, waiting for someone to do something for the boy. He might even think she has been killed.
Zorah counted to sixty twice more before she got up and sat beside him.
“Your mother will return soon,” she whispered.
His body went rigid.
“She went to the toilet. She will come back.”
He turned his head. Tears glittered in his lashes.
Zorah ran her hand back and forth across his back, slowly and evenly, not stopping until he turned his face to the other cheek and she felt her hand rise and fall over a sigh that released him into sleep.
She let her hand rest where it lay, his heart keeping time beneath her fingers.
Anger burned at the back of Zorah’s throat. She wanted nothing to do with this. Nothing at all.
She had kept herself alive through wretched days and worse nights by holding fast to a single thought: If I forget thee, my slaughtered companions and my murdered kin, may my hands wither and my tongue lose the power of speech.
She had seen evidence, cruel and sad, that the world was an instrument of destruction. Bearing witness to that simple truth had kept her from madness. Nothing else was required.
But Jacob’s beating heart had something else to say. Through the tips of her fingers it insisted, Come, let us go up to the mountain and sing the song of the child who sleeps and trusts.
The pulse under her hand was the irrefutable proof that destruction had an opposite number whose name was … Zorah could not think what to call it, but her mouth flooded with the memory of a white peach she had eaten as a little girl, sliced by her mother, shared with her brother. The sky was clear and blue after a summer rain. They were sitting at the window looking out at the sturdy brick building across the street where her friend Anya lived. The building had been bombed to dust with many of the souls inside, but the memory of the peach and the light on the bricks and Anya’s gap-toothed grin remained with her, still beautiful.
Zorah looked at the number on her forearm, which rose and fell, slowly and gently, with Jacob’s sleeping breath, and the word came to her.
The opposite of destruction is creation.
A gray, foggy light had begun to filter into the barrack by the time Esther returned. When she saw Zorah sitting on her bed, staring at Jacob as though he might disappear at any moment, she gasped.
“He is fine,” Zorah whispered in Polish. “He woke up and I told him that you would be back.”
“Thank you,” said Esther. “You are very kind.”
Zorah shook her head. “I am not kind.”
Later in the morning, Esther took Jacob to the children’s Hebrew class, which was taught by an earnest young woman with a toothy smile and a withered arm. The students, fascinated by the strange combination of cheerfulness and deformity, were quiet and obedient in her presence and soaked up her lessons effortlessly. But instead of staying to watch as she usually did, Esther left him there.
She found Zorah sitting on her cot with a book and said, “I wished to tell you that I am sorry for last night. The food here does not sit well with me.”
“None of us is used to this food,” said Zorah, without looking up. “Especially in the beginning.”
“It is not only the food that bothers me, miss. I am worried about a subject, that is to say …” Esther stammered. “There is something I need to know, which keeps me from being able to … I’m sorry to bother you, but if I could have just a moment of your time. There is a question. I mean to say, I have a question of great concern.”
“I can’t tell you anything about getting out of this place,” Zorah said. “I’ve been stuck here longer than anyone.”
“It is not that,” said Esther. “I heard them say that you are learned in the religion.”
“You wish to speak to a rabbi,” said Zorah.
“No,” Esther said quickly. “I would not dare. Besides, there is the language … so please, miss …”
“Why do you address me formally?”
“What am I to call you?”
“No need to call me anything. Just tell me what you want,” Zorah said, exasperated but curious.
Esther smiled. “You see? You are kind. But I’m afraid that in order to ask you this question, I must impose a little on your patience so that you understand. You will permit me?”
Zorah shrugged.
Esther squared her shoulders and took a deep breath, as though she were about to recite a lesson.
“My real name is Kristina Piertowski, or it was until we got on the boat and I took the name of Jacob’s mother.
“God has blessed me with this little boy, but I did not give birth to him. His mother was the kindest, most cultured woman I ever met. She spoke Polish, German, and French, as well as the Yiddish. As a girl, she had dreamed of becoming a physician, but it was very difficult for women, and then, of course, she was a Jew. She married Mendel Zalinsky, a good man who adored her. A furrier. She was already thirty-five when they married. Jacob was born the next year.
“I was his baby nurse. I held him from his first day in the world and I loved him. The other nurses in the park used to say that you could lose your job if the children grew too attached to you, but Madame Zalinsky was not like that. She said, ‘The more he is loved, the better he will be able to love.’ You see what I mean? A generous woman. A wise woman.
“We were in Krakow and Mr. Zalinsky saw what was happening. He sent us to a cottage on the outskirts of a little town in the country, not too far that he couldn’t visit sometimes, but far enough that he thought we would be safer.” Esther stopped for a moment. “I heard that he was shot trying to bring food to an old woman who lived down the street from us. At least Madame never knew, God be praised.
“We were all right in that village for a little while, but there was a next door neighbor who wanted the house for himself. So that son of a bitch, pardon me, said something to the police, may he burn in hell.
“Madame told me that if anything were to happen, I was to take Jacob and go. She gave me a fur coat with golden coins sewn into the lining. She told me to use the money for us both, and not to neglect myself. Can you imagine? That she should think of me at such a time?
“The day it hap
pened, she kissed us both and sat down in a chair facing the door. I can see her still, sitting so straight, with a little valise on the floor beside her.
“I took Jacob to my grandparents’ farm close to the North Sea. We were many kilometers from the nearest town and far from the main roads; it was a good place to hide. My grandparents thought Jacob was my son. Grandfather called him ‘the little Jewish bastard’ when he thought I couldn’t hear. But we were all right until the Germans marched through and took everything—the livestock, the half-grown potatoes, the grain we had stored for the animals. After that, it was bad. I traded furniture for fish. We burned the floorboards for heat. There were weeks we ate soup made with nothing but wild mushrooms and onions. This is bad for a growing child, you know? I fear that Jacob will never be even as tall as his father, who was not a big man. But he is smart, my Jacob. You see it, don’t you? He is his mother’s son.”
“Does he know about her?” Zorah asked.
Esther seemed startled by the question. “Yes. No. I mean, in the beginning I would tell him bedtime stories about his mama and his papa, what they looked like, how much they loved their little boy. We would say prayers for them, and I would make him promise always to remember their good names.
“But then I worried what would happen if a soldier stopped us and asked about his father. So I stopped talking about them, and when he called me Mama, I said, ‘Here I am.’ And it is true that I love him as much as his own mother. And it is true that I had her permission to love and be loved by her son, but …”
Esther stopped and pressed her hands together. “Someday I will tell him. I only pray that he will forgive me and still call me Mama.”
“But what made you come to Palestine?” Zorah asked. “Did the parents speak of it? Did the mother tell you to bring him here if she did not return?”
“They were not Zionists like some of them here,” said Esther. “They were not religious, either, though they never ate pork. Madame said it was just their custom. They were good people, kind people, hardworking.”
“But why didn’t you just stay in your grandparents’ house and raise Jacob there? This was not your journey to make. The boy might have died on the way. Didn’t you know how dangerous it would be?”
“Do you know how dangerous it is for a Jew in Poland today?” Esther said, bitterly. “Jacob is circumcised. Someday, he would be found out, and what would become of him? He would discover the truth of his birth, and what could he do? He would hate me, and why not? Poland is filled with such hatred, you cannot imagine.
“Not far from where my grandparents lived, there was a Jewish family, a dairyman and his sons. One of the boys returned to the father’s house; the only one who survived, I think. The neighbors saw him and clubbed him to death on the road. In broad daylight they did this. They dragged his body to a ditch and pissed on it, and then boasted about what they had done. The men went around telling the story like it was something to be proud of. In Poland they say, ‘Too bad they didn’t kill all of the Yids.’
“Everything there is evil, poisoned. How could I let Jacob stay there? I could not stay there, myself. So I took the coat with the coins in the lining, which I never touched, not even when we were eating grass soup, and the coat took us to Italy, where we fell in with some people looking for a way to get to Palestine. I gave them some money and they got us onto a boat and now, miss, I come to my question.”
Esther looked directly at Zorah for the first time and said, “Before we got on the boat to come here, I walked into the sea and made myself a Jew. Like a baptism. That is how it is done, yes?”
“Yes,” said Zorah. “That is how it is done.”
“So now I am Jewish? Like Jacob?”
“Yes,” Zorah nodded, knowing full well that her ruling would not sit well with the rabbis; perhaps not even with most Jews. So she said, “There is no need to ask anyone else about this matter, ever again. If someone asks you about your family background, you look him in the eye and say, ‘I am a Jew.’”
“I am a Jew,” Esther repeated.
“Jacob is lucky to have you as his mother.” The word slipped out of Zorah’s mouth, but she did not wish it back. Sometimes “luck” was just another word for “creation,” which was as relentless as destruction.
Esther would love Jacob no matter what happened. Jacob would sing “Ha Tikvah” whether Zorah joined him or not.
“I understand why you have been so quiet,” Zorah said. “But now you must learn the language.”
“I’m afraid it is far too difficult for someone like me.”
“Someone like you?” Zorah said. Changing from Polish to Hebrew she asked, “Are you not the mother of Jacob Zalinsky?”
“Yes,” Esther replied slowly, in Hebrew. “Yes, I am the mother of Jacob Zalinsky.”
III October
October 6, Saturday
Shayndel was washing the tables in the mess hall after breakfast when Tirzah called her into the kitchen. She pointed at a brick of what looked like beige cheese on the counter. “You said you’d never tasted halvah. This comes from a place where they make the real thing, the best. Try it.”
Shayndel was startled by the gesture. It might have been a reward for her recent assignment, updating the schedule for every guard in Atlit, but it also felt like a friendship offering from this unfailingly distant woman.
“Thank you,” she said, and took a big bite. The texture, somehow oily and grainy at the same time, made her feel like she had a lump of sand in her mouth. She couldn’t decide if it was sweet or salty, and tried not to grimace. “It’s made from sesame seeds, right?” Shayndel asked as she poured herself a glass of water.
“It looks wonderful.” The voice came from the doorway, where Colonel Bryce stood as if waiting for an invitation to enter.
Shayndel had never been so close to the camp commander. At this range she could see how slender he was and the gray hair at his temples. His uniform was faded, though pressed and well fitted. He removed his hat and tucked it under his arm.
“You may have some, if you wish,” Tirzah said. “She doesn’t seem to like it.”
He pinched off a corner between his thumb and fingers. “Lovely. Very fresh,” he said, in Hebrew.
“Languages are a hobby of mine,” he explained in response to the shock on Shayndel’s face. “Is that the correct word, Mrs. Friedman?” he asked Tirzah. “Hobby?”
“Yes, sir.”
Bryce took a few more crumbs of the halvah and smiled at Shayndel. “I remember the first time I tried this stuff; I thought it tasted like dirt.”
“Never mind,” Tirzah said coldly.
“Thank you anyway, I mean, thank you so much,” said Shayndel. She realized that she had never addressed Tirzah by name. “It was nice of you to think of me.”
Tirzah shrugged and crossed her arms while Bryce put his hat on the counter and began tapping his finger as though he were working a telegraph. After a moment, Shayndel realized that they were waiting for her to leave. She pulled the apron over her head. “If you don’t mind, I think I will go see what the new physical education instructor is up to. Good morning, Colonel.”
“Good morning,” he said.
Tirzah was rattled by Bryce’s visit to the kitchen—something he had never done before. The whole camp was doubtless buzzing about it already. “To what do I owe this honor?”
“I have gotten word from Kibbutz Kfar Giladi,” he said. “On the Lebanese border. I believe you have cousins there.”
They both knew she had no family that far north. “Yes?” Tirzah said.
“There was a rather large incursion of Jewish immigrants late last night; maybe sixty or seventy Jews from Iraq and Syria. The British were there in some numbers, as I understand it. The Palmach was also in force and things got messy. Shots were fired.”
“Casualties?” she asked.
“Two dead and two in hospital.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It was very unf
ortunate,” he said. “Our patrols managed to capture most of the group that got through, and I just received word that those detainees will be brought here, to Atlit. At least fifty of them. They will be arriving within the next twenty-four hours. I have orders to hold them in a separate barrack, under special guard. I thought you might wish to inform your superiors at the Jewish Agency about this, if only to increase the delivery of bread and such.”
Tirzah nodded, knowing as he knew that she would have found out about the incoming refugees within the hour anyway; there would be a phone call for her or a message delivered by a milkman or a volunteer “teacher” with a pass freshly stamped by the Jewish Agency. “It is quite possible that my people are already well aware of this,” she said, acknowledging their customary minuet of indirection and euphemism.
“In any case,” he said, “I wanted you to have every chance to prepare the kitchen. And one more thing: I seem to recall that your son is due to come for a visit.”
“Tomorrow.”
“It might be better to postpone the trip this time.”
A shiver ran up Tirzah’s back.
“There is talk of repatriating this particular group of refugees—and as quickly as possible.”
“You can’t be serious,” she sputtered. “It hasn’t been safe for Jews in Iraq since 1940. The Baghdad pogrom—two hundred innocent men murdered. The whole Jewish community blackmailed, terrorized. If you send back fifty avowed Zionists, they will be murdered, and it will put every Jew in the Arab world at risk, too.”
“I doubt it would come to that,” Bryce said. “Our chaps are well in command of things there at the moment.”
“At the moment,” Tirzah mocked.
“I understand your position,” said Bryce.
“Do you?”
“Yes, I do, in fact,” he said. “I believe that at some point, quite soon, the Yishuv will stage a military attack against the mandatory forces on behalf of the immigrants from Europe, in particular.”
“You think there is going to be an attack here?”
“I am not the person in this room with access to that intelligence,” Bryce said, breaking the rules of their game for good. “But given the risk, I would keep Danny away from here right now.”