To be a free people in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem
“You have a nice voice,” David said. “You should sing louder.”
“You must be tone deaf,” she said, looking at his kind blue eyes, his high, thoughtful forehead.
“There’s a rumor going around that you fought with the Jewish partisans near Vilnius. Maybe you knew my cousin,” he said.
“You seem to have many cousins.”
“Wolfe Landau?”
Shayndel stared at him. “Wolfe was your cousin?”
David nodded. “I know about Malka, too.”
“Malka,” she echoed. It had been a long time since she had heard or spoken either of those names, though neither of them had left her thoughts for more than an hour since she’d lost them.
“You were the third member of that troika, weren’t you,” he said. “I’m honored to meet you. Why don’t people know who you are? What you did?”
“Why should they?” Shayndel snapped.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t say anything if you don’t want me to, though I don’t understand why not. You should be proud.”
“I only did what I could,” she said. “They were the brave ones, the real leaders. I was just the tail at the end of the kite.”
“Someday, we should fly a kite together.”
Shayndel frowned.
“Or we could just go for a walk,” he said, reaching for her hand. “I’m not a bad fellow. Not as dashing as Wolfe, but you could do worse.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to sweep you off your feet,” he said. “I think you are—I don’t know the Hebrew for it—adorable.”
“Ha!” Shayndel stepped back. “And I think you are exactly like all the rest of the men in Atlit, which is hungry for a woman. Any woman.”
“I won’t deny that.” He grinned and waggled his eyebrows like Groucho Marx, then pretended to balance a cigar between his thumb and forefinger. Shayndel couldn’t keep from smiling, but as she walked away from him, she was overcome with the same inexplicable sadness she had felt on the day she arrived in Palestine.
Setting foot on the soil of Israel had been a terrible disappointment—nothing at all like her dream of what the moment would be like. She might as well have arrived in Australia, for all the emotion she felt. There had been a small crowd on the beach that morning, waving and shouting, “Shalom.” Others had wept for joy and kissed the ground. They had sung Zionist songs until they were hoarse, but Shayndel had been silent. She wanted to be as happy and as grateful as they appeared to be, but the only gratitude she felt at that moment was for having Leonie to care for.
And yet, this David had managed to touch her. He was funny and smart and his touch had been electric. He had called Wolfe and Malka out of the grave, suddenly alive and laughing. Not the bloody corpses she had fled from, running through the snow to save her own life. By naming them, he made her remember them, sparring and joking, always six paces ahead of her on their long legs, glancing back over their shoulders and telling her hurry, Shayndel, hurry. She would have to ask David if he had known Wolfe as a boy. She wondered what else he knew about her and what she needed to know about him.
In the dining hall that evening, Shayndel waved at Leonie but walked past their usual table to sit among the new arrivals and listen to the story of their journey and capture. They had suffered a rough crossing, caught in one storm after another. Everyone was bruised from the heaving and tossing, and one fellow had broken a wrist. There had been three sleepless days and nights before they sighted the shores of Eretz Yisrael, and then, after a British ship stopped them, they were forced to spend another day on board, stewing in the sun. When the English sailors tried to climb aboard, those who were able resisted with sticks and shovels until a canister of tear gas landed on deck, and a dozen people had to be carried off on stretchers.
“They said they were taking them to the hospital,” said a young Lithuanian man with thick, sand-colored curls. “Not that I believe that for a minute.”
Shayndel said, “It’s likely that they did go to the hospital, unless they were suspected as spies.”
“Spies?” he said bitterly. “Two pregnant women and some cripples?”
“The Jewish Agency will look after them, then,” Shayndel said. “You seem to know a lot about the people on your ship.”
“What if I do?”
“I’m just wondering about the girl they put in my barrack. She looked so thin and wasted. She fell asleep and we couldn’t wake her to come to dinner. I hear she’s German.”