Usually, Shayndel didn’t mind Tirzah’s reserve. In the three weeks since she’d begun working in the kitchen, she had found it a relief to spend time with someone who did not treat her with kid gloves. After David told the men in his barrack that she had been a partisan fighter, everyone except Leonie had stopped acting normal around her—no more joking or gossiping now that she was considered a champion of the resistance, a heroine of the Jewish people.
The tales of her exploits got grander with every retelling: she was said to have single-handedly killed a dozen Nazi soldiers in a machine-gun bunker; she had walked into a Polish police station in broad daylight to steal identity papers; she had rescued scores of families moments before the Germans had come to arrest them.
There was some truth to all of the stories—especially the one about the police station theft—but there were holes in them, too. She had been too stubborn to admit that she couldn’t throw as far as the boys, and tossed the hand grenade so badly that Wolfe had put himself in the line of fire to retrieve it and pitch it into the gunner’s nest. Still mortified by that fiasco, which had nearly cost all of them their lives, she refused to talk about any of her wartime experiences. But her reticence was taken as a proof of modesty, which made her stock rise even higher.
Shayndel began to spend more time in the kitchen, where she could count on Tirzah to be as curt and bracing as horseradish. The room was narrow and cramped. There was a large army cookstove and piles of battered, burned pots and pans—enough to accommodate the Jewish laws that separate meat and dairy. The sink was far too small for all of the washing-up. Tirzah kept the space as clear and uncluttered as possible, without so much as a stool that might tempt a person to sit down and linger over a mug of tea.
Shayndel worked hard in the kitchen, chopping and washing, but wished she could do more as Tirzah’s agent in Atlit. Occasionally the cook inquired about a new arrival, but mostly Tirzah wanted details about the guards: which men slept on duty and which were easily bribed, who had a wife and children at home, who was smitten by which of the Atlit girls.
Shayndel was to report any changes in any of their schedules. She learned all the guards’ names and was surprised to find out that not all of the Arabs were Muslims; several were Christians. But it had been two weeks since she learned anything new. Her “spying” became as routine as clearing tables and sweeping the floors, and she wished Tirzah would confide in her about what other kind of information the Palmach was looking for; maybe then she could be more useful.
Shayndel sighed as she picked up another potato, wishing she had some shocking morsel of news that would jolt Tirzah into conversation. But even the gossip from the barrack was stale. Traffic into Atlit had slowed to a trickle, which had prompted Arik to spend a good part of his last Hebrew class complaining that the Mossad Le’aliyah Bet—the committee for secret immigration—was doing a bad job of procuring seaworthy vessels. The few ships that did manage to limp to shore near Tel Aviv and Haifa were old, slow, and easily captured. The passengers resisted, singing Zionist songs as they raised sticks and fists at British troops armed with bayonets. The Mossad encouraged these doomed displays, supplying banners that read, “The Nazis killed us. The British won’t let us live.” The pictures ran in the London and New York newspapers as well as in Jerusalem.
Shayndel dug the eyes out of another potato and glanced over at Tirzah, now stirring the onions in a huge frying pan. She was a handsome woman, whose age showed only in the lines around her eyes. Trim and strong, she took big strides as she walked around the compound. No one knew anything about her except that she had a son and that she slept with Bryce, the camp commander.
Potato after potato after potato, Shayndel grew so bored that she decided to provoke Tirzah into talking. “I heard someone lost an eye when the Montrose landed,” said Shayndel. “Do you think it’s worth the suffering to those poor people on the boats?”
Tirzah made no reply.
“I know the headlines do us some good, but the refugees on those boats are exhausted and sick. It’s sort of cruel.”
Tirzah shrugged without looking up, so Shayndel tried another tactic. “I think that boys get out of Atlit faster than the girls. I know we need soldiers and farmers, but I thought that women were meant to work side by side with the men in the fields. And aren’t they training girls to fight?”
“I can’t imagine that little French friend of yours shooting a rifle,” Tirzah said.
“Well, I can,” Shayndel said quickly, even though Leonie’s hands probably couldn’t manage anything bigger than a pistol.
“I suppose you know her better than I do. To me she looks like a mental case, but the nurses say that she handles herself well with the sick.”
“It sounds like you gossip as much as we do.”
“For us, it isn’t gossip,” Tirzah snapped, making it clear that the conversation was over.
Shayndel held her tongue for a minute and then changed the subject. “Aren’t we going to make something sweet for the holiday?”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Tirzah, a hint of amusement in her voice.
“What? Oh, tell me! I’d kill for a piece of apple cake. Will there be kuchen? You don’t trust me even with that much information?”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “But at the rate you’re going, there won’t be enough potato kugel for even half of the crowd. Go get me a couple of girls who know how to peel vegetables without wasting half of them.”
Shayndel took off her apron and walked out into the bright sun. It seemed strange to be cooking for Rosh Hashanah in such withering heat. She associated the holiday with cool nights and changing leaves and the smell of her mother’s kuchen.
Tedi was the first person she saw, sitting on a bench in front of the mess hall, paring her nails. “Can you peel a potato?” Shayndel asked.
Tedi grinned. “Is that a joke or an insult?”
“Tirzah sent me out to get some extra hands.”
“I’m happy to help,” she said. “Actually, I’m happy to do anything at all.”
The next person Shayndel spotted was Zorah, walking toward the barrack with her head down and her hands in her pockets. Not the best of company, thought Shayndel, but she was in a hurry. “Zorah, we can use some help in the kitchen.”
“Is that an order?”
“Don’t be an ass.”
“So it is an order,” Zorah said, and followed her back to the kitchen.