Day After Night

“No.”

“A venereal disease, then.”

Leonie flinched.

“Don’t worry,” said Aliza. “And don’t think you’re the only one. You’d never guess who I’ve dosed in this place, including some of the girls you know. Even staff.” She put a hand on Leonie’s arm and added, “Not that I would ever tell.”

The door flew open and a flock of children marched in, shepherded by three teenage volunteers from a nearby kibbutz. The girls were trying to get the little ones to sing the alphabet in Hebrew, though some were barely old enough to walk.

Aliza melted at the sight of them. “Delicious,” she crooned. “Sweet as honey. I could eat you all up. Look at those cheeks. Like apples. Like plums.”

Leonie thought it was a good thing that the children didn’t know enough Hebrew to understand what she was saying, otherwise, they might have thought that the plump woman with the odd bun and the yellow teeth wanted to devour them, like the witch in Hansel and Gretel.

“Don’t worry,” whispered Aliza, as she readied the hypodermics. “We’ll take care of your little problem after we finish with the babies.”

Leonie was relieved and mortified. As much as she hated for Aliza to know about her problem, at least she would be cured before Shayndel grew more suspicious.

The first little girl to get a shot burst into shrill tears, which set the entire group to wailing. Their cries grew louder and more inconsolable, and nothing, not even the promise of candy, could make them stop. Each child struggled and shrieked more than the one before and Leonie began to feel like a monster, pinning arms back as Aliza came at them with the needle. Finally, the last one was inoculated and the children were led out, tears drying on their cheeks as they sucked on lollipops from America.

“I saved two red ones for us,” said Aliza, putting one into her mouth as she offered the other to Leonie. They tidied the room in silence, white paper sticks between their lips. Leonie glanced at the nurse, hoping she would return to the conversation about her problem, when a half dozen sweaty boys barged in, all shouting at the same time—a shrill mishmash of Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish, and Romanian.

At the center of the racket was a pale, slender child whose face was covered in blood. “He fell making the goal,” said one of the older boys. “I told them he was too small to play with us, but he whined and begged until we let him. And then he fell and he hit his head.”

“Where is he?” came a woman’s voice from outside. “Danny? Are you all right?”

Leonie didn’t recognize her at first. Tirzah must have been washing her hair, which was still damp and hung halfway down her back, brown with golden streaks. In the kitchen, it was all bundled into a thick black net, which made her look older and more severe than the beautiful, distraught woman reaching for her son.

“I will not have this madness in my clinic,” said Aliza, at the top of her lungs. “Leonie, get rid of these wild animals right now.”

Leonie grabbed the box of lollipops and waved it over the boys’ heads. “Outside for a treat,” she announced, and they followed, as eager and as docile as the toddlers.

When she returned, Danny was lying on a cot with Tirzah beside him, her hand on a large white compress covering most of his forehead.

“It was just a little cut,” Aliza said to Leonie. “It only looked bad because it was on the scalp, which always bleeds like crazy.”

Tirzah frowned, dubious about the nurse’s breezy diagnosis. Then again, she frowned about almost everything.

The inmates were glad when Tirzah’s son visited from a kibbutz somewhere in the south. Danny’s monthly trips meant there would be a cake at least once during his stay. His presence also spiced up conversations at meals, as newcomers engaged in ever-more-outlandish speculations about the chilly woman who ran the kitchen for the Jewish Agency. She wore no wedding ring; did that mean Danny was a bastard? Perhaps she was a widow. Or maybe her husband divorced her for the way she oversalted her soup—or for fooling around with another man.

Danny was a sweet kid, a skinny seven-year-old who had his run of the camp and spent his days playing with whatever children happened to be there. When they were very young, he organized games of jacks or tag, but when there was a group of boys his age or older, he pushed himself into their races and matches.

Tirzah stroked her son’s cheek. “Doesn’t he need stitches? When is the doctor coming?”

“There is nothing for the doctor to do,” Aliza said crisply. “The bleeding stopped and the cut is right at the hairline so you won’t even see the scar, if there is one.

“Here, Danny,” Aliza said, taking a piece of chocolate from her desk drawer. “Have some candy. You were a brave boy. Do you think we should give one to your mother? She was not nearly as brave as you.”

There was a knock at the open doorway followed by a question in English. “Everything all right in here?”

“Yes, Captain,” said Aliza.

“Colonel,” Tirzah corrected her.

“The boy?”

“He is fine.”

Colonel John Bryce, the British commander of Atlit, removed his hat and stepped inside. A short man in polished boots, he made a little bow to Aliza.