then,” he says, thescratchiness of his voice combining with his accent to set free a kind of music. He slides her backpack off the bench and scoots closer so their shoulders nearly touch, so his lips almost brush the hair that covers her ear. “Close your eyes.” His words float to her.
V ERA MOVED FROM M OSCOW to Jerusalem with her parents at the age of sixteen and got married at eighteen to a sabra , a nice Israeli-born boy who liked to work the land. She loved that her husband worked with his hands, that he knew every inch of her adopted country. They moved north to a village on the Mediterranean called Neve Shalot, with green fields on one side and blue water on the other. They had a son first, then two daughters. The days were a weave of salt breezes and childish laughter.
One cloudy autumn evening not long after dinner, when the baby was six months old, one daughter was three and the son six, the old woman who lived next door came bustling all in a fright and said she’d seen men, Arab men, landing a small boat on the shore.
“How do you know this, in the dark, that they’re Arabs?” Vera’s husband asked, but the woman insisted she did. He gave his wife a skeptical look, but still the two of them, their children and the frightened old woman hid, crowded into a tiny coat closet in the upstairs hallway. After only a minute, though, the baby began to cry.
“She needs her bottle,” Vera said, because she had alreadystopped nursing, thinking to get pregnant again, and her breasts were as dry as the desert.
“I’ll fetch it,” said her husband.
“Me too, Poppa,” said the three-year-old girl.
“Safer for you to stay here,” said the husband.
“Oh, she’ll be fine with you,” Vera said. So out they went, father and daughter, downstairs. And while they were rummaging in the refrigerator, the men from the boat burst through the back door that opened right into the kitchen. In separate, isolated notes that sounded like instrument solos, those hidden in the closet heard the girl scream, but not too loudly; they heard glass break on the floor; they heard the father pronounce a phrase of prayer in Hebrew and the intruders talk in a jumble of urgent Arabic words. The boy, the six-year-old son, didn’t have enough self-control to prevent a gasp.
“Who else is here?” one intruder asked in accented English.
“No one,” said the husband, and his words, clear and strong like the muscles in his arms when he worked in the fields, floated up to the hidden ones. “My wife, she is visiting her mother.”
“But, Poppa,” began the girl in Hebrew in her pure, childish voice.
“Hush, dear one,” said the father. And the girl, of course, behaved.
Vera and her son heard the intruders leave with father and child. The old woman sank to the floor of the closet and knelt there trembling. Vera held the baby tight to her chest so she would not cry again, so no one would hear her if she did.“Hush, dear one,” she whispered over and over. “Hush or we’ll all be taken. And that is what your daddy, brave and good, forever strong, does not want. That’s what he was trying to tell us. Hush, dear one. Hush.”
They stayed there in the upstairs closet, the old woman clutching the twigs of a broom, Vera upright and rocking her baby, her son crouched with his head lowered between his knees. They stayed so long that the boy lost all sense of how long they’d been there. He smelled his mother’s hot desperation and it reminded him of curdled milk. He smelled the tangy scent of his father that came from the coat he wore for army reserve duty. The boy didn’t know it then, but he would never forget those smells.
He waited for his father to return, to tell them it was okay, they were safe, the trespassers gone. He was confident his father would return. In the end, though, his father did not come, but only other men, men speaking Hebrew, saying, “Here we are, it’s all right now, all right.”
Vera hugging the
V ERA MOVED FROM M OSCOW to Jerusalem with her parents at the age of sixteen and got married at eighteen to a sabra , a nice Israeli-born boy who liked to work the land. She loved that her husband worked with his hands, that he knew every inch of her adopted country. They moved north to a village on the Mediterranean called Neve Shalot, with green fields on one side and blue water on the other. They had a son first, then two daughters. The days were a weave of salt breezes and childish laughter.
One cloudy autumn evening not long after dinner, when the baby was six months old, one daughter was three and the son six, the old woman who lived next door came bustling all in a fright and said she’d seen men, Arab men, landing a small boat on the shore.
“How do you know this, in the dark, that they’re Arabs?” Vera’s husband asked, but the woman insisted she did. He gave his wife a skeptical look, but still the two of them, their children and the frightened old woman hid, crowded into a tiny coat closet in the upstairs hallway. After only a minute, though, the baby began to cry.
“She needs her bottle,” Vera said, because she had alreadystopped nursing, thinking to get pregnant again, and her breasts were as dry as the desert.
“I’ll fetch it,” said her husband.
“Me too, Poppa,” said the three-year-old girl.
“Safer for you to stay here,” said the husband.
“Oh, she’ll be fine with you,” Vera said. So out they went, father and daughter, downstairs. And while they were rummaging in the refrigerator, the men from the boat burst through the back door that opened right into the kitchen. In separate, isolated notes that sounded like instrument solos, those hidden in the closet heard the girl scream, but not too loudly; they heard glass break on the floor; they heard the father pronounce a phrase of prayer in Hebrew and the intruders talk in a jumble of urgent Arabic words. The boy, the six-year-old son, didn’t have enough self-control to prevent a gasp.
“Who else is here?” one intruder asked in accented English.
“No one,” said the husband, and his words, clear and strong like the muscles in his arms when he worked in the fields, floated up to the hidden ones. “My wife, she is visiting her mother.”
“But, Poppa,” began the girl in Hebrew in her pure, childish voice.
“Hush, dear one,” said the father. And the girl, of course, behaved.
Vera and her son heard the intruders leave with father and child. The old woman sank to the floor of the closet and knelt there trembling. Vera held the baby tight to her chest so she would not cry again, so no one would hear her if she did.“Hush, dear one,” she whispered over and over. “Hush or we’ll all be taken. And that is what your daddy, brave and good, forever strong, does not want. That’s what he was trying to tell us. Hush, dear one. Hush.”
They stayed there in the upstairs closet, the old woman clutching the twigs of a broom, Vera upright and rocking her baby, her son crouched with his head lowered between his knees. They stayed so long that the boy lost all sense of how long they’d been there. He smelled his mother’s hot desperation and it reminded him of curdled milk. He smelled the tangy scent of his father that came from the coat he wore for army reserve duty. The boy didn’t know it then, but he would never forget those smells.
He waited for his father to return, to tell them it was okay, they were safe, the trespassers gone. He was confident his father would return. In the end, though, his father did not come, but only other men, men speaking Hebrew, saying, “Here we are, it’s all right now, all right.”
Vera hugging the
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