What the Night Sings: Part V

We walk for three weeks, finding the occasional respite in the barns of sympathetic villagers.

Even the most cheerful greeting only partially hides the ubiquitous hollow stare.

My name coming from his mouth is disorienting.

The Oasis is an old boat, not built for passengers but for small industry, its hull rusted and its wooden siding peeling off of stripped nails.

One of the cooks renders cooking fat with herbs to rub into our chapped skin.

Rations are meager, but we know how to survive on less than nothing.

The sweetness of the fruit, the sunlight, the singing are intense and heady, and the exhilaration sweeps us in.

Hours later, Roza and I are sitting against the wall of the main cabin, sun-tired and bored, quizzing each other on math theorems.

Just then, whistles start blowing, and our handlers rally everyone to attention.

Yitgadal v'yitkadash sh'mei raba
—a man chants by the edge of the sea, the saltwater lapping his
ankles and pulling away into spiraling eddies—
b’alma di-v'ra chirutei,
v’yamlich malchutei b'chayeichon
uv'yomeichon uv'chayei d’chol beit yisrael,
ba'agala uvizman kariv, v’imru: Amen.

Glorified and sanctified be God's great name
throughout the world which He has created according to His will.

Tucked into the envelope is a small piece of paper with the name of my mystery aunt and coded instructions for getting to the commune.

I start frantically shuffling down the dusty Middle Eastern road flanked by scrubby bushes.

This must be our house in the kibbutz. It's tiny and spare, but it's ours.

It's a land of blue and pale gold that goes on, blending into soft lines at the sea—not like the green fields and forests of Germany, but not like the gray, desolate camps, either.

The wheels kick up a bit of dust, and I can't tell whether it's the aridness or his hastiness to get to Tel Aviv.

She helps us talk about the predicament we're in: robbed of family, marrying strangers, bringing babies into a world that tears them from their mothers' arms.

There's a shaft of morning light from the window, and I collapse into Ruth's old cracked and chafed leather chair, which is prematurely aged the same as we all were in the camps.

It heaves under me as I lean over for more lemonade and another cookie.

In the greenhouse are saplings a meter high, which get loaded onto the truck and driven through the dust.

I wish I had Lev's fervor.

They don't work on the Sabbath, but they have a fairly loose understanding of what constitutes "work" anyway and usually spend their free time dancing to jazz records.

Her thick silver hair falls over her dark shoulders, and she gathers and plaits it again.

"I never get mail, except Maria's letters," I say. "What is it?"
"Open it and see," she says, with an enigmatic smile.

OUT OF FOREST FIRES COME NEW AND STRONGER SAPLINGS, reads a tapestry above the kitchen sink, embroidered with orange blossoms and fruit.

I scrub my face and hands from the heat and dust and pull on my special Sabbath blouse, a dark gray gauzy one with black flowers.

As I fasten the iridescent black buttons, I catch notice of the number tattooed on my arm—A28865—from the day I lost my name in a distant world.

The challah loaves are still in their box from the bakehouse, the wine bottle sealed.

I lower my hands and open my eyes, and the flames dance before me. I am transfixed by the light.

I'm laughing, so hard that I fall onto the ground in a wild delirium, and my cheeks hurt with a delightful pain.