by Joan Hess
Theo tried a timid smile. “Surrogate parenting must have its advantages. Between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, Dorrie provoked quite a few thunderstorms at home. Her mother would have cheerfully packed the child’s bags and enrolled her in a Swiss finishing school, had she trusted her to stay away from seedy counts and cheap wine.”
“You have no children of your own?”
“No, I do not. Dorrie is very dear to me, despite her periodic pouts and rebellions, but I doubt I know very much about the parent-child relationship.” Theo busied himself with brandy for a moment, then added, “Tell me more about the Kibbutz Mishkan, Miriam. What does Mishkan mean?”
“Mishkan is the Hebrew word for tabernacle, the receptacle for the Torah. Even though we were not terribly religious when we founded the kibbutz, it seemed appropriate. That was thirty years ago; now it doesn’t seem at all appropriate, but we’re too stubborn to change it. Besides, we’d have to order new stationery.”
Theo blinked. “You founded the kibbutz thirty years ago? Your accent is still very American, Miriam.”
“I grew up in New York City. My husband Sy and I came here when we were newly married, motivated by a dream to replenish the barren soil and help form a Jewish state that could assimilate immigrants from all over the world. We slept in tents, worked from sunrise to sunset, wrapped our blisters with rags, and literally willed crops to grow. When it was too dark to farm, we sat around a lantern arguing about equality, direct democracy, and social relationships within such a tight community. My God, we were so very young and idealistic.”
“The kibbutz is still flourishing, from what I’ve seen. You and the others have succeeded in your dream. I admire that.”
“It will always be the most important thing in my life,” she said. “I sacrificed a predictable, prosperous life of dinner parties and carpools for a life of fear, hard physical labor, and intimacy with death. I sacrificed my youth and my husband. It’s hard to understand, even for me at times. And it’s different for this new generation of kibbutzniks. On one hand, they’re not so willing to sacrifice their personal goals for the good of the community. On the other, they’re feverishly committed to a Jewish state. All of our young people go into the army, and some of them don’t come back. Wars and terrorism never seem to stop, no matter what the newspapers report and the politicians claim.”
“But it was worth it, was it not?” he asked gently.
Her quick smile returned. “I hope you’ll think so tomorrow after the tour. Is your room comfortable?”
“Very comfortable, thank you. Essie came by with clean towels and some—ah, enlightening suggestions about leisure activities, if I understood her. Fishing and strolling were among her first choices.”
Looking exasperated, Miriam asked him to repeat Essie’s comments. He did so as well as he could, but his confusion must have been apparent, for she began to laugh at his expression and his hesitancy.
“Essie has been known to offer obscure advice from time to time, and I shall have to speak to her about it once again. I can’t have her spooking our guests,” she said as she rose. “Tomorrow I’ll be around the lobby from seven o’clock until noon. Sleep as late as you can, enjoy a leisurely breakfast, then ask someone to fetch me.”
Miriam left through the French doors, and Theo walked out of the lobby and down the sidewalk. When he reached the balcony, he continued down the walkway to Dorrie’s room and tapped on the door. Dorrie opened it immediately, her hair hidden under a toweled turban and her face, for once, devoid of makeup. She looked much as she had before her pubescent onslaught.
“Uncle Theo, do come in,” she giggled. “I feel like I’m back in the dorm and ready for a gossip session with the girls. We ought to put on our pajamas, slap on mudpacks, and raid the kitchen for potato chips and diet soda. Wouldn’t that be hilarious?”
“Quite hilarious,” he said as he accepted the unnerving invitation to come in. He supposed her room was furnished like his, but it was impossible to ascertain. What furniture there might be was invisible under drifts of clothing, bottles of unknown content, and scattered books and brochures. The floor was equally cluttered, and the bathroom was, he decided with a prim frown, impassable to all but the bravest explorers. Armed explorers.
Dorrie hastily moved an armload of clothes off a chair. “Could I offer you a glass of water?” Connecticut etiquette had not been forgotten.
“No, thank you.” He had glimpsed the encrusted glasses on the bathroom counter. “We do need to talk, Dorrie. Although your mother was amusingly distraught, she does have a reasonable cause to be concerned. What are you doing here—at a kibbutz in Israel? And why on earth did you announce that you were planning to stay?”
Dorrie perched on a corner of the bed and gave him a mischievous grin. “Well … I’m not actually planning to spend my life in this hot, humid outback, surrounded by turkey houses and dewy-eyed idealists. It hardly fits into an upscale lifestyle. I just told Mother and Daddy that I was going to do it.”
“And why did you do that?” Theo said, mentally sighing with relief. “It did cause an uproar.”
“So that you’d come.”
Theo had suspected as much, but he saw no reason to mention it—or to discuss the inconvenience her little ploy had produced. Caldicotts were not interested in inconvenience. “Then I must extend my congratulations, for here I am. Surely my physical presence is not the extent of your scheme?”
She folded her legs under her with enviable ease and pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. “As Mother probably told you, Judith and I were on a tour of Greece with Simmons, who’s the classics prof at school. Simmons is without a doubt the most—”
“Judith?” Theo inserted softly.
“Judith Feldheim was my roommate at Wellesley last year. She’s scholarship, and absolutely brilliant—in academic matters. Socially, she was a tad fringy, but I tried to help her with a few of the more important details.”
“Perrier and polo shirts?”
“When I first moved in with her, she had no idea about wines, or the difference between salad and dessert forks, or anything else that’s absolutely critical. Her clothes were more appropriate for a vocational school that emphasized welding as the key to success. I rushed her to Mr. Robert the very first weekend to have him do something about her hair. He was still apoplectic three months later.”
“I trust he’s since recovered,” Theo said drily. “But let us return to the subject of your presence in Israel.”
“I’m doing my best, Uncle Theo. Judith’s parents were killed when she was a child, and she grew up in foster homes. From what she’s told me, some were okay and others horrid. In any case, she had no advantages.” Dorrie shuddered at the unthinkable.
“Then she did well to obtain a scholarship. She sounds as though she had a difficult childhood, but is intelligent and determined enough to overcome it.”
“Yeah,” Dorrie agreed, “but it wasn’t easy to wean her away from polyester. Anyway, last year she collected a couple of thousand dollars from an annuity her parents left her. We decided to go on Simmons’s tour, even though we knew that it would be unbelievably tedious to be stuck on a bus with Simmons for eight weeks. Judith is majoring in classics, and she wanted to see the sights before they were corroded with acid rain. When she graduates, she’s going to teach Greek and Latin to ghetto children.”
Theo closed his eyes for a second. “An admirable goal. But why did you agree to accompany her, if Simmons is as distasteful as you claim?”
“The truth is that last summer Mother insisted that I work, if you can imagine that. I very reasonably pointed out that I did not care to disrupt a perfectly civilized summer, but she was beyond reason. It was so execrable that I simply couldn’t face it again.”
“A salt mine? A poultry-processing factory?”
She made a face and toppled over like a domino. “The gift shop at the hospital,” she said in a hollow voice. “I had to wear this silly little pink pinaf
ore and peddle confession magazines and candy bars until three o’clock almost every single day. If I mentioned my so-called salary, I’d choke to death while you laughed yourself into a stroke. And it gets worse. By the time I arrived at the club, everyone had already gone home. I played all of three tennis sets the entire summer, and Biff played other games with every female under sixty-five, except Mother. She’s too much for him.”
Theo ignored the digression. “So you discovered an inner passion to tour Greece with Judith and Simmons, despite the anticipated tedium and discomfort? That doesn’t explain Israel and Mishkan.”
Dorrie lifted her head to wrinkle her nose. “Mishkan?”
“The name of your present abode,” he explained gravely.
“Oh,” she said, letting her head fall back. “Well, the tour was as awful as I had expected. We stayed in hotels that hardly merit a twinkle, much less one star, and ate in restaurants that specialized in eggplant. Simmons lectured at the drop of a visor, and all the other girls carried grubby notebooks in order to write down every pedantic pearl of wisdom from Simmons’s tight lips. I diligently tried to take an interest in the archaeological ruins, but to be frank—when you’ve seen one old rock, you’ve seen them all. I have now seen somewhere in the range of eleven thousand of them.”
“So you and Judith decided to escape to Israel?”
Dorrie sighed at the ceiling. “I thought we ought to detour for Paris. One of the girls at school knows an artist with a divinely quaint studio on the Left Bank, and I’m sure he would have been thrilled to let us stay for a week or two. I almost had Judith convinced, but then Fate struck.”
“Fate?”
“We were sitting at a sidewalk cafe in Athens, trying to decide if Judith had enough money to fly to Paris—the trains can be dingy—when these two guys asked if they could join us. Judith almost died in her seat, but I told them they could. Three hours later Judith was In Love. The capital letters are hers.”
“With Gideon Adler?” Theo said, surprised.
Dorrie politely overlooked his faux pas. “With Hershel Waskow, Uncle Theo. Gideon’s not exactly her type. Hershel is.”
“The thin young man with the stooped shoulders?”
“The chinless, spineless, mindless wonder. He’s hardly the sort one imagines in the role of an Israeli Romeo, but he and Judith found each other more quickly than Simmons could recite a passage from Ulysses. It was sort of sweet, I suppose, and I presumed that they’d hop in bed, exchange addresses, and forget about each other. Silly me.” She rolled her eyes and sighed.
Theo tried not to sound disapproving as he said, “That may be a standard form of romantic fulfillment among your friends, but it hardly seems to be, shall we say, adequate.”
“That’s exactly what Judith thought,” Dorrie said irritably. She sat up and pushed the errant curl off her forehead. “Judith was convinced that she’d found her true love. After a teensy argument, we went back to the vile structure loosely termed a hotel, packed our bags, and left Simmons a note at the desk. And here we are.” She flopped back once more. Another sigh was aimed at the ceiling.
“I understand Judith’s motivation, but not yours, Dorrie. Why did you come with her?”
“Judith is totally immature about men. Every one she’s been involved with turned up with a prison record, a pregnant wife, or a job in a garage. Leechley was on academic probation; Bruce had a secret predilection for panty hose and black brassieres—and I don’t mean on women. Poor Judith has yet to pick anyone remotely resembling a winner. Her choices don’t even place or show, for that matter. Three legs and hoof-and-mouth disease is more like it.”
“So you came along in order to supply advice?”
“Somebody had to, and Simmons is a virgin. Judith is my best friend, and I’m going to stay until I convince her to come back to Wellesley with me. Or you do, Uncle Theo.” The voice drifting toward the ceiling was immensely smug.
5
Once in the safety of his room, Theo undressed and prepared for bed. Then, with a vague hope his travel guide would vanquish his unease over Dorrie’s complacently presented plan, he began to read. And read. And read.
It was becoming absurd, he thought as he alertly plowed through one chapter after another. At last he tucked a bookmark between the pages and placed the book on the bedside table. His watch, now set to local time, indicated it was nearing midnight, but it felt more like the middle of the afternoon. Sleep was out of the question. No greenhouse to putter in, no potted plant to listen to a report of his silly flutter around Miriam, as if she were a candle and he an obscure species of hairless moth. She had been polite, but she was undoubtedly polite to everyone, including the boring, the presumptuous, and the bald.
His mental lecture lasted for only a minute or two. Then, unable to bring himself to return to his book, he slipped his feet into slippers and began to wander around the room. By twelve-thirty, he suspected he had logged nearly a mile. For his effort, he felt more alert, if such a thing were possible, and less inclined to sleep.
At last he admitted the impossibility of further exploration of the room, dressed, and pocketed the key. Outside, the stars were muted by the evaporation rising from the Dead Sea even in the middle of the night. Darkness had brought no relief; the air was as thick and suffocating as it had been twelve hours ago.
After an indecisive moment, Theo went down the stairs and strolled along a path he hoped might lead to the beach. A metallic redolence grew stronger as he passed between two dark bathhouses and down a rough walkway. As he neared the edge of the water, the acrid air began to sting his eyes and overpower his nose and throat. He was gasping when he finally halted with his toes inches from the gently lapping waves.
“An apropos name,” he murmured, taking out his handkerchief to wipe his eyes. “It’s likely to have a terminal effect on anyone foolish enough to actually bathe in it.”
There were no lights across the water to indicate the presence of a Jordanian village or even a guard post. There was nothing except diaphanous mist and blackness. He looked back at Kibbutz Mishkan, lit by a few sparse lampposts and strategic floodlights. In the distance an engine rumbled to a halt. Turkeys gobbled briefly in alarm, then subsided into gallinaceous grumbles.
He turned back and bent down in order to dip his finger in the water, then touched it to the tip of his tongue. “Vile,” he said thoughtfully, “and oily. I do wonder why anyone—”
A noise from the shadows stopped him from further speculation. He hastily dried his finger on the handkerchief as he peered for a sign of movement. He saw nothing.
When the noise was not repeated, Theo started up the path toward the bathhouses, smiling at his momentary and old-maidish alarm. Israel, as Mr. Baedeker had assured him, was rife with dogs and cats, along with mice, lizards, birds, and other benign creatures that prowled the night. A voice in the back of his mind mentioned that there were also terrorists.
Although he knew it was foolish, he quickened his pace. Once in his room, he vowed, he would order his eyelids closed, and sleep whether he liked it or not. The midnight stroll was a silly way for a silly old man to escape his thoughts, and he would have no more of it. For that matter, he—
Two figures stepped into his path. Theo caught a glimpse of khaki and guns as he stumbled forward onto the hard concrete walk. What little air was left in his lungs went out with a pained whoosh that left red circles in front of his eyes and an erratic rhythm in his chest. Pain shot up from his knee. The pebbles on the concrete bit into his palms like thorns. Above him he heard the sound of a rifle being cocked. Breathing heavily, he looked up at a sardonic smile and two hard, glittering eyes.
The woman aimed her gun at the center of his forehead. She growled something in Hebrew. Nevertheless, the message was more than clear.
“Don’t shoot, please,” he said, hoping the response was appropriate to the question.
A second figure leaned over to stare at him. “Mr. Bloomer?”
With a b
ark of laughter, a third khaki-clad figure appeared from the shadows. “It seems Dorrie’s uncle is more than a simple tourist from the States.”
Theo struggled to his feet and took out his handkerchief to wipe the dirt off his hands. Although he admitted to a few fears, children in khaki playing soldiers were not on the list. Their guns merited a degree of respect, however. And the young woman, whom he presumed was Ilana, seemed very near utilizing hers in a manner perilous to his hopes for longevity.
“Dorrie’s uncle?” she echoed incredulously.
Theo bowed slightly. “I do have that honor, but not the honor of your acquaintance. I am Theodore Bloomer of Handy Hollow, Connecticut. I have already been introduced to Gideon and Hershel.”
She stepped back and glanced at her companions. “Dorrie’s uncle? Are you sure?” With visible disappointment, she lowered the rifle.
Gideon scowled. “That’s what my mother told me. Hershel was there, too. What do you think?”
Hershel’s gun was trembling against his knee. “It’s the man from the lobby. I guess you’re right, Gid.”
Ilana (or so Theo still presumed) stepped forward to stare. In the dull light her cropped hair was as streaked and unruly as a haystack, but her round eyes still glittered like black buttons.
“So what are you doing on the beach after midnight, Mr. Theodore Bloomer? Expecting to meet someone in a kaffiyeh?”
Theo explained his insomnia to three stone faces. “And I followed the path to the edge of the water, at which point I heard you,” he concluded with an apologetic shrug. “You could say that I was taking Essie’s advice,” he added, hoping to introduce a bit of levity to the situation.
“What did Essie say?” Gideon demanded.
If the levity were there, it hadn’t made a significant dent on the beach patrol. He opted for a retreat. “She just mumbled a few suggestions about possible activities. Strolling was one of them. I’ll just return to my room now, if you don’t mind, and try to sleep.”
