by Joan Hess
Theo nudged Dorrie forward. Gili made several scratches on a pad, then glanced up impatiently. “Who are you?” he barked. “Do you have information about the unfortunate accident?”
Dorrie tightened her lips. “I am Theodora Caldicott, a guest in this country. Who are you?”
“I am the head of the police for this district, and I repeat, have you information, or have you a desire to waste my time with some personal problem about your passport? For that, you must go to the office in Jerusalem and stand in many lines, Miss Caldicott. I am too busy to concern myself with petty matters.”
Theo considered rescuing Gili from the impending onslaught of Connecticut snobbery, but could think of no good reason to do so. Instead he went across the room to speak to Miriam. “Did you tell everyone about Essie?”
“Yes, and everyone was upset. I wish that pompous little bulbanik would leave so that we can decide about the funeral and all. He’s convinced it was an accident, and he has no reason to remain here berating us about our so-called negligibles. No one’s arguing.”
“Bulbanik?” Theo said.
“A Yiddish Mrs. Malaprop. He’s driving everyone crazy. Thank God he didn’t try to interrogate Essie’s parents.”
“Have they been told?”
“I told them myself. Essie’s mother had to be put in the infirmary, and her father is likely to join her any time. They’re both in their sixties; Essie was an unexpected afterthought. I hope the shock doesn’t kill them.” Miriam gnawed on her lip for a moment, then said, “Why did you bring Dorrie here, Theo? Surely she knows nothing about Essie’s mystic desert forays.”
Before he could answer, angry shouting broke out behind him. Gili’s face was as purple as an aconite, and droplets of spittle flew from his mouth as he slammed a fist on the table. Dorrie held her ground, smiling demurely but with visible satisfaction.
“I have no interest in your father’s Washington friends!” Gili foamed, the purple taking a cerise turn. “I do not intend to telephone your president to confirm his interest in your welfare, nor do I care if he is your godfather’s third cousin! You—you—you are under arrest!”
Dorrie held out her wrists, very much a candidate for martyrdom, if not direct sainthood. “Drag me away, little man. You’ll live to regret it, but not for long.”
Theo decided to intervene before Gili could arrange a firing squad in one corner of the room, which he seemed to be considering. “Lieutenant Gili, what seems to be the problem with my niece?”
“Your niece? I should have realized that you—you were reprehensible for this, Mr. Bloomer! This—this woman has the chutzpah to suggest that I—”
“Did she tell you about the locket? I imagine that Essie took it while she was cleaning the room, and the theft has no significance. However, Dorrie felt it was her duty to tell you that it was hers, in case it affects your investigation.”
Gili had managed to temper his tantrum during the short speech. His mustache still jerked convulsively, and one eyelid seemed to be controlled by an invisible thread, but his face had returned to a more normal color. “She told me that it was stolen from her room, yes. I have no reason to continue further with the detail, but of course I cannot return the locket until after the case has been officially closed.”
“I want my locket,” Dorrie said politely.
“Out of the question! It will be returned to you when I say the case is closed, and not before then. I shall not arrest you for interference—at the moment.” Gili beckoned to his men. “I am finished with my questions. We shall return to headquarters so that I can inform my superior of the conclusions I have reached.”
Once they were gone, sans prisoner, Theo returned to Miriam’s side, where he was beginning to sense he belonged. “The locket is Dorrie’s, as you must have heard. I should have mentioned it earlier, but I felt that I should … ah, clarify its recent history.”
“I talked to Gideon before the meeting,” Miriam admitted ruefully. “I knew he was not involved, but parental obligations forced me to confirm it first. Gideon can be blunt when he feels attacked.”
“Did he remember mentioning the cave in front of Essie?”
“No, but Hershel thought they might have discussed it over dinner several weeks ago, and Essie was helping serve at the time. He remembered only because she later dropped a platter on her foot and went screeching out of the dining hall. She probably overheard them and decided to explore the cave when she had a chance.”
“Very likely,” Theo murmured. “Did you ask if they had found anything in the cave?”
“Hershel admitted that they thought so at first, but when they finally dug their way in, it turned out to be a newspaper from last fall. That went over as well as the donkey bone did. They said they hadn’t bothered to do any further exploration since then.”
Theo looked around the room for the disillusioned spelunkers. Gideon, Hershel, and Ilana were sitting at a distant table, their heads almost touching as they conversed. Although the words were inaudible, Theo could read the intensity from his position. Gideon looked angry; the other two pale but composed. Essie had been with them in the children’s house; no doubt the tragedy was more painful for them than for the other kibbutzniks.
“In any case, I doubt we’ll see any more of Lieutenant Gili,” Miriam was saying in a relieved voice. “The newspaper will carry a stern reminder about the dangers of the desert, and that will be the end of it. For once there aren’t any political ramifications. Just a sad and tragic accident.”
They talked for a few minutes, and then Theo left to fetch Dorrie. She was near the door, deep in conversation with Judith.
“But, Dorrie,” Judith was protesting as he approached them, “you were wearing your locket that day. Don’t you remember—you took it off to swim and put it in your bag?”
Dorrie glanced up to meet Theo’s eyes, then looked back at Judith’s earnest blinks. “No, you’re wrong about that, Judith. You’re totally confused,” she said coldly.
“No, I’m not. We all went swimming, and you said something about not wanting the locket to turn green and melt. I remember it very clearly.” More earnest blinks.
“You were fawning over Hershel the entire time we were there. I doubt you saw anything but his manly bulge in that skimpy bathing suit,” Dorrie countered. “That kind of suit may be appropriate for Cannes or Nice, but one would hardly confuse this place with the French Riviera.” She flared her nostrils to emphasize her point. “It must have taken him an hour to wiggle into it, and three to get it off. I must say that I was appalled.”
So was Theo, although he kept his mouth closed.
11
Dorrie left to barricade herself in her room with a gloomy comment about incipient roots; Theo suspected she was not referring to subterranean plant structures. Miriam disappeared to check on Essie’s parents. The kibbutzniks drifted away, still murmuring unhappily and looking like leftovers from the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. Theo tried to capture Judith before she could escape from the dining hall, but she insisted that she had to return to the children’s house.
Theo read, napped, ate a solitary dinner, and retired to the lobby to watch the evening news. No footage of terrorist bombings was shown; instead, he was treated to a view of jet planes streaming over a desert, spewing lethal black pellets with the abandon of an airborn bunny. Lebanon, he presumed. He then watched as a bulldozer flattened a series of mean hovels, while the newscaster commented from an unseen vantage point. The bartender, who had come over during the scene, clucked his tongue and murmured a few words under his breath. At Theo’s suggestion, he returned to the bar for a bottle of beer, then sat down on the couch.
Theo ascertained that his host was one Shel Greenberg, father of three and a recent grandfather. A snapshot of a pink bundle was produced and admired. He learned that Shel had lived on the kibbutz for nineteen years, that his daughter was a lawyer in Jerusalem and one of his sons an engineer in San Francisco. The other son was finishing
his final year in the army, after which he planned to break his mother’s heart by opening a dance studio. Mrs. Greenberg felt the family needed a doctor, or at least an orthodontist in case the newest Greenberg’s baby teeth were not properly aligned.
“But what’s a father to do!” Shel concluded, throwing up his hands. “No matter how we try, our children insist on growing up and leaving us. You have children, Theo?”
Theo produced a snapshot of his night-blooming cereus and explained his omnipresent concern that it might bloom without him. He sighed, Shel sighed, and they both settled back in the cushions for a moment of introspective silence.
Having pondered the mysteries of plant behavior, Theo returned himself to the more immediate situation. “Those bulldozers on the news rather puzzled me. Everyone seemed inordinately serious about the removal of a few houses. Is that to be the site of a new school or shopping area?”
“Those were terrorists’ houses. The soldiers destroy the houses as a deterrent to further acts of terrorism. Today in Safad a Jewish shopkeeper was killed by a gang of Arabs. As soon as the murderers were arrested, their houses were demolished. Reprisal comes swiftly.”
“Before a trial?”
“They will receive a fair trial in front of a magistrate, then they will be imprisoned for their crimes. Israel is a democracy. Even Arabs have rights, too many rights some people say. They are allowed to move about freely, to buy and sell property and operate businesses, to meet in secret to plot violence against us. They aren’t permitted to serve in the army or to vote, but other than that they have all the privileges of any citizen.”
“Have the police made any progress with the Hebron bombing two days ago? Has anyone been arrested?”
The bartender shrugged. “The Sons of Light do only what the rest of us would like to do. They aren’t criminals; they’re patriots who are still fighting the war—and they deserve medals. The Arabs have sworn to push us into the sea, and they’ve been trying for almost forty years. We can’t sit back and wait.”
“You have no problem with children being murdered in the name of patriotism?” Theo asked.
“My brother was killed in nineteen sixty-seven. I knew one of the men murdered at the Egyptian border last year. I’ve listened to the children singing folk songs in the bomb shelters while the Syrians tried to turn Kibbutz Mishkan into a pile of rubble. The Camp David meetings may have eased the situation temporarily, but now the PLO factions can’t even agree on how best to destroy us. We’re three million Jews surrounded by a hundred million hostile Arabs. What should we do? If I were twenty years younger, I’d join the Sons of Light myself, but they don’t need fat old men with trembling hands and high blood pressure.”
Theo had listened to the speech with a troubled frown. Again and again he heard the same passion, the attachment to the land that transcended patriotism. Was this a phenomenon of kibbutz life, he wondered, or a generality that could be extended to all the Jews in Israel? Had Essie felt it as strongly as, say, Miriam?
Shel mentioned a collection of dirty glasses awaiting him behind the bar. He fiddled with the television knobs to produce an ancient movie that was, if not particularly fascinating, at least in English. Theo dozed through the final shoot-out and went to bed.
He was awakened by a peremptory knock on the door. After a certain amount of fumbling to find his watch, he determined that it was shortly after midnight. He threw on a robe and hurried to the door. “Yes?” he said, envisioning the worst.
Ilana seemed oblivious to the time. Her eyes were clear and snapping as she said, “You have an overseas call, Mr. Bloomer. You will have to take it in the lobby.”
She marched away before Theo could reply. He pulled clothes on over his pajamas and hurried after her, his slippers pattering on the sidewalk in gentle applause. She had already taken position behind the counter in the lobby when he opened the door.
“Here’s the receiver. Sorry there’s no privacy,” she said. She did not sound regretful.
Theo grabbed the receiver. “Hello? Hello? Operator, are you there? This is Theo Bloomer.”
“Well, Theo, I am waiting for a report. You have been in that commune for several days. Do make an effort to be concise; I have a bridge game in less than an hour.”
“Do you know what time it is, Nadine?” Theo said peevishly. “You have roused me from sleep, forced me to dash to the lobby in my pajamas—”
“In your pajamas, Theo? It is a very peculiar place if you are encouraged to wander about in your nightclothes. I hope Dorrie is more aware of proprieties than you seem to be.”
“Nadine, I am about to lose my temper. Do you—”
“Have you shaken sense into Dorrie? The fall semester will be upon us before we know it, and the girl hasn’t even bought any new clothes. Also, Biff is beside himself with worry. Dorrie sent him a postcard—of all things. Four years of deportment classes and the girl still can’t write a proper note. When I think of the money I spent on engraved stationery for her, I want to sob. I just want to sob my heart out, Theo.”
“Nadine,” Theo tried once more, “do you realize what time it is?”
A pause was followed by a gasp. “Oh God, the girls will be livid if I’m late! The traffic on the way to the club has gotten to the point that I’d rather wade through marmalade than battle the stoplights in town, which is why I implored Pookie to pick me up. Charles lost his temper in front of the post office the other day and simply sat on the horn of the Mercedes until everyone had the common decency to move.”
“It is the middle of the night, Nadine.” He caught Ilana’s eye and shrugged. She gazed back with the warmth of a porcelain cat on a mantel. He added, “As much as I enjoy hearing about the traffic congestion five thousand miles away, I’d prefer to do so at a more civilized hour.”
“I am paying for the call,” Nadine reminded him huffily, “and it’s hardly worth the expense to listen to your obsessive desire to discuss the time. Now, what progress have you made with Dorrie? Shall I arrange to meet your flight tomorrow or the next day?”
“Possibly,” Theo said. “She’s less enchanted with the kibbutz than she avowed, and most likely is amenable to coming home in time for school. I’ll talk to her when the sun rises.”
“Oh dear, Pookie’s in the driveway, and I don’t want to keep her waiting. Last week she backed over the azaleas in a fit of impatience, and the gardener fell over dead with a stroke. He was a wonderful gardener, and Charles was furious with both of them. Let me know when your flight arrives.”
The receiver buzzed in his ear like a misshapen mosquito. He handed it to Ilana, who replaced it behind the counter without comment. Theo decided to ignore the pajama cuffs creeping down his ankles and see if she could be provoked into conversation.
“I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced, Ilana. I’m Theo Bloomer, although I gather you are aware of that. I’m sorry the telephone call caused such a panic. My sister is more concerned with bridge games than time zones.”
Ilana did not smile at the attempted pleasantry. “I do not panic. It is my duty to awaken guests for telephone calls. We do not have the resources to transfer calls to the rooms.”
“Oh,” Theo replied, unable to compose anything wittier. He tried once again. “It must be tiresome to be here alone all night. Do you watch television or read?”
“Do I watch television or read? The kibbutz has entrusted me with the duty, and I have accepted it. Distraction I do not allow myself. Should I fail to remain alert, something might occur to endanger the kibbutz. We are all responsible for the well-being of the community; personal considerations must be kept in a proper perspective. From this we are strong.”
Her strengths did not include small talk, Theo decided in the wake of her stern lecture. One last try, and then he would admit defeat and return to bed.
“I’m impressed by what I’ve seen thus far,” he said. “I understand that you were born here?”
Her grim expression softened a bit
. “Yes, my parents emigrated from New York when the kibbutz was organized. Like many others, they came here to escape the decadence and possessive society that ignored the needs of many to satisfy a few. Here we share everything. The kibbutz meets our basic needs: food, clothing, shelter, medical attention, education, and so forth. In your country, the workers have nothing except blisters to show for their backbreaking labor, and—”
“Indeed,” Theo said, edging towards the door. It was not an hour for a symposium on Marxism, any more than it was for a telephone call from Nadine. Ilana’s face was flushed with ardor; she was on the verge of bursting into an anthem extolling the glory of the workers, should he offer encouragement. He did not. “I think I’ll return to bed, but thank you for the explanation.”
“Wait, Mr. Bloomer, I have a question to ask you.”
Intrigued, Theo halted. “Yes, Ilana?”
“Is your niece Dorrie intending to return to her decadent life as you said on the telephone, or was that a ruse?”
“I think Dorrie and I will leave within a day or two. She has been reared in a different environment, and she is aware that she would not be happy at Kibbutz Mishkan.”
Ilana smiled, albeit briefly and scornfully. “No, she is too soft to live here. In America all the teenage children have cars of their own, stereo equipment, swimming pools, and thousands of dollars to spend however they wish. Here, we have a few personal possessions only. When we graduate from the secondary school, we must serve in the army.” The smile flicked by again. “Dorrie would not enjoy her two years in the army. I was a munitions instructor on the Golan. I am not large, but I am with good muscles.”
