Day After Night

by Anita Diamant

  “Zorah is a hard case,” said Tedi after a few minutes.

  “She was in the camps,” Shayndel said. “Sometimes, early in the morning, I hear her crying in her sleep.”

  “And yet, that girl with the baby—remember her? She was in Buchenwald,” Tedi said, wiping her hands on a towel. “I don’t recall her name, but she was sweet as honey. How do you explain that?”

  “Enough talking,” Tirzah said. “There’s too much to do.”

  Zorah kicked at the dust and was halfway to the infirmary before she realized that she was virtually alone. There were no boys playing soccer, no men loafing in the shade, shirtless in the afternoon heat. The benches behind Delousing were empty of women fanning themselves, chatting, or dozing.

  The infirmary was shuttered, but Zorah’s cut had stopped bleeding. She was not about to go back to the kitchen, which meant there was nothing to do but return to her barrack. As she opened the door, a skirt caught her full in the face.

  “Sorry.” A girl wearing only a slip rushed over to retrieve it. “I was trying to catch that.”

  The place was a madhouse. It seemed like every piece of clothing had been tossed up into the air and left where it had fallen, with dresses, skirts, blouses, and underwear scattered everywhere. Women rushed from one end of the room to the other, eyes shining, hands outstretched. Everyone was talking at once.

  “This might fit you.”

  “Let me try that!”

  “Would you tie this for me?”

  There was a queue beside Leonie’s cot, as girls waited for her to adjust a belt, smooth a wrinkle, or turn up a sleeve, and then pronounce them, “Tres jolie. Very pretty.”

  Zorah lay down on her cot and faced the wall, but even with a pillow over her head, there was no blocking out the giddy banter of dressing, primping, and praising.

  “Mascara! Where did you get that?”

  “My turn.”

  “My turn.”

  “Is this too short?”

  Rosh Hashanah had always been her favorite holiday. As the sun set and a new year began, the world seemed filled with promise. Her father would return home from the brief evening service smiling. He would compliment her mother’s soup and the meal passed pleasantly and ended in song. Her father had a beautiful voice.

  But as the month wore on and one holiday followed another, his mood would sour. He complained about the stifling heat or the cold drafts in the prayer hall. He grumbled about her brother’s inability to keep up and the hypocrisy of the rich men, who had the best seats in the synagogue but talked business throughout the service. By the end of Sukkot, he was back to slapping Mama for overcooking the chicken.

  Even so, when the sun began to set at the start of Rosh Hashanah the following year, Zorah would hope again.

  She felt a light touch on her shoulder and turned to see Leonie standing beside her, holding out a white blouse with yellow buttons. “This should fit you,” she said softly as she placed it on the foot of the bed and hurried away before Zorah could say no.

  She waited for a moment, sat up, and placed her hand on the soft, dotted swiss cotton. The buttons were made of heavy plastic in the shape of flowers, with five petals each.

  She touched one of the buttons and wondered if Meyer would notice them. The idea shocked her and she drew her hand back as though she’d been bitten. She glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone had seen her nearly succumb to the nonsense around her, which she knew was nothing but sex madness. All she really wanted from Meyer, she told herself, was another cigarette.

  The door banged open as Shayndel and Tedi rushed in. Shayndel stripped off her shirt as she strode through the room. “Wait until you see the boys,” she said. “It’s amazing what a shave and a comb can do.”

  Tedi stopped at Zorah’s bunk.

  “How is your hand?” she asked.

  “It was nothing,” said Zorah.

  “Come here,” Leonie said, waving to Tedi and Shayndel. “I have dresses for you. The dark red is for Shayndel and the blue is for Tedi.”

  “You seem to be enjoying yourself,” Shayndel said, slipping on a cherry-colored shirtwaist.

  Leonie picked up a brush and set to work on the tangles in Shayndel’s hair. “It’s nice to feel useful,” she said.

  A strange, mournful sound filtered into the room. The conversation quieted and then stopped altogether as the half-musical, half-animal wail hovered for six, seven, eight seconds and then changed suddenly into a high-pitched staccato shriek.

  “What on earth was that?” Leonie shuddered.

  “A shofar,” Shayndel said. “It’s a sort of trumpet blown at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It’s made of a ram’s horn. You never heard a shofar?”

  Leonie shook her head. “My uncle had no use for religion.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “I was a baby when I went to live with my uncle’s family. It’s a terrible noise, no? So primitive.”

  “I always liked it,” Shayndel said. “In my summer camp, they would blow a shofar to wake us up in the morning. They must be using it to tell us that it’s time for Ma’ariv. They’re keeping the gates between the men’s and women’s sides open for evening prayers.”

  “Will you go?” Leonie asked.

  “I don’t think so.” She shrugged. “It’s a short service and given the state of my hair, they will be done by the time you’re finished with me.”

  Shayndel thought about her last Rosh Hashanah at home, when she had refused to sit with her mother and stood in the back of the women’s section, whispering and laughing with the other Zionist girls.

  Leonie slipped a pair of tortoise-shell combs into Shayndel’s hair and held out a mirror. “Look how pretty you are,” she said. “Let me find you some lipstick.”

  “Don’t bother,” Shayndel said, staring at Zorah, who was fastening the last of her flower buttons. Eyebrows arched all over the barrack as Zorah twisted her hair into a loose knot at the nape of her neck. She stood up, faced her audience, and made a stiff curtsy before she walked outside and headed for the men’s side of the camp.

  She approached the group that had gathered in a semicircle around Anschel, a wiry man of twenty-five or so, whose spectacles and wild black beard lent him an air of religious authority. Everyone agreed that Anschel was more than a little crazy. On his first night in Atlit, he had made a scene in the dining hall when they brought out a platter of chicken, pounding the table and screaming when no one could give him the name and credentials of the butcher who killed and salted the birds. He had also tried to break up one of Arik’s classes, shouting that Hebrew should be reserved for holy purposes only.

  Anschel certainly prayed like a madman, his eyes squeezed tight, swaying back and forth so violently that he hit his head against the wall behind him. He had begun the evening prayers for Rosh Hashanah the moment he counted nine men around him and mumbled through the service so fast that no one could keep up.

  “Who made him the rabbi?” someone demanded as Anschel began folding his prayer shawl. “We aren’t going to let him do that tomorrow, are we?”

  “I thought that the Jewish Agency was sending a real rabbi.”

  “I heard they weren’t doing anything. No prayer books. No rabbi. Nothing.”

  “Who told you that?”

  Zorah had kept her distance, watching the proceedings and discussion from behind a small group of women who had come to pray. But one of the men caught sight of her. “Who is this lovely lady?” he crowed, grabbing her arm.

  “Zorah, is that you?” said one of the regulars from Arik’s Hebrew class. He licked his lips. “Don’t you look nice? See how the old shoe is turned into a glass slipper.”

  “Too bad no one can turn a donkey into a handsome prince,” Zorah replied, and walked away as slowly as she could, pretending not to hear the hoots and whistles at her back. As soon as she was out of their sight, she ran back to the now deserted barrack, where she loosened her hair, put on her own shirt, and left
the white blouse, neatly folded, on the foot of Leonie’s cot.

  “I hope Tirzah won’t be angry that we took so long,” Shayndel said, as she and Tedi hurried toward the kitchen.

  “I guess not,” Tedi said as they opened the door on a scene of cheerful pandemonium. The kitchen was crowded with far too many kibbutzniks, elbowing past each other and chattering as they piled platters with salads and casseroles, fruit and bread, and enough cookies and cakes to fill a pastry shop. In the dining room, the tables had been draped with white cloths and set with wineglasses, bowls of apples, and centerpieces of pine boughs and wildflowers.

  Shayndel tried to pick up a plate, but it was grabbed out of her hands. “I work in the kitchen,” she explained.

  “Not tonight,” said a girl with a mass of curly black hair barely restrained by a green-print kerchief. “Tonight, you will be served by your comrades from Kibbutz Yagur and Kibbutz Beit Oren.

  “Do you know which kibbutz you’ll be going to?” she asked. “I’m at Yagur, just over the hills. Maybe you’ll come to us?”

  “No, no,” said a thin boy with buckteeth. “It’s too hot there. Today up in Beit Oren, we were wearing long sleeves all day. Little Switzerland, we call it.”

  The doors to the dining hall thundered with the sound of pounding fists as the residents of Atlit, dressed up and hungry, whistled and shouted for their dinner.

  Someone improvised new lyrics to an old love song: “Tirzah, my darling, I perish for the sight of your chopped salad. I cannot bear being separated from your noodle soup for even another moment.”

  The kibbutzniks laughed and looked toward Tirzah. She shrugged and waved her wooden spoon like a scepter, and the doors were unlocked.

  After a stampede into the dining hall, there were ooh’s and aah’s about the tablecloths and flowers.

  “Who is getting married?” someone shouted.

  “All I need is a groom!”

  “Here I am.”

  The noise rose to a crescendo as people took seats and expressed opinions about the decorations and the kibbutzniks who lined the walls of the room. “Where is our dinner?” shouted one of the young men who was juggling the apples at his table. Anschel, the religious fanatic, leapt up and cried, “Quiet. Be quiet, all of you. It’s time to bless. What’s the matter with you?”

  Voices fell as a soft “shhhh” made its way from table to table.

  “Who is blessing lights?” Anschel demanded. “Where are our candles?” He glared at the kibbutzniks. “What are you people, gentiles?”

  One of the girls ran into the kitchen and returned with matches and a pair of candles. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  A woman wearing a headscarf stood up and lit the candles. She cupped her hands and floated them above the flames in slow circles—once, twice, three times—before covering her eyes with her fingers and murmuring the prayer.

  Anschel lifted a cup above his head and glared around the room, waiting for others to do the same. Around each table, the men eyed each other and silently determined which one would stand for the blessing. As they raised their cups, he began, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe.” The piercing nasal drone of his voice held everyone in thrall at first, but then others joined, creating a baritone jumble of melodies and accents that conjured a congregation of absent fathers and grandfathers. Tears flowed as the goblets were emptied, but Tirzah gave them no time to mourn, banging the door open wide with a tray piled with golden loaves of challah. She was greeted with applause and chatter, which continued through the brief blessing for bread, which was passed and devoured.

  The apples were sliced, dipped into honey, and fed by girls to boys and by boys to girls amid an orgy of unambiguous finger licking. Leonie nudged Shayndel and pointed at Ilya, a notorious Revisionist who was making eyes at Masha, the rabid Communist, now batting her lashes back at him.

  “A miracle,” said Shayndel.

  A roar greeted the appearance of chicken and potatoes and Tirzah was dragged out of the kitchen for another ovation. Even though the portions of meat were small, there were no complaints in the dining hall. Shayndel called that a miracle, too, though Leonie thought it had more to do with the wine and homemade schnapps, smuggled in by the kibbutzniks.

  “Please” and “thank you” were used as never before. And while the conversation was lively and loud, there was barely any political argument or gossip. “More miracles,” Leonie shouted to Shayndel, who was sitting right beside her until David squeezed between them and held out his hand.

  “We have not been formally introduced,” he boomed, obviously tipsy.

  Shayndel blushed. “I … I told you about David,” she stammered, although she had done no such thing. For two weeks she’d been trying to think of a way to weave David into the story she and Leonie told one another early each morning. She had no idea if he had a brother, or if he would like Leonie. Finally, she had decided it was better not to trouble her friend about David since she wasn’t sure how she felt about him.

  “We’re out of water,” Shayndel said and hurried away with the pitcher.

  As he watched her walk away, David sighed, “I am going to marry her.”

  “You hardly know one another,” Leonie said.

  “Love has nothing to do with time, not in this world anyway.”

  “So you are in love with Shayndel?”

  “Yes, but I’m not sure she feels the same.”

  “She is a very good person,” Leonie said, gripping his arm and speaking directly into his ear. “You must be very good to her. You must take care of her. She takes care of everyone else. She never thinks of herself.”

  “Of course I will take care of her,” said David. “You can keep an eye on me. If I’m not up to the job, you’ll let me know.”

  “Me?” Leonie said. “I would be like an extra wheel. Like putting milk into a cup of wine.”

  “But what about you?” he asked. “Every man in this room is in love with you—well, everyone but me. Why do you chase them all away?”

  “You are drunk, monsieur,” Leonie said, wrinkling her nose at the alcohol on his breath.

  “Yes, but that does not mean I am wrong. Why are you so chilly?” David tried to put his arm around her, but she moved her chair and watched as eight kibbutz girls delivered platters of cookies, cake, and strudel, and bowls of fruit compote. Shayndel followed, a big grin on her face and a plate in each hand.

  She placed one heaped high with sweets in the middle of their table. “This is for everyone to share,” she said. “But the kuchen is mine. See, this one is made with apricot, this has plums, and the third is apple with raisins—which is what I grew up with.”

  Shayndel picked up her fork with a flourish, like a maestro with a baton. She took a small bite of the first two cakes and nodded her approval after each. But the third kuchen required a second taste as she discovered almonds and bits of dried apple that had been moistened with liqueur, and a sweet blend of spices she couldn’t name. This was so far superior to her mother’s baking that Shayndel put her fork down out of loyalty.

  “Is it good?” Leonie asked.

  “Unbelievable,” Shayndel whispered, so serious that everyone at the table burst into laughter.

  David stole a bite from her plate and pretended to swoon, while under the table he pressed his thigh against hers. She frowned and tilted her head toward Leonie, letting him know she was not going anywhere without her friend. David saluted and stumbled off, returning a moment later with Miloz.

  “You sit here,” David said, pushing him into the chair beside Leonie. He pointed at Shayndel and said, “There is an accordion outside, and I simply have to dance with you. Please, mademoiselle?”

  Shayndel started to say no, but Leonie waved her away. “Go on. He will not be denied.”

  Nearly everyone in the hall stared at the vision of Leonie and Miloz side by side. Leonie’s soft brown waves framed her heart-shaped face; a pair of perfect brows arched above eyes the color
of gray clouds on a sunny day. She was the living proof that Parisian girls—including Jewish ones—were congenitally stylish.

  Miloz seemed even more striking sitting beside her. With a long neck and jet-black hair that set off the milky whiteness of his skin, he looked like a Roman statue. It was impossible not to imagine them married and the parents of the most attractive Jewish children in history.

  The attention made them self-conscious and acutely aware of the fact that they had nothing to say to each other. Miloz mashed a piece of cake into a pile of crumbs; Leonie sipped her water. They sighed in union, which made them laugh and turned their discomfort into an alliance.

  “Let’s go watch the dancing,” said Leonie.

  He pulled her chair out for her and offered his arm, which set the men from his barrack to shouting, “Hurrah!”

  Zorah watched them, in spite of herself, and looked around the hall one last time to make sure that Meyer hadn’t arrived without her noticing. That means he is at home with his wife and children, Zorah thought, as she hurried outside, passing through the gauntlet of Arab guards who slouched on either side of the door, watching the festivities.

  As the room emptied, Tedi noticed that the guards were eyeing the dessert table, and brought them a plate of cookies.

  “Thank you very much,” said a small man with a heavy mustache.

  “You speak Hebrew?” Tedi asked.

  “Hebrew and Arabic. I have English, and a little Farsi, too.”

  Another man, who bore a striking resemblance to Arik, the Hebrew teacher, reached for a three-cornered cookie. “My mother makes something like this.” After tasting it, he grimaced.

  Tedi laughed. “Your mother’s are better, yes?”

  “Hers are sweeter.” He reached out to touch her hair and said, “You are sweet, too.”

  Tedi stepped back. “I will get you something better.”

  She sent one of the kibbutz boys over with strudel. The guards waved at her, mouths full, and the Arik look-alike held up a sticky thumb.

  Tedi waved back and then walked through the kitchen to the back door. She passed Tirzah and a group of kibbutzniks who were smoking and talking far too fast for her to understand.