Safekeeping

by Jessamyn Hope

  Ziva shook her head in wonder. “The Iron Curtain’s fallen. Apartheid is over. The Jews and Arabs are making peace. Things are really coming together in time for the next century, aren’t they, Claudette?”

  Knowing next to nothing about any of these things, Claudette remained quiet as she reexamined cubbyhole 37.

  After the pillowcases, Ziva and Claudette folded jeans at a wooden table. The hedge outside the window glistened under a sunshower. Ziva noted how swiftly Claudette folded the jeans into tidy piles and assumed she was responsible for this marked improvement. She had been hard on the girl, but look how much better she worked. She hoped her article “Utopia on the Auction Block” would be as motivating. If she ever finished it.

  Every day after work, she sat down to write, but in the middle of a sentence, her mind would wander, always into the past, leaving her depleted and drowsy. She had even taken a few afternoon naps. She, who had never taken a nap in her life. It didn’t help having that boy lurking about the kibbutz, Franz’s mirror image, confronting her with old pictures. For decades she had gone without seeing a picture of Franz, having only her memories; and it had been powerful to see that xeroxed square and find her memory had not failed her, that all these years, when she would envision Franz on the day he arrived—concave temples, thin, playful lips, his emaciated body swimming in that beige suit—she’d had it right. Only the xerox couldn’t capture the light in his eyes. It had been so long since she was Dagmar, it didn’t feel as if she had lied to the boy. She despised lying, but he had been so fierce, so upset, when he asked about Dagmar’s whereabouts. “That’s between me and Dagmar.” Well, she didn’t want to hear what he had to say, and he couldn’t force her. For fifty years she had lived without knowing how Franz felt about her, and now he was dead. Not knowing at this point was better. And she couldn’t afford the distraction right now. The last person she should be thinking about was Franz, who wouldn’t have given a damn if the kibbutz lived or died. Better to remember Dov, the man who gave the kibbutz everything.

  Dov and she had been doing the laundry that sweltering day everything changed between them. Nothing but a tin vat near the river, lines for hang drying, a canvas tent for escaping the sun. No big machines. No stupid Dana. No Mickey Mouse pillowcases. 1935. They were nineteen years old. Ten years before Franz. She told the boy, Adam, that a few years was nothing at her age, but she didn’t explain that only the later years seemed short, negligible; the young years didn’t shorten along with them. When she and Dov were preparing the vat that afternoon for the dirty clothes, it had been two years since they’d come to Palestine. Those two years had been long and hard; and in her memory, they still were.

  “We need one more,” she said, after he dumped the bucket of water into the tin vat.

  He wiped his brow. “I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.”

  She should have known then that something was wrong. Dov never groused about work. While he headed back to the river with the wooden bucket propped on his shoulder and his white shirt wrapped around his head like a turban, she stoked the fire under the vat.

  Half an hour later, while the two of them shaved palm oil and lye into a bucket of water, a drop hit its surface. Ziva looked up hoping for rain, the fields could use it, but the only drop of water dangled from Dov’s chin. His eyes glowed so blue in his red, sweaty face. She’d never seen her friend perspire like that, but they were squatting near a fire and a tub of boiling water on a hundred-degree day.

  The soap prepared, Dov stood and unwound the shirt from his head, revealing a mess of sun-bleached curls. He slipped his arms into the sleeves. “I’m freezing.”

  “Of course.” Ziva shook her head at him as she used to shake it back in Berlin when on the coldest day he would strut without a scarf and gloves claiming he was hot. She circled around the vat with a pitchfork. “You’re so blond now, you know, you could go back and join the Hitler Youth.”

  Dov flicked hot water from the tank at her. She laughed and flicked him back.

  He squeezed his eyes. “I have to say, I don’t feel very good.”

  “Do you want to go sit in the tent?”

  He shook his head. “No, I think I’ll be all right.”

  Ziva dug the pitchfork into a pile of dirty clothes. While she heaved up a load, Dov dropped behind the vat. Too quickly.

  “Dov?”

  He didn’t answer.

  She let go of the pitchfork, walked around the vat, and found Dov convulsing on the dirt, the seat of his khaki shorts soaked brown. She scanned for help, but everyone else was in the fields, no one moving about the cluster of white tents up the hill. She would just have to handle this alone. She hooked her arms under Dov’s armpits and dragged him toward the tent, leaving a trail of watery stool in the dirt.

  It was barely cooler inside the white tent. Dov curled on the ground, clutching his stomach, while she knifed a hole in the canvas cot, as she had learned to do from a cholera pamphlet distributed by the Jewish Agency. She felt nothing as she stepped over Dov to fetch a bucket. There was no time for feelings. The pamphlet warned that in high heat a cholera sufferer could die of dehydration within hours. She had to keep him hydrated. That was her one goal. She returned with an emptied bucket and placed it under the hole in the cot.

  “Come.” She strained to help him up. When they arrived on the kibbutz, he hadn’t been much taller than her. A late bloomer, in his seventeenth year, he had shot up. Once he lay on the cot, buttocks over the carved-out hole, she hastened to unbutton his shorts and pull off his underwear, keeping her eyes averted from his penis. As soon as they were removed, diarrhea spouted through the hole, splashing into the bucket. The tent filled with the smell of rotting fish.

  Dov wheezed, “I’m sorry, Ziva.”

  Even so sick, he didn’t call her Dagmar. Ever since that first night on the Kampala, when she told him she never wanted to be called Dagmar again, he had never once faltered, even though he had known her as Dagmar nearly as long as he had known his own name. He understood how much she no longer wanted to be Dagmar Stahlmann of the velvet hair bows, daughter of a weak, humiliated people, but Ziva Peled, descendant of Judah the Maccabee, intrepid pioneer.

  “Don’t be silly.” She drew a sheet over his body, covering the thatch of ash blond pubic hair. She hadn’t known a man’s pubic hair could be so light.

  She hurried to fill a canteen with boiled water from the vat. How lucky they hadn’t yet added the soap or dirty clothes. She had to replace his fluids as fast as he lost them. The pamphlet cautioned that most cholera patients refused to drink, that she would have to force him. Kneeling beside him, she brought the canteen to his lips. “I know it’s hot, but please take a sip.” Dov’s face twisted from the effort, but he did sip.

  For the rest of the afternoon, as the sun traveled from the ridge of the tent down its western slope, Dov never refused to drink, except when he couldn’t help but throw up. His milky vomit expelled in violent convulsions. His diarrhea also resembled skimmed milk, speckled with grains of rice. Both reeked of fish.

  “Hey!” Danny, the American pioneer, poked his head into the tent, the sky behind him a dusky rose. “We were wondering why—”

  He stopped midsentence.

  Ziva held a cloth against Dov’s forehead. “Get salt and sugar!”

  Danny returned with tins from the kitchen and two other pioneers. Darkness fell with the three men waiting outside the tent for Ziva to hand them buckets of waste to dump and canteens to fill. When they struck matches to light their cigarettes, their figures flared on the tent’s inner walls like shadow puppets. She asked them for a lamp.

  Dov lost consciousness. Stopped sipping. Ziva poured water into his mouth, but it filled like a bath and overflowed. His face wizened in a matter of hours: the eyes retreated into their sockets, the cheeks and temples caved, the lips shriveled. When two hours passed without a canteen needing to be refilled, Danny peeked into the tent.

  Ziva stepped outside. “Please, go
to bed. We can’t all be too tired to work tomorrow.”

  “Are you sure, Ziva?”

  “Yes. Dov wouldn’t want us all standing around.”

  On her way back from dumping yet another pail of milky waste, Ziva thought: nobody dies of cholera in Berlin anymore. Dov could have lived out a long life surrounded by his family. Does he regret coming here now? Better to die like a man than live like a dog. That was something they both liked to say, and Dov didn’t waver, didn’t change his mind when it was convenient. She was sure even death couldn’t get him to back away from his ideals. That’s why she loved him.

  Love? She stopped and stood with the emptied pail, staring at the tent glowing in the darkness. How could she have not realized it before? What else could it be? This terror she felt at the prospect of the sun rising from behind the hills tomorrow morning and shining down on a world without Dov? This feeling that if Dov died the Promised Land would lose some of its promise? This difficulty she had believing that any two people had ever been as close?

  Ziva reentered the tent where Dov lay still as a corpse. She sat on the floor, ready with the water. The blackest hour of the night passed, and the hour after it. She laid her head on the cot, closed her eyes. Within seconds she was in Frau Kessler’s dance class, waltzing with a Dov not much taller than her, laughing as he kept stepping on her toes.

  She scrambled to her feet. Had she fallen asleep? While Dov needed her? Unforgivable. How long had she been out? The bucket under the cot didn’t contain much waste. Did that mean he was getting better or worse? She paced the tent. This night felt like a battle between her and fate, and she wasn’t sure who was winning.

  She shook Dov. “Wake up!” His eyes fluttered. “Wake up!” She brought the canteen to his mouth.

  He sipped.

  Eventually the sun crested the hills and glowed through the hem of the tent.

  Dov squinted at her through one eye. “I hope you didn’t forget the laundry.”

  She laughed. She adored him for his sense of humor. His perseverance. She wrapped an arm over his chest and rested her forehead on his. They remained like that for a long time.

  When she finally lifted her head, Dov said, “Ziva, will you marry me?”

  What marriage was going to look like in this new society, they didn’t know, only that it was going to be nothing like traditional marriage, the family unit being a form of exclusivity that undermined the health of the larger community. But whatever marriage would mean, obviously there was no man she should be wedded to more than Dov. They were going to be the kibbutz’s very first couple.

  She kissed his cheek. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

  Ziva looked around the modern laundry. The large washer in a spin cycle rattled and shook like it was trying to escape. Outside, the sunshower had become a downpour, blurring the windows. Dana had changed the radio station and was singing along to a pop song, bopping her head and shoulders as she ironed. Claudette was halfway through a new cart of jeans. Yes, the young woman was much better today. The happy pop song was followed by a lovesick one: Baby, baby, I’ll never get over you, baby.

  Dana asked Claudette if she had a boyfriend back home.

  Claudette shook her head without taking her gaze off her folding.

  “Oh, I bet you’re going to meet a nice Israeli boy!”

  Claudette ignored this, and Ziva considered whether she might have misjudged the young woman. Now that Claudette wasn’t driving her to distraction, she could see her more clearly, and she wasn’t like the other volunteers. For one thing, she didn’t wear makeup and hoop earrings and T-shirts that were either ridiculously large or desperately tight.

  Dana smirked and raised her eyebrows. “What do you think of Israeli men, Claudette? Do you think they’re handsome?”

  Claudette shrugged, eyes remaining on the jeans in her hands.

  “No? You don’t think Israeli men are sexy? Too macho?”

  Claudette finally raised her head, and Ziva was taken aback by the terror in her eyes. Terror was the only way to describe it.

  “Oh, leave the girl be,” Ziva said. “Not everyone is as sex-crazed as you, Dana.”

  Dana laughed. “I don’t believe it! Some people just aren’t in touch with what’s going on in their mind and body. My mother once told me you used to listen to your body, Ziva. Hmm? She said you had quite a few lovers. Is that true? Come on, it’s such a long time ago, you can admit it now. Did you?”

  “The apple doesn’t fall far, does it? Your mother was the kibbutz gossip, and now it’s you. You know, I heard you the other day, Dana, spewing your shtuyot. And so did Eyal. You should be ashamed.”

  “Eyal, poor man, I don’t think he’s had sex in ten years. Not since Orna left him.”

  “Dana! What makes you think I want to hear this? And besides, he left her. She wanted him to leave the kibbutz, and he wouldn’t go.”

  “Well, doesn’t it bother you that you’re not going to have any grandchildren?”

  “All the children on the kibbutz are my grandchildren, Dana. I don’t care about passing on my bloodline. I care about passing on my ideals, my hard work. If the kibbutz dies—if you people kill it—then I’ll have no lineage.”

  Dana cocked her head, pursed her lips. “You still haven’t answered my question, Ziva. Did you have a lot of lovers?”

  “What I can’t understand is what difference it makes to you.”

  “Just curious. Did you?”

  “No, Dana. I did not. There was my husband, Dov. And that’s it. I know your generation must find that shocking. Now will you leave it alone?”

  Dana smiled and shook her head. “One person your whole life! I don’t know how you people did it. And the kids today aren’t having much fun either, aside from Talia. Oh, the sixties, now that was a good time!”

  The three women folded in silence. As Claudette worked through the jeans—a fat woman’s elastic waist, a young man’s faded Levi’s, a little girl’s pink pair—she thought: other people had boyfriends, husbands, mothers, friends, children. They snuggled under blankets, hugged in metro stations, kissed goodnight, walked hand in hand. That’s what other people did while she disinfected the sink.

  When Dana left for the bathroom, Ziva said, “Are you all right, Claudette?”

  Claudette nodded.

  “You looked scared before. You look a little scared right now.”

  Claudette shook her head.

  “Well, speak, Claudette! If you’re okay, say so.”

  “I’m okay. Thank you.”

  “Dana is always bullying people to talk about their private lives. She’s so stupid she can’t help it.”

  “I understand.”

  “You know, if you’re ever scared, you can tell me. I’m very good at toughening people up.”

  Dana returned and fidgeted with the radio antennas, but all she got was static. She turned it off. “Fucking rain.”

  Ziva folded, remembering how scared she had been that first night she and Dov were expected to sleep together. The group voted to give them a private tent every Shabbat, saying, “Make the kibbutz’s first child!” Every other day, so as not to undermine the supremacy of the group, they would sleep with the others in one of the main tents. To this day, the smell of kerosene brought her back to that first Shabbat, lying in the darkness after Dov snuffed the lamp. Outside the others sang around a campfire. No more tradition’s chains shall bind us. Arise, you slaves, no more in thrall! The earth shall rise on new foundations. We have been naught, we shall be all.

  Dov perched on the edge of her cot, carefully, as if he didn’t want to wake her. The awkwardness was upsetting. Until now she had always felt as comfortable around Dov as she felt by herself. With a serious expression on his face, he gently laid a hand on her shoulder. She wanted to laugh, but was afraid that would ruin what was supposed to be a romantic moment. She’d never stifled a laugh around him before. As Dov’s familiar face came toward her, she assured herself that this made sen
se. Who else was she supposed to make love to if not the person she loved the most?

  Their lips met. She felt little. She kissed him back, feeling as if she were playing make-believe, pretending that she was married, pretending that she was being swept off her feet. Having never made love before, she didn’t know if it always felt like pretending, if everybody pretended to feel what they read in books and saw in the moving pictures. Dov’s hand moved up her thigh and inside the leg of her shorts. She braced, and yet it still surprised her, the jolt she felt when his fingertips grazed her there. Just a soft, quick touch and his hand retreated down her thigh.

  Unease gave way to curiosity. When his hand once again crept up her thigh, she nearly moaned, but caught herself in time. How embarrassing, to moan like that in front of her friend. His hand did not venture any closer. It loitered, hesitant, inches away. Holding her breath, Ziva reached into her shorts and laid Dov’s hand between her legs. His lips stilled on her mouth. His hand froze. Was he unsure what to do? Too self-conscious? Uninterested? Repulsed?

  He withdrew his hand, leaving Ziva feeling like an idiot, unsure why she had gotten it into her head that her ugly vagina was something someone would want to touch.

  He turned his back to her and unbuttoned his shirt. “I suppose we should undress.”

  Ziva unbuttoned her shorts to boisterous singing. We shall not cease, for still our strength is rising higher. For dauntless is our will, and our hearts are on fire! She laid the shorts on the floor and started undoing her shirt. Last she peeled off her underwear. The summer night was warm but her skin still goosebumped.

  She lay back on the cot and considered her body: pale breasts falling to the sides, brown nipples, smooth belly, mound of black hair, strong, tanned thighs, much tanner than her chest. Did she glow like her mother’s favorite painting, the uniformly pale Nude Maja? She would know perhaps when Dov turned around.

  “Ready?” he said.