The Covenant (36 page)

She didn’t feel afraid, not for those first few moments, as she slowly pivoted. The baby carriage wheels and a bottle, she thought, staring at the littered pavement. Someone’s arm. Half a head. And blood, blood everywhere, and the choking smell of something so foul and dense she tried not to breathe for as long as she could. Mouths were opened as if screaming, but she heard nothing. She tried to take a step, but the ground was suddenly slippery, like ice. Ice in the Middle Eastern morning sun, she thought, looking at her arm, or what was left of it. She opened her mouth to scream. Only then was she fully aware she wasn’t going to be reporting this from the sidelines. That she was going to be part of the story.

She could hear no sound as she slipped down to the pavement. My hair, she thought, feeling the glass needles in her scalp. My ears, my head, my blue eyes, my body. For the first time, she was terrified.

Terrorism. To instill terror. Yes. That word. The perfect word for who they are and what they do. Terrorists.

Am I going to live, she wondered. Or have I been killed? Is this the way you feel when you are killed? Or am I alive? She held on to that idea, until she thought of something else. Maybe it wasn’t over. Maybe someone was going to come after her now with a machine gun, someone who doesn’t know I have been on their side all along, who didn’t understand her being here at this moment was just an accident, an accident. This is all a huge mistake! A mistake! I’m not part of this conflict! It has nothing to do with me, something inside of her screamed.

It was then she saw it. The baby bottle that had rolled on its side and lay near her on the ground. She felt herself suddenly sob.

A spasm of pain went through her that she found unbelievable in its intensity, and then the pain in her body was strangely dulled. She felt oddly calm as she lay there in the dark, silent, slippery ground. As she lay there, waiting. My white suit, my favorite emerald blouse, she remembered. And then she felt nothing, nothing at all.

Chapter Thirty-three

Ben Gurion Airport, Lod
Friday, May 10, 2002
8:00
A.M.

I
T WAS A
little strange having such a handsome young man accompany her, Leah thought, holding on to Milos’s arm as he ushered her carefully into the arrivals lounge of Ben Gurion Airport to await the arrival of Esther’s private plane carrying her three dear friends. It had been some time since a man, any man, had been good enough to open a car door, chauffeur her, help her across a street…

Not that she was feeling sorry for herself. Thank God. Feet she had, to walk; hands she had, to open her own car doors… But as she gripped his strong, young arm (Leave me alone! I’m an old lady, she told the disapproving little voice shouting in her ear that it was forbidden for a man and woman not married to each other to touch) she couldn’t help but think of Mendel, her son, so far away. She’d called him, told him all about what was going on. He’d been very nice. Really. He and his wife. He wanted to come, to help. Maybe he would. She gripped a little harder.

“Come,
Babcia
. . . Come sit down,” Milos said, leading her over to the seats with a good view of the giant projection screen that flashed the images of incoming passengers to those waiting for them in the arrivals lounge, making them look, Leah thought, like movie stars.

“ ‘Bo-Chuh?’ . . . This is what you call your own grandmother?”

“Yes,” he smiled, helping her carefully into the seat.

“You’re a good boy, Milos. A good grandson.”

She thought of her own grandson, the skateboarding cowboy… God bless him. Maybe he too was a good boy…

She settled back, seeking a comfortable position on the modernistic metallic-mesh seating. Who designed such a thing for the backsides of human beings, she wondered. A robot? And did you need to be a genius to buy them for a whole airport, to make old ladies suffer? But this new arrivals lounge at Ben Gurion was still a big improvement on the old one with that glass partition separating the passengers from the welcomers—all those people smoking and the babies crying and everyone pushing to get a little look at who had gotten off the plane.

The Israelis had rebuilt the thing after that Japanese murderer—that Kozo, Bozo, something
Aki-meshugana-Moto
—took out a machine gun from his suitcase and began to shoot… What did a Jew ever do to him? He didn’t have enemies in Tokyo? He had to invent them halfway around the world? She shrugged. Should have hanged him. But go convince the Israeli government that the death penalty was good for somebody less than an Eichmann. He was probably still sitting in some Israeli jail eating gefilte fish and humous with chopsticks…

So, this was a nicer terminal, even if the seats were like putting your behind in a blender.

She looked up at the flickering red lights on the arrivals board, even though she knew the flight she was waiting for wouldn’t be listed. “A private plane. Imagine! Your own plane to fly around the world in! What a girl, that Esther! What a girl. And beautiful, blond, blue-eyed Maria, who could get any man to do anything, even bald in Auschwitz. And tall, slim, lovely Ariana, with her stories of summer homes in Cannes, and banquet feasts prepared by her famous parents’ chef… stories that had wound around them like magic, banishing the freezing cold, the starvation… They had only made it through because of each other. Because of the Covenant. They had all lived to see children and grandchildren; to see their hair turn gray, their stomachs grow fat.

She wondered if they’d changed much, and if they’d be shocked when they saw her.

She looked around at people, all of them in various stages of decay. Because that’s what it amounted to: from the moment you stopped growing
in your twenties, you started deteriorating. You could, of course, with vigorous exercise, expensive creams, good food and plenty of rest, slow down the sag, shrink the bulge, lighten the creases. You could cajole the organs to keep up their pumping and emptying, without too many strikes or slowdowns. But sooner or later, it caught up with you. One day, you could be the kind of old lady who jogged to the supermarket and whipped up gourmet dinners, and the next you could slip on a sidewalk over nothing and find yourself in a wheelchair in front of
The Bold and the Beautiful
, wolfing down Meals On Wheels. Or you could get a bad grade on a medical test, the only kind of test where when you flunked, you died. Hearts, lungs, bones, blood—the raw materials that kept one alive—were so vulnerable. They wore out, wore down. But the spirit, that was another story. The soul of good people got stronger and more beautiful as time went by, experiencing life with more wisdom and gratitude. Her friends were all such good people.

How she longed to see them!

She saw Milos come toward her across the terminal.

“Milos! You look as white as the moon! What’s wrong?” she asked, shocked at the change in his appearance.

“I’m sorry to bring you bad news. But there’s been a terrorist attack in the center of Jerusalem. A suicide bomber detonated himself.”

“Oy.
Gotteinu!”
Leah’s fingers gripped her dress. “How bad?”

“Six dead. Forty-five wounded.”

“Gotteinu.”
She placed her hand over her heart.

“One of the victims was Julia Greenberg.”

Leah looked up sharply, incredulous, then resigned.
“Baruch Dayan Ernes.”

“What does that mean?” Milos asked.

“ ‘Blessed be the true judge…’ ”

“Look,
Babcia
, I know what she did to you was terrible. But she didn’t deserve this. No one does.”

She put her hand gently on his arm. “It’s what we always say when we hear bad news.”

“Oh, I see. Look. I feel somehow… I don’t know… I’ve got to go to her. I feel… I owe…” He stuttered.

“You have a good heart, Milos,” Leah said kindly, shaking her head. “Not like mine. Like your own
babcia
‘s. Go, child.”

“You’ll be all right here by yourself? You’ll explain to my grandmother what happened?”

“Yes. Of course. Go, go. Anyway, do you think Esther Gold would travel to Jerusalem in your beat-up Skoda? Go,” she said, pinching his cheek.

He kissed each wrinkled hand, then walked away.

She sat back on the metal mesh, staring at the screen, thinking with horror of the young, pretty reporter. And then she closed her eyes, remembering another roomful
of
pretty young women, so long ago…

“You, you, you, you, raus, raus!” the SS guard shouted, pointing his whip at all four of them. Snarling dogs bared vicious teeth, straining at their leashes. “To the side, all of you! And you, you, you, you, you, you, you!” He pointed his whip at other girls: “Raus, raus”

It took a few moments until the realization sunk in. After all the mornings the
selektion
had passed them by, letting them live another day; this time, they’d been chosen.

“It’s because of me! It’s my fault, because I am sick,” Esther sobbed. “I told you to leave me behind!”

“Jiesus have mercy,” Maria whispered, holding on to Esther. “Wait a minute. Took around!”

But they were not among the old, the sick. They were surrounded by dozens of the youngest, prettiest girls in the camp!

They were herded into a truck and taken to an empty barracks.

“Take off your clothes!” the SS guards barked at them. They slipped off the pitiful rags, shivering. With agonizing modesty, they spread out their fingers, trying to make their hands cover their bodies as they huddled together for warmth and protection from the terrible unknown.

SS doctors in warm clothes and shiny leather boots passed through their ranks, shining flashlights over their bodies, and into their mouths.

“Hold out your hands! We are taking you to a factory in which delicate work must be performed. We want to see if you have the hands for it!”

They looked at each other, not daring to hope.

“If they touch my hands, they’ll feel I am sick…” Esther whispered, sobbing.

“You have cooled off from being out in the cold. You have no sores. Your eyes are lovely. They will not find anything, fust don’t cry…” Leah begged her. “Don’t cry, my Esther.” She held her waist in a strong grip.

They could see the doctors’ male eyes focus on their bodies, their young women’s bodies, making them all merge together. They would not notice something as human as a face. They would not notice Esther’s limbs were only upright because of the women’s hands that grasped her firmly on either side.

“RAUS!”

But no whips were used, no clubs. No dogs. They didn’t want to damage the bodies, Maria realized. Their women’s bodies. They were taken to another barracks and allowed to take a shower.

Pandemonium broke out. Clean water! And real soap! They laughed and wept and held each other, shampooing each other’s hair for the first time since they’d arrived, scrubbing their bodies, evaporating the accumulated layers of filth.

They were in a state of shock, almost giddy with delight, almost ready to die from the joy of it! A shower with soap! A new light came into Esther’s eyes at the feel of the water streaming over her body, as if her downward spiral had suddenly halted, found some solid ground, some base. She suddenly felt human again, connected as a human being back to the world of human beings she had been ripped out of with such brutality.

They dried each other off. Towels? Were they dreaming? Were they already dead and in heaven?

They were taken to the storerooms and given clean women’s underwear: bras, panties, camisoles, and scarves to cover their heads… And then they were given dresses and shoes, and asked to try them on, to see if they fit.

Imagine! Fitted clothes!

It was like a dream, a dream.

“In a minute, we’ll wake up, and it will all vanish.” Leah shook her head.

“No, my parents have finally come for me. We are being dressed to go home,” Ariana said dreamily.

“All of us?” Esther smiled, glancing at the hundred other girls whose excited chatter filled the room with almost a normal sound, after the desperate noises of the lager.

“My parents can arrange everything.” Ariana laughed, pulling on a pair of stylish high heels, and a red wool dress. “My father is the director faques Feyder, my mother the actress Francoise Rosay!” she told them, as if she hadn’t said it a thousand times a day every day since she’d arrived.

They stared at each other, at the wondrous transformation. They were human again. Girls again. It was unbelievable.

“Look at Esther!” Leah giggled.

Esther adjusted the rose-colored collar on her dress.

“Like a fashion model.” Maria smiled, adjusting the buttons of a white blouse.