Page 36 of One of Them

D elia stood looking out the large plate glass window at the Orly airport.

There was the plane that would take her to Tel Aviv.

It was a dull brushed silver and had four small propellers, two under each wing.

She’d never been in an airplane before, never even been this close to one.

It looked magnificent, this sleek machine that could rise up into the sky and soar through it.

Would they go through clouds? Rain? She looked impatiently at the large clock on the wall; still another twenty to thirty minutes before they boarded.

When they were finally aloft, Delia peered out the tiny oval of the window and watched the buildings, trees, and roads drop away and then disappear from view.

The sound of the propellers was like the beating of a thousand birds’ wings.

Anne sat next to her, face pressed against the seat, eyes closed.

How was she able to sleep? Delia was feeling more charitably disposed toward her, which was surprising.

Every time Delia thought she knew Anne, she found out something new about her, another facet of her nature.

The plane stopped in Turkey to refuel, filling the cabin with a biting noxious odor.

Anne opened her eyes and looked around briefly before closing them again.

Delia leaned forward, eager for the plane to ascend once more.

When the refueling was completed, the plane took off smoothly into the air.

Glorious. Delia looked out the window at the voluminous banks of clouds and remembered the game she’d played as a little girl, trying to decipher the shapes they made—this one a whale, that one a pig, still another a leaping rabbit.

The effort distracted and even lulled her; without realizing it, she too fell asleep, waking when the plane hit the ground.

Passengers started unbuckling their seat belts, gathering their belongings, and pressing into the aisle. Everyone was eager to disembark. Delia and Anne joined them but had to wait; it took another twenty minutes for them to actually leave the plane and find their way into the crowded terminal.

Drew was there waiting for them, and Delia stood quietly apart as he and Anne moved into an embrace.

Then they all found their way to the baggage claim area.

Once their valises had been retrieved, Drew led them outside and hailed a taxi that drove along a broad, bustling street lined with trees and modern-looking buildings, most of which had terraces.

The buses were double-deckers, like in London.

They passed a fountain, then a minaret, and turned onto a roundabout.

Delia spied a sign, in English and what had to be Hebrew, that read “Allenby Road.” Soon they stopped in front of the hotel where Anne had gotten them two rooms. Though she was exhausted, Delia agreed to have dinner in the hotel dining room, which, with its minimal decoration, cheap, heavy china, and bent and dinged cutlery, was serviceable and nothing more.

“I thought I’d go with you tomorrow,” Anne said after they had ordered.

“To the kibbutz?”

Anne nodded. “I’d like to see it. And you probably shouldn’t go alone.”

“She’s right,” Drew said. “You should have someone with you. I’ve gone ahead and hired a guide for Anne so he can help you get to the bus station. You’re going to Be’er Sheva, right?”

“Yes, Be’er Sheva.”

“And what about after that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a taxi?”

“There won’t be a taxi.”

“Well, then I’ll figure out something else.” Delia wanted the conversation to be over.

“What if the guide goes with you? I’ve paid him for the day, so he’d be willing.”

“All right.” Delia wanted to appease him. “Thank you for the offer.” She excused herself before dessert.

Her room was bare-bones—a narrow metal-framed bed, sheets that were clean but of a coarse cotton and covered by a worn blanket, a small bureau, a single chair—but she didn’t care.

Not even bothering to undress, she stretched herself out on the bed nearest the door and fell into a deep, almost drugged sleep.

She woke before it was light. Good. She had no intention of letting Anne accompany her; she had gotten herself a map and a little Hebrew phrasebook she’d been studying on the plane.

She could find her way to the bus station on her own.

And once she got to Be’er Sheva, she’d figure out a way to get to the kibbutz.

Breakfast wasn’t being served yet, though she was able to order coffee in a small white cup; it was so thick and gluey as to be almost undrinkable, and she abandoned it after a couple of sips.

She stepped out into the day. The sky was a clear, almost impossible blue, so bright and cloudless that it hurt her eyes.

She would need to buy sunglasses; somehow, she hadn’t even thought to pack them.

She passed block after block of crisp white buildings—Delia recognized them as International Style, from photographs she’d seen—that glittered like sugar cubes.

Even though it was December, the sun was so warm that she unbuttoned her mink; she really didn’t need it here.

On her way to the station, she passed an open-air market that was louder and more chaotic than the French markets of her childhood.

The voices were strident, even yelling, and there was an uneasy kinetic energy to the place.

Two men argued loudly over something—price?

Quality?—and a woman wearing a kerchief, a long skirt, and an apron squatted in the middle of the bustling place, leaving a large wet patch in the dirt.

Along with the bread, cheese, olives, and figs for sale, Delia saw brightly painted and glazed ceramic dishes, battered pots and vessels of copper or bronze, and live animals—chickens, geese, a calf, a trio of goats with coarse, bristly fur, black eyes, and delicate little hooves on which they seemed to perch rather than stand.

Most of the vendors seemed old, or at least as if their lives here had prematurely aged them—worn and creased skin, gray or white stubble, hands calloused, skin like leather.

Judging from the caftans they wore, many looked to be Arabs.

But there was one woman, quite young, really no older than Delia, standing in front of a grouping of woven rugs, many of which were unfurled and almost glowing in daylight.

Above the rugs, on a length of twine secured to a pair of metal posts, hung a few caftans, mostly black, a few white, all covered in the most meticulously embroidered designs—stylized leaves, flowers, a pattern of vines that ran across the entire front and up over the shoulders. Delia slowed to look.

“You like?” said the girl. Beneath the dark headdress that covered her hair, her face was an elegant oval, with dark brows, small, very dark eyes, and smooth skin that seemed to be without pores.

“I do.” Delia touched the careful stitching of a black caftan whose embroidery was mostly gold, with a few touches of brilliant red—long sinuous lines, delicate arcs, and multifoliate shapes like exploding stars.

“I give you good price.” The girl named a sum that Delia, even with her limited grasp of the local currency and its relative value, thought was very low.

That red, somehow even more arresting and vivid than the gold, made Delia think of those red pillows in their Paris apartment.

Paris. That was a time when her family, though standing on a fault line, had been more or less intact.

A time before her mother had shattered it.

Sophie would have loved the caftan. But did Delia really care what Sophie would have loved?

Then she looked up and saw the eager expression on the girl’s face, the hope in her eyes.

She was clearly expecting Delia to buy the caftan, and Delia couldn’t disappoint her.

She reached for her money and started counting out the shekels.

The girl smiled broadly and began to fold the garment, but Delia shook her head.

“No,” she said. “You keep it. Keep the money too.” The girl looked puzzled, but finally she seemed to understand and tucked the bills into a pocket buried deep in the folds of her dress.

Before she walked away, Delia stopped and waved. The girl waved back. “Todah rabah,” she called after her. Thank you. Delia knew that much from the phrase book.

The bus station was as crowded and chaotic as the open-air market had been; Delia had to fight her way in, and then make her way to the line where she could purchase a ticket.

When she told the man behind the counter she wanted to go to Be’er Sheva, he waved both hands at her: Hurry.

She ran outside to a pale-green bus that was about to pull away, but when she knocked on the door, the driver let her on.

“Be’er Sheva?” she asked, and he nodded, as if saying anything were too great an expenditure of energy.

There were no seats, though, and Delia had to hold on tightly as the bus swerved and lurched.

Soon they were out of the city, and the green foliage—it must have rained the night before, because the leaves glittered with droplets—gave way to a landscape that was drier and more barren than any she’d ever seen.

This must be the Negev—vast, parched, and mostly empty except for two boys trudging along the side of the road with a donkey.

She followed their progress briefly until the bus outpaced the pair, leaving them behind in a plume of dust.

In Be’er Sheva, Delia climbed down from the bus and looked around.

The station was smaller, and on a chalkboard she saw departure times for buses heading north—Chadera, Haifa, Jerusalem, or back to Tel Aviv.

But there seemed to be nothing going south, and when she told a ticket agent where she was headed, he shook his head.

“No bus.” Like the girl in the market, his English was thickly accented but still comprehensible.