Page 41 of One of Them

D elia left her coat folded on the cot and followed Sophie out of the tent.

Together they walked to the children’s house a short distance away.

Inside the low, stucco-covered building were about twenty-five small children mostly grouped in twos and threes.

Many of them sat at small tables; some were coloring with crayons, others playing with wooden blocks.

Two little boys rolled a ball back and forth on the floor; a girl leaned over a rag doll in a cardboard shoe box, arranging a scrap of cloth over her like a blanket.

And in a corner, by himself, was a boy with blond ringlets and very bright blue eyes—Delia could see them even from where she stood.

Sophie’s gaze followed Delia’s. “That’s him,” Sophie said.

Delia could hear the anguish in the words.

She watched the boy as he arranged some small wooden animals in a row.

He was careful about where and how he placed them; he seemed to want them to be equally distant from one another, adjusting the creatures—a cow, a pig, a rooster—again and again, in an apparent effort to get it right.

When he was done, he lifted his hand and knocked them all down.

The girl looked up briefly; seconds later, she was back to tending to her doll.

Asher picked up the wooden cow and placed it in front of him. Then the pig, the rooster, and some others. And just like before, after he’d carefully and painstakingly arranged them, he knocked them all down again. This time, the girl picked up her doll and box and went somewhere else.

“Does he do that all day?” Delia asked.

“That, or something like it.” She continued to watch him.

“Come. I’ll introduce you.” Delia followed her across the room and waited while Sophie spoke to him.

Asher ignored her and continued to arrange his animals in the same meticulous order.

When he’d set the last of them in place, he finally looked up.

His beautiful blue eyes held no expression.

Delia tried a small, tentative smile. He did not smile back.

His steady blue gaze was disconcerting. She reached out her hand, and for a moment, it seemed like he would take it.

But suddenly he grabbed the pig and threw it directly at her face.

“Asher!” Sophie seized his wrists before he could throw anything else.

The other children looked startled, and the young woman who’d been overseeing the group herded them away.

The pig had hit Delia’s forehead, and when she touched her fingers to the spot, they came away sticky with blood.

Sophie had her hands on Asher’s shoulders and was talking to him, urgently, passionately, in Hebrew, which Delia could not understand.

But what she could understand was how deeply engaged with this boy her mother was; how connected.

She couldn’t remember Sophie ever speaking to her like that; she’d never raised her voice and rarely been angry, only annoyed or impatient.

Mostly she was distracted, her attention always wandering, in search of something or someone else.

Could Delia actually be jealous of Asher, jealous of how much Sophie seemed to care about him?

Finally, Sophie released Asher, and the young woman, who’d been watching all this time, stepped in. Sophie spoke to her and then turned to Delia. “Are you all right? Can we get you a bandage?”

“I’m fine. The bleeding’s stopped.” Delia had pressed her handkerchief to the wound; it was nothing more than superficial.

“Still, it couldn’t hurt to wash it off and cover it.”

“It’s okay,” Delia said. “Really.” She wanted to get out of there, away from this strange child who happened to be her brother.

“If you’re sure...”

“I am.”

Sophie glanced at her watch. “You must be hungry. We didn’t have lunch. But it’s almost time for dinner. Let’s go get something to eat.”

“I am hungry.” Delia hoped dinner would not involve the cabbage she’d smelled earlier.

They left the children’s house and stepped outside.

Delia took a deep breath, and then another.

Sophie had tried to prepare her for meeting Asher.

Still, the boy’s small act of violence had shaken her.

It was not herself that she was concerned about—she’d leave this place soon, and she never had to return.

But Sophie couldn’t do that; she was bound to this child for years to come.

Forever. Again, Delia felt that spiky twist of jealousy.

Sophie had been quite able to leave her .

The dining hall came into view; people were already heading in.

Just outside the doors, Delia saw someone waving at her, calling her, actually—who could it be?

Was that Anne ? It was. Why was she here?

But before Delia could call back, a great crashing sound seemed to rise up from behind her, and she was thrown into the air.

A small shriek escaped her lips, and for a few awful seconds, she could feel her arms and legs flailing.

Then she landed, hard, in the dirt. She was aware of grit in her eyes, dust in her mouth, before the impact knocked the consciousness right out of her.

When Delia came to, she had no idea where she was or what had happened. Then she saw Sophie, her face constricted with worry. “You’re awake!” Sophie said. “Finally!”

“Where am I?”

“The hospital in Be’er Sheva. Someone threw a grenade in the window of the dining room. Several grenades, actually. There was an explosion, and you were hurt.”

Delia attempted to stitch the recent events together in her mind: the noise, the building collapsing, the screaming.

And fire, there must have been fire, because she remembered the acrid smell of smoke.

Her head hurt. So did her shoulder. And her, what—foot?

Ankle? The entire lower part of her leg radiated pain. “What about Asher?”

“He’s fine. All the children are fine. Frightened, of course. But none of them was hurt.”

“Was anyone else hurt?”

Sophie’s eyes filled with tears. “A few people,” she said. “And two were killed.”

“What?” Delia didn’t even ask who, because apart from being led to Sophie’s tent by Hadas, she hadn’t talked to anyone else there. But still, it was terrible to think people had been killed. She closed her eyes again.

“Do you want anything?” Sophie asked. “You never got any dinner.”

“I’m not hungry now.” Delia would no longer describe her head as hurting; she needed a stronger word to convey the sensation of it being held in a vise and squeezed, squeezed, squeezed.

There was a burning sensation in both her foot and her ankle; the pain had expanded and made it impossible to locate the source.

“What I want is for it to stop,” she said.

“You want what to stop?” Sophie looked confused.

“Everything!” Delia burst out. “Please, make it all stop!”