Page 49 of One of Them

Then one of the caretakers—a tall, hefty woman Delia remembered from the time she’d been here before—planted herself in Asher’s path and began talking to him.

He didn’t react, didn’t even look at her, but Delia could see that his grip on the crayons hadn’t loosened; he still held the bunch of them tightly.

Another of the caretakers, this one with red hair done in pigtails, came over and took Asher by the shoulders while the first woman pried the crayons loose; when he finally surrendered them, he threw them all over the floor.

He remained impassive throughout this exchange, and then allowed himself to be led to a corner while the crayons were gathered up and redistributed.

The girl who’d been crying sniffed loudly before settling down to work.

Delia watched all this from her place near the door.

All was calm now. The children were coloring again.

Asher was silent and immobile in the corner.

There was no expression on his face, and he stared straight ahead.

Why did this suddenly fill her with such sorrow?

She made her way over to him. It was too awkward to sit down with the crutches, but she stood close and said “Shalom.” There was no reaction, and she really couldn’t come up with anything else to say in Hebrew, so she switched to French.

Maybe Sophie spoke French to him sometimes; it was possible.

If he understood her, he gave no sign. Then some words from long ago came into her head; they were from a song her nanny sung to her as a child, and she began to sing them now.

Veux tu monter dans mon batteau?

Ton batteau, c’est pas beau.

Veux tu monter dans mon batteau? C’est pas bien beau, mais il va sur l’eau.

Do you want to ride in my boat?

Your boat’s not pretty.

Do you want to ride in my boat? It’s not very pretty but it sails on the water.

Silly, but she had liked it, and still remembered it after all these years.

And there were other verses too, something about bringing flowers.

.. but she couldn’t think of them, and so she just sang the one verse she knew a second time, and then again.

Asher didn’t react to her first two renditions of the song, but just as she’d finished the third, she felt a pressure in her palm, and when she looked down, there was Asher’s small hand, tightly grasping her own.

His face was still a blank, and he didn’t look at her.

Still, he kept his hand pressed to hers.

The caretaker with the red hair walked over. “Sophie’s girl, right?” she asked, and Delia nodded. “So you’ve met your brother.”

“Half brother,” Delia said, but really, did that make any difference? They were both Sophie’s children.

“It’s good you came,” said the woman. “He could use a friend.”

A friend? Now she was a friend to this strange, feral boy? But she allowed her hand to remain in his. “What will happen to him?” Delia asked. “What kind of life will he have?”

“Who can say?” the woman replied. “But whatever happens, he’ll always have a place here.”

That’s what Sophie had said too. The other caretaker was now collecting the children’s drawings and the crayons.

Delia felt a rumbling in her stomach. Time for lunch.

Carefully, she extricated her hand from Asher’s.

He didn’t resist, but when she stood up, he surprised her by pressing his face to the front of her skirt.

She placed her hand on his buttery curls for a moment. So silky, so soft. Then she left.

That evening, Sophie returned. “I heard you went to the beit yeladim today.” She’d seated herself in one of the room’s two hard-backed chairs. Delia was in the other one, leafing through a magazine, but she closed it. “Asher took all the crayons so they had him sit in the corner,” she said.

“I know,” Sophie said. “And I know that you sang to him. Why?”

“It just felt like the right thing,” Delia said.

“It was kinder and more generous than I have a right to expect from you,” said Sophie.

“I didn’t do it for you,” said Delia. “I did it for him.”

Sophie smiled; she was still so beautiful when she smiled. “But you must know that by being kind to him, you’re being kind to me.” She didn’t say anything more, and neither did Sophie, who after a time got up and kissed Delia’s forehead before leaving the room. “See you tomorrow,” she said.

After a few weeks, Delia was well enough to leave the kibbutz.

But she didn’t. She wasn’t entirely sure why; it wasn’t as if she had a compelling reason to stay, any particular ideological attachment to the place and the life it offered.

But her own life was at a standstill—no college, no job, no boyfriend—though after Ian McQuaid, the word boyfriend seemed ridiculous and sophomoric—and she had nowhere else to be.

She was given a job; everyone who lived there was required to work.

First in the field, planting peppers, but the required digging sparked some residual pain in her shoulder, so she was moved to the nascent chicken coop, a hastily built tin-and-wire-mesh structure that housed forty or so plump white hens and a handful of roosters.

Several times a day, she was tasked with collecting their eggs.

At first she enjoyed it. With their white feathered bodies, red combs, and small golden beaks, the chickens were appealing, even adorable, as if they had stepped out of an illustrated children’s book, clucking and fluffing.

And there was time between the egg collections during which she could do what she liked; often this meant going to the children’s house to see Asher.

He still didn’t speak to her, but now she caught him looking at her from time to time, and once, when she got up to leave, he took her hand and tugged it, indicating he wanted her to sit back down.

She asked if she could take him for a walk and was told yes, as long as she never let him out of her sight.

So as spring came to the desert, warming the air and enlivening the drab tans and browns of the landscape with brilliant dots of color, she took Asher on walks around the kibbutz.

He stayed beside her, hanging on to her sweater or, when she shed that, her shirt.

Once he stuck a finger in her belt loop, but that didn’t work at all, and he tripped and fell.

She worried he’d been hurt, but no, he laughed, a high-pitched, squeaking little sound.

Laughed! She’d never even seen him smile before.

On these walks they visited the dairy, where he patted the coarse dark hides of the cows, touched their knobby little horns.

They were given tin cups of fresh milk, still warm, the taste unfamiliar and as rich as if an egg or butter had been added.

Or they might go to the laundry. Asher wanted to plunge his arms into a barrel of sudsy water where clothes were soaking, and when he pulled his arms out, blow the bubbles into the wind.

She saw him laugh again when a bubble landed on his nose; when she reached over to brush it away, he kissed the tips of her fingers.

Their last stop was always the kitchen. Sophie would come out to say hello, wiping her hands on her apron.

The expression on her face when she saw Delia with Asher was one Delia couldn’t identify at first. Then she understood what it was: happiness.

Sophie was made happy by the sight of her two children together.

Then Delia brought Asher back to the children’s house and returned to the coop for the next collection.

But soon she began to distrust and then dislike the chickens.

The hens pecked, drawing blood. The roosters attacked from behind; once she was knocked down into the dirt, and the bird attempted to mount her.

After that, Delia didn’t want to work in the chicken coop.

The fluttering, frenzied birds now repelled her; she didn’t want to be in their presence.

Surely there was another job she could have?

She asked about working in the children’s house, but was told that only permanent or long-term residents could be considered for that job; her stay here was going to be too short.

Then Sophie had the idea of making Delia responsible for Asher, and for Asher alone.

“She’s his sister, so it’s not like she’ll be abandoning him when she goes,” Sophie argued.

Did Sophie think Delia was going to come back again?

Yet the idea of pairing the two met with little resistance and even enthusiasm.

Asher was a difficult child. He flouted rules, resisted joining in, was often hostile or combative.

Maybe time spent with Delia could soften his edges, lower the volume of his fits, his rages.

Delia had to ask herself whether she was equal to this. To her surprise, she thought she was.