The Last Rain (14 page)

Dori
 

I really really don’t want to go back tonight. I lie down on the sofa and pretend I’m asleep. That way Daddy will have to carry me. He lifts me on his back and I lean my head on his shoulder.

We walk to the Children’s House. I keep my eyes closed and my arms around Daddy’s neck.

I pretend to wake up when he says
we’re here, doda
. I slide down from his back and he kisses me goodbye for now.

Lulu says
you didn’t come to my birthday party—I’m five now.

I completely forgot! I begin to cry. Lulu pats me on the back and says
never mind sweetie.
She says
there’s cake left over and you’ll come tomorrow and have a piece—hush now.

Shoshana says
hurry up hurry hurry hurry
. Go to hell Shoshana. Go to hell and stay there.

I made a promise to myself in Canada about forgetting things. Mummy bought me a beautiful white sweater in a department store. It was so beautiful! With little pearls on the collar and shiny buttons. Mummy wasn’t going to buy it because it cost a lot but when she saw how much I loved it she bought it. Then on the bus home we sat on a side seat and I put the sweater next to me and I told myself
don’t forget the sweater!

But then Mummy almost missed our stop and she was in a big rush and I forgot the sweater. She noticed as soon as we were out of the bus but it was too late. She started to be angry at me but then she decided it was her fault. I was sad and she was sadder.

I made a promise to myself never ever to forget anything again. But I still forget things. Not things that happen but things that don’t happen. Like Lulu’s party.

Our First Year

16 March 1949.
Last night when the bus was returning from Nahariya it was stopped a few kilometres down the road. The driver claims that a large group of armed Arabs demanded that he take them to Lebanon. He refused, warning them that in the event of abduction a party would be sent out immediately and there would be the devil to pay.

For the next few days an armed guard will accompany him on his trip from Nahariya.

Dori

A woman with a camera comes to take photographs of us in the shower.
⁴³
She talks with Shoshana and they both smile. Shoshana hides who she is with adults.

Everyone laughs and runs back and forth so the woman won’t be able to take the photograph. As a matter of fact I want to be in the photograph. But I don’t want anyone to know because no one else wants to be in it. I stand still and pretend to play with my fingers. It’s fun to be in a photograph.

Another new thing today is a lesson on brushing our teeth. Shoshana says a dentist came to Eldar to give a lecture and he told everyone to brush up and down not across.

One of my teeth is loose as a matter of fact. I like moving it with my tongue. Jonathan says his father eats blood on bread. Disgusting!

Cropped by the Subject c. 1967

Dori

I had a dream that I was a baby lying in my crib. My Minder Doreet was looking down at me and smiling. Doreet has a big face and glasses and blonde hair that flies everywhere. She has a very nice smile and Mummy loves her. Mummy thinks I called my doll Doreet because I like Doreet but really it was because my doll had red hair which is close to blonde. People say I have red hair but I don’t know why. It’s blonde like Doreet’s.

In the dream I looked up at Doreet from my crib and I was sure that my face looked like her face.

Now I’m awake but I still feel I have Doreet’s face. Doreet isn’t ugly but a little girl with a big loose face and big glasses is ugly. If I look in the mirror I can see that I don’t look like Doreet but the minute I look away I see myself from the ceiling and what I see is Doreet.

I wonder what happened to that doll. I don’t usually like dolls but in Canada I liked having something that was from Eldar. I gave us both a haircut and Mummy said
Dori what have you done!
She was a little angry but she also laughed though she tried not to.

Mummy said
now your doll won’t have any hair
. I said
it’ll grow back
and Mummy thought I really believed hair grows on dolls and she laughed very hard and told everyone. And now whenever she says
it’ll grow back
everyone laughs.

I tried to explain but she didn’t understand. Many things are hard to explain.

Me and My Doll

Dori

We’re still reading
Alice in Wonderland
. Daddy asks if I want to play cards but all I want to do is read
Alice in Wonderland
. This is the best book anyone ever wrote. A hundred times better than
Pinocchio
.

I like the pictures too. The only one I don’t like is when Alice only has a head and feet. That picture makes me feel a little sick. I try not to look at it.

When I grow up I want to write a book like
Alice in Wonderland
. I tell Daddy I’m going to be a writer. He laughs and says
that’s wonderful dollie
.

Our First Year

17 March 1949.
A quiet day in which a few of us with our mentor, Dov, took an inspection trip through our orchards. One of those unique tone poems of Eldar weather, a day to conjure with: flurries of rain and then sunshine, and sunshine through the rain with all those ancient and hackneyed but magnificent images of nature’s spring beauty, huge drops of rain on broad green leaves, delicately coloured hyacinths, anemones, cyclamens appearing like flute obligatos from within the full orchestral rumble of rocks and weeds and trees, a straight and slimly formed apricot tree in glistening pinkish-orange blossom surrounded by gnarled olive trees, the terraces falling away like carpeted steps of deep green, diamond-sprinkled green, and swirls and patches of chartreuse, the deep, good, chocolate-brown earth in the valleys, so soft, so magnificently textured that one dreamily thinks of biting into a chunk …

Dori

It’s really hot today. Instead of staying in the Room we go out to the lawn and fill basins with water. In between sitting in the basin I stand on Daddy’s shoulders and count. I can keep my balance to 100.

There are other adults on the lawn and everyone is talking and laughing. Daddy is explaining all sorts of things. He’s very smart.

On the ship to Canada there was a pool. I was afraid to go inside it though. I didn’t want to fall into the ocean.

I liked that ship. I didn’t like the food but Daddy always tried to find something for me on the menu like bread or mashed potatoes.

A horrible thing happened on the ship. Right in the middle of supper two waiters dragged another waiter to the door and threw him out of the room and he fell on the floor. His body was all skinny and crooked and nervous and he was scared and trying to explain and stuttering but they wouldn’t listen and didn’t care.

I asked Daddy why they threw him out and Daddy didn’t know what to say. Finally he said
because he spilled soup on someone
but he said it the way he says things he doesn’t want to explain. How can you be angry with someone for spilling soup on a ship? The waves keep moving everything around.

I was sad and Daddy was sad too. I don’t know why he didn’t get up to help that man.

Steamship Zion

Dori

I’m remembering that ship. There was a girl on the ship who was my good friend. She didn’t know any Hebrew or English but she knew what I meant and I knew what she meant. I wanted to be her friend forever but I don’t even know where she is.

She looked like the girl in
Nariko-San, the Girl From Japan
. A blonde girl comes to visit Nariko-San in Japan and they change clothes. There are photographs of the whole visit.

I know that book by heart. I like it a lot more than
Dolly Ziva
. I like books that are real or not real.
Nariko-San, the Girl From Japan
is real and it has photographs.
Alice in Wonderland
isn’t real.
Dolly Ziva
has photographs like
Nariko-San
but the story is about a doll that talks. Books like that don’t make sense to me.

Genre Confusion