The Last Rain (5 page)

Dori
 

Very quiet. Shoshana’s gone.

I whisper
Skye?
She whispers back
yes.
I whisper
Shoshana was angry.
She whispers
yes.
I whisper
do you think the Enemy is too far to reach us or we’re too strong for them to reach us?

She says
they’re not far—you can walk to the border.
I ask
so they won’t reach us because we’re strong?
Skye says
we have Border Guards with rifles and if the Enemy manages to sneak past the Border Guards we have Guards here.

That reminds me of something from long ago. It’s the only thing I remember from before we left Eldar. I threw up on my bed in the middle of the night. I began to cry and the Night Guard
²⁰
came in. He wanted to help but he didn’t know where the clean sheets were. Just that day I noticed Doreet putting sheets in a laundry bag hanging from a nail. I thought how lucky that was because I noticed the bag for the first time that day. But when I showed the Guard the bag it was empty. He was nice but he didn’t know much about children. Finally he told me to sleep near the edge of the bed. It wasn’t a very good solution but there was nothing else to do so that’s what I did.

Baby Diary

June 29

Dori has given up her seventh feeding. Today I gave her five feedings and Naftali gave her a bottle at night. She now eats every four hours—7, 11, 3, 7, 11.

Dori

Simon’s mother is doing the afternoon Wake-Up. She never says much. She’s the opposite of Shoshana.

Simon calls his mother Nina. It’s funny. If I called my parents Naftali and Varda how would anyone know I was their daughter? Even we wouldn’t know.
²¹

Nina gives us a bag of treats because it’s Friday. The treats are always a bit disappointing. The candies are plain and the piece of chocolate is hard. And the cookies are the boring kind you give little babies. The only thing I like is the cream wafers but there aren’t any today.

I take my bag of treats and run as fast as I can to the Room. Daddy’s happy to see me. I sit next to him on the sofa and we read
Pinocchio
.

The only picture I don’t like in
Pinocchio
is the one at the end when Pinocchio becomes a boy. That boy looks very strange. He’s too skinny and I don’t like his clothes or anything else.

But I’m glad that Pinocchio’s going to turn into a real boy. I’m tired of waiting for his troubles to be over. It’s just one thing after another with Pinocchio. So when it’s time to go back I ask Daddy to read the last page. I want him to read the rest of the story next time but right now I want to hear the last page.

Daddy says
I’ll read you a whole other chapter instead
. He really doesn’t like reading the end before you get there. But I don’t give in so he reads the end and then he says
we have to go
.

Now I’m sorry I didn’t give in because I could have had a whole other chapter which would have taken much longer.

I’m so sorry I feel sick.

Our First Year

18 January 1949.
Woke up at 5:30 today, crawled over our beds, and stumbled down the road to the kitchen to put in a day’s work. The weather is absolutely miserable. There’s a pool of water in the middle of our room, and surrounding this pool are the beds of twelve people.

At present I’m hunched over a fireplace which produces more smoke than heat, and there are five people packed on either side of me so that I haven’t the elbow room to wield a pencil in my icy fingers. My knees are warm but the rest of me is cold.

But wot-the-hell, it’s been a wonderful day! We’re started, on our own land, and the exhilaration can’t be stamped out by all the hail and sleet in Greenland. Martin, sitting next to me, is trying to read a pamphlet on sub-tropical fruits. That’s Eldar optimism.

We’ve set up three guard posts: at our entrance, at the northeast, and at the north-west of the village … too exhausted and cold to continue writing.

Dori
 

Soup bits tonight! Only one spoon each though. I don’t know why we can’t have more. Also a slice of cake because it’s Friday. Half chocolate half plain. It’s a bit dry but so what.

In the shower Skye says to Shoshana
you promised we could wash our own hair this week.
And then everyone says
yes you promised you promised
even though I can’t really remember any promise.

Shoshana has no choice. She has to let us. I don’t know why Skye wants to wash her own hair but I want to because Skye wants to.

I’ve been hearing lately that if you keep your head up and back instead of down the soap on your hair won’t get in your eyes. You think the soap will get in less if your face is down but it seems it’s better to keep it up.

You have to be a little brave to lift your face because what if it doesn’t work? I gather my courage and do it. I think it works.

Transcript of Meeting April 1961