Safekeeping (21 page)

O
n his way to lunch, Adam stopped by the office building and pulled out the letters in the mailbox for the foreign volunteers. Once again, they all hailed from the former Soviet Union: Russia, Ukraine, Russia, Lithuania, Russia . . .

The Jewish Agency.

He tore open the envelope. Please, please, let her be alive. Inside was only a short letter directing him to fill out the attached “Search Form for Missing Relatives.” It was disappointing, but he supposed it could have been worse. It could have said they couldn't find a Dagmar, or wouldn't even look for her without a last name. He folded the form back into the envelope and headed for the dining hall.

The crowded tables were covered in glasses, plastic water jugs, bowls, trays of food, all the crap he would spend the rest of the afternoon washing. Today he had the second shift, the latter half of lunch and dinner.

“Adam! Adam!”

Ulya stood behind a table, waving him over. Why did she always want to eat with him? He pointed at the food bars, indicating he still needed to get his lunch, and wandered over to them. Their steel containers offered the same bland crap as every meal: potato or rice, chicken or turkey, boiled vegetables. Adam loaded a plate with French fries, squeezed on some ketchup, and scanned the hall for a place to sit undisturbed with the form.

“Adam! Adam!”

He'd forgotten about Ulya. She had taken off her blue work shirt, stripped down to a white tank top. He walked over and laid his tray across from her.

She eyed his fries. “You have to be careful. It's so boring here, even though the food is blah, you stuff your face and get fat. You've already gained weight, but you needed to. I don't.”

Why did girls always count calories? She looked fine: arms weren't skinny, but nowhere near fat; full boobs, nipples hard little bumps under the white Lycra top; a plump face, but in a good way. Her blue eyes were amplified by her dark eyeliner, but not as boldly as when she went out at night. She couldn't be going to the bomb-shelter pub after all, because it was closed Sunday through Wednesday, and she still left her room all gussied up.

Adam dipped a fry in ketchup. “You don't need to worry about your weight.”

“Why? You think I look good?”

He popped the fry into his mouth. “Did you know you're always fishing for compliments?”

“Did you know you're very stingy with them?”

“Wrong. I'm known to be pretty generous with the sweet talk.”

“Then it's just me, I guess. I don't look good.”

He didn't mean to make the girl feel bad. “No, it's not you. I'm just not my complimentary self lately. You're very pretty.”

She looked away. “It doesn't count. I forced you to say it.”

“You did. But it's true, okay?”

Ulya smiled, took one of his fries. “I always think about the restaurants in New York. I want to eat in the Rainbow Room. Tell me what it's like in the Rainbow Room.”

“The Rainbow Room? How would I know?”

“You've never been to the Rainbow Room? Why? The restaurant is round and on the top of a tall, tall building. It's surrounded by windows so you can see the whole of Manhattan. It has a dance floor with a giant chandelier. I have seen the pictures. When I live in New York, I'm going to eat in the Rainbow Room once a week.”

Adam noticed a swarthy guy, a few tables behind Ulya, staring in their direction.

“Well, you'd have to be pretty damn rich to eat in the Rainbow Room once a week. Or even once a year. Personally, I've got no desire to go to that place. I mean, I'm happy it's there, 'cause all that glitzy shit is part of what makes New York New York, but that's not my New York. I'd rather eat at Moishe's.”

“Moishe's? That sounds like it could be in Israel.”

Adam stared over Ulya's shoulder. “Okay, there's a dude over there, like three tables away, who, I swear, has been eyeballing us. He's got crazy gold eyes.”

“So?”

“So, turn around and look. He's probably got the hots for you.”

“I don't care. Let him stare.”

“Should I wave at him?”

“No!”

The man in question seemed to realize they were talking about him and went back to his plate of food.

“I think he's an Arab worker. I think everyone sitting at that table with him are Arab workers.”

“Enough! I don't want to talk about this person anymore. I want to talk about the Rainbow Room.”

“Never mind, he's leaving now.”

“Good.”

“Handsome guy.”

Ulya took another one of Adam's fries, but didn't bring it to her mouth. “You look better.”

“Better than him? You didn't even see him.”

“No, I mean better than you when you first got here. You used to look terrible. Now you look,” she paused, “good.”

“Yeah?” Adam raised his eyebrows, nervously patted his hair, though he knew his looks were back. “Thanks. I was having some health issues when I got here.”

It always surprised him how quickly he recovered his looks whenever he jumped back on the wagon. His face had filled out, and once again his skin was a warm olive. If anything, his complexion looked better than ever thanks to the Mediterranean sun. The kibbutz dentist had filled his cavities, enabling him to talk and smile with ease. Older addicts always warned him that one day his body would stop bouncing back—that is, they liked to add, if he didn't OD before then. He knew they weren't lying because he had seen the forty-year-olds picking up chips for a year clean still looking like garbage.

Adam spotted Claudette setting her tray halfway down their table. He waved at her, and the old woman, who was taking a seat across from her,
leaned forward to see whom Claudette was waving to. Adam gave the old lady a smile, and she scowled back. What did she have against him? He got that creepy feeling again that she was hiding something. Maybe she hated his grandfather? Maybe he spurned her? Maybe his imagination was running wild because he really wanted her to remember him or Dagmar. The truth was all the kibbutzniks were standoffish. They invited people to volunteer on their commune and then ignored them. Did they think they were too superior or were they scared of talking to strangers?

Ulya asked if he was going back to Manhattan soon.

“Hope so.”

“You could take me with you, you know. We could get a fake marriage.”

“Once upon a time—and by once upon a time I mean last month—I would've jumped at that chance, as long as you paid me enough. But now I'm done with scams.”

“How much do you have to pay someone to be your green-card husband? I know people who've done it, paid someone, but I don't know how much.”

“I know people who've done it too, I mean been the husband or wife. One girl I know got ten grand up front and her rent paid for two years. They were roommates—I think the guy was from Romania—and he paid all the rent, because, you know, it's best if you live together. It makes the marriage seem more real, all the mail going to one place and that kind of thing. Also they ask you all these questions at the interview to make sure you're really married. What shampoo does your wife use? Does she brush her teeth before or after breakfast? If you've been sharing a bathroom for two years, you know.”

“How much is rent? How much all together did this Romanian pay?”

“They were in Queens, so the rent wasn't too bad. Probably eight hundred dollars, maybe a thou. So let's say a thousand times twenty-four months, plus the ten grand. He probably paid thirty-five thousand dollars, something like that.”

“So much money.” Ulya pushed away from the table. “I have to go. My stupid job. I hate making cheese.”

Adam watched Ulya walking off, thinking, the fucking Rainbow Room. How funny that she thought he might be a regular there. If she saw where he had eaten most of his dinners, that small kitchen table with only three chairs. And imagine if she got a load of where he used to eat with his mom: the coffee table, after pushing away weeks-old fast-food wrappers.
They'd had no kitchen, only a kitchenette, its counter covered in dirty dishes and sticky coffee and syrup rings. One morning he climbed onto the counter to get the box of Fruit Loops from the top of the fridge and his mom appeared, her skinny, unshaven legs sticking out of her baggy T-shirt.

“What the hell are you doing up there?”

“The Fruit Loops.”

She stomped over, grabbed the box off the fridge. “Jesus Christ, Adam, stop feeling so sorry for yourself. You think you've got it bad? Try growing up with Holocaust survivors. Holocaust survivors who fucking hate each other.”

Adam, confused, climbed down the footstool he'd made out of phone books.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” His mother stared into the fridge. “We're out of milk already? Go to the couch, Adam. I'll bring you the cereal in a second.”

Adam waited on the couch, singing under his breath a song he'd recently learned in school—
Oh, Susanna! Oh, don't you cry for me—
until his mother came over with a bowl, no milk, piled high with Fruit Loops, picked free of the green ones. She kissed him on the head. “I know you don't like the greenies.”

Adam stood, picked up his tray and the search form. The dining hall was clearing out. He headed for the dishwashing room, where he would scrub and sweat until late tonight.

Z
iva opened the door to find a bright-eyed Claudette standing on her step wearing a white eyelet sundress.

“You look different!” Pretty was what she thought, but she didn't believe in complimenting women on their appearances.

Claudette entered the apartment, her hands in nervous fists. It wasn't good that Ziva found her different. Different was suspicious. Why had she bought this dress? She had gone to the
kolbo
to secure the plastic bag and rubber band and ended up at the clothing rack in the back. She spent half the money Louise had given her for the summer on this sundress.

Ziva had no idea now why she had invited the young woman over. She untied her apron. “The cookies are almost done.”

“They smell delicious.” Claudette tried not to sound nervous as she set her bag against the wall next to the bathroom door. She had placed a work shirt inside it so she wasn't carrying around an empty plastic bag. The plan was to grab the bag when she used the washroom, preferably just before leaving, and to load it with pills.

Not knowing what else to do, Claudette gravitated toward the pictures on the sideboard. Grateful to have something to talk about, Ziva walked over. “That was my Dov.”

Claudette considered the blond man in the shirt and sweater vest, his handsome face staring off to the side. So this, she thought, was one of the two men.

“That photo was taken for a fake German passport. Dov and two others from a nearby kibbutz snuck back into Europe to help Jews escape. We
wanted to start an underground railroad to Palestine, but all they managed to do was save five people. It's not six million, but five lives are still five lives, and quite a few people are walking around today because of Dov.” After repeating this phrase as she had for decades, she paused, realizing the boy, Franz's grandson, wouldn't exist if it weren't for Dov. “He was gone for three months. No letters. I barely slept.”

Claudette tried to imagine how the young man must have felt posing for this picture. “You must have been very scared for him.”

“Yes, scared. And jealous. I wanted to be on that mission. But everyone thought I looked too Jewish.”

“Isn't this you?”

“Yes, that's me, young and beautiful.” Ziva handed Claudette the picture. “Well, young at least. About your age.”

It was true young Ziva didn't have the delicate features Claudette normally thought of as beautiful, the dainty features of the Virgin Mary: her cheeks were fat, nose strong, hair wild, eyes close-set, she looked, yes, too Jewish, though technically wasn't the Virgin Mary Jewish? And yet, Claudette did find Ziva beautiful. What's more, she thought Ziva had carried that beauty into her old age. All the women in Louise's photo albums, which Claudette had scoured for glimpses of their mother, appeared trapped in their snapshots, their smiles wary, as if they feared having their imperfections immortalized. There was nothing wary or apologetic in Ziva's portrait. Both her smile and stance were wide, her eyes glinting like the steel rifle peeking over her right shoulder. What did it feel like to stand and stare out at the world like that? Did such a person even know about the fear in other people?

“Shabbat shalom!” Eyal came through the door. Surprised to see the strange volunteer, he added, “Oh, hello.”

“Look who's here!” Ziva took the photograph from Claudette and returned it to its place next to her late husband. Claudette noted she had no pictures of her son.

Eyal sniffed the air. “Is that the chocolate-ginger cookies I smell?”

“I've got to go check on them.” Ziva walked toward the kitchen, hands pressed into her back to support the belly. “Have Claudette tell you what we've been doing on our assignments. She was an appalling worker when you first sent her to me. A real disgrace. But she's been better these last few days. You see, some people get better, Eyal, not worse.”