Safekeeping (3 page)

His grandfather only noticed him when he climbed onto the foot of the mattress. “Another nightmare, Adam?”

Adam nestled behind his grandfather's back and peered over him at the radiant square, like something from a fairy tale. “What's that?”

“This?” His grandfather returned his gaze to the brooch. “This is . . . a very special thing.”

“What's so special about it?”

His grandfather sat up, slipped on his plaid slippers.

“I'm afraid it's not a story for little boys. But I promise to tell you one day.” He looked back at Adam, laid a hand on his shin. “Maybe when it becomes your brooch.”

In the dark dorm room, the brooch seemed to stare at Adam as much as he stared at it. An uncut sapphire, the size and shape of a Milk Dud, glowed in its center, so blue. Pearls and smaller gems, also in their natural shapes, hemmed the edges of the brooch—red rubies in the corners, and, halfway between, either a purple amethyst or green garnet. It was the rich gold filigree that stirred Adam, though, far more than the precious stones; in it, he sensed the long-dead goldsmith who had painstakingly fashioned the tangle of thin vines and little flowers that covered two of the brooch's quarters, as well as the small pomegranates and leaves in the other two. Adam, having never seen a pomegranate and not entirely sure what they were, thought they looked like small round heads wearing those funny three-pronged jester hats, but the jeweler, Mr. Weisberg, had explained they were stylized pomegranates. He couldn't bear to think of the jeweler, but didn't he say one of the flowers was missing a petal? Adam brought the brooch closer to his eyes and searched for the one with only five. It took a moment, but there it was, in the bottom left. A little malformed flower. It was such a heartbreaking mistake. So tiny most people would never notice. But Mr. Weisberg had.

There was that ache again, that pressure against the back of his breastbone, so familiar, but more painful than ever before. He cupped his hands around the brooch and curled into a shivering ball.

He had no illusion that his zayde was up in heaven right now, watching him. The old man would never know that his grandson had come halfway around the world to set things right with his brooch.

But he had. He was here.

A
dam shifted in his chair while Eyal, the kibbutz secretary, struggled to read his chicken-scratched application. He'd still had the shakes, couldn't steady his hand, while rushing to fill in all those upsetting questions:
What year did you graduate from college?
Somehow he had to make it through this interview. It was almost midnight in New York, and he barely slept last night. He was eye-burning tired and, though he had no appetite, his body was revolting against not being fed in three days. His gut seethed, threatening to send him bolting for the toilet. He ran a hand along his bristly jawline, wishing he'd at least been able to shave. Being interviewed was easier when you were good-looking, but he only ever seemed to be in front of someone's desk—social worker, principal, cop—when he was low.

The balding secretary rubbed his bloodshot eyes with his thick fingers and flipped the page. Weren't kibbutzim supposed to be tranquil oases? The secretary's desk, covered with coffee-stained spreadsheets, invoices, and unopened mail, appeared as overwhelmed as its middle-aged owner. Adam glanced over at the other applicant seated beside him. The rosary woman. She sat straight-backed, legs pressed together, staring into space, as if she were riding the subway and Adam and the secretary were merely other passengers in the car. Stranger still was the way she held her hands above her lap and tapped her spread fingers together, like a cymbal-banging-monkey toy. Thankfully she either didn't know or care about him being at her window last night.

“You're on the kibbutz at a very tense time.” Eyal laid their applications in front of him. “This is why, Claudette, I apologize, I didn't get to you for a couple of days. Let me start by telling you both what we expect from our volunteers and what you can expect from us.”

Between chugs of coffee the secretary explained that over the years the kibbutz had hosted over three hundred young people from over thirty countries who wanted to experience living on a commune. Volunteers were treated like members, meaning they were expected to live by the kibbutz motto, to give according to their ability and take according to their need. The volunteers worked like members, and in return they ate in the dining hall, received a room with a bed, and were welcome to use all the facilities—the pool, laundry services, medical center. In the sixties and seventies, they had more North American volunteers, but now most of the foreigners on the kibbutz were from the former Soviet Union.

“You have to take your job seriously, show up on time, work hard. Some volunteers come here to party.” The secretary's eyes rested on Adam. “We like young people to have fun. But why should you be allowed to come here and live for free? We have Americans and Europeans who get angry when we insist that they do their jobs, as if they would let me, a stranger from Israel, come and do nothing but party in their house for the summer.”

Adam gritted his teeth, nodded. He had to play nice, get the green light to stay here. The application required a two-month commitment, but really he'd be gone in two or three days. It was one of a slew of lies he'd put down. If he'd had more than two hundred dollars to his name, he'd have checked into a nearby hotel.

Eyal promised to do his best to find them both satisfying jobs and turned his attention to Claudette. After gulping down the last of his coffee, he asked her if she knew anything about computers. Claudette stopped tapping her fingers and shook her head.

“That's too bad. We got two new IBM compatibles and I can't figure them out. Would you like to work with children? In the school?”

She shook her head again. “No.”

“Why not? That's the most coveted job among the volunteers.”

“I don't . . . read or write very well.”

Her candid admission surprised Adam. He couldn't place her accent. Where was she from? Her round freckled face was makeup-free, eyes the
same burnt umber as her wavy mop, which looked as if someone had taken scissors to it with the sole aim of making every strand three inches long. Against her creased white button-down rested a cheap-looking saint pendant that reminded him of a military dog tag.

Eyal turned a pen over his hands. “I meant English, Claudette, not Hebrew.”

“I don't read English.” She bowed her head. “In French I read a little.”

Frowning, Eyal revisited her papers. “But you're from Canada . . .”

“I didn't go to school,” she said, quietly. “I grew up in an orphanage.”

That's it: she had the accent of the French Canadian fir tree sellers who set up on street corners in the weeks before Christmas. For some reason his grandfather couldn't stand the piney smell of the trees and used to cross the street to avoid them.

“The orphanage didn't school you? What did you do all day?”

Her eyes seemed to be focused not on Eyal's face, but a few inches above. “Kept care of the younger or sicker orphans. Cleaned. For the last fifteen years, I did laundry. I was told I could do laundry here.”

“You were born July 30th, 1962, so that makes you, let me see, almost thirty-two, correct? That's quite a few years older than most volunteers. We could benefit from your experience. So why don't you tell me what you've been up to since the orphanage and I can try to make use of your skills. Does that sound good?”

“I only left the orphanage seven months ago.”

Adam widened his eyes while Eyal, visibly flummoxed by this information, ran a hand over his balding pate. How could a thirty-year-old still be in an orphanage? Was she also lying on her application? Why would anyone make up such an absurd lie? And she didn't strike him as a liar. She had to have the wrong word. She meant some other kind of home.

Eyal set her application to the side as if it were no use. “Claudette, if you don't mind me asking, what brings you to the kibbutz?”

Claudette described how she ended up on the kibbutz in a hushed voice, free from emotion, except perhaps discomfort. For the last seven months she had lived with her half sister Louise while continuing to work in the orphanage's laundry. When Louise got married last week, her brother-in-law, who had once volunteered on a kibbutz, insisted she should do it. He promised she could do laundry here in exchange for room and board. Just like in the orphanage. Adam imagined the starry-eyed
newlyweds who didn't want this weirdo hanging around their honeymoon nest. They must have been giddy with relief when they realized they could pawn her off on the kibbutz for a while. Claudette finished: “And I supposed it couldn't hurt to be where Jesus had His ministry.”

Eyal said he was very sorry, but they didn't need anyone full-time in the laundry, that they would have to think of something else for her to do, and picked up Adam's application. Adam straightened, clasped his hands.

“Honestly, I can't read a word of this. I can't even make out your name. Alan?”

“Sorry. My penmanship needs work. My name's Adam.”

“Adam. It looks like you went to college for . . . what was it?”

“History. I majored in New York City history at Baruch College, which is one of the best schools in the City University. That high school I went to, Stuyvesant, it's the best public high school in the city, maybe the country. Three Nobel Prize winners went there.”

These weren't entirely lies. He had gone to Stuy, but they wouldn't readmit him after he got back from rehab. As for Baruch, he was about to declare himself a history major when he was suspended that last time. He did love those history classes, and actually got an A- in “NYC: The People Who Shaped the City.” The only reason he hadn't yet declared his major—how stupid it seemed now—was because he had worried that it was kind of pathetic to be a historian, that people who wanted to be great became great, and people who couldn't become great became historians and studied great people.

“Not much I can do with history. What about jobs?”

He'd been fired from many shitty jobs—painting apartments, moving furniture, scooping ice cream—usually within a month.

“Well, I've had a lot of internships and other jobs, but—” What had his grandfather done on the kibbutz? He thought hard. “Cotton! What about picking cotton? My grandfather was on this kibbutz for a couple of years after the war, and that's something he did.”

“Your grandfather was on Sadot Hadar?” Eyal raised his eyebrows, impressed. “Sadly the cotton fields are long gone. Even with the machines we couldn't compete with India, where people pick for seventy cents a day. Seventy cents a day—wrap your head around that. There's a plastics factory now where the cotton used to be, which means we now have to compete with China.”

Eyal massaged his forehead. Behind him a moth fluttered along the wall, past an oversized calendar scrawled with notes and scratched-out notes. Not a single day blank. Again, not the kind of calendar Adam would have expected on a kibbutz.

“I have an idea.” Eyal waved his pen at Claudette. “You worked with sick people, yes? We have an old woman on the kibbutz who's very sick, but she won't stop working. The problem is—and it breaks my heart to say this—wherever she goes, she's more a nuisance than help. I try to send her somewhere different every day, spread the burden. Your job will be to accompany her, to help her get around. And to do some of the work she isn't.”

Adam buried his hand in his pocket, clutched the brooch. Could this be the old woman he was looking for?

Claudette shook her head. “I would be better in the laundry.”

“But we don't need anyone in the laundry.” Eyal picked up the phone. “Trust me, this is better. You'll experience the whole kibbutz working with Ziva—picking mandarins, working in the dining hall. But whatever we do, we can't let on that it's
you
looking after
her
.” He raised his finger to suggest everything would be clear in a moment.

Adam released the brooch. He wasn't looking for a Ziva.

“Hello, Ima,” Eyal said into the receiver. “We have a young Canadian woman for you to take charge of. She will follow you to your assignments, and you will make sure she understands the tasks and gets them done.
Beseder
?”

A squawk burst out of the handset, and Eyal jerked it away from his ear. He switched to Hebrew, but Adam understood by the jut of the secretary's jaw that he was frustrated. He banged down the phone and lifted his hands in a what-can-you-do.

“I should warn you, Claudette, Ziva can be very . . . what's a nice word for it? Forthright? Even Israelis find her rude. Don't take anything she says personally. Believe me, I should know. She's my mother.” He turned to Adam. “And you we can put in the plastics factory or the dishwashing room. It's your choice.”

Neither sounded very Fields of Splendor, but Adam was relieved he could stay. “Dishwashing, thanks.”

Eyal pulled Monopoly money out of a drawer, two wads of colored copy paper stamped with numbers. “You can use these at the general store, the
kolbo
, to buy toiletries or other things you might need. In addition, we'll give you a small stipend, a hundred and twenty shekels a month. You can pick up your work clothes and boots at the laundry.” Eyal stood, and Adam and Claudette followed suit. “Enjoy your time here at Sadot Hadar.”