Safekeeping (39 page)

Claudette rose from the bed and switched on the light. After a week of agonizing over whether or not to wear Ulya's bikini, she numbly put it on. She painted her lips without feeling them. In the mirror, she contemplated the metal pendant hanging over her white dress: Christina the Astonishing's haloed head, modestly lowered, her lissome hands hugging the book to her breast. What would Christina have done if she had read that fax? She wouldn't have believed it. Her faith would have been too strong.

Ofir knew something was wrong as soon as he saw Claudette coming across the car lot, her gait even more robotic than usual. For half an hour he had lurked around the cars, nervous that any second someone would ask where he was going and with whom. He had begun to think Claudette wasn't coming, that she didn't want to go, and now it looked like that was precisely what she was on her way to tell him.

“Are you okay?” he asked, glancing around, hoping no one was seeing them together.

“Yes. I'm very sorry I'm late.”

Claudette reached for the passenger door, and Ofir, relieved she still wanted to go, hastened to open it for her. He understood Claudette didn't see tonight as a date, but he did, even if it wasn't going to include kissing. He held the door ajar as she ducked inside, revealing the red bikini strings in a bow at the nape of her neck. He imagined pulling on one of those strings, the bow falling open.

To avoid the prying eyes of the guard at the front gate, Ofir drove the car along the road behind the kibbutz, descending into the fields and winding along the bumpy dirt paths between crops until they entered the back of a different kibbutz. They drove through that kibbutz's front gate onto the country road.

“For security reasons,” Ofir explained, “the only way to get onto the main road is through one of the kibbutzim's front gates. It sucks having someone always seeing you coming and going. If we'd gone through our front gate, by tomorrow everyone on the kibbutz would've been talking about us.”

“Hmm,” said Claudette, staring out the windshield. Lighting a cigarette, Ofir decided to keep quiet for a while. Hopefully she would emerge from her funk before they got to the lake.

The car traveled down the dark highway, occasionally passing a gas station or illuminated junction, but for much of the drive the car's headlights
were all that kept the valley and the hills and the night sky from melding into one darkness. Ofir was halfway through his second cigarette when the headlights illuminated a signpost he hoped might shake Claudette out of her daze. He pointed. “Hey, look, only fifteen miles to Nazareth. Isn't that where Jesus was born?”

Claudette eyed the sign. “No. Bethlehem.”

“Oh, yeah, that's right. I always get that mixed up because he's called Jesus of Nazareth.”

“That's where He lived.”

Ofir would have thought she'd be more excited to be so close to where Jesus lived. Instead she sounded emotionless. Frighteningly so. Was this a hint of the madness? She had warned him that she was mentally ill, and though he had found her very odd, he hadn't yet witnessed any break from reality.

He switched off the brights for an oncoming car. “But the Sea of Galilee is where he supposedly walked on water, right?”

Claudette turned to him, gave him a dark stare. “‘Supposedly'? You didn't have to say ‘supposedly.' The Sea of Galilee is where He performed many miracles. Walked on water. Fed the multitudes. Calmed the storm.”

Ofir lifted his eyebrows and, smiling uncomfortably, crushed his cigarette in the ashtray. Well, at least now she was talking.

“Why are you laughing?” she said.

Ofir shook his head. “I'm not laughing.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I don't know. I guess . . . I guess the idea of miracles makes me feel weird. I just don't believe in them.”

“Then what do you believe in?”

“Um . . .” He scrunched his face as he searched for an answer. He used to believe in music. But what now? There had to be something.

“Humans?”

“Humans? What do you mean you believe in ‘humans'?”

“You know, just humans. Their perseverance. Their ingenuity. Yeah, definitely human ingenuity. We've come up with some pretty amazing things, don't you think? For an animal. Languages. Airplanes and heart transplants.” He paused. “The piano.”

Claudette shook her head. “I don't like that. That is arrogance. That is . . . no.”

She was tempted to point out that human ingenuity came up with the bomb that blew open his eardrums, but she didn't, because it would have been cruel and beside the point. Even if humans hadn't invented bombs, it would still be arrogant to worship their ingenuity over God's, as if their ingenuity hadn't been given to them by God.

Ofir could have said more too, but he didn't want to delve any further into this discussion, especially not when Claudette was already in a bad mood. He supposed religion would come up again sometime in the future, but he didn't focus on the future anymore.

They drove in silence once more, the humid air blowing through the open windows. Ofir tried to ignore the dial tone in his head, the phone that could never be put back on the hook. This evening wasn't going at all to plan. Could it be her birthday that was upsetting Claudette? Any birthday after thirty, he supposed, had to be a little depressing.

The quiet became more and more unbearable to him. He even considered turning on the radio. He reached for it, but then returned his hand to the steering wheel. How could he enjoy listening to music knowing he couldn't compose his own? He had never understood how people listened to symphonies, admired paintings, read books without feeling the need to contribute their own works of art.

He peeked over at Claudette, still staring vacantly through the windshield. His eyes roamed down the front of her body to the hammock of white dress between her thighs, the red swimsuit bottom showing through the white cotton. How could the Orthodox go on believing in
shomer negiah
, that being forbidden to touch a member of the opposite sex was an effective way to avoid sexual tension? His inability to touch Claudette intensified the yearning. It made the curve of her shoulder surprisingly erotic.

After still more silence and yet another cigarette, he reached for the radio and hurriedly turned the knob. A Coca-Cola commercial burst into the car:
Can't beat the real thing!
Claudette watched out of the corner of her eye as he turned through the stations. She knew he hadn't listened to his tapes or the radio since the bombing. He landed on a staticky classical-music station and massaged the knob until the piano came in clear. It was a Chopin Nocturne, one of his favorites. He sat back, clenching the steering wheel.

Despite the hearing aids, the high-pitched tinnitus, the music still translated the night for him. It isolated the moment—he and Claudette
driving through this dark valley—and filled him with sad wonder, wonder for how much had to happen for this dark valley to exist and for them to be driving through it. He still felt jealous of Chopin, but he also felt him commiserating with him across the centuries. Was it possible the Nocturne moved him even more now?

Claudette saw Ofir's lips quiver into a sad smile. Could she do what he was doing? Learn to live without the one thing that had given her life meaning? Learn to live without God? She didn't think so. She watched him listening to the music, his eyes—one teardrop eye—on the road, and felt an urge to reach out and touch his gentle face, to feel the scar on his chin.
No, it isn't true
. She turned toward the window so the wind whipped her hair against her face.
It isn't true
.

Ofir parked the car in an empty lot beside some stone ruins, and they followed a path beneath a bower of palms toward the lake. The warm air smelled of fresh water and wet reeds. Ofir stopped and read from a historical marker. “It's one of the oldest synagogues in the world.”

Claudette's eyes widened. “This is the synagogue of Capernaum?”

“You've heard of it? We can walk around the ruins a bit. Your birthday isn't for half an hour.”

Ofir followed Claudette through a calcareous arch. Her white sundress swayed as she walked, running her hand along the remnants of walls, white stone battered down by thousands of years. Faint patterns still adorned the broken columns. She paused, looked around with a contemplative expression. Ofir, sensing she wanted to be alone with the place, hung back, then left to wait for her outside.

Claudette watched her blue flip-flops walking on the worn stones. Were these the very stones Jesus had walked on? It was here that He began His mission, choosing John, Peter, and Matthew to be His disciples. She might be standing on the very spot where He had healed the paralytic, who had to be lowered through the roof because the synagogue was so crammed with believers and naysayers. He told the cripple that his sins were forgiven, and the man got up and walked away as if guilt had been his only handicap. At least, that's what she had been taught.

She raised her head and looked past the missing roof to the night sky. She whispered: “If You are true, please send me a sign. I am going to wait for Your sign.”

Claudette emerged from the ancient synagogue noticeably calmer. When they reached the placid lake, Ofir laid a white bed sheet on the grainy shore. Trying to ignore the ringing in his ears, to not let it ruin the quiet of the spot, he sat across from Claudette and unloaded from his backpack what he hoped was romantic French fare: a bottle of red wine; a baguette, albeit slightly stale; grapes; and a wedge of Roquefort cheese, which handsome Ido—who secured all this stuff for him and had promised on his mother's life that he wouldn't tell anybody about Claudette—swore was supposed to be riddled with mold. Ofir filled two plastic cups with wine and pulled the blue cover off a Tupperware box, revealing a chocolate cupcake bedecked in rainbow sprinkles. He stuck in a pink candle and checked his watch.

“Only one minute to go.”

Claudette smiled down at the cupcake. Heartened by the smile, Ofir took a sip of wine and struggled to keep his face from betraying how bitter he found it. Ido asked the owner to recommend a good affordable bottle, but could this really be the taste of good wine? He knew it was lame, but he preferred Manischewitz. Claudette was also used to a sweeter sacramental brand, but she recognized and liked the warm feeling in her stomach.

At last Ofir's watch showed 12:00 a.m. He struck a match and lit the candle. While he sang “Happy Birthday,” Claudette wondered if it were possible, despite what she had learned today, for this still to be the nicest birthday she'd ever had.

“Okay, make a wish.”

“A wish?”

Ofir gave her a questioning look. “You don't know about making a wish? I thought they did that everywhere.”

She shook her head. Ofir explained the tradition and then watched as she squeezed her eyes to think of a wish. The next time he blew out his candles, he too would have to come up with a new wish.

“If you don't hurry up, the candle will go out on its own. Just wish for whatever you want the most.”

Claudette bit down on her lip. She looked like a child to Ofir, agonizing over her birthday wish, not like a woman turning thirty-two years old. If anything happened between them, the world would condemn her. All they would see
was a thirty-two-year-old woman debauching a wounded seventeen-year-old boy. But that was not how it felt to him. To him it felt like he was the experienced war vet taking advantage of the fragile ingénue.

“This is ridiculous!” He laughed. “Just wish for the next thing that comes into your head.”

You
. That's what came into her head.
No, no
.
It isn't true.
She had to say something. She had already decided that she wouldn't wish for faith, that she would wait for His sign. So she said the only other thing she knew she wanted.

“I wish your ears would be healed.”

Ofir was touched by her gesture. Too bad he'd forgotten to tell her that the wish wouldn't come true if she said it out loud.

“Now blow!”

Claudette blew out the flame moments before it reached the cupcake. Ofir clapped, and she held out her plastic cup for more wine. Ofir refilled her cup, wondering whether he should have borrowed money to buy a second bottle. He forced down another bitter swig and wiped his lips.

“I want to know everything about you, Claudette. Is that weird? Tell me something I don't know.”

Claudette stared into her wine. It felt as if he were asking about the article.

“You know enough.”

“Tell me a secret. I want to know something that nobody else knows.”

Claudette saw Sister Marie Amable, standing in the office that morning almost twenty years ago, reading from her mother's dossier.
Recalcitrant girl.
And then,
Oh. Oh no
. Had Sister Amable been a part of the scam? Was that possible? Gaping at her through her steel-frame glasses, she had said,
No wonder you are so sick
.

Claudette swilled down more wine. Normally at this point she would shake her head, shake the memory off, do anything to not think about it. Count, touch, pace, clean, repeat.