Safekeeping (54 page)

Claudette opened the window and held her face against the fresh air. Did she smell autumn? Not in the way her body expected it now, the smell of burning leaves that preceded the snow. If she stayed on the kibbutz through the winter, she wouldn't see any snow. No snow . . . She felt her first twinge of homesickness. She hadn't realized how much she loved the white heaps on the windowsills, the stacks balanced on the bare branches, the thrill of walking across a fresh blanket of snow, feet sinking into the powder.

Dragging the armchair across the floor, she paused before the old portrait of Dov. Head turned to the side, it looked like his clear eyes were
staring into the future. Ziva loved Adam's grandfather, but she had also loved this man. She spoke of him with such pride and affection. Claudette didn't know what to make of that. Could she feel the way she did about Ofir for someone else? If she could, did that lessen what she felt for Ofir? She wiped the dust off Dov's portrait with her shirtsleeve and then did the same for young Ziva.

For hours Claudette sat in the armchair, hoping Ziva would come to, if only for a minute. Once in a while, the old woman moved her head, but without waking up. A red mottling had spread over her warped hands. Concerned, Claudette touched Ziva's hand and found it frighteningly cold. Wrapping her young, warm hand around the cold, bony one, she remembered how Ziva hadn't wanted to die in bed, head on a pillow.

Claudette leaned forward and rested her own head on the mattress, where the smell of laundry detergent mingled with the scent of Ziva's withering body. Was Ziva really on her way to Hell? What about Ofir? Surely he didn't deserve eternal damnation. And Dr. Gadeau and Sister Marie Amable? Were they assured a home in Heaven so long as they confessed their sins in time, said a few words with genuine feeling—but who wouldn't feel something genuine when faced with eternal damnation? No, she couldn't believe God would be so unfair. That is, if He existed. She desperately wanted to believe He did, but He still hadn't given her a sign. All she needed was a nod, a small nod that said, don't worry, Claudette, here I am. Why hadn't He sent it?

Ziva still hadn't stirred when Claudette walked over to the dining hall to fetch lunch. It was after two, and the only people left in the hall were the women removing the containers from the food bar. Claudette hurried to make do with what was still out: rice and turkey for her and a cup of chicken broth for Ziva, just in case. She carried the tray across the square, but once she was back in the room she found she had no appetite.

While the walls took on the golden glow of late afternoon, Claudette kept nodding off. She was exhausted from the night with Ofir, the stressful morning with Adam, and now this unbearable waiting. When she blinked, her eyes wouldn't open again, and she would immediately drop into a dream or nightmare. She dreamed she had to count the white hairs on Ziva's head or she would die. One hair, two hairs, three hairs. She lost count and would have to start again. One hair, two hairs . . .

Every time she forced her eyes open, she would panic and hurry to check that Ziva hadn't passed away. A rasping inhale and a feeble puff of breath on the back of Claudette's hand would flood her with relief. She still had her. If only for a little longer. For months, Claudette hadn't known what to make of this affection she felt for the old woman. What a broken person she must have been to not recognize friendship. She was losing her friend. Her only friend.

The sun had set when at last Claudette succumbed to the sleepiness. She curled up on the green armchair, resting her head on its worn back. Closing her eyes, she told herself this was only a brief nap. She drifted off to Ziva's faltering breaths. Life in. Life out. Life in, life out. In. Out.

“Claudette!”

Claudette opened her eyes. The room was dark, except for the pale light pouring through the window behind Ziva, who sat on the edge of her bed, legs dangling off the side, spindly arms holding her up. Hunched over, the collar of her nightdress hung open, exposing a laddered chest and withered breasts.

Claudette sprang out of the armchair. Was she dreaming? Had the old woman died and this was her ghost? The bedside clock glowed 4:48 a.m. She had fallen into a deep sleep, as she did that night she listened to Ofir. How could she have passed out like that? And how was Ziva sitting up? She hadn't sat up in weeks.

In a faint voice, Ziva said, “I need your help.”

“Of course.” Claudette hurried to help her lie back down. “What can I get you? Water? There's chicken broth here. Do you need to go to the bathroom?”

Claudette bent down to lift Ziva's bony legs back onto the bed, but the old woman shook her head.

“No,” she whispered. “Take me to the fields.”

“The fields?”

Ziva hoped Claudette wouldn't put up too much of a fight. She didn't have the strength to beg. “Please, Claudette. I can't get there on my own.”

Claudette lowered her head to think. What would people say? Who would take a dying old woman out to the fields in the middle of the night? Because that old woman, half out of her mind for a week already, had asked her to? She could get hurt, fall on her bruised hip. Everyone would
blame her, and rightly so. But if she didn't take her, Ziva would never see her fields again.

“I'll get you a sweater.”

Ziva closed her eyes in relief.

Claudette returned with a brown cardigan and drew Ziva's cold arms through the sleeves. She wouldn't bother with pants; the nightgown was long enough. Draping Ziva's arm over her shoulders, she lifted her off the bed, slowly, afraid of causing her pain. The old woman's legs crumpled beneath her, but she was so light, Claudette managed to hold her up.

“Are you okay, Ziva?” she asked before starting the journey across the apartment. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Ziva's whole body cried out in agony. And she was so tired. But she had to get to the fields. “Yes.”

Claudette staggered toward the bedroom door, leaning heavily to the side, resting Ziva's weight against her. They entered the unlit family room, where the wind blew through the window Claudette had left open. Ziva stared at the portraits as they passed, and Claudette was glad she had dusted them off, allowing them to stare back.

The predawn was chilly, but Claudette didn't dare go back to get herself a sweater. She lowered Ziva onto the golf cart's low seat, hoping she would be able to start this machine and get them to the fields without crashing into a streetlamp. She'd never driven anything before, not even a bicycle. When she bent down to lift the old woman's feet onto the floorboard, she found bare feet with thick curling nails, the jaundiced skin covered with the same mottling as the hands. She had forgotten about shoes.

“I'm going to get you some slippers.”

“No,” she wheezed. “Let's go.”

Claudette preferred not to leave Ziva alone, so she hurried around to the driver's seat. Looking over all the levers, buttons, and pedals, she tried to remember Eyal's demonstration. She flipped the red switch and the cart hummed to life. Now which pedal was go, which stop? Holding her breath, she pressed her foot on one, and the cart rolled forward, toward the apartment. She slammed on the other, and it lurched to a stop. She looked over to make sure Ziva was all right and found her looking better than she had in weeks, sitting straight-backed, chin raised, hand grasping a side rail. If not for the ghastly breathing, it would have seemed the old woman
had made a miraculous recovery. Returning her attention to the controls, Claudette lowered a lever from F to R and tentatively pushed on the pedal again. The cart trundled backward onto the path.

After that, driving the cart was easy. She might have even found it fun under different circumstances. They rolled across the quiet square. The round streetlamps glowed here and there, but otherwise the kibbutz was in slumber. The cool air carried the faint hum of the factory and the sweet, earthy smell of cow manure. Hopefully she could drive Ziva out to the fields and back again without anyone seeing them. A hem of lighter sky ran along the tops of the pines.

As they drove, Claudette suppressed the urge to keep asking Ziva how she was doing. She understood the old woman was taking everything in for the last time. They circled around the bomb-shelter bar and rolled along the back of the
kolbo
and the dining hall. They drove past the car lot and then the laundry house, a lace tablecloth hanging beneath its tin awning. They followed the windbreak of cedars that separated the white houses from the fields below. Ziva saw all this, but also the earlier versions of these buildings, and before that the tents, and before that the dry, rocky hill she and Dov and the others saw that first morning they arrived with their bags and one truck of supplies.

After the swimming pool, Claudette turned the cart onto the dirt road that descended into the fields. They jostled past the corroded steel sign—
KIBBUTZ SADOT HADAR
, 30
GOOD YEARS
, 1933–1963—and through the open gates, draped with bougainvillea. Only a couple of weeks ago, there would have been workers in the fields at this hour, putting in the time before the punishing summer sun peeked over the horizon, but now they had the fields to themselves.

Claudette paused the cart. “What field do you want to go to, Ziva?”

Ziva took stock of the fields and sky. What would be ready now? She tried to smell, but she hadn't smelled anything in days, her nose having already given up. Still she could feel it in the air. After so many seasons, she felt the harvest in her marrow.

“The peanuts.”

Claudette started the cart again. She knew these fields well, from her days working with Ziva and her nightly wanderings with Ofir. The cart bumped along the dirt road dividing the cabbage and carrot fields. A cool wind brought a waft of the spearmint, and then a gentle, loamier smell.
The peanuts came after the onions and before the lychee orchard, where she and Ziva had first worked together. Half of Claudette longed for this drive to be over already, for them to be safely back in Ziva's room; the other half wished it would go on and on, that the two of them would never have to stop driving together into the dawn.

By the time they arrived at the peanut field, the lighter blue had slinked up a third of the sky. When Claudette stopped the cart, Ziva surprised her by proceeding to climb out. She had assumed they were only going to look at the fields. She jumped out and hurried around the cart to help. Hands under Ziva's armpits, she eased her out of the passenger seat. When the mottled bare feet reached the dirt, Claudette held her up, as she did in the room, by draping Ziva's arm over her shoulders and cupping her around the waist.

Ziva pointed into the field. Again, it seemed crazy, dangerous. If anything happened to the old woman, thought Claudette, she would get in trouble, but what could happen that was worse than dying? So she guided Ziva down the path between the uprooted plants, pulled from the ground and lain on their sides so the pods could dry in the sun.

“Here. Sit.” Ziva spoke so quietly, Claudette could barely make out her words.

“You want to sit down?”

Ziva nodded.

Claudette crouched as slowly and steadily as she could, her back aching as she gently lowered Ziva onto the dirt. Once the old woman was sitting on the narrow path, flanked by two rows of plants, Claudette pulled the nightdress down to cover her bruised, bony legs.

“Come back. In a bit.”

It took Claudette a second to understand Ziva was asking her to go away. “You want to be alone?”

Ziva tried to clear her throat. “Going to pick a few peanuts.”

“Pick?”

Claudette imagined someone driving by and seeing the old woman, alone in the field, in the middle of the night, working.

Working.

Now Claudette had trouble getting the words out. “All right. I'll be back in a little bit.”

Claudette walked toward the cart, resisting the urge to keep looking back at Ziva. How did Ziva know she was dying right now, and not in a
couple of hours, or tomorrow, or next week? Could she control it at this point? Was it merely a question of letting go? What if she didn't die? Was she going to be disappointed? Maybe Claudette had misunderstood; maybe Ziva couldn't plan it and only wanted a few minutes alone in the fields.

After Claudette settled into the driver's seat, she turned to wave to Ziva, but her white head was lowered. Claudette switched on the cart. She would drive around the lychee orchard and check on Ziva when the road circled back to the peanut field.

Ziva pinched a pod on the nearest plant. The shell was hard between her fingers. Ready. She was pleased that she had been right about the harvest. She plucked the pod and dropped it in her lap. How good it was to be out here again, and not in that damn bed.

Breathing had become such a chore; it was going to be easier to stop than keep at it. When she used to hold her breath in the fancy Hochstrasse Natatorium, trying to impress her mother, it took all her willpower not to come up for air. Under the pool's water, she would watch the wavering marble columns, the golden blur of the vaulted ceiling, her mother, standing on the deck, arms crossed, waiting for her to come up. How many times over the decades had she pictured her mother looking at her through the water? In a moment even that memory would be gone. Her mother and Dov would no longer exist, not even in someone's mind. Franz would live for a while longer in that boy's head.