“He’s an engineering genius with one hundred patents to his name. A visionary who built his first airplane at eighteen and from there went on to own half of France’s aviation industry.”
“And now he builds ships for Israel,” Sharon says, not bothering to hide her distaste.
Saar Seven will be completed in seven or eight weeks. Danny will be its captain, and he will begin weeks of testing, going out to sea every day and returning every evening to the protective bosom of the French navy. In addition to that accommodation, Sharon collects from the friendly French officers valuable daily weather forecasts and tide maps.
The Saar’s December launch will be celebrated when the moon and the sun align; the water level then will be ten to fourteen meters higher than it is at low tide. Several days later, the first night of Hanukkah will be marked with a second party. Sharon’s anticipation of the double festivities is mixed with her concern over the imminent attack on Israel.
When they get back in the van, Danny starts the engine, pulls out, and makes a U-turn to head west.
“Doesn’t Félix Amiot’s wartime collaboration bother you?” Sharon asks.
“His story certainly tells you how complicated things were. Join us for dinner at his house Saturday after next.”
Danny lights a cigarette. Sharon cranks down her window and rests her head on the frame to feel the ocean breeze.
“It’s time you sign up for driving lessons. I need you to drive around,” Danny says.
Learn to drive? What freedom it must be to be in control of where she goes. “Will the office pay for it?” she asks. In Israel, driving instructors are unionized, part of a corrupt system in which the testers from the motor vehicles bureau fail students at least twice so the students must pay for additional months of private lessons. Obtaining a license is a privilege of the rich.
“There are perks to working abroad, and the chance to get a license easily and cheaply is one of them,” Danny says.
Obtaining a license is a fantastic perk, Sharon thinks, but can she commit to staying long enough? It’s been nine months since the Dakar’s disappearance, and it will surely be found any day. In the meantime, her bank account in town is growing. She was able to splurge and join her downstairs neighbors Naomi and Pazit for a girls’ weekend in Paris. Naomi was hoping that a trip to the City of Light would help shake the melancholy out of the forlorn teenager. After the three of them toured Montmartre and its Sacré-Coeur cathedral, took the elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and clicked photos of the Arc de Triomphe, Sharon feasted her eyes on the splendor of Champs-Élysées fashion. For actual shopping, though, Naomi led them to the flea market. Even Pazit woke up at the abundance of inexpensive merchandise and copied Sharon’s selection of corduroy pants, sweaters, and a short jacket for the changing weather.
At one point, Pazit went into a record store, and Sharon and Naomi sat in a café on Boulevard Saint-Germain watching the passersby. “What was the drama involving the family on the first floor of our building?” Sharon asked.
Naomi sipped her coffee. “The daughter of Yaniv’s predecessor—she was about your age—came to visit her parents for a week. Danny made the mistake of taking her out a couple of times. Maybe there was more. The kid fell in love, stayed on, and badgered everyone to ‘talk to him,’ as if we could convince him to love her back.”
“Must have been awkward all around.”
“Her father was embarrassed by her behavior. Since his tour here was about to end anyway, he transferred earlier. Then Danny met Dominique, who’s closer to his age and more levelheaded, and we all breathed a sigh of relief.”
The story makes Danny seem more human, Sharon thinks now as he punches the radio dial. Yves Montand’s voice comes through, then the signal is lost.
“Let’s talk about you,” Danny says after a while. “Since you’re doing drafting, any plans to study it?”
Between assignments, she helps Elazar, who instructs her on how to use drafting instruments. “I would have liked to study architecture, but I majored in social studies, so I didn’t take the math classes I’d need to apply to the Technion.”
“Not too late.” Danny draws on his cigarette. “Winter here is long, cold, and dark. Plenty of time to hit the books.”
“How exciting. I need tutoring, and I don’t even have a math textbook.”
“Mine is at my parents’ home. I’ll ask them to mail it.” He smiles. “We’re not short of engineers who can tutor you. I’ll help when I can.”
“Thanks.” The time alone with Danny has lost its pressing purpose. Her hopes to penetrate the mystery of his past have capsized like a dinghy in a storm. But she likes their growing friendship. “To be accepted in the Technion, I’ll need more than a passing grade in calculus,” she says.
“You’re smart. Give it a shot.”
Instead of a reply, she tries turning on the radio again. This time Edith Piaf’s sonorous voice is clear: “Non, je ne regrette rien.”
With the wind teasing her hair, Sharon thinks that she doesn’t regret coming to Cherbourg even if her original quest has come to naught. She’s growing, coming into herself—she will even learn to drive. Becoming an architect was such an elusive aspiration, she never considered it possible. Even today she would rather have married Alon.
Life has its own story arc. A huge hand drops from the sky to yank you out of your orbit and throw you into another. And here
she is, part of history in the making, although its events are yet to unfold.
Chapter Twenty
Sharon
Cherbourg, France
October 1968
Shabbat morning brings brightness and warmth, as if yesterday’s rain and chill were a mistake and now summer has reclaimed its spot on the calendar. The office is closed, and Sharon’s four new roommates are out in a rented car touring the region. Sharon rose early and baked an almond cake for Rina and a poppy-seed cake for Naomi. The radio is playing “Indian Summer,” and the words about a lost love swell up in Sharon. Longing for Alon rushes in to fill the space of his absence. She checks her map. To while away the coming hours, she plans to ride her new motorized bike out of town.
She walks down to Naomi and Elazar’s apartment to deliver the cake. “Hey, I’m going to a scallop festival,” she tells Pazit when the teenager opens the door. “Would you like to come along?”
“No, thanks.”
The British TV station blares in the background. “C’mon. It will be fun to see something new together, like we did in Paris.”
“No. I have homework.”
Sharon sympathizes with the misery of this lonely teenager, cut off from her boyfriend and school and drowning in a new language. “May I help you with your French homework?”
“What part of the word no don’t you understand?”
Sharon climbs the stairs back to her apartment. She can’t imagine how hard it must be for Pazit’s parents. Are Naomi’s sacrifices to support her husband worth the cost of her resigning from her job running a lab at a Haifa hospital, leaving a son in the IDF without his family, and making her daughter miserable?
Merely a few years ago, Sharon was a teenager, and she recalls the license some of her friends took with their parents. It dismayed her to hear them talk back. Rebellion and impertinence were never an option for her. As frustrating as her aging grandparents could be, so out of step with her fast-moving world—Grandpa Nathan forbade her to play Elvis Presley and Beatles music, claiming it corrupted the soul of Israel’s youth—Sharon was forever cognizant of the efforts her grandparents made to raise her. Luckily, since age thirteen, she’d had Alon’s parents as her second family. In their laughter-filled home, the latest Top 10 songs always blared in the background. Of course, Sharon was also on her best behavior. Perhaps there’s some unexpressed pent-up angst and rage hidden in each teenager, like noxious fumes slithering under the surface in search of an opening.
