“Checks off everything on my wish list!”

That night Sharon brings her flute to the church and joins Naomi at the piano. A seaman has a guitar, and Kadmon, with his baritone voice, is the lead singer of the string of Hanukkah songs. Pazit is given a tambourine and a triangle to complete this odd musical ensemble.

This is the first time Sharon has played her instrument since it happened. How mistaken her initial reluctance to work for the navy was. It has offered her such a sense of camaraderie and personal accomplishment, she thinks as the familiar Jewish melodies fill the church.

The next afternoon, she joins the line of a dozen seamen at the post office and waits to place an international call to Savta. It takes over an hour before the operator summons her to the booth.

“I miss you so much!” she tells Savta, her heart billowing at hearing the voice that has soothed her for her entire life. She is unsure whether the accompanying crackling emanates from the cables stretching under the sea for six thousand kilometers or from Savta’s excitement.

“Yes, I received the suitcase with my flute and the winter clothes,” Sharon yells into the mouthpiece. “Thank you so much for the new sweater! It’s gorgeous. And the business suit is perfect for this weather. My new winter coat picks up the color in the plaid.” She loves the mundane conversation. “Most important, Savta, tell me: How are you feeling?”

“No point in complaining about age.” Savta reports that she plays cards a few afternoons a week, and afterward there’s always someone to go to a café or a movie with. The entire family comes for Friday-night dinner, which keeps her busy shopping and cooking starting on Wednesday. She is free of labor on Saturdays, when she visits one of her children’s homes for the cholent lunch.

Sharon thinks of Savta’s six-bedroom apartment, mostly empty now, once home to a bustling family, often with rambunctious children, including herself. Savta is alone. “Please don’t save on the cleaning woman’s services,” Sharon says.

“She comes every week, and your cousins take turns daily refilling my kerosene heater.” Sharon hears Savta’s smile as she adds, “So, how is Diaspora?”

Sharon giggles. “Diaspora does me good, as you said it would.”

“I was hoping it would be Paris, not some godforsaken town with no cultural life.”

“I get there sometimes. I send you postcards from every museum I visit! You’ll also be glad to know that I gained a couple of kilos.”

Neither mentions that there is no news of the Dakar, that the wait for the funeral is stretching beyond what anyone thought possible almost eleven months earlier.

When Sharon returns to the office, she’s surprised to find Danny there, drumming his fingers on his desk while staring at the black telephone. He’s been out at sea every day, testing Saar Seven since its launch. “I’ve ordered a call to the kibbutz secretary,” he says. “My parents are waiting there, but the international operator is not calling back.” As an officer, Danny is entitled to place personal international calls despite their exorbitant cost. He glances at his watch. “I must return to my crew. Please call the operator to cancel so we won’t be charged.”

Sharon does. An hour later the phone rings, and the international operator informs Sharon that the requested party is on the line.

“It’s been canceled,” Sharon says, but already she hears excited voices. “I’m sorry,” she tells whoever is on the other end of the line. “Danny waited for an hour, but then had to leave.”

“This is his father.” The man has a nicotine-cured voice, and Sharon recognizes the confident, no-nonsense cadence of a kibbutznik’s speech, typical of men and women rooted in the country’s soil and soul. “We understand the call of duty.”

“I’m sure he’ll try again tomorrow,” she says. “Happy Hanukkah.”

“To you too.”

“Wait!” The three minutes are already charged. “Since I have you on the phone, my name is Sharon, and I work with the team. Danny wanted to lend me his advanced math textbook. Would you know where it is?”

“Sure. Right here on the shelf. I’ll drop it off at your liaison office in Haifa.”

“Thanks!” She hesitates. There’s no better time. “Mr. Yarden, may I ask you a personal question?”

“Uzi. Only my wife calls me Mr. Yarden, when she’s cross with me. What is it?”

“Since we’re in France, I’d like to help Danny trace his roots. Would you be able to give me any information? Where did you find him?”

Uzi coughs. “It was in a region with lots of castles.”

“The Dordogne? The Loire Valley? Provence?”

“Couldn’t tell you if you hung me upside down by my toes. I had a nice landlady by the name of Madame T-something.”

“Was it a city, town, an isolated farm?”

“A village, but even then I couldn’t pronounce its name. Sorry, it was a very intense time.” He pauses. “I have a letter in French that never served any purpose. Danny can have it.”

“Great. Thank you very much.” What possible explanation can she give Danny when he receives this old letter and learns of her request? Last time she badgered him, he came close to losing his cool. And she’d agreed to leave his life alone.

“How is his French now?” Uzi asks.

“Perfect. Most four-year-olds would have forgotten it.”

“My brother kept it up with him until he got killed in the Sinai campaign.”

Why would a kibbutz member of an Israel-born family be fluent in a language other than Hebrew and possibly Yiddish? “You had a brother who spoke French?” she asks.

“The one time I served as a Youth Aliyah agent, before they found more qualified candidates, I also brought back with me a teenage boy, Arthur. My parents adopted him. Every family in the area kibbutzim adopted at least one child. Danny was a gift to me and my wife. Arthur to my parents.”

“So sorry to hear that he was killed.” A teenager gets rescued from the Holocaust only to lose his life in one of Israel’s wars—like her own mother. “Was Arthur from the same village as Danny?”

“Yes, but he was under the care of some other Jewish organization, not the Youth Aliyah.”

“What was his full name?”

“Arthur Durand. It was changed to Arnon Yarden.”

“Thanks, Uzi.” She makes a quick calculation. In 1956, when the Sinai campaign took place, Danny was fourteen. “I’ll give Danny your regards. I’m sure that he’ll reschedule the call. Happy Hanukkah to your family.”

From the other end of the line comes a chorus of voices, as if rehearsed: “Happy Hanukkah!” It tells Sharon that a whole group of relatives is gathered around the phone for this eagerly anticipated conversation with their boy.

She glances at the wall clock. She’s used two more expensive minutes beyond the first three. “Shalom,” she says.

“Shalom upon all of Israel,” Uzi says and adds, “Good luck to you guys up there, whatever it is that you’re doing.”

After Sharon hangs up, her hand remains on the receiver. She and her grandparents created a tight unit within their large extended family. Although she had a horde of aunts and uncles and seventeen cousins, none of them ever gathered by the phone to hear her voice.

Perhaps this rich circle of love is the reason Danny doesn’t wish to shake its foundation. She has no business poking her nose into his personal affairs.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Claudette

Loire Valley, France

Fall 1945–Spring 1946

She lived with Madame Couture. They hoped to get sewing work, but few could afford even the cost of repairing old clothes. Claudette was grateful when, in the fall, she found a job with a pleasant young cheese seller. Fernand had returned from the war early after losing an arm and an eye.