The church bells are pealing. Families bundled in coats and scarves are making their way to Sunday services. At the entrance to Rachelle’s building, several streets over from hers, Sharon pulls the bell string to her friend’s apartment. She breathes in the buttery smell of the fresh croissants she just bought to go with the coffee they’ll have before they head to the carnival.
Instead of coming down to unlock the building door, Rachelle opens her second-floor window. “I’m sick.” She points at her throat. “Sorry to ruin your day. Take my car.” She tosses Sharon the keys to the red Citroën parked across the street.
“Wait. I brought you a croissant.”
“Can’t eat.” Her mane of dark curls is a mess, and her nose is red.
“Let me come up and make you tea.”
Rachelle throws down the key for the main entrance. When Sharon enters the apartment, Rachelle trudges back to bed. Sharon finds aspirin and brings it to her friend with a glass of water, adjusts the radiator dial, brews tea, and places a plate with a croissant on Rachelle’s night table. “Rest now. I will return later with a meal.”
Sharon basks in the freedom of driving on the open road and takes the longer route west, hugging the shore. High waves roar and crash against a seawall in wild sprays that lash the car. In the fishing villages, lobster traps are stacked and tied down, wooden boats are moored and covered, and trawlers in the harbor struggle to break free of their anchors. Farther out, the sky and sea merge into a steel-colored blur that looks like the world before Creation. And this is not the worst of the weather. Twenty men, with Danny as their commander, will soon be testing Saar Seven in this ocean. Sharon turns the car to drive east, away from the shore hamlets, worry gnawing at her. Why has she agreed to bring herself so close to these life-and-death exigencies again?
In the Coutances village square, protected from the winds, the carnival is in full swing. People strut about in costumes, children ride the colorful carousel, and masked teens flirt. Under a makeshift canopy, a band fills the air with brassy music. Couples dance, wearing their coats. The cafés serve beer and wine, and, judging by their patrons’ singing, they opened early.
Sharon sips her warm cider. The dancers form a snake line, and when they pass her, they sweep her along and weave through the square, grabbing more onlookers. Grateful for the distraction, she pounds her feet. The dancers continue through a second and third song. The merriment envelops her. For these transient moments, she is not merely a stranger.
She becomes aware of the young man behind her, his palms resting lightly on her waist as if he knows he needs to control his strength. When the music stops, the dancers turn to face the center, smile at one another, and clap.
“Are you alone here? Would you like to join my friends over there?” The young man waves in the direction of one of the cafés.
She notices his handsome face under the beret and registers that his accent is educated. Sexual warmth spreads through her, frightening her in its rawness. “Thank you. Maybe after I walk around for a while.”
Humming the last tune the band played, she steps to the food market. It’s one o’clock in the afternoon, and shoppers’ baskets are full. Merchants begin to stack huge wheels of cheese in straw-lined wooden crates, untie necklaces of salami from makeshift rafters, and haul boxes of leftover produce into carts. She is tempted to return to the plaza and the young man. It might lead to the kind of wild sex she so misses—of limbs and hands and lips everywhere, of her passion unleashed with an attractive stranger.
To give herself time to decide, she asks a woman who is wrapping baked goods for crumbs and takes them over to the pigeons at the foot of a nearby monument. She watches them pecking. Life is so simple when the only concern is getting enough bread crumbs.
No need to complicate hers with an impulsive act she might regret. Or not. If the young man is in the café later, it will be her sign to go ahead.
The window frames of a café are painted burgundy. Below them, in planters, late-season purple cabbages are withering. Sharon enters and chooses a table overlooking the stalls. A musician approaches, pumping a French song on his accordion. Sharon examines it. She played the accordion for a year before settling on the flute. Hers had a piano-like keyboard on the right and eighty buttons on the left; this one has buttons on both sides. When she turns to fish for a coin in the satchel hanging on the back of her chair, she notices Félix Amiot watching her from a nearby table.
Since the dinner at his fort, she’s seen him through her office window strolling in the shipyard with dignitaries in business suits or military uniforms. Catching her eye, he nods. She gives him a small smile.
He rises. “Mademoiselle Bloomenthal.”
She’s surprised that he remembers her face, let alone her name. “Monsieur Amiot,” she responds. Does a woman get up for an older man? How old must he be for a young person to show respect without insulting him?
“Would you care to join me?” he asks. “We French appreciate good conversation around food.”
She was planning to order potage Parmentier, the inexpensive potato-and-leek soup, for herself, and she brought Rachelle’s tin container to get a heartier meal for her. “An honor. Thanks.”
At his table, while she examines the extensive menu, Amiot asks, “Do you observe kosher?”
She shakes her head. “Our entire team here is secular. Orthodox do not serve in the army.”
“I’m confused. All my Israeli friends here define themselves as Jewish, yet they do not adhere to any of the rituals.”
“We care very much about our people’s past, present, and future. We observe major holidays as our ethnic heritage rather than as religious practices. That’s why we don’t observe the stricter Orthodox Shabbat. Not even flipping a light switch because it’s considered labor? That’s an absurd, archaic leftover from when starting a fire required chopping wood. For us, the holidays are cultural.” She adds, “I’ve never been to a synagogue.”
“Nevertheless, all the galleys in your boats must keep kosher.”
“Oh, that.” She shrugs. “The minority Orthodox in our government keeps the entire country in its clutches through coalition agreements. Their religious dictates constrict the eighty-six percent of the population who are secular. The Orthodox are in charge of births, marriages, and deaths. They decide who is a Jew, which, by their definition, is only someone whose mother is Jewish. Even in Tel Aviv, a totally secular city, public transportation shuts down for Shabbat, and movie theaters are closed.” She groans. “The entire IDF must keep kosher in case some soldiers are what we call Traditionals.”
“What’s that?”
“The Orthodox are fanatics who are exempt from serving in the IDF. By their choice, they do not integrate into our society, not school or work. The Traditionals adhere to a modern, modified version of observance—in private. They participate fully in Israeli society, including the army. They keep kosher at home and may pray a couple of times a day, but the men wear small knit yarmulkes, not the big black hard hats.”
“Don’t you pray?”
“I wouldn’t know how.” When there is a funeral for Alon, his mother will be forbidden by the Orthodox authorities to utter the religious text at his grave.
Amiot nods his head pensively. “Thanks for enlightening me.”
Sharon giggles. “You must have noticed how our guys here binge on shrimp, mussels, and oysters. In Israel, a restaurant that serves that or pork is blacklisted by the rabbinical authority.”
“Well, in that case,” Amiot says, grinning, “may I suggest the fresh seafood today?”
Ten minutes later, a tower of layered beds of crushed ice with every sea creature ever caught by man materializes at the table. The mussels and oysters that she ate these past few months had no shells, antennas, claws, or hairy legs, unlike those in the collection she’s staring at.
The waiter pours a tasting of white wine into Amiot’s stemmed glass and, receiving his nod of approval, fills Sharon’s glass halfway.
Amiot selects a shrimp. In one expert twist, he removes the legs, peels off the shell, and, holding it by the tail, presents it to Sharon. “Dip it in this sauce.”
He continues to demonstrate how to crack or shuck each marine creature, explaining where it was fished and in what water depth. Sharon eats, amazed that this important man is expending so much energy to keep her engaged. Is it possible that, like her, in spite of being surrounded by people, he’s lonely? Is his life tainted by the stigma—albeit well deserved—of having been a Nazi collaborator?
“Done any more drafting this week?” he asks.
His perfect memory no longer astonishes her. “An engineer friend taught me how to use instruments to create three-dimensional objects.”
