Sharon is glued to yet another rerun when the phone rings.

“You must have heard,” Danny says with no preliminaries.

“I’m watching you talking to reporters.” She laughs, loving his voice, basking in their camaraderie. “Some real jerks.”

“We wouldn’t be Jews if we didn’t disagree with one another in a dozen different ways,” he replies. “Listen, sweetheart. I’m heading to Jerusalem to brief the prime minister. In the morning I’ll be taking the train to Tel Aviv to catch a bus to Ayelet HaShachar to see my parents. Let’s meet at nine hundred hours at the same café where you surprised me by taking the job.” She hears the smile in his voice.

He just called her sweetheart, not kiddo.

She telephones a cousin to stay with Savta tomorrow for a couple of hours. The pool of available relatives is still large when Savta is mobile. It won’t be this easy, Sharon knows, when the cancer progresses and caring for Savta means hands-on nursing. Savta has refused any aggressive, debilitating treatment. The prognosis is clear.

In the morning, excitement runs in Sharon’s veins while she feathers her eyelashes with mascara and zips up the new wool skirt she sewed under Savta’s guidance. The fact that Danny is squeezing this meeting into his very tight schedule—the bus ride to his kibbutz in the Galilee will take hours—makes her feel appreciated, a chosen friend. Deeper, there’s their bond of orphanhood, even if it matters only to her. There is so much she plans to tell him.

First, she’ll confess about Uzi Yarden’s letter. Surely when Danny visits, his father will mention her request. Sharon will also report to Danny what she discovered: Pelletier, Châtillon-sur-Indre, Robillard. It will be up to him to pursue it further. The geographical distance from France has given her perspective, and what she sees is embarrassing. Her nosing around was beyond chutzpah; it was obnoxiously prying. It was her need, not Danny’s, that made her home in on his past like a searchlight beam. The worst yenta, Savta would have said.

The temperatures have dropped, and the clouds seem to be wrapped in dripping cheesecloth. Sharon heads out, and minutes later, in the steam-filled café, she secures a spot by the large window. She wipes the fog off the glass pane with a napkin, and through the cleared arch, she sees Danny approach. His shoulders are hunched forward against the wind, and the hood of his jacket doesn’t fully cover the face she’s so often peered into over mugs of coffee and steins of beer.

He enters, takes off his wet glasses, wipes them while scanning the room, then puts them back on and crosses the space between them in a few long strides.

“You’re looking great!” He holds her at arm’s length and scrutinizes her face with a softer gaze than she would have expected. Then he gives her la bise. His cheek exudes chill and dampness, like a puppy’s nose, and it feels intimate.

She laughs. “It’s been only a month since I left.”

“It feels longer.” He peels off his jacket while asking the waiter, who just brought coffee to their table, “Is the cinnamon cake already baked? I have only half an hour.”

“Thirty minutes?” Sharon asks when the waiter walks away. She has so many questions—how the Hanukkah party she missed went, who her replacement is, whether Rina had a boy or a girl. She wants to know if there’s any news about Rachelle and Ehud and whether Dominique finally landed a “male” assignment.

First, though, she must reveal to Danny his name!

“Actually, forty-five minutes till my bus departs.” Before Sharon has a chance to bring up her questions, he asks, “How are you doing with your math?”

“Hardly cracking the book. My savta—”

He places his hand on hers, and she feels the warmth of the rough skin. “It’s been a year since the Dakar’s disappearance,” he says.

She withdraws her hand. “Eleven and a half months.”

“Almost a year,” he corrects himself. The waiter brings his cake, and when he’s gone, Danny says, “You have the rest of the winter to study. Take the math exam in late June and apply to the Technion to start in September.”

She lets out a nervous laugh. “You have my life mapped out for me?”

“If it were up to me, you’d be back in Cherbourg.”

“How are things going there?” She can’t inquire here about his meeting with the prime minister, but his response gives her a glimpse into it.

“We’re dealing with a major French reaction.” He looks at his watch. “That’s why I have time only to say hello to my parents today and watch the Galilee sunrise tomorrow before heading down to the airport to catch a flight back.”

She swallows. Chutzpah, she reminds herself. “Will you find time—whenever you’re not overburdened—to check on your family roots in France?”

His head snaps back. “Sharon, not that again.”

“But why not? I’d kill to have information about my mother, and I’ve found—”

He cuts her off. “I’m Holocausted out. All the stories turn out the same: deportations, camps, incinerators. I’m committed to making sure it doesn’t happen again.” In a more tempered tone, he adds, “That is my life’s mission.”

“But—”

“We’re under threat of imminent attack by Arab seacraft equipped with Soviet missiles. If they get close enough, they’ll wipe out Tel Aviv and Haifa. I’m concentrating on how to respond.” He leans over the table, motions to her to do the same, and whispers, “We are on the verge of a crucial, game-changing solution.”

She likes his coffee-laced warm breath on her cheek. “What kind?” she whispers back.

“Even more exciting than the Saars.” He straightens, gulps the last of his coffee, and wraps his untouched cake in paper napkins. “Got to run.”

“There’s so much I want to tell you—” she begins, but he interrupts.

“Write me a letter, okay? I’d love to stay in touch.”

She can walk him the few blocks to the bus. Perhaps she’ll blurt out the names even if he doesn’t want to hear. But before she puts on her coat, he throws her two more air kisses and rushes out the door. Through the glass, she sees him break into a trot. She grabs her satchel and steps out in a daze. He made an effort to see her but left an echo of unease, of an unfulfilled promise.

What if she hadn’t withdrawn her hand? Was he trying to tell her something, to create an intimate moment, thinking that almost a year had passed and she was ready for him? Sharon banishes the ridiculous fantasy. Yet his hand did cover hers. Would he have given her a hug before leaving or kissed her if she had not erected the wall of her mourning?

The drizzle has stopped, and the clouds are dispersed by the sun’s rays like startled pigeons. Sharon walks home to Savta. How long will it be before she loses the last person who loves her?

She mulls over Danny’s confidential security hint. She learned in her intelligence unit a year ago that tests in the desert for some mysterious defense system had failed; code-named Gabriel, it ended up exploding. The scientists weren’t optimistic then. They needed years, not months, and a vast budget despite an uncertain return.

Israel’s enemies know its weakness. The next war can’t be far off. Its threat casts a dark shadow on Sharon’s mood, even if this January day promises to be bright after all.

She crosses the small park where nannies are arriving with prams and strollers. She recalls the many hours when Savta watched her play in the sandbox or stood with arms outstretched when Sharon swung from the jungle gym, ready to catch her if she fell. Soon there will be no one to watch out for her, no one to catch her as Savta did after Alon’s death. Sharon wants to cry.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Uzi Yarden

Loire Valley, France

October 1946

A chain-link fence enclosed the front yard of a red-brick, one-story schoolhouse. About a hundred children of all ages played and fought. Uzi stood outside the closed gate, Arthur at his side.

“Do you see him?” Uzi asked.

“No.”

There was no bell to ring for entrance. No supervising adult was in sight.

“Let’s find someone in authority,” Uzi said, and released the latch on the gate.

Arthur didn’t move.