“Sweet. Resilient. Bright. Musical. Beautiful. Courageous. Hugely talented. Great with people. Spoke many languages.”

Sharon smiles into the phone. Music and languages, just as she had guessed. “My savta said she was good with children.”

“Amazingly so. So loving. So mature for her age. She kept the children engaged and organized in the DP camp and then on the ship. The kids had experienced horrific traumas. She mothered them all. Danny, too, adored her.”

The cold tile beneath Sharon chills the heat that floods her. All her yenta nosing had one purpose: to lead to this very moment. For twenty-one years, she’s been trying to find the elusive trail to her mother—she even took the job in France to discover details about her Youth Aliyah experience—and suddenly it’s here. Now. At the end of the phone line.

“I should travel tomorrow to visit you in Ayelet HaShachar to hear more,” Sharon says, “but I can’t wait. Tell me everything now.”

“Of course. Since her kibbutz was nearby, we kept in touch after she settled there. We all worked very hard but did Friday-night hora dances together.” He pauses. “Amiram adored her. They were very happy about the pregnancy and were so looking forward to your birth. She was very strong and worked till the end.”

“Did you meet her in the DP camp?”

“Oh, no.” Uzi tells her how Judith approached him at the train station. “For two years she rode trains, hoping to bump into members of her family. There was hardly any other way for European survivors to find one another.”

“Oh God.” Sharon can’t help the moan that escapes her. The misery of loss she has known was so much greater for Judith. “Where in France did she grow up?”

“I sincerely don’t recall,” he says. “To her, bumping into my group as it was heading to Eretz Israel was God’s sign for her to pursue her parents’ dream.”

“Was she religious?”

“A believer. She kept kosher.” He pauses. “The Holocaust caused many adults to turn atheist. For children, during the worst times, God was the only one from whom they could draw protection and guidance.”

“I can’t imagine how scared the children were,” Sharon says. “Do you know where she passed the war years?”

“The family’s housekeeper kept her in her village and told everyone she was her niece so she could attend school.”

“She wasn’t in a concentration camp?” Sharon asks, relieved that her mother had been spared that Nazi torture at least.

“No. Judith even studied Latin with some priest. It must have helped her with languages. At the village, she learned to care for farm animals. She loved the idea of living the agricultural life in Israel but was too musical to pass up a scholarship at a conservatory. Before the War of Independence, while pregnant, she traveled to Haifa for weekly lessons.”

“What instrument did she play?”

“Sometimes piano, but mostly the flute. It was far easier to carry around.”

The flute! The hairs on Sharon’s arms stand up. Of all the instruments in the world, they both favored the same one.

Uzi goes on, and Sharon hears the affection in his voice and can tell that he’s smiling. “Life had a lot to offer her—in addition to finding a great love and having you.”

“All my life I’ve waited to learn about her past.” Sharon sniffles. “My grandparents and I used to drive up to the yearly Galilee ceremony, but I stopped going when I discovered that no one had actually known my mother.”

“Thank you for giving me the chance to do a mitzvah,” he replies. “I’m so sorry that you were deprived of a lifetime with your mother. Judith was an extraordinary young woman. I sense that you are like her.”

Am I? Am I as special as Judith? After they hang up, Sharon remains seated on the cool tiles and sobs. Never had she imagined that the circuitous quest would lead her to the man who’d helped Judith Katz set out on the journey to Israel—and to Amiram’s arms.

Judith. “Ima,” Sharon says. She never called Savta by this Hebrew word for “Mommy,” even though that’s what Savta was, nor did she utter the word to Judith’s photos. For the first time, there is something real about her mother to hang on to. “Ima,” Sharon whispers again. “I now know who I am. Your daughter.”

The conversation with Uzi marks the end of her quest. There can be no more. It’s time to pick up her life. How right Danny was to choose not to let the past cripple him in the pursuit of his future. She should too.

When the phone rings again, she decides not to answer it. She needs to digest Uzi’s stories. The phone stops ringing then starts again twice more. Finally Sharon picks it up. She groans when the operator announces, “Hold on for an overseas call.” Only rich Americans can afford the cost of such a condolence call. Some distant relative Sharon has never heard of will try his halting yeshiva Hebrew on her.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” says a man in Israeli Hebrew.

“Danny!” The sound of his voice shoots right through her.

“I’ve just heard. So sorry. It must have been a tough few months, but it’s still tougher when the end arrives.”

She wouldn’t give voice to the relief of death for both the pain-racked patient and the overworked caregiver. “Are you still in the Umbrellas enterprise? I’ve seen nothing in the media.”

“Oh, yes. It’s a hectic business here. Have you applied to the Technion?”

She’s embarrassed to admit how shiftless she feels. “Made no progress in my math.”

“In that case, I seriously need you here. Would you consider returning?”

“I can’t afford the cost of a flight.”

“Our expense, of course. Just say yes.”

“Yes.”

“Tonight?”

Part III

BELONGING:

Some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not.

—W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence

Chapter Fifty-One

Sharon

Loire Valley, France

October 1969

In Orly, an airport that she knows well, Sharon reattaches her suitcase to the wheels with their rubber cords and hops on the train to Paris. She is supposed to make her way with no delay to Gare Saint-Lazare for the northbound train to Cherbourg. Danny is expecting her by this evening. She is looking forward to life among the members of the small Israeli community—even to the changing cast of characters of the reservists. And to seeing him.

Yet when she enters the city, instead of heading to Gare Saint-Lazare, she rides the Métro to Gare d’Austerlitz, where trains leave for points southwest, including the Loire Valley.

What is she doing? she asks herself. Last month, Danny urged her to return immediately, but she had to wait for Aunt Dvora to stop bickering over possessions, for Savta’s apartment to be sold, and for the lawyers to divide the proceeds. Uncle Pinchas invested Sharon’s share in a fund that would provide her with some income. She no longer has a home. She broke up with Tomer, and last night stayed at the Golans’.

She spent a sleepless night in the bedroom where she and Alon had passed so many hours laughing, making love, and listening to Elvis Presley and a new group called the Beatles. The four framed botany posters she had bought for him at a used-book store still hung on the wall. How excited Alon had been about this present! Lying on the mattress that still held the imprint of his body, Sharon cried as she recalled their early tentative forays into the hidden landscapes of each other’s bodies. Kissing for hours had left their lips sore. They had no idea how to proceed until they got hold of an instruction book and studied it as if it were a school assignment, albeit an exhilarating one. In the following months and years, growing together deepened their love. Would she ever find that security in another man’s arms?

Alon would remain forever young, his life experiences never fully formed, while she, since his death, has continued to grow in unexpected directions. Danny had seen her potential and challenged her. His condolence phone call had left her curious as to what he had in store for her, but she wanted to prove to him that his continuing trust in her was well placed.