Their breakfast of chopped salad and fried eggs arrives. Sharon restarts the conversation by mentioning the names of Alon’s officers who graduated from the naval academy. The commander knows them and recounts a three-month voyage to India on a commercial tanker he’d taken with one of them the summer after he graduated and before he enlisted.

“I want to ask you something I can’t bring up in Alon’s parents’ presence,” she finally says. “What if the Dakar didn’t plunge to the bottom of the sea but was seized by Egyptian or Russian forces, and the crew is not dead but captured?”

“International diplomatic channels have plowed through such a possibility.”

“Here is another scenario.” She takes a deep breath. “Isn’t it possible that the American navy sank the Dakar in retaliation for the USS Liberty?” The American destroyer was hit in the middle of last year’s Six-Day War when Israel mistook it for an enemy ship. Explanations and apologies failed to placate the enraged Americans. “I mean, not officially, not by a US government order, but by some low-level officers to avenge their brothers?”

The commander pushes his plate to the side and places both his elbows on the table. “Sharon, rumors are bound to float around. There’s absolutely no basis for such a theory.”

“I learned in Intelligence that until there’s a solid explanation, all possible theories are valid.”

He smiles. “One more proof of how well you’ll fit in on our project. By the way, did I tell you that a civilian’s salary is on the French union scale, not the Israeli government’s? That’s quite a bundle.”

Sharon doesn’t show that her interest is piqued. Savta is struggling financially after Grandpa Nathan’s long illness, which depleted their assets. Sharon hasn’t yet contributed since her military basic pay covered only the cost of mascara. She’d planned to seek office employment between her expected release from the military in February and the start of the university semester in November. Even if she had done that, she couldn’t have mentioned her intelligence service. With no formal work experience other than some drafting and billing at her uncle’s factory during school breaks, she would have started at the lowest end of the pay scale. She is flattered that the commander views her potential through her qualifications, not her nonexistent work history.

“Sounds good, but it’s not about money,” she tells him.

He rises, pays the bill, and motions with his head toward the garden. “Shall we take a walk?”

The outside air wraps around her like a wet, hot towel. Dust rises from the path at her first step. It will be another blistering summer day. Sharon contemplates taking the bus to the city pool for a long swim and is jolted by the notion that she is considering doing anything other than joining the Golans on their couch.

“Look,” she says to the commander while her mind digests her sudden craving to dive into cool water. “You’re wasting your time on me.”

“I don’t think so. You care deeply about Israel’s security.” He pauses. “Do you know that the Eilat was hit by a Russian-made Egyptian missile? It was the first such missile ever shot at our ships, and it proved how dangerous its range and accuracy were.”

Sharon’s heart lurches. She’s transcribed the minutes of enough intelligence meetings to understand that, given the missiles’ improved distance and accuracy, it is only a matter of time before one of them hits the spot where she now stands, in the middle of Tel Aviv.

A bus puffs out black soot, and its acrid smell wafts toward the garden. The swallows chirping in the treetops are shocked into a momentary silence before they pick up their song again. These small, valiant birds, Sharon thinks, have adjusted to the urban pollution instead of seeking a greener neighborhood. When she’s not floating in her bubble of grief, she notices the world. She cares—and worries.

If only it weren’t the navy that was asking—and expecting her to travel into the unknown.

“I’d like to make it clear,” the commander says, “the Saars project is highly classified. You may not share our conversation with anyone.”

“How can it be classified if it was in the media when we ordered the boats, and five are already in Israel, docked in full sight?”

He raises his fingers to tick off the reasons. “One, they have special features that are, let’s say, unique. Two, our team’s presence in Cherbourg is not reported anywhere—not in France or Israel. Three, the Saars’ final designated use is the issue. They are being built as oil-exploration boats. No weapons are being placed on them.”

“In that case, the arms embargo shouldn’t apply,” she states. President de Gaulle’s arms embargo, reinforced by the recently elected prime minister, Pompidou, was a blow to Israel. France had formerly been a friendly supplier of tanks and planes—it had even helped in the development of Israel’s nascent nuclear power. But after tiny Israel was attacked by four mighty Arab nations and won the war in a mere six days, France chose to side with the Arab states. The fifty French Mirage airplanes that Israel had fully paid for were not delivered. With France refusing to sell Israel spare parts for its French-made tanks and planes, the nation’s military vehicles and aircraft are fast going out of commission. The country is being choked, and the defeated Arab countries are gearing up for another round of war.

“The arms embargo is not supposed to apply to boats built as platforms for oil exploration,” the commander tells her. “But these Saars are constructed of steel, not wood, and they are too fast, sophisticated, and expensive to serve a civilian purpose. That leaves a gray area for France’s interpretation—and ours.” He removes his sunglasses and looks at her. “If you were the French minister of defense, what would your take on it be?”

Why is the commander testing her when she has no intention of joining his team? “I would wonder why the Israeli navy is directing what is supposed to be a commercial enterprise,” she replies. “In which case, the Saars operation must be conducted in secrecy even in France?”

A small smile quirks his lips. “Let’s say, under the radar.”

They pass by the sandbox, where a woman empties a bag of plastic toys for two little boys. Sharon watches her. What kind of a mother would Judith Katz have been? Her name was so common that Sharon’s efforts to locate information about her in the Youth Aliyah’s messy archives had been futile. Was Judith funny, introspective, impatient, reserved, shy, giving? All Savta could tell Sharon about her daughter-in-law, whom she’d met only twice, was that during the Holocaust, Judith’s family lived in France. They had been deported and had presumably perished. Orphaned, bewildered, and homeless, Judith was seventeen when an Israeli team searching the countryside after the war for lost Jewish children found her. She helped care for a group of rescued youngsters and accompanied them on an immigrants’ ship to what, two years later, would become Israel. Amiram, four years older than Judith, met her on her arrival.

“What do you remember from your Youth Aliyah voyage?” Sharon asks the commander.

He chuckles at the turn of the conversation. “I was fascinated with the ship and the sight of endless water. I hung around on the bridge and bombarded the captain with questions. He spoke no French, but he let me hold the helm. That’s when I fell in love with the sea.”

That’s not the anecdote she’s searching for. “Do you remember others on the journey?”

He looks at his watch. His tone is bored when he says, “It was so long ago.”

She will dig for more if she gets the opportunity. The commander thinks he knows all about her. He can’t imagine that she will make herself useful to him only so she can probe his Youth Aliyah memories. For the first time in Sharon’s life, a window has opened for her to learn something about her mother’s experience. All it will take is chutzpah—daring and audacity.

They stop in the corner leading to the street. A horse-drawn farmer’s cart slows the heavy morning traffic. Irritated drivers blow their horns. The horse lowers its head as it tries to pull faster, harder. Sharon feels bad for the poor beast.

“By the way, did you know that the first Saar participated in the search for Dakar?” the commander asks her through the metallic cacophony of honking horns.

She didn’t but won’t admit it.

“Well, it was nice chatting more.” He extends his hand. “Thank you. Shalom.”

“Okay. I’ll take the job,” she blurts out.

A quick expression of surprise traverses his face, then disappears. “I’m glad to hear that. Sharon, you’ll be channeling your pain into something constructive for Alon’s memory.”

No. She’ll be deserting Alon, walking away from believing that at any moment, the submarine will be found. Despite the heat, a sudden chill zips through her. What has she done? Her emotions are too raw, already too taut, like a boil about to burst the skin. She can’t afford to heap more stress and fear on herself.

Sharon walks back home, joy and regret clashing inside her. Come to think of it, nothing is holding her to her impetuous acceptance. When someone calls to make the travel arrangements, she should rescind it.

Chapter Three

Claudette

Loire Valley, France

Spring 1940

The winds of war in the east, where Germany had invaded Poland, were distant. They had nothing to do with France, Claudette thought. What felt real to her were the upcoming summer festivities. Young village women flocked to her grandmother’s cottage, where Claudette refashioned and embellished old dresses. Come July, the village of La Guerche-sur-l’Aubois would celebrate both Bastille Day and the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Fête de la Fédération.

Claudette sat on the upholstered chair in the front room stitching, her cursed left leg hidden under the sewing table. Three girls her age chatted excitedly about the young men with whom they hoped to dance. For one of those girls, Claudette would salvage an embroidered bodice from an old dress and attach it to a newer organza skirt. For another, she would stitch pearls around the neckline to emphasize the girl’s alabaster skin. For the third, Claudette would alter the girl’s mother’s bridal dress by weaving colorful ribbons into the white lace.

Claudette kept her head down, bent over the silk roses she was cutting, and wallowed in her sorrow. No one, including herself, expected a cripple to participate in the merriment. She wouldn’t even watch the dance from the sidelines with her grandmother Mémère and be subjected to looks of pity and the mockery of young men. Come the night of the festival, girls wearing her dresses, her creations, would twirl in the plaza and be courted and swooned over by handsome lovers.

All Claudette could do was stitch her sorrow into beautiful embellishments.

Just before nightfall, she grabbed her cane, hobbled out to the garden, collected ripened tomatoes, and unlocked the back gate for the peddler, a Jew, who made weekly rounds with his cart selling women’s toiletries, detergents, sewing supplies, medicines, small tools, and kitchenware. When she was little, Claudette had feared this strange man with the funny accent who never took off his brimmed hat, whose face was covered with a beard, and whose eyes were hidden behind glasses. His people had killed Christ, so what was he capable of? Her suspicion had melted after he had cured Mémère’s coughs with his elixirs.

Claudette was twelve when he began his weekly visits and discovered that, due to her disability, she had never been to school—it was too far to walk. He taught her to read. This medicine man had also given her holy water and instructed her to dab it on her knee twice daily, then lift her cursed leg ten times. Miraculously, the holy water worked and her leg strengthened. Unfortunately, once Claudette turned sixteen and her body filled in, the additional weight made her lose her balance. Her left leg, twisted at birth, had been further damaged from repeated muscle tears. In one of her falls, she had broken two of her front teeth. Since then, Claudette covered her mouth with her hand when she smiled.

The Jew led his cart into the barn, where his horse would keep Rosette the cow company. Claudette had concealed the man’s overnight stays from her best friend, Solange, who claimed that all Jews were crooks. Since he slept in Mémère’s bed, Claudette had a greater reason to keep mum about the Jew’s visits. He was a widower with three kids, he had told them, and Claudette looked forward to the gifts he brought each week.

“I have something special for you,” he told Claudette after he entered the house and politely accepted Mémère’s offer of a meal as if it hadn’t been their routine for years. He unwrapped a contraption of metal and leather buckles. “It’s a brace. It will allow you to put weight on your leg.”

The brace had two flat metal rods. A cobbler had fixed them to a shoe and added three buckled leather straps to circle Claudette’s thigh and calf. After Mémère finished helping Claudette strap it on behind the dressing screen, the Jew presented the matching right shoe with a flourish of his palm.