“They set up a feeding station with a sort of tube, filled with lukewarm gruel,” she said. “I didn’t know the man, or who knows, maybe he was my cousin. There was nothing left to him but eyes and bones. They carried him to this pipe and he opened his mouth, like a bird being fed by its mother. He closed his eyes and swallowed and swallowed until …
“No one thought to stop him. Someone said he ruptured his stomach. There were no doctors. So many died the day after liberation. Too weak. Too sick.”
“I was never that hungry,” Tedi whispered. “I was lucky.”
Zorah turned on her. “Don’t ever say that. Don’t let anyone say that to you.”
Tedi looked like she’d been slapped.
“Ach, maybe they’re right,” Zorah relented. “Maybe it’s better not to talk of this at all. What’s the point?”
“Exactly,” said Tedi. “What is the point?”
“I’ll tell you the point,” said Zorah. “It is unbelievable what I saw, what I lived, what happened to you, to everyone here! The point is that nobody knows what happened, and if we pretend it didn’t happen, then it didn’t happen and it will never stop. People died from starvation even after they were given food because no one paid attention. A fifteen-year-old girl jumped off the deck of the ship that carried me to Palestine, and do you know why? Because everyone kept telling her, ‘You are so lucky. You are young. You have cousins and uncles. Lucky girl.’ She was bleeding inside from everything she’d been through. ‘Don’t cry,’ they told her. ‘Lucky girl,’ they told her. She jumped into the sea.”
“Shah, be quiet.” Tedi put her hand on top of Zorah’s. “They are staring at us.”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, I care,” said Tedi. “I don’t want people looking at me like that. I don’t want anyone to ask what happened to me. My memory is private. My grief is private. My …” She searched for a way to put it. “My shame. I mean, you won’t tell anyone, will you?”
“Of course not,” Zorah said. “What do you take me for?”
“You see? There are times when silence is better. When we must put the past behind us, in order to live.”
Zorah crossed her arms against her chest. “So in order to live, we must annihilate the past? Then what about your parents? Aren’t you responsible for their memories? If you don’t speak of them, it’s like you kill them all over again.”
Tedi was on her feet.
“I’m sorry if this causes you pain,” said Zorah. “But I am not wrong.”
“Leave me alone,” said Tedi and ran out of the room.
Zorah stayed where she was, watching as groups of people passed by the open doors as each of the services ended. Some of them came to the door, looked inside, and then hurried away. She picked up an apple and brushed the cool, smooth skin back and forth against her lips. The smell made her mouth water. Her stomach rumbled. Eat it, she told herself.
When Tedi walked back into the barrack, Shayndel called her over to Leonie’s cot, where the two of them had passed the day, talking and napping.
“Do you want to come to the last service of the day with us?” Shayndel asked.
“Did you go this morning?” Tedi asked.
“That’s too much sitting for me,” said Shayndel. “Neilah is short, and I want to say Kaddish for my family.”
“I thought only men can do that,” Tedi said.
“This is the twentieth century,” Shayndel said. “I’m not asking some stranger who never met my mother and father to pray for them. Besides, if we go to the Socialists, no one will care what I do.”
“Will you say it for me, too?” Tedi asked. “I don’t know the words.”
“Of course. I am saying it for Leonie, too. You can add the amens with everyone else.”
It was not clear how it happened. The Russians claimed that the idea was theirs, but it might have been the work of the local rabbi, who had been seen talking to the Romanians and Hungarians earlier. However it came to pass, as the sun moved toward the horizon, the entire population of Atlit—nearly three hundred that day—gathered as a single congregation. They streamed toward the promenade, dragging benches, chairs, and wooden boxes through the dirt.
Although the crowd was quiet, there was something festive in the air as people arranged seats into uneven rows. The injured and the pregnant were urged to sit first. Others, dizzy from fasting and heat, sat down without prompting. The dust of the long day settled around them in the golden light.
“Where are their shoes?” Leonie asked, pointing to a group of men who were standing in bare feet.
“It’s an old custom of mourning,” Shayndel explained as she, Tedi, and Leonie sat among the women who had, without direction or discussion, taken seats to the left of an untidy aisle.