Jacob's Oath (20 page)

Jacob backed away like a supplicant in a Turkish court, never taking his eyes from
the shut door, and fell onto the bed.

Get up, you moron. Knock on the door, say you’ve changed your mind, yes please, actually
you would like to share a bath after all. Do it, you cretin! Get up. Take your life
in your hands for once. Don’t be a victim anymore. She’s waiting for you. She’s insulted
you didn’t jump on her and hug her and kiss her, that’s what she wants.

That’s what you want.

Oh, so much.

Jacob lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. What’s wrong with you! Shy? He
sighed at the memory of washing Sarah, her surrender in her weakness. The calm thrill
of her silky skin, oily with soap. The gentle undulations of her sleek, firm body.

And now, shy? Is that it? You infant.

Or afraid. Of what?

You know what.

In the camp nudity had been so commonplace it had no meaning, no value, it was more
a sign of bestiality and cruelty and abuse than anything else. There was no such thing
as beauty there, just pathos and pity. There it was better for a girl to hide her
beauty, for it would only lead to immediate violent rape. There girls rubbed dirt
into their hair and faces, not that they needed to, hunched their shoulders to look
flat, walked in feces to smell bad, anything to keep the beasts at bay.

He put his hands behind his head and sighed. The worst feeling was of being so helpless,
so useless, so unmanned. But that was then and this is now. If I want one thing right
now, he thought, it is to get up and open that door.

Not that it’ll do me much good. Or her.

Jacob tensed. His heart sped. He raised himself to one elbow and looked at the bathroom
door. It began to open. How? he thought: How do I always sense things?

He heard Sarah say, “Now you listen to me.” She was standing naked in the doorway,
dripping on the floor. His eyes popped. She had his full attention. “I have considered
the matter, and I must make the following demand. You will take your clothes off and
you will get into the bath with me. Now. Come along immediately. Be a good little
boy.” With that she turned around, slowly, leaving the door wide open. She raised
her leg onto the top of the bath, wiggled her bottom, and slipped into the water.

If Jacob was indeed a little boy he’d have burst into tears. He certainly felt like
it. A flood of warmth and gratitude surged within and a smile took over his entire
face.

It was a big bath and there wasn’t much water. It barely covered their thighs as they
faced each other. But Jacob’s smile was so wide and his eyes so bright that Sarah
couldn’t help laughing. He looked like a mischievous child caught by the teacher.
She scooped up water and dribbled it down Jacob’s chest, and he did the same over
her breasts. When she giggled, Jacob did too, in a stuttering sort of way, as if remembering
how, and soon they were fairly helpless with laughter. Jacob was gasping, Sarah laughing
and coughing at the same time, so that Jacob put his arms around her to smack her
back and they rubbed noses. The water rocked back and forth in waves. They held hands
as they laughed and finally were able to sputter to a stop and lay back, spent, smiling
contentedly at each other, their knees up, their legs hooked around each other.

Now Sarah leaned forward and scooped more water onto Jacob’s chest and rubbed soap
on him and onto her hands and washed and stroked his shoulders and his chest as he
lay back with closed eyes and purred.

So, he thought. Dreams do come true.

Then she turned around, leaned back against him, and took his hand and placed it on
her belly. He encircled her with his arms and soaped her stomach and thighs gently
for a long time with bubbles oozing between his fingers, and then he soaped her breasts
for an even longer time. The only sound was their breathing, as the water cooled.

Until, her back against his chest, his legs wrapped around hers, hugging her, his
head resting on her shoulder, he felt her tremble and thought she must be getting
cold. He felt her breathing become short and fast. Her shoulders rose and fell, and
her head flopped forward and she sat up, away from him, and he understood she was
crying.

She wept without a sound. Jacob tried to pull her back but she shrugged him off. Her
hair was wet, clinging to her long neck, and her skin was red where she had lain against
him for so long. He put his hands on her waist and said, “What is it? Sarah? Shall
we get out?”

She took his hands and pushed them from her body. As she stood and he absorbed her
long lines and curves, and she stepped out of the bath and took a towel and dried
herself, and went into the room, where she pulled on a shirt, Jacob thought how little
he knew of her. Sarah had told him what happened to her, where she was from, about
Hoppi and the baby, but she had never said a word about how she felt. Or any of the
details of her war. Just the hard outline. Like a picture frame without a picture.
On the other hand, he thought, neither had he. He hadn’t told her anything. Nothing
at all.

He dried himself, feeling sad, looking at Sarah in bed.

A moment after he lay down next to her, both lying on their backs, Sarah said, “I’m
sorry.”

“For what?”

“You know. For crying like that.”

“Don’t be sorry, please. I understand.” And he thought he did. She was crying for
Hoppi. She had only just heard that he was dead, she had fallen sick in her pain,
and now she was weakened, and he had taken advantage of her. She depended on him,
she had nowhere to go, she had been sick, and he had …

“No, it’s me who should say sorry,” he whispered.

“Why?”

“You know. Well…”

“What?”

“Well, Hoppi…”

She turned onto her side, away from him. “I’ve tried so hard not to cry,” she said.
“It’s been so hard. So alone … for so long … I’m sorry…” Sarah wept and sobbed her
heart out, and the sheet was wet around her. Jacob held her to him and stroked her
and didn’t know what else to do or say. He held her until she had no more tears and
her panting became heavy breathing and she seemed to have fallen asleep in his arms.

Not that Jacob didn’t have his own tears. He had wanted to whisper to Sarah, to soothe
her, to tell her not to worry anymore, that things were different now, that he would
look after her, that he loved her, but how could he say any of that? How could he
know what would be? He didn’t know anything about the future, how could he promise
her anything? They were caught in a maelstrom. Yes, they had survived. But for what?
And above all, why?

Why live? And why them and not Maxie or their sisters or their parents or anyone else?
Why were they, of all people, still alive?

What did they do to us? And why did they do it?

Jacob felt his eyes warm and stinging. He tried not to cry, he did his best, hugging
Sarah, beneath the blanket, in their tiny cocoon of warmth and safety, and in his
gratitude for this moment, this precious person in his arms, this lovely girl who
was so lost and alone and in such pain … Jacob felt tears course down his cheeks.
He felt so sorry for her, and for himself.

Now that he finally had someone, he had never felt so alone.

Sarah gently disentangled herself and wriggled around to face him. “You’re crying,”
she said, putting a finger to his eye in wonder and tracing a tear to the corner of
his mouth.

“No, I’m not,” he said.

“Yes, you are. You are. You’re crying.”

“Course I’m not,” Jacob said. “I can’t be. I’m a man.”

“Come here,” she murmured, and she put her hand behind his head and gently brought
him to her, and as it wasn’t far their lips soon met. It was a sweet and gentle kiss,
their very first.

It was sweet but it didn’t stay gentle for very long. Urgency crept into their embrace
and they pressed against each other and they caressed each other, they murmured and
sighed and moaned. Jacob pulled off Sarah’s shirt as she pulled off Jacob’s shorts.
Now they held each other’s naked body and kissed and touched each other. Sarah sighed.
“I want you.” She took him in her hand and he kissed her and pulled away and rolled
his tongue around her stomach and lower, until she took him in her hand again and
said, “Jacob, now, I want you now.”

Jacob pulled away, tried to go down on her again, but she pulled him up, kissing him.
“Jacob, please, now…”

Jacob rolled onto his back and covered his face with the pillow.

“Jacob, Jacob, what is it?”

He groaned, in pain, in embarrassment.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

Another groan until he almost shouted: “I’m sorry. I’m no good. I can’t.”

Sarah was breathless, her breasts heaving. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I can’t, that’s what. I want to, but I can’t. It won’t work.”

She fondled him in her hand. He said, “I can’t remember the last time I could.” He
hated himself. He felt like half a man.

They held each other quietly. “It doesn’t matter,” Sarah said.

“Of course it does.”

“It doesn’t. It really doesn’t.”

“It does, it really does. But thank you.”

Jacob tried to touch her but hardly knew how. It had been so long and he had never
really known anyway. And Sarah kept pushing him away. “Let me hold you,” she said,
“it’s what I want, it really is.”

So they hugged, and talked, and made sandwiches and tea, and talked all the time until
they fell asleep at night. Sarah told Jacob about Hoppi and the baby and the cemetery
and she cried as he held her, and she laughed at the strange hiding places they had
found and the suicide trick. And the Jewish Russian officer who had helped her. But
she didn’t say how she had met him and Jacob didn’t ask. If he had, what would she
say? That he had saved her from an animal who had punched her, kicked her, almost
pulled her hair out by the roots, burrowed and bashed around inside her like a demented
ferret in a tunnel until she had blacked out and woken to find herself alone in the
dark and bleeding from every orifice, barely able to move a limb? Crumpled in the
dirt like a used rag?

She could never tell him that. She could never tell anyone.

As for Jacob, as if to make up for his failure of the flesh, the words poured out,
at last. The camp, his brother, the Rat, everything that tried to, and nearly did,
but in the end, didn’t, destroy him.

He told her everything, except for what mattered most: that after the Rat killed Maxie
it was only Jacob’s oath, the final words that Maxie ever heard, his oath of revenge,
that had given meaning to Jacob’s inexplicable survival. Had Maxie understood, with
his last breath? Yes. He knew from the shine in Maxie’s eyes as his spirit fled his
corpse. Jacob was sure: Maxie died crying for revenge.

NINETEEN

It wasn’t clear to Yonni because it happened so fast, but he thought it was an elderly
man, with a cap on his head. Ari said it was an officer in uniform. Omri didn’t see
because he was asleep in the front passenger seat when the sudden swerve threw him
against the door and the impact made him shout out. He thought a bullet had hit the
jeep.

It took Yonni a moment to register what Ari had done. He jerked around in the backseat
just in time to see the bicycle smash into a tree and the rider and one wheel crash
down the slope into the bushes.

“Stop!” he yelled. Ari pulled his eyes from the mirror to the road ahead and accelerated
into a long bend. Coming out of it, he pulled out sharply to avoid a tractor, and
floored it again, his knuckles white on the wheel.

Omri, thrown first to the right and then to the left, shouted, “What the hell’s going
on? Slow down!”

“This maniac just killed someone, that’s what,” Yonni shouted. “What the fuck are
you doing? We gotta go back. Why did you do that? You did that on purpose!”

Ari glared ahead, trying to control his breathing. He felt his heart would explode.
“Slow down, for God’s sake,” Yonni shouted, “you’ll kill us, too.” He banged Ari on
the shoulder. “What’s wrong with you?”

Ari was thinking, That was crazy. Not that he had killed the cyclist—he hoped he had.
Fucking Nazi. No, what was crazy was how close he came to killing them all. He hadn’t
thought. He saw the guy, the empty road, and just did it. Lucky he just caught his
leg. If he had been a little more to the left, just a little bit and caught him head
on, a matter of twenty centimeters, the man wouldn’t have gone shooting off to the
side, he’d have shot straight through the window, bike and all.

Next time, think first.

With Yonni yelling and Omri rubbing his head where it had hit the door, Ari raced
along the straight, narrow road. He saw a clearing ahead and pulled into it, a semicircular
road stop lined by trees. He got out and walked round to inspect the left fender that
hit the cyclist. As he suspected, there was hardly a mark, only the slightest dent,
and you had to be looking for it. He must have hit the cyclist on his knee, maybe
caught the handlebar. Perfect, actually. Lucky, but perfect.

“Five minutes’ break,” he said, unbuttoning his pants and stopping by a bush.

“I can’t believe you did that, why did you?” Yonni said, holding the handle of the
pot on the gas fire, so that it wouldn’t topple over. He changed hands and blew on
them as the tin became too hot to hold.

“Just did it,” Ari said. “Why, do I need a reason? They’re all the same.”

“Did they need a reason for what they did to us?” Omri said.

“That’s ridiculous,” Yonni said. “How many can you kill? And what good does it do?”

“It does me a lot of good, I can tell you that,” Omri said.

“What would you do, nothing?” Ari said.

Yonni poured boiling water over the coffee and mixed in sugar and handed around the
cups. “I’d rather save Jews than kill Germans,” he said. “I’d rather build a town
in Palestine than destroy a town here.”

“Noble you,” said Omri.