Raquela (41 page)

The driver pulled up on the side of the street. The passengers formed a circle around the well that had been dug four thousand years ago. The young archaeologist pulled a well-worn Bible from his pocket and read from Genesis: “And Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech; and they two made a covenant.”

Raquela stared down into the deep dark hole, listening as the archaeologist read of the seven ewe lambs that Abraham presented to Abimelech, the Philistine king of Gerar, in exchange for the grazing rights to the land.

“That's how Beersheba got its name.” The archaeologist closed his Bible. “‘
Beer'
of course, means ‘well,' and ‘
sheba
means both ‘seven' and ‘covenant.' Take your choice; I like to think of Beersheba as 'the Well of the Covenant.' We're renewing Abraham's covenant in the desert.”

They reentered the taxi and drove a few hundred yards to the main street—a few little shops and one café with
CASSIT
printed over the doorway.

Raquela and Arik said good-bye to the two scientists and the archaeologist and wished them success.

“And good luck to you, too.” The passengers shook Raquela's and Arik's hands.

Arik asked the driver if he would take them up the road about a quarter of a mile.

“What's up there?” the driver asked.

“We're setting up a hospital,” Arik explained.

They drove along the dirt road, churning hot dust into the flat landscape. “We get out here,” Arik said. They opened a gate and found themselves in a quadrangle of four short intersecting dirt streets.

“We closed this area off,” he said, “as a compound for the hospital and the staff.”

He pointed to a warehouselike building. “That's the combination staff kitchen, dining room, and laundry. And that”—Raquela looked at a jumble of scrub—“was once a garden and I hope will be again. See that little house behind the garden?” Raquela nodded. “Our pediatrician has already moved in, a young Englishwoman, Dr. Pearl Ketcher. I'm sure you'll like each other.”

“I know her. I met her at Hadassah A after she came to Jerusalem; she had been working with the DPs in Germany.”

He lifted Raquela's suitcase. “Come on, I'll show you the hospital and where you'll be living.”

They entered a large courtyard surrounded by a jumble of one-story stone houses with flat roofs.

Arik was talking. “My friend Dov Volotsky was the first one down here—he came in June 1949. He's already begun repairs and construction to convert each of these buildings into different departments. Dov lives in a little house in back of the hospital. Now I'll show you your quarters.”

They turned left through the courtyard to a small stone patio. A lemon tree shaded a white stone cottage.

“It looks different from the rest of the buildings, Arik. I like its feeling of privacy.”

They walked up a few stairs and entered the small cottage. “There are two bedrooms,” Arik said. “Four nurses. You'll be sharing your room with another nurse.”

They left Raquela's suitcase in a bedroom just large enough for two beds and a small table. She hung her cape on a nail on the wall.

“If you're looking for indoor plumbing,” Arik said, “there is none. The WC is across the courtyard. But you'll be able to shower in the hospital. We're putting in showers and toilets and our own generator. There's one generator in Beersheba already, but they shut it down at ten-thirty every night.”

Raquela was impatient.

“Let's go, Arik. I can't wait to see what my maternity building looks like.”

“We haven't done a thing there. We've left it completely for you.”

They returned to the huge open courtyard. “Here it is.” Arik led her into a small yellow building. Excitedly Raquela walked through the building's four small rooms. Surveying. Studying. Noting that each room had two windows. Admiring the tile on the floor, but concerned: the floor had been laid unevenly. She would have to cope with that problem later.

“I see the way to do it,” she said, as much to herself as to Arik.

“We'll put the delivery room in this room, left of the corridor, with a little admission office near the door, and a shower and toilet next to it.”

They continued to explore the empty building. “These two rooms at the right, off the corridor,” she said, “will be for the mothers. We can get three beds in each room. Not bad for a new hospital in the desert.” She paused. “You know, Arik, in Cyprus I began to realize it's not bricks and mortar that make a hospital. You can be in a tent or a hut. It's the way the doctors and nurses care for the patients. It's making a hospital homelike. It's what you taught me, Arik.”

“My disciple has improved on her teacher.”

“Never. You'll always be my master builder.”

She went on. “Now, listen, on the two windows in each room I'll put green and white curtains. I don't want a separate nursery, Arik. I'd like to let the babies sleep with the mothers in these nice little cozy rooms.”

“Why not? It could be a fascinating experiment. Babies lying in with their mothers.”

“Beersheba is the place to try it out. Each mother taking care of her own baby—as soon as she's rested—after I put the baby in her arms.”

He put his hand on her hair. “When do you want to get started?”

“I'll make a list of the things still missing. We need everything—from diaper pins to the delivery table.”

“Okay, Sergeant. And now would you like to see where I live?”

They walked out of the courtyard, down the road, to an elegant stone villa. Several doctors had already moved into the six-room house. They entered and walked to Arik's room, at the left, a large corner bedroom flooded with sunlight.

The light fell across her face.

Arik embraced her. “It's a new beginning,” he whispered. “And you have never looked so beautiful.”

She shut her eyes with pleasure.

Now, at last, maybe we will have time to be together
.

Her own future and Beersheba's future seemed to be interlocked. In all these months in Jerusalem they had worked closely together, but it was always work. Maybe now, in the desert isolation, away from the pressures of Jerusalem…

Arik interrupted her thoughts. He drew away, talking rapidly.

“We'd better get back to the hospital. We've got a great deal of work if we're to get this place ready before the opening in December.”

The pleasure drained from her face. Was work his excuse? Why did he embrace her and then draw away?

Was he still frightened of her youth, afraid of their age difference?

Maybe in Beersheba, she could make him see how she'd changed. Matured by Athlit and Cyprus. Forged by the tragedies of the war.

The hospital was rapidly taking shape.

Dov Volotzky and his crew raced against time, repairing, painting, cleaning, installing plumbing, setting up the equipment they ordered from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and the industrial kibbutzim.

Raquela was standing on a ladder, hanging green and white curtains in the maternity ward, when Dov and Arik entered carrying huge boxes.

She looked down at them. “What have you got there?” she asked.

“A present for you. From Hadassah in America,” Arik said.

“For me? Who knows me in America?”

“It's really for your patients.”

Raquela hurried down the stepladder. “Let me see.” She helped Dov and Arik tear open one of the boxes and lifted out a package of carefully folded white sheets.

“They're beautiful. So soft and pure white. It's the best present I ever got.”

“Well, don't wait,” Arik said. “Put them on the beds. I want to see what they look like.”

“Not so fast. I'm going to get this place finished and spotless before I put on these sheets. That's the last thing we'll do.”

“Listen, you two,” Dov interrupted. “It's Friday. How about coming for Friday-night supper?”

“I'd love it,” Raquela said.

It was dusk when Arik knocked on Raquela's cottage door.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Come in,” she called out through the empty house. The three nurses who would share the two bedrooms had not yet arrived.

Arik stood in the doorway looking at her as if he were seeing her for the first time.

The few days in Beersheba had already turned her skin golden tan.

He kissed her. “The desert becomes you.”

He moved away for a moment. “And in this white dress, you look like an advertisement for wintering in the Negev.”

She stroked his cheek—tanned, too, and smoothly shaved. “Maybe coming down here is what the doctor ordered for both of us.”

He took her arm and led her in back of the hospital to Dov's cottage. Dov was Arik's height, with coal-black hair and sharp dark eyes, which squinted when he laughed. His eyes sparkled as he greeted them, holding his eighteen-month son, Chanan, in his arms.

Sarah came to the door; she was about five foot two, with light hair, a creamy pink and white complexion, and sparkling teeth. She seemed warm and ebullient.

Raquela felt a sharp stab of recognition. The cottage smelled of Friday night; the table was set with a white cloth and Sabbath candles; delicious odors of gefilte fish, chicken-noodle soup, broiled chicken, and carrots came from the kitchen.

“Can I help you?” she asked Sarah, forcing herself back to the present.

“Everything's ready. As soon as Arik is.”

But Arik was carrying little Chanan on his shoulders, oblivious of everyone but the little blond blue-eyed boy. He got down on the floor and Chanan rode him like a donkey. He tossed Chanan in the air, cuddled him, tickled him, laughed with him, until Raquela found it hard to decide who was enjoying it more, Arik or Chanan.

“Arik, you're a born father,” Sarah said, laughing. “What are you waiting for? Now give me Chanan and let's eat, or everything I've cooked will be ruined.”

They sat around the Shabbat table, talking, laughing, reminiscing. Then Sarah put Chanan into a carriage in the living room. In minutes he was asleep and the talk continued. Raquela learned that Dov and Sarah had been married in 1940. When the Nazis overran Poland, they were interned in the ghetto of Kovno. In the hovels of the ghetto Sarah gave birth to a little girl, Elana.

To feed their baby and themselves, they worked in chain gangs outside the ghetto. Elana was two and a half when, on March 27, 1944, the Nazis held one of their infamous “children's actions.” Dov and Sarah returned to the ghetto at night to find that Elana had been snatched away.

Raquela glanced at little Chanan, who was sleeping peacefully. No wonder he looked so loved.

When the ghetto was liquidated, Dov and Sarah were sent to concentration camps, separated, each not knowing if the other was alive. They discovered each other after the war in a refugee camp outside Graz, in Austria, boarded a fishing boat to Palestine with a thousand others…Cyprus…then Palestine…The life juices returned. Chanan was born.

“And now,”—Sarah's white teeth flashed—“here we are, with our few
shmattes
, our rags, and our most precious possession, living in this desert.”

“Are you happy?” Raquela asked.

“Sometimes I still have nightmares. But I wake up. Dov is here. Chanan is here. I'm in Beersheba, building the new state. And you ask—am I happy. Look at me. Can't you see it? I only wish you should have the same happiness.”

Raquela walked toward Sarah and took her hand. “Thank you, for this night.”

Sarah smiled. “Come back tomorrow for lunch. Arik likes my chicken. He's a wonderful doctor, Raquela. We have to take good care of him,” she said slyly. “But I'm sure you know.”

Arm in arm, Raquela and Arik strolled out of the hospital courtyard and through the gate. “Where would you like to walk?” he asked. “To Cassit and have coffee? Or to the desert?”

“Is the desert safe?”

“I think so.”

“Then let's walk there.”

A full moon rode across the sky, lighting the sand as if it were a calm sea.

“I saw you in a whole different light, Arik,” she said, kicking the sand with her sandals. “I never saw you before—the way you were with Chanan.”

“I love that baby—as if he were my own.”

“Arik—what about us?”

He stopped walking. He bent to pick a cactus flower.

“For you, my love.”

Raquela slipped the flower into a buttonhole in her dress.

“You haven't answered me. What about us, Arik?”

He put his arms around her, held her tightly, pressing his lips against hers. “I want you, dearest,” he whispered. “There's nothing in the world I want more.”

“I want you too, Arik,” she whispered.

She felt his strength against her body. Silently, their arms around each other's waists, they walked back to the hospital courtyard and into the cottage.

In her room the cactus flower fell to the ground as he unbuttoned her dress.

TWENTY-TWO

NOVEMBER 1949

T
he next morning was Shabbat.

They woke in Raquela's bedroom, dressed, walked slowly out of the empty cottage, breakfasted across the road, strolled back to the now-friendly desert, watched a bird wheeling in the sky, lunched with Dov and Sarah, played with little Chanan, and returned to the cottage, to seek and find each other.

Early Sunday morning, Arik went off to supervise the reconstruction while Raquela entered the maternity building; the supplies she had ordered were arriving almost daily.

A few minutes later he looked in on her and, with no one around, caught her in his arms and kissed her.

“Arik,” she said, laughing, “do you realize you're slowing the march of progress.”

“Any objections? Are you getting tired of me already?”