Adam edged into the room, hands clasped, feeling ill at ease. The place had little in the way of furnishings beyond the shabby green couch and chair, which were of the uncushiony variety found in waiting rooms. The walls were bare except for the yellowed banner that presumably said the same thing in Hebrew as it did in English: WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE! Aside from the well-used writing pad on the coffee table and the two picture frames on the wooden sideboard, the tabletops were clear, void of coasters, remote controls, magazines, bowls of candy.
It was so quiet. No sound of the old lady fussing in the kitchen. He wandered over to the old black-and-white portraits. One showed a smiling woman, thirty years old or so, with a storm of curly dark hair. She wasn’t pretty exactly, but she had presence. She stood in short shorts—who knew people wore them so short back then?—meaty legs apart, one hand on one hip, the other grasping the rifle strap crossing her chest. Despite the youth, the smile, the vigor, Adam recognized this was the old lady. It was the eyes that gave it away, peering into the camera with confidence, excitement, like she had just dared the photographer to do something. The very handsome man in the other picture stared off to the side, as was the fashion for portraits. A thin blond mustache traced a firm mouth, but his clear, light eyes were kind. This handsome man had probably been Ziva’s husband, Eyal’s father. He’d never seen a picture of Zayde young. Not one. He wondered what he and Dagmar had looked like at this age.
“All right, tell me why you’re here.”
Adam spun around. The old woman had returned without any tea. Had she gone into the kitchen and then forgotten why?
He gestured toward the armchair. “May I?”
“If you must.” The old woman perched on the far end of the couch. “You said this would be quick.”
Adam lowered into the chair, crossed his legs, then uncrossed them. This old woman really put him on edge. “I’m trying to find someone who used to live on the kibbutz. Someone named Dagmar.”
Her gaze dropped from him to the ground. At first she seemed to be struggling to remember, but then her eyes became glassy. She offered no information. Had she forgotten what he asked her?
Adam tried to sound natural, as if he weren’t feeding her the question again. “Do you know what happened to Dagmar? Where I might find her now?”
She raised her head, peered sideways at him. “Why are you asking me?”
“Because I know she lived here in 1947, and you’ve been on the kibbutz longer than anyone.”
“I’m not sure that I . . . remember a Dagmar.” She straightened the work shirt over her strange, pregnant-like belly. “May I ask why you’re looking for her?”
For the last three days, Adam had been counting on this old woman remembering Dagmar. He should’ve known when he saw her blank out onstage that she might prove less than helpful. It wasn’t fair to be frustrated with her—it wasn’t her fault her mind was going—but frustrated he was. And what was he supposed to tell her? That he came all the way to Israel to give this Dagmar, his grandfather’s long-lost love, their precious family heirloom? That made him sound like a saint, the very opposite of what he was. He answered through his teeth. “That’s between me and Dagmar.”
The old woman glared at him, and he regretted snapping at her. He softened his voice. “Dagmar was my grandfather’s girlfriend. Or whatever you called girlfriends back then, after the war. Maybe you said ‘sweetheart’? You might remember my grandfather, a Holocaust refugee. Franz Rosenberg?”
The old woman, eyes still beholding him with distrust, slowly shook her head.
He hated to push her, but he had hoped her face would light up at his grandfather’s name, that she would have stories for him. “I know we’re talking fifty years ago, but you must remember him. He was on the kibbutz for three whole years. Until 1947, when he moved to New York.”
She said the name slowly, as if trying it on: “Franz Rosenberg.”
Was it coming back to her? Adam sat forward. “He probably looked a lot like me. Thick black hair, dark eyes. Taller though. A real dapper guy. Always wearing a fedora, a straw one in summer, felt in the winter. I guess I can’t say for sure that he wore one here, but in New York, always. Oh, and he worked in the cotton field. Said I wouldn’t believe the way cotton grew on bushes, looking just like it did in the bags at the pharmacy. That always sounded very, I don’t know, magical to me, cotton balls growing on a bush.”
“He told you about the cotton fields?” Wearing a sad smile, the old woman’s eyes gazed over his head, as if at the long-gone field.
“Yeah, a few times. Eyal said the field’s gone, that there’s a plastics factory there now.”
“Your grandfather, does he like it in New York City? I’m only asking because . . . New York City, cotton fields, they’re very different.”
“He’s dead.”
“Oh.”
“Died a month ago. I guess he liked New York. I mean, I can’t picture him living anywhere else. It suited him.”
“I’m so sorry . . .” She did look sorry, the corners of her lips pulling down. Sorrier than he would have expected for someone she didn’t remember. Was it just depressing to have everyone your age dying around you? He hoped Dagmar wasn’t dead.
“So, Dagmar. That name really doesn’t ring a bell?”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “No. We’ve never had anyone named Dagmar on this kibbutz.”
Adam wanted to ask how she could be so sure when she couldn’t remember his grandfather, and he had definitely been here. “Well, if you remember her, please let me know. I work in the dishwash—”
“I won’t suddenly remember her. There’s nothing wrong with my memory. I have a perfect memory.”
Adam insisted as gently as he could. “I don’t mean to say there’s anything wrong with your memory, but . . . there was a woman named Dagmar on this kibbutz. And she wasn’t here temporarily as a Holocaust refugee. She was a kibbutznik. I know this for a fact.”
The old woman bared her lower teeth. “Do you know how rude you’re being, young man? And how ridiculous? Flying in here from New York City and telling me who was on my kibbutz thirty years before you were even born?”
He had hurt the old woman, and he was sorry, but the joke of her calling him rude!
“Thanks for your time.” He stood. “And now, as promised, I’ll go away.”
He headed for the door, thinking there were still the archives. He’d call that Barry guy right now. He probably wasn’t back from reserve duty, but he’d leave a message so that when he did come home, no time would be wasted.
The old woman hobbled beside him. “I am sorry, though, to hear about your grandfather. I hope he wasn’t in too much pain in the end?”
Oh, he was in pain.
“No, he wasn’t. He had a heart attack. Happened”—Adam snapped—“just like that.”
Adam opened the door and found night had fallen, the lollipop lamps glowing. He walked away from the old woman’s apartment with that pain in his breastbone again. How did disappointment, dread, regret, sadness, feelings that had no physical existence, press against the back of the breastbone like that, as if they were as real as tumors? He took a deep breath, but the air felt low on oxygen.
An eerie green light shone out of the bomb shelter. He slinked up to the open door and peeked down. At the bottom, above the second steel door, the safety lights had green bulbs, making the concrete stairwell glow.
The door opened and out came a young woman, as well as a thumping techno base and a walloping smell, the smell