The odd woman shook her head.
“What were you doing then?”
She looked off to the side, shook her head again.
He hadn’t pushed when he asked her what she was looking for in the square or what the deal was with her “orphanage.” This time he would press a little more. “Come on, what were you doing?”
She dropped her head, whispered. “Counting the tiles.”
Golda jumped, clawing at the side of Ulya’s mattress. Adam picked her up, and the dog stationed herself on his lap like the Sphinx. Stroking her back, he said, “Why were you counting the tiles?”
Claudette rubbed her knees a good ten seconds before responding. “To make sure there were . . . an even number . . . between our beds.”
“Why does there have to be an even number?”
The sun was setting quickly now, the room dimming. When Claudette didn’t answer, he said, “I don’t get it. Why does there need to be an even number of tiles between your beds?”
“To . . . to protect Ulya.”
“Protect Ulya? From what?”
Ulya emerged from the bathroom, eyes lined as vixenish as the other night, only in purple instead of black. She had changed from the work clothes into a pink crop top and jean miniskirt. Her shapely legs balanced on strappy green heels. She flipped on the ceiling light. “Ta-da! How do I look?”
Adam got to his feet. “Is this what you wanted to ask me?”
“Do I look like I could be going out in Manhattan?”
Adam didn’t think so. Maybe Brighton Beach.
“Totally. You look like you’re headed off to the Tunnel. Where are you going every night anyway?”
Fuck. He asked. He shouldn’t have asked. He just had to hear “bar.”
Ulya’s eyebrows came together. “Why do you say I go out every night?”
He sensed she was hiding something. When you’re using, you end up in your fair share of strip clubs, and a lot of those girls were Russian. Was that true in Israel? Was this girl stripping in a nearby town? He glanced at Claudette.
Ulya caught the glance. “Her? She told you? I didn’t even know she could talk.”
“She didn’t tell me,” Adam hurried to say. “Maybe it was the same person who told you I was from Manhattan.”
Ulya’s lips pursed. Then she shrugged, went to the mirror, and brushed her hair as if she couldn’t care less who knew what, but she brushed too violently. “You can go now,” she said.
“Oh, can I? Thank you, Your Highness.” Adam headed for the door, Golda at his heels. “And don’t worry. I don’t give a shit where you go at night.”
Adam walked out of the room into the half-light. That meeting would be starting soon, the one that had Eyal all worried. If he went, maybe he could question one or two people about Dagmar. As he climbed the steppingstones onto the main road, the streetlamps lit up. Fat, frosted globes on short posts, the lamps looked like giant electric lollipops, making the kibbutz feel even more like an elf village. He paused in front of one of those strange doors, the number 4 stenciled onto the concrete slope behind it. They all had a different number. He pulled on the door, and to his surprise it opened. He peered down a dark concrete stairwell tunneling into the ground. At the bottom of the stairs loomed another steel door. Bomb shelters. He felt stupid for not realizing it sooner.
He crossed the kibbutz’s only road for cars, already hearing the commotion in the dining hall. He walked up to the back entrance, where a tall boy in a striped sweatshirt smoked under the awning. He bypassed the puffing teenager and leaned in the doorway. All the tables were stacked on the sides, and everyone sat in rows facing a platform. Latecomers shouted to their friends. Chairs screeched against the terrazzo floor. The speakers boomed as a young man tapped the microphone.
“Excuse me,” Adam heard from behind.
He turned to see a very old woman: sun-worn face cracked like a dried riverbed, the sclera around her muddy green eyes a light yellow, her hair a wispy white tempest. Thin and hunched, everything about the old woman was shrunken, except her belly, which stuck out as if she were ten months pregnant. Adam’s heart pounded. What if Eyal had been wrong? What if this was Dagmar?
“Young man! Are you going to get out of the way? I’m needed onstage.”
“Sorry.” He jumped to the side, and she glared at him as she passed through the doorway.
Adam watched as the audience turned in their chairs to behold the old woman. A wave of whispers followed her as she walked toward the stage. How different this old woman was from the geriatrics who sat blinking into space on the benches in Seward Park all day, like breadcrumbs on the table the morning after a big dinner party, just waiting to be swept up and thrown away. This was the kind of woman Adam could picture his grandfather falling for.
Adam turned to the teenage smoker to inquire about the old woman and realized it was the soldier from the gate. “Wow, I didn’t recognize you without your uniform.”
The boy shrugged and sucked at his cigarette. The binder tucked under his arm brimmed with papers.
“I’m the guy from New York. You know, the guy you gave the third degree to.”
“I know. Adam. I had no choice. You were sweating like a nervous wreck.”
“Yeah, I had . . . jet lag. Sorry, I don’t remember your name.”
“Never gave it to you. Ofir.”
“Ofir, tell me . . .” Adam pointed at the old woman stepping onto the stage. “Do you know who that is? That old lady?”
“Of course. That’s Ziva.”
Adam’s heart sank. It would have been so satisfying to give that woman the brooch. So easy.
“What about an old woman named Dagmar? Is there anyone named Dagmar on the kibbutz?”
Ofir shook his head.
“You sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. Everybody knows everybody on a kibbutz. And everything they do.”
“How many people live here?”
“Five hundred adults, and two or three hundred people under twenty-six.”
Adam couldn’t imagine living in a town with seven hundred people, not to mention one where everyone ate all their meals together. What hell.
“Eyal said there’s never been anyone named Dagmar on the kibbutz.”
“He would know.” Ofir exhaled the last of his cigarette. After smashing it into the standing ashtray, he lit another.
“Chain-smoke much?” said Adam.
Ofir half smiled and peered into the dining hall with restless gray eyes.
“This meeting, it seems to be making everyone real jumpy.”
“Yeah, this meeting’s a big deal. But me . . .” Ofir aimed his cigarette at a standing piano to the left of the dais. “I’m just waiting to get on that piano. That poor excuse for a piano is the only one on the kibbutz, and I only get to use it when I’m on leave. Three days a month, that’s all I get to play.”
The microphone squealed as Eyal adjusted it toward his mouth. Even from the back door, Adam could see the secretary’s fear as he waited for the congregation to quiet down. His face was slick with sweat, and dark circles spread from the pits of his light blue T-shirt.
Also on the stage sat a middle-aged woman studying her notes through reading glasses. Her long curly hair draped over her loose purple frock. In the chair beside her sat Eyal’s mother,