“It is so thrilling,” Karen said. “I’m glad I was able to come. It is hard for me to realize that everyone here, bus drivers and waiters and salespeople, are all Jews. They built this whole city … a Jewish city. You don’t understand what that means, do you … a city in which everything belongs to the Jews.”
Karen’s words annoyed Kitty.
“In America we have many important Jews, Karen, and they are very happy and very much American.”
“But it’s not the same as a Jewish country. It’s not the same as knowing that wherever you go and whatever you do there is still one corner of the earth where you are wanted and that belongs to you.”
Kitty fished in her purse quickly and took out a piece of paper. “Where would this address be?”
Karen looked at the paper. “Two blocks down. When are you going to learn to read Hebrew?”
“Never, I’m afraid,” Kitty said, then added quickly, “I chipped two teeth trying to say some words yesterday.”
They found the address. It was a dress shop.
“What are you going to get?” Karen asked.
“I’m going to buy you a decent wardrobe. It’s a surprise from Brigadier Sutherland and me.”
Karen stopped dead. “I couldn’t,” she said.
“What’s the matter, dear?”
“There is nothing wrong with what I’m wearing.”
“It is fine for Gan Dafna …” Kitty said.
“I have all the clothing I need,” Karen insisted.
Sometimes she sounds like Jordana Ben Canaan, Kitty thought. “Karen, let’s not forget that you are a young lady. You won’t be betraying the cause if you dress up in something nice once in a while.”
“I am quite proud of …”
“Oh, quiet!” Kitty said with finality. “You sound more like a sabra every day. When you are away from Gan Dafna with me you are going to make me and Bruce proud of you.”
Kitty appeared angry and sounded adamant. Karen bit her lip and retreated. She peeked out of the corner of her eye at the full-skirted mannequins in the window. “It isn’t fair to the rest of the girls,” she said in a final effort.
“We’ll hide the dresses under the rifles if it will make you happy.”
A few moments later she was bouncing before the mirror, happily staging a one-woman fashion show and terribly pleased that Kitty had been insistent. It did feel so wonderful and look so wonderful! How long had it been since she wore nice things? Denmark … so long ago that she had almost forgotten. Kitty was as delighted as she watched Karen transform herself from peasant to soignee teenager. They walked the length of Allenby Road, still shopping, and turned into Ben Yehuda Street at the Mograbi Square, loaded with packages. They plopped down at a table at the first sidewalk cafe. Karen gobbled an ice-cream soda and watched the panorama of passing people with wide eyes.
She shoved a spoonful of ice cream in her mouth. “This is
the nicest day I can remember,” she said. “It would be perfect if Dov and Ari were here.”
She was adorable, Kitty thought. Her heart was so filled with goodness she wanted only to give to others.
Karen meditated as she sipped from the bottom of the glass. “Sometimes I think we have picked a pair of lemons.”
“We?”
“You know … you and Ari. Me and Dov.”
“I don’t know what on earth gives you the impression there is something between Mr. Ben Canaan and myself, but you are quite, quite, quite mistaken.”
“Ha, ha, ha,” Karen answered. “Is that why you twisted your neck watching every truck that came in the gate before the Shavuot celebration yesterday? Just who were you looking for if not Ari Ben Canaan?”
“Humph,” Kitty grunted, and sipped her coffee to cover her guilty confusion.
Kitty shrugged as she wiped at her lips. “Gosh, anyone could tell you are sweet on him.”
Kitty narrowed her eyes and glared at Karen. “You listen to me, Miss Smarty …”
“Deny it and I’ll run up and down the street and shout it in Hebrew.”
Kitty threw up her hands. “I can’t win. Someday you’ll realize a man can be very attractive to us older women of thirty without there being the least bit of seriousness attached to it. I like Ari, but I’m sorry to have to dispel your romantic notions.”
Karen looked at Kitty with an expression that clearly said she was simply not convinced, The girl sighed and leaned close to Kitty and held her arm as though she were going to impart a deep dark secret. Karen’s mien took on the earnest sincerity of the teenager. “Ari needs you, I can tell that.”
Kitty patted Karen’s hand and adjusted a loose strand of hair in the girl’s pigtail. “I wish I were sixteen again and things were so pure and uncomplicated. No, Karen, Ari Ben Canaan comes from a breed of supermen whose stock in trade is their self-reliance. Ari Ben Canaan hasn’t needed anyone since the day he cut his teeth on his father’s bull whip. His blood is made up of little steel and ice corpuscles and his heart is a pump like the motor in that bus over there. All this keeps him above and beyond human emotions.”
She sat .silent and very still and her eyes looked beyond Karen.
“You do care for him.”
“Yes,” Kitty sighed, “I do, and what you said is right. We’ve got a pair of lemons. We’d better get back to the hotel. I want you to dress up for me and make yourself look like a
princess. Bruce and I have a surprise for you. We’ll take the pigtails down.”
Karen indeed looked like a princess when Sutherland picked them up for dinner. The surprise was attendance at a touring French ballet company’s staging of Swan Lake at the Habima National Theater, accompanied by the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra.
Karen leaned forward and sat on the edge of her seat during the entire performance, concentrating intently on the steps of the prima ballerina as she floated her way through the fairy tale. The overpowering, haunting beauty of the score filled her brain.
How beautiful it all was, Karen thought. She had almost forgotten things like ballet were still in the world. How lucky she was to have Kitty Fremont. The stage was bathed in blue light and the music swelled into the finale with the storm and Siegfried defeating the evil Von Rotbart and the beautiful swan maidens turning into women. Tears of happiness fell down her cheeks.
Kitty watched Karen more than she watched the ballet. She sensed that she had awakened something dormant in the girl. Maybe Karen was rediscovering that there was something in the world she once had that was as important as the green of the fields of the Galilee. Kitty resolved again to keep this thing alive in Karen always; as much as the Jews had won her over there was still much of her they could never get.
Tomorrow Karen would see her father and her world would move on in another direction. Kitty won something this day.
They returned to the hotel late. Karen was bursting with happiness. She flung the hotel door open and danced through the lobby. The British officers raised their eyebrows. Kitty sent her up to get ready for bed and repaired to the bar with Sutherland for a nightcap.
“Have you told her about her father yet?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“I’d rather… alone.”
“Of course.”
“But please be there afterwards.”
“I’ll be there.”
Kitty stood up and kissed Sutherland on the cheek. “Good night, Bruce.”
Karen was still dancing in their room when Kitty arrived. “Did you see Odette in the last scene?” she said, imitating the steps.
“It’s late and you’re a tired Indian.”
“Oh, what a day!” Karen said, flopping into her bed.