“It’s all right, baby, it is all right now. Kitty is here. Kitty is with you.”
“Don’t leave me, don’t ever leave me, Kitty!”
“No, baby … Kitty won’t ever leave you … ever.”
CHAPTER NINE: The news of Karen’s father had spread through Gan Dafna before she and Kitty returned. It had a shattering effect on Dov Landau. For the first time since his brother Mundek had held him in his arms in a bunker beneath the Warsaw ghetto, Dov Landau was able to feel compassion for someone other than himself. His sorrow for Karen Clement was, at last, the ray of light that illuminated his black world.
She was the one person he could trust and care for. Why of all people on earth did it have to happen to her? How many times in that stinking camp on Cyprus had Karen expressed her simple, all-powerful faith to him? Now Karen was hurt and her despair was deep pain to him.
What did she have left? Himself and Mrs. Fremont. What was he to her? He was a millstone-a nothing. There were times he wanted to hate Mrs. Fremont but he couldn’t because he knew that she was good for Karen. With Karen’s father out of the way perhaps Mrs. Fremont would take her to America.
He stood in the way. He knew Karen wouldn’t leave him. In Dov’s mind there was only one thing to do.
A youth named Mordecai was a secret recruiter, for the Maccabees at Gan Dafna. From him Dov succeeded in discovering where and how to make contact with the underground organization. The cottages of the faculty were never locked at Gan Dafna. He waited one evening until they were all at dinner, then rifled several cottages. He stole a few objects of gold jewelry and fled to Jerusalem.
Bruce Sutherland went directly to Dr. Lieberman and got him to urge Kitty to bring Karen to Sutherland’s villa for a week or two to allow her to recover from the shock.
Karen bore her grief with the same dignity and courage that had carried her through a hie filled with tragedy. Kitty Fremont was wise. She never left the girl’s side.
The fate of Karen’s father along with the disappearance of Dov Landau added up to a grim victory for Kitty. She felt that in time she would be able to get Karen to America. Kitty thought about it constantly at Sutherland’s villa, detesting herself at times for finding consolation in Karen’s tragedy, but she could not stop her thoughts. Since she had first seen Karen in the tent at Caraolos her entire life had revolved around the girl.
One day after lunch Ari Ben Canaan came to Sutherland’s villa. He waited in the study while the servant fetched Sutherland from the terrace patio. Bruce excused himself and left the girls sunning. The two men spoke for nearly an hour, transacting their business.
“I have a friend of yours here,” Sutherland said after they had concluded their discussion. “Kitty Fremont is spending a fortnight here as my house guest with the young Clement girl.”
“I heard you two had become great friends,” Ari said.
“Yes, I think Katherine Fremont is one of the finest women I have ever met. You should run up to Gan Dafna and see what she has done with some of those children. There was a boy who didn’t even talk six months ago who now has not only opened up but is starting to play a bugle for the school band.”
“I’ve heard about that too,” Ari said.
“I insisted she come here and bring the Clement girl. The child found her father. Poor chap is completely and incurably insane. It was a terrible shock, needless to say. Come on out to the garden.”
“I’m sorry. I have some other things to attend to.”
“Nonsense, won’t hear of it.” He took Ari’s arm and led him out.
Kitty had not seen Ari since the Mount Tabor affair. She was startled by the first sight of him. Ari had been neglecting himself.
She thought that Ari was amazingly gentle in his conveyance of condolence to Karen. He showed her a tenderness that he apparently reserved for his own people. He had never treated Kitty that way. Was this because Ari accepted Karen as one of them, Kitty wondered? Then she grew angry at herself. It seemed to her that she was beginning to categorize every word and situation on its meaning in relation to Karen’s Jewishness. Now perhaps she was creating meanings that did not even exist.
Kitty and Ari walked through Sutherland’s rose garden.
“How is she?” Ari asked.
“She is a very strong and courageous child,” Kitty said. “It was a shocking experience but she is doing remarkably well.”
Ari looked back to where Karen and Sutherland were playing checkers. “She is a lovely girl,” he said sincerely.
His words surprised Kitty. She had never heard that tone of appreciation from him before and she had wondered if things of beauty even reached him. They stopped at the end of the path where a low stone wall ran around the edge of the garden. Beyond the wall the valley lay at the bottom of the hill with Safed beyond. Kitty sat on the wall and stared out at the Galilee, and Ari lit a cigarette for himself and one for her.
“Ari, I’ve never asked a personal favor of you. I am about to do so.”
“Of course.”
“Karen is going to get over her father in time, but there is another thing that she may not get over. Dov Landau has run away from Gan Dafna. We assume he has gone to Jerusalem to join the Maccabees. As you know, she has taken the boy as a personal crusade. The loss of her father has magnified the loss of Dov. She is eating her heart out for him. I want you to find him for us and bring him back to Gan Dafna. I know you have the connections which can locate him. He would come back if you could convince him that Karen needs him.”
Ari blew a stream of smoke and looked at Kitty with curiosity. “I don’t think I understand you at all. The girl belongs to you now. He is the one possible person who stands in your way and he has removed himself.”
Kitty looked at him evenly. “I should be offended by what you say but I’m not because it’s true. The fact is that I can’t
build my own happiness on her misery. I can’t take her away to America with this thing with Dov unresolved.”
“That is very commendable.”
“It isn’t honorable intent, Ari. Karen is a wise girl about everything but that boy. We all have our weak spots, I suppose. She will get over him far more quickly if he is at Gan Dafna. With him away in the Maccabees she will magnify his image until it is beyond proper proportion.”
“Forgive me for thinking in simple terms, Kitty. You are shrewd.”
“I love that girl and there’s nothing sinister or devious about it.”
“You’re making sure she has no place to go but with you.”
“I’m making certain that she knows she has a better place to go. Perhaps you don’t believe this, but if I knew it was better for her to stay in Palestine, this is where she would stay.”
“Maybe I do believe that.”
“Can you in all honesty tell me that I am doing something wrong by wanting to take her to America?”
“No … it is not wrong,” Ari said.
“Then help me get Dov back.”
There was a long silence, then Ari snuffed out his cigarette on the wall. He peeled the paper, unconscious of his action and scattering the loose tobacco and balling the paper into a tiny knot which he put into his pocket. P. P. Malcolm had taught him never to leave traces of a cigarette. Cigarette butts were glaring signposts to Arabs in search of enemy troops.
“I can’t do it,” Ari said.
“You can. Dov respects you.”
“Sure, I can find him. I can even force him back to Gan Dafna and say, ‘Stay put little boy, the ladies don’t want you to get hurt.’ Dov Landau has made a personal decision that every Jew in Palestine has got to make with his own conscience. The feeling about this is very intense. My father and my uncle haven’t spoken to each other for fifteen years over it. Every fiber of Dov Landau’s being shrieks out for revenge. He is being driven with an intensity that only God or a bullet can stop.”