A Wall of Light - Edeet Ravel [30]
I didn’t want to eat in the kitchen with Sara in her high chair. There wasn’t even a table for me. Only a stool and a counter covered with pots and dirty dishes.
I got into a bad mood. I could hear all the campers singing a song about two sisters she won’t do it but her sister will and having fun. They never even noticed me when I ate with them and if they noticed me they were very nice. I think Mummy made up that story but I don’t know why.
Marsha from Arts and Crafts
Dori
By the way I never talked once in that kindergarten Mummy forced me to go to in Canada and I never did anything. I just stood in the corner or sat on a chair and ignored everyone.
The only time I joined in was when they gave us see-through paper to glue behind shapes that you cut out of a black piece of paper. Then on the back it looks messy but in front all you see is the see-through paper shining inside the shapes. That see-through paper was really and truly beautiful. Especially if you held it up to the window. It came in red and blue and yellow and green. I wish we had some here on Eldar.
Wait—there was one other thing. The gold and silver crowns on Purim. I couldn’t resist those either.
Our First Year
17 February 1949. Rain-sleet-hail-snow today with breaks of sun and low-hanging, carelessly spun clouds suspended against the hills like artificial cotton clouds.
The team of thirty or so Arabs who were here packing up the abandoned tobacco in the various buildings of the village, under government supervision, have finally left. A very interesting business having them here, especially for those of us who worked with them as half-guard, half-chaperon. Many of them were Christians, good workers, alert, and shrewd, and others were definitely Levantine types concerning whom we have a lot to learn.
One can see at a glance the infernal complicatedness of the Arab question, and here it is, right on our doorstep.
Dori
Here is something I don’t think Mummy and Daddy know. My brother David saved my life in Camp Bilu’im. Mummy took me to play on the beach and told me to hold on to the wall of stones if I go into the water. She told David to keep an eye on me.
There wasn’t much to do near the wall. I ducked all the way under the water and held my breath and then I came up. Then I ducked again but this time the shirt I was wearing got caught in the wall. I had a shirt on top of my bathing suit because my shoulders were sunburned.
I began to die. The shirt was stuck and I didn’t have any air left. I tried to pull the shirt but I couldn’t. I can’t even say how scared I was.
But David grabbed me and saved my life. He saw that I was stuck and he ran over and saved me. He said why did you go underwater? Don’t go underwater again.
I told Mummy I drowned but I don’t think she heard me. I don’t even think David knows he saved my life. No one knows except me.
Odds of a Shirt Getting Caught in a Groyne
He was nearly ten, flailing pale awkward limbs.
Dori
Daddy has Dr Seuss! We had those three books in Canada and now here they are in Eldar.
I know all three books by heart. The one with the Cat in the Hat and the snow and the one with the Cat in the Hat and his tricks and One Fish Two Fish.
I love everything about those books. From beginning to end. Mummy and Daddy love them too. They laugh when we read them. They read them and I say the words at the same time and then they kiss me.
Dr Seuss has a funny name because he’s not a doctor and he’s not a horse.40 His name matches his books.
Our First Year
19 February 1949. The sun has finally come; no rain, a little wind, and huge, high clouds. The waves and layers of hills stretch away in tones of pink, orange and grey. Much washing, reading, taking of walks, bundled-up against the wind, but everyone basking and blinking in the sun. Quiet communion with earth and weather.
Dori
It’s my birthday today. I’m six years old. But first there’s breakfast and lunch and naptime.