Exodus - Leon Uris [235]
“I guess I have been selfish,” Karen said. “I never thought of you as getting homesick or wanting anything for yourself.”
“That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
Karen poured two cups of tea and tried to think. Kitty was everything to her ... but leave?
“I don’t know how to say it, Kitty, but ever since I was old enough to read in Denmark I’ve asked myself the question about being Jewsh. I still don’t know the answer. I only know that I have something here that is mine ... no one is going to take it from me. Whatever it is, it’s the most important thing in the world. Someday I might know the words for it—but I can’t leave Palestine.”
“Whatever you have, you will still have it. Jews in America and I suppose Jews everywhere have this same belonging that you have. Going away won’t change that.”
“But they are exiles.”
“No, baby ... don’t you understand that Jews in America love their country?”
“The Jews of Germany loved their country too.”
“Stop it!” Kitty cried suddenly. “We are not that kind of people and I will not listen to those lies they fill you with!” She caught herself quickly. “There are Jews in America who love their country so much they would prefer death to ever living to see what happened to Germany come to America.” She walked up behind the girl’s chair and touched her shoulder. “Don’t you think I know how difficult this is for you? Do you believe I would do anything to hurt you?”
“No,” Karen whispered.
Kitty faced Karen and knelt before her chair. “Oh, Karen. You don’t even know the meaning of peace. In all your life you have never been able to walk in the light of the sun without fear. Do you think it will be any better here? Do you think it will ever be better? Karen, I want you to go on being a Jew and I want you to go on loving your land, but there are other things I want for you too.”
Karen turned her eyes away from Kitty.
“If you stay here you’ll spend your whole life with a gun in your hands. You’ll turn hard and cynical like Ari and Jordana.”
“I guess it isn’t fair of me to have expected you would stay.”
“Come with me, Karen. Give us both a chance. We need each other. We’ve both had enough suffering.”
“I don’t know if I can leave ... I don’t know ... I just don’t,” she said with a shaky voice.
“Oh, Karen ... I want so much to see you in saddle shoes and pleated skirts, going out to a football game in a cut-down Ford. I want to hear the phone ringing and you giggling and talking to your boy friend. I want you full of delicious nonsense as a teen-age girl should be—not carrying a gun in your hands or smuggling ammunition. There are so many things that you are missing. You must at least find out they are in the world before you make your final decision. Please, Karen ... please.”
Karen was pale. She walked away from Kitty. “What about Dov?”
Kitty took Dov’s letter from her pocket and handed it to Karen. “I found this on my desk. I don’t know how it got there.”
Mrs. Fremont:
This letter is being written by someone who knows more better how to say in English than I do but I copy it to show it is my writing. This letter must be sent to you in a special way for reasons you know of. I am very busy these days. I am with friends. My friends are the first I have in a long time and they are real good friends. Now that I am permanent situated, I want to write to you and to say how glad I am not to be at Gan Dafna no more where everybody makes me sick, including you and Karen Clement. I write to say I won’t see Karen Clement no more as I am too busy and with real friends. I don’t want Karen Clement to think I am going to come back and take care of her. She is nothing but a kid. I have a real woman of my own age and we live together and everything. Why don’t you go with Karen Clement to America because she doesn’t belong here.
Dov Landau
Kitty took the letter from Karen’s hand and ripped it to shreds. “I will tell Dr. Lieberman that I am resigning. As soon as we can straighten up matters here we will book passage to America.”
“All right, Kitty. I’ll go with you,” Karen