Jaffa Beach: Historical Fiction Read Online Free PDF Page A

bend His ear to hear her.
    Shifra closed her eyes. She remembered how much she enjoyed helping with the preparations for Pessach. How proud she was when her father, who came with a candle in the middle of the night to search her closet for traces of
chametz
, bread crumbs, told her mother that Shifra’s closet was the cleanest one. Gone was the beautiful
Seder
, where she could sing without being told that her voice was too loud. Gone were the presents, sometimes a new blouse, or a new pair of shoes, bought with money her mother had saved for an entire year.
    Shifra looked at her wrinkled blouse and the tired-looking slippers. A new wave of tears filled her eyes.
What was she going to do now?
    The events of the previous evening, about the young Arab man who had taken her to his house, invaded her mind. How kind he was. She remembered his eyes when their glances crossed in the mirror. The memory made her blush. His eyes were like burning coals, penetrating her very soul. Even if she wanted, she couldn’t forget the look on his face.
    It was a hot day and her head seemed to be on fire. Shifra got up and walked until she found a narrow space between two rocks,where she could hide from the crowds. The sand was humid, a sign that the sun never intruded there. As she sat down, she saw a piece of paper hidden in the sand. She picked it up. It was torn from a newspaper, its date missing. Shifra’s first impulse was to bury it again in the sand, but the headline of one of the articles caught her eye, “Girl missing.” Her heart skipped a beat.
    No, it wasn’t possible. Her parents wouldn’t advertise in a newspaper, much less in the Palestine Post. Besides, she had left home only yesterday and this was an old, faded paper. She felt relieved. But her curiosity was aroused. She mouthed the words as she read:
    Alyat Hanoar, the agency for young immigrants, is asking people who know the whereabouts of Rivka Mendel to call the Tel-Aviv center immediately. It was not the first time the girl had disappeared from the youth camp. The fifteen-year-old Rivka had been one of the Teheran Train Children smuggled out of war-torn Europe. Their six months ordeal, walking or by train from Siberia to Samarkand, then by ship to Teheran ended when helped by representatives of the Jewish Agency, the surviving 1,200 reached Palestine. At the time of her disappearance Rivka was dressed in khaki pants, a short-sleeved white blouse and sandals.
    Clutching the paper in her hand, Shifra closed her eyes. She had seen one of those orphan children, a girl who was taken in by her uncle. Shifra remembered her parents’ comments about the lucky girl who had been able to find her uncle living in Palestine. But Shifra had seen the girl’s eyes. They were not the eyes of a happy child. Shifra sighed. What was Rivka Mendel looking for? If she had been happy, would she have run away?
    High in the sky a flock of birds flew in circles, some of them diving into the water to look for insects and flying up again. Shifrafelt a tremor in her heart.
What a great feeling it must be to be free like a bird
. But she couldn’t watch the birds for long. The sun blinded her eyes and she felt the unbearable midday heat again.
    An Arab man, wearing a kafia and a long white robe, appeared on the beach. “
Tamarind
!
Tamarind!
” the juice seller screamed, ringing a bell.
    Shifra remembered the day she went with her friend Shula to the Old City. On the way to the Wailing Wall, they encountered a tamarind seller. His juice box was strapped to his back and had long tubes, which Shula told her resembled an Irish pipe, a picture of which she had seen in one of her father’s books. Shifra didn’t know what an Irish pipe was. “It’s a musical instrument,” Shula explained to her.
    “Let’s see how he pours the juice from a musical instrument.” Shula added jokingly, while buying one drink for the two of them to share. The seller poured the juice through its tube into a small