The braying woke her. The same loud, rasping noise had greeted her every morning since her arrival in Tel Aviv two weeks earlier. By now she knew the unfamiliar sound was a donkey’s braying. That first morning in her uncle and aunt’s apartment, she had been convinced it was someone pumping water, or maybe even oil, right under her bedroom window. Why not? Everything was going to be different here in Eretz Yisrael, Sarah smiled to herself. Here, anything was possible.
With a sigh, she snuggled deeper into the canvas-covered straw mattress. It had taken some getting used to. Back home in Kobryn, her bed was soft, the fine cotton sheets ironed smooth by the maid who helped her mother run the house. But this bed, rough and lumpy though it was, had already begun to conform to the contours of her body. She had struggled against the newness at first, and then, given in. Now they were one. Its hollows and her curves. Give and take. Livnot v’lihibanot ba. To build the land and be built by her. Wasn’t that what the pioneer’s song said?
Sarah stretched out full length and closed her eyes. The window over her bed was open, letting in a soft breeze with just a hint of the sea. The thought of the sea filled her with joy. Joy that she, Sarah Katz, from frozen White Russia, actually lived within five minutes of that incredibly blue and warm wonder. She let the breeze caress her face and lift her thin cotton nightgown ever so slightly, like a sail catching a hint of wind....
Subscribe now to keep reading
Please enter your email to log in or create a new account.