Prologue

It was after 9:00 p.m. on October 3, 1961, Dad’s fortieth birthday, and he was closing the ice cream store early to have a little family celebration. Mom; my older sister, Maddie; and I waited impatiently for him to get home. Dad’s favorite, strawberry shortcake, and shiny wrapped presents were carefully set out on the kitchen table. There was a sharp knock on the front door. We never had company this late at night. We rarely had company at all. Mom lifted her arm, motioning us to stand back, and walked with an unsteady step to the door but didn’t open it. “Yes?” she said to the closed wooden barrier between us and whoever was on the other side.

“It’s the police. Are you Mrs. Anna Rubin? Wife of William Rubin?”

“Why?” my mother said in a voice I had never heard before: high and tinny. She opened the door slowly, mechanically. “What’s happened?” Her face was devoid of color.

Two police officers stood there, hats in their hands. Solemn faced. “May we come in?” one of them said.

My mother moved to the side. The officers stepped in. “I think you should sit down, Mrs. Rubin.” He guided her to the couch. She gave no resistance.

“There’s been an accident.”

I was eight years old and frozen on the spot.

My sister cried.

My mother fainted.

Chapter 1

Summer 1973

I didn’t observe Shabbat, keep kashrut, or speak a word of Hebrew, but I was about to walk on the streets of the Holy Land. I had made sure to visit the cemetery to tell Zayde about my plans to go on this trip since his impassioned storytelling about the old country started me on this journey to spend my last summer before college graduation in Israel.

The Tel Aviv air was hot and sticky, and I stopped to take off my cardigan and shove it through the straps of my backpack. Before I could step to the curb, a swarm of cabdrivers encircled me, vying for my fare. All I could see was a bunch of animated, sweaty male faces around me waving their arms and saying in broken English, I will take you where you want to go, lady. Come. Air-conditioning. Come. I was relieved when a bus pulled up in front of me and opened its door, letting passengers off. I broke from the circle of cabbies, stuck my head into the open bus door, and asked the driver if he was going anywhere near Haifa, where I had planned to stay that night.

“Ken. Where in Haifa?” the driver said.

“The David Hostel?”

“Take a seat.”

I fumbled to pay the fare and slid into the first empty seat. The bus was crowded, and the air was thick and stagnant. No air-conditioning. Sweat dripped down my back, and I had second thoughts about not taking one of the air-conditioned cabs. But, as I nestled into the seat and gazed at the passing scenery, a sense of joy and peace filled my soul. I was in the Jewish homeland, where I wanted to breathe the air, where G-d spoke to Moses and revealed the Ten Commandments. Even though I couldn’t read a word, every passing Hebrew sign and billboard made me smile.

I planned to stay in Haifa for two nights before checking in at Kibbutz Bar’am, where I had volunteered for the summer. Haifa was on the road between the airport and the kibbutz, and I wanted to do some exploring. My mother was against my going to Israel and hated even more the idea of my working on a kibbutz. She harped on the fact that I had never been out of the country, never traveled alone, and that the Middle East wasn’t safe. But this had been my plan since I was a little girl, and I wasn’t backing down now—not even for my mother.

After traveling a couple of miles, the bus suddenly pulled over to the side of the road, and a group of Israeli soldiers with rifles slung over their shoulders boarded. I had never been around the military and had never seen a gun close-up. I felt my cheeks get warm, as I was unsure of what to expect. I wondered if maybe a fugitive was on the bus or if they’d question or search us, but they didn’t.

The soldiers nodded as they walked down the narrow aisle. They took seats where they could, and the rest leaned against the doors or sat on the steps. I pondered what it was like for them, growing up knowing they had to serve when they reached eighteen. When I was eighteen, my biggest decision was where to go to college, which was enough to stress me out. How inane when compared with what these guys faced.

No one else seemed fazed by their presence. Seeing no reaction from the other passengers, I tried to appear cool and calm. I told myself I’d better get used to this sort of thing unless I wanted to be a tourist who stood out for the rest of the summer.

I heard them casually talking and laughing with one another as if they were taking an afternoon ride. Nothing out of the ordinary. I looked down at my backpack, stuffed with swimsuits, sunscreen, and lip gloss, while these boys carried guns and ammunition to take and save lives in the name of protecting their country. The contrast was glaring, and I felt humbled. The soldiers didn’t ask anyone anything, search anyone, or say anything military-related while they traveled among the rest of us. The bus uneventfully resumed its route, chugging along the dusty road.

A while had passed when the bus driver yelled back over his shoulder, “Hey! The girl with the backpack! You get off here. The hostel is a couple of blocks up the road. Ask anyone on the street; they’ll show you.” He pulled a lever next to the steering wheel, and the door split open to let me off. I stood, threw my pack over my shoulder, and made my way to the front of the bus. As I stepped off, the driver shifted gears, and the bus lunged forward with a groan, leaving me, and I took it all in. I had dreamed of being here—on this land, breathing this air—and now I was here. Nothing special had happened. I had only been here for a few hours, yet I felt different. I felt alive and aware of everything around me. The hot dry air. The sounds of cars rushing people to where they needed to be, and businesses going about their daily routines. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was like I had landed in Oz, and everything turned from black and white to Technicolor.

As the driver promised, I soon saw the David Hostel set back from the road, peeking out through the leaves of a line of trees. The building looked old, but a whitewash left it proud and sparkling amid well-tended green gardens. As I walked in, the screen door bounced back and forth behind me until coming to a soft close. The lobby was empty, except for a large desk and two metal chairs pushed against the wall. A guy who looked to be in his early twenties with flip-flops flapping against the gray cement floor walked toward me from a back room. “Shalom, you here to check in?” he asked in Hebrew-accented English.

“Yes. I’m Rachel Rubin.”

He found my name in a black book behind the desk. “Two nights? Right?”

“Ken,” I said, trying to use what little Hebrew I knew.

“You are all set,” he said. Smiling, he gave me a key and pointed down the hall. The room was small. Bunk beds were attached to the wall. Army blankets were lain across the bottom of sheeted mattresses. A nightstand stood in the corner with a dresser a few feet away.

I unfurled my gear and laid my sleeping bag on the bottom bunk. Suddenly, the door to the room opened, and a girl with a long blonde braid stepped in.

“Hi, I’m Heather. You in this room?” she asked, throwing her pack onto the top bunk.

“Yes, I’m Rachel. I’ll be here for two nights. You?”

“I’m here for tonight to visit friends, then off to stay with family in Beersheba.” She rummaged through her shoulder bag, pulled out a few items, and arranged them carefully on the top of the dresser.

“What are you doing in Israel?” Heather asked.

“I’m going to work on a kibbutz.”

“How cool!”

“Yeah. I get to spend most of the summer here for free.”

“Well, you have to work, right?”

“I do, but I get free room and board. I don’t mind the work part. Especially if I get to experience life on a kibbutz. I’m really excited about it.”

Heather looked similar to my height and weight: about five-three and somewhere between 110 and 115 pounds, but that’s where our similarities ended. I had shoulder-length, curly red hair, and her hair was long and straight. I had green eyes and a face full of freckles, and she had blue eyes and not a freckle in sight. She seemed open and friendly, and when she asked if I wanted to take a walk and do some exploring, I said yes.

“The guy at the front desk said there was a nice beach super close by,” she said. “Want to check it out?”

The sun shone brightly on the road outside the hostel, making it look embedded with tiny jewels. The afternoon breeze was refreshing, and I felt a rush of adrenaline as I took the first steps on Israeli soil.