Strangers with the Same Dream by Alison Pick

Author:Alison Pick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 2017-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

IT WAS NOT DAVID’S fault that the girl fell in love with him. He took her to the mountain and laid her on her back and hitched up her dress; he talked to her about the mechanics of building a water wheel by the river. Trotsky or Lenin could make the wheel turn; they didn’t even need an engine. And how much simpler than having some poor schmuck schlep the pails to the barrels and then the barrels to the kitchen, the laundry, the farthest fields.

He talked to her about the mysterious ways of history: Chaim Weizmann had moved to Manchester not to further the Zionist agenda but because chemical dyes, his specialty as a research chemist, were critical to the weaving industry there. But while in Manchester he had spoken publicly about Eretz Yisrael and the Jews, and several prominent Englishmen had caught his enthusiasm. Who exactly? The Secretary of State, one Lord Balfour. And Winston Churchill himself.

David told Sarah the thoughts in his head, his theories and predictions, his hopes. But he might as well have been saying, My beshert, my destiny, it is you and only you. For you I will leave my family; my wife, my child. For you I will do anything.

He had given Sarah the new red slippers, to match her red sleeves.

It had been so long since Hannah had clung to him like she needed him; so long since he’d felt a woman’s desire for him to fill her with his heart and his mind. Hannah wanted his semen for reproductive purposes. The more she wanted it, the more he withheld, pulling out at the last minute and ejaculating like a teenager on the clammy white skin of her belly. Her stretch marks from the earlier pregnancies were still visible, like scars. Hannah’s need was perfunctory. But Sarah wanted the essence of him, as much as she could get, the essence that was spread throughout him like a thousand stars in a brilliant night sky.

David did not think, in the deepest part of him, that what he was doing was wrong. The Hebrew patriarch Jacob, after all, had taken two sisters for wives, Rachel and Leah, and their descendants had become the Jews of Eretz Yisrael today. And this was nothing compared to how some of the Arabs lived. But Hannah would see it differently. Now that Hannah was back, he had to be more careful.

—

Just before Hanukkah a group of new halutzim arrived. Their ranks had been changing, as those who couldn’t handle the harsh conditions slipped away in the night. These new young Zionists arrived to take their place. Some were focused on populating Palestine with young revolutionaries so the sickness of imperialism and capitalism would not take hold here as well. Through the simple act of working with one’s hands, the whole world could be shown how to live a life of justice. So it was written in Prophets; and so the idealists in Hapoel Hatzair—The Young Worker—who followed A.

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