Free The Last Rain by Edeet Ravel Page A

disappointed friends took the bus back to their paltry room.
    A few months later, two policemen arrived at the kibbutz and asked whether anyone there had seen a girl named Joy. Nat happened to be at the office at that moment. “I know her,” he said.
    “So where is she?” asked the police officer.
    “I don’t know.”
    “How do you know her?”
    Nat told him and then asked, “Why are you looking for her?”
    They explained that she’d been under surveillance for quite some time, on suspicion of espionage. They had lost her, though, they said. She was last seen boarding a bus and had probably crossed the border by now, or escaped on a ship from Acre.
    Dori
Daddy bought me a book about Tarzan! He found it in the city!
The book doesn’t have a lot of pictures but it’s full of stories about Tarzan King of the Apes. Daddy’s going to read me the stories. I love Tarzan so much.
    Tarzan in the Middle East
    Eleven Tarzan books were translated into Hebrew in the 1930s;
    Tarzan became a national obsession in the 1950s;
    by 1961, ten Tarzan series were being published without copyright in Israel;
    a total of over 900 issues were printed;
    in some stories Tarzan helped illegal Jewish immigration to Mandated Palestine, for which he was imprisoned by the British;
    in others he singlehandedly broke the Egyptian blockade at Suez, killing many Egyptian soldiers along the way;
    in one series Tarzan is dead but an Israeli named Dan-Tarzan crashes in the jungle and is reared by a descendent of Kala the ape;
    Dan-Tarzan becomes a Mossad agent;
    captures former Nazis;
    finds lost city of ancient Hebrew warriors.
    In parallel developments in Syria and Lebanon, Tarzan successfully battled Jews.
    Dori
Today is Gilead’s birthday. He’s turning six. I don’t know if Gilead has any parents here on Eldar. He wasn’t born here but he calls someone here Mummy and someone else Daddy so I don’t know what the story is.
For his birthday there’s a movie in one of the Rooms. The wall is the screen. It’s so crowded there’s hardly any room to sit. A lot of children from different Groups want to see the movie. It’s Hansel and Gretel .
I’m a bit scared when the witch puts Hansel in a cage. Gilead holds my hand. It’s the first time I’m holding a child’s hand to be less scared. That means something but I’m not sure what.
    Our First Year
    5 February 1949. Another day without bread. Some time in the future, when we have a chance to relax, and these days are no more than fond, rugged memories, perhaps someone will sit down and write the story of what we will call the Saga of Bread. Our bread comes from Safed, something like 27 kilometres away, which means, since we have no transportation, that a team of our boys has to set out every other day or so, by hitch-hiking or by walking, to pick it up.
    Sometimes they get a ride, sometimes they don’t. To tramp up and down these hills with a heavy sack of bread on one’s shoulders, in rain or hail or snow, is no joke, and since I’ve never done it myself, being a mere woman, I’m not competent to describe the intensity of the experience.
    This week, Amos came home so weatherbeaten and exhausted from the trip that he couldn’t drag the bread up the hill the last 500 metres, and he was in bed for two days after the trek.
    Dori
Shoshana is in a bad mood again. Lulu and Elan have to soak their tushies in a pail of water because they have itchy spots. They’re not allowed to scratch because scratching makes it worse. But it’s like when you have a mosquito bite—you just can’t help scratching.
But it seems Shoshana caught Elan scratching.
She grabs two rags from the rag-bag and then she grabs Elan and throws him on a bed. Gilead’s bed. She makes us all come with her. She ties Elan’s wrists to the metal part of the bed so he won’t scratch. We all have to stand next to the bed and watch and laugh. We’re not laughing but Shoshana pretends we are.
Elan has the scared smile. His