Free Saving Grace by Barbara Rogan Page A

other gets the stubbornness. Same with Jonathan’s children—Paul with his feet on the ground, and Gracie with her head in the clouds.”
     
    So the boyfriend wasn’t such a fine young man. So he didn’t run the newspaper. Where did it say she had to tell her daughter everything?
     
    “Lily’s got some tsuris, but she don’t talk to me, really talk, I mean. Maybe she’s mad at Jonathan, but I don’t know what’s to be mad at. He works too hard, but he’s a good family man, a mensch. Maybe it’s the change of life, but then why don’t she tell me, I’m not a woman? It’s not like she has her own mother to talk to.”
     
    Clara sat back and shook the cramp from her hand. Lily had called her “Mother” since the day she married Jonathan, but only from her mouth, not from her heart. Not because they didn’t love each other— they did—but because of a barrier erected by Lily, which Clara’s best efforts had failed to breach. Perhaps it was loyalty to her own mother, who had died so tragically, poor soul, or perhaps a simple disinclination toward intimacy: Clara had noticed that although Lily had many friends, she had no intimates.
     
    “So, tochter. Give a kiss to Micha, and to the old man a good kick in the pants.
    Mama”
     
    * * *
     
    On her way through the park, Lily was mugged from within. The pain had not gone after all, but merely lain in wait, biding its time. She was walking slowly down the path, a little distracted, wondering what had come over her and whether the grass stains in her beige silk would ever come out, when suddenly she had the sensation of something alive and alien trapped inside her skull, fighting desperately to escape. Her sight narrowed; she staggered to a bench and slumped onto it. After a while she became aware of a voice somewhere close behind her. The voice was a woman’s, singing in a German accent. Hush, little baby, don’t say a vord, Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird. And if that mockingbird don’t sing, Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.
    There was a gathering stillness in the air, a warm anticipation, like the pause before a thunderstorm. Lily knew that voice, though it had been twenty-five years since she’d heard it. Who could forget her mother’s lullaby?
    And if that diamond ring turns brass, Mama’s gonna buy you a looking glass.
    But that was impossible. Lily had buried her mother. Someone else must be singing that song. Someone with an accent like her mother’s. Someone with the same voice.
    And if that looking glass gets broke, Mama’s gonna buy you a billy goat.
    Greta never sang or spoke or read in German, nor could she abide to hear it spoken. She gave up her native language after the war. Lily was brought up on English nursery songs sung in a German accent.
    Her eyes began to clear. The pain shrank to a single point, then vanished. In its wake came a sense of tremendous well-being.
    And yet the singing continued. It was a mystery she had only turn her head to solve; yet Lily was oddly reluctant to do it. At last she made herself look around.
    She saw no one. Lily stood, turned in a full circle.   People were walking past, but there was nobody standing close by and singing.
    And if that bully goat von’t pull, Mama’s gonna buy you a cart und bull.
     
     

 
    6
     
    TAMAR KIMCHI INSERTED HER HAND in the hole and sifted the sandy earth. Decades of surgery had given her fingers eyes: as they palpated the hidden object, she saw the smooth curve beneath the encrusted surface. “Yes,” she murmured, “yes. Let’s expose it.”
    “Drink first.” Micha held the canteen to his mother’s lips, then to his own. They set to work using trowels. Go gently, Tamar coached. Where there is one piece there are more. See through your instrument. But none of it she said aloud, for there was no need.
    She and Micha had been on many such expeditions together, starting from the time he was five and had to trot on matchstick legs to keep up with the