Where Peace Begins

IT was hot and dry the day Mama left Shmuel and Yuda at the orphanage.

Mama wiped her eyes again and again, complaining of dust, but her eyes were wetter than dust could make them. The early summer sun baked Shmuel’s neck, his back, and his head. He was twelve, but held his Mama’s hand, trying to memorize the weight of it, the feel of bone beneath the thin skin.

Mama hadn’t said where they were going, but Shmuel knew. He and Yuda weren’t the first to be separated from their parents. Sometimes it was sickness, sometimes it was hunger, and sometimes it was both that stole parents away. The city was filled with parentless children who’d wrap their few belongings and take the long walk to one of the buildings that took in orphans.

They passed a knot of British soldiers leaning against a jeep talking and laughing in their khaki shorts and matching shirts, berets at a rakish angle. It was too hot for a hat, Shmuel thought. He watched as one lit a cigarette with a match he pulled from his pocket. Shmuel held his breath as they passed, but the soldiers ignored them.