She spoke in a flat, emotionless tone, as if what she was telling did not happen to her but to some faraway stranger. Her story had the fuzzy edges of a tale oft repeated, whose form and substance changed as it passed from one set of lips to another set of ears over and over again. I felt certain Sima Vaaknin had not told this story to many people. But she might have told it to herself a great many times over the years and had embellished and refined it along the way. She did not falter once in seeking the perfect word to use. She was practiced in the telling of this story, and in the hearing of it, even if only inside her head.
Her story began in 1929, when Sima was seven years old. She and her family lived in the city of Hebron, in the Jewish neighborhood that had existed there for centuries, close to the Cave of Machpelah, where the Jewish biblical Patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—and the Jewish Matriarchs—Sarah, Leah, and Rivkah—were said to be entombed. In August of that year, riots broke out throughout the country, as Arabs, inflamed by religious leaders, attacked Jews in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Safed, and a variety of small towns and villages. The Jewish communities of Jenin, Gaza, and Nablus had to be evacuated by the British to ensure their safety.
But Hebron saw the worst of the rioting. In that city, an Arab mob armed with knives, axes, and pitchforks stormed Jewish homes and institutions, murdering men, women, and children. Some were tortured, and many of the bodies were mutilated. Women and young girls were raped before they were killed. Some Jews were killed in close proximity to the local British police, who did little to defend them during the worst of the rioting.
Sima Vaaknin was the oldest daughter of her family. She had two small brothers and one sister. Sima's father was a baker. Arab rioters broke into his bakery and pushed him into his burning oven. Her mother was at home with Sima and her siblings. Arabs broke into their home, murdered her two brothers and sister before her mother's and Sima's eyes, then raped her mother and Sima. After the rape, an Arab armed with a steel club stove Sima's mother's head in. Sima remembered him as a giant looming over her, his face craggy and massive, his features engorged and grotesque. In truth, I imagined, he was a regular-sized man made monstrously tall by a child's recollection, further distorted by trauma.
"I don't know why they did not kill me," Sima said in her distant tone, "but I managed to escape the house through a window. I ran without direction through the streets. They were full of crashing noises, cries of pain, pleading for help. And smoke. There was smoke everywhere. Whenever I heard angry shouts in Arabic, I clung to the walls and made myself small. I hurt so bad everywhere, inside and out. It was hard to move. After running for a long time, I was exhausted. I lay down next to a house, brought my legs to my chest, hugged myself, and waited, trembling, for things to calm."
She trembled a bit now, and a higher tone invaded her words, as if the child she'd been was talking to me from twenty years in the past.
"After a while," she went on, "a hand shook me. Told me to get up quickly. It was an Arab man, short, slim, with a thin mustache. I didn't want him to touch me. I didn't want him to hurt me. But I had no strength left. He picked me up, held me to his chest, and walked quickly away with me in his arms. He got to an old house, knocked on the door, and an Arab woman—his wife, I later learned—opened the door, and we went in and descended to the cellar. A number of frightened Jews huddled inside, sitting on the floor, while the wife made coffee and tea. His name was Abu Id Zaitoun, and I owe him and his family my life. Why they did it—why they risked their lives for us—I do not know. But they kept me and others safe until the British evacuated us to the police station. I never returned to Hebron again."
She paused, her eyes on some point on the wall behind me, or on the past behind the present.
I said nothing. I knew a little about the 1929 riots, but I had not heard any personal accounts. And I had not known the gory and gruesome details, the extent of the brutality. Now I understood what Sima had meant when she said that she'd taken Maryam Jamalka in because she had a debt to pay. The debt was to Abu Id Zaitoun and his family, and if they could not be repaid for saving her life, she would help another Arab in their place. I also understood what had happened to her sister.
But Sima's story wasn't done. She said, "After the riots ended, I was given to a Jewish family in Haifa. They had one girl called Carmella. She was eleven years old when I arrived. The father of the family used to visit our room at night and go to her bed. I would hear them from under the blanket I had pulled over my head. I lay there shivering until he was done with her. Then I heard her weep herself back to sleep. I told her mother about it, but she slapped my face, told me to stop telling lies, and threatened to kick me out on the street if I told anyone. I was ten when he switched from Carmella to me. Then I was truly alone, because she resented it. Carmella, I mean. She hated me more than she hated her father. As if I had taken him from her. I would have gladly given him up if I only could.
"I was thirteen when I ran away. I drifted from one place to another for a time. Stayed in a kibbutz, but left before long. I ended up in Tel Aviv and became what I am today. First I worked for a man who had a number of women and girls working for him. He was rough and scary but was only violent if a girl tried to leave. Otherwise he would be afraid of marking us with his blows. It would make us less desirable to men. But eventually I became free when he died in a fight with another criminal. And since then I have been working for myself. No one controlling me. Free."
She paused and a silence as deep as a well fell in the room. Then she blinked a few times, her face twitched, and her posture, rigid throughout her narration, softened. She turned her eyes to me and smiled expectantly. "Your turn."
I looked at her for a moment, speechless. I was stunned by the abrupt shift in her demeanor. I felt a mixture of horror and sadness and anger. But if Sima Vaaknin was feeling anything, I could not tell it from her face or body.
"Come on," she said after a moment. "You're not a cheater, are you? You promised to tell me your story if I told you mine."
I swallowed hard and nodded.
"Mine is not nearly as long as yours," I said. This was true only because I was not going to tell her the whole story. I was not going to talk about being stuffed into a train car with dozens of other Jews. I was not going to tell her how I had lost my family. I was not going to talk about all the horrors I had witnessed at the camp. It was not what I had agreed to, and it would take too long anyway.
"Just tell it," she said, and she lay down on her side, her hands tucked under her head, looking like a child eager to hear a bedtime story. I half expected her to yawn like children do, without covering her mouth.
I started to talk. I told Sima Vaaknin a little about the camp. I told her of being hungry and tired and depressed and hopeless. I told her of being reduced to an animal, a stinking, filthy, sick shell of a man. I told her about the guard—his brown shock of hair, his pocked skin, his blue eyes, his cruel mouth with the small, sharp teeth, the way he would slap his thigh with the whip, the vulgar insults he would hurl at prisoners.
"I saw him," I said, "saw him roam the camp, seeking any excuse to beat a prisoner. Some of the guards simply did what they were told. No more, no less. But he belonged to another group—those who relished the power they'd been given over us and enjoyed using it. Enjoyed inflicting pain on those of us whom they considered less than men. So I tried to steer clear of him. But one day he came up behind me, ordered me to remove my shirt and kneel down. If I did something to provoke him, I don't know what it was. He wasn't the sort who needed a reason, really. And there would be no one to discipline him if I died. My life was worthless. Why he chose to punish me with a whip and not a gun, I do not know. Maybe it was because he wanted me to suffer for long, and death is so final. Say what you will of death, at least it ends pain."