Chapter 2 The Great Secret

C ommunal living for children was customary at Kibbutz Merhavia, as it was in other kibbutzim in the Hashomer Hatza'ir movement. It wasn't just spending the night ? it was also shared activities during most of the day. The children lived their lives in the framework of the children's house rather than in the family home with their parents. This was a central feature of the daily reality on the kibbutz, reflecting the movement's principles of ideological equality.

The children's entire lives unfolded there. We did everything together and spent time supervised by the teachers and caregivers who worked in the children's house. At that time, children's house workers didn't have to go through any professional training – and as children, we absorbed everything, both the good and the bad. We visited our parents in the afternoons for approximately two to four hours. In the evenings they would bring us back to the children's house. Our children's house was called "The Big House" because it was a three-story building; each floor housed a group of toddlers who were born in the same year.

My early childhood coincided with Israel's formative years: the absorption of a huge wave of immigration, together with a policy of austerity. Food was rationed. In cities where a black market thrived, basic items like eggs, meat, and fish were very hard to come by. In the agricultural settlements, where there was livestock and orchards, the situation was slightly less difficult, but even our food was rationed. We children were made to finish every bit of food allocated to us in carefully measured amounts. We received our meals from the children's kitchen, often with some delectable additions specially prepared for us. I wasn't a very good eater, however, and sometimes I would linger at the table for a long time until breakfast was over, which often led to punishment; usually this happened when I had hidden bits of egg in my hand, until one of the substitute caregivers gave up on me and threw the egg discreetly into the trash.

Gitka, the nursery teacher, was strict with all of us. Sometimes, with both her hands she would shake the shoulders of whichever of the children was driving her crazy. She would purse her lips and snarl, "I will take the evil out of your heart!" Fortunately, Gitka never accused me of being evil-hearted, but I remember that she sometimes called me " shiksa " (a non-Jewish female), a word whose meaning I didn't understand then. I always got an earful from her; she would call me " hishuk " (chubby), and sometimes, in the yard, she would grab my plump cheeks (back then, they were called " feyskalach ") and glare at me with a half-smile of distrust mixed with admiration.

Gitka had significant influence as our teacher in the children's house, but thanks to my father I learned to stand up to her. One evening I went back from my parents' room to get ready for bed at the usual time (our bedtime was 8:00). I ran up the stairs with my father trailing behind me, then stood at the door and proudly announced: "Today, I'm going to teach everybody a Yiddish song that my dad taught me." All the children gathered around me, and I began to sing excitedly:

"Zeh zeh zeh zeingen, zeh zeh zeh zeingen A zimerl, a zimerl: Lekhem iz broyt, buser un dugim Vekhol mat'amim" (Come, let's sing, come, let's sing a little song, a little song – bread is bread, meat and fish of all kinds)

Before I could finish, Gitka let out a nasty chuckle and said, "We sing ‘lomer ale zeingen' and not ‘zeh zeh zeh zeingen.'" I gasped for breath, blushed, and stopped singing. My father stood behind me, stroking my hair and he whispered in my ear, "Keep going, you sing beautifully." I leaned against him as he held both my hands, and I sang the whole song from beginning to end. From that day on, I never stopped singing and playing the harmonica, an instrument my father taught me. On summer evenings we would sit on the steps at the entrance to my parents' room, where my father taught me to play the flute and the ocarina (a small, wide, plastic flute). When I started to learn to play the recorder with the teacher Shlomit, I had no trouble producing accurate, musical tones.

There were four children in each room in the children's house. We weren't biological siblings; we simply were born in the same year. We spent time there together, woke up together, got dressed together, ate together, bathed together, played together, explored together, and slept together. Until school age, we had creative activities and played in the sandbox every morning. In the summer we swam in the swimming pool almost every day. Sometimes we flooded the sandbox with water and waded in bathing suits in the mud, building castles and sand cakes on the concrete rim. We often walked around the kibbutz, going to the barn and chicken coop, to the scrap yard outside the blacksmith shop, and we would also go outside of the kibbutz – to Givat HaMoreh "Hill," and to the tracks of the Emek train that had already been partially dismantled, and then on to the sugar factory, to the Merhavia Moshav, the olive vineyard, the grape vines and the orchard. We got to know every tree and bush in our surroundings; we followed the birds, insects, and butterflies, and we knew wild flowers by their names as we walked to "our hill" – a hill beyond the chicken coop fence in the moshav area, where we religiously tracked the changes in vegetation in the various seasons. In those days, people would pick bouquets of anemones and cyclamen until they began to be scarce. The decision to protect them by law returned the spectacular bloom to the fields of the valley.

In my parents' house, I had a little corner to play in. It had a small iron bed where my rag doll lay covered with the tattered blanket my mother had made for her, and there was a small carriage for my "fancy" doll in her hat and dress. I danced around with my dolls and whispered secrets to them. I loved my parents' room on the hill. On winter evenings my father and I would play chess, dominoes, patience, and other games. As we children got older, we saw our parents less, and we preferred to spend time with the other children, even in the afternoons on the playground, on the grass, or in the dining room. In the late 1950s, the eight houses on the hill were renovated. Each apartment had an additional modest bathroom and shower, a gas water heater, toilets, and a sink. No more walking out of the communal showers clean ? and right into the mud and dust…

Every evening we returned with the parents for "lying-down time" at the children's house. Kibbutz rules forbade sleeping in the parents' house, and our parents went along with this "educational" law. We put on pajamas and said goodbye to our parents at the door, sometimes in tears. The "the lying down" nanny would read us a story as we sat around small tables or lay in our beds, straining our ears to hear the nanny who sat in the hallway between the rooms, or at the end of the corridor so that everyone could hear. The parents went to meetings of the various committees, to organize the work assignments, or assign a team for the holidays, or they would go to the members' club room, or back to their own rooms. Only rarely were we children asleep when the story was over.

Instead, we waited for the moment when the nanny would close the door behind her. As soon as we heard her footsteps moving away, it was time to run "wild" with the pranks we played every night, according to well-known rules of the game. The "lookout" was a boy who was stationed by the door; his job was to look out the window and give a warning signal if he saw someone coming. On the days we didn't play games together, we would keep talking until we fell asleep.

Children who couldn't sleep well had a difficult time, as they didn't receive any help or comforting. One option was to cry and call the night guardian; the second option was to cry under their blanket and not call for help; and the third was to wake up a girlfriend or boyfriend and talk a little. And there was a fourth option: to crawl under a friend's blanket and sleep there together until morning with the intention of getting back in your own bed before the nanny arrived. The last option was to run to the parents' room and get into their bed.

The guard post was in the babies' house, which was far from the big children's house. A child who couldn't fall asleep, or who woke up frightened, would try to relax and seek comfort. The calculations were usually made based on his and his friends' past experiences. Sometimes it took a long time until the night guardian arrived, from the moment of the call that was sometimes made by a friend who woke up and went outside to call her in the cold, or the dark, silent night, hoping that she would hear and come to help. Sometimes she didn't come at all, and when she did arrive, she would shine her flashlight and follow the voice until she focused the beam of light directly on the crying child's face, thereby blinding his narrowed eyes, which radiated distress. The moment of this encounter determined the fate of the child's night's sleep. If she was a gentle night watchman, she would sit down next to him, caress and soothe him until he fell asleep. If he were unlucky, he would be scolded with the well-known saying: "What are you afraid of? Turn around to the wall and go to sleep. I have other children to take care of."

The biggest shame was bedwetting. All the events of the night were sent in a written report to the teacher. Whatever was chosen for help in times of distress, either consciously or out of necessity, the humiliation was worse: to wake up in fear and be afraid of the unknown reaction of the night watchman (who changed every week). The obligation to report everything was the first of the Ten Commandments in the Shomer Hatzair movement. The reports created anxiety and fear. We were put in a position of helplessness in the face of what was expected of us, even though it was due to behavior beyond our control and was certainly not our fault. Words like "It's all right," "It's okay to be afraid," "It's okay to wet the bed," "It happens," "It'll pass," or "We'll change the sheets and pajamas so that you're dry and comfortable" – were words that were never uttered. A caress and a hug from comforting hands were also absent on such nights.

Until the age of six, I don't remember waking up at night by myself. Sometimes I woke up hearing others crying and looking at them compassionately through the slit of the blanket in their heart-wrenching struggle, or else I chose to be the one calling for help in the night lit by the sidewalk lamp. When I was school age, I remember summer nights when I ran to my parents' room in my pajamas. I wanted to be close to them rather than be at the mercy of an unfamiliar caretaker. It took a lot of courage to run up the hill (about 270 meters) in the dark. When I arrived at their door – panting and out of breath – I sometimes stopped and sat on the steps at the entrance, hesitating whether to go inside or go back, going over the possible repercussions in my head: If I stay the night with them, would they take me back in the early morning to my bed before the nanny comes, or would they immediately return me to the children's home – an option I liked less. This nightly exercise in courage usually ended with the first option – getting into their bed, then getting up and being accompanied by one of my parents to sneak back into my bed in the children's room before the nanny's wake-up time, something that bound us together as accomplices in an agreed-upon "crime."

We knew it was wrong to break the "educational law" when we sought the warmth of our parents' closeness at night. I went through a period when I would wake up almost every night after the scary suspense stories that David, my friend Hannah's father, would tell us at bedtime, stories from the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and his associate, Dr. Watson. One story, called "The Speckled Band," kept me awake for several nights in a row. I imagined a snake (the speckled band) dangling from the ceiling straight down to my bed. And I wasn't the only one who ran to their parents' rooms at that time.

On hot summer nights, lying in bed facing the window, I would wait for a breeze to flutter the leaves of the trees to play games in my imagination that were inspired by the silhouettes of the leaves on the walls of the room. A shadow dance played out on the wall – the stage – in shifting gesticulations, marvelously choreographed by the wind. Night noises accompanied the dance like an orchestra of intermittent chords. The eye, the ear, and the imagination produced the fruit of my nocturnal creation with excitement and curiosity without fear of any kind.

On one of those magical evenings, when I was about six years old, my imagination games were interrupted by an announcement that resounded in the space. It was Uri, one of my roommates who had penetrated the silence and declared sharply, "There is somebody in this room whose parents aren't really his parents."

I felt my heart begin pounding and a sick feeling in my stomach came over me. "I can't tell you who, because my parents will kill me," Uri continued, and he then fell silent. I gathered my courage and said in a whisper, "What do you mean? If you already started, you have to tell," He didn't answer. I don't think any of the three girls in the room slept a wink that night.

The next morning, I still had Uri's dreaded sentence in my head and I impatiently waited for bedtime. After the nanny finished the evening's story, we lay quietly, waiting to hear the door closing and her footsteps moving away. Only then did I ask with trepidation, "What about the secret? Uri, you have to tell us who it is!" I sat up in bed and looked straight at him, hoping to catch his eye so he couldn't refuse.

"Anybody who says he has a big secret has to tell what it is, because he already said he has a secret," Na'ama added.

"I can't, because I heard my parents talking about it and I'm not allowed to say what it is. They said it was a big secret and nobody should know."

"You have to tell us who it is, because now everybody thinks that their parents aren't their real parents, except you, and you're the only one who knows. So you have to tell," I said with confidence and a tone of reproach.

"Okay, then …Your parents aren't your real parents," he whispered, covering his head with a blanket. I froze. No one said anything. Everything seemed to be in slow motion. I lay down with my hands on my chest, trying to calm the pounding of my raging heart. I felt my pulse beating in my temples, that my life was on fire, and I was on the verge of tears. My throat was dry and I was afraid I would stop breathing. I wanted some water, but I couldn't move. I was scared stiff – with no one to hug, no one to lean on, and no one to ask if this were true. I had so many unsettling questions, such as Why didn't I know? How come Uri knows and I don't? Why did they hide it from me? Maybe he was just saying it? Why would he all of a sudden say such a thing, and who could believe him? These thoughts flooded my mind for a long time. I knew everyone else had already fallen asleep and only I was awake. I looked up at the wall where the shadows flickered. I took comfort in the moving shapes and let myself sink into the magical world of imagination until I finally fell asleep.

The next day I was detached from what was going on around me. I only vaguely heard the nanny's words. I ate with no appetite and finished everything in a hurry so as not to stay at the table and be a target for the snooping eyes of my roommates. None of them said anything or asked how I was. I went out to the sandbox, and with my fingers in the sand, drew a picture of a father, a mother, and a little girl all holding hands. I rubbed it out and drew the same thing over and over. I shut myself off to anything else, lost in thought until I realized I had missed the call for the shower. The nanny hurried me along, and I took a quick one. Afterwards I got into bed under the light, colorful "pika" blanket that we covered ourselves with in the summer. I started counting by tens and hundreds and was thinking about what number I could reach when they opened the blinds and told us, "Time to get up."

At exactly 4:00, when the signal was given to go to the parents' rooms, I was the first one at the gate. I ran like a deer up the hill, panting for breath. I gasped, my heart pounding again…I was desperate for the answer.

I ran past the last walkway in front of my parents' house, planning to jump the three front steps together and rush inside to ask about what had been disturbing me since the night before. I skipped the regular ritual where I run straight into my father's arms and he picks me up for a hug. I stopped a few steps away from him, and before he realized what had happened, I asked aloud, "Is it true…what Uri said?"

My father turned pale and said nothing. His silence seemed like a long one to me. I had already learned to recognize when he was uncomfortable. I saw that he wanted to say something, but wasn't sure what or how to say it. Maybe he wanted to tell me everything, maybe only part of it. After what felt like ages, he got up and came towards me. He reached out his arms for a hug and asked, "And what exactly did Uri say?"

"That you are not my parents," I said loudly.

At that moment the door opened and my mother joined us outside. I saw her surprised and worried look. She had probably listened from inside. My father picked me up in a hug. They both showered me with kisses and whispered, "We love you; you are ours and we are yours." The words were pleasing, but they weren't enough.

I lifted my head from my father's shoulder, straightened up, and looked into his eyes. "But are you my real parents?" I asked anxiously.

My father put me down very slowly, bending until his eyes were level with mine. He held my hand and said, "We are your parents. Do you want me to peel an apple for you? Let's go inside. I'll slice you some apple with cookies on the side. We'll go for a walk to the chicken coop and there I'll tell you a story." I kept humbly quiet. I sat down next to him at the table and watched as he peeled the apple from the stem downwards in peripheral circles. When he was almost finished, I held out my palm so that the skin of the apple, which looked like a coiling snake, would fall from the knife straight to my fingers. I used to always eat the curled peel, holding the edge with my fingers and slurping it down like a sweet and sour noodle.

We all left for the chicken coop. I walked in the middle, between my parents. My hands stretched upwards, my father holding my right, and my mother my left. We went down the hill on the steps that separate the slope of my father's garden between our terrain and the one belonging to Reuven Eshel, the kibbutz "noynik" (gardener). Reuven, like my father, had a green thumb and a glorious garden. In Reuven and my father's gardens, seasonal flowers abounded: verbena, silver baskets, nasturtiums, and large geranium bushes with red and pink blooms. Later we passed by a raspberry bush, and I picked a few for the way. We also passed by our loquat tree ? the one that the kids would sneak up and pick fruit from on their way to the swimming pool. We approached the coop. "Where do you like to sit the most?" asked my father.

"Under the mulberry tree," I answered.

I sat down between my mother and father. "So now you'll tell me the story?" I looked at him impatiently.

"What do you want to know?"

Again, I asked, "Are you really my parents?"

"We are your parents. We did not give birth to you, but we are raising you and we love you more than anything in the world. There are children whose parents didn't give birth to them, but they are their parents… Sometimes who gives birth to the child isn't the most important thing; it's more important who raises the child with a love that is the strongest ever," he said warmly and put his hand on my shoulder.

"You didn't give birth to me?" I turned to my mother.

"I didn't give birth to you, but I chose you. I wanted you more than anything, only you. I chose you and you chose me. You are ours even though we didn't give birth to you, and we love you the most in the whole world," my mother blurted out in a single breath. She smiled, her white teeth gleaming. Her black hair glistened in the sun's rays, a warm orange hue in the sunset. Her beauty shined forth and her face was alert, ready for anything else to be said.

I was silent, and confused, but I felt very loved. I knew I loved these two people with all my heart. "So…I am really yours," I said with relief as I leaned back.