Edeet Ravel - The Last Rain

ALSO BY EDEET RAVEL

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A Wall of Light

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FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS

The Thrilling Life of Pauline de Lammermoor

The Mysterious Adventures of Pauline Bovary

The Secret Journey of Pauline Siddhartha

The Saver

Held

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First published 2011

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (RRD)

Copyright Edeet Ravel, 2011

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Publishers note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Ravel, Edeet, 1955

The last rain / Edeet Ravel.

ISBN 978-0-670-06866-1

I. Title.

PS8585.A8715L38 2011 C813'.54 C2011-900749-5

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for my sister Sara

Authors Note

I began working on this story thirty-five years ago, when I was twenty. Written in the voice of a young girl, it was based on my childhood at Kibbutz Sasa in the northern Galilee, with an eighteen-month interlude in Montreal. I felt wrenched from my home when my parents left the kibbutz for good; I had just turned seven and for the next few years I daydreamed continually about returning. I never did return.

The subject of this backward look has remained consistent over the years, but changing perceptions have no doubt affected the childs voice. I have also added to her account stray sections of what the poet Carl Sandburg called the labyrinth of sliding doors that is our collective past. Because no analogy can capture with finality what is never final, Sandburg contemplates another image: a book of ciphers, with its code buried inside a cave in the Sargasso Sea. The only way I can think of to explore that labyrinth, those ciphers, is through fiction.

I have capitalized several terms that take on special meaning in kibbutz culture: Childrens House, Group, Minder, Room, Dining Hall, Kitchen, Guard, Pioneer, Hike, Wake-Up, Bedding-Down. The First Rain and the Last Rain have proper names in Hebrewyoreh and malkosh.

In past centuries, literary works were dedicated to kings and queens. You, readers, are todays royalty; may my efforts please you.

Dramatis Personae

Eldar Members (selected)

The Satie Family

Naftali Satie (Nat/Ricky)

Varda Klein Satie (Avra/Rita)

David Satie (b 1950)

Dori Satie (b 1955)

Sara Satie (b 1959)

Doris Group

Lulu

Skye

Gilead

Simon

Elan

Jonathan

Hannah

Davids Group

Noam

Amnoni

Hagar

Founders

Martin Dubrovsky (Michael)

Isaac Milman (Eli?/Rubin?)

Edna

Amos

Dafna

Lou

Coco

Nina

Israeli-born Contingent Shoshana, Ora, Yael, Emanuel,

Katzi, Tamir, Oded

Thane

Jeremiah Ben-Jacob

Timeline

I

Utopia

Utopia. From Gr. not () + place (), i.e., no-place; an imaginary island, depicted by Sir Thomas More (1516) as a perfect social, legal and political system.

OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY

Daily Schedule for Kindergarten/ Transitional First Grade Eldar, 1960

Wake-Up (Minder)

dress, wash up, free play

breakfast

directed play with teacher

(art, stories, singing, holidays, nature, Hikes, literacy, numbers)

mid-morning snack

directed play

lunch

shower (if required)

two-hour nap

Wake-Up (on-duty monitor)

snack

three-hour visit with parents

return to Childrens House

supper

shower, pyjamas

Bedding-Down

Dori

Well build our country our country our homeland

Because this country belongs to us

Well build our country our country our homeland

Something blood something something generations

In spite of those who set out to destroy us

Fire something freedom something hope

I never can catch all the words.

Our First Year

On a cold day in January 1949, a small group of American Jews from the Young Guard Youth Movement unloaded their beds, straw mattresses, and toothbrushes, planted themselves in a deserted Arab village near the Lebanese border of Israel, and called themselves Kibbutz

Dori

Im on the sofa in my parents Room. At night their sofa opens into a bed.

I could sleep on the floor next to them. I wouldnt mind sleeping on the stone tiles in my clothes. I wouldnt even need a blanket.

But Daddy says time to go back to the Childrens House sweetie.

Those words fly straight to my stomach. The Childrens House is as far away as the stars in the sky.

Pinocchio

Once upon a time, many centuries ago, there was

A king! my little readers will say immediately.

No, children, you are mistaken. Once upon a time there was a piece of wood.

Dori

Unfortunately children arent allowed to sleep in the Rooms. Were free but not that free.

I could pretend to fall asleep. That way Daddy will have to carry me back. Or I could beg for another page of Pinocchio.

Or I could do both. First beg for another page and then pretend to fall asleep.

Daddy believes that with children you have to say yes. Thats lucky for me. Very lucky. Not all children are so lucky. I beg for another page and he agrees. I told you!

Daddy was away for three months. He wasnt here when it snowed. I didnt want to play in the snow because nothing counted until he came back. Besides there was snow in Canadathough I must say I prefer the snow in Eldar. It makes a very loud noise when you walk on it and you can smell it on the earth and on the leaves. The snow in Canada didnt have a smell.