She moved haltingly, as if dreading a jolt of pain, but her slanted cheekbones and full lips were set in stubborn determination.
She noticed him staring and said, “Don’t worry. I’ve lived through much worse.”
He motioned at the debris. “You need a cleaning service.”
“Not in my budget. I’ll clean it myself.”
“If you need money-”
The look on her face stopped him. He collected her car keys from the kitchen counter. “At least let me get your tires fixed. I already told Raul. He loves sports cars.”
Masada looked at his soaked T-shirt. “I didn’t know morning prayers were so intense.”
He felt his face flush. “I was exercising when I saw the news.” He caught a whiff of Masada’s body, reminding him of Linda’s morning scent, the joy they had taken in each other during the first moments of each day. “We’ll be back with your car in a couple of hours.”
Masada watched Rabbi Josh leave, his ponytail wet with sweat, his blue T-shirt clinging to his wide, muscular back. His son took his hand, looking up to him with a big smile. The sight pinched her heart. She turned and went to the bathroom. While the sink filled up with warm water, she examined her face in the mirror. Her cheek and neck were bruised, her eyes bloodshot. No wonder Rabbi Josh kept averting his gaze.
She sat on the floor and removed the bandage. The old leg brace had skinned her knee when she ran home after the accident. The raw knee was still oily from the ointment she had applied last night. Soaking a facecloth in hot water, she pressed it to the wound. It burned, but she did not relent.
Before going to sleep, she had washed the blood off the brace and oiled the worn leather on the thigh and shin extensions, which were hinged to the brass knee cap. It stood on the bathroom counter like crude forceps.
A wave of sadness overwhelmed her. She sat on the toilet, hugging the brace to her chest. “O, Srulie.” Her lips touched the coarse leather. “I almost joined you last night.”
With a fresh bandage on her knee, Masada strapped on the brace, put on shorts and a tank top, and grabbed a bottle of water. The urge to exert her body was irresistible. She had to sweat off the acid of old memories.
She left through the rear patio, across the backyard, and through a small gate in the fence. Following along the drainage wash, she took the path over the lower hump of Camelback Mountain. Her body hurt, especially her right leg, but she kept going, heading east for the main Echo Canyon trail.
The sun was high, the heat rising. She passed between two huge boulders, where the trail took a steep turn to the left, ascending over the crest of the camel’s nose. She stopped to look down at her street. A news van was advancing toward her house.
She went on, stretching her arms, inhaling deeply. The trail split, and she took the steeper path through a deep crevice, pulling on the steel rail attached to the boulders, her arms taking the load off her aching leg.
Midway up the crevice, an engine rattled nearby, disturbing the tranquility of the mountain. She paused and looked back down the crevice.
A yellow motorbike entered the bottom end and stopped. The engine’s rattle was louder now, bouncing off the walls. The rider, with long limbs in black leather, revved up the engine.
Masada stood frozen, hand gripping the railing.
The motorbike raced up the crevice toward her.
The ophthalmologist browsed the sign-up sheet. “Car accident. No serious injuries. Age seventy-two. Have you been drinking, Flavian?”
“Professor Flavian Silver. My friends call me Levy. And I don’t drink.”
The doctor dropped the papers on the desk. “Let me see your glasses.”
“It’s only for protection. Not optical.”
“But there is a problem with your vision, yes?”
Silver hesitated. “A smudge. Like a shadow. It’s not too bad, but for me, limited as I am already, every little thing worries me.”
“A smudge.” The doctor gave him a stern look, as if he’d intentionally rubbed sand into his eye. “Left or right eye?”
“I wouldn’t see it in the left.”
The doctor picked up the chart again and browsed it. “Of course!” He moved Silver’s face from side to side. “They matched color and shape perfectly. Excellent work. How did you lose the eye?”
“A work accident. The current porcelain left eye was fabricated in Toronto, replacing earlier glass eye installed in Italy. I had occasional infections, treated in London, Ottawa, and Toronto.”
“You travel a lot.”
“My research takes me to different universities.”
“Research?” The doctor perked up. “I do some research myself. What is your field?”
“Jewish history. I wrote a book:
“I don’t have time for pleasure reading. This smudge you see, where is it?”
Professor Silver pointed at the doctor’s nose.
“Center field.” He clucked his tongue. “Let’s not sound the alarm before finding the fire. We’ll conduct a few tests and see what’s going on.”
Trapped between two walls of rock, Masada faced the speeding motorbike. Its front wheel tattled on the rocks, approaching her rapidly. She raised her hands to protect herself.
It stopped just before hitting her.
She picked up a rock.
The rider dismounted and shut off the engine. “Hi there.” It was a female voice. She pulled a second helmet from the rear rack. “Someone wants to talk to you.”
Masada recognized the accent. “You’re an Israeli.”
The rider handed her the helmet. “It’s set up for videoconferencing.”
Masada hesitated, but her journalistic curiosity was piqued. She slipped on the full-face helmet. It fit snugly, limiting her view through the open eye shield. A tiny electric motor buzzed as a miniature screen descended before her eyes.
A picture appeared. Mountains, rocky and bare of vegetation.
At first she thought it was somewhere nearby in Arizona. But the frame widened to show a body of water, flat as a mirror, its shoreline bleached with dried salt.
A drop of sweat trickled down Masada’s back. She tried to retreat from the familiar sights, which she had banished from memory, but the draw was too great. She watched the salty shore her feet had once walked, the clusters of tall weeds where she had scooped black mud to smear her young body. She remembered the heavy scent of sulfur and the smothering humidity.
The picture moved to the salt factory that had taken her parents’ lives, the long docks reaching into the thick water like skeletal fingers, the pinky still missing its middle phalanx. She thought of her dying mother, lips caked in salt, the air squeaking in and out of her destroyed lungs.
“Shalom, Masada.” The camera focused on a man in a wheelchair, a bouquet of flowers in his lap. “It’s been a long time.”
Her right knee buckled. She swayed, her hip hit the steel railing. She tried to pull off the helmet.
The lanky rider grabbed Masada’s hands with surprising strength.
“I’m not talking to him.” Her eyes mixed the sights of the rider in her black helmet and the man in the small screen, sitting in his wheelchair on the other side of the world.
The camera angle widened, and the sight ended Masada’s struggle.
“I come here often,” Colonel Ness said, laying the bouquet on Srulie’s headstone. “Your brother was a gifted
