“The paycheck isn’t too great, but even a few shekels is something. That way I can also help you out, Yermi,” Grandpa said, and immediately realized he’d gone too far.

“Obviously it’s just a suggestion,” he said, shifting into damage control. “You don’t have to …”

“I won’t take a single shekel from you,” Dad declared, shutting down any further discussion of the debts. “If Mom were alive, you wouldn’t dare enlist.”

“True,” Grandpa admitted. “But she isn’t.”

Dad left the room, and Grandpa went back to packing his bag. He tried zipping it up, but his hands were trembling and the bag fell off the bed, photos of Grandma Miriam scattering across the floor. I helped him put everything back into the bag only to see him empty it out onto the bed again a moment later.

He wouldn’t stop saying something was missing, but he didn’t know what.

2.

[email protected]

July 16, 2009, 04:45:02

Subject: Hi Yuli

How are you?

Get back to me when you read this.

Best,

Alma Rosenblum,

Emissary for the Jewish Agency for Israel in New Delhi

3.

THE FOLLOWING DAY, on the way to the Reception and Sorting Base, Grandpa and I listened to Kol Yisrael. The broadcaster was interviewing some guy who had hiked the Israel National Trail with nothing but a hundred shekels in his pocket and two pairs of socks.

“I should add that to my list,” Grandpa said and cleared his throat.

“You know what I regret not having done?” he said when he realized I wasn’t going to ask.

“What?” I asked reluctantly, and he started listing the items slowly in a monotonous voice:

Hiking the Israel National Trail.

Eating Mom’s gefilte fish again.

Visiting the Arad Visitors’ Center.

Finding the old grocery store’s sign. Maybe in the Jaffa flea market.

Tracking down Tamar Weitzman, my first high school girlfriend who went to America and disappeared.

Smoking a Cuban cigar.

Telling Golda that on second thought, she wasn’t to blame for the war.