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Lili and Gil were travel weary when they returned from Israel. They walked into their new home in Greenfield, and were greeted by piles of boxes. They hadn’t had time to unpack much before leaving on their trip. Over the next week, they made good progress. They had many duplicate household items, so they made quite a lot of trips to charity shops to donate what they didn’t need. It helped that the early October weather was still mild.
Their houses in Saratoga and Northampton sold quickly. When each sale was about to close, they had to quickly empty them of the furnishings they’d left for staging. They gave some away, sold some, and brought the rest to use in their Greenfield home. While taking a break one day, Lili looked through an old photo album of hers. She started laughing and Gil sat down to see what was so funny. There were several pictures from the eighties showing Lili with a very big hair style. They looked through some more of her pictures while Lili described each of them to Gil. Until now, the couple really hadn’t shared much detail about their earlier lives.
Lili’s phone rang and she saw that it was Martha. “Hi Martha! What’s up?”
Martha’s voice was shaky. “Have you seen the news?”
“No, not yet. We’ve been unpacking. What’s wrong?”
“Turn on the TV. Terrorists from Gaza attacked Israel! They attacked the kibbutzes there. Talya has been texting me. She told me that a lot of the people on her kibbutz were murdered, and some were taken hostage. One of her sons-in-law was killed! We met him. And also one of her cousins was taken hostage, along with her cousin’s grandson. We met them, too!”
Lili whispered to Gil to turn on the news. “Oh my God. Are they still under attack?”
“All of the people from the kibbutzes near Gaza are being evacuated to safer parts of the country,” said Martha. “The news said that over a thousand people were killed and hundreds taken hostage. It’s a catastrophe!”
“Do you need me to come for a visit?”
“No, I don’t think so. I just thought I should tell you since you and Gil met these people, too.”
“Maybe you should call your daughter and your cousins in Scotland. They should know, too.”
“Yes, that’s a good idea.”
“Don’t forget the time difference. It’s five hours later in England. Seven hours later in Israel.”
Lili and Gil were glued to the news channels for the next few days as a new war erupted in Israel and Gaza. It was a horrible tragedy that shocked the whole world. Lili and Martha spoke frequently, and Martha relayed updates from Talya. Several weeks later, Talya’s cousin and her grandson were released from captivity, but some of their family members were killed or wounded while serving in the military.
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BY EARLY DECEMBER, Lili and Gil had finally emptied and removed all of the cardboard boxes from their new house. Gil arranged to give the empty boxes to someone else in town who was moving. “Do you think we can cook at home tonight?” he asked. “I’m tired of going out to eat.”
“Sure! What are you going to cook for me?”
Gil smiled. “Let me look.” He sat down at his laptop and searched the recipe file that he and his late wife Cynthia had compiled. It made him think of her and gave him a fleeting twinge of sadness. “How about apple-cider beef stew?”
“Sounds great! Let’s go to Stop & Shop.”
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WHEN THEY RETURNED from the supermarket, Lili saw that the mail truck had just gone by. After they brought in the groceries, Lili retrieved the mail from the mailbox. She separated the mail forwarded from Gil’s old address from hers. She noticed that they’d each received a letter from Israel. She opened hers and saw that it had the official letterhead of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “To the attention of Ms. Lili D’Amico. Enclosed is a cheque to reimburse you for Israel’s failure to protect you from being kidnapped, and for the inexcusable danger you faced. The source of your reimbursement is undistributed funds from the sale of artwork previously stolen by the Nazis from the estate of Avram and Talya Meyer. The Government of Israel apologizes for your troubles and wishes you all the best.” Lili gasped. “Gil!” She showed him the letter and check. She received a hundred thousand euros. You got one of these, too.”
He opened his letter and said, “Hey, I only got ten thousand. Totally unfair. Actually, I don’t know why I would get anything. This is really unexpected.”
“They must be penalizing Shmuel Meyer for his evil ways,” said Lili.
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THE HUGE METAL DOOR creaked a bit when Gil cracked it open. He listened to hear if anyone was coming, but he only heard voices further inside. Lili followed him into the inner sanctum of the empty weapons magazine at the defunct Fort Dearborn near Portsmouth, New Hampshire. As they moved deeper into the underground cavern, they could hear a man giving a fiery speech, punctuated by the stomping of feet from what sounded like a large audience.
Gil signaled for Lili to stop as they approached the entrance into the makeshift auditorium. There were about fifty people in the room, all dressed in olive-colored uniforms and standing in rows. Large red banners with black swastikas hung on either side of the temporary stage. A man with a blond crew cut and steel-gray eyes was giving the speech behind a swastika-adorned podium. Behind him were six older people seated in folding chairs, wearing black leather uniforms. One of them was Martha Eames.
Gil tried to listen to the speech, but couldn’t quite make out what was being said. He crept further into the room, but suddenly he tripped on the uneven floor and grabbed a stanchion, which made a rattling noise. He held his breath, but the speaker stopped and everybody in the room looked toward him. Martha slowly stood up and pointed. “Gil Novak!”
Gil snorted and woke up out of a deep slumber. “I knew we shouldn’t have kept that recliner,” said Lili. “Help me carry these bags out to the car before it gets dark. We really have to finish loading the car and put the bikes on the rack. I want to get on the road first thing in the morning so we can beat the rush hour traffic at Springfield and Hartford.”
“Coming.” Gil felt embarrassed that he had fallen asleep and that he had dreamed such a silly dream.