How I wished we could be back in Chevron. Or even in Kovno. I couldn’t start again. I just couldn’t

Dovid

I

shivered, though the night air was very warm — hot, even. The day I had been discharged from the hospital, we had picked the time and place that we would meet. It had to be days away because  otherwise we couldn’t be sure Yitzchok, the boy who had been in the bed next to me, would be discharged in time. But that day was finally here. And yet… I looked around again, hoping Yitzchok would appear in the shadows, but he did not. Soon I would have to leave or Mama would worry about me. No matter what, I could not worry Mama. Not after everything we had been through.

“Dovid,” a voice whispered from somewhere behind me, and my heart leapt.

“Yitzchok!” I turned around to find him only a few feet away from me, standing there as if he had always been there. “Yitzchok! I almost left without you.”

“Yeah.” Yitzchok nodded. “Sorry. My mother needed me and I just couldn’t leave. And then the walk from the Old City — not that it’s so long, but it’s not exactly right here in Geula, if you know what I mean.”

“Is that where you live now?” I asked curiously. “The Old City?”

Yitzchok nodded. “Where did you move to?” he asked.

“Not too far from here,” I said, nodding in the direction of our apartment. “Mama wanted to be near the yeshivah. But enough talking — we need to plan.”