All I Love and Know Read Free Page B

English spoken in American accents with strange glottal emphases. Their language sounded self-important and bullying to him, as though they were talking to children or foreign servants, and thinking that many of them were probably settlers, he felt a strong antipathy for them. Daniel loathed them. Each time they saw one of them interviewed on television, he would shout, “What’s the matter, the U.S. isn’t fundamentalist enough for you?!”
    Matt’s heel was chafed, but not bleeding, and he pulled up his sock and straightened. The sun was warming him to the bone, and there was the smell of something sharp in the air, like citrus or guava, mixed with exhaust fumes. This country seemed to him to be a different earthly element than his own, and he found that both exciting and a little frightening. He wasn’t well traveled; his only trip outside the U.S. had been to Amsterdam with Jay years ago, right out of college. Here, under a cloudless sky, people were smoking and gesticulating; everyone had a cell phone attached to his or her ear, even the children. Although Matt was shocked by the open display of assault rifles, and officially disapproved of the soldiers in uniform, he found them beautiful. They were short and brown-skinned and very young.
    He began to notice that passersby were casting curious and compassionate glances at Daniel’s family. He stepped closer to Daniel, laying his hand on the small of his back, and bowed his head into the conversation. The social worker had switched to English, and was telling Daniel’s parents that a van would arrive shortly to take them to the morgue. She touched their elbows as she spoke. She projected an aura of gentle authority, and looked into their faces in a way that was somehow both searching and undemanding. Matt had a powerful impulse to sidle up and confide in her. I’m the gay boyfriend! I’m the goyfriend! I’m in a foreign country where I don’t speak the language!
    At that moment Sam frowned and pointed into the distance, where a small group of photographers were snapping pictures of them with zoom lenses. “What are they doing?” Shoshi’s face darkened and she took off toward them with her arms outstretched; when she got near them, she wagged her finger in their faces, barking commands. They gave her a short argument, and then walked away, one of them turning to utter a final deprecation.
    The family had instinctively turned their faces away, and when Shoshi returned, panting and apologizing, they moved their bodies to gather her within the pack. A white van pulled up to the curb, and a driver wearing a yarmulke got out and put their luggage in the back as they climbed inside, Daniel helping Lydia into the front seat. Daniel sat with the social worker in the middle seat, leaving Matt and Sam in the back. They settled into the air-conditioning, wound up by the unexpected fracas with them at its center.
    â€œWhat was that all about?” Sam asked.
    â€œJoel was a minor celebrity,” Daniel reminded them; he’d been the host of an English-language television interview show.
    There was a pause. “How did they know we were . . . ?” Sam trailed off as Shoshi pointed to Daniel’s face. “And my emergency gear,” she added.
    As the van pulled through the guard stations at the airport exit, Shoshi twisted to sit sideways and told them that the ride to Abu Kabir would take about twenty minutes. Her English was proficient but heavily accented, and from time to time she hesitated and said a word in Hebrew to Daniel, who translated it for his family. She told them that Ilana, Joel’s wife, had been identified by her parents, but the other body had been held so that, if it was Joel, he could be identified by his immediate family. She pronounced Joel “Yo- el ,” its Hebrew version.
    â€œ If it is Joel?” Lydia asked sharply.
    â€œIf it is,” Shoshi said, giving her