Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 13 of a new online serial novel, If Anyone Is Listening, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

Yang Yang was a tall, fat Chinaman carrying a gray suitcase.

“No, no.” He tightened his grip on the handle and shook his head vigorously when Shimmy pointed to the chairs upholstered in a horrible red fabric in the corner of the lobby. “Where?”

“In the message you sent me, you knew a very good English,” Shimmy said aggressively.

The man genuinely seemed not to understand. He just nodded when he heard the word “English” and pointed to his suitcase. “English,” he said, as if confirming the word.

“We’re going to need a translator, I see,” Shimmy said, stubbornly keeping his eyes on the red chairs.

“Translator,” Yang Yang echoed, and pointed again to his gray suitcase.

“So you want us to go to the room upstairs?”

The man blinked rapidly, as if trying to understand.

“It was just a test to see if you’d point to your suitcase and say ‘upstairs’ or ‘want.’ In any case, even if you understand me and are just pretending not to, I am only willing to meet with you here, in the presence of other people.” And without adding a word, he walked over to the chairs.

Yang Yang stood in his place for a moment, and then followed. He studied the corner, examining a stone pillar that somewhat blocked the view of visitors and the reception desk, and positioned his suitcase on the floor near it. Without a word, he leaned over to it, opened it, and took out—

A dead bat?

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 12 of a new online serial novel, If Anyone Is Listening, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

It’s not you who is important. It’s a glitch of sorts.

Shimmy looked at the note that the clerk at the reception desk handed him, and raised a pair of questioning eyes.

“What is this?” he asked, rather impatiently. The robotic bat had completely frustrated and unnerved him. It had croaked in Chinese over and over, had taken pictures of him from every angle, and had then flown off, leaving the feeling that it would be back.

It wasn’t a pleasant feeling to know that someone had put an irritating surveillance device on you. Too bad he didn’t know Chinese!

“What is this?” The clerk looked at the paper he had just handed over. “I don’t know—that’s what they told me on the phone.”

“Who told you?”

“They just called here,” the clerk tried to explain in decent English, “and said to give you this message.”

“Oh.” Shimmy studied the note again. It’s not you who is important. It’s a glitch of sorts. A very irritating and annoying glitch—and a repulsive one, at that. And it had invaded his privacy! And taken pictures of him! And thrown cookie pieces at him!

At least this time, the bat hadn’t been quite as impolite as the time before.

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 11 of a new online serial novel, If Anyone Is Listening, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

What’s there to be afraid of?

In a sudden burst of confidence, or perhaps youthful audacity that still lingered inside him, Shimmy left the room, making sure that the door was locked well, and went down to the ground floor. Behind the hotel was a huge flower garden. Here, as well, Shimmy could see the results of the relatively low rate he was paying per night in this place. It was obvious that the flower bushes hadn’t been pruned in a long time, and the pathways were littered with dry leaves.

He turned to the east side of the hotel where, on the fourth floor, his room was. At first, he had a hard time identifying his window out of the rows of dreadfully identical rectangles. But then he saw the dark, flying creature stubbornly adhering to the glass pane, as if trying to peek inside—and he knew that this was “his” window.

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 10 of a new online serial novel, If Anyone Is Listening, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

I only get to the Shabbos dishes on Sunday morning. My two daughters were here for Shabbos, and it was quite the ruckus. We hardly had time to sit and talk, just the three of us, and deep down, I was happy about that. I didn’t have the energy for questions like, “How are Yudi and Ruchi?” and, “When did you last speak to them?” After candle lighting, they both sat and chatted on the couch, with their children around them, and I rested in my room as my oldest granddaughter told me her stories about eighth grade and the mother-daughter program that the school had just hosted. For the rest of Shabbos, I didn’t even have time for that much schmoozing.

My phone rings from its perch near the stove, and I use a wet finger to connect the Bluetooth.

“Hello, Mommy?”

“Hi, Yudi, how are you?”

“Mazel tov, I’m a father!” he shouts happily. “We have a baby boy!”

“A boy!” I say with wide eyes as I move away from the sink. “Baruch Hashem! Mazel tov, Yudi’le! How beautiful!”

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 9 of a new online serial novel, If Anyone Is Listening, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

The linen was clean, at least, and the bed was fairly comfortable. Shimmy turned to the other side and pondered his situation. He’d spent the last two days idling his time at the hotel. He couldn’t go to the factory to check the sample of Tanchum, because Jang refused to let him in without the payment. He also couldn’t tour the city with his interpreter, because the hours spent with him were also a costly undertaking. Gedalya’s friend had agreed to do a bank transfer to pay for the hotel, but it was clear to both of them that it was a loan, and that Shimmy would be the one who would have to pay it off.

So was that it? Had he come for nothing, and would go back the same way? All the cyber experts at Citibank were working hard to solve the problem. But what would happen if they would not be able to fix things until Shimmy’s return flight? And…would they even be able to revert those accounts to their previous status?

The phone rang—Gedalya was calling. Shimmy reached for the phone in slow motion. His last conversations with Gedalya hadn’t been very upbeat. And he could understand him; the man had lost tens of thousands of dollars in a minute. The fact that he was not alone in this problem was not particularly encouraging.

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 8 of a new online serial novel, If Anyone Is Listening, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

This time as well, Shimmy had to go to the fish market, but at least Shio Ching’s stall was already closed, and the man was standing and waiting for the taxi as he spoke animatedly into his phone.

“Hello,” he said as he slid into the car. “So, you came back to us, huh? I understand that your Tankum came out something special.”

“Tanchum,” Shimmy muttered. “That’s exactly what I want to check. Should we go to the factory now?”

“I’m just on the phone here with Sun Jang, and he says that you have nothing to come for before the first payment is transferred.”

“What does that mean? Gedalya already sent him eight thousand dollars!”

“That’s what you say, but Jang claims that he didn’t get anything. Should we go to the hotel?”

“Not to the hotel, to the factory,” Shimmy snapped stubbornly. “And tell him he shouldn’t lie. If Gedalya said he sent the money, then he sent it.”

“And if Jang says he didn’t get it, then he didn’t get it.”

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 7 of a new online serial novel, If Anyone Is Listening, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

“Your mother is not going to come here, is she?” Ruchi asks worriedly as Yudi paces the small kitchen space, opening cabinet doors, closing them, and then opening them again. Ruchi’s mother is putting some fresh dairy products and breakfast for tomorrow into the fridge.

“Yudi!” his father-in-law calls loudly from the dining room. “Yudi, do you know who I met today?”

“She won’t come,” Yudi answers his wife tersely, and then steps out of the kitchen and into the dining room. “Who?” he asks, sitting down on the edge of the couch. His father-in-law is sitting at the table, his eyes tired as he sips a cup of cold Coca-Cola and looks at all the stuff lying haphazardly on the floor around them.

“I meet your boss, Blumenfeld. He said that because of some financial trouble, he had to fire some workers, and you are one of them.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“You didn’t tell us anything.”

“It only happened about two days ago, and you were very busy with Ruchi and the hospital.”

“But still, we want to know what you are going through.”

“Okay.”

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 6 of a new online serial novel, If Anyone Is Listening, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

“Even after I got out of the taxi, it was above me the whole time, circling in the air like an annoying little drone.” Shimmy swung back on the metal legs of the kitchen chair. “You know what it reminded me of, Mommy? That little baby duck that stuck to me when I was little, in Lakewood. Remember how it ran to me every time we went for a walk near the lake?”

“Sure, because you gave it food all the time. Did you give this bat anything?”

“He took by himself,” Shimmy said in a joking tone, as he sipped from the coffee his mother had placed before him.

“Maybe it really was that duck from Lakewood!” His mother laughed. “What color was it?”

“It was not a duck,” Shimmy said. “It was clearly a bat, with a very mousy face, and wings. Did you ever realize that bats know how to smile?”

“No. And whatever the case is, it’s a really strange story.”

“Right. The main thing is that at one point, before I entered the terminal, it just disappeared—baruch Hashem!” Shimmy yawned. “Thanks, Mommy. This coffee is great.”

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 5 of a new online serial novel, If Anyone Is Listening, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

Shio Ching, the interpreter, listened with interest to the story about the bat while he was waiting with Shimmy for the taxi that would take him to the airport. Now, as well, Shimmy censored out the part about the cookie pieces that were thrown at him, because even without that juicy detail, the story sounded delusional.

“The hotels can deny it as much as they want,” Shio said when the story was over. “But when animals lose their fear of people in certain areas, there’s almost nothing to do. And I’ve heard stories like this before.”

“So there are other incidents like what I just told you, in the area where I was? I’m not the first guest in the hotel to have a bat invade his room?” Shimmy scowled. “When Gedalya described to me what goes on in China, he didn’t talk about bats in the room. I thought it was a good hotel!”

“It’s a very good hotel, but not exactly the top tier. You asked for something inexpensive, right? Next time, if you want, go for a better hotel.”

“If I would have known this was what was waiting for me, I would have agreed to pay even another hundred dollars a night.”

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 4 of a new online serial novel, If Anyone Is Listening, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

“Listen, Jacob,” Abe Rubinson said as he filled his glass with soda. “You speak beautifully, but you can’t use the word ‘Eibishter’ in your shiurim. Haven’t I made it clear to you that a large part of our listeners are people who are just starting to get closer to Judaism? Unfamiliar words might distance them. From now on, please, only straight English.”

Yaakov Shlomo looked at him. “I think you are making a mistake.”

Batya was sitting at the small table in the kitchen, rocking Shmuli’s carriage while listening silently to the voices from the dining room. Shimmy hardly spoke about what his father did. It sounded like even her own father’s job, as a cheder secretary, interested him more. Maybe it was because of this unpleasant employer?

“And I think that I’m not making a mistake.” Rubinson sipped slowly. “In any case, it doesn’t matter what you think. It matters that as long as I am the operator of these shiurim, I would like you to follow the guidelines I’ve established, okay?”

“And you think that if I say ‘Eibishter’ in a shiur, that might turn people off? Even if they understand very clearly Whom I am referring to?”

“Yes.”

Yaakov Shlomo fell silent.