Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 6 of a new online serial novel, Without a Trace, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every Thursday or Friday. Click here for previous chapters.

“Come to us for Shabbos, Chasi,” Shoshi said to her sister on the phone. “The children miss you.”

“And you?” Chasida joked.

“I do, too. Will you come?”

“I’ll think about it.”

Chasida unwound the tangled phone wire and glanced at her watch. In five more minutes she’d be able to close, if the two women browsing through the store would finish their purchases by then. Through the advertising placards hanging on the front glass, she noticed Shevi Auerbach approaching the store.

“What’s doing, Shevi?” Chasida asked as she quickly rang up one of the customers’ purchases.

“Baruch Hashem, everything’s fine,” her younger neighbor responded, looking around. “Do you have something for swollen veins in the legs?”

“There are lots of ‘somethings.’”

“I mean something that will help.” Shevi smiled. One of the women finished paying and left. The second was hidden by the shelves toward the back.

“Who do you need it for?” Chasida inquired. Keep Reading…

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 5 of a new online serial novel, Without a Trace, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every Thursday or Friday. Click here for previous chapters.

“Not that we are happy with this step, Eliad,” Shevi’s father said with a resigned smile, “but we are giving you our blessing, just like we gave Shevi.”

“Elisheva,” her mother corrected from the porch, where she was sitting and observing her granddaughter doing what she did for most of the day—dozing in her navy blue carriage.

“Not exactly,” Eliad said, wrinkling his nose. “You sent her to Bnei Brak more happily.”

“Well, of course. Do you expect me to be happy that you’re going to the army and not to Hesder?”

Eliad wrinkled his nose again. “I’m eighteen already, and I’m sick of studies. In the army I’ll have more opportunities.”

“Well, this argument really is superfluous right now,” Abba said placidly, but Shevi, sitting beside him, discerned the nervous twitch on the bottom of his cheek. Yes, Eliad was right. Abba and Ima had had an easier time coming to terms with the changes in her life.

“Elisheva?” Ima rose from her rocking chair. “Do you want to come and see my latest picture?”

“What a question!” A visit to her mother’s workroom was always a special treat, both because it happened so rarely, and because of the smells, the scenes, and the myriad colors that surrounded her when she entered. “Is this the original one?” she asked, hurrying to keep up with her mother’s rapid pace.

“Last chance!” Eliad announced, following her. “There are three takers for this picture. Ima’s planning to sell it this week for two and a half thousand dollars. Can I also come in, Ima?” Keep Reading…

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 4 of a new online serial novel, Without a Trace, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every Thursday or Friday. Click here for previous chapters.

Yehudah gave the receiver in his hands a strange look, as though it was responsible for the bizarre conversation he was in the midst of. “His legs?” he repeated incredulously.

“Yes, as in, his feet.”

Yehudah rubbed the creases in his forehead with two fingers. “Do you suspect that he has chicken feet, by any chance?”

“No,” the man replied shortly. “But have you seen his feet?”

“Let me think a minute…” Yehudah said slowly, but not because the additional minute would help jog his memory. He knew very well that he had never seen Zevi Bloch’s feet, and he strongly suspected that no other bachur in the yeshivah had either. Zevi Bloch never took his shoes off during the day, not even during the afternoon rest period. At night he slept curled up, and his feet never peeped out from beneath his blanket. But Yehudah had no intentions of telling anything of the sort to the curious person on the phone. He looked at the receiver in his hand again and remained silent.

“Nu?” Eliyahu asked, fed up with waiting. Keep Reading…

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 3 of a new online serial novel, Without a Trace, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every Thursday or Friday. Click here for previous chapters.

“Excellent,” Ilana Auerbach, Shevi’s mother-in-law said, when she heard that Shevi’s father had found a reliable renovations contractor for them. “A friend of your father’s, Shevi? Then let’s hope that that will move things, and within two weeks, give or take, you’ll be able to move in already.”

“Yes,” Shevi said. “Let’s hope. Yes.”

Ilana smiled with satisfaction. “I’m really happy you bought this apartment. It’s a great apartment and the location is also good. It’s not too Chareidi there, right, Gabi?”

“Right,” Gavriel said with a slight smile, looking at the package of cookies in front of him without reaching for it. “But don’t worry, Ima, we’ll get there, too, eventually.”

“You and your jokes. And why aren’t you eating? Soon you’ll tell me the hechsher isn’t good. It’s made with flour from after Pesach, did you know that?” She held little Miri and tried to picture her ten years down the line with tights and long braids. She shuddered at the thought.

“The hechsher is perfect,” Gavriel said, and quickly reached for the package, knocking into Shevi’s coffee cup on the way and splattering light brown drops all around it. “Sorry, Shevi. I’m just not that hungry, Ima.”

“You don’t eat cookies because you’re hungry.” His mother sniffed. “When you’re hungry, you eat normal food, but when you come to Ima and don’t eat anything because you’re sure her kitchen is treif, then you have no choice and you eat cookies.” Keep Reading…

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 2 of a new online serial novel, Without a Trace, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every Thursday or Friday. Click here for previous chapters.

The friendship that blossomed between Yehuda and Zevi after that night was unquestionably an interesting one. It began the morning after their nocturnal encounter.

“Zevi, I think your mother’s waiting for you outside.”

“My mother?” Zevi was surprised.

“She asked me to call you. Go check.”

He went and checked, and was pleased to discover his mother standing on the sidewalk outside, leaning on the gate. “Hello. Did you eat?” she asked when he was still several feet away from her. A light, end-of-winter breeze blew around them. Small yellow bursts of color, peeping between the scraggly grass in the unkempt yard behind them, heralded the imminent arrival of spring.

“Yes.” He smiled. “I just bentched. Hello, Ima, how are you?” Keep Reading…