Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 62 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week. Click here for previous chapters.
Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications.
“No minyan, nothing!” It was the day after Yom Kippur, and Michoel was almost crying to Hinda on Mike’s phone. “Not on Rosh Hashanah, not on Yom Kippur…what kind of Yamim Noraim did I have here?! And what will be with a sukkah?”
“I want to speak to them,” Hinda declared firmly. “Uncle Michoel, tell them I want to speak to them.”
“I don’t know if they will agree. I still don’t know if they’ll agree to take Yosef, even if you decide to send him in the end… What’s doing with him, by the way?”
“Before Rosh Hashanah, he moved to Maayanei Hayeshuah in Bnei Brak, and he stayed there for all of Aseres Yemei Teshuvah, until last night. I don’t know if I can send him the way he is now, Michoel.”
“I hear… How much time have I been here, Hinda?”
“That’s a good question. You weren’t at my wedding, and that was four months ago. But I don’t know if you were in Israel then, or if you’d already left the country.”
“I think I went to Mexico,” he said slowly. “I had a wedding there… But I had planned to be back for your simchah. What’s your new husband’s name again, remind me?”
“Dov.”
“Dov,” he echoed slowly, and then fell silent.
“And I want to speak to the people there,” Hinda repeated. Michoel really sounded a bit confused, but on the other hand…it was still him.
“I can’t ask them right now. I’m on a private phone that belongs to someone who did me a favor without the management knowing. They haven’t been allowing me to make calls for some time now—maybe because I got them angry with my insistence about the Yamim Noraim, when I wanted a minyan… I don’t know, maybe they are right and something is wrong with me, and all they are trying to do is help me!”
“You got them angry with your insistence. Does it sound to you like it was purely because of medical considerations?” Hinda asked quietly. Behind her, on the small kitchen balcony, Martin and Yosef were trying to help Dov with the sukkah. She didn’t ask Yosef what would be with Sukkos. He had come home last night “to get a few things.” For now, he was still here, though she had no idea how long he planned on staying.
“I…I don’t know.” Michoel’s voice trembled; he was also speaking quietly. Hinda strained to hear him. She switched on the speakerphone, but even that wasn’t enough. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore! Something here doesn’t seem right, but maybe it’s me. Are you sure you can’t send Yosef here? If they agree, everything will be easy, I’m telling you. The car that will bring him will simply take both of us out together, and everything will be all right.”
“I’m thinking about a different solution, actually.” The rag in her hand stopped moving. “Maybe we should reach out to the police.”
“Which police? In Israel?”
“Yes, initially. I’ll report to them what I know from you, and they can decide who to contact in America. We have someone here who told us he’s heard of this place where you are, but it’s not clear to us where they are located. Let the police look for you and get to you.”
“But if everything is fine and legal with the place, then you’ll end up making a laughingstock of yourself.” Michoel’s voice steadied.
“I’m not afraid of making a laughingstock of myself, Micheol, if that’s what I think needs to be done.”
“And you’ll tell them that I call you without the staff here knowing?” His voice sounded choked – and awful. “Meanwhile, it’s better not to, Hinda. I…I’m afraid that…the management here might hear about it. Are you sure you can’t send Yosef here?”
Suddenly, Hinda heard a voice behind her. She turned toward the balcony and discovered Yosef standing about six feet behind her, his eyes wide in horror.
“Uncle Michoel!” he cried, and ran toward the phone. “Please, stop! I can’t listen to you cry! I’ll come to you, really, I promise!”
“Yosef? Is that you?” Michoel’s voice sounded stronger now.
“Yes, it’s me. And right after Sukkos, I’m coming to you, to get you out of there, do you hear? By Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan, you’ll be back at home!”
“We’ll talk, Yosef.” Wherever he was, Michoel smiled. Hinda, on the other hand, felt like there were thousands of flies buzzing around her mind in a cacophonous choir. “I love you, my devoted nephew. You haven’t changed… I’ll talk to Ima, and we’ll figure out how you can come to me, okay?”
“Fine,” Yosef agreed, and went back to the balcony. Hinda quickly picked up the handset; she wanted to whisper to her uncle that Yosef had indeed remained as dedicated and loving as always, but he really was in no shape to fly to America right then.
Unless she would join him?
“Listen, Michoel,” she said hesitantly, only to discover that her words were met with a dial tone.
“First of all, you need a passport,” Dov said from the ladder. They had to get Yosef off the ladder he had climbed, somehow.
“I have one!” His fingers tapped a staccato on the wall behind him.
“But it’s long expired,” Hinda said. “We last traveled out of the country when you were a little boy, Yosef, and a child’s passport is only good for five years.” She stood at the doorway to the porch that was now decked in s’chach and white wall coverings. Martin was sitting silently on a stool in the far corner, holding a small box of nails.
“We can renew it,” Yosef insisted.
“Sure we can,” Dov agreed. “What do we need for that? To go to the American embassy?”
“We have to check,” Hinda said, feeling the pulse in her fingertips thudding rhythmically.
“What will be with you, Martin?” Yosef asked. “You lost your passport, right?”
“With him, it’s a different story. First of all, he has Canadian citizenship, not American, and besides for that, it’s a problem of a loss, not that the passport expired and all he needs to do is renew it,” Dov explained.
“Oh, well,” Yosef said regretfully. “We could have gone together to make new passports.”
Martin grinned. “I can come with you anyway. I don’t have all that much to do these days, you know.”
“But I can’t go to the embassy at all.” Yosef’s face suddenly closed. “I have to go back to the hospital. I promised my doctor.”
“Which hospital would you go back to?” Dov asked. “Maayanei Hayeshuah or Tirat Carmel?”
“I didn’t decide yet.”
“And you can go to your uncle?” Martin asked suddenly.
“Sure. Why not?”
“Maybe I could come with you,” Martin suggested. “I was planning to go to America anyway, at least at first.”
“But you’re from Canada!” Yosef’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t have American citizenship!”
“Right, but Canadian citizens can get into America without a visa.”
“And you would come with me?”
“If you want.”
“To my uncle?”
“If you want.”
Yosef studied him. “But you don’t have schizophrenia.”
Martin smiled. “And your uncle does?” “Maybe.” Yosef leaned against the wall. “There’s schizophrenia that erupts at an older age. I read a lot when I was in the ward. And my uncle himself says that he has no idea what is happening to him. But I do have an idea of what is happening to me!” he declared. “What is happening to me now is that I feel I really want to, I must, travel there and get him out of that strange place. Rosh Hashanah without a minyan?! Really! Yom Kippur without a minyan?! That’s too much!”
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