Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 71 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.
“Um…um…hello, good morning.” Martin’s voice didn’t sound very stable when someone finally answered the phone, but he really didn’t mind. He was Yosef Schorr, and he was confused and uptight from his flight; he was allowed to sound unsure of himself.
“Hello.”
“This is Yosef Schorr. I landed last night.”
“Where are you now?”
“In Boro Park, Brooklyn. In the home of,” he swallowed, “my second cousin.”
“Okay. There’s a ticket in your name for the next part of the trip. Be at Newark Airport this evening at 6:30, and you’ll get instructions from there.”
“Where am I going?” he mumbled.
“We keep our location a secret, Josef.” It sounded like the man was smiling kindly. “Otherwise, we would have given your mother the information when you were still in Israel.”
“Oh…” His voice faltered.
“Make sure you are on time, alright? Be there at 6:30 this evening, so you don’t miss the flight.”
Martin nodded, and then remembered to say, “Yes, yes.”
“And you know what you are supposed to bring, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Your English is very good.”
“Right. I speak a lot of English at home.”
Would they mention his Canadian accent? Or would they suffice with Hinda’s explanation that her son had befriended someone from Canada who greatly helped him with his English and whose accent he had adopted?
No, they didn’t ask.
“Okay, then, all the best, Josef Schorr,” the man said, somewhat ceremoniously.
Martin turned to Shimon after hanging up the phone. “We won’t be able to go together. They ordered a ticket for me. I don’t even know where I’m going.”
“That’s why I bought you this tiny phone.” Shimon opened a drawer and rummaged inside. “Where did I put it…? Don’t tell me I lost it again. It happened once already… Oh, whatever, I’ll find it soon. You come there with your regular phone. They may let you use it, or they may take it away. From what I understood from my father’s cousin, most of the people there don’t have their own phones. It’s one of the suspicious things about them. Just to be on the safe side, you should have another one hidden on you.” He raised his eyes. “I wish I could change places with you! This kind of thing is just up my alley!”
“Mine too,” Martin cut him off, as if they were competing about their love for drama and action. “But I still like to know where I’m going and what’s in store!”
“That’s the whole point!” Shimon laughed. “Not knowing is part of the fun! But it’s your picture in Yosef’s passport, not mine. Maybe at some point down the line I’ll be able to have a part in this. Call me from the airport the minute you know where your flight is going, and we’ll be in touch. I’ll also try to get to the area. When you call them, tell them this is your phone, and then call me from the little one I bought you. Nu, where is it?” He climbed on and off chairs, dragged over a ladder, and finally found the phone on a neglected shelf near the dishwasher.
“Hide it well,” he advised Martin. Then he turned to the paper bags he had brought back after Shacharis. “Now, let’s eat breakfast. Then you’ll start getting ready for the trip, and we’ll plan the next few hours, too.”
***
“So, will you come to us for Shabbos, Mali?” Hinda asked. She was sitting on a wooden swinging bench in the bungalow’s lush yard, letting her feet dangle in the air. Yosef and Dov were already sleeping, but Mali had always been a night owl, a trait she’d gotten from her mother.
“Um…to the bungalow where you are?”
“Yes, on Moshav Dalton. You can come to Tzefas on Friday, and Dov and I will pick you up. We’d love to have you.”
“It could be nice,” Mali said slowly. “And Yosef won’t be there, right?”
“He’s probably leaving tomorrow.” Hinda’s voice was a bit flat.
“Don’t tell him I’m coming, okay?”
“So that he won’t want to stay? Don’t worry, he won’t want to.”
“No, so that he won’t be insulted that I’m coming only because he’s not there.”
***
“Why are you so edgy, Josef?” the security officer at Newark International Airport asked Martin, handing him back his passport, which Martin had displayed as his form of ID.
Martin looked down at his feet. “I don’t like flying myself,” he said quietly.
“Ho! Well, why do you do things that you don’t like to do?”
“Because my mother told me to.”
The security officer burst out laughing. “You’re an adult, and you do everything your mother tells you to do? I wish that on my own kid, and he’s only four!”
“We religious Jews listen to our mothers when we are adults, too,” Martin said. He scratched his forehead. “Also, I have schizophrenia, and because of it, I don’t always know what I’m supposed to be doing. So I really do need to listen to my mother.”
“Interesting.” The security officer seemed to be enjoying the conversation. “And can I ask why you are traveling to Charleston, Josef?”
“There’s a doctor there for me. Actually, not just one doctor—it’s a medical center.”
“A medical center in Charleston? What is it called?”
“I don’t know. They’re going to pick me up from the airport and bring me there…” Martin was beginning to sound strained. The last thing he wanted was for himself—and his passport—to attract too much attention. “The doctor in charge is something Skulholt, I think.”
“Skulholt?” The man frowned. “Are you sure?”
The youth nodded vigorously.
“That’s the center where your mother sent you?”
“What, it’s not good there? Should I go home?”
The man studied him. “There are all kinds of people there,” he said, his tone low and slow. “Including crazy ones, who do illegal nonsense. You’re not going to do anything like that, right? You don’t want to get mixed up with the police, I’m sure.”
“No, no!” Martin hurriedly declared. “I want to be healthy, so I can go home to my mother! What do those people do there? Steal?”
“They don’t exactly steal, but… Look, if anyone there tells you to make trouble in public places—know that that’s not allowed. It’s called vandalism, and anyone who does it goes to prison, which is not a nice place at all.”
“No, I don’t break anything!” Martin put his hand on his heart. “Jews don’t break other people’s things!”
The man smiled at him. “Okay, very good,” he said. “The main thing is that you should be healthy. Have a safe trip, and take care!”
“Thank you,” Martin said. Hastily, before the guy could continue schmoozing with him, he grabbed his bag and continued on to his terminal.
***
After the flight, Martin joined the other passengers heading for baggage claim in Charleston International Airport. His eyes followed the signs; someone was supposed to be waiting for him at Plaza A. He didn’t dare call Shimon yet; there were too many people around.
A stream of passengers swept him to the right, and he was happy to see a sign flashing in red. Good, this was the right place; they’d mentioned this sign to him on the phone. But no one seemed to be waiting near Plaza A. Was this a test, or were they just randomly late?
If he would have been Yosef, this would have frustrated him to tears. And right now, he was Martin acting as Yosef, so he was allowed to pace around with small nervous steps near Plaza A and murmur nervously to himself.
He quietly tossed random words around to himself, words that had nothing to do with each other, and was surprised to discover something calming about it. Then he switched to saying, “Michoel. Michoel. Michoel. My uncle. Skulholt. Don’t break anything.” He repeated this mantra a few times, until finally, at the end of the eleventh time, someone waved to him from the end of the plaza. It was a bespectacled, smiling man, and he was walking toward him.
“Welcome, Josef Schorr?” He offered his hand to Martin.
Martin looked at him. “Yes,” he whispered, and after three seconds, he also put his hand out and vigorously shook the other man’s hand.
“Nice to meet you,” the man said, releasing his hand. “I’m Rob, a nurse at the center you’re coming to. You know, you don’t look at all like Michoel.”
“You know Michoel?” Martin’s eyes opened wide.
“Sure.” The man laughed. “He’s one of the patients for whom I do regular kosher grocery runs. I’m actually on my way back now from doing another shopping trip there; I left the bags in the car. I guess you’ll be joining the other two, right?”
“I don’t understand,” Martin murmured.
“Your uncle and one other person at our place eat only kosher. You’re going to be the third, if I understood correctly. So I had to buy more food, that’s all.” His smile seemed to have diminished a bit. “Let’s go to my car.”
The youth looked at him for a minute, and then picked up his suitcase. What would Yosef do now? Continue the conversation with Rob, or was he too self-absorbed for that?
He stayed silent and simply followed Rob, trying to look a bit lost and shaken.
Rob led him to a shiny, gray car. Without a word, he took Martin’s suitcase from him, opened the back door, and tossed the valise inside. “Let’s go,” he said.
“What?” Martin asked. He imagined he was supposed to get into the car, but he didn’t want to initiate anything.
“Get in, here next to me.”
Martin took his seat and fastened his seatbelt, all the while remaining quiet. His eyes landed on the folded-in mirror outside his window.
“Open it; I can’t drive without a mirror,” Rob said tersely, while opening the mirror on the driver’s side. His guest reached out hesitantly to straighten the other mirror. Apparently, in potential life-and-death situations, mirrors were allowed, even if you were a member of the staff at Skulholt’s medical center.
After driving what Martin estimated to be about three miles, Rob finally spoke up again. “We’re so glad that you’ve come to us.”
“Yes.” The boy nodded vigorously.
“What’s in your suitcase?”
“Clothes,” he said. “And some treats for Michoel. And Jewish books for me and for him.”
“Nice. And a phone?”
“Sure I have a phone.” He pulled it out of his pants pocket while glancing out the window. The city’s buildings were visible, but they were not driving toward them. “I spoke to you from it!”
“Not me, but that doesn’t matter.”
“Michoel doesn’t have a phone. He called my mother from the office.”
“Right.”
“Will they let me keep mine?”
“I don’t know. We’ll see what the psychiatrist says. What kind of phone do you have? With a camera?”
“Of course not!” Martin had already learned something, and he was offended on behalf of Yosef. “This is a kosher phone!”
“Oh, you can eat it?” Rob chuckled. “Is it made of chocolate?”
“No, a kosher phone is only a phone. No internet, no text messaging, and it doesn’t have a camera either.”
“No camera? That’s good.”
“Right.” Martin-Yosef nodded again. The scenery changed now to fields. In the distance, there were a few hills, and beyond them, the faint forms of taller mountains. The Rockies? He wasn’t very knowledgeable about the geography of the United States.
“Photos are very harmful.” Rob turned the wheel. “Photos destroy the halo of a person; they set it in a terrible way, and what’s in the picture penetrates the person’s personality afterward, and blocks out everything else.”
“Some of your words are a little hard for me to understand,” Martin said thoughtfully, rubbing his stubbly chin. “What do you mean?”
Rob glanced at him. “It doesn’t matter now,” he said. “I’m just a nurse. Dr. Jerry will decide the best treatment for you, and if it’s necessary to get into long explanations.”
“I know English very well!” His passenger was offended. “You can explain everything to me!”
“I’m sure. But why confuse you with extra explanations? It’s better to focus on talking about things that will help you, right?”
“Right,” Martin said, nodding vigorously again, and worrying that very soon, his neck would get strained from all his vigorous nodding. Yosef would have to learn to react in other ways; there was no other choice.
A high wall suddenly loomed in front of them in the flat landscape. Rob began to slow down, and Martin took a deep breath. He was soon going to meet the man in whose home he had taken up residence for quite a while, and there was something about that that made him anxious. Not because of his fear of Michoel, but because of the fear of those around him. He allowed himself an internal pat on the back for his acting skills, while realizing that right now, a lot depended on the acting skills of Michoel Perl, too.
“With Hashem’s help,” he heard Dov’s voice echo in his head. “Right,” Martin said to the window, not particularly quietly. Rob glanced at him briefly before the car drove through an opening in the wall, as the electric gate slid gracefully to the side.
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