Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 80 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.
“The house is so empty…” Dov said late one evening, as they sat in the living room, where the large window faced the sea. Hinda raised her eyes from the plans she was working on.
“Mmm?” she said. Dov was the busy type. He was constantly going, coming, speaking; just five minutes ago, he had finished a conference call with three of his daughters.
Hinda hadn’t listened to the conversation—she couldn’t do more than one thing at a time—but she was able to hear some of the exchanges, and Dov had been laughing, sounding full of life and interest. At the end of the conversation, they’d seemed to be discussing a very interesting shidduch that Yael was working on between her sister-in-law and Chevy’s brother-in-law, though he hadn’t told her—Hinda—about it at all.
She was fine with that. He didn’t have to tell her everything that went on between him and his daughters. And often, he did tell her interesting details from their conversations. Maybe it wasn’t good that she worked during the evening hours, when he was home.
She moved her papers aside. “Do you want to go for a walk?” she asked.
“No, no, I don’t want to disturb you.”
“It’s fine, I worked on these plans all afternoon. I’m allowed to get out for some fresh air.”
They walked quietly down Hanevi’im Street. A light breeze rustled around them, murmuring something and then moving on. “Haifa is nice,” Dov said suddenly. “But it’s so small.”
“Small?” Hinda chuckled.
“Small for me,” Dov clarified.
She looked at him quizzically for the second time that night.
“There’s lots of beauty, peace, air, and scenery here. And I know you’re used to it because you’ve lived here for so many years, and that’s why we’re here,” he said, looking at the sidewalk. “But wouldn’t you want to try, at least for a short time, living in the central part of the country?”
“Bnei Brak?” she asked. Where else? He didn’t mean Tel Aviv.
“Yes. What do you say? Would you want to rent a small apartment, just to give it a try? Your clients work with you by phone and fax anyway, and Michoel…” He paused for a long moment. “I don’t think it makes a difference to him from whom you collect money. And maybe it’s not even important to him that you collect right now.”
And what about the fact that no one knew her in Bnei Brak, and all of her tzedakah “clients” were here, in the north? She didn’t have any family in Bnei Brak, either. Mali and Baruch were in Yerushalayim, Avigdor was in Brachfeld, and even Chani had left Bnei Brak less than a month ago. Dov’s girls, on the other hand, were all either in Bnei Brak or just a short distance away from there, in Elad. But Hinda didn’t say any of this, choosing to remain quiet instead.
“It would be hard for you, right?” Dov asked, in light of her long silence.
“I’m thinking about it,” she replied slowly. “It wouldn’t be easy for me. But I’m thinking about it.”
She didn’t have any family in Haifa either.
“Are you embarrassed to collect money in Bnei Brak? We can, in principle, think about reaching out to an advertising firm to promote Michoel’s organization. Today, fundraising this way is very effective; sending someone from door to door is an…outdated method.”
“It will be hard for me to give up on the zechusim,” she said. “And the meetings with the women.”
“Meetings with the women?” He didn’t understand. “You’re talking about the support group that wanted you to join? But you didn’t end up joining.”
“No, not about that. I really did decide that they’d manage without me… I’m talking about the tzedakah ladies.”
“The donors?”
“Yes. Did I ever tell you how it started?”
“More or less. Michoel came and asked you to be his representative in the north, right?”
“That’s right.” She stopped short for a car that was speeding down the street, a second before they crossed, and only afterward did she carefully step off the sidewalk. Carefully. Always carefully. “But that’s a sentence that really…simplifies the whole process.”
Dov smiled. “So tell me about it in a more complex, deeper way.”
She paused again for a long moment. Dov knew the adult Hinda, the woman who had built herself up, not the young, anxious, introverted person she had been at the time. But she could tell him about that Hinda. At least part of it.
“I was an only child,” she said, and stopped in the space between two buildings, which let her get a glimpse of the twinkling port lights. Something that looked like a very large crane was illuminating the sky with a bluish light. “And not that my life was easy, but I got used to the fact that I was the center of my parents’ life. Then, when I became widowed, I needed to think about me. I was a nebbach because I was alone, and because I had orphaned children, and because I didn’t have money to raise them, and because I was not sure how I would do it without help.” She took a deep breath. “Everything revolved around me and my troubles.”
“That’s how it is in the beginning, in these situations,” he pointed out quietly.
“But with me, it wasn’t just in the beginning. It was really even before then, and it was later on, too. I was very self-absorbed, Dov. Michoel is the one who pulled me out of it.”
“Not that I believe your lashon hara about yourself, but it’s an interesting story. So nu, what did Michoel do?”
“He told me something that I prefer not to repeat, a very critical statement, and after I got over being insulted, I decided that he was right. So I took upon myself the job that he had created for me.”
“Tzedakah collector?”
“That was only part of the plan. It included going from house to house as a tzedakah collector, and to ask at least ten of the women who opened the door how they were doing. Then, the next month, I was to ask them what had happened since then about the issues they had told me about…”
“I don’t understand. They told you about themselves? About their issues?!”
“Oh, yes. Try asking five people in shul, seriously, how they are doing these days, and you’ll see that at least three of them will start pouring out their tzaros to you.”
“Yeah, but those are men from shul, people I daven with and know. Not strangers.”
“Right. So at first, I was a stranger to almost all the women. And if not a literal stranger, then I was the poor, miserable window, and who was she to ask them at all how they were, and why should they bother answering her? But by the second or third time, they realized that I was really asking because I cared, and they began to answer.”
“And that’s what Michoel wanted?”
“Apparently. He told me that if someone forces himself to go from being one figure to another, then even if it’s an external and necessary change, and at first it’s not really who he is, ultimately, he will adapt himself to the new figure.”
“There’s a certain wisdom there…” Dov said. “But…”
“Yes,” she continued, “but let’s not talk about the method, only about the results. And because of them, I owe him a lot of hakaras hatov.” The metal railing was cold to the touch as she passed her fingers over it. “And if we’re talking about Michoel already, what do you say: Why is Martin not in contact with us? Do you think it’s possible that he took the money and the passport and disappeared in that huge country, America?”
Dov laughed. “He came to Shimon Weisskopf—that much we know, right? And from there, he continued on to South Carolina.”
“And after that?”
“We’ll wait patiently,” he said with a smile.
“Right,” Hinda agreed. Suddenly, he realized that again, the conversation had been diverted from his wishes to hers, and her difficulties and past. Again the conversation had begun with him, and yet they’d ended up talking about her. She looked for a moment at the man passing them by on an evening walk with his dog, and asked, “Which shidduch is Yael working on?”
“Ah,” he laughed, “the most remote possibility I would have ever thought of! But listen, it looks like it’s moving ahead nicely. I didn’t even know she has a knack for these things!”
“She’s on the ball, bli ayin hara, like all of them.” She stopped and looked Dov squarely in the eye. “Dov…is it that you feel you’re too far away from them?”
*
Martin couldn’t believe it was happening, but less than three days after he had traveled from Charleston to the healing center in Rob’s car, he was traveling in the opposite direction. This time, he was carrying only his tefillin bag and Michoel’s. Those would have probably been the objects that Yosef would have taken with him, had he been here now.
Central Hospital was comprised of several buildings on a long block. After a short phone call, Rob parked the car in the large parking garage, and they entered the first building. “Emergency,” Rob noted tersely. Martin didn’t respond; in his opinion, Yosef would also have chosen to barricade himself behind a barrier of confused silence, in such a situation.
Michoel was dozing on a bed in a private room. He didn’t open his eyes even when Mike, sitting on a chair next to him, tiredly greeted the two.
“How was the night?” Rob asked Mike.
“Awful,” Mike said. “He didn’t feel well, he was dizzy, and he babbled a lot, unclearly.”
“Does Dr. Jerry know about this?” Rob asked carefully.
“Yes.”
“If so, then it’s being dealt with. Don’t worry, Mike.”
“I’m not worried. Just tired.”
“Do you want to get some sleep?” Rob asked kindly. “Don’t worry about that either. Josef here came to bring him his prayer things, and in about an hour, you’ll both come back with me.”
They would go back? And what about Perl? Martin looked at Michoel’s pale face. How could he be rescued from here if he was in such a bad mental—or physical—state?
He had to report to Hinda. Let her decide what to do, and come herself to care for her uncle. After all, she was the real relative, not him.
But then the healing center would want to know who had contacted her and how.
“Yosef?” Michoel opened his eyes. “Yosef, you came?”
“Yes,” he said aloud, and drew closer to the bed. “I brought you your tefillin, Uncle Michoel.”
“Then let’s daven,” Michoel said, his eyes half closed. “Mike already washed my hands. Now help me with the tefillah.” He shifted in the bed, making an effort to sit up. The two younger men hurried to support him, while Rob stayed near the door of the room, never taking his eyes off the trio.
Martin took a small siddur out of Michoel’s tefillin bag and opened to the first page. Michoel put his finger on the printed words of the halachos of putting on tefillin. “Zeh lo mamash b’emes,” he said, as his eyes remained fixed on the words. “It’s not really true.” There were spidery red lines running through the whites of his eyes. “Aval ani ken chalash. But I am weak, and a bit confused too… At night I didn’t remember what was happening to me.”
Martin nodded silently.
“I see you also brought your tefillin,” Michoel continued in Hebrew. “Do you think we have a chance of escaping from here?”
“Ulai. Maybe,” the devoted nephew replied, as he helped Michoel wind the straps around his arm.
The psychiatrist suddenly appeared in the room. “Finish up quickly, please. Mr. Perl needs to rest. Although the best rest for him is in our facility. Not here, in this bustling and noisy place.”
thenextpage-israelbookshop.com 