Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 82 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.
“Move to Bnei Brak? It’s actually a nice idea,” Yosef said to his mother and Dov. “We’ll be able to visit each other. Hey, can I offer you a drink?”
“Thank you, I’d appreciate that,” Dov replied as he looked around the room. “You know, the ward here is very nice.”
“It is,” Yosef agreed. “I was thinking that it’s better for you that I’m not around all the time.”
“It’s nice when you’re home.”
“And it’s nice when I’m not,” Yosef said with a chuckle. “I have brains, you know.”
“Your mother never said otherwise.”
“True.” Yosef smiled at Hinda. “Ima always says I’m smart and talented. They offered me a job at a supermarket, Ima. I think it’s probably better for me than working in the emergency room. What do you think?”
“A supermarket in Bnei Brak?”
“Yes, of course.”
“But where would you live?”
“Well, they suggested a hostel in Pardes Katz,” he said, without batting an eyelash. His mother was taken aback by the answer.
“I wanted you at home,” she said, after a long moment.
“But you also wanted to get married,” he answered. “And it doesn’t always go together. It’s okay, Ima. I’m old enough to live on my own. You know, if I was one hundred percent, I might have been married by now, and I wouldn’t be living with you.” A moment later, creases appeared in his forehead, “But Baruch…Baruch needs a shidduch.”
“That’s right,” Dov agreed as he sipped from the cup of Coke Yosef had given him “So, get to know some people at the supermarket, and maybe you’ll meet a good shadchan for him?”
“Mali also needs a shidduch,” Yosef said, after a pause. “When she has her own home, she won’t have time to give you heartache, Ima.”
“None of my children give me headaches,” Hinda said calmly.
But Yosef corrected her, even more calmly. “I didn’t say she gives you headaches—I said she gives you heartache, with all of her insults and ridiculous nonsense. She even went to a dorm in Yerushalayim because she didn’t like Haifa and how people there talked about us, and me. Well, now you can tell her that things are different, because you’re moving to Bnei Brak, and I’m going to be living in my own place. Maybe she’ll get some of her brains back, and she’ll start acting normally again…”
***
The room was empty. Everyone had left, even the bespectacled Rob. Michoel was here alone.
He pushed aside the woolen blanket, feeling hot. Something about the imposter Yosef’s expression was not sitting well with him. And when he’d heard how Hinda had gotten to know him in the first place… Did she really think that this was the proper thing to do? Send an absconded felon to rescue her uncle? Terrible choice, Hinda. Terrible.
So whom could he trust? Dr. Jerry? Not a very good option, in light of the fact that if Ernie was his emissary, then the whole vaunted healing center that he managed with his brother was mighty suspicious. This was their successful healing method? To cause people head injuries so that they, the Skulholts, could expand their patient base?
No. It wasn’t about their patient base. It was all about money.
Michoel closed his eyes. The money, the money. Every time he tried to concentrate on that mysterious trip, he returned to the same black, empty hole. While on the bus, he had been in possession of money, a lot of money, and he had spoken on the phone about it. Ernie had listened to every word of his conversation, and his interest had been piqued.
Was Dr. Jerry a partner to the scheme? It sure seemed like that.
Wait a minute, maybe the imposter who had come here, ostensibly from Israel, was also a collaborator? He wasn’t Israeli—that much was clear. Where was Hinda in this whole situation? She definitely was not in on too much.
Hey…maybe it wasn’t Hinda whom he had spoken to on the phone? Maybe Mike was also connected to the whole thing, and when he’d called Hinda, the call had been diverted elsewhere?
Michoel’s head was pounding.
But it had been her voice.
No, actually, he wasn’t so sure. Maybe his head injury was confusing voices, just like it was confusing him about his age and the passage of time. A person who didn’t know how old he was couldn’t be trusted to know whom he was speaking to, could he?
You can’t trust anyone in this world, not even yourself!
Michoel slowly got up from the bed and grabbed onto the railing, trying to stabilize himself. How old was he? That silly mystery was making him lose all faith in his mental state. And with the hope that this hospital was not connected to the whole traitorous world that had surrounded him of late, it was safe to assume that there was a normal mirror here, somewhere.
“Mr. Perl!” Alfred, the redheaded, fat nurse who had been with him and Mike at night, was standing at the door of the room, blocking his path. “Mr. Perl, where are you going?”
“To see myself in the mirror. I must decide how old I am.” Michoel had no idea how frightening he looked at that moment: His hands were balled into fits, peeking out from the hospital pajamas that hung on him like a sack; his flashing eyes were sunken into their sockets; and his bare right foot was tapping impatiently on the floor of the room.
Alfred gazed at him. “Perhaps you should put on shoes first?” he suggested. “And while you do, think about whether you really want to see how you look. People sometimes think it will be good for them to meet their reflection directly, but this encounter mars their mood more than—”
“Not more than it is now!” Michoel barked at him. “Get out of my way, before I get the whole hospital staff in this room, you hear?”
Alfred moved aside, and Michoel burst through the doorway, still barefoot, and stepped into the adjacent little bathroom. He almost collided with the figure that loomed at him from the mirror on the wall, wrinkled and shrunken.
“Eighty,” he said to himself, “or maybe even eighty-five, huh?”
“No,” someone said from the doorway, sounding alarmed. “You’re only seventy-something, Mr. Perl; Hinda told me. Please, where are your shoes? We need to get out of here right away! Rob has my phone, and we need to get hold of another phone quickly so we can call Shimon Weisskopf to come and pick us up!”
“Shimon is in on the plot, too?” Michoel looked at the fake Yosef through the mirror. “Who are you anyway, you liar?! Seventy-something, sure…maybe I’m twenty-two, huh? Maybe five? You won’t fool me; I’ve made enough mistakes about this whole thing.”
“No, really!” Martin stepped in closer to the sink and grasped the older man’s hand. “You look bad because you’ve been through a terrible trauma, and you haven’t yet recovered. You also haven’t been eating very nutritiously these past few months. But—”
“I have a brain injury,” Michoel said slowly. “Fine, I get that. I need to persuade Dr. Clark that I have to stay here and not go back to the healing center, because I don’t know if I can trust them. Maybe they are criminals. But I can’t trust you either.”
“I’m on your side, Mr. Perl!” Martin tugged at his arm. “Didn’t you want to run away from here?”
“Not with you, and Hinda is going to get it over the head from me. Whom did she think she was, sending to me—”
“Her son, right? The one you so desperately wanted to see.” Dr. Jerry was standing at the doorway now, smiling his placid smile. “Wait, this isn’t Josef Schorr?”
Michoel looked at Dr. Jerry through the mirror, opened his mouth, and then closed it again. And then he opened it. “If I haven’t yet healed from my brain injury, Mr. Psychiatrist, then don’t ask me any questions.”
“I won’t ask you questions—I will just ask you to go back to your room and put on your shoes. It’s not proper for you to walk around barefoot. We’re getting ready to leave.”
“Does Ernie work for you?”
“Ernie?”
“Yes, the one who provides you with patients. Did you send him to attack me? And steal my money?”
“You’re offending me, Mr. Perl.” Dr. Jerry shook his head. “I should send someone to attack you?! We’ve invested so much time, thought, and energy into you! How can you get up one fine morning and hurl these baseless accusations at me? I think that another day or two of rest will do you good. You’ve had a repeat trauma, though I don’t know what caused it.”
Michoel looked at the youth standing at his side, frozen, gripping his arm. “Maybe he is right…” he said with a sigh, in Hebrew. “I need to hear their version; I’m so confused. Oy, this collapse didn’t do me any good. I know these Skulholts for a long time by now, and they did help me. I don’t know, maybe my suspicions are just because there’s something wrong with me. I have no idea.”
“And your suspicions of Ernie?” Martin raised his voice.
“No, I know those are correct, but maybe Ernie is not really connected to the healing center… Dr. Jerry…he’s alright. Maybe.”
“Don’t believe him, please, Mr. Perl!” Martin ignored the psychiatrist’s thin smile as he leaned on the doorpost and observed them, as if taking in a fascinating performance.
“I don’t know.” Perl bit his lip, leaning with both hands on the sink to his right. “But I don’t believe you either. I don’t even think Hinda sent you in the first place.”
“She did!”
“She didn’t, but let’s not talk about that now.” Michoel hesitated for a moment. “Like I said, I don’t even trust myself anymore… My brain has been injured, do you understand? It’s better if you just leave me be. I’ll stay here to rest for a few days, and then I’ll decide what I’m going to do.”
“They won’t let you stay here.”
“Who told you?”
“I know.”
“I already told you that you’re a liar.”
“Can you at least try to listen to me? If you tell the doctors a few words—”
“Listen here, Imposter Yosef. I’m a sick, mixed-up person, and because I cannot trust myself, it’s better that I shouldn’t do anything right now.” And with this tone of resignation, Michoel turned around and began walking toward the door. Martin followed him, wondering what would happen when he’d get near the psychiatrist.
Nothing happened. The man moved over a bit and let the two of them pass. Michoel entered the room, but Martin decided to remain outside, gazing after the older man.
A noise startled him. It was probably Alfred, with his overgrown red mane, approaching. He had a hand in his pants pocket, and Martin tensed. They wouldn’t be so crazy as to take out a gun and shoot him in a public place, would they?
Alfred and the psychiatrist smiled smugly, and Martin calmly took a few steps toward the nurses’ station. He got there and leaned on a small stand of drawers before turning around. The psychiatrist was still standing next to Perl’s room, but Alfred had followed Martin and was just getting to the nurses’ station. He also leaned casually on the stand of drawers, about fifteen inches away from Martin. “We’ll take care of it all, buddy, don’t worry,” he said, neither quietly nor loudly. A passing nurse was certainly able to hear, but she didn’t even cast them a second glance.
Martin balled his hands into fists inside his jacket pockets. Mr. Perl had called him a felon, which he wasn’t. Yes, he had once gotten mixed up with Brian’s group, in Sudbury, but he’d never really belonged to them. He was just a poor waif who had gotten into trouble unintentionally, and somehow had been saved at the last second.
And yet, that didn’t mean that he hadn’t learned a thing or two from the group.
About slipping away, for example. And now, that should be especially easy.
He started walking slowly along the station, straining his eyes as if he was looking for a specific doctor or other person. As expected, Alfred followed. Martin took larger steps; the redheaded, male nurse did the same. The game continued for about ten more seconds, until Martin neared the entrance to the hospital and finally found what he was looking for—a hulking security officer pacing back and forth in front of the glass door.
Martin approached him boldly. “Excuse me,” he said, “can I borrow your phone for a minute?”
The officer paused and stared at Martin as if he was a small fly that needed to be flicked off his clothes. “Huh?” he grunted. “I’m on the job—don’t bother me!”
“I want to call the police to tell them that this redhead has all kinds of plans.” He stopped, turned around, and pointed to Alfred, who had stopped about four feet away, a frozen, satanic expression on his face.
“Plans?” The huge guy in the uniform didn’t even turn to look at Alfred.
“Yes, he has a gun; be careful with him. I think he’s a terrorist!”
Martin didn’t wait to see if Alfred had a gun or not. It was enough for him that the security guard had slowly turned his head, with its closely cropped hair, in the direction Martin was pointing to.
With a few brisk paces, Martin dashed out of the building.
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