Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 26 of a new online serial novel, Nine A.M., by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week. Click here for previous chapters.
Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications.
A handwritten question in the margins of the Nugot Heyet (Fortified Place), the local monthly journal that was sent to the sick people in the infirmary:
Aryeh, please answer me on the other side of the page: Would you give 60 marks (our wedding gift from Wangel) to save one of my students?
Answer on the opposite margin of the page:
What’s the question.
Naomi’s feet were hurting from running around so much, and something inside her was completely drained from all the deliberations: the feeling of being torn, the actual decision, and coming to terms with it. But none of this was reflected in her eyes when she arrived at the office, out of breath, and leveled her gaze at Elky forty minutes before the end of the workday. “Our decision is yes,” she told her simply.
“That’s what you decided? Excellent.” Elky blinked rapidly and began to rummage in her drawer. “Just sign here that you got all of your monthly wages.” She took out the regular form. “It also wouldn’t hurt to write a few words of thanks to Wangel for the wedding gift… Here it is, because you probably don’t want to lie.”
She pulled out an envelope and handed it to Naomi.
The office was quiet. Naomi took a deep breath and held the envelope that had been handed to her. She’d never held such a large salary at one time, and even though she knew that it wasn’t actually hers anymore, there was something heady about the feeling. She put the envelope back on the office desk and averted her gaze from it. “Fine. I got it. I’ll sign.” She bent over the monthly form. “And what about the medicine for Zuska? Can you send it to the infirmary now?”
“Eva will come and I’ll speak to her,” Elky said, her eyes following Naomi’s right hand as she signed “Naomi Klein.” The letters were a bit shaky.
“Great. When will she be coming?”
“In a few minutes.” Elky put the form in its place. “You don’t think I’m deceiving you, do you? If it won’t work, I’ll give you back all your vouchers.” She grasped the envelope in one hand, peeked inside, and a small, evasive smile crossed her face for a second before it disappeared. It wasn’t the smile of a liar, and that wasn’t what Naomi was worried about. It was the gleam in Elky’s eye that she didn’t like.
“Elky,” she said, pointing to the envelope, “I’m sorry for asking but…well, you understand that I’m taking an interest because I’m really investing into this what is for me a huge sum.”
“You can ask me whatever you want, sure.” Elky was magnanimous.
“So, my question is: Is Eva going to get all of that?”
Elky was quiet. She turned her back to Naomi as she stretched to put the envelope on the highest shelf above the door. “What did you ask?” It took time for her to turn back around.
“Is Eva Sherer getting all of this?”
“Almost all of it,” Elky said after a moment that stretched a hairsbreadth too long. “I also get a little bit, you understand. After all, when I do you a favor with this medicine, and I get involved, I’m mixing other considerations into my work…How should I put it? Not professional considerations at all. And that poses a certain risk to my position, as well as some discomfort in my interactions with Eva and her father.”
“Oh,” Naomi said. Only after a pause did she say, “But actually, these are very professional considerations. My grandmother quoted Dr. Annie Katzburg as saying that Zuska is the patient who most urgently needs the antibiotics.”
“There are lots of urgencies.” Elky smiled. She actually smiled! “And the choice between them isn’t simple, and there are other considerations besides medical ones.”
“Not professional considerations.”
“A different kind of professional. And when I start getting involved in those…well, it’s a risk I’m taking, and that is why whatever I get is coming to me.”
Naomi nodded silently.
“It would be wise for you to go now, before Eva gets back. I won’t be able to speak when you are here.”
“When should I come back?”
“In an hour. Not before.”
“Fine.” Naomi slowly and silently left the Sherer office without giving the thick envelope a second glance, after she’d wholeheartedly handed it over, without any professional considerations. Unless, someone cynical might say, as a teacher she had to make sure that she would have students.
***
The preschool was already dark and empty; she had parted from the children nearly an hour earlier, and there was nothing waiting for her there. But there wasn’t anything for her at home either. She walked into the dark classroom and shuffled through the empty classroom; she took a seat in the teacher’s chair and stared into space. Her entire salary for this month—gone. And Aryeh wouldn’t be getting anything for these days either.
She wasn’t asking how they would manage, because she’d long learned that there was no point in asking such questions. She also knew that her mother and Aunt Chani wouldn’t let them starve, but still…
Yet if Elky would have presented her with the dilemma again, she had no doubt that she would have answered exactly the same thing.
Naomi rested her head on the desk—something she didn’t let her little students do—and tried to doze. She wasn’t quite successful, but at least the minutes passed in a sort of haze; after a period of time whose length she could not estimate, she stood up and went out again to the office building. She didn’t think a full hour had passed yet, but she just could not wait any longer.
On the way, she passed the infirmary and tapped lightly on the door. Dr. Katzburg opened it. “I think your husband will be released the day after tomorrow,” she said right away when she saw who the visitor was. “You can prepare the house. It’s better for him to finish recovering there, not here.”
“Thank you, thank you!” Naomi replied. “And how is Zuska?”
“In serious condition,” the doctor said tersely.
Naomi swallowed a sigh of relief. At least, baruch Hashem, there was still someone to make the effort for. “And if she gets antibiotics?”
“If,” the doctor said, her forehead lined with bitterness and doubt. “We’ll talk then.”
Naomi went back out to the path and climbed the hill between the trees. From far, she could see the right side window of the office. There was a shadow there, nearly motionless, but when Naomi drew closer, it moved a bit and motioned something with a hand. Elky.
Naomi turned to the window instead of the door to the building. She saw that Elky was motioning for her to come closer, as she lay a finger on her lips. Naomi silently approached, and something small landed at her feet. She bent down and picked it up. It was a small box.
And printed on it in large black letters was the word “Amoxicillin.”
***
Dena looked Duvi. “I’m also asking ‘why.’ Why are you not sleeping?”
“Because I’m not tired.”
“Still, it’s time to go to sleep,” his mother said firmly.
“Hey, someone is at the door,” the boy said, turning his head in that direction. At first Dena thought it was another stalling tactic so he wouldn’t have to go to sleep, but a second later she realized he was right. Someone was knocking.
She heard Bentzy walk to the front door. Good; she had no interest in seeing who it was. She just hoped it was not the gentile neighbor from downstairs, coming to yell about how dare they run the water in the bathtub after eight in the evening, and that it made too much noise for her.
At that moment, Dena felt that even if it was someone bringing them a package from her family in Israel, together with her parents’ and sisters’ warm and loving regards, she would not be able to accept it. Not when she was like this, tearing up from her cold—or for other reasons—and with all the car headlights in the darkness reminding her of Devorah, the wife of Lapidos.
Of course she wouldn’t dare suggest to Bentzy to prepare wicks for the batei medrash in all of Austria, and she wouldn’t send him to donate the payment for the electric bills. His knowledge of Tanach was rather broad, thanks to his father, and he’d likely pick up where she’d gotten the inspiration for these ideas, and he’d be insulted.
But that didn’t mean that what she needed right now was to get regards from her sisters in Israel.
Duvi tugged at her sleeve. “I think Abba has a guest.”
Dena left the porch railing and came into the house. She cocked an ear toward the dining room—yes, someone was speaking to Bentzy in Yiddish, with a heavy Russian accent. The accent was so heavy that she couldn’t make out a single word the person was saying. She managed just fine with her own Yiddish, but with that accent she didn’t stand a chance.
“He works in Zeidy’s factory, and he says that they want recess,” Duvi suddenly said. He rubbed his eyes. “Old people also have recess, like we have in cheder? Ha ha ha!”
“It’s not nice to listen to adult conversations, and it’s not nice to call someone ‘old’!” Dena recoiled at the idea that their guest might have heard his words.
“So what do you say about someone who is old?”
“You say nothing. Maybe offer him a cup of tea.” Dena remembered her role as the hostess just as she heard the chairs moving, indicating that the guest and the host were sitting down for a slightly longer conversation.
“I’ll offer it to him!” Duvi exclaimed, and he made a beeline for the dining room.
“Abba, Ima said I should offer the guest a cup of tea,” he said in his charming way. Dena heard the guest murmur, “A zisse yingele!” and then Dovi’s, “Ouch!”—a sure sign that he’d gotten a pinch on the cheek. She walked to the edge of the big dining room and took a peek at the visitor. The man was wearing a slightly smashed gray hat on his head, and looked like a classic immigrant from the Soviet Union, similar to those who had come to Israel a few years earlier, after the Iron Curtain had fallen. Many of these Russian Jews had traveled to Eretz Yisrael via Vienna, but some had stayed here, either permanently or temporarily.
Only now did she allow herself to think about what Duvi had just said, after he’d apparently picked up on the guest’s Yiddish. Recess? What did that mean? What was this? Was her father-in-law’s packaging facility a French factory during the Industrial Revolution, when people were made to work without basic conditions? How was it that a person who looked to be about sixty had to come to his superior’s house to ask for a break during the employees’ work shifts?
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