Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 32 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.
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Newspaper article:
More than five years after Henry Sauter, an American biologist, discovered a special gene that is found in the blood of Jews and their descendants for at least five generations hence, finally, the C&D Company has managed to develop a testing method for this gene. Scattering a certain substance in the air will detect those who have it.
The gene has been named “J1000,” and it was discovered randomly in private laboratory tests taken by the students at the University of Ohio in the United States of the Reich. Eighteen students out of 1,279 were found to have this specific gene. After extensive research, it was discovered that indeed, all eighteen students are descendants, in some form or another, of the known Semitic nation.
Already during the first stages of the gene study, the scientist Sauter spoke about developing a method where the carriers of this gene could be detected by scattering the contrast agent in the air.
“The next stage,” says C&D CEO Professor Herbert Sokol, “is to place detectors in central places, like main roads and shopping centers, and we hope that we can do this already at the end of this coming month. The significance of this achievement is the expansive implementation of thorough global testing, and separating those with this gene from the rest of the population.”
Sauter himself blesses C&D on their impressive accomplishment and notes that it is possible that they will use this substance in additional ways, like by using helicopters to scatter it over places with large populations. And so, within a few years, the world will march toward a new, completely safe future.
“A new, completely safe future.” Babbe folded the newspaper and pushed it onto the windowsill. “Children, notice one thing: how much they continue to be afraid of us. Years have passed since, in their view, they triumphed over the Jewish people. They don’t even know we exist…” She sighed and pointed to the newspaper that was slipping to the floor, though no one made the effort to pick it up. “And still, they are traumatized at the idea that there might still be Jews in existence.”
“Are you afraid, Babbe?” Naomi asked. For some reason, her eyes were fixed on the door, which was opposite of the entrance to the preschool at the end of the corridor. No, she could not think of helicopters coming just when “her” children were playing outside. No!
“Afraid? Of what?”
“Of this substance. Of the helicopters that might come…” Naomi straightened the edge of the tablecloth and looked at her mother, who was mixing salad in a bowl.
“I remember reading about it in an article a few years ago,” Rechel said with a sigh. “I didn’t sleep for nights after that.”
“So who needs to read this newspaper?” Babbe grew serious. “And besides, who brought it here now? At melaveh malkah, we should be telling stories of tzaddikim, not of reshaim! And no, I’m not afraid, Naomi. I’ve seen so much in my life, that many of these kinds of things don’t scare me anymore. And listen to me well, everyone: No matter what, one way or another, the ones who’ll prevail in the end will be us. Not them.”
Binyamin didn’t say a thing. He silently chewed on the roll his mother had baked for melaveh malkah. This was what Bernard must have been talking about. Now he remembered that article he’d read when he was younger, about the biologist and the gene. And it had scared him pretty badly. That was when he’d realized, for the first time, how their existence in a mountainous, forested corner of the world was so miraculous, and that on the outside, there was danger lying in wait for them at every corner.
Ultimately, he had seen that their blessed routine had continued, and he’d calmed down. But what a crazy world surrounded them!
His mother brought cups of tea to the table. “You’re quiet today,” she whispered to him, glancing at her son-in-law Aryeh, who was immersed in a conversation with her father, his grandfather.
“I’m tired,” Binyamin said, taking one of the steaming cups.
“You’ve been working too hard these past two weeks.”
“It’s okay, Mamme. Really, I’m fine, baruch Hashem.”
“I want you to make a mezuman and go home to sleep,” she said, studying him with that same worried expression. “I’ll try to be there soon. Is this because of Tatte’s notebooks?”
“Tatte’s notebooks?” He stirred the steaming tea carefully. “No, unfortunately I hardly had a chance to look at them.”
“Have you seen anything special there, besides for what he wrote about learning?”
For a moment, he raised curious eyes to her, and then lowered them. “No.”
As he walked home ten minutes later, in the darkness, Binyamin pondered his mother’s words. He had to get hold of the missing notebook, the one his mother was so terrified of. Was she the one who had hidden it?
It was not necessarily a notebook. Maybe it was just a sheet of paper. Or something else. It didn’t matter what. Clearly his father had written things as a result of something he’d heard or seen. Who knew what kind of dreadful plan he had been exposed to and had written down? Maybe it was a warning letter of some kind that he wanted to convey.
It was possible that this was what caused his untimely passing. And if that was the case, then it was more accurate to say…his murder.
Binyamin arrived home and got ready for bed, sure that he’d dream all night about his father. But instead, all he saw in his sleep were terrible scenes playing out, with helicopters appearing in the skies above Samson Lager, spraying clear puffs of air. And then, as the substance betrayed the fact that they were Jews, the nearly 200 people who lived there suddenly came down with either a strong virus that caused nausea and vomiting, or their hair began glowing with a strange green sheen… Binyamin’s sleeping imagination really went wild!
Apparently, the J1000 article had spooked him more than he was ready to let on, and it pushed aside any thoughts about his father.
But when he awoke the next morning with aching muscles from his fitful, tense sleep, Binyamin decided that this was just another reason why had to discover what had really happened to his father.
Would Babbe agree to help him and get the old records from the infirmary?
***
“Your baking is not bad at all!” Charna complimented Dena on her visit to Dena’s house, as she delicately chewed on the chocolate coconut cake.
This time, the visit did include the children, and Dena learned that her Duvi and Charna’s son Yudi knew each other a bit from cheder. Within three minutes, the ice broke; the boys were sitting and working together, building a whole city with one of the complex building toys that Bentzy’s mother had bought. Dena took down a few cars from the shelf to add to their creation.
“One of the best things I have in this house is the space,” Dena said, arranging the cloth napkins on the table at which they were seated. “In Israel, I had a two-room apartment and a porch—that was it.”
“That’s really small,” her guest marveled. “Where did the kids play?”
“In the dining room, the kitchen, my bedroom…”
“And where did they sleep?”
“In the dining room. Wait, I have a few pictures!” She smiled as she stood up.
“Great, I love seeing pictures of homes in Eretz Yisrael!”
Dena nodded and opened an upper cabinet. This time, she was very careful not to say anything that sounded conceited. She didn’t want to come across as arrogant, because she really wasn’t. It was obvious to her that the women in Vienna were wonderful—they loved Torah and Hashem—but she still had the feeling that even the wives of the most learned avreichim among them did not live the same beautiful and simple lives of those in Eretz Yisrael whom she had left behind.
“Here.” She put the album on the table and opened it. Duvi, at age one month, in the cradle near the window. Duvi, at two months, in an infant seat in the dining room. The infant seat had been sent by his loving grandmother from Vienna, as had the curtains hanging in the background. But Charna could not really get an idea of the tiny dimensions of the room and its old stone floor. She seemed surprised when she looked at the pictures, but exercising typical Viennese politeness, she didn’t say a word. She just turned the pages one by one.
“Hey!” At the sight of one of the pictures, she just couldn’t contain herself. There was little Duvi, sitting inside a clear plastic cage, and next to him was a figure with a black, threatening, distorted face. “What…what is this?”
“The Gulf War.” Dena smiled. “That’s me behind the mask.”
“Oh, right! We saw pictures here of those masks… So scary! We were so worried about you all then…”
“It really was scary. I remember my grandmother crying to my mother that she never thought her children and grandchildren would have to be afraid of gas… It was a war full of miracles.”
“And you weren’t afraid?”
“I was a little bit, for sure on the first night. But I was so busy just trying to manage it all that I hardly had time to think about the missiles.” She pointed to the picture. “Imagine having to put a baby into this thing. And it wasn’t only that, right? Suddenly, his parents disappear, and instead, all the baby sees are these monstrous faces…” She laughed.
Charna laughed too. “How old was he there?”
“Almost two. But here he was already used to it. This was one of the last sirens.”
Duvi heard about the subject of conversation and joined them. “That’s me,” he said proudly, and pointed out the picture to his friend. “I was little. Look where they put me. We had a war!”
“A war?” Yudi Krieger asked, looking at the picture with interest. “Did you have a gun?”
“No, I had a box where I hid inside, because the Arabs wanted to kill us.”
“But the box is clear! So the Arabs could see you! How did it help?”
“Dunno.” Duvi mulled over this tough question. “I was so little then, even smaller than our Shloimy is, so I don’t really remember much.”
“I’m not little!” his brother protested from the rug.
“But in the end nothing happened to me, that’s all.” Duvi shrugged and smiled.
“Nothing happened to you because Hashem watched over you, and all the Yidden,” Dena interjected gently.
“Right! So I won over the Arabs, and baruch Hashem the war was over!” Duvi crowed triumphantly.
Yudi Krieger was thoughtful. “Don’t brag,” he said, after a few minutes. “We also had a war here in Austria, lots of years ago. The yemach-shemoniks almost killed my grandfather, you know? But in the end he didn’t, and baruch Hashem we also won!”
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