Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 42 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.
א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י
Beneath the letters on the wall was a drawing of a child wearing a yarmulke, sitting and reading a book. Binyamin stared unseeingly at the drawing. “The idea to break into their house isn’t all that bad…” he said.
“Not bad.” Naomi’s lips curled cynically. “And can you lower your voice a little, Binyamin? There are children here, and as young as they are, their ears are huge. Anyway, like I said, bli neder I’ll run over to her after work today, okay? I can’t imagine there’s too much time left to your break now, in any case.”
“Fine.” Binyamin gave in. “So, what will you tell her when you go?”
“I don’t know—whatever Hashem puts in my mouth.”
“Okay, fine. Good luck. This picture is nice, by the way.”
“One of the mothers came and drew it.” Naomi nodded. The children were frolicking around them with mounting energy, and Binyamin glanced over at them and then sighed.
“It hurts me to think about what will be with the bigger kids here in a few months. I just saw the ones who are taking care of the lambs and the foxes. Believe me, they are babies, literally… When are they supposed to have time to learn to read from a siddur?”
“I try to teach them kriah now. When did you learn, when you were their age?”
“Zeide sat and taught me.”
“Bilhah also taught us a bit, I remember.”
“Mostly the ABCs. The aleph-beis? It’s up to the fathers to teach their kids,” he said. “The ones whose fathers sit and learn with them know how to read Hebrew, and the rest…” He fell silent, because his brother-in-law Aryeh’s father did teach his son, yet Aryeh still didn’t really know how to read. Although he knew more today, thanks to his wife.
Naomi also ignored the sensitive point. “I also think about that—what the kids will learn in the small amount of time they have with me here,” she said. “I tell them the parshah and try to introduce them to the midrashim of Chazal. But more than that? How will they leave from here?”
“Right. That’s what I was thinking about when I saw the children with the sheep and the foxes.” His eyes studied the walls. “Baruch Hashem, I had someone to teach me, for years. But there are many who don’t have that.”
“Not to mention those from families that aren’t religious.”
“That’s another point. But I’m talking about our children…you had to see how some of the little ones, kids whom I know from shul on Shabbos, run around there. Their fathers can’t teach them, and they are growing up literally like wild foxes themselves…”
“So maybe that’s why you got your break.”
“What, so that I should teach them?”
She nodded. “It’s an idea, isn’t it? I started to say something when you told me about your break. The truth is, I wanted to suggest that you come here regularly to teach the boys a little. But maybe it’s better that you should work with the older ones. They’re also closer to the factory.”
“I don’t know.” He seemed thrown off by the idea. “I have to think what to do and how. There are initiatives that are not exactly welcome here.”
“I see that you are looking at the walls. Are you looking for something specific?”
“I’m looking for something that I hope isn’t there.”
“What is that?” She felt a frisson of tension.
“Pesukim about Eretz Ysirael. Drawings. A map of the Land.” He grew serious. “Yesterday we got to talking about Kush, but I hope you remember the other subject.”
“The notebook.”
“Yes. There’s nothing here that can make them suspect you of Zionism, right?”
“Really, Binyamin!”
“Really, I’m serious, Naomi. You have to understand that the Nazis don’t differentiate between that kind of Zionism and the natural desire of every Jew to goto Eretz Yisrael when Mashiach comes, b’ezras Hashem. There are things that they won’t tolerate. I asked around some of the older people. Wangel and Heidrich—the old ones—were very angry in the past when the Reform did something in memory of Herzl. Yosef Posen told me that they threatened then that if such a thing ever happens again, they’ll send us all away from here, and make sure that the celebrating group is sent to the biggest concentration camp in Palestine.”
“It still exists?”
“Well, this happened about thirty years ago. There was a camp in Yerushalayim—”
“Yes, I once read an article about the concentration camps around the world, in one of the newspapers they brought us… It’s an evil that I can’t define in words at all, to build the biggest concentration camp specifically in the city holiest to the Jews…”
“Anyway, that camp doesn’t exist anymore, unfortunately. There aren’t any Jews in the whole Middle East.” He shrugged. “Officially.”
“Officially?”
“Maybe there are other places where a few survivors are kept hidden.” He walked toward the door. “Naomi, remember to work carefully, okay? Eretz Yisrael is out of bounds, not dreams, not stories. Learning about Yiddishkeit, yes, but nothing that expresses a yearning to leave this place in favor of a better place.”
***
“Elky?” her mother asked before they parted at the fork in the path, where each one would turn toward her own house. “Is everything okay with you lately?”
“Yes, sure.” She smiled, snuggling further into her scarf.
“You don’t look so good, forgive me for saying.”
“Me?” Elky’s surprise was obvious. “Why?”
Her mother retreated. “Whatever,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot these past few days. And about the fact that you don’t want to come to us for Shabbos… How are you doing with the cooking? Managing?”
“Yes, great.” She smiled wider. “Today I’m making patties.”
“Sounds good! Can you bring me some to taste?”
“I don’t know if there will be any left…” Elky’s face closed.
“Really, Elky, you make me laugh!” Her mother looked at her. “Do you think I want you to bring me food? On the contrary, I keep inviting you to us!”
“Okay, okay.” Her daughter’s face softened, and she waved to her mother as they parted.
Rochel Cohen continued walking on the muddy path, not knowing what to think. Something about Elky didn’t look right lately, and Shmelke had also been telling her that Mottel seemed a little withdrawn, not talking much. Were they angry about something?
“Hi, Mrs. Cohen!” she heard a voice say, and only then did Rochel notice Naomi, formerly Schvirtz, standing right near her.
“Oh, Naomi, hello!” she said, trying to smile at her daughter’s friend. Was that status also ‘formerly’? “How are you? What are you doing here?”
“I came,” Naomi paused for a moment, an uneasy look in her eyes, “to ask Elky something. I hope she’s home.”
“She should be getting home in a few minutes. We just parted. How is work at the preschool?”
“Baruch Hashem, very good.”
“We hear lots of good things about you.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you…” It was Rochel’s turn to hesitate for a moment. “Are you…still in touch with Elky? I never asked her, but I haven’t heard anything about you lately…”
“Not so much,” Naomi said quietly. “Not since we went our separate ways for our jobs…”
“Your mother and I are still such good friends, even though we hardly have time to schmooze.”
“But you see each other almost every day during lunch. Elky and I don’t have that.”
“True,” Rochel conceded. “Still, I would be so happy if the connection between you could continue, like it was before…”
“So would I,” Naomi said candidly. “But I think that even if we would meet every day, it still wouldn’t be so simple. Elky…she’s changed a bit.”
“It’s natural that marriage changes a person!” Rochel hurriedly defended her daughter.
“That’s right, of course,” Naomi said, chiding herself. Why had she said that? “Look, you see I’m going over to her now.” She forced herself to smile. Mrs. Cohen was also probably in a hurry to end this rather awkward encounter, so she bid the older woman a good day and walked on.
The hut of the young Kush family was just a small distance ahead. Naomi studied it for a moment from the outside and then walked up to the door. It opened even before she got to it.
“Naomi?” Elky was standing in the doorway, holding a metal bowl. She reached for the doorknob and shut the door behind her. “What did I do to deserve this visit from you?” The words could have had a friendly tone or a cynical one; Naomi preferred to hear only the former.
“I wanted to ask you for the recipe for the kugel you once made, before we got married. Remember, when we were fifteen, we made Shabbos together in my house?”
“The potato kugel?”
“Yes.”
Elky walked over to the rectangle of earth that Naomi was standing near, and put the bowl on the ground. She bent down, and with her bare hands, began to dig in the frozen ground.
“What’s the matter, Elky? You don’t have a hoe?” Naomi automatically bent down to help her friend. “What did you plant here?”
Elky didn’t answer at first. “We had a great hoe,” she muttered suddenly, “but it belonged to my husband’s parents, and they needed it back.”
“I admire every woman who is able to grow vegetables in her own little yard,” Naomi said sincerely. “I haven’t tried it yet myself. And honestly? I didn’t think that you’d be one of those who do this, in addition to all the other things that need to get done! But if you are doing it, buy a normal hoe. The store carries them, behind the door—did you forget already?” She chuckled with nostalgia for those carefree days when she and Elky had spent endless hours in the store in deep conversation, about matters that teenagers deemed so important. “Don’t you remember that we said that a hoe could be a parable for—”
Elky pulled a small, green orb from the ground and stared at it with frustration.
“What is that?” Naomi asked quietly.
“It was supposed to be a potato. I wanted to make that kugel, actually,” Elky muttered, groping around in the ground with her red fingers. The orb itself began to roll, stopping near the metal bowl.
“It looks like it is a potato.” Naomi studied it. “But it needs to grow some more.”
“I thought I’d make kugel from it. Well, it’s not necessary; we’ll manage without the kugel.” Her eyes were dark as she picked up the bowl.
“When did you plant it?”
“I don’t remember. A few days ago, maybe a week or two.”
“But plants need time to grow! Wait patiently, Elky, and in the meantime, you can buy potatoes in the store. They happen to be very cheap now. When the stock in the storage rooms gets used up, the price will go up, especially if it snows and people won’t be able to buy even from the private people who grow them.”
Elky didn’t reply. And then she suddenly burst out angrily, “It’s impossible to keep buying all the time! You have no idea how much money I’ve already wasted since we got married. I can’t allow myself to get to the point where we won’t have anything left!”
Naomi gaped at her.
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