Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 44 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.
Sara Liba,
I’m afraid that his liver has been very damaged. In order to know how to treat it and which medications to prescribe for him, I need blood tests. I have nudged Wangel enough in the past few months regarding antibiotics and other medications. Can you ask them to send a blood sample to a private lab, like we did last year for Zuretzky’s son? Stress that we are asking for an urgent liver function test, and let them find a cover story for it.
Annie
“He was hospitalized last night. Don’t spread the news,” Babbe told Naomi in the classroom, showing her the note. “But liver problems need to be treated immediately.”
Naomi nodded, not understanding why her grandmother had come to show her the note in these early morning hours. The little ones were still playing calmly, even a bit sleepily, in the corner of the room. The older kids were heatedly discussing which jobs they should choose at the end of the winter, when they would leave the school framework.
“Dr. Katzburg knows that I also nudged Katarina no less than she did.” Babbe’s eyes looked sunken. “And she still threw it into my lap. I’m not angry—she thought it would be more effective—but I have a feeling that they won’t listen to me anymore, either. Katarina got very angry at me last time I approached her.”
“What did you ask her for then?” Naomi asked.
Babbe shook her head. “Stronger antibiotics for one of the patients.”
“Elkovitz’s baby?”
“No. It’s usually simpler when Leo Sherer’s family is involved. Anyway, it makes no difference who it was; baruch Hashem the patient recovered even without the stronger antibiotics. You know, it’s not the infection that kills and not the antibiotics that give life…but we have to do our hishtadlus.”
“Right.”
“In any case, I’m here because it’s time to inject some new blood into the system,” Babbe said calmly. “Naomi, I want you to find Katarina and speak to her about this.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“Excuse me for asking, Babbe,” Naomi stammered, eyes darting about, “b-but…why not my mother? Katarina likes her.”
“I don’t want them to look at you like a new activist. At least not yet. That’s how they would see your mother if she asked them. But you—you’re coming innocently, as Elky’s good friend.”
“Former. We’re not so…you know…”
“They don’t know that.” Babbe shook her head. “This is about Mottel Kush’s life, Naomi. If it’s liver disease, we need the right medications. And they won’t give us any medication if we don’t have proof that that is all that will save him.”
“Fine. So I’ll go to her after lu—”
“Go now. I’ll help Rivku and Katy over here,” her grandmother said. “When do classes start in your ‘Bais Yaakov’?”
“At ten.”
“If you’re not back by then, I’ll teach your students. Which lesson?”
“I’ve started teaching them Navi. I’m telling them about Yehoshua and the capture of Yericho.”
“Excellent. So I’ll continue. Do you have a Tanach here?”
“Yes, it’s in the closet over there. I got permission to take it out of the shul.” She was worried. “Where do you think Katarina is now, Babbe?”
“Maybe in the sewing shop, or she’s patrolling around the paths.”
“And if not?”
“Go to the manor house and ask nicely to be allowed in.”
Naomi was quiet.
“Your mother-in-law has been doing it every day for years already.” Babbe winked. “It’s not as scary as it sounds. And I trust that you’ll know to be careful.”
“Amen.” Naomi looked behind her, at the children who were slowly starting to lose their patience. “If you want, Babbe, you can also start telling them about Purim…and in the meantime, fast for me.” A shadow of a smile—albeit a shaky one—crossed her lips. “The children in the second group will probably also want to listen. You can let them.”
“Do you think I would have sent them away?”
“Rivku doesn’t get involved; it’s great.” Naomi lowered her voice. “Lots of her children listen to many of my stories…”
“Off you go, Naomi darling.”
“Yes, yes,” Naomi said. She began to move heavily, as if her legs were made of iron.
“And I’m davening,” her grandmother said as she escorted her to the door. “And fasting. At least until you get back.”
***
“Naomi?” Binyamin was just walking out of the door of the factory when she approached, looking somewhat distraught. “Is everything okay? You don’t’ usually wander around these parts.”
“Right.”
“Did you want Aryeh?”
“Is Wangel inside by you?”
“No. We haven’t seen him in two days. I think he went to the city.”
“And his wife?”
“Not here.”
“So I need to go to their house, then…” She took a deep breath. “Glad to hear he’s not around.”
“You’re going to them at their house?! You, Naomi?!”
“Yes. For Mottel Kush, whatever. Babbe said he needs an urgent blood test done, and they want me to ask for it, because I’m friends with Elky. Is his son here?”
“No.”
“Baruch Hashem. Even better.” She turned to the other direction, gazing at the distant gate behind which rose the Wangel family’s impressive manor house.
“Do you want me to come with you? I’m on my break.”
“You won’t have enough time. It’s better if you go and daven for me instead.”
“Okay. Honestly, I was just thinking about going to Tatte’s kever,” he murmured. “Though I’d be happy to accompany you to their private property, Naomi, just to be able to glace around there. At the garden, and the toolshed that Tatte built there.”
“On the one hand, you’re warning me not to tell the kids anything that might be interpreted as a yearning to get out of here and go to Eretz Yisrael. On the other hand, you are thinking about searching the estate gardens?!”
“It’s just a thought, Naomi. I wouldn’t actually do any real searching. I thought that if I would have the opportunity… Ever since Wangel said something to me about Tatte’s writings, the subject has been on my mind a lot. What’s their story with him? I wish I could find something that he left.”
“What kind of something?”
“I don’t know—some kind of letter, a note…”
“Binyamin, if Tatte had left something that they didn’t want us to know about, they’ve had more than fifteen years to hide it, you know.” She was walking fast, not looking at her brother who hurried to keep up with her pace. “The fact that he asked you just shows how much you can’t touch this whole issue.”
“You’re right.”
“So just stop thinking about what Tatte left and what happened to him. Because if your thoughts are wrong, then why waste time and energy on them? And if they are right, it’s just as dangerous to be busy with it as my telling my students stories about Eretz Yisrael.”
He stopped and forced a smile. “Right again. Good thing I have such a calm and logical sister like you!”
“So go and daven for me, as a reward.”
“I will. I told you I would.”
“Thank you. Bye.”
Binyamin turned toward the small cemetery at the foot of the wall. He crossed the area of the kennels and waved at Yanku Elkovitz, knowing that at least he wouldn’t see Mottel Kush collecting bread here right now. It was really foolish to be busy with things that had happened more than fifteen years ago. Nothing would change them. He was better off investing his energy in things that could still be changed.
He walked silently along the row of white headstones. From afar, he could discern his father’s gravesite, next to the burial sites of his Schvirtz grandparents. The black words were etched onto the silent, white rectangle, and Binyamin mouthed the words, like he did every time he came here.
He approached from the side to put his hand on the matzeivah, but then he froze. A single word, with small letters, had been written in black ink, on the side of the stone, at the bottom, where it was nearly touching the earth.
***
The car drove off in the distance, and Dena straightened Shloimy’s hat. “That’s what happens when we go to sleep late,” she said to him. “We get up late. We can’t go to cheder anymore, because it’s almost lunchtime, so instead, we’ll go to Bubby.”
The little boy pouted. “I didn’t go to sleep late!”
“But you got up in middle of the night and were crying and crying, and then Mommy also barely slept. Why were you crying last night, Shloimy?”
“It wasn’t me!” Shloimy insisted. “Duvi cried!”
“Duvi slept all night and woke up on time in the morning, so he went in Tatty’s car to cheder. Now Mommy and Shloimy are going to Bubby, right?” She studied him. At night she had been afraid he was running a fever, but the thermometer indicated that he was not. And this morning he’d woken up cheerful as ever, so it didn’t seem that his crying had been because of anything serious.
“Hello, hello!” Her mother-in-law opened the door with her pleasant smile, and motioned for them to move to the left. Lena was washing the floor in the hallway. Dena and Shloimy had no choice but to enter the large dining room, whose floor was already dry. She sat down on the sofa and seated Shloimy next to her.
He wanted to stand and look at the large china closet above the couch. The ten violinists crafted from silver that lined one shelf drew his attention.
“We don’t stand on the couch, Shloimy!” Dena said tiredly. “Only sitting.”
“I want one of those mentchies!” the little boy chirped.
“It’s not a mentchie we play with,” his grandmother said as she bustled in. “Bubby will give you other toys, but not in this room. We don’t bring toys into here. Dena, do you want to go lie down, and I’ll watch him?”
“No, thanks.” Dena felt uncomfortable. It was enough that her mother-in-law knew that she’d slept until nearly ten, and Bentzy had been the one who had gotten up early and sent their older son out to cheder. And it was enough that later, her mother-in-law would be babysitting the two boys when their mother went to work at the factory.
“Soon Duvi will be coming home,” she said. “He’s coming with a friend’s father who takes a few kids home every day. I called and asked if they could drop him off here today instead of at home. I hope it doesn’t bother you that we came by; Shloimy was so bored at home without Duvi…”
“It’s not a bother at all,” her mother-in-law said, but Dena wondered if she meant it. “But we just have to wait for the floor to dry, and then Shloimy can go and play in the other room. Oh, Dena, Tatty asked me to tell you that he needs for tomorrow the list of our clients from the last six months. Can you prepare the list today when you get to the office?”
“Where do I get the information from?”
“In the top drawer there is a receipt file—this orange cardboard file. You need to go over the receipts and see which of them are from the last half a year, and prepare a list like that.”
“Sure,” Dena said, and a little bell, with a strange ring, began to toll in her mind.
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