Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 64 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.
Child – Boy
Weight – 2.100 kg
Time of birth – 23:00
Health – Appears normal
“Mazel tov, Elky!” Naomi smiled carefully; she hadn’t exactly planned to meet the Hauptmann herself over here.
Katarina cast a light smile in Naomi’s direction and said, “Still friends, or what?”
“You could say,” a pale-faced Elky replied.
“So I’ll go, and I won’t disturb your wonderful, friendly conversation.” It was hard to discern if she was being cynical or serious. “In any case, I would have brought you our gift—as one of the best workers in the office, you would have deserved that—but because we received your apology note regarding the paper you threw on the floor of the camp grounds—”
“I didn’t throw it,” Elky said hurriedly. “It must have flown from the window, and I don’t know—”
Katarina raised her hand with a stern expression. “I’m not used to being interrupted,” she said.
“Excuse me,” the new mother mumbled and fell silent.
“Because you deserve to be penalized for that offense, we decided to suffice with withholding the baby gift. That will be instead of meting out a different consequence to you.”
Elky bit her lip, literally. Naomi saw it, but there was nothing she could do. Elky should be grateful she was emerging from the lion’s jaws safely after she got caught in there; she couldn’t ask for any further reward. The Hauptmann smiled at the baby in the cradle, passed a finger over his forehead, and left the clinic, but not before waving to Sarah Liba.
“Tell your grandmother,” Elky said, sounding panicked, “that I must go home today already!”
“Today?” Naomi echoed. “But you just gave birth last night!”
“So what.” Elky’s lips jutted out like she was a stubborn three-year-old. “I want to go home already.”
“And what does that have to do with Wangel’s gift that you won’t be getting?” Babbe surprised both of them by suddenly drawing closer. Neither Elky nor Naomi had dreamed that Babbe had heard anything.
Elky stared back. “I have to get back to work.”
“It’s Chol Hamoed Pesach. And after that? If Leo Sherer brings you back to the office before the four weeks that you must rest are over, I will personally go to Katarina and file a complaint about him,” Sarah Liba declared. “Elky, you are not going to rest for one day less than is needed, yes?”
“I’m strong,” Elky said, “and I think that a week’s rest will certainly be enough for me.”
Babbe didn’t say a word. She just stirred the cup of tea in her hands and set it on the small night table. “Drink,” she said. “You need to drink a lot.”
“Thank you,” Elky mumbled, but she didn’t meet her gaze.
Naomi sensed that it would be better if she left. “Feel good, Elky,” she said with a smile. “And mazel tov again! He’s really cute, your little one.”
“He’s really little,” Babbe said. She laid a soft hand on the baby’s blanket. “A bit too small, even. And he needs a strong mother, so that he can grow and develop properly.”
Elky nodded. She sat up and looked at the infant in the cradle, a small smile playing around her lips. Naomi hoped for her sake that she’d use her time off to enjoy her oldest child, and wouldn’t spend it worrying instead about the next few weeks when she wouldn’t be working—or earning.
***
“Are you going back to Vienna?”
“Yes, and I’ll fax you the newspaper we’re giving out this time. We have some brilliant stuff there.”
“I’m waiting to see the interview or the article with Hanter,” his father needled.
“There’s no Hanter there, Father. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“So what was that strange story about? You and your two idiot friends are the only ones who know about your made-up ‘Der Cosmos’ newspaper.”
“Oh, really?” Bernard was getting irritated. “And what about your friends on the outside, Father? What about Olendorf, for example, who, on every visit, takes pleasure in the newspaper and demands three copies of it? And the others?”
“Olendorf? Oh, you think he was trying to play a prank, so he called here?” Josef Wangel was getting angry now.
“Why not?” Bernard was unfazed.
“Because I would have recognized his voice, first of all. And second, he’s too mature and dignified for such nonsense.”
Bernard took offense. “If it is nonsense, then I don’t have to continue working on it!”
“I thought you’re doing it as part of your research project,” his father countered pointedly.
“I can keep the forthcoming issues for myself and my professors at the university,” Bernard huffed angrily. “I’m out of here, Father. If you want the newspaper that we are working on right now, let me know.”
“We want it, we want it,” his father said, trying to mollify him. “Just find out for me in any case, because I really need to know: did either of your two friends contact these Hanter people? And give them the phone number of the manor house?”
“My friends don’t know our phone number, Father. I’m very careful.”
Josef muttered something and then said aloud, “But still, find it out. That conversation does not sit well with me, and I’m sick and tired of explaining it to you so many times.”
“The person who called knew that there is a fur factory here?”
“No, he only asked about the newspaper.”
“That is definitely strange,” Bernard said. He spun the ring with his car keys on his thumb. “I’ll try to find out.”
“Good, don’t forget.”
And they parted on a conciliatory note.
***
“Enjoy your vacation!” Pinchas shouted to Binyamin in the morning when he passed by the shul and saw the youth standing near the door, his hand leaning on the doorpost.
“Thank you! You’re also invited!” Binyamin shouted back, “It’s Chol Hamoed today, Pinchas!”
“See you in a few more days! Then you’ll work like—”
“It’s worth it!” Binyamin called after him. “Try it once, and you’ll see!”
The man waved and kept walking, without another word.
“Gut Moed! At least you joined us this year,” Binyamin told Elkovitz, who walked into the courtyard of the shul just then. “What is with our chavrusaschaft? We haven’t learned even once this Yom Tov.”
“We’ll learn, we’ll learn,” David said, and glanced hastily behind him. “But please, Schvirtz, for the near future, leave me alone. My wife is very nervous.”
“That’s exactly what my sister said.” Binyamin sounded dejected.
“They are right. Let’s be sure that the phone call didn’t wake any slumbering bears, and then we can move forward.”
“The bears in our region look relatively calm.”
“You can never be sure about that.”
“So when do you plan to be sure?”
“When enough time passes. And the truth is,” Elkovitz lowered his voice, “that in any case, even if things are not the way we thought they are, after nearly fifty years, a few weeks here or there are not going to change anything. It’s worthwhile to be patient and to act wisely.”
“You’re definitely right about that,” Binyamin murmured quietly.
He was still in that quiet and morose mood that afternoon, when Zeide, Babbe, Aunt Chani, and Uncle Yiddel came to their house for a festive lunch meal. Until Babbe fixed him with a piercing look and asked, “Binyamin? Is everything alright?”
He murmured something in response. He was happy that his mother was deep in quiet conversation with Chani and didn’t notice anything. She also didn’t notice when, at the end of the meal, Babbe cornered him in the little kitchen, just before he slipped out the door of the house. “Binyamin,” she whispered sharply.
“Yes, Babbe?” he replied quietly.
“What’s with you and Naomi? You didn’t have a fight, I assume. But Naomi hasn’t been herself for at least a week and a half, and in the last few days, you’re walking around with the same preoccupied expression. Are you like that outside, too? Because if you are forming an underground against Wangel, the two of you will be the first suspects.”
“Chas v’chalilah!” he said automatically. “And on the outside I’m acting normal.”
“Then you’re really forming an underground?”
Was she joking or not? He shifted his eyes toward Naomi, clearing dishes from the table to the big basin; she wasn’t even glancing at them. Aryeh was speaking quietly to his father, and Aunt Chani and Mamme were still deep in their conversation. He hoped that they weren’t all talking about the same subject. An underground! He hoped such rumors weren’t going around!
“No,” he replied with a decisive shake of the head.
“Fine, but what happened to Naomi one fine day that is also affecting you to this moment?”
Binyamin took a deep breath. A secret known to more than three people is no longer a secret, but their secret was known to more than three people, in any case: Aryeh, Naomi, Elkovitz, his wife, and himself. So adding one more pair of ears that would hear about the phone call would not necessarily be harmful, and if it would be Babbe’s ears, there was a chance that it could be only beneficial.
“I really want to speak to you about it, Babbe,” he whispered, and again, glanced behind him. “We were able to get a telephone for a few minutes.”
“When?” Her face was expressionless.
“That morning when Naomi left the preschool for a long time, and then she didn’t feel well.”
“She managed to convince everyone except me. She did the speaking?”
“Yes.”
“With whom?”
“The paprika manufacturer. She saw a while ago a package that said to check the paprika for worms, something like that.”
“So what does she think? That Jews wrote those instructions?”
“Yes. Does that sound foolish to you?”
Babbe shook her head in an indecipherable motion, and at that moment, Chani and his mother finished their conversation.
“I’ll come over to your house in the evening, okay?” Binyamin said quickly.
“No,” Babbe cut in sharply. “Don’t come to us, and don’t talk to anyone about it. Warn Naomi, too. It makes no difference what you think. It’s far more dangerous than it seems to you.”
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