Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 65 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.
Isru Chag Pesach
Binyamin,
We’d appreciate if you’d come on your personal break to change a light-bulb for us and to check if the connections are okay. The bulbs have been burning out very quickly lately.
Bring a bulb from the store, and write it down on our account.
Thanks,
Babbe
“You need to know how to do things,” Babbe said as Binyamin dragged a chair into the middle of the dim room. He looked at her, somewhat surprised.
“Yes,” he replied after a moment.
“If, for example, I would try to change this light-bulb myself, it would end with me falling from the chair, chalilah; the bulb breaking; and maybe even the whole building burning down. You see, when you start getting busy with something, you have to be very, very careful, and think about every step, because there’s no way to know where it will lead you.”
Binyamin looked at Babbe from his position on the chair, nodding.
“And even if you think you have all the knowledge you need, it’s always better to consult with experts who are older than you.”
“That’s what I did.” His smile was forced, and he slowly unscrewed the old bulb. He wasn’t sure that it had actually finished its job in the world, but he had no intention of checking it either.
“You won’t be able to learn from me how to change a light-bulb.” Sarah Liba’s voice was firm. “I can encourage you, give you advice, direct you, and express my opinion. But in reality? You need someone more active and hands-on than I am today. But he should be no less cautious than me. Not someone young and hotheaded.”
“Like who, for example?” He screwed in the new bulb.
She shook her head and waited for him to get off the chair. Then she went over to the cord that hung down from the fixture, and flicked the white switch on the end of it. A soft light filled the room. “Thanks so much!” she exclaimed.
“Elkovitz understands electricity,” her grandson murmured, after a few moments. “I’ve consulted with him in the past, and if I need to, then I might do it again.”
“He understands, or his wife does?”
Binyamin clasped his hands. Babbe grimaced and didn’t say anything. “His basic knowledge probably comes from his wife, but he’s also a clever man.”
“The question is to what extent his wife doesn’t convey things further. I’m not sure Leo Sherer will be happy to know that you’re busy with additional things, like electricity, when your field of work is supposed to be finishing the furs, and only that.”
“I imagine Leo will want me to invest myself in furs until I’m an old man, and he will earn his honor and his salary,” Binyamin said bitterly. “So for that reason, do I really have to spend the rest of my life in a place that…”
“No, you are not supposed to,” Babbe declared. “But if, for example, you want to change light-bulbs—then do it quietly, at home, and not at the factory in front of everyone else, you understand?”
“Yes.”
“And even if at home…” Her voice dropped, and because of that, her tone—laced with rebuke—suddenly sounded very emphatic. “Really, Binyamin! Not in front of the whole family! To put them in danger like that?!”
“It was only because you asked.” For a moment, he forgot the light-bulbs they were talking about, and the dreadful dangers involved in changing them.
Babbe was quiet for a long moment, which was unusual for her. “I really was very, very surprised by what you said you did,” she finally said.
“Well, we’ll be careful next time. No less than we were last time,” Binyamin said, wrapping his fingers around the old light-bulb.
“If not more. Caution never hurts, not with regard to electricity and not with other things either. Why, are you planning to do it again?”
“Maybe,” he whispered, trying to think of an example that would fit in with Babbe’s storyline. “We came out with something very…unclear. The light isn’t sharp at all—it’s very blurry. But we’ll be careful, I promise.”
“Very, very careful,” Babbe said again. “I don’t want you to get an electric shock, chalilah, okay? Or for you to make problematic electric currents in the camp.”
“I absolutely understand.”
“And what about Leo Sherer?”
“I don’t think that his son-in-law and daughter report to him about every person who changes light-bulbs in their personal space.”
She sighed. “But remember something important: Even the private areas here are not really private, right? It is all Wangel’s, it’s all under his control, so please, don’t get anyone angry.”
“B’ezras Hashem,” he said.
“And if you can’t decide on the size or color of the bulbs, or where their location should be, you can always ask me about that.” She finally smiled. “I’d love to be up-to-date. You know, the light that we’ll have in the end interests me, too. Very much.”
***
“How many hours do you have to make up from Pesach, Schvirtz?” Leo Sherer was going one by one to those who had not worked on Chol Hamoed, and now he was standing, with his notebook, next to Binyamin. “Or rather—how many furs? And stop that horrible noise for a minute, because I want to hear your answer.”
“Either seven small ones or four big ones,” Binyamin replied politely as his foot eased off the machine’s pedal. “Depends what they send me.”
“And how many night hours will you need for that?” He was very impatient today, and seemed to be trying to exude obvious displeasure. Binyamin wondered if it was still the tension that had not dissipated between the two groups since the suspended matzah baking incident, or if the Elkovitzes had blurted out something to him.
That wasn’t possible.
“I imagine about three hours each night, for the next two weeks.”
“I’ll give you a permit to be out—not at the beginning of the night but before daybreak. Meet your quotas,” he snapped and then turned to go. Binyamin saw him stop next to David Elkovitz and exchange a few words with him, and then he again wrote something down in his notes. Oh, it was possible that was also causing his obvious irritation.
“Won’t you be tired?” one of the fifteen-year-old youngsters who walked by at that moment asked compassionately. He was pushing a large wagon with two heavy, hairy furs in it. He raised them with effort onto the low table in Binyamin’s corner.
“I hope not.” Binyamin smiled at him. “I’m already used to making up time for Chol Hamoed after each Yom Tov.”
The youth smiled back and moved on with the empty wagon.
“I’m not so used to it. I hope it will be okay,” Elkovitz said, appearing at that moment. He was holding a bottle of machine oil. Leaning over, he dripped a few drops of unsavory-looking green liquid into the gears of the sewing machine at Binyamin’s feet. “It’s making so much noise,” he noted. “I guess a week without moving did something to it.”
“So why are you fixing it?” Binyamin looked at him as he pressed the pedal again forcefully. The noise was deafening, and now Elkovitz could only read his lips. “Background noise is good. Especially as we have lots of night hours ahead of us here, and that’s a great time to talk.”
David’s hand drew back at once. “You’re right,” he said. The machine grew quiet, and he banged on the underside a number of times, in a few places. Binyamin looked at him, a smile playing around his eyes.
“Keep working, and we’ll keep an eye on the noise,” Elkovitz said, and Binyamin pressed the pedal forcefully again. The noise only got worse, and in addition to the grating growls of the machine, there was a also monotonous whine, maybe a result of the bit of oil that Elkovitz had managed to drip inside.
“With this noise, we can also talk on the phone,” Binyamin whispered.
Elkovitz raised his eyes to Binyamin. “Telephone? At night?” his lips said. “Who will answer you in the middle of the night? You think they also have to make up lost time from Chol Hamoed for the next few nights?”
“I don’t know what’s happening there.” Binyamin selected his words carefully. “Somehow it looks to me that it’s better there than here, and that’s exactly what I want to check out.”
“At night.”
“The Wangels are sleeping then, right?”
“Chances are that yes.”
“So for that reason alone it’s worth it for us to try out the night hours. If they don’t answer at Hanter’s place, we’ll have to find a different time.”
“And this time, I’m not drowning Josef’s phone.”
“Of course not. This time, I’ll volunteer, if it becomes necessary.”
“Is that telephone device still in your sister’s house?”
“Yes.”
“Hidden well, I hope.”
“Obviously.”
Elkovitz stood up and capped the small oil bottle. “We need to think about what to do with this noise!” he shouted over the roaring machine, and started to walk off. “Maybe we need to open it and check it from inside. But for now, just continue. Every minute of work is important.”
“You weren’t able to get that thing to quiet down, David?” Leo Sherer stopped his son-in-law as he turned to go up the stairs toward the supply room. “It’s good Herr Wangel is not coming now for an inspection. That noise drives him crazy.”
“I wasn’t able to; if anything, it only got worse. It’s possible we’ll have to change one of the rubber belts. I’m going to check if we have something suitable.”
“Before you start opening things and taking them apart, consult with Suzy,” his father-in-law instructed from the bottom of the staircase. “There’s no point in you destroying this expensive machine. In any case, do it at a time when Schvirtz is working on hand sewing. He’s fallen behind enough as it is; we don’t need further delays.” And without another word, he resumed his patrol of the production floor.
Elkovitz went back up to the ground floor and walked toward the large supply room. He had no idea what Suzy would say about Binyamin’s plans. In the fifteen years that had passed since Rabbi Schvirtz had died, she hadn’t spoken much about the incident. But from what she had said, it was clear that she also had suspicions about the story they had all grown up with, about the Wangels risking their lives to conceal the last Jewish community in the world.
Now, though, she was frightened.
thenextpage-israelbookshop.com 