Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 11 of a new online serial novel, If Anyone Is Listening, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week. Click here for previous chapters.
Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications.
What’s there to be afraid of?
In a sudden burst of confidence, or perhaps youthful audacity that still lingered inside him, Shimmy left the room, making sure that the door was locked well, and went down to the ground floor. Behind the hotel was a huge flower garden. Here, as well, Shimmy could see the results of the relatively low rate he was paying per night in this place. It was obvious that the flower bushes hadn’t been pruned in a long time, and the pathways were littered with dry leaves.
He turned to the east side of the hotel where, on the fourth floor, his room was. At first, he had a hard time identifying his window out of the rows of dreadfully identical rectangles. But then he saw the dark, flying creature stubbornly adhering to the glass pane, as if trying to peek inside—and he knew that this was “his” window.
At that second, the creature left the window and dived down sharply. Shimmy recoiled, and the bat grabbed one of the low tree branches next to him and sat itself on it, gazing at him with beady eyes. They were glowing in a strange fashion, reminding Shimmy more of tiny electric lights than eyes, and he studied it closely, feeling like he was finally grasping what was going on here. An unpleasant sensation assailed him sharply, and he turned around to look behind him, but no one was there.
He turned his head back to the low tree, staring back at the bat with a steady gaze. The bat buried its head among the branches, and then emerged again with a round, smooth brown fruit in its mouth.
“No, you are not going to throw that at me now!” Shimmy informed it firmly. The bat stared at him, looking like someone who didn’t understand him only because of the language barrier between them.
“Don’t throw it at me,” Shimmy said in English. “Ich, it’s from your mouth! You know, what if you have corona?”
The creature raised its wings, and a strange, metallic croak—words in Chinese?—emerged from it. Shimmy stood openmouthed for a moment, and took a deep breath as the bat’s eyes blinked again, the electric lights going on and off.
“What is that thing that you do with your eyes?” Shimmy snapped after a moment’s recovery.
The bat, seeming to relish the confrontation with the person standing in front of it, flashed its eyes again.
“Smiling for the picture? Because that is what it looks to me like you’re doing.”
Another flash.
Shimmy took a deep breath. “To whom am I so important that they sent such a sophisticated robot like you to me?”
***
We’ve arrived. For the bris.
The basement apartment where we are staying is very impressive. Everything is huge, from the beds to the kitchen sinks. The only problem is that the reception there isn’t great, and every time our children call from Eretz Yisrael, we have to go outside to the yard to speak to them. This problem leads to another problem, because the yard that surrounds our gracious host’s house borders on Ruchi’s parents’ yard. So I can talk there, but I can’t really describe to them how we were welcomed, and what exactly the Katzes did, and how the baby is.
He’s actually cute, but he doesn’t look at all like Yudi.
I so much want to tell this to my oldest, Sara’le, at least. She’s the type who won’t be alarmed to hear that I just don’t find myself emotionally connecting to my few-days-old grandson. She would have shot out thirty proofs and forty stories of people who are deterred a bit at the stage when the babies are so small, and they only manage to pick up the child after more time passes. About grandmothers who say smilingly how their grandchildren are the cutest and smartest in the world, because that’s what grandmothers have to say, but in their hearts they think otherwise, unfortunately, and then they beat themselves up about it. Sara’le always has such stories. But I can’t talk to her about this, because I’m always afraid that Ruchi or her mother or one of her sisters is someplace close enough to hear.
But maybe those stories would not have calmed me, not now when it’s Yudi and Ruchi’s baby. Whenever I hold him, I find myself forcibly holding back my tears. I’m thrilled for Yudi, and at the same time, I feel like I’m studying his baby too closely, too critically.
He looks like a normal baby: small, red-faced, with a dark crown of downy hair. His eyes are large and gray, and when he opens them and looks at me, I remember the stare that Yudi had given me when he was a few days old. And I know: You can’t always know things at this early point.
Someone knocks at the basement door as we’re finishing breakfast. It is the daughter of our hosts, telling us that “your son called and said he can’t reach you.”
“Which son?” I ask, glancing backward. Oh, of course, without realizing it, I’d put my phone down on the coffee table, and there is no reception there at all.
“The Katzes’ son-in-law. Ruchi’s husband.”
“Okay, thank you,” I say and turn to go up the stairs. “By the way, do you know Ruchi? Have you been living here next door for a long time?”
“Yes, sure.” She smiles. “I was at the wedding. And yesterday I was speaking to Ruchi, and I told her that I can watch her baby if she wants. She said she’d be happy to take me up on my offer.”
“You know how to watch such tiny babies?”
“They’re easier,” she promises me. “You have to see how I hold my nephew! He’s already two, a big fat kid, and he never falls out of my hands!”
“A two-year-old is a two-year-old,” I say, as I climb the stairs with her to the ground floor. “But with a newborn baby, you need to be even more careful.” I know I sound critical, and as much as I try to soften my tone, the words come out too admonishing; I feel it. But I have no choice.
What is this? Ruchi would allow a ten-year-old to watch a one- or two-week old baby? Or even a month-old baby?
A small, cruel voice snickers inside me and suggests that I stay in America if I want to keep a close eye on things. It’s cruel, because I know how much I want Yudi and Ruchi next to me, and at the same time, the very thought of such an idea frightens me.
When I get to the top step, my phone starts to ring. “Hi, Yudi,” I say.
“Hi. My shvigger is asking if you want to come and bathe the baby.”
“Me?”
“Yes. Because I told her that you love bathing little babies,” he whispers.
“Very sweet of her to want to share the care of the baby with me.”
“He cried all night, and Ruchi also cried, and—” Here he cuts himself off, leaving me to imagine the rest: “And I did, too”? “And Ruchi screamed”? “And she has no more strength for him”?
“Of course I want to bathe him, Yudi,” I answer. “Please thank your shvigger for thinking about me; it’s so nice of her. I’m just going down to tell Abba that I’m coming to you for a few minutes.”
“Okay. I’ll wait for you on the porch,” he whispers. Why the whisper? Is Ruchi not allowed to hear about the idea? Or is she sleeping, after she’d been up and crying last night?
I go back downstairs and then up again, out from this yard and into the next one. This monotonous string of actions distracts me a bit, until I see Yudi waiting for me on the front porch. He is standing there in a wrinkled shirt, yawning and looking exhausted, like…like every new father, actually. I tell him that, and he chuckles. But he doesn’t look very happy at all.
“What’s doing?” I ask.
“Baruch Hashem, everything is fine,” he answers, without a smile.
The fact that I’m angry at myself for being tense right now doesn’t really help me calm down. “You must be tired.”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t able to sleep at night?” We walk into the Katzes’ house and I remind myself that despite our Hebrew, and despite the fact that the soft carpet swallows sound, I have no idea who is nearby now and who might hear every word, in whichever tone it is said.
“So-so.”
“But is Ruchi sleeping now, at least?”
“No,” he says, and steals glances to the sides.
I haven’t seen Ruchi since the day before yesterday, when we first got here, and I went up to her room to wish her mazel tov and to see her and the baby for the first time. We eat some of our meals here in their house, but so far, she hasn’t come down for any of those meals.
Yudi leads me up to the third floor, where the bedrooms are. Everything is sparkling, but the Katzes’ large, modern home and beautiful furnishings don’t blind me. And honestly, they never did. We didn’t do this shidduch because of the Katzes’ money.
What does that matter now? that small, cruel voice from before asks me, and I force myself to ignore it.
Yudi’s mother-in-law comes out to me from one of the bedrooms, cuddling our grandson. We greet each other warmly, and I stretch out my arms to take the baby.
“He’s wonderful,” I say, not sure if it’s to her or to my Yudi.
“That’s right,” Ruchi’s mother says. “What is this, Yudi, that you brought your mother all the way up here? You didn’t take her to the dining room for a drink or something?”
“She came to bathe the baby,” Yudi answers, looking sideways at me. “She’s not thirsty now.”
“You should always offer,” my mechuteiniste says gently. Yudi nods somberly, and I don’t know anymore if I’m only worried, or if I’m now tense, and angry too, at her efforts to educate my son. When I try to activate the voice of reason, I know that I cannot be angry at this woman who is doing so much for Yudi. But what can I do? Reason is not always active in me at confusing times.
We turn together to the bathroom, and Yudi opens the door to a different room. A voice emerges, a rich, deep voice. Yudi pauses for a moment. “That’s him,” he says to me, and finally smiles.
“Who is it?”
“Moni, the speaker I told you about.”
***
There’s nothing more wonderful than feeling like a baby in its mother’s arms. Close your eyes and try to capture that feeling.
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