Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 25 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.
“Maybe there are flights out of China going to Turkey?” Zahava asked. “What if you go there, and we can meet up? I haven’t seen you in a long time, Shimmy.”
“Mommy,” Shimmy said patiently, “my passport was in my wallet.”
“So that means you can’t fly anywhere now?”
“Right. And as it is, you have no idea how limited I am. I was released the day before yesterday from the hospital, and I didn’t even have money to pay for a taxi to get to the Israeli embassy… Gedalya persuaded my unfriendly translator to take care of transportation for me, and he managed to transfer him money, even though money transfers from America have become very, very complicated. Gedalya also paid for two more days in the hotel, but those are over tonight.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I have a proposal,” her son replied vaguely.
“A proposal?”
“Yes, someone offered me to work for him for a short time until the matter with my passport is resolved, and until we can release money.”
“What does that mean, ‘someone offered me to work for him’?” Zahava rolled the words around on her tongue slowly as she opened a closet door. What was the weather in Turkey now? “Something legal?”
“Of course. Remember I told you about that flying robot that was following me?”
“Yes, the one that found you after your abduction.”
“Exactly. So the manufacturer, who still hasn’t figured out what made the computer system send that robot after me, wants me to come and work for them so they can try to figure out the mystery.”
“What, they’re going to do testing on you?” Her hand stopped just a minute before she pulled her suitcase down from the top shelf.
Shimmy chuckled. “What kind of testing are you thinking of, Mommy?”
“I don’t know, maybe they will look if you have something inside you that attracts robots. It sounds awful.”
“If anything, they’ll be checking my clothes. Maybe the first time I entered China someone planted a GPS chip somewhere, by mistake or on purpose.”
“Today you don’t need a chip; they can just track a person’s cell phone,” his mother said.
“Right, but after the robbery I didn’t have a phone, and it still found me.”
“But you don’t wear the same clothes all the time!”
“I don’t wear the same clothes, true, but I do wear the same shoes.” He thought for a moment. “And the same glasses.”
“Come on, how much time does it take to check shoes and glasses? For that they need you to ‘come and work for them’ until the passport and everything else works out?!”
***
“Ima, guess what? We’re home!”
“Home? In your own house?” For a second, I really don’t have what to say; I’m rather taken aback. “You went home already? For good?”
“Not for the whole time, just until the evening. We’ll go back to my in-laws for supper, and we’ll sleep there, and then in the morning, I’ll go to work, and Ruchi will come here with her aide.” Yudi sounds thrilled. “After work, I’ll come back here, and in the evening, we’ll go there again.”
“Great! You’re happy about this, right?” I’m standing in front of the expansive counters of the Teshuas Yisrael kitchen, facing forty apples that I had bought so that I could turn them into part of a huge fruit salad.
“Very. We chose to do this, and it’s important.”
“You chose…” I smile at his choice of words. “Right, it really is important. And what about Ruchi?”
“She’s also happy, I think. She was a little scared at first, but there’s no choice, because her mother doesn’t feel so good.”
“Her mother? What happened?” I look behind me. The other volunteer hasn’t arrived yet, and that’s perfect for me right now.
“Her back is really hurting, and they said it’s… I didn’t really understand what they said in English, but I think it means that something moved in her spine.”
“A slipped disc, maybe?” I take an apple and sit down at the table. I can’t work with knives when I’m so unfocused.
“Yes, maybe. I don’t know. So she can’t help Ruchi all the time anyway, and her aide suggested that we come home for a few hours every day. She said it will be good for everyone.”
“I’m sure it will be good, and I hope her mother has a refuah sheleimah. Please give her my best wishes when you get there tonight, okay?” A shadow falls on the big kitchen, as a figure waves to me in greeting; Minda has arrived. But to my relief, she puts her bag down in the corner and leaves the room. She probably has a few things to take care of before getting to work.
“Well, I just got home from work…” He sounds like he’s sniffing the air with emphasis. “And there’s a really good smell here. I think Ruchi cooked vegetable soup.”
“Is her aide still there?”
“She left two minutes ago.”
“And what is Isamar doing now? Sleeping?” The last word gets stuck in my throat as I hear a tinny cry come through the phone.
“No, he’s not sleeping,” my son tells me. “One minute, let me give him a pacifier and rock him… Shah, shah, shah…”
I smile to myself with nachas, but my smile fades just a few seconds later, when the crying morphs into hysterical wailing. “He doesn’t want the pacifier?”
“He doesn’t really like the pacifier. Ruchi is preparing a bottle for him now.”
“It shouldn’t be too hot,” I begin, and then berate myself. Still, I continue. “Food that is too hot is dangerous.”
“Hot? Of course not. Ruchi’s mother and the aide both say that the best thing is for his food to be at a comfortable room temperature. We don’t heat up the water; we just use mineral water from bottles.”
His voice rises as he tries to speak above his son’s shrieking. “And you have no idea how complicated it is to buy mineral water or formula, Ima. It’s terrible. I can’t even go to the stores, because I have almost no dollars in cash. Only Ruchi’s father does their family’s grocery shopping, and now he will do the shopping for us too.” He is quiet suddenly, and then adds, “He doesn’t buy all the cereals that Ruchi likes anymore, and lots of other things too, but what can we do?”
“But your boss is supposed to pay you,” I say, listening carefully. The shrieking calms a bit. Did Ruchi finally finish preparing that bottle, or did the baby decide to take the pacifier in desperation?
“Yes, but he pushed off our paychecks, because he hardly has any money these days. He gives us from what people pay him in cash, very little each time, and he promised that after everything gets back to normal b’ezras Hashem, he will pay us in full, to the last penny.”
“I really hope he will do that.”
“So do I,” my son replies. “But I don’t want to leave the job.”
“For sure not,” I answer hastily, as the screaming starts up again. “What’s with him, Yudi?”
“He doesn’t want to eat,” he murmurs. “Maybe he’s tired. We’re trying to get him to sleep now…”
A few moments of quiet ensue, and I try to pick up the loose ends of the conversation again. “So you do have some dollars in cash.”
“Yes, but I give it to my father-in-law to buy things for us with it. There’s a huge problem right now with cash, you know. Two people in our neighborhood were robbed, because when there is nothing in the banks for people, cash becomes very valuable. So it’s not safe for me to walk in the streets with bills or coins.”
“It’s good that you are careful,” I say. “And you make sure to lock your door, right?” Thoughts of a cash robbery, or any robbery, make me very uneasy. And suddenly, I have a desire to do the very thing that my mechuteiniste accused me of: to invite Yudi and Ruchi to stay with us until things settle down and America becomes normal again.
“Yes, sure.”
Isamar is wailing again, but it’s quieter this time.
“Maybe you should go to your in-laws now?” I suggest cautiously. “If you’re having a hard time managing on your own with Isamar when the aide isn’t there, doesn’t it make sense to go to Ruchi’s parents right after she leaves?”
“I just came home, Ima!” he says, with veiled rebuke. “I want to be here a little, and to eat the soup together with my wife, in our kitchen.”
“You’re absolutely right,” I hurriedly say, and I hear Ruchi ask something in the background. Yudi replies, but it’s too quiet and muffled for me to hear; he must have covered the mouthpiece with his hand. I wait patiently, hoping that I haven’t made anyone there angry.
“You don’t have to worry so much, Ima,” he tells me finally, and I wonder if he is quoting Ruchi. “We’re managing, baruch Hashem. If we need help, we’ll call, and Ruchi’s father will come right away to take us to their house.”
“But you are managing. Baruch Hashem.” I swallow and try to correct what I’d said earlier. “Babies cry— that’s how it is—and it takes time for the parents to understand what they want. Do you know how hard it was for me with Sara’le in the beginning? Do you know how she shrieked as a baby? I was at Savta in Petach Tivkah for a week, and then I went home for one night, and by the next morning I was crying that I wanted to go back to her! But we didn’t have a phone, and I couldn’t call her. I knew that she would come visit me, but only in three days. It was very, very hard.”
“You cried, Ima?” Yudi asks in surprise, and again covers the phone with his hand and says something. Apparently, he has to update Ruchi about this strange tidbit of information.
“Yes, a ton,” I tell him. “Until my neighbor heard me from the window and came to help me out.”
“Oh no. We don’t want the neighbor to hear us from the window.” This point, apparently, is less appealing to my son. “She doesn’t like Ruchi. She thinks we’re both not okay.”
My breath gets stuck in my throat when I hear this. Aha, that’s what the neighbor thinks. And what do you think, Yudi? That you are both okay? That one of you is okay, and the other is not? If so, then who is and who isn’t?
***
Last week, we spoke about how you are responsible for all your choices—and you can never say that someone else is responsible for your choices. Maybe the other person can influence or urge you, but responsibility—that is only on the one who makes the choice. Now I want to talk about how we deal with our choices. If anyone is listening, please try to think about the last significant choice that you made. How do you feel about it? Satisfied?
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