Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 30 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.
“No, don’t turn it off!” Ruchi shouts, her eyes red as she tries to block the power button with her finger. Isamar is sitting in the infant seat, moving his hands about.
“But it’s been on all morning long,” her father says firmly. “It’s enough!”
Ruchi is miserable. “I can’t stop listening to it…” she says. “I have to hear what his mother did after his accident and how she managed, and he’s talking about it in this speech!”
“Nu, so you heard this speech seven times in a row already,” her mother interjects. “You didn’t hear Yudi or Chana’le or me taking care of Isamar, and you didn’t hear me calling you to eat—all you’re doing is listening to this over and over! You probably know it all by heart by now.”
“No, I don’t, it’s not registering!” Ruchi sniffs. “I’m so stressed, I can’t concentrate.”
“Then you won’t be any more focused the eighth time,” her father says, and he reaches over and presses the power button, silencing Moni’s pleasant, sing-song voice. “Anyway, I don’t think he’s revealing here any secrets that you don’t already know. What’s the date of this speech?”
“About four months ago,” Yudi says from the doorway. “Maybe a bit more.” He looks at the floor and at his unpolished shoes. “And we already heard it after Isamar was born. We listened to it about five times then. And to other shiurim about challenges and hardships, and to his stories about himself and others.”
“So now we’re done with it,” Ruchi’s father says. “Ruchi, come and eat something—it’s after twelve already. Are you going home today or staying here?”
“I want to go home,” Yudi says.
“But I don’t want to!” Ruchi yells. “What if that horrible woman comes again? And she screams at me that Isamar is dirty and I’m bad?” She bursts into hysterical weeping.
“I’m not going to stay at home,” Yudi says. “I have to go to work, even though it’s late. I don’t want to miss a whole day.”
“So do you want to go home or to work?” Ruchi asks.
“On the way to work, I want to go to the house for a few minutes,” he says quietly. “We haven’t been there since last night, and I want to just walk through the house and see if this woman left something after her visit. My mother says it’s important to see if she wrote a report or something…and just to make sure everything is okay.”
“So why didn’t you go right away in the morning?” Ruchi asks as she stands up. Her hands are trembling.
“Because…” He gropes for the right words. “I don’t really want to go in there myself.”
“You think she’s hiding there?” His wife pales.
“No. But I still don’t want to go there myself.”
“I’ll take you over, and we’ll go in together,” Ruchi’s father says. “It’s a shame you didn’t ask me till now—I would have done it happily. Next time, don’t be embarrassed.”
Yudi is quiet the whole way, clasping and unclasping his fingers nervously. Only when they get out of the car, does he ask quietly, “Do you think we’ll find a paper that says they are going to take Isamar away from us?”
His father-in-law is aghast. “Chas v’shalom! These are not things that just happen. We’ll prove to them that you’re managing wonderfully, and that you have help all the time!”
“But do you think that…” He stands at the bottom of the steps and doesn’t go further, “Do you think that’s what the woman from Child Protective Services will recommend?”
Ruchi’s father weighs his words carefully. “I really hope not. And I want to say something else, Yudi. No one saw this lady besides for Ruchi. Do you understand what I mean?”
“That the aide was busy with the laundry.”
“Yes, but it was for a very short time. Such a visit should take a lot longer than a few minutes, shouldn’t it?”
Yudi blinks. “I guess so.”
“And how is it that a representative of CPS doesn’t ask to meet the aide, to get an idea of Ruchi’s level of functioning and the help that she receives?”
“Right, so how could that be?”
“Mommy and I are really not sure. Do you think there’s something strange about this story?”
“We said right from the beginning that it’s strange,” Yudi affirms obediently. “You said that maybe it was a dream. But Ruchi says it wasn’t. She says it really happened.”
“Look,” his father-in-law says, “there were times, a few years ago, that Ruchi…imagined or dreamed that scary things were happening to her. Have you noticed this happening to her again lately?”
“When I was little and I went to sleep, I was also scared of noises of robbers. In the end, the noise I was scared of was usually just a chair that someone had moved in the other room.”
“Aha.” His father-in-law deliberates whether to add something, but then ends up just saying, “Alright, let’s go see what’s doing at home.”
Yudi still doesn’t move. “Everyone also said that Ruchi was imagining that Isamar’s leg was crooked,” he says. “But in the end, we all saw that it was true. So maybe this lady is also real.”
The older man nods. “Let’s go up,” he says tersely.
They open the door and walk in. Everything in the little dining room is in place, aside for a towel tossed on the couch. The kitchen also looks unchanged, and there are no official papers on the fridge or on the table. Yudi’s father-in-law quickly walks through the other two rooms, and then turns to go up half a flight to the next level. “There’s an open window here,” he says. “It’s not like Ruchi to open windows and leave them that way.”
“Maybe the lady jumped out the window?” Yudi mutters.
“I don’t think so—don’t forget, there are bars. Let’s see if she left something on your night table. Wait, what’s this paper? Oh, it’s the report from the orthopedist.” He studied the elegant night table. “Hey, what’s this pretty box? Is this where Ruchi keeps her jewelry? Maybe it’s better that we don’t leave it here.”
He casually opens the jewelry box and turns to Yudi, his expression unreadable. “Yudi…is Ruchi wearing her jewelry right now?”
***
“Tzippy? How is your father?”
“Baruch Hashem, fine. He’s dozing now.”
“In the emergency room?” her uncle asked.
“No, he has an infection in his knee, so they admitted him so he can get antibiotics through IV.”
“Oy, these complications…Hashem yishmor. So, what are you doing in the meantime? What time is it over there?”
“I’m just sitting here,” she whispered. “It’s now two in the morning.”
“Why did you stay for the night? A hospital is not the place for young girls to be alone!” Yankel declared.
“First of all, I’m not alone, I’m with my father. And besides, I had no way to get home. By the time they decided to admit him, it was late, and there were no buses anymore. And of course, I’m not taking a taxi myself now.”
“Did you update your mother that they admitted him?”
“Her phone is off—she must be sleeping. And either way, my father doesn’t like to worry her when there’s nothing she can do to help.”
“What about Chumi?”
“She went to sleep at a friend’s house.”
“A good family?”
“Yes. A family that we know well.” She was whispering, and wondered how much her uncle discerned the mild emphasis of her words. In any case, he kept talking, moving right on to the next subject.
“I want the number of your father’s shiur hotline, okay?”
“Shiur hotline?”
“Yes, you know…Rubinson’s. I want to hear a bit what goes on there and how it works. I’m sure your father has the number.”
“Yes, he does.”
“Did you ever listen to the hotline yourself?”
“Sometimes…” She hesitated. “There isn’t much there. There’s my father’s shiurim, and another section of old Yiddish sayings—if I’m not mistaken, Robinson himself records those.” And they changed only about once in three months, but she wouldn’t tell that to Uncle Yankel. “And something with parshah, and also some speeches in Yiddish—I don’t know which rav gives them.” Those two extensions were probably taken from another hotline, which Robinson must have gotten permission to use.
“And that’s it? Alright, give me the number.”
Tzippy silently scrolled through the contacts and read the number slowly out to Uncle Yankel. When the conversation ended, she called the number herself, not even sure why she was doing it. By pressing “one,” she heard Rubinson’s voice announcing, “Az men iz nor gezunt, iz men shoin reich—If we’re only healthy, we’re already wealthy.” And he began to explain how that is.
She didn’t wait for the end of the explanations, pressing “two,” which brought her to the parshah section. “Three” led to the Yiddish speeches, and “four” let her hear Tatty’s pleasant voice. She wasn’t able to access earlier speeches, only one recent one, and Tatty was talking about kibbud av v’eim. Maybe she would listen a bit? She wasn’t falling asleep on this armchair anyway.
But by the fourth sentence, Uncle Yankel started beeping in on the call waiting, and after three beeps she switched lines.
“That number doesn’t get me anywhere,” he complained. “You must have made a mistake when giving me the number. Read it out to me again, please.”
***
–No new recordings –
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