Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 34 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.
Steve ignored the booming voices coming from the megaphones and turned over to the other side. He glanced for a moment out the only window in the hut, and then his gaze moved to the door. They wouldn’t burst in and kill him; that much was clear. Because if they did that, they’d never get to his security code, and then the dumb computer experts at the banks would have to continue groping their way in the dark. Let’s see if they’d find a solution.
“Steve?” Rudy approached from the other side of the room with a cup. “Do you want a hot drink?”
Steve threw off the blanket and stood up. “I heat my own water.”
“You don’t trust me?” Rudy sat down on the mattress that had just become available and sipped from his cup.
“I don’t trust anyone.”
“So why’d you bring me to be here with you?”
“Because I had no other choice.” He filled a little pot with water and turned on the fire beneath it. “Tell me, while I was sleeping, was a new lecture posted?”
“No.”
Steve let out a deep breath. “On the one hand, that’s good, because if I’m Moni, it’s strange that I should speak without addressing what’s going on now… But on the other hand, I’m afraid that they secretly arrested him or eliminated him. What do you think?”
“I think that if they would have done that already, there wouldn’t be sixty armed forces outside this room.”
“I wish I could tell them to get lost,” Steve said. His sunburned face contorted with contempt. “Otherwise, I’m going to activate the explosives that I’ve hidden.”
“But didn’t you plan to ignore the people most of the time?”
“That’s right. I’m only supposed to speak with them at six in the evening, and then I’ll tell them to maintain a distance.” Steve got up and glanced at the screen affixed above the door. That screen constantly photographed the area around the hut. Nothing was different than it was during the last two hours: Dozens of people—most of them in uniform—were standing in silence and staring at the hut.
“Yuck, this technology,” he muttered. “I would break the camera.”
“You would do lots of things in the name of your principles, but in reality, you do the opposite,” Rudy said with a chuckle. “Who would have believed that a son of your parents would even know how to use a computer? And ‘know how to use a computer’ is putting it pretty mildly, isn’t it?”
“Enough already.” The water was boiling, and Steve poured it into his cup, which was still dirty from the dregs of the tea he’d drunk five hours earlier. His hands were shaking slightly. “Keying in a few codes doesn’t contradict my principles just yet. And don’t talk so much, Rudy. My nerves are strong, but at one point, they’re going to fray.”
“You chose this escapade out of your own free will.”
“That’s right. For him.” He stared into his cup as the tendrils of steam floated up into his eyes. “I just hope that my efforts will justify it.”
***
When my Sara’le opens the door, she’s very tense. “Is everything okay, Ima?” she asks immediately.
“Yes, baruch Hashem. Why do you think it isn’t?”
“Because when you come to visit me without any advance notice, it means that you are very worried. It’s about Yudi and Ruchi, right?”
“As opposed to…?”
“Do I know? A health issue, or something like that? Is there any lack of things to worry about?”
Something in her answer shakes me. Or more precisely, it resets me. “That’s right, baruch Hashem, everything is fine,” I say. “A thousand times baruch Hashem. Abba’s recent cardiac tests were very good, baruch Hashem, and I didn’t even have the time to worry before we got the results.”
“That means that Yudi is taking up all the space in your head.” She doesn’t sound offended or complaining, but the reminder—which I’m sure she doesn’t mean to be so direct about—of the six healthy years that we’ve experienced baruch Hashem, since my husband’s last angioplasty, makes me realize just how right she is.
“Not all the space there,” I say, following her inside. The children surround us excitedly. “Look, after volunteering at the kitchen today, I just decided to pop in to visit you—anything wrong with that?”
She smiles. “Not at all! I’m very happy about it!” she says. “So, you really just came over stam? For no real reason? Amazing! I am so beyond tired these days, I think I’m about to collapse.”
“Go to sleep, then, and I’ll take over here,” I say, without even thinking about what I’m offering. I’ve just spent four hours chopping, steaming, cooking, and baking, and I’m extremely uptight about my son, who really doesn’t sound good. I’d wanted to talk with Sara’le about it—that’s the true reason why I’d come. My other children are all very understanding of the fact that Yudi needs more than they do, but sometimes there is some resentment about that. Sara’le is the only one to whom I can speak in more detail about him without worrying about hurting her feelings or anything like that; she’s the classic oldest, there is no doubt about it.
Against the backdrop of the chaos all around, Sara’le accepts my offer without protest. “Thanks, Ima,” she says with a disbelieving smile. “Not for long, okay? Just half an hour, forty minutes. Yoni’s teething, apparently, and he screeched half the night. I can’t even tell you for how long it really was, because at one point I stopped checking my watch. And now I can barely stand on my feet.”
It’s important for me to remember my other kids and grandchildren. It’s not only Isamar. We also have Yoni, baruch Hashem. And Yehuda and Dovid and Esty and Chani—all of whom are now jumping around me in excitement. And besides them, there are a few other adorable, little representatives of our family, all over the country, not only in America.
“Go to sleep,” I say again. “What time is supper here?”
“Supper? It’s whenever you want it to be…”
And then Sara’le leaves to her room, and I get busy with “kids’ therapy.” Which means frying French toast for them, and telling them a story, and answering their thousand questions as I do. I help them find more or less matching pajamas and put them to sleep about five times.
At this point, I feel like I’m about to fall off my feet, and like Sara’le last night, I don’t bother checking the colorful wall clock behind me. Eventually, I lay down on the bottom bunk-bed next to my two-year-old granddaughter, like I used to do when her mother and aunt and uncles were little—and fall asleep.
I only wake up when I hear Sara’le’s footsteps coming into the room. “Ima, I’m so sorry!” she exclaims, sounding very guilty. “I…I didn’t mean to sleep for so long! It’s been three hours! You must have worked so hard getting everyone to eat and into bed…!”
“It’s fine, I also slept for some of the time, as you can see,” I say as I stand up. “Can we go now to clean up your kitchen together, and then we can talk? When does Yaakov come home?”
“Not for at least an hour and a half.”
“So this works for you?”
“Sure it does.” She peers at me with a look I cannot decipher in her eyes. “So, you did want to talk about something, Ima.”
“When did I say that I didn’t?”
“I asked you when you got here.”
“You didn’t ask me if I wanted to talk—you asked if everything is okay. And baruch Hashem, yes, everything is fine.” I take the dish sponge and wipe down the table that is stained with egg yolk and drops of chocolate milk. “I have Yudi on my mind. He’s worrying me, and I wanted to talk about it.”
“Something new?”
“Wait. Who’s making coffee, me or you?”
“I will. Sit down, Ima. I’m sorry there’s no cake to go with it. I haven’t baked in about six weeks. But there are good store-bought cookies.”
“I’m afraid the kids finished everything,” I say a bit uncomfortably.
“Don’t worry, there’s a secret stash in my room,” she says with a laugh.
As she walks out of the kitchen, I boil the water and wash out two glasses and two spoons. I feel bad that I fell asleep and didn’t manage to clean up Sara’le’s kitchen before she saw it. It’s not in the greatest shape, and it’s already Thursday.
Then again, she’s never been particularly clean and organized, this daughter of mine. Did her shvigger toss and turn at night about it, wondering what she’d done to her poor son by giving him such a wife? The very thought makes me want to whack my first mechuteiniste, Yaakov’s mother. And it makes no difference that she’s a celebrated speaker, and that she comes from an extremely chashuve family. Look what a wonderful daughter-in-law you got, and you dare complain?!
For a moment, I turn this thought over in my mind, trying to think what Ruchi’s mother would think of me if she’d be aware of my jumble of thoughts, worries, deliberations, and dissatisfaction. Despite the fact that there’s no comparison here…she’s also a mother. And not only that, but I am expected to understand her more than a lot of other mothers in the world.
I’m still trying to figure out what to answer to each of my mechuteinistes, when my daughter comes back into the kitchen with a package of cookies. I thank Hashem that the mechuteinistes visited me just now only in my imagination. Sara’le puts coffee and sweetener into the cups and takes the milk out of the fridge.
“I think we should go out onto the porch,” she says, “so that you don’t have to look at this awful mess the whole time. It was a huge chessed that you let me sleep, and now I’ll have the energy to clean up tonight, b’ezras Hashem.”
We go out onto the porch. It’s nice outside. We sip our coffees in silence, and it seems like Sara’le doesn’t know what to say; she’s waiting for me to start.
So I do. “I’m wondering what to do with Yudi,” I say into my coffee. I see only myself reflected there, but I can imagine my daughter raising an eyebrow. “He hasn’t been sounding good the last few times we spoke, and today he sounded even worse.” I put my cup down on the stone ledge, and glance through the railing to the busy street two stories beneath us. “Sara’le…I want him to come back to Israel. For a time.”
***
–No new recordings –
thenextpage-israelbookshop.com 