Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 36 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.
“In serious condition! He wants people to pray for him! So now at least we know he’s not dead, but go figure what’s going on with him…”
Steve was getting more agitated by the minute. He got up and then sat down again. He opened the cabinets that were packed with boxes of food that could last even through a three-month siege, and then closed them. He strode to the other room and then came back. “His voice was cut off suddenly, as if someone had stopped the recording right after he’d asked for prayers. I hope they didn’t catch him.”
“They didn’t. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be here, waiting patiently for you,” Rudy reminded him as he wrapped himself in a thin woolen blanket he’d found in one of the cabinets.
“Their patience is holding only because of what I buried all around this cabin.”
“What difference does it make why they are still being patient? They are surrounding you, so they are not surrounding him. That’s encouraging, right?”
“Right.”
“And it’s also encouraging to hear that he asked for prayers. This way we know he’s not an atheist,” Rudy added, trying to pull Steve out of the black mood he sometimes sank into.
“That was clear even before this latest development,” Steve snapped derisively. “I wouldn’t be listening to an atheist. Yuck! And I wouldn’t have done everything that I did to protect him and to get him to continue spreading his good in the world.”
“But it’s impossible to know what he is. A Muslim? Jew? Christian?”
“No, not Muslim.” Steve shuddered. “Although there were those who speculated that he is a Muslim seeking revenge on the superpower, heretical America.” He laughed hollowly. “In any case, I’m not interested in how he affiliates himself. I think he’s simply a big man who wants to rectify the world, like me. A big man with big aspirations and big dreams.” He smiled, and his face took on a dreamy look. “I wish I would succeed in doing a quarter of what he is doing in his life.”
“You’re succeeding, aren’t you? Look, you reset some of those accounts to zero again. That will teach them a lesson that they haven’t yet learned from the last round.”
Steve scowled. “Don’t talk to me about it. This time, they had a backup that wasn’t on any network, and within a few minutes, they had it all fixed.” He smiled suddenly. “At least Moni left this message and not anything else. Think of what would have been if he’d said something that would give away that he is not me in this cabin. My entire story would have blown up!”
***
Ruchi’s sister walks onto the large balcony on the top floor, and to her surprise, discovers her parents, sitting there silently.
“I’m sorry,” she apologizes. “I didn’t know you were here. I didn’t know that you were in the house at all now, Tatty. I didn’t hear you talking.”
“We’re more ‘thinking’ than talking,” her mother says with a sigh. “But if you’ve already come up here, Esther, can you please bring me the orthopedic pillow from the guest room? I forgot how hard and uncomfortable these porch chairs are.”
“Sure,” Esther replies, and hurries back down the stairs. Her mother’s eyes follow her receding back, and then she says quietly, “And if his agent is Jewish, what does that say?”
“It gives a lot of basis to the fact that he’s also Jewish. And not just Jewish—but a talmid chacham.”
“Yes, his lectures are of very high quality.”
“What I like less is that he ostensibly conceals his sources, and quotes them without saying where they are from, as if he is trying to adapt himself to everyone.”
“If it’s for parnassah…” she murmurs.
“There are things that you don’t do, even for parnassah,” her husband avers. “But fine, I don’t have to like everything he is doing. His agent who is secretly behind the dissemination of his speeches isn’t either a figure who…” He tries to find the right word. “…who I would choose to be my rav.”
“Why, who is it?”
“Leibowitz didn’t give me his name, only a general picture. He’s Jewish, but it’s not even clear if he defines himself as frum. He left America a week ago to one of the former Soviet states—I think it’s Russia—so that he won’t have to turn Moni in.”
“Turn Moni in? But they seem to know where Moni is, don’t they?”
“Leibowitz claims it’s all nonsense, maybe an intentional deception. And just as he believes that Moni is a Jew who is shomer Torah u’mitzvos and not an Amish guy, he’s also sure that Moni is not barricading himself in that village, and he’s elsewhere.”
“Where?”
Her husband doesn’t answer.
Esther returns to the porch. “Here you go, Mommy,” she says.
“Thanks.” Her mother smiles and stands up with difficulty. “What’s Ruchi up to now?”
“She’s sleeping, I think.” Esther arranges the orthopedic pillow on the chair. “The door is almost completely closed, and it’s quiet there. I saw Chana’le in the kitchen, making a bottle for Isamar.”
Her father nods. “Thank you,” he says. The girl stands for another moment, glancing from one parent to the other, and then registers their heavy silence and goes back inside.
“In Leibowitz’s opinion,” Ruchi’s father speaks slowly, “Moni is in Eretz Yisrael.”
“In Eretz Yisrael?! That’s where he ran away to?” She leans forward. “What…why does he think so? That’s all we need, for these anti-Semites to hear that the person who has generated all this chaos has fled to Eretz Yisrael and is hiding there!”
“For that reason, Leibowitz asked that we keep it a secret, so as not to harm anyone.”
“He doesn’t have any solid proof anyway, that Moni is there.”
“Right, it’s only an assumption, based on his gut feeling. But Leibowitz’s feelings are usually pretty spot-on, which is why I reached out specifically to him.”
“Are you going to pay him based on these gut feelings?” She tries to find a more comfortable position.
“Some of the money, yes.”
“So he really thinks Moni ran away to Eretz Yisrael?”
“He’s not sure he ran away. He thinks it’s possible that he lives there. Leibowitz is trying to find out through his channels.”
“Nonsense. Moni is an American in every way, a New Yorker from birth. You hear his heavy New York accent.”
Her husband smiles. “There are a few Americans living in Eretz Yisrael, you know.”
“Right,” she acknowledges. “So, you think he records his lectures from there?”
“Yes. Does that sound so strange?”
“I don’t know, it’s an angle I didn’t think about at all… In any case, what do Leibowitz’s assumptions help us? We can’t find an address based on assumptions. So he thinks Moni is a Jew who is currently in Eretz Yisrael—very nice. What are we supposed to do with that information? Go with Ruchi to Eretz Yisrael, walk through the streets, and shout, ‘Is somebody here Moni?’?”
***
“Maybe you should go,” my husband says in his deliberate tone. “I think that will make less of a bad impression than asking him to come here.”
“Right…” I sit on the couch next to the mound of laundry, but aside for stretching the socks over the arm of the couch, I’m doing nothing. “And honestly? I think I’ll be able to have an influence.”
“On who?”
“On Ruchi.” I look at my husband. “I have no idea what they did with her over the years, and how they helped her advance. I believe that they did everything they felt they could, but…you know how much I did for Yudi.”
“For sure,” he says. “I shudder to imagine where he would be today, if not for your interventions.”
“I don’t want to criticize anyone, chas v’shalom, or to judge. Last night, I thought a lot about Ruchi’s mother and everything she’s going through… But sometimes, I have a feeling about the way they act…that as parents, they are…too submissive to her. I can’t imagine Yudi in these situations, because they are very different, inherently, baruch Hashem, but I do think that if Ruchi would be my daughter…I would work differently with her.”
“How?”
“I can’t know without being there, close up.”
“And you think they’ll let you be so close up? When we came to the bris, I got the impression that they want you to come as little as possible.”
“Right, except for once, when her mother was really desperate. But do you think that if I offer to help out, even a bit, like the aide, her parents will get insulted—or will they be happy instead?”
“The question is how you can have this conversation in the first place,” my husband answers slowly. “If you come as a shvigger who wants to redo her daughter-in-law, so to speak, that will scare them. But if you come as an experienced mother, with empathy…”
“That won’t scare them? They are also experienced, in their opinion.”
“Nu, so I’m asking the same question.”
“I think the experience I acquired here in Israel is very different from their experience there.”
“Do you think that special education in America is not as advanced as it is here? I don’t think that’s the case.”
“Maybe the professionals they worked with were not as good as the ones who helped us. And I got a lot of information from them. A lot.”
“Yes,” he says quietly. “That’s right.”
“So maybe I know a lot more than Mrs. Katz does.” I continue arranging the socks next to me. “I just need to think about how to present this in a way that it will be accepted, in a nice way, not a conceited one. Because I really am not being arrogant. I just feel so bad for them. For Ruchi…” I hope that my voice isn’t trembling too much. “And for Yudi. I’m allowed to, aren’t I?”
***
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