Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 40 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.
“Zahava, how is Yaakov Shlomo feeling?” It was Yankel.
She was sitting on a bench in the ward, outside her husband’s room, yawning. “Fine, baruch Hashem. Today they sat him in a chair.”
“That’s very fast, isn’t it? Wasn’t the surgery just yesterday?”
“Yes, but that’s how it is here. I hope they are good enough and that they know what they’re doing…”
“I think it’s a good hospital,” her brother said to her. “It really is a shame that you couldn’t come here for this surgery, but there was nothing we could do about it. Besides, even without taking your financial situation into consideration, I doubt they would do any surgery here now for foreign residents. You said that Tzippy made some inquiries about the surgeon, right?”
“Something like that. Believe me, I don’t remember anymore what she told me and what she didn’t. She’s only seventeen, and it was very hard for her to be here alone in this situation.” She glanced toward the end of the corridor.
“So she’s home now? Did you send her home to rest and recover a bit?”
“Yesterday evening, both of us went home, and then I came back here for the night. I didn’t let her come with me. Now,” she yawned, “she’s either home or in school—I don’t know what she decided on. I told her she has to get back to some kind of routine, but I think she’s supposed to come here in the next few minutes. She said she’d come in the afternoon—either from home or straight from school.”
“Nu, so she’ll come and you’ll go home. Chumi also needs you, doesn’t she? And you can make up for some lost sleep.”
“No, Yankel, I’ll make up for the lost sleep after Yaakov Shlomo feels better. It’s fine—I’m dozing a bit here and there, somehow.” Her fingers kneaded the upholstery of the bench, as she clenched and opened them.
“That’s what it sounds like,” he replied. “Is he in pain?”
“Oh, yes.” She yawned again. “It’s not simple at all, this surgery. They give him lots of painkillers, but it’s not enough.”
“But was it successful?”
“Yes, baruch Hashem. It’s not that he’ll be walking normally now, obviously. But things will go back to being the way they were half a year ago, and not like these recent few months when he was barely able to put any weight on his leg.”
“Oy. He should have a refuah sheleimah, quickly. What’s with the other leg? That needs surgery too, doesn’t it?”
“It’s not as urgent, and in any case, they always wait at least six months between one leg and the other. The right knee needs to recover, especially after this infection.” She stood up when she saw the doctor coming out of her husband’s room, but before she was able to approach him, he had already walked into the next room.
“Aha. The main thing is that he should be healthy.”
“Amen.” She leaned on the wall, afraid that she would collapse into a sleepy heap. “Okay, Yankel, I’m going to go into Yaak—”
“Oh, and you can tell him that just today, someone called me to find out how he’s doing. He wanted your address.”
“Someone? Which someone?”
“I don’t know—he told me his name, but I don’t remember it now. One of Yaakov Shlomo’s friends, from Lakewood, he said. He’s apparently marrying off a son or daughter and wants to send you an invitation.” Yankel laughed. “As if it’s easy to fly these days.”
“As if Yaakov Shlomo could fly these days… A friend from Lakewood?”
“I think so. He talked about the time that you lived there—maybe he was a neighbor or something? I don’t know.” Yankel paused for a moment. “Actually, he was very nosy and asked me a lot of questions. He seemed the type that you’ve never been able to stand, you know, those who pitied you and only enjoyed nosing around and gossiping about your situation…”
“Oh, that kind… So I certainly won’t let Yaakov Shlomo go to his child’s wedding, even if he recovers by then. As if I have extra money for plane tickets, anyway… I’m curious—what did he ask?”
“All kinds of questions about Yaakov Shlomo’s injured leg, and how he’s managing, and what’s he’s been through over the years, and what your children are doing these days, and what you are doing. And if—” he swallowed a laugh—“if Yaakov Shlomo is doing something with his excellent rhetorical skills.”
“His what?”
“His excellent rhetorical skills.”
“Oh. What did you answer?”
“Honestly, I don’t know how, with all his questions, he was able to get any information out of me, but I told him a little about where the two of you are holding in life.” Yankel sounded apologetic. “I’ve never encountered such a guy before. I would recommend he become a professional private investigator, if he could find someone in our day and age who would pay him for this nonsense… So I told him about yesterday’s surgery, and I gave him your address— it’s not a secret, right?—and I told him that you married off your son and that you have a grandson already, baruch Hashem.”
“And what did you answer about Yaakov Shlomo’s ‘rhetorical skills’?”
“Oh, I just laughed and said that he does some speaking here and there, but he hardly gets anything for it.”
“Yaakov Shlomo does some speaking? You mean Rubinson’s hotline?” Zahava was not pleased. “That’s called speaking? I know these kinds of people, Yankel. Next thing we know, he’s going to call Yaakov Shlomo to find out how much he makes a month, and it’s going to be so embarrassing! Oh, boy…”
***
“Are you going to Tatty now, Tzippy?” Chumi asked her older sister. They had just finished cleaning up the kitchen after lunch.
“Yes, do you want to come with me?”
“I think so.” Chumi sounded hesitant. “When do you think we’ll be back? Because I have a babysitting job tonight.”
“Oh, it will just be for a couple of hours.”
“Did you see the fax that came in? Maybe we should bring it to Tatty. I think it will make him happy.”
“No, I didn’t see anything. What came?”
“A few letters about his shiurim on the line, but I don’t think they came from the regular number that Rubinson usually sends faxes from. They are typed letters, and they say that people are praying for him and waiting for him to come back to speak, because they can’t manage without his lectures.”
“Wow!” Tzippy’s eyes sparkled. “He really will be happy to read that.”
“I’ll show you the fax.” Chumi disappeared into the other room and came back with four pages. She scanned the lines quickly again while Tzippy packed up a bag with some cookies and water bottles. “There’s more. It says here that they are waiting for him to emerge into redemption and to continue bringing down a positive influence to the world.”
“That’s very moving.”
“But…do you think this fax will make Mommy angry?”
“Angry? About what?”
Chumi lowered her voice, even though it was only the two of them at home. “She doesn’t like this hotline, you know. Rubinson probably hasn’t paid Tatty in a few weeks already, and even whenever he did pay him, she always said it was way too little, and it would be better for Tatty to just stop with all these recordings, because they’re just,” she hesitated, “…just a waste of everyone’s time. Because no one really listens to them anyway.”
“So here you are; obviously, there is someone who is listening to them,” Tzippy said, pointing to the papers. “We don’t have to get involved in…stuff between Tatty and Mommy. We’ll bring this fax to the hospital, and after that, it’s none of our business.”
***
“If you give us your Tankum for two or three days, we might be able to do some interesting things with it,” Yang Yang said to Shimmy one morning, appearing in his room soon after Shimmy had returned from Shacharis.
Shimmy turned to look at the big boy doll sitting in the corner of the room, switched off. “What do you want to do with it?”
“You sound like a father worrying about his child!” Yang Yang laughed, a sound that Shimmy could not stand. And being that the translation of his words was actually coming from the bat standing next to both of them, he felt his repulsion for the creature mounting even more. True, the one who had spoken and laughed was the Chinese man standing in front of him, but that did not change the fact that he was also angry at Christopher. Wonders of the human mind.
Or the human heart?
Either way, it was something that didn’t exist with robots.
“I want to install a system similar to our robots inside him. Like a copy of Christopher, to be more precise. He won’t fly, and he also won’t be able to move himself more than you set it to move. But as far as talking and understanding, he will function pretty nicely. If we are successful, of course.”
“And if you destroy him, in the process?”
“First of all, we won’t destroy him,” Christopher declared, looking at Shimmy with his big eyes. The gaze was piercing. “And even if we do, you have thousands more of these in the warehouse.”
“No, I don’t,” Shimmy said bitterly. “Until we come up with the final payment, the factory won’t release even one more doll. But okay, what do I have to lose?”
“Excellent.” Yang Yang picked up the big doll and stuck it under his arm. Tanchum’s eyes were open wide, and he gazed at Shimmy from his awkward position. Something in that gaze was chilling.
“How is your father?” Yang Yang asked before he left.
“He had the surgery, and we’re praying for the best…” Shimmy was hesitant. “By the way, I think I’m leaving next week, Yang Yang.”
“We’ll up the pay if you stay,” the Chinese man said ,without blinking.
“This research is so worthwhile to you? It’s all a small mistake in a robotic system!”
“A small mistake that has gotten all of America into turmoil.”
“What?”
“You know what? I’ll tell it to you straight: Christopher has been warning us constantly that you have a direct connection to this issue of the banks and the whole economic mess in America. In our opinion it’s a mistake, but we have to understand what this mistaken, logical connection is based on. Now do you understand how important you are to us?” He laughed again and then quickly left, as if regretting his little slip of the tongue.
Or was it intentional, to see how Shimmy would react?
“Who is ‘us’?” Shimmy asked, hurrying to the door. But Yang Yang was already almost at the car that was waiting for him a few feet away, and he didn’t answer.
***
Thank you for the letters of encouragement and good wishes that have been sent to me. I was very moved, and I truly felt your empathy. I hope that I’ll be able to come back to speak to you again soon, dear listeners.
