Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 41 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.
Eli Katz, Ruchi’s father, walks into the house, wrapped in his thoughts, his gaze unfocused. It’s so out of character for him that even Ruchi, sitting in the armchair, asks him, “Tatty, are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine, baruch Hashem,” he says as he takes a seat near his son-in-law. Yudi is sitting and doing nothing more than gazing at the ceiling. Ruchi begins to laugh, that hoarse, somewhat forlorn sound that she had taken to using these past few weeks.
“You look so funny!” she says. “The two of you sitting next to each other, without talking. It seems like you don’t even notice that you’re sitting near each other!”
“I definitely noticed Yudi, actually,” her father says. “Hi, Yudi, how are you?”
“Huh?” His son-in-law turns to look at him with wide eyes rimmed by dark circles. “Me? So, I don’t know. Uh…baruch Hashem, fine.”
“When did you get home from work?”
“I didn’t go.”
“Why?”
“Because my boss said that he can’t pay for the next month anyway, and if I come late, then it’s better that I shouldn’t come at all this month.”
“And why—” Eli closes his mouth a second too late. There is no reason to ask why Yudi would have come late. The answer is clear, and it is also shouting from his wife’s exhausted eyes as she walks into the room at that moment.
“Hi, everyone,” she says with a smile. “Supper is ready, and it’s hot. The other kids ate already. Are you coming to eat now?”
“I don’t want anything.” Yudi shrugs. “Thanks.”
“I actually am hungry,” his father-in-law says, standing up. He walks over to the dinette and asks, “Did anything new happen?”
“No. But today, even in the morning Ruchi hardly managed to sleep, so none of us has caught up on any sleep. Also,” she neatly folds the cloth napkin near her plate and sits down, “the mechuteiniste called me.”
“What now?”
“I have no idea. I didn’t answer the phone.”
“Very good. When you don’t have energy for these calls, just don’t answer them.” He looks at the other two bereft settings at the table and says, “So they’ll eat after us? That’s better.”
“Why is it better?” She slides the platter with the chicken closer to him.
“Because I wanted to tell you that the investigator gave me a certain name.” He doesn’t put anything on his plate, despite his earlier declaration about being hungry.
“A certain name?”
“That might be Moni. He warned me not to write anything down, just to remember the details by heart.”
“Why not write it down?”
“It’s a very explosive and sensitive topic, and believe me, he used much sharper words.” He lowers his voice. “Like I told you before, Leibowitz believes that Moni is a frum person living in Eretz Yisrael. Just imagine what would happen if this story gets out, and how much tension it might generate about whether to have him extradited to America or not, and that’s even before we think about the tremendous chillul Hashem this could generate.”
“A frum person,” she says thoughtfully, and spears a few leaves of lettuce and purple onion with her fork. “And his real name?”
“It’s better you don’t know, for now.” He puts one spoonful of mashed potatoes on his plate, but then just stares at it as if it’s a pile of wet sand. “I got such sharp warnings from Liebowitz…”
“But whoever he is, Moni surely wouldn’t agree to risk coming here to speak with Yudi and Ruchi, the way Ruchi is dreaming.”
“Oh, of course not. I would suggest they travel to Israel, the faster the better.”
“Ruchi?! Travel?!”
“I haven’t heard the man too many times, but from what I did hear, and from what I understand from others, he is somehow able to effect transformations among his listeners.”
“I know, but he’s not the issue right now!”
“Then who is?”
“Do you hear what you’re saying? Ruchi should travel?! As soon as possible?!” She laughs, and he has no idea if it’s a slight wind whistling past the window outside, or if her voice suddenly sounds a bit hysterical. “Are you in cahoots with Yudi? That’s what he once threw at us. Does Ruchi look stable enough to fly right now? You tell me!”
“In theory, yes, and it might even do her good. She’s not afraid of flying, and she’s flown two or three times at least, if I remember correctly.”
“A flight to Israel is very long,” his wife says, rather irrelevantly.
“She’s flown there too before, right? When she was…how old was she? That summer, with her high school? We didn’t even join her then.”
“They were accompanied by counselors the whole time. And besides,” she sighs, “she was much more emotionally stable at the time.”
“But I think that if she hears about this trip, her condition will improve drastically.”
“Oh, you’re going to tell her that Moni lives in Israel and they’re going there to talk to him?” She pours a cup of seltzer and then gazes at the bubbles.
“Not exactly, but I will let her infer something like that.”
“And if she mentions this to anyone else? You are talking about a hot, dangerous subject, about absolute secrecy…” Her eyes are fixed on a tiny bubble trying to make its way upward to the rim of the clear liquid.
“First of all, Ruchi knows how to keep things absolutely secret. Don’t make her sound totally incapable of anything.” His voice drops. “And besides—even if she does blabber about it, do you really think anyone will believe her?”
“There’s no way to know.”
“Of course there’s no way to know. That’s why we have to be smart here, and do things very carefully.”
She drinks the seltzer slowly. “I don’t know, Eli. I can’t even bring myself to think about it.”
“About what? Ruchi traveling?”
“Yes. And besides the crucial question of how they will manage, I also have no idea what her mother-in-law will think.”
“She’ll think that her son needs to air out a bit from all the financial pressures that have erupted here, and that we are supportive of the idea—that’s all.” He takes a deep breath. “And we’re even ready to provide them with tickets for this.”
“Oh! Tickets!” Ruchi’s mother shakes her head. “How were you actually thinking of doing this? The prices are insane right now.”
“We’ll manage with that. If we decide it’s worth it, then there are ways to get decent tickets. I know of an agent who’s offering big discounts on airline tickets if he’s paid in cash.”
“Yudi’s mother will think that we’re trying to get rid of them.” A small wet circle suddenly forms on the tablecloth. “That I’m looking for a vacation.”
“Okay—and if you are?” her husband says. “Tell me, Dina, with all your backaches—which are clearly the result of all the stress with Ruchi, Isamar, and everything—don’t you deserve a little break?” He takes a crispy, browned chicken quarter onto his plate. “Next time Ruchi’s mother-in-law calls, I think you should answer. And start preparing her for the idea that she’s going to be hosting them for two weeks, at least. And you know what? Even without the Moni mess, I think the time has come to share the burden a bit.”
***
“What are you doing, Tzippy?” Yaakov Shlomo’s voice is weak.
“Organizing this bedside table, okay? The drawer is a mess.”
“Fine, but don’t throw out any papers.”
“The faxes that I brought?”
“Yes.”
“Of course not.” Tzippy folded the four pages with her eyes squeezed shut. When they’d come, she had been happy for Tatty. She knew how important these things were to him. But later, when she saw him reading the pages over and over again so excitedly, she suddenly didn’t like the way it all looked. Perhaps her discomfort was compounded by his overall impression of being ailing in a hospital bed, but she didn’t think it was only that.
Not that she was starting to compare him to her friends’ fathers, who were maggidei shiur, well-known figures in the neighborhood, or even just dedicated kashrus mashgichim like Rabbi Langer. But sometimes, the differences between her father and these men were so obvious, that they really pinched at her. And when she saw her father so excited about a few silly faxes that had come for him, because of an anonymous hotline that hardly anyone even knew about…the pain just rose so much sharper in her heart.
“Where’s Mommy?” he asked.
“She went to Yad Sarah, to see what this hydraulic walker that the doctor recommended for you is all about. Maybe they’ll be able to give it to you already.”
“I’m being released the day after tomorrow, b’ezras Hashem, right?”
“Looks like it, if the doctors continue to be satisfied with how you’re recovering.” She threw out three empty medicine cups and a water bottle that had totally lost its shape.
“Amen, b’ezras Hashem.”
“What I wanted to ask you, Tatty, is if you mind if Shimmy’s Batya comes to us for Shabbos. He’s not back yet, and Batya and I have gotten a bit closer over the past few days.”
“He’s not going to be back yet?” Yaakov Shlomo raised his eyes. The strong pain was thankfully fading more each day, but he was still under the influence of medications that made him a bit drowsy. “How long has he been away for, Tzippy?”
“A few weeks. I haven’t kept track exactly.”
“More than a month already, no?”
“I think so.”
He shook his head, clearly displeased, but didn’t say a word. If he would have the strength, he’d ask Tzippy for the phone, call up Shimmy right then and there, and tell him that it didn’t matter what the story was—you don’t leave your family alone for so long. But he had no strength for Shimmy to start with his endless debating and arguing. And truthfully, what did he, Yaakov Shlomo, know? Maybe Shimmy’s affairs were much more significant than he could imagine. Maybe he was sick, chalilah, and had gone abroad for some type of treatment?
“Is Shimmy in good health, Tzippy?”
“As far as I know, yes. Baruch Hashem,” she said. Good, she finally liked the way the little table and the drawer looked.
“And is he really in China? It’s not that he went, chalilah, for some medical treatment somewhere, and is hiding the truth from us?”
***
Again, thank you all for the letters of encouragement and good wishes that were sent to me. I was so touched. I hope that very soon, I’ll be able to speak to you again, dear listeners.
