Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 44 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.
“Ruchi, Tatty and I have an idea.” Mrs. Katz sits down on the bed nearest to Isamar’s cradle and looks at her daughter.
“What?” Ruchi raises her eyes from Isamar’s mobile. She’s in the middle of spinning it around and around, enjoying how the baby’s eyes follow the dancing lights.
“You know that we can’t do any surgeries now here, right?”
“No! No! Don’t talk to me about surgery now!” She abandoned the mobile. “Please, Mommy! I heard what Tatty said, that in the hospitals these days, there are tons of police. I’m scared!”
“That’s exactly it; we don’t think it’s a good idea to go with Isamar to the hospital now, at least not here.”
“So then where is it yes okay to go to the hospital?”
“In Eretz Yisrael. There are very good doctors there.”
“What?! We should fly to Eretz Yisrael?!”
“Yes, that’s our idea. You like flights and trips, don’t you?”
Ruchi’s hands are shaking as she sits down. She’s silent for a few long moments. She tries again to activate the mobile but isn’t able to. Her mother comes closer to her and puts a hand on her daughter’s frozen shoulder.
“I….” Ruchi is taking deep breaths, and they are coming more rapidly and closer together. “I…can’t…fly…now.”
“Not alone,” her mother says quickly. “Do you know that Breindy needs to go to Eretz Yisrael soon?”
“Breindy Shurkin?” Ruchi raises her eyes. “When is she coming here?”
“This evening, like we made up. Do you want to talk to her about a trip to Israel?”
“I like Breindy…” Ruchi’s lips are taut. “And when we went there with the group of girls, it was a lot of fun with her. But…now it’s different. How can I travel with Isamar?”
“Breindy will help you take care of him.”
“Oh, you spoke to her already? You told her that we will go with Isamar and that she’ll help me?” She is finally able to get the mobile back on, and a mournful, screechy tune fills the room again.
“Not really, I just wanted to hear what she thinks about it.”
“Yudi’s mother won’t want me to come to them.”
“She actually very much wants you to come. She misses both of you and Isamar.”
“You spoke to everyone already.” Ruchi sounds resigned.
“And now I’m talking to the most important woman in this whole subject.” Her mother smiles warmly at her. “What do you say, Ruchi’le? Would you like to go to Israel, where you can go to stores and buy things with regular money?” She knows her daughter’s penchant for shopping trips, and hopes that this will also help convince her.
She doesn’t say a word about Moni. If the information is correct, she must not endanger anyone with a potentially careless word from Ruchi.
Breindy Shurkin comes that evening, cheerful and vibrant as always. “Ruchi!” she says, patting the shoulder of the girl whom she’d worked with in high school. “How are you? What’s doing?”
Ruchi looks up, and her mother wonders if she also feels like the entire room changed with Breindy’s dramatic entrance. “Breindy!” She manages a small smile. “You came!”
“Of course I came. Show me, is that your baby? This is so exciting, Ruchi—you’re a mother! To this adorable baby!”
“What does it help me that he’s adorable?” Ruchi’s words come out in a bitter tone. “I can’t be his mother anyway. He has a crooked leg and he needs surgery, and I don’t know how to take care of such a thing.”
“You are already his mother, Madame Rachel, whether you like it or not,” Breindy says with a broad smile. “What does that mean, ‘I can’t be his mother anyway’? Mothers are mothers even if their children have a problem.”
“Right,” Ruchi agrees. “Like my mother.”
“Like your mother, right.”
“Even though I don’t have a crooked leg.”
“Right, baruch Hashem you have two straight legs, and that’s amazing. Think about what would happen if chas v’shalom you would have a limp.”
“Like Moni,” she says.
“Who, that crazy guy?”
“He’s not crazy!” Ruchi’s eyes are fiery. “He’s a very smart man! Don’t you know he might even be Jewish? I wish Yudi and I could ask him questions and get advice from him!”
“I’m not sure he’s Jewish; they say he might be Christian. And besides, I don’t think it’s a good idea to seek advice from a person who caused so much harm to so many people, even if it was possible to get in touch with him.”
“Enough.” Ruchi puts her hands on her ears. “I look up to him, so don’t say that to me.”
“Fine.” Breindy has something very calm and accepting about her. “We’ll talk about something else. What’s this cutie’s name?”
“Isamar.”
“What a beautiful name!” She looks at Ruchi. “And how do you feel about flying with me to Eretz Yisrael, like we did during summer vacation a few years back?”
“I want to,” Ruchi says eagerly, and at the same time, she starts to get red. She takes her pillow and hugs it fiercely. “But…I’m afraid. What if I suddenly don’t feel good?”
“That’s what I’ll be there for.”
“So what…” Ruchi’s voice emerges muffled from the embroidered lace of the pillowcase. “I can also cry and scream, you know. And then my parents and also Yudi don’t know what to do with me.”
“You scream sometimes? You?” Breindy pretends to look very surprised. “Can’t be.”
“I can.” Ruchi peeks out at her over the pillow, her eyes huge and a bit blank. “Not a lot, but sometimes. But…Dr. Wood gave me medicine that I can take when I don’t feel good. It makes me a little calmer and also sleepy. So maybe I should take it for the plane ride, and then I’ll sleep most of the way.”
“That’s also an idea,” Breindy agrees.
***
Abe Rubinson leaned on the frozen railing of the balcony. Everything was covered in snow, and despite the scarf covering his face almost entirely, the cold cut into his lungs. While he was acquainted with extreme cold, here in Russia, things were very different from the familiar New York winters.
He didn’t like the cars he saw downstairs.
The Russians couldn’t be allowing Americans to deploy on their street, right?
Only when he noticed the door to one of the vehicles opening, and he recognized the person who came out of it, did his breath slow down to a normal pace.
“It’s you, Andrei!” Rubinson opened the door to his friend. “I was afraid that all those cars downstairs were the CIA or something. Can I offer you a hot drink?”
“Yes. And I’d love if you can offer me some reasonable answers to a few questions, too.”
Rubinson glanced at him. The tone of the oligarch who had helped him so much did not sound particularly friendly right now.
“If I have answers, sure.”
Andrei followed him into the small kitchen. The kitchen was actually new, but it was built in the old Russian style. It didn’t have a lot of cabinets, not that Abe had very many dishes to store anyway.
“For starters, why did you deceive me?” Andrei burst out.
“Deceived you? Me?” Abe took the electric kettle down from the shelf and filled it with water.
“Yes. When we were in America, you gave me the impression that you are connected to the hackers who breached the American banking system. But from all our investigating, it turns out that you never had any connection with that Amish guy, Steve.”
“I never said I have a connection with him.”
“That’s what you led me to understand.”
“No!” Rubinson turned around. “I made it clear to you that I’m Moni’s agent, that’s all. Moni! The man whose recordings have sold in the hundreds of thousands! I’m responsible for the publication and distribution of his lectures. But the fact that America thinks that Steve is also connected to Moni—and indeed, there seems to be a certain connection there—doesn’t mean that I have anything to do with Steve!”
“What’s his connection to Moni?”
“I already answered these questions when I came to you the first time,” Rubinson said. He sighed a deep, feigned sigh, but a frisson of worry flared up deep inside him. Andrei’s expression was completely inscrutable, and something about the gleam in his eye conveyed danger.
“The CIA thinks that Moni is connected to this story, and that he sent the hacker to do what he did. But I know the truth: He’s not responsible for this whole thing, and he was not even aware of…any of it. The ones who carried out the hack are some of his insane admirers. I told you all of this clearly!” Rubinson tried to appear irritated; that was his best defense.
“And yet, the impression that I got, as did my friends, was a bit different.”
“That’s your problem.”
“No, it’s not our problem.” The other man smiled dryly. “If we get the impression that you deceived me, the problem will be yours.”
“I didn’t deceive you.” Abe poured the hot water into two Styrofoam cups and added teabags to them, hoping that Andrei didn’t notice how nervous he was. “And I’ll tell you something else, if you ask me. When all is said and done, in my opinion, the CIA knows that Moni is not the brain behind the hack, and that’s why they are not really looking for him.”
The Russian billionaire was silent, staring into the cup that had been placed in front of him.
“It’s true that for years, I carefully erased any trail that might lead to Moni, and for them he is just a recorded voice, nothing more. But does it make sense that a huge organization like the CIA cannot track down one man, even after weeks of searching for him?”
Andrei looked up. “It took them years to find Bin Laden,” he said.
“Bin Laden—who had dozens of doppelgangers and even more hiding places.”
“And this Moni is not like that?”
“Oh, no.” Rubinson chuckled. “Not at all.”
“So, how do you explain it?”
“The explanation is that the CIA are not making enough of an effort. They know the truth—that they don’t need Moni to fix this massive problem. Steve is their lead, so they are focusing all their energy on him. They also seem to be continuing to search for Moni, whose words apparently led to this mess, but he’s not the real culprit, and they know it.”
“In your opinion.”
“Not in my opinion, but to my knowledge.” Abe Rubinson smiled. “I’m the only one in the world who knows who Moni is, and like I said, believe me, if the CIA really thought he’s the guilty one, they would know who he is too.”
“You’re not the only one who knows who Moni is. Moni himself also knows,” Andrei corrected him.
Rubinson replied with a strange smile that the man sitting across from him did not miss.
“Are you Moni?” Andrei asked suddenly.
“No,” Rubinson declared immediately.
“So what’s your interest in protecting this secret?”
Rubinson smiled and clasped his fingers.
“Soon you’ll tell me that really, you’re an altruistic person, with no personal interests,” Andrei went on.
Rubinson chuckled.
“So?” Andrei knitted his eyebrows in an expression that made it clear that he was sick of this silence game.
“Money, Andrei, money. That’s what it’s all about.”
***
How strong is the power of faith! In the complex journeys we sometimes have to take, only the knowledge that there is Someone Who loves me, and that He is the One who chose this path for me, gives us strength.
