Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 17 of a new online serial novel, Dance of the Puppet, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week. Click here for previous chapters. 

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

Faigy Krauss, the assistant secretary of the high school, listened in silence to the tirade coming through the phone.

“It’s totally crazy, I’m telling you,” Chana raged repeatedly on the other end of the line. “And then he kept explaining to me how I have to give her all the backing and authority to make sure the job is done effectively and that there is continuity, blah blah blah.” She paused for a second. “Isn’t it ridiculous, Faigy? I’m asking you, is this normal? Principal! If Malka or Yael didn’t want to take on the job for whatever reason, couldn’t they have given it to one of us?”

“Why?” Faigy asked.

“Why? Because you and I at least have a vague idea of how the school runs, which this little girl does not!”

“That’s exactly what they wanted, Chana.” Faigy was calm. “They would never have given you the job of running the school, precisely because you know how to do it too well.”

“And you?”

“I would never take such a thing on myself.”

“So what do they want? Someone to run the place without knowing how?”

“No.” Only as Faigy said the words did she grasp how true they were. “They want someone to sign all their forms and to be presentable enough, but they will manage everything through her.”

“Presentable?” Chana huffed into the phone; it sounded almost like a snort. “Come on, Faigy.”

“Presentable from a legal standpoint, I meant, not that she’s going to speak at parents’ evenings or anything.”

“But why—” Chana wasn’t ready to give up so fast. Keep Reading…

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 16 of a new online serial novel, Dance of the Puppet, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week. Click here for previous chapters. 

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

“Can I speak to the princ—er, to Mrs. Yael Braun, please?”

Yaffa put down the receiver and walked over to the principal’s office. The board members were seated around the large desk with Malka Mann and Yael Braun, while Mrs. Kotzker’s chair remained empty. Yaffa knocked lightly, and all heads turned in her direction.

“I’m sorry to disturb,” she said in a near whisper. “Mrs. Braun, you have a phone call.”

Chana, the second secretary, walked into the office at that moment. “You shouldn’t bother them there, Yaffa,” she said to the younger woman’s back. “Is it urgent for now?”

“I told her to transfer all calls to me. They could be important,” Yael said as she emerged from the principal’s office and picked up the receiver. Yaffa returned to her desk and went back to the student roster, comparing the written information with the entries in the computer.

“Are you managing there, Yaffa?” Yael asked when she finished her conversation and headed back to the principal’s office. “How’s the computer program? Is it easy to work with?”

“Yes, and thanks for the explanations. Now I see that it’s not as complicated as I thought.”

“It’s not complicated at all,” Chana remarked from her seat, following Yael with her eyes as she returned to the board meeting. She could see that the discussion in the inner office was getting more intense; the atmosphere there was clearly loaded. Keep Reading…

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 15 of a new online serial novel, Dance of the Puppet, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week. Click here for previous chapters. 

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

Malka had once read a newspaper article that said that if a person displays signs of a stroke, he should be rushed to the hospital within three hours, during which time there is a chance to minimize the damage. She also read of a complaint by a patient who had indeed arrived at the hospital in time, but had to wait a very long time in the emergency room before receiving medical attention.

Her mother hadn’t had to wait even a minute. The paramedic in the ambulance had called ahead to the emergency room, giving notice about the patient’s serious stroke incident and loss of consciousness en route to the hospital, and everything was ready for them.

“When did it all begin?” asked the doctor who emerged from the Intensive Care Unit after an endless few minutes.

“At about four,” Malka replied meekly. Her father had been allowed in to see Ima for a minute, while she had been left standing in front of the heavy double doors with her brother, Shaul. As she stared at her whitened knuckles, a bizarre thought crossed her mind: She couldn’t be having a stroke right now also, could she? Keep Reading…

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 14 of a new online serial novel, Dance of the Puppet, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week. Click here for previous chapters. 

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

The curtain began to rise, revealing uniformly dressed figures sitting motionlessly. A small beam of light went on at the edge of the stage, slowly growing larger until it encompassed all of the performers.

“So, are we ready to start?” one of them whispered, clutching a large xylophone in his arms.

“One moment,” the pianist sitting next to him whispered back. “Menachem’s not here yet.”

“He’s here, he’s here,” the violin player interjected, glancing behind him.

The musicians began to applaud, and were quickly joined by the audience. Menachem appeared, nattily dressed, on the edge of the stage, smiling broadly. He bowed lightly to the hundreds of viewers, and without saying a word to them, he turned to those on the stage. “Ready, my friends?”

Then he glanced at his watch, and added, “I might have a surprise tonight…Well, we won’t wait now. Let’s begin.”

Soft notes flooded the hall, but they lasted just one minute before being interrupted by a shout. Keep Reading…

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 13 of a new online serial novel, Dance of the Puppet, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week. Click here for previous chapters. 

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

They were simply not compatible.

You didn’t just discover that now, the chair in the corner, with the rickety right leg, jeered at her. Since when did you think that you were? Remember your first trip to the supermarket, when he put products into the cart with hechsherim that you never even considered using in your parents’ home, not to mention the spend-thriftiness that stunned you? And the first Shabbos you spent at his parents’ house, when he was so unfazed by the fact that he’d left his hatbox at home, and went to davening on Friday night wearing just a suit—no hat? And the day he left his afternoon learning seder for good? And the day, a year later, when he left learning in the morning, as well?

Bentzy continued sleeping as his mother put him in his bed and angrily swiped at the newspaper from Tuesday that was covering the phone. Colorful squares and rectangles and pictures with green, grassy lawns tried to attract her attention, but she didn’t deign to give them a look. She didn’t want a trip to the Czech Republic; she didn’t want to go to remote places full of non-Jewish faces; she didn’t want to take Bentzy out of Eretz Yisrael for no reason, even if his grandmother and young aunts would love to have him there. The grandmother and aunts were really not part of the story at all. In fact, the whole issue of whether to take a vacation in a Czech hotel or in a bungalow up north in Israel was just a grain, one of many, that had accumulated in her throat over time, making it hard for her to breathe. The issue here wasn’t what to do during the time that school would be closed or before she found another job. The issue was Elchanan and herself.

“Compatibility is not everything,” Morah Elka Stern had told her a short time after she’d gotten engaged to Elchanan. His parents were foreign, and their families were so different in every way. “I can show you couples that are amazingly similar and don’t get along all that well. It depends on good middos. There are those who are polar opposites, and things go very smoothly for them.”

No, she and Elchanan weren’t polar opposites, and yes, they both had good middos— but things were not going smoothly at all.

*** Keep Reading…