Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 70 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

Shimon Weisskopf, standing in a corner of the arrivals hall, did give the impression of being on the ball. His curled peyos reached his shoulders, and he wore a broad, friendly smile as he lowered the sign that said “Yosef Schorr” and shook Martin’s hand. “Hi, how are you?” he asked in English, with a faint accent that Martin could not identify.

“Baruch Hashem, good,” Martin replied in Hebrew.

“You don’t look like the Yosef I remembered, but it doesn’t matter. The main thing is that you both have gray eyes.” He winked and took the handle of Martin’s – er, Yosef’s – large suitcase. “How was the flight?”

“I slept the whole time.” Now Martin answered in English, slowly and deliberately. He had no idea if any one of the dozens of people around them had come here, at Skulholt’s behest, to keep an eye on him. He needed to act as Yosef from now on.

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 69 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

“Hi, Yosef. I came to say goodbye.” Martin approached the young man seated in front of the screen in the hospital’s computer room; he seemed to be reading an article on the parshah.

“Huh?” Yosef turned around. “Oh, it’s you… Are you going back to Canada?”

“Yes, the time has come. I’ve been driving …your mother and her husband crazy for too long. They are probably happy to be getting rid of me.”

“I don’t think so,” Yosef said carefully. “Dov is nice because he likes to be, not because he has to be.”

“Yes, I noticed.”

Yosef slowly scratched his left hand for a few long seconds. “Uh…” he murmured, “Um…what did I want to tell you for a long time…? Oh, wait, we went somewhere together recently, right? Where did we go?”

“To renew your passport,” Martin reminded him cautiously.

“Oh, right. I’m…sorry for the ruckus I made. What ended up happening?”

Martin took a chair from the next desk and sat down. “Your passport didn’t come out good.”

“Why?”

“Because you didn’t want them to use your picture.”

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 68 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

So Chani and Penina were both planning to come for Shabbos. Hinda prayed that all should go smoothly, and discovered that she didn’t have any energy to spare on fretting. She peeled vegetables distractedly, and got a burn on her left hand as she sautéed the onions. “It should be kaparas avonos,” she muttered as she stuck her hand under the running cold water.

She heard Dov come in and quickly glanced over his shoulder. Phew! There was no sign of Martin.

“What happened?” Dov asked her.

“Not a big deal, a little burn. Nu, what did Reb Shlomo say?”

“That we should do it. He says that Martin makes a trustworthy impression. Although he did ask him to sign for us that he won’t use the passport for anything illegal.”

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 67 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

“I know what you want to ask,” Martin said. “The story is that Yosef…I don’t know what was with him that day. He got very scared of the idea that someone would see his picture, but on the other hand, he insisted that he had to renew his passport because his uncle in America needs him. In the end he told me to do the passport with my picture instead of his, and he ran outside.”

“But how did you do it?” Dov said evenly. “Are they so irresponsible there?”

“I don’t know. I came to the desk with Yosef’s documents, but none of them had an updated picture. His last passport is from when he was eight years old. I gave them my picture, and that’s what happened…”

Dov and Hinda were quiet. “You realize that this passport is useless, in any case,” Dov said, his voice sounding distant. “And without going into the details of this strange story, in your place, I really wouldn’t have done this.”

“I’m sorry.” Martin’s voice was low. “I was in a really tough situation there, and I couldn’t think of any other way to handle it.”

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 66 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

By the time Hinda and Dov returned to Haifa, it was after nine that night.

“Hinda?” Mrs. Schneelbalg, the neighbor upstairs, stopped her in the stairwell. “Do you mind dropping in by me for a moment?”

“Sure,” Hinda replied, throwing a glance at Dov. He should go inside, see how Yosef’s day had been…if he was even home. Her husband nodded almost imperceptibly.

“Thanks, that’s so nice of you,” said Mrs. Schneelbalg. “I know I can always ask you for a favor.”

Hinda smiled.

“I’m sewing a dress for myself, for my son’s wedding, and something about the cut reminds me of your Shabbos suit, the black one. You know which one I mean, right?”

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 65 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

Yosef’s face was almost as gray as the silvery gray chairs in the room. “No,” he said suddenly. “No, I can’t breathe here. Come, Martin, let’s go.”

“Huh? You can’t breathe?”

“I’m going to get an attack in another minute.” Yosef’s eyes were hard. “It’s because of that horrid photographer. I saw him on the way here, before we came in. He came to tell everyone that it’s me.”

“That what’s you?”

“That it’s me from the picture. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”

“I don’t understand. Don’t you want to renew your passport?” Martin asked. Maybe it was a good idea for him to learn psychiatry, although the computer world still captivated his interest.

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 64 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

Despite Yosef’s grim mood that afternoon, he woke up the next day charged with energy – which worried Hinda.

She wanted to make him another appointment with Dr. Brand, but was afraid to clip his wings. If the idea of traveling to Michoel filled him with so much vitality, she didn’t want to be the one to snuff it out. She would just gently insinuate, in little bits at a time, that it wasn’t certain that this plan would actually pan out, at least not as long as the directors of the facility where Michoel was did not give more information about their exact location, and if they were willing to accept him.

“Ima, you’ll go with me to the embassy, right? Our appointment is early this afternoon,” he said after breakfast, which he’d eaten together with Martin. Their friendship was interesting. Yosef could engage in conversation with the Canadian youth for a long time, but then he could abruptly withdraw into himself and not exchange a word with him for the next hour.

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 63 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

Not a single day of Chol Hamoed went by without Yosef mentioning Michoel and the passport that he needed to renew in order to travel to him and bring him home. On the morning of Isru Chag, he tackled the issue with uncharacteristic vigor.

“What do we need to do to renew my passport, Ima? Where is my old one? We can’t leave Uncle Michoel like this! Oh, and we need to speak to a travel agent.”

“You’re going to travel alone, Yosef?” She was sitting on the old armchair, and she looked into his eyes.

“Yes,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “Sure, what’s the problem?”

“I’m happy to accompany him,” Martin said, from the side of the room. “I want to get to America anyway.”

Yosef looked at him, his forehead creased. “But you’re from Canada, right?”

“Right.”

“So why aren’t you going there?”

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 62 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

“No minyan, nothing!” It was the day after Yom Kippur, and Michoel was almost crying to Hinda on Mike’s phone. “Not on Rosh Hashanah, not on Yom Kippur…what kind of Yamim Noraim did I have here?! And what will be with a sukkah?”

“I want to speak to them,” Hinda declared firmly. “Uncle Michoel, tell them I want to speak to them.”

“I don’t know if they will agree. I still don’t know if they’ll agree to take Yosef, even if you decide to send him in the end… What’s doing with him, by the way?”

“Before Rosh Hashanah, he moved to Maayanei Hayeshuah in Bnei Brak, and he stayed there for all of Aseres Yemei Teshuvah, until last night. I don’t know if I can send him the way he is now, Michoel.”

“I hear… How much time have I been here, Hinda?”

“That’s a good question. You weren’t at my wedding, and that was four months ago. But I don’t know if you were in Israel then, or if you’d already left the country.”

“I think I went to Mexico,” he said slowly. “I had a wedding there… But I had planned to be back for your simchah. What’s your new husband’s name again, remind me?”

“Dov.”

“Dov,” he echoed slowly, and then fell silent.

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 61 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

Rob, who had bought a Jewish calendar for Michoel, had no idea what a dust-up he would cause by doing so.

“I’m not in a closed institution!” Michoel said, for the ninth time. He was heartily sick of repeating this mantra by then. “All I am asking—demanding, actually—is to be allowed to pray on the two days of the holiday in a Jewish community. That’s all!”

“Indeed, you are not in a closed institution, not at all.” Dr. Jerry, apparently, was not sick of repeating himself at all. “But you are a very unwell man, Mr. Perl. We cannot release you for even one day.”

“What am I unwell with, huh?” Michoel was furious. “Explain it to me, please!” He stretched out his arms and slowly balled his fists. As he studied his fingers, he suddenly realized how much bonier, whiter, and more wrinkled his hands were—much more than ever before. “I feel perfect, Doctor, and I have no intentions of praying on my own, when there is a Jewish community just about twenty-five miles from here!”

“How do you know about that?”

“From the kosher products that I get from there.”

“Is that your appreciation?” Skulholt asked quietly.