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…

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 12 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 next morning, Adina Kotzker’s head was aching badly. The trip back and forth up north the day before hadn’t done her any good, and although everything had turned out for the best, it was hard for her to muster a smile. Of course, she had smiled in spite of everything, because the coordinators and the madrichos and the students were not to blame that she was drained, but she’d hardly been able to sleep all night.

Her husband suggested that she postpone the board meeting, but she refused. These quiet days were the ideal time for such meetings. She liked the total quiet, without students or teachers in the background. True, she hadn’t planned that even Chana, her veteran secretary, wouldn’t be there, but Chana didn’t have all that much to do at the meeting anyway. Her job was basically to serve the refreshments and answer the phones in the office, which the young Mrs. Levinsky could do just as well.

By 8:50, Mrs. Kotzker was unlocking the door to the office. She nodded hello to the custodian who passed on his way to his little room at the end of the corridor. The members of the board were scheduled to arrive at 9:30, and she wanted to make sure that everything was in order before they came. Malka had prepared the reports before leaving for the Overnight, and all she had to do was pull out the two relevant binders and straighten the tablecloth.

She sat down at her desk, massaging her right temple, and wondered what that noise was on the second floor. She didn’t have too long to wonder, because two seminary girls burst into the empty office at that moment. Seeing that there was no one there, they hurried to the door of the principal’s office, which was open. Keep Reading…

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 11 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. 

By four thirty, Malka had managed to completely forget about the disturbing phone conversation. At two o’clock, after lunch, the girls were supposed to board buses for one of the nearby mountains, where a scavenger-hunt-style maze activity was planned for them. But then Yael’s phone rang, and all the plans went haywire.

“A child from a local moshav stepped on an old mine on the mountain we’re supposed to be going to,” Yael said with a somber expression. “He was seriously wounded, and the whole area’s been closed to hikers.”

“Hashem yishmor! I hope he has a refuah sheleimah!” exclaimed Ruti, one of the tenth grade madrichos, but in the same breath she added, “But when we went there the day before yesterday to put down the hints and the markers, there were no old mines!”

“Tell that to the police,” Yael replied dourly. “In any case, it’s closed, and there’s nothing we can do about it.” Keep Reading…

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 10 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. 

Elchanan wrinkled his forehead. “So why do you need me?” he asked. “Did you forget where the bank is or something?” Dvir’s store was bustling with the normal pre-closing-hour rush; the last few customers were loitering at the shelves when Yaffa had burst in with her bizarre request.

“I didn’t forget.” Yaffa took a deep breath. Only then did her husband notice the brown envelope in her hand. “But I want you to come with me there. I won’t know where to go and who to speak to.”

“Well, it’s about time you learned,” Elchanan said. He retreated into the store, looking for his wallet in the drawer under the cash register. It was true that Yaffa was only twenty, but if he wasn’t mistaken, he had taken care of banks transactions for his father from the age of fourteen. Well, his father hated big banks because of the Israeli tellers and clerks who had no patience for his heavy accent. And Yaffa? Yaffa couldn’t stand the bank, or the National Insurance office, and she could barely handle the doctor’s office because… Well, why? Now that he thought about it, he realized he had no idea.

“I don’t know,” Yaffa said as they stood in the bank between the chain link dividers and plastic plants. “These huge, cold places get me nervous.” When it was Elchanan’s turn, she watched him walk up to the teller and slide the brown envelope under the glass partition. “The account number is on the envelope,” he informed the clerk. Then he looked at Yaffa, standing to his right. “You see how simple it is?” Keep Reading…

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 9 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. 

A deep, heavy stillness hovered over the house. Bentzy was sleeping soundly, perhaps because he sensed that he was home alone with his father. Yaffa had gone to school, as she had the past few mornings, and Elchanan had suggested that if he was staying home this morning anyway, Bentzy could stay with him.

Elchanan had taken some Tylenol early in the morning and was now feeling so much better that he vacillated whether it hadn’t been foolish of him to miss a day of work. He went into the kitchen to prepare a cup of tea for himself. Opening the cupboard to take out the teabags, his gaze immediately fell upon the open package of Bamba standing behind the box of teabags. Now that the topic had been analyzed from all sides and resolved, the Bamba wasn’t quite so threatening anymore, and he took it out along with the tea. Yaffa wouldn’t be going to the Emmanuels’ house anymore, and that was that. All he needed was for his mother to find out what her daughter-in-law was dabbling in for a living.

Yaffa had halfheartedly agreed with him at first, and then became more convinced. She apologized for not telling him anything, but he was still so shocked about the whole thing that he almost forgot to be insulted. Yaffa also pointed out that now that she was working in the school, the job in Maaleh Adumim had really become superfluous and she could easily give it up.

For his part, Elchanan had promised that when the week of work at the school was over, he would help her find another job, something more normal than cleaning houses for twenty shekel an hour. Perhaps telemarketing or something like that; there were lots of positions available in that field. Or would telemarketing be too difficult for Yaffa? Speaking over and over again to strange people, half of whom were liable to get angry and scream at her before slamming down the phone? Keep Reading…

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 8 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. 

“That woman is going to send me out of my mind!” Malka grumbled angrily. The teachers’ room was empty, aside for her and the shelves of account books. “She approved forty sheets of labels for them from Efroni’s store. Each sheet cost six shekel. So she just threw two hundred forty shekel in the garbage!”

She recoiled somewhat when someone entered the room. While her irate murmurings were quiet enough that she could be sure the person hadn’t heard anything, she still felt uneasy.

“Oh, hi, Yaffa,” she said amiably. “How’s the work going?”

“Fine,” Chaya Schuck’s sister replied. “No problem.” She paused for a minute, as though waiting for the green light to enter the room, but when none was forthcoming, she continued her way into the teachers’ room anyway.

Malka observed her from behind. Yaffa looked so similar to Chaya in coloring and features—but the two sisters couldn’t be more different in temperament.

“Are you looking for something there?” Malka called when she saw Yaffa opening and closing the kitchenette cabinets one after another.

“No….not really…I mean…yes. I’m looking for cups, for coffee.”

“In the right cabinet, at the top,” Malka said, and went back to her papers. She concentrated for a few minutes until she heard a slight clearing of the throat to her right. “Yes, Yaffa?” she asked in the same cordial tone that she used when speaking to ninth graders.

Yaffa placed a steaming cup beside her.

“For me?” Malka was surprised. “Thank you. How did you know how much coffee and how much Sweet & Low I like?” Keep Reading…

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 7 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 next morning, Yaffa went to the high school. Elchanan was happy to hear about the temporary job her sister had found for her, and left for Dvir’s store, as he had been doing each of the past few days. Bentzy went to the babysitter upstairs, clean, calm, and with his hair freshly combed.

Even after she left the house, waited at the bus stop, and boarded the bus, Yaffa didn’t allow herself to think too much into what lay ahead.. As it was, with every step she took toward the school, she felt an urge to turn around and go home, to Bentzy, to her familiar housework.

What was she thinking, accepting a job in a school office that was totally unfamiliar to her? Not that she was any more inclined to work in her alma mater’s office; she was hardly interested in meeting her old teachers and the sisters of her friends and neighbors who would begin asking questions. But there, at least, she wouldn’t have a problem with the actual walls. They wouldn’t be foreign to her. Nor would eyebrows be raised. Now, however she looked at it, she was going into a strange, unfamiliar building, and she didn’t even know where the office was! She would have to find it on her own and introduce herself to the principal, reminding her that she was Mrs. Schuck’s sister who was reporting to work today for the first time.

Ugh. Too bad it was the end of the month, and Chaya was too busy at work to be able to accompany her for even half an hour. Keep Reading…