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.

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 60 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. 

Mike, in the end I’m going to die of this anorexia—and it will be your fault. Why don’t you agree to bring me to where you are? I’ve lost almost thirteen pounds, and Mom is very worried. But when I look in the mirror, I still feel like I’m fat, and that I need to eat even less than I’m eating. I know it’s not normal, and that I need treatment, but I’m not sending you any more faxes if you don’t answer me, you annoying brother!

Mike crumpled the paper in frustration. Dr. Skulholt looked at him from the side. “Don’t be so angry, Mike. It’s not healthy. Not for the body or the soul,” he said softly. “Do you still believe she’s doing this on her own?”

“Absolutely!”

“Lower your tone, please. What do you think we are supposed to do? Bring her here and get in trouble with the law? She’s a minor, you know that, and you need to understand us.”

“Then at least I need to see her.” The idea suddenly popped into Mike’s head. “You are so good to me; you’re helping me so much, and I’m really doing well. What’s this obstinacy? Did I ask to kidnap her? If I bring her here for two days, and leave a message for my parents, they won’t worry.”

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 59 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. 

“The biggest problem is that time is very, very short, and we’re afraid he won’t be able to get a passport in time to leave in a normal way,” Dov told Hinda later that evening.

“A passport?” Hinda, mending the hem on Dov’s Shabbos pants, raised her eyes to look at him. “How did he get into the country?”

“With his passport, of course. But after the accident, when he ran to Michoel’s house, the passport disappeared.”

“He had it that evening?”

“Apparently, but in the emergency room he discovered that it was not in his pocket. The lawyer, Schwartzman, looked into it, and the police say they didn’t take it. And that no one else did either.”

“If you can believe them… So maybe he left it in the dorm that evening?”

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 58 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. 

“Hello, Hinda?”

“Michoel, how are you?”

“I’m…good, baruch Hashem. He should continue to help me. Tell me, what’s with Yosef?”

Hinda swallowed. “It’s not simple,” she said carefully. “Like I’ve told you, he hasn’t been feeling so well lately.”

“Do you remember that I suggested that you send him here, to me?”

She sighed. “It’s certainly not noge’a now, Michoel.”

He ignored what she said, as if he was trying to utilize every moment of the conversation. “And remember that I asked you, jokingly, if you think they kidnapped me and that I want Yosef to help me escape?”

“Yes, you said something like that.”

“Well…it wasn’t quite a joke.”

“What?!” Hinda sat down on the nearest chair. “You were kidnapped?! That sounds…”

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 57 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. 

Dr. Jerry Skulholt decided to have their semiweekly conversation on the open balcony this time. It was the first time Michoel had been out on the rooftop space. Gazing all around, he followed the doctor, who used his key to open the door. He gasped at the breathtaking mountain scenery that surrounded them. They weren’t really mountains—more like hilltops—but the horizon was mountainous, against a cerulean background, with a few clouds at the peaks.

“Amazing scenery,” he said. He didn’t ask which mountains they were, because he knew he wouldn’t get an answer.

“It is,” Skulholt said with satisfaction, and led him to a wide sunshade umbrella that stood over a plastic table and two chairs. The table was surrounded by plants, and in general, green was the dominant color on the balcony.

“We’ve been making some progress recently, huh?” Dr. Jerry said as he took his seat.

“Progress with me?”

“Yes. Don’t you also feel it?”

“Sure I do.”

“How are the memories? Inundating you?”

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 56 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. 

She spent the morning doing lots of nothing, and she didn’t fight it. Because it wasn’t really idleness. The thoughts and emotions and the whole mess enveloping her right now—inside and out—were actually a whirling activity that tired her out much more than, say, making lunch.

Hinda wandered around the house. She walked into Yosef’s empty room. He hadn’t called today, and when she dialed his cell phone it went straight to the voicemail. She wasn’t surprised. He didn’t particularly like his phone, and preferred to use it only for emergencies.

She had no idea what Dov had eaten for breakfast. If he had eaten. Was there any salad left from what Dov had prepared last night? She hadn’t bothered to check. She didn’t eat.

She needed to eat, she knew, and soon, she’d get a hold of herself and force some food into her mouth, but for the meantime, she allowed herself to fall apart a little bit.

Hinda pushed shirts into the washing machine and then stopped in the middle, without turning it on. She should have been calmer now that Yosef was in good hands. Here, at home, there was nothing for her to do for him, after two weeks of deterioration, which had caused her heart to beat at an insane pace. She hadn’t dared leave the house all that time. She’d been afraid to leave him alone, and as far as she was concerned, leaving him with Dov was also called leaving him alone.

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 55 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. 

“Chani, are you leaving now?”

“I already left. I’m at the bus stop now.” Despite the four empty seats at the stop, Chani couldn’t sit down. She paced back and forth with her phone, glancing at the street every few moments.

“What do you say? Do you think I should also go?”

She sighed. “You tell me, Baruch. Do you think you should go?”

“I don’t know. Last time he was hospitalized was two and a half years ago, and when I came to visit, he didn’t want to look at me.” Baruch fell silent for a minute. “And besides, it was during bein hazmanim.”

Chani heard all the unspoken words. “I don’t think it’s smart for you to go now, even though, to be honest, it would be much easier for me if you’d come along,” she said.

“Yes?” This time, it didn’t take a very sharp ear to hear the relief in his voice.

“What yes? Yes, that it would be easier for me if you came along, or yes, that you shouldn’t go to him?”

“That I shouldn’t go to him,” he whispered. “I can’t think of him in that place.”

“I know. Especially since, if I remember correctly, everyone who saw you in the ward told you how much you look like him, and that didn’t exactly make you feel good.”

“Right,” Baruch whispered again.

“I’ll give him regards from you.”

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 54 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. 

“He needs to get out of his routine a bit,” Michoel told Hinda. “Believe me, this is what he needs, Hinda. And coming to me here won’t only be getting Yosef out of his routine. It would be an excellent treatment option for him, too.” He was quiet for a moment, then added, “It will be good for me also. It will be regards from home, from Israel… You know, I miss it all so much…”

“Send Yosef to you?” Hinda looked at Yosef’s back, as he stood gazing out the window. She didn’t know if he was looking at the lights of the port slowly coming on, at the birds flying to their nest for the night, or at nothing.

“Yes. Why not? Haven’t I proven myself to be a nice uncle?”

“A very nice uncle, yes,” Hinda agreed. “But if I don’t know where you are, how can I send Yosef to you? Especially since I have pretty strong suspicions that he hasn’t been good about taking his medications these past few days…”

“I imagine that when it will be relevant, the people here will agree to give me details—or at least they’ll give them to you, if not to me. Everything will be fine, you’ll see.”

“Do you feel like you’re…getting better, Michoel?”