by Miryam Sivan
Why did Lia and Yael always call her Mom, whereas Uri insists on the Hebrew, Ema? Why had she never wondered about this before? Why did she call her parents Suri and Dave? Why had she never wondered about that?
“They wanted to be mean,” Lia said to Uri. “They wanted to make life hard for the Jews. They wanted to be hurtful.”
“Who?”
“The people who ruled the place.”
“The people who believe Jesus is god and messiah?” he probed quietly.
“Yes.”
Uri looked up at the tall trees that grew by the outer walls of the cemetery. He was quiet. They continued to bump into people on the tombstone paths. Suddenly Uri took Isabel’s hand.
“Ema, I don’t feel good.”
Isabel looked down at Uri’s pale face. She took him in her arms and found a small concrete ledge by the wall. She sat down on it with him in her lap. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
“Don’t know.” He looked down at the ground. His eyes filled with tears.
“What?” She asked though she knew. She caressed his face. Lia stroked his soft hair. He looked as if he were about to throw up. Isabel took out a water bottle from the backpack. Slid him down beside her.
“Please drink, Uri. You need to drink.”
Reluctantly, he let her spill some water into his mouth. “I just don’t feel good here.” He leaned over into Lia who cradled him.
Isabel surveyed the tombstones that made her son sick to his stomach. One rabbi’s feeble effort to change the course of their wretched history with a superhero brought in at the height of a season of blood libels, was tragic and pathetic. Just think of the odds. Where was good King Wenceslas when the Jews needed him?
Lia rocked Uri in her arms and hummed softly. Isabel swallowed hard and closed her eyes so they wouldn’t see her cry.
“According to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” Lia read aloud from the brochure, “in this cemetery the rabbis met to plot Jewish world-wide domination.”
“Lia, please.”
Uri was quiet next to them and scratched his head. Isabel watched. His hand went down and then up again to his head. She pulled him to her and began to examine his head for lice. Her face tensed and her fingers worked quickly and harshly.
“Ema,” Lia said and pulled Uri from Isabel’s hands. “He’s okay. I checked his head last night. Get a grip.”
Isabel stared at Lia and dropped the hysteria that had risen so quickly in her. Lice on the head or body brought death. A zero tolerance vigilance.
“Okay. Sorry.” Isabel put a loving hand on Uri’s thigh.
“Are we going to Terezin later?” Lia asked.
“No time.” Isabel looked to the gravestones in front of them. “It’s a full day trip.”
It was Terezin, not this cemetery, that side-swiped Isabel on her first visit to Prague. It was identified as a ghetto, so she hadn’t prepared herself emotionally. To see ovens. Yet there they were. Even worse were their straps. She couldn’t get over the straps. A retro-fit in the middle of the war to prevent the wood ovens from bursting since they hadn’t been designed to withstand the extreme heat of continuous operation. So many bodies to burn. So little time.
“But you were there, no?” Lia asked more gently this time.
Isabel’s face registered many emotions.
“Yes,” she answered slowly. “The Arbeit Macht Frei entrance sign there is not made of metal. It’s written with black paint on the town’s stone gate.” She paused. “Painted on. As if any place could be made into a death camp.”
Isabel looked at Uri’s unhappy face. “Enough. Enough.” She forced herself to smile. “Uri, I thought of another word to add to the Czech/check game we played yesterday on the bus.” She lured the boy and his sister out of sadness. “Here goes: check out the Czech hat-check girl giving us the check in Czech. That’s five times. Bet you can’t beat that.”
Uri looked up at his mother. He was weak but couldn’t resist the challenge. His eyes flashed. He raised his head from Lia’s lap. “Check out the Czech hat-check girl checking our check in Czech.” He jumped to standing. Quick as lightening, his mind off the horror. “That’s six.”
Lia laughed. “I have another, get ready you two. Reality check: check out the Czech hat-check woman checking our check in Czech. Count ’em. That’s seven.”
“I’ll get another.” Uri put his elbow in one palm, his chin in the other, striking a contemplative pose.
Isabel stared at the graves crammed together like too many crooked teeth in a mouth. Not far from where they sat was the oldest grave in the cemetery. 1439. Avigdor Kara: rabbi, poet, physician. One of the few 3,000 ghetto dwellers to survive the infamous 1389 Easter pogrom, two years before the decimation in Andalucia. Local priests declared Jews had desecrated the Host. One of the more popular accusations. Competitor to the blood libel. Pogrom: an unholy communion of righteousness and terror. Nothing makes you free.
“I did it!” Uri danced in front of the tombstones. “Reality check: check out the Czech hat-check woman checking our check-in check in Czech in the Czech Republic. That’s not eight, that’s nine. Count ’em! Check-mate! Ten!” and he burst into a fit of laughter.
The Sites
1
On the plane ride east Isabel watched her children sleep. The boy, still a child at seven. The girl, a woman, old enough to be a mother herself at twenty-three. Both under Isabel’s wing and protection yet her body felt weak. Her fortitude these last few days was breached yesterday in the cemetery with Uri’s breakdown. She tried to camouflage it by talking a lot: to Lia about her upcoming academic year and to Uri about the new pony on kibbutz.
This morning on the metro on their way to Television Tower she was exposed. A pair of black uniformed inspectors made their way straight to them. Ice packed her limbs. Her hands shook feeling for the tickets in her back pocket.
“I’ve got them, Mom.” Lia calmly handed the over the metro tickets.
The inspector who took the tickets looked down at them and up at the three of them. Isabel couldn’t understand. They were anonymous tickets. Not passports with photos. His hand moved inside his jacket. She stopped breathing. He said something in Czech. His hand remained inside his jacket. He said something again. Maybe she knew the words. Maybe not. All she could hear was the din of passing trains. Her eyes remained riveted on his hands. The one by his holster. The other hidden inside his jacket.
“I’m sorry we speak English.” Lia smiled.
“Your tickets good for half hour more.”
“Yes. We know.” She smiled some more.
The other inspector stepped closer.
“We’ll take a taxi later,” Isabel said.
The two officers spoke together softly. Isabel’s world reduced to two tall men in black uniforms. No doubt they carried handcuffs. No doubt they carried weapons. No doubt they carried bad intentions. The children were fair haired, light eyed and skinned. But her? She was clearly not Central European. And they watched her closely as they spoke. She’d go peacefully if they ordered her to. As long as the children were unharmed. Yes, she shifted in her seat, she’d go . . .
“Dobrý den.” The inspector handed the tickets back to Lia and moved towards the end of the car.
Isabel’s head dropped. She breathed deeply. Lia took her hand.
Later she packed for their Cinderella flight back home and kept checking and double and triple checking that their tickets and passports were together and handy in her bag. She needed to be ready just in case. Dokumenten!
They landed in Israel at 4:30 a.m. Isabel slept until noon. Then she ran errands: food shopping, annual car inspection, retrieving Woody from Molly’s, stopping at the post box. At two she made lunch and woke the children. At two-thirty Alon called to speak to them. At three Emanuel called to speak to her.
She walk
ed out to the yard. Woody stayed close behind. He loved Molly and her household of boys but it was important to him that Isabel realized that he missed her. Very much. That she better not get any ideas of taking everyone away again anytime soon.
“Emanuel,” Isabel spoke softly so Lia wouldn’t hear. “Among the tombstones, in Prague, it was like being tracked in the hills of Greece.”
She watched blue sky move around white clouds. She was nervous telling him, because his response was inevitable. But she would not stop ghosting and she needed to tell someone and Zakhi wasn’t answering. Because it was Sunday she wouldn’t call Molly. It usually took her a full day to regain composure when Yiftach returned to his combat unit. Molly was totally unequipped for the emotional disconnect that made saying good-bye to soldier children easier for other parents. Not that it was ever really easy for anyone.
“I’m getting lost in the haunted alleyways of my mind. I fear persecution all the time,” she whispered to Emanuel and sat on the swing, sinking into the position that if she couldn’t share this kind of emotional dissonance with him then what was she doing with him?
Woody jumped into her lap. He made a quick circle, dropped into a comfortable pose with his head resting on her knee, and looked out. “Round-ups, aktions, a random bullet in the head. This morning.” She paused. This was rough. “I went to get my car inspected in Ramat Yishai. Not Prague. Here. At home. The clerk asked me to hand over my papers and I started to shake.” Embarrassed and worried, nevertheless the words gave her courage. “She told me to wait a moment and went into the back. I felt faint and had to talk myself into calming down. What could be wrong? I mean really. A blinker? A brake pad?”
“I’m really worried, Issie,” Emanuel said calmly.
“You understand, I had to tell myself, out loud, that I won’t be sent anywhere if my car fails inspection.” She wailed quietly. Lia and Uri couldn’t know she was losing it. “By the time the clerk returned to the window I could barely hold off a full blown anxiety attack. I could hardly stand or breathe.”
“Your system’s had enough.”
Isabel was quiet.
“I’m not letting you off so easily anymore. Isabel, we’re going to talk about this tonight.”
“Okay,” she said reflexively just to get the conversation over with. “See you later.”
She closed the phone. Moved Woody over and laid down on the swing. On the one hand, she was happy Emanuel was coming over later. On the other, she wouldn’t listen to him. Sure, he was the “real” partner, the one the children knew and were fond of. The one Isabel went out into the world with. He was wonderful and she loved him. Really she did, but she also knew that he didn’t totally get her. He didn’t understand the muck she was mired in. He wanted her to let the dead lie. To let herself off the hook. To let him into her world more. And because Isabel knew his intentions were good, and that he genuinely cared for her and her children, and because he was basically just a decent man, she didn’t automatically dismiss his point of view. She couldn’t afford to do this anymore. The work was taking its toll on her.
She wanted to talk to Zakhi. He felt her. He drew out the words, caught them, matched them with his own. He was not leery of the wounds. But she wouldn’t call again. Though she wanted to. Really wanted to. But there was a limit to what she could demand or expect. He was probably working right now. Or with another woman. A younger woman. A lament swelled in her. She had to let Zakhi go. She had to give Emanuel more space. Start acting your age, Molly repeated perfunctorily. What did that really mean? Isabel had no idea. She pulled Woody close.
After lunch Isabel cleaned up, settled Uri in front of the TV, told Lia she had some more errands to run, and got into the car with Woody. She drove to the Winkler construction site. She couldn’t help herself. She hadn’t heard from Zakhi and needed to see him if only for a brief embrace. On the way she stopped in the neighboring village to buy lentils and almonds. When she passed the wood goat pens she remembered Jaim Benjamin in the Greek hills. She watched her Bedouin neighbors clean their yards, feed their animals, mind their toddlers. Would they hide her children if they were being hunted? Would she theirs?
Woody and Isabel continued to the next village. They turned down the Winklers’ lane. The dogs rose slow-motion in their driveways. They smelled, before they could actually see, the mighty pint-size Woodrow. And then the gauntlet erupted. Wild vicious runs at the car. Riotous barking. Teeth snapped at the tires. A couple of small dogs catapulted themselves into the air to catch a glimpse of Woody who stood tall and bold, his front paws positioned belligerently on the dash. He howled back at his adversaries and glanced over at Isabel. He wanted her to drive harder into the heat of battle. But she had no fight in her. She laid off the horn, off the pedal, and gave way to the rods, rifle butts, the kapos’ fists at the camp’s gate. She slowed to feel the blows. Maximum exposure. Woody barked loudly at her. How dare she give in?
“Okay,” Isabel yelled. “Okay.” A frantic attempt to dispel the ghosts. “These surrounds are beautiful like a European landscape. Yes. And yet it’s not Europe. Yes. And even Europe is no longer that Europe!” She gave gas recklessly and leaned on the horn. Woody howled with delight.
Pulling onto the Winklers’ gravel driveway, she braked roughly. She opened the door and Woody flew out ready to take on his adversaries. But the pugnacious dogs had already retreated to their driveways. Only one truck was at the site and it was not Zakhi’s. Isabel walked into the unfinished house. Sucrat was installing the stone windowsills.
“Hi,” Isabel said to him and stood in the middle of the Great Room. “Do you know where Zakhi is?”
Sucrat looked up briefly and shook his head no. Last week Zakhi had threatened to throw Sucrat off the job. Obviously they worked it out—for now. Like his namesake, Socrates, Sucrat knew nothing. Not where Zakhi was, nor the finish date for the stone sills and saddles.
Woody ran all over the first floor looking for Zakhi. His small athletic body took the steps two at a time. He ran in and out of every room on the second floor and practically flew back down to Isabel to file his report. Three barks in quick succession. No Zakhi.
Sucrat walked by cleaning his hands on an old towel. Two p.m. was a bit early to end the work day. But who was she to question his comings and goings.
“Good-bye,” Isabel said as he walked out. Maybe he didn’t hear. Maybe he didn’t like women on the site. Maybe he knew she would tell Zakhi about his early departure.
Isabel walked upstairs to the second floor. The entire western wall of the master bedroom’s en suite bathroom was still open to the view. Zakhi told her that in a few weeks a curved glass block wall would be installed there. Hopefully before the rains. The room then would be flushed with diffuse light. A suggestion of the green hills drawn inside.
In this rural landscape she saw countryside similar to that which had provided refuge for fifteen-year-old Jaim Benjamin in Nazi-occupied Greece. Soft hills, goats, kitchen gardens. She sat in the opening that waited for a stone sill and glass block wall. The sky was bright blue. How did skies look behind barbed wire? How did the green of leaves smell? Suddenly Zakhi walked into the bathroom whistling.
“What a lovely surprise.” He sat down beside her in the wall pocket. A quick kiss on the lips. “How was Prague? Hey Woody.” He rubbed the dog’s head. “You okay?”
“I . . . it was . . . yeah, everything’s good.” She looked out at the fields. He’d read her in a second if he saw her face. As much as she wanted this, she also didn’t. “Socrates was here.”
“Who?”
“Sucrat. Your stone mason. He was here when I showed up and left not long ago.”
“I know. I gave him so much hell. If he doesn’t show up every day and finish, I’ll throw his ass off the job. And withhold money.” Zakhi took her hand and sucked on the tips of her fingers. He pulled her close and gave her a long kiss on the mouth.
>
Isabel lingered on his mouth then pulled back slightly. “Yeah, but he left early. It’s two p.m. Do you know where your contractor is?” she whispered sexily.
“Exactly.” He laughed and held her closer.
“Jaim Benjamin’s book’s unraveling me, Zakhi.” Isabel said it. There it was. She leaned into him and let go into his embrace.
“I know you’re looking for a new career. Come work with me and keep the contractors in line.”
Isabel felt his warm chest under her cheek and laughed. Yes, this was where she needed to be. Right here. Just here. Nothing more was necessary. World go away. They held one another and stared out at the land. A small herd of cows grazed in the far distance. The fields nearby lay fallow, a few weeks respite before winter’s sowing.
“Since you’re here, want to help?”
She smiled. “Sure.”
From his jeans pocket Zakhi took out a piece of blue chalk. “I need to mark out the walls. Tomorrow I’ll jackhammer.”
“Conduit channels?”
“Yup.”
“You know I love it when you do that,” Isabel said.
They laughed conspiratorially and turned away from the fields and their appetites. Zakhi led the way downstairs to the kitchen. He bent down to measure the wall and marked the spot for an outlet not too close to where the sink would be. Raised an eyebrow. “How’s this?”
“Good.”
“Did you see your friend in Prague?”
She hesitated. “Itka, sure. I went there to be with her at the commemoration dinner. It wasn’t easy.”
“Not her. Your man friend.”
“What about him?”
“Did you see him?”
“Huh?”
“Just wondering.”
Her heart clenched. Zakhi had never mentioned Jiri before. Why now? Maybe he wasn’t so indifferent to what they had going and to her other dalliances? The age difference, an obvious obstacle, no? Could he be also falling for her? Unlikely. Zaki was just being playful.
