Make It Concrete

by Miryam Sivan

  2

  Several days later Isabel proofread Jaim Benjamin’s manuscript for the second to last time. She was so immersed in the book that she had little patience for anything else and climbed into bed at every opportunity. Not to read. Just to lie quietly and focus on oblivion.

  The phone rang. She decided not to answer and not to check who was calling. But as soon as it stopped ringing, it started again. So she answered.

  “Hey, want to drive into town for a bit?” Zakhi asked. “I’m going to look at an old house that needs renovating. Why don’t you come along?”

  “To prepare me for my career change?”

  “Maybe.”

  Because she was within sight of the manuscript’s finish line, she could afford a short break. “Sure.”

  Isabel put aside the pages and changed from house to street clothes. Half an hour later she walked up a stone path to a small square house near the center of town. The windows had green wood shutters in need of repair. A small porch overlooked a terraced front yard. Right away Isabel liked it. Early 1960s. Utilitarian. Simple clean lines. The owner and Zakhi sat on old metal chairs on the porch.

  “Door’s open,” the owner called out in a thick South African accent. “Hi, I’m Harvey Grunwald. Was just telling Zakhi,” he turned to Isabel when she joined them, “that I bought the place for my daughter. She’s in Johannesburg now but I expect she’ll arrive within the year.”

  He walked them through the house. “I want to add forty meters. My daughter has two small children. One hundred here are not enough.”

  Isabel paused to look at the high ceilings, the built-in cabinets, and crafted wood shelves in every room. “I love these sliding glass doors. And the trundle windows are great for cross-ventilation.”

  “Not common to see this much carpentry from the sixties,” Zakhi added.

  “I want a complete gut rehab,” Harvey said. “Bring it down to its shell and start from scratch.”

  “It would be a shame to do away with it all.” Isabel closed the living room doors and slid her hand along the etched glass panels. “There’s a great deal of charm in these period details.”

  “These doors are collectibles.” Zakhi nodded at her.

  “So disassemble them carefully and call in the collectors. I want everything clean and modern and new. My daughter won’t understand their charm. She’ll see old and ugly.”

  “Shame.” They walked into the bathroom. “Now this is old and ugly,” Zakhi said. “Bathrooms and kitchens need a complete face-life, but the other rooms, I’m not so sure.”

  But Harvey was. Everything but the exterior walls was to be replaced. The additional forty meters he wanted on top. They walked outside to the yard.

  “The ceiling here is concrete. The realtor said it wouldn’t be a problem to replace the thin wood walls of the attic with concrete block and to add some windows.”

  “And lift the roof.” Isabel looked up from the front steps.

  “No,” Harvey insisted. “I was told it wasn’t necessary.”

  They stood together and stared at the pitched roof with its small dormer window in front.

  “If your daughter and her family are unusually short and intend to remain so then yeah,” Zakhi said. “Otherwise Isabel’s right. They’ll only be able to stand straight in the very middle of the space where the pitch is high.”

  “Okay. Lift the roof.” Harvey saw the facts as they were.

  They walked through the rooms of the house once more. “I need a little time to take it in. I’ll let you know by the end of week.” Zakhi wrote notes and numbers in his notebook.

  “We’re not in a rush. I just want you to give me a rough estimate of what can be done and how much it’ll cost. I’ve built two houses in my life,” he informed Zakhi warmly but boastfully. “One in Johannesburg and one in Ra’anana. Experience has taught me that architects design beautifully but know little about the true construction costs. I want some idea of financial scope before I even tell an architect what I want.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’m hoping my daughter and grandchildren will arrive by the Holidays. The children are little so the school year isn’t a factor yet. Can it be ready by then?”

  “September, October? Five months of construction more or less. Two months of planning. Renovation license should go quickly, or maybe we don’t even need one if the exterior walls stand. We’ll probably need approval to lift the roof. Meantime start working with an architect.” Zakhi tucked his notebook under his arm. “Yeah, September, October is a reasonable finish date. But I need a week or so for a rough estimate.”

  Harvey handed Zakhi the keys. “Give me a ring when you’re ready and I’ll drive up.”

  ✶

  Yael had been out of contact for days.

  “A routine practice, but someplace where there’s no reception. So don’t even bother, Mom. I’ll call you when I’m back on base.”

  Isabel didn’t think about it, or not that much. She stopped trying to figure out when she was being lied to and anyway the truth only spiked her anxiety. Her knowing did absolutely nothing to alter world affairs or her daughter’s fate in the big mess. But Isabel did listen more to the news. Casually she would ask people if something was afoot. And then, three days into Yael’s cell phone blackout, on her way back from Molly’s, the radio played some of the sad songs aired on Memorial Day and on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the songs played when something really bad happened, like a terrorist attack on a bus or in a mall, or a large number of soldiers killed. Isabel pulled to the side of the road and opened her cell phone to read the headlines. A major battle was taking place right now in Nablus. Isabel called Yael’s cell phone. It remained stubbornly off. Of course. Isabel tried again and again anyway knowing it was not on and probably not even with Yael. Since phones could be tracked, even with the GPS off, they were left on base during certain operations.

  Isabel called Yael every few minutes on her drive home and continued when she got home.

  “Let’s just eat supper, Mom.” Lia was not impatient, she was too kind for that, but she was firm. “Their phones are closed or not with them. She’ll call when she can.”

  Isabel didn’t answer. And didn’t listen. She continued dialing Yael’s number until she put Uri to sleep, after she put him to sleep, while listening to the news every hour on the hour, and until she fell asleep at three a.m. In the morning there was a news bulletin that two Israelis soldiers and five Palestinians were killed. And more Palestinians wounded. The fighting in the narrow streets of the old part of the city was sporadic but was not abating. Isabel had no way of knowing if Yael was there, but she had no way of knowing she was not.

  Two more days passed. Isabel lived inside a leviathan silence that swallowed whole persons, lives, worlds. Meantime the end of December approached, the witching hour when the strong winter rains would be upon them and Jaim’s book would be sent to Schine. Isabel pushed Yael and all surplus blackness out of her mind. She went into town with Woody. Zakhi said she could stop by Harvey Grunwald’s house and say hello. He was taking measurements and making calculations. She was in desperate need of distraction.

  But when she arrived at the house Zakhi was not there. Woody and Isabel sat on the front porch and waited. Isabel looked out at the green ravine descending towards the sea and tried as hard as she could not to think of Yael in fatigues lying face down in some ditch, operating the device that kept her in contact with her troops. To stop thinking, she stood up and paced the porch. Then she tried the front door. It was unlocked. She and Woody went inside and walked through the rooms. Indeed it would be a pity to tear out all the woodwork in the bedrooms. Zakhi told her the man who built the house, circa 1962, was a carpenter. Did all the work himself. Isabel went into the front bedroom and opened the closet. There was a place for blankets, for socks, for hanging and folded shirts. The kind of components
common at IKEA these days. Only these were decades old, made of solid wood, and by hand.

  She went into the back bedroom and opened its closet doors. There was a pole for hanging clothes on one side. Behind the second door were very shallow shelves. Isabel studied them. What could they be for? Linens? Papers? Woody jumped onto the lowest shelf and pushed against the back panel with his nose.

  “Stop, Woodrow.” What was he up to? Isabel stared at the panel some more then realized that this space was considerably shallower than the one on the other side of the closet. She stepped away for a better view. A definite misalignment. Error or design?

  Her hands worked mechanically. They took out all the impractical narrow shelves. Her breath was so light it almost disappeared. When she pushed against the back panel it moved. Not much but it moved. She looked closer. There were no screws or pins or joints of any kind holding the panel in place. She pushed right, then left. Low then high. She pushed harder and angled the panel enough to grab a corner. Woody pushed too. Then she lifted the panel out altogether.

  A space about one meter by one meter materialized beneath a staircase that sliced through the back portion of the house, connecting the yard to the attic. Woody jumped in. Isabel sat on her haunches and stared into the niche. Numbness crept into her limbs. Vertigo flooded her, the rabbit hole of history inviting her in.

  She used the flashlight function on her cellphone to scan the interior. Snakes and scorpions filled ravines around town. They had no trouble making their way into homes, especially into their dark secreted spaces. But the little room, if it could be called that, was surprisingly free of dirt, dust, even insects. Woody sniffed incessantly. Isabel moved the light along the walls into all corners and seams. Shelves, built decrescendo following the line of the stairs above, were empty and clean. This room—it couldn’t really be called that—one meter square—this space was ready and waiting.

  Isabel didn’t budge. “Woody, come out right now,” she whispered firmly but he was too busy smelling to obey. “Woody, come out already,” she whispered again unaware at first that she was whispering and when she noticed not understanding why. Woody ignored her. She turned her body sideways and slipped into the narrow opening. “Woodrow, out.” She crouched low. The dog continued his investigations and didn’t look up. Should she let him stay? Was he capable of being quiet like the dogs during the Exodus? In Europe parents either risked detection or left a crying child outside a hideaway. On a bed. Outside a church door. Among leaves of a forest.

  A wave of revulsion came over her. The dog would stay. Where was Zakhi? He should have been here. He might have been taken and she couldn’t afford to wait any longer for him. Already too much time had passed. No hesitations. Minimum delays. Every second critical to escape, to increase the chances of survival.

  Isabel grabbed her bag and not without difficulty drew the closet doors inside and fitted the panel back into place. She sat down slowly, sank against the wall, closed her eyes, and stretched out her legs. Like magician’s black velvet, in the darkness of her mind the space was less small. Under its supple texture she was anywhere. Woody laid beside her, his head against her thigh. Not because of the tightness of the box. He always preferred sitting close. She put a hand on him and waited for her eyes to adjust. But there was no light penetration to correct for. Black, black, black.

  Isabel turned on the phone’s flashlight and saw she had 40% battery left. She tried not to think of electric outlets meters away outside the closet. Of children who expected her home in the late afternoon. Of frantic publishers, survivors, home owners, lovers, house chores. The wide net of civilization she was both caught and sheltered within. She shut off the phone. The plastic rectangle’s loud good-bye jingle filled the small amount of air. Simple contact with the outside world denied. The need to conserve resources already paramount if she were to last for days. And she had to. She had it easy all these years sitting at her desk, entering and exiting the pain whenever she felt like it. Moving from a railway car’s suffocating interior to a hug from one of her children in her spacious kitchen. Slipping out of the stench of a concentration camp’s latrine to sit in her fragrant garden. Turning away from witnessing a friend being murdered to having a sexual tryst in the afternoon. All so easy for Isabel Toledo. Isabel the voyeur.

  “But I haven’t prepared properly.” She defended herself from the grand inquisitor perched in her soul reeking of bald despair. “I need to go home and get all the stuff in my security room stockpiled from the last Gulf War.” Water, canned goods, batteries, candles, matches, battery operated radio, blankets, buckets with covers, games, books, flashlight, television. And gas masks. “That’s what I need. Europe and Israel. Jews hiding from the gas.” She sounded like one of her books.

  Fingering Woodrow’s velvet ear she wondered how her mind would react to living for years in this box. She would shit and pee in a pail. Listen 24/7 for sounds of the enemy. She would tell herself stories. If she could she would even write some down. She would sing. She had a great repertoire in her mind. And she would collect every memory of every person, place, and thing she’d ever loved, and would finger them thoroughly until there was nothing that didn’t belong to her, that she couldn’t touch. She brought her knees to her chest. Hugged them. The air was brittle and heavy. How did one breathe in such darkness, in a place that didn’t exist?

  Arid, like ash, like dust. A golem’s remains in an attic with no access. A recess full of high strung eagerness and nightmares. Isabel licked her dry lips and riffled through her handbag. Wallet, pad, pens, date book, hair brush, box of gum, flash disk, Jaim Benjamin’s key, water bottle, and finally a little cylinder of maroon lip color. She applied some to her mouth. Then she wiped her finger along its smooth top and wrote the letter aleph א on the left side of her forehead which wasn’t easy. The letters must be legible. She swiped her finger on the lipstick again and wrote the letter mem מ then taf ת.

  “EMeT,” she said out loud. Woodrow, her faithful audience, adjusted his head slightly against her leg. “In the beginning when God spoke the universe into existence he sealed it with the first, middle, and last letters of the aleph-bet. Aleph, mem, taf. אמת.” She closed her eyes. “Zakhi told me that.” She gave Woody a squeeze. “Aleph, mem, taf spells truth. Molly says that God the writer revises plot lines every autumn. That Israel’s a nation of neurotic readers and compulsive commentators.” Isabel hoped Woody was paying attention and opened her eyes. Black. Black. Black. She breathed slowly. She couldn’t be too careful with the oxygen. “On the Day of Judgment we ask the holy scrivener to write us down in the Book of Life,” she lectured Woody. “Chatima Tova Jews say to one another. May you be written in for the New Year. A people who know ourselves through letters, words, signatures, seals.”

  Isabel put the lipstick back into the bag. The Hebrew letters on her forehead, like a third eye, chiseled a channel through her dark mind. She spread the fingers of one hand on Woody’s belly. Her other dipped into the bag again, touched Jaim’s key, and recoiled as if the key were a burning coal.

  “I am the Holocaust’s golem,” she confessed not to Woody this time but to the world reverberating on the other side of the box spreading indifferently in five directions. “Sacred incantations, inscriptions, vigilance, and stealth.” She dug into her bag again. With her left hand she turned on the cell phone and then its flashlight. With her right she took up pen and paper.

  I have shelter in a windowless shack made of rough planks of wood on the outskirts of Tana a.k.a. Antananrivo, the 17th-century fortress city that reminds me of Kamenets-Podolski. High walls. Narrow lanes. Only here there are such beautiful tall trees. Someone says they are found only in Africa.

  A shantytown of Jewish Polish refugees has sprung up right outside the city walls. We are the people the Poles wanted to ship off mainland Europe, before Hitler and his Solution. A national commission from Poland visited the 590,000 square kilometer island of Madaga
scar in 1937. A feasibility study. Would it be possible to re-settle Poland’s three million Jews there? Major Lepecki said 40,000–60,000 could be sent to the island. Jewish commission members countered with a realistic 2,000. The local population of 25,000 French citizens protested the idea entirely. The indigenous Malagasy people weren’t consulted at all. After France fell to Germany, the Third Reich decided to make this island the largest Jewish reservation in the world. Madagascar—a place where millions of Europe’s Jews could be shipped and contained. Where they would no doubt die by the thousands from disease and deprivation. The prototype for the ghettos the Nazis eventually got around to setting up on the continent itself.

  For the first week I barely leave the shack, afraid of the people around me, afraid of the bright sun, the hot sky. Afraid. Baby Sholem loses weight. Three-year-old Raizel stops talking. A man in the shack next to me brings a pail of water every day and some fruit. Bella, he says to me gently, you’ve got to consider coming out. We are beginning to organize ourselves. Food, better shelter, self-defense. We need your help.

  Then he frightens me even more when he says the local French population threatens violence against us. To pacify them the Germans promised to halt more shipments of Jews, even while this answer to the Jewish question is being spread round. Speaking at a Nazi party meeting in Krakow, Germany’s Governor-General of Occupied Poland, Hans Frank said, the Jews would “be shipped, piece by piece, man by man, woman by woman, girl by girl.”

  I manage to pull myself together. A girl of eleven, here with her father, stays with the babies for part of the day so I can work. I plant a kitchen garden. I’m used to hard physical labor. Strength returns to me from pushing my fingers in and through earth, pruning dead leaves, picking bugs off stalks. No matter the dirt is hard-packed and inhospitable. No matter the vegetables that come to life are dwarfed and tortured. It’s life all the same. And the work exhausts me. And the exhaustion helps me sleep at night, a child on either breast, the three of us on a blanket on the ground, skinny, frightened. But together. And alive.