Make It Concrete
Page 26
“Mom,” Yael’s loud authoritative voice summoned them. “We’re starving.”
“C’mon.” Emanuel took her hand.
Isabel let him lead her into the house but she stopped at the door and looked up one more time at the sky packed with stars. Emanuel observed her and waited.
“You know I’m done ghosting.”
“I know.”
“It’s time to come clean.”
Emanuel waited.
“You know I love you.” Isabel brought his hand to her mouth. She kissed it feeling the burden of all the years of ghosting, of running, of seeking solace, answers, and order, tumble to the side.
“I know.”
“Mom,” Yael called out again.
✶
Asaf dressed the salad with olive oil, lemon, and lots of salt. Lia’s onion and tomato omelets were sliding out of the pan. Yael sat at the table, her plate already full, never seeming to get enough of home cooking. Anna and Eva were also at the table, but they waited for everyone to join. European children with proper table manners. Suri sat near them approvingly.
There was only so much a mother could do, Isabel sighed, as Yael shoveled food into her mouth, elbows on the table, reaching over others’ plates for the salad and the salt shaker. Isabel tried to insist her children eat politely. Another sign of being a foreign parent in Israel. Lia complied but Yael defied her and complained relentlessly that no other parents (except for Molly) badgered their children with ridiculous nonsense such as table manners.
Uri made his way stealthily down the stairs. The excitement of the party, knowing that everyone else was sitting around the large dining table eating a late supper, knowing that tomorrow he was still on vacation from school and would spend the day with Alon and the ponies, and after that the trip into the desert, was too much for him. He couldn’t sleep.
Emanuel lingered by the sink. He ran water on his hands and rinsed his face. He came into the dining room and sat near Isabel. Anna and Eva began to help themselves to food. Beautiful teenagers. One blond like her mother. The other dark haired like Emanuel. Both had blue-grey eyes and skin which blended the Scandinavian and Semitic. Isabel adored them. Should she bring together the Toledo-Segev-Jakobsson-Dor clan? Five children. Seven to twenty-three years of age. Nearly a generation’s span. Yes, five children. A house full of comings and goings. Crises. Hugging. Crying. Talking. Fights. Laughter. Maybe, just maybe.
Uri was fast upon her.
“Oh.” Isabel pretended to be surprised when he grabbed her from behind. She lifted her little boy’s lithe body into the air and slid him onto her lap. He laid his head against her chest and she cocooned him in her arms.
Isabel watched her family eat and talk. Before joining them she did a quick survey of the blessedly few phone calls she would make the following morning. First to Jaim Benjamin to say she was happy the book was already in production. But no, she wouldn’t go to Spain for him. Suri would bring him his key when she returned stateside. Then she would call Schine and reiterate that there would be no more books issued from her pen. Not for the former partisan in Florida. Not for Yehudit Klein in Israel. Nor for anyone else. Other writers could drive away the darkness and the silence. And when he would say, because she knew he would say, just one more, maidele, just one more, she would say again, and if need be one more time after that, that she preferred not to.
A wave of hunger and fatigue crashed over Isabel. As if reading her mind, Lia scooped salad onto her plate. Suri placed a slice of whole grain bread on the side and moved the humus closer. Isabel would have her rest. The Dead Sea and the minerals. The purple mountains’ majesty. The winter sun. Emanuel. She looked at his handsome face in the evening light. Maybe, just maybe.
What could be better, Isabel Toledo, she said to herself as she leaned towards the table, Uri an indelible part of her movements. What could be better than this? On the eighth day of Hanukah, nine people and one dog sat together. A warm lit house. Night holding fast around them. A large oval table filled with winter fruits from her own and from friends’ gardens. Oranges. Lemons. Pecans. Persimmons. Pomegranates. And olives. Lots of olives. Black. Green. Cracked. Spicy. And salted. The miracle of the olive. The miracle of its light.
About the Author
Miryam Sivan is a former New Yorker who has lived in Israel for more than twenty years. Much of her fiction is about the experiences of ex-pats in love, in flux, in the spaces between cultures, languages, and historical epochs. Her short fiction has appeared in various journals in the US and UK. A collection, SNAFU and Other Stories, was published in 2014 (Cuidono Press).
MAKE IT CONCRETE
© 2019 Miryam Sivan
An excerpt from this novel was previously published under the title “The Keys,” in Jewish Fiction, Toronto, Spring 2012.
Cover photo: GotovyyStock/Shutterstock
Author photo: Ellin Yassky
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission from the author and publisher.
ISBN: 9781944453084
eISBN: 9781944453091
Cuidono Press
Brooklyn NY
www.cuidono.com