From a Sealed Room

by Rachel Kadish

  I wake with a start. It is warm here, and very bright. The taped windows of this room seem to vibrate with heat, and the morning sun reaching through one dusty pane paints a sharp white rectangle on the center of the floor, where my sandals are tumbled toe to toe. Lazily I raise my head.

  In the doorway stands a soldier. He is watching me, one hand braced against the top of the door frame, one resting on the hinged stock of the machine gun slung on a strap across his chest.

  I sit, pull at my T-shirt, tuck my hair behind my ears, and stammer like an intruder caught spying. “I’m your cousin,” the apology comes out in halting Hebrew. “Maya.”

  He is tall and squarely built; his hair is close-cropped, and a red beret is tucked into an open trouser pocket of his khaki uniform. His face is suntanned, and his forehead and the corners of his dark eyes are marked with deep creases; it strikes me that he’s been squinting against a cloudless sky for so long that his face bears not only the sun’s engraving, but the proof of his resistance to it.

  A silence grows in the space between us. I think of a dozen things to say. But there’s something about him I don’t want to disturb, a tension animating his lean frame. When at last he speaks, I understand that he does so only because he has chosen to—that had he not chosen to speak, the silence would have gone on and on.

  “Dov,” he says.

  As I wait for him to say more, the shadow of a branch sweeps the sun-flooded windowpane, and the room appears to swing in the breeze. The trick of the light makes my cousin’s face waver between boyhood and manhood. I see that he is my age, or younger: twenty-one, or twenty.

  His eyes flicker to the window, as if he’s noticed something, too.

  “Sorry to take your room,” I tell him. “I can be out in just a minute.”

  He makes a slight motion with his hand—that won’t be necessary. Rocking forward in the doorway once more, he reaches up to tag the ceiling.

  It’s clear to me that he has no use for an American cousin.

  “Didn’t mean to wake you,” he says. Then he’s gone.

  I dress hastily. When I step into the kitchen I see everyone is awake. They’re seated around the table, a tousled and intent circle. Tami pours coffee with fierce concentration. Only Nachum looks up when I enter, and he invites me to the table with a smile. Ariela is seated on the yoke of his shoulders, her knees loose around his neck. Fighting to keep her eyes open, she droops on top of his head like a nightcap in an old children’s storybook.

  “Dov was just telling us about the training he’s conducting,” Nachum informs me, “for the new soldiers. He’s commanding a unit of paratroopers, he’s got some boys right out of high school.”

  “Let’s get that right,” Dov interjects. “I’m commanding a unit of paratrooping hopefuls. They’ve got a long way to go before they’ll measure up.” There is an economy to all my cousin’s movements; his mouth opens no more than necessary when he speaks. Now, however, he lets out a proud laugh. “They’re not so bad, though. Give me a few months, they’ll be the best.”

  Nachum is grinning. “I’m not surprised,” he says. On his shoulders Ariela blinks herself awake and taps his forehead to be lowered.

  Dov cuts himself a thick slice of bread and bites into it as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks.

  On the wall above the kitchen table is a clock whose hands are stuck at the hour of three twenty-five. A layer of dust coats its glass face; I wonder how long it’s been broken.

  Fanya scolds Dov through a pretty smile. “Just don’t let it go to your head,” she counsels. “Pretend you don’t know you’re a hero, that’s my advice. The girls will fall over each other to get to you.” Fanya summons Ariela to a stool by her knees. “Or have you already stopped noticing all the girls except one, Dov? What’s going on with that Rina, from your high school class?”

  Tami passes me sugar and milk without a word. No one has so much as glanced at her since I entered the room. Like me, she seems a stranger, detached from the warmth of this gathering and easily forgotten.

  Fanya reaches for her handbag, undoes the clasp with meticulously painted fingernails, and pulls out a comb. She parts Ariela’s fine hair and smooths it straight to either side. “Look at your brother,” she says. “He’s blushing.”

  Dov turns away. I see that his ears are a deep red.

  While Fanya combs her own hair, Ariela leans over to me and whispers, “Dov has a girlfriend.” Her face is soft from sleep and washed of the fear of the previous night. “And do you know what?” Her breath is warm in my ear. I shake my head and she continues. “Do you know what? His soldiers are so tired at the end of a day, they want to sleep for a million years.” Ariela giggles, pleased.

  Still flushed from his grandmother’s teasing, Dov looks around the kitchen. His eyes light, unexpectedly, on me. “How long will you be in Israel?” he asks.

  “Maya came to Jerusalem for a semester.” Tami speaks up abruptly. “She’s staying the summer.”

  “I’m staying for more than one semester,” I correct her. “I’m enrolling for the fall, too.”

  Dov looks me over as sternly as he would one of his recruits. “Don’t just stay in classes the whole time, you won’t see the real Israel.”

  “Maya has a boyfriend.” Tami chimes in once again. She’s looking at something in a cabinet and doesn’t turn when she speaks. “He’ll take her around.”

  Sipping my coffee, I deliberate, then make the confession to Tami’s back. “Actually, Gil is working very hard. He has a new job. So I haven’t yet traveled quite as much as I’d like. Maybe you can suggest places I should visit?”

  “You ought to see everything.” Fanya snaps the comb back into her handbag and appraises me. For a moment I think she’s going to retrieve the comb and fix my hair, too. “So long as you’re already in this country, you may as well travel Israel top to bottom. There’s not as much to see as in some other places, but there are things. I’ll take you to concerts, and you must also visit the countryside. If you can’t stand the driving here, then find some nice American tour group and go along in their bus.”

  “Why?” The single word sounds harsh in the small kitchen. Dov faces his grandmother. It’s obvious he’s still defensive from her earlier teasing. “So she can be one of those Americans who go to every tourist spot and think they know something about Israel?”

  “Dov, don’t be rude.” Fanya dismisses him with a lift of her chin.

  “But it’s true. You know what the tour buses are like.” Dov’s voice is bitter. “Haven’t you seen the newspapers? Everyone taking opinion polls in America about how to make peace—what, American Jews who have gone on maybe one bus tour know a damn thing about what it means to live here?”

  “Don’t be rude,” Fanya repeats. She is not smiling now. “And watch your language around your sister.” She turns and addresses me energetically. “But now you see, it’s perfect that Dov has such strong feelings about this matter.” Fanya’s enthusiasm requires a response, and I bob my head at her as she connects me and my cousin with a wave. “Dov, you show Maya everything. That way she’ll see whatever it is you think necessary. You can begin today—a person shouldn’t waste a single day when she could be out exploring.”

  Nachum lays a hand lightly on Dov’s shoulder. “Everything?” he says. “Fanya, Dov has to get back to his base tomorrow morning.”

  “So he can start showing Maya around now, and show her more when he’s home next.”

  “I’m sure Dov has a lot to do while he’s home.” I say. “Really, it’s fine. And anyway, I have some travel plans of my own.”

  “Nonsense. He’d love to show you around. Wouldn’t you, Dov?” Fanya insists with a hit that could be described only as fetching. I try to picture the beauty she must have been forty years ago. Even now, she has an undeniable grace. She’s swept away her grandson’s challenge without a ripple on her smooth forehead.

  Dov stares into the bottom of his coffee cup, then looks up at me. His face is
expressionless. “Sure, why not,” he says.

  I look away from him, embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t, today. I’d better go. I promised Gil I wouldn’t be late.”

  “Next time, then,” Fanya declares.

  “Next time.”

  Dov nods his good-bye.

  When I open the door to the apartment, Gil is standing just inside.

  “I heard you coming.” It’s obvious he hasn’t slept. “Come into the living room, I’ve got to show you something.”

  “What is it?” I’m still holding the door open, as if I might retreat—down the stairs and out into the sunshine, perhaps as far as the Shachars’ crowded kitchen. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

  “Work?” Gil’s wan face stretches in a grin. Puzzled, I shrink back as he comes near, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He kisses me on the mouth. “I am working. Forget the gallery. I called in sick.”

  The living room is a dizzying corridor of paper and wind. Gil leads me by the hand. He has run a string the length of the room, from door to balcony and back two times over, and clipped to it his sketches of the yeshiva students. I had no idea he’d done so many—sheet after sheet, men’s and boys’ faces defined in spare charcoal lines. Somewhere in the night he must have used the final sheet of his sketchpad; the last few figures tremble on the onion-skin translucence of my airmail paper.

  Gil is standing in the center of the room watching me. Beneath his smile, I’m amazed to notice, he’s nervous. He waits for my response.

  I scan the drawings.

  “This is just the beginning, of course,” he says.

  He’s searching for a sign of my appreciation, and for some reason I move even more slowly along the rows of drawings. Gil follows me.

  “Don’t you see?” he says. “I’ve found it. The subject for my exhibit.”

  I turn to look at him. “The blacks?”

  Gil indicates a drawing of a boy; all that can be seen is a black skullcap and the soft outline of the boy’s cheek. “There’s something about them I don’t understand,” Gil says. “It’s like this.” He is reaching for words and looks to me for help, but I have nothing to offer. “They see something no one else sees. No matter what, they just keep hoping for their deliverance. Or whatever it is that they hope for, who knows exactly what. They’ve got their heads full of hundreds of years of tradition and their eyes on some world-to-come the rest of us can’t comprehend—they hardly even notice today. Everything around them shows that they shouldn’t believe; but they do. It makes no sense, still they do.” Gil stands beside me as I look at a sketch of a bearded middle-aged man. “Everyone is cynical, except for them.”

  His eyes ask my approval.

  I say nothing. I’m thinking, about the blacks and their singing and their traditions. Now I’m ashamed of myself for not admitting the yeshiva student who came to our door, and glad I never mentioned him to Gil, who can see things in our religious neighbors that I can’t.

  His fingers, reaching to touch one sheet after another, are gentle, and his words are soft as he tells me, “I wish I could be like them.”

  I think: I could love him forever.

  It’s only the faces of the black-hatted men that keep me from pouring out my affection to Gil. The haunted and expectant expression of an elderly man, captured in a series of layered drawings, glowers at me. Avoiding the old man’s gaze, I ask, “This is the project you’re going to exhibit?”

  “Yes. This is the project I’ve been waiting for.” His mood is turning sharp.

  “Gil.” I cup his cheeks with my two palms. “You’re going to do an incredible job.”

  A smile blooms on his face. He hugs me hard.

  “When is the exhibit?” I ask into his chest.

  “Roni says he can give me a spot at the end of the summer, between two big shows. He said if I can be ready by then, he can bring in some critics. He thinks it will be a big opportunity even if it’s just a short exhibit. I told him of course I can be ready. It’s going to take a lot out of me, Maya, but I know I can do the work in time.”

  “What exactly are you planning?”

  Gil hesitates. Then he winks. “It’s a surprise.”

  The afternoon passes to the sound of Gil working in the living room. In the kitchen I make my way through the Hebrew newspaper, dictionary open on the table before me. When I bring Gil cold melon for a snack, his eyes brim unmistakably with gratitude; I’m ashamed at the smallness of my gift. “Just don’t go leaving me again for this family of yours,” he jokes. “A few moments last night, I thought you might run off and never return.” His lips, when he brushes them against mine, are chapped, and his eyes are shadowed.

  Just before dinner there is a long period of quiet. In the living room, Gil’s charcoal is motionless. When I call him to the kitchen, he is moody, and only shrugs when I ask how the work is going. “Your project is going to be incredible,” I say, but this time he doesn’t seem moved by my approval. Still, over shnitzel and salad he seems to recover and asks for the details of my visit. I describe Fanya, Tami, and Nachum, then Dov and Ariela. “The girl is eight,” I tell him. “And the boy, he’s near my age.”

  “Ah.” Gil munches a piece of cucumber. “And what does he do in our nation’s blessed army?”

  “Paratrooping.”

  “Lucky fellow, to be in a select unit,” Gil mocks. “Best at all the war games.” He leans back in his chair, balancing on two legs. “So, Maya, do you want to know more about how the army gets the best and the brightest?”

  I wait for him to continue.

  “When I took the psycho-technic exams for army placement,” he instructs me, “my teachers couldn’t understand the results. I was first in all my classes, so why on earth didn’t I end up in a prestigious unit?” Gil gasps in pretend astonishment. “‘Shocking! And such a pity.’”

  He lowers the front legs of his chair until they reach the tile with a quiet tap. “I threw the damn tests, Maya. Sat in the room and whistled tunes until the monitors came in to tell me time’s up. I wasn’t going to give an ounce of my energy to that crap. All those boys like your cousin are being taken for a ride.”

  After dinner, we walk through our neighborhood and up beyond the valley, turning unfamiliar corners until well past dusk. The cool night air is so refreshing I’d be glad to keep walking. But Gil is restless to get back to the apartment. We return to the silent valley under thundering stars.

  In the living room, where I carelessly opened a window to air the apartment while we were out, the afternoon’s sketches are scattered on the floor. One by one, Gil picks them up. The slide of each page against tile is a cry of dust and despair. The snap of Gil’s voice is terrifyingly precise, like water splashed on simmering oil.

  And the American has returned, I knew she would not forsake me. So long I have waited. Now I nod to the blacks’ signs as I pass. I am preparing. Each day I rehearse all I will explain to her; I wander in a haze of hours, years flit like shadows. At last she will come for me, my joy will know no bound. Already we are almost together. I pace my apartment and her footsteps caress the ceiling above me. The sound of her thin voice halts my progress across the floor, and I: I stand rigid with expectation.

  9

  July 18, 1993

  Dear Maya,

  Here we’re sweltering in the humidity. It’s a struggle just to breathe, the kids want to go to the pool every day and I don’t have the heart to insist on anything else. I’d send them to a movie—at least there would be air-conditioning—but of course we can’t spare the money.

  I deeply appreciated your description of the waterfalls in the north. It sounds so beautiful, what with all those flowers in the middle of that rugged landscape. Your letters add color to my days that, I’ll admit, is much needed.

  The only view available through my barred window is of wreckage. I don’t mean just physical decay, but lives gone to rum, and a few sparks of optimism that don’t live long. Most of them get snuffed no matt
er what anyone does.

  And would you believe, a politics addict like me has finally stopped reading the newspaper? At first it was because of spotty delivery—par for the course in this neighborhood. Then it was my own exhaustion. I’m tired of reading about wrongheaded policies, pronouncements that don’t go anywhere. All those political analysts who have never set foot in a neighborhood like this speculating on why children end up in jail. It’s not only ignorance, it’s willful ignorance, and that’s a crime.

  I don’t mean to lecture. I suspect you’ve always hated it when I do. But this blank paper seems to invite me to relieve my mind.

  People wonder why I’ve marooned myself here. Most of my old friends have given up on all the causes they used to work for. Sometimes I think America has become a country of amnesiacs. Maybe it always has been—maybe I deluded myself in thinking it could ever be different.

  But whether it’s out of forgetfulness or simply distaste or shame, my old friends don’t call me anymore. Frankly, I don’t call them either. A few still do anti-poverty work—they commute from the suburbs, where they live with nicely salaried spouses. If I run into them, they ask me, “Hope, why don’t you get out and live a little? What are you doing at your job twenty-four seven, don’t you know it’s not healthy?” They look at me with pity for being a woman alone. They think I’ve lost it, because I’m still here, in the kind of neighborhood everyone who has a choice leaves. But this is where I belong.

  Some mornings I look out on these barren streets, and I cry. That’s something people here will never know. My job is to show optimism. If people coming for job-skills training or AIDS-bereavement counseling knew that the director sits upstairs weeping like an idiot, that would slam a door in their faces. They don’t have time for my weakness. And neither do I. I’ve been here long enough now to see the campaign promises come and go. I’ve watched the neighborhood sink, and I should know that tears help nothing.