From a Sealed Room

by Rachel Kadish

  The sky quivers with heat waiting to pour through. My face burns from Rina’s touch. Gil is coming with my breakfast; I wave him back to the shelter, pointing to indicate that I’m coming soon.

  Gingerly I step around the pool and make my way toward the shelter. Neither Rina nor Dov is anywhere to be seen. The others stand munching cucumbers and pita. They glance at me curiously as I near, but I turn my face toward the ground. Training is everything. I know from years of dance how to hold myself as if I have far more energy than I put into each step. As if I have energy to spare.

  Gil’s hands are before me, he offers me food and I take it without looking at him. I eat facing away from the others, pretending absorption in the spectacle of the hills. Gil sits behind me. Once, he reaches out a hand and massages my shoulder. I don’t move. I know what he does not: In a few moments, Dov and Yair and all the others will be alerted. I don’t know whether they will do anything. I don’t seem to care. I don’t feel any obligation to warn Gil, I don’t wish Dov and Rina success. My mind is as still as the hills before me.

  In a few minutes I hear Dov and Rina’s purposeful footsteps. I hear Rina summon Tali, and I realize without turning my head that this is the girl who spoke last night about the women’s shelter. Out of the corner of my eye I see Dov speaking to Yair at the near edge of the pool.

  Gil tears a pita in two and offers me the larger piece. As I shake my head, he catches my chin with his fingertips. He examines my face.

  Some time passes before I raise my eyes. Gil still holds my chin, but he has drawn back in confusion. He looks shocked by the work of his own hands. Then frightened. The question is plain on his face: Did I do this?

  I turn to the group behind us. Rina and Tali, Dov and Yair stand in quiet conversation; the others, though ignorant of what’s going on, have fallen silent. They are alert to some disturbance, their gazes rove the shelter.

  Something about the scene distracts Gil; a thin film of normalcy settles over his face. He cracks his knuckles, once and then again. He wanders off to rummage in his pack.

  Tali approaches a couple seated on one of the low benches, and within minutes the whispers have begun. I watch the alarm spread; I see the news register in the eyes of each neighbor in turn. Violence among us. In face after face I read disbelief. These bold Israelis, whom I have so long admired, sit paralyzed with confusion. They lift uncertain gazes to me, all holding the same message. That’s not us, is it?

  For the first time since I arrived in this country, the Israelis around me seem as vulnerable as I. More vulnerable, I tell myself. Because they’re surprised. Fools, I address them silently. It was here all along, you just didn’t want to see it.

  When it’s become plain to them that I’m going to offer no response, I feel their attention shift gradually from me to Gil.

  Gil, his back to the group, is relacing his boots. From the tightness of his shoulders I can tell he is aware of being watched.

  The sun rides higher in the sky. Breakfast is finished, but no one moves to begin the morning’s hike. The shadows cast against the ground by the wooden beams become razor-sharp. Perched on a rock, I watch the still surface of the pool. Behind me there is subdued activity, a halfhearted attempt to pack food and prepare water bottles. I feel everyone watching the distance between my body and Gil’s.

  It is his alteration of this distance that starts it. He calls my name; when I don’t respond, his steady tread approaches over the hard ground.

  Before he has reached me, Yair is blocking his path.

  “How could you?” Yair speaks softly, but there is no one under this shelter who does not hear.

  Gil’s footsteps stop. He says nothing.

  I am not listening. I want to tell Tali and Rina and the others: I’m not the pathetic person you think I am. I’m not like those women in shelters. I’m not one of those eternal victims my mother fights to save.

  “You’re sick,” Yair says, only a few yards behind me.

  Staring at the water, I can picture the pallor of Gil’s face. He wants to make amends with me; Yair is merely a distraction. Right now, if he thought it would absolve him in my eyes, Gil would lay his neck before them all.

  “Get away from her,” Yair says.

  I turn.

  Gil hasn’t moved. His head low, he waits to resume his path to me. To the others he must appear obstinate; only I know that his head is hung in grief.

  When Yair shoves him, Gil stumbles a few steps but does not look up.

  The back of Yair’s neck is a dull red. “None of us wants any part of you, do you understand?”

  Dov approaches; he sets a hand on Yair’s shoulder. Then he speaks to Gil in a steady and quiet tone that catches me off guard. “This is what you need to know, so listen closely, because I won’t say it more than once. If you ever set a hand on my cousin again, you will regret it for the rest of your life.”

  Gil and I and the others under the shelter are transfixed. But Yair cannot be quieted. “We fight so damn hard to make it safe in this place. This isn’t who we are.” He steps away from Dov’s restraining hand. “I swear,” he says, “I could kill you this minute.” Then he swivels to me, his eyes shining with outrage and hurt. “Just say the word, Maya. Just tell me to knock the bastard down and I will.”

  “Yair,” Dov calls. He is shaking his head sadly, and he waits until he has his friend’s attention before continuing. “Don’t make it worse for her.”

  Gil looks up. He gives a feeble hoot. “Is that what you’re all on about? I didn’t hit her. She fell, that’s all.” He turns to me for confirmation. We’re a team, I can almost hear him say. The sunlight slants across his face, there is no seeing past the brightness.

  The others wait, rapt.

  I swallow hard against a tide of nausea that threatens to pitch me forward off the rock where I sit, and then I do something that startles me and leaves the Israelis looking stricken: I laugh at them all.

  Noon has become a standoff that, I am convinced, will never end. I sit on the rim of the pool; Gil broods beside the picnic table. Dov and Yair are stationed between. Behind me, Rina and Tali wait for me to change my mind. “Come to the women’s shelter,” Tali repeats. “Just for a counseling session.” The others have left for their hike.

  “No one has to know,” Tali insists.

  Again my mind turns over the possibilities. Maybe I could go, just once, to hear what the people there have to say? The possibility of help overwhelms me. I can hardly bear to consider it; I blink back tears.

  Still, I know no one can sweep me up, erase the marks of Gil’s hands, or convince me that I’m worthy of anything other than this. Tali and Rina don’t understand the least thing about me. They don’t really care for me, I’m just a problem they want solved.

  Gil is the only one who will stick with me no matter what. I know he’ll never leave me.

  Once more, I try to review my choices. I’m not thinking clearly.

  I see that what paralyzes me, more than anything else, is fear of losing the one thing I have left: my mother’s trust in me. A thought comes sailing into my mind: I came to this country to save her. I’m not supposed to need saving.

  I am not aware of the sound of the motor. But as the car pulls up beside the steps, I hear, above other shouts of recognition, Dov’s voice rising in alarm. “What are you doing here?” he barks. I turn my head. I am met with the sight of this suntanned soldier, my moody terse cousin, racing toward the steps as if everything in his life and training had prepared him for this moment.

  The car door opens; Nachum gets out.

  Dov reaches the car and stands before his father. Ariela has squirmed out of the backseat to hug Dov’s waist, and Dov reaches automatically to stroke her hair. Inside the car I see Tami.

  Nachum lifts his chin and clasps a firm hand to his son’s shoulder. The gesture says, Not this time—all of us are safe. The two men face each other. Then they move off, Dov lifting Ariela to his shoulders, Nachum stepping toward
the shelter.

  Nachum passes among Dov’s three friends, extending his hand in greeting to each. Then he glances around and comes to me.

  There is no way to avoid it. I face him. Nachum blinks as if noticing something peculiar about my appearance. Then he clears his throat and speaks, his eyes apologizing into mine. “Your mother needs you in America,” he says. “One of her co-workers sent for you.”

  16

  The trip to Jerusalem is a silent passage through sharp, clear light. My mind is empty of thought. Nachum navigates the hills steadily. Gil and I sit in the backseat, jolted together from time to time. The desert spins below us, but I look only at the bright empty sky. Gil searches me with his eyes.

  Our departure from the nature preserve was rushed. No sooner had Nachum spoken to me than Tami made her way between Dov’s friends to remind him that time was short. The Shachars had placed me on standby for a night flight and we needed to get under way.

  Within five minutes of the Shachars’ arrival, I’d gathered my belongings.

  “Maya looks bad,” Ariela announced as I zipped my backpack.

  Nachum knelt to explain. “Her mother is very sick. Sometimes when people are sad and cry very hard, their eyes get a little bit puffy.”

  Dov’s friends were relieved I was going, I knew it. Rina stood apart from Tali and Yair, and stepped forward only when Dov hoisted my bag into the trunk of the Shachars’ car. “Good luck,” she said. Then she touched my shoulder. “Please, Maya. Will you think about it?”

  As Rina retreated, I watched Gil throw his knapsack and our sleeping bags into the trunk and climb into the backseat. No one spoke to him.

  Dov intercepted Nachum and Tami as they headed for the car. “I need to talk with you.”

  Nachum, in a gesture clearly foreign to him, looked at his watch. Impotent, he raised his hands. “We can’t miss her flight, and she needs time to pack. But we’ll be back from the airport tonight. Can it wait until then, maybe you can drive to a phone in Eilat and call?”

  Dov frowned. “No. I’ll get my gear together and I’ll drive back today. I’ll meet you in Jerusalem and we can talk.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to stay another two days?” Tami asked.

  Dov made a dismissive gesture. Then he made another gesture, a simple sweep of his hand that seemed to include me in his circle of responsibility. Before I ducked to enter the car, I paused to take in this new appraisal of me: family. “Look after Maya,” Dov said.

  Nachum opened his mouth to reply. Then, glancing in bewilderment at his watch once more, he got in the car.

  Tami lingered to consider her son. “I will,” she told him solemnly.

  For hours we drive, past hills and goats and Bedouin women in black. Near some power cables, two men squat on the ground outside a tent, watching a small television set propped on a pile of rocks. The desert rolls on.

  The Shachars know nothing, yet. But they will, before the night is out. I wait, with the certainty of a convicted criminal, for the charges against me to be made public. I am convinced that if they tell my mother, she won’t want to see me.

  Patting the makeup in the hollows beneath my eyes, I recall how hard I tried to conceal all those long-ago nights in the dance studio.

  She won’t need the Shachars’ help to figure it out.

  In the car, only Nachum speaks. In respectful tones he provides answers to questions before I can ask them; he offers details of the flight, assures me that my ticket will be waiting for me at the terminal, and seems eager to avert my every need for speech. I watch him move delicately around my silence, afraid to upset a basket piled high with feelings. It is not hard to recognize the baffled caution with which he navigates his wife’s moods.

  On a steep incline Nachum pulls to the side of the road and demonstrates an optical illusion for Ariela. “If we release the brake here, it looks like we’re rolling uphill. Watch the rocks slide by. Magic, Ariela.” Ariela’s giggles fill the car, gravity appears to drag us uphill. Forward and backward roll into each other in this hard dry place. I look to the sky.

  It is late afternoon when we reach Jerusalem, and traffic is heavy on the city’s main streets. The Shachars let Gil and me off in front of our building and promise to come back for me in an hour. They have been driving since the seven-a.m. telephone call from New York, and Nachum wants to sleep before taking me to the airport. Tami turns in her seat as we leave the car. “See you at six,” she says. She looks into my face. I have no idea what she sees.

  Just inside the building entrance, Gil and I pass a black-hatted student taping notices to the wall. We climb the stairs. As we near the second floor, I see that the door of my downstairs neighbor’s apartment is wide open. The sight triggers a distant alarm, but I have something more pressing to think about. One foot, then the other. My legs cramp in protest. The hours in the car have knotted my aching muscles; at each step I fight the desire to rest.

  A young, heavyset black appears in the second-floor doorway and watches us approach, as though, from this vantage point, spying is only natural. He inclines his head toward Gil, who is in front of me, and through a heavy lisp informs him, “We need a tenth for a minyan.” But Gil moves on.

  In the apartment Gil sets down his things, then lifts my backpack from my shoulder and lays it on the floor as well. “You’re going to America,” he says, dully. “Your mother will get well and you’ll be happy with your American friends and you’ll want to stay. You’ll run away from me because I haven’t been good to you.” Fear has drawn his arms across his chest.

  It’s only now that the pages on the bulletin board downstairs, the open door, and the blacks assembling men for prayers add up in my mind.

  “Just a minute,” I stammer. Gil looks puzzled, then uneasy. “I’ll be right back,” I tell him. I walk down the stairs as fast as my buckling knees will carry me. At the bottom of the stairwell I read the bereavement notices, one after another; I read each and every one, although they all carry an identical message: Shifra Feldstein, of blessed memory. Died the 19th of Elul 5753. May God comfort her mourners along with the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.

  I step into the garden. The trunk of the palm tree is thick and scarred; I rest a hand against it. Shifra. I turn her name over and over in my mouth, it feels like the first word I have spoken in weeks.

  “She was gathered to her forefathers last night,” a voice says from behind me. I turn to see the same black who spoke to Gil upstairs. He stands against the wall beside the entryway, half shaded by the stout trunk of the palm tree. I’m amazed that he speaks to me at all, in my short-sleeved shirt and jeans. But he doesn’t seem troubled; he keeps his blue eyes fixed on a point beyond my head, so that he won’t see my im-modestly exposed elbows. He doesn’t so much as glance at my slumping body or swollen face. I am acutely grateful—this courtesy might have been designed especially for me.

  “I have relatives in Queens, I visit. I studied also once at yeshiva in America, two years I studied there. Crown Heights. So I know from there my English.”

  Only as he says this do I realize that he has, indeed, been speaking to me in English, his lisp even more pronounced beneath that heavy accent.

  He fishes in one pocket for a cigarette, then lights it with a match from a tattered book dug from another pocket.

  “You’re the upstairs neighbor,” he tells me. “American.”

  I nod.

  He nods as well, staring off into space. “There’s no need to worry. All was done properly.”

  I hesitate, unsure how much he’ll be willing to tell me. But I need to know more, and in English I’m bold. “Did any family come for her?”

  “We came.”

  “Who do you mean, ‘we’?”

  “Chevra kaddisha.”

  “Chevra kaddisha?”

  My ignorance elicits a sour expression, but his gaze doesn’t waver from its focus. “The burial society.” He indicates the upstairs apartment with a motion of his chin. “That�
�s who arranged shiva. She herself had no family. But no one”—he takes a deep drag on his cigarette—“is without family in the house of Israel.” He exhales smoke, then speaks through a cough. “We accompanied the body to its resting place.”

  “What happened to her?” I find I’m looking past him as well; our words float ownerless in this quiet garden.

  “What happened? She was gathered to her forefathers.”

  “What I mean is, how did she die?”

  “I know what you mean,” he responds. “But what matters how? She went to her creator.” He draws on his cigarette again, then seems to tire of his own self-satisfaction. Dropping his voice to a level suitable for mildly illicit gossip, he continues. “Her curtains caught fire. From the flame of a memorial candle she lit.” He sighs. “Careless. She put the fire out herself, she tore down the curtains and put out every last flame, but she had a heart attack. Our coroner said exhaustion from heat was what did it.”

  She’s dead, that’s all I can think. But that can’t be so. Obstinate, I shake my head. There was more we had to say to each other. There was a question she wanted me to answer. And something she had to tell me, I’m sure of it now.

  “Can you tell me about her?” I ask.

  I half expect him to inform me once more that she was gathered to her forefathers. Instead he twists his free hand meditatively in his beard. “She was a survivor. Of the Shoah.” He taps ash onto the dirt path and grinds it with the toe of one shoe. “Neighbors say she came here after the war, she worked textiles until she got too old or strange and they retired her on pension. She used to have couple of visitors every year, Polish maybe, or Hungarian, who knows. Friends, or just charity workers. But whoever it was, they stopped coming. The children here were scared of her, that’s what people say. She wore a kerchief like a God-fearing woman, but her eyes were crazy. And when they found her, her hair was matted. Like she never once in fifty years combed it. Like she never noticed the war was over and she was still living. She was one of the strangest, this one, may-her-memory-be-blessed.” He shrugs. “Still, she’s gone to God’s kingdom, same as others. It goes this way lately—so many of them dead or dying. We see it every week in our work, the generation of survivors is leaving this world. God is gathering his most deserving crop. We must cherish their memory.”