Life in a Box

by Einat Lifshitz Shem-Tov

  “What?”

  “Get to work—go to your desk.”

  I got up and left her office. When I turned around she was still standing with her back to me.

  She didn’t speak to me the entire day. She passed by me and completely ignored me. I wanted to go to her, to try and explain, but I didn’t have the energy to raise the subject—if I talked about it with her, it would be impossible to continue ignoring it. At the end of the day, on the way out, I passed by her office, but it was empty.

  When I got home, the refrigerator was empty of fresh food, and some dishes were growing mold. The milk had expired—I couldn’t even make myself a cup of coffee. I went out and crossed the street. Sarah’s door opened as soon as I knocked, like she knew I was coming.

  “Come in,” she said and hugged me to her. “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  “Come into the kitchen.”

  I sat at the table and watched her move between the fridge and the stove, to the counter and back to the fridge and once again to the stove. In a matter of minutes there was a dish sitting before me with hot, appetizing food.

  I devoured the food like I was breaking a long fast. She sat in front of me with a look of satisfaction. When I finished, she collected the dishes, put them in the sink, and invited me into the living room.

  I knew I couldn’t hide what I had discovered from her. Her sharp eyes penetrated my mask and I had no choice but to confess. It had happened before when I tried to hide things from her—with her direct questions and penetrating stare, she knew how to get the truth out of me.

  “I haven’t seen you lately.”

  “Yes. Lots of things have happened, and I’ve been busy,” I answered.

  She waited for me to continue, knowing that I couldn’t bear any long silences. When I could tell she wasn’t going to talk, I broke the silence myself.

  “I’m Jewish!” I declared. I wanted to shock her, but she remained silent.

  I told her about my journey to Chicago, about Mickey and his family, and about everything I found out through them. She was silent the entire time, her eyes never leaving me, and she listened to everything I said until the very end. Suddenly she got up and disappeared into the kitchen. When she came back, she put a dish with brown cookies and two cups of tea on the table, sat down in her chair, and asked, “How do you feel today?”

  I thought for a few seconds and then answered, “I don’t know. On the one hand, nothing has changed, but on the other, everything has changed. I feel strange. I don’t know how to define what I am, how I feel, or even what to think… Did you know about this?”

  She put down her cup of tea, folded her hands in her lap, and said, “Your mother was a very private person. There were a lot of things that nobody knew about her—things that she kept to herself.”

  “But you knew? She told you? After all, you were friends.”

  “What does it matter, Eva? What’s important is that you need to know what to do after you have the knowledge. Now I have to go out. Come visit me again.”

  She got up from her chair and put her hand on my shoulder with a slight push. I had no choice but to walk toward the door, leaving behind my full cup of hot tea. The door closed behind me, gently but with resolve. I crossed the street to my house. It felt like I had been thrown out.

  When I got home, the red light was flashing on my answering machine; the machine’s metallic voice announced that there were twenty-two messages waiting. Most of them were from Donna, some from Roy, one from Mickey asking if I got home all right, and one from the priest asking me to contact him. It was already after eight o’clock in the evening. I erased all the messages and decided to deal with them tomorrow. I didn’t feel like talking to Donna or Roy; I still didn’t want to admit to Roy that he had been right.

  When I got to the office the next day, I called the church, but there was no answer. I tried again after an hour and heard the soft voice of the priest on the other end of the phone.

  “Good morning, Father. This is Eva Brown. You left me a message—”

  “Yes, yes,” he interrupted me. “How are you?”

  “I’m just fine,” I answered.

  “Good,” he answered and then there was silence.

  “Father Peter?” I asked with trepidation.

  “Yes, my child,” he answered.

  “What did you want?”

  “I am so confused. Edna, my secretary, has been ill for several days, and I can’t seem to manage things here. Suddenly I realize how helpless I am without others by my side.”

  I nodded in agreement.

  “What can I do for you, child?”

  I felt like I was about to lose my patience. I said, “Father, you called me and left me a message telling me to get in touch with you, so here I am calling to ask what you wanted… Maybe it has to do with the woman we asked you about?”

  “Ahh… Yes, yes… Right, someone was here asking about your father.”

  “About my father?”

  “Yes, I told him he had passed away, and then he left very quickly.”

  “Did you know him? Did he leave an address? Telephone number?”

  “No, no, as I said, he ran out of here without letting me talk to him at all.”

  “I don’t understand, Father,” I said. Then, resolved in my decision, I asked, “Can I come over now to speak with you?”

  “Yes… Yes, of course. I’ll tell Edna to write…oh, but Edna is ill and won’t be here today.”

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” I put down the phone, grabbed my purse and left the office. I thought I saw Donna lift her head from her desk, but I just continued on my way.

  Driving to the outskirts of town usually took more than twenty minutes, but this time I arrived at the church in fifteen. I found Father Peter leaning over his desk, his glasses perched at the end of his nose. He didn’t hear me come in because he was immersed in a large book whose pages had yellowed due to its advanced age. I cleared my throat, but his head remained in the same position. I moved the chair in front of him. It screeched. Only then did he raise his head, and I could see that his eyes were looking in my direction, but he was somewhere else entirely.

  I said, “Father, I’m Eva, Eva Brown. I spoke to you on the phone.”

  Like a blurry picture gradually coming into focus, his hollow eyes made their way from where they had been to the room crowded with books where we were now.

  “Sit, sit, my child. I’m sorry. You must think I’m a bothersome old man. But when Edna is away, it is as if both my hands have been cut off. I can’t find anything and I’m confused and forgetful. But I do remember why you came.”

  I gave him a warm smile. He was a good man. The community was his family. He had never married and didn’t have any children.

  “A few days ago—I think it was on Friday—a pleasant man came to see me. I don’t remember his name, but he asked me about John Jos…

  “Brown,” I corrected him.

  “Absolutely right, Brown. I think he said he was family and that he was checking to see whether John lived in our town. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember why. After all, your father never came to church—perhaps I never saw him. I asked Edna, and she, of course, knew exactly who I was talking about. You see, Edna knows everyone in this city; even at her age, her memory is better than mine, and when she’s gone…”

  I cleared my throat.

  He stopped for a moment, and then continued, “I went back to the man, who was sitting outside the church, and told him that, sadly, the person he was looking for passed away. I didn’t have a chance to say one more word. The man turned around and bolted from the place. I tried to follow him, but, you see, my legs are not as young as they used to be. He disappeared as if the earth swallowed him up without leaving a trace. The next day, Edna cleaned my desk, as she does every weekend. She found the note with your name and telephone number written on it from when you were here asking me about tha
t woman.”

  I let out a heavy sigh.

  “I see you’re very disappointed.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Well, then, if he comes again, I’ll send him directly to you.”

  “Thank you, Father. Thank you.”

  I left there disappointed and frustrated—it seemed like I had reached a dead end, like I was trapped in a room with a locked door that was preventing me from going out and discovering the world beyond. My uneasy new knowledge that I was Jewish didn’t give me any rest. What should I do with this news—change my way of life? Think differently? Act differently? Should I keep it bottled up and ignore it?

  I didn’t know anything about Jews or Judaism. Of course, I knew about the Holocaust. I don’t remember if there were any Jewish kids in my class. Actually, the subject was never raised except for one time that I remember clearly. A group of young neo-Nazis marched down the streets of Chicago. They were waving the swastika flag, marching with their hands raised in the Nazi salute, chanting Hitler’s name. Some of them were carrying signs that read, “Hitler should have finished the job.”

  I was fourteen at the time. The television nightly news was broadcasting the event. The parade quickly deteriorated into a brawl between the demonstrators and a group of Jews and others that protested the anti-Semitic parade. The police tried to separate the groups; during the altercation, a police officer was killed and a number of protestors injured.

  I wouldn’t have remembered the incident if it wasn’t for the portrait engraved in my memory. My father was sitting in his chair, smiling, while my mother was leaning tiredly against the kitchen doorpost with a sad expression, staring blankly at my father’s face.

  17

  I got together with Roy a week later. Since I had returned from Chicago, we hadn’t seen or spoken with each other. I finally called him. The conversation was brief. He asked where I had been and when I told him I had spent the weekend at Mickey’s, he cut the conversation short.

  He came over the next day without advance warning. I had come home from work and, after a short rest, was getting ready to get into the shower when I heard the knock on the door. He did not look good at all. Tired and disheveled. It looked like he hadn’t shaved in days—his prickly stubble had grown, giving his face a different look.

  I made coffee for the two of us and we sat down in the kitchen.

  “Everything OK?” I asked with genuine concern.

  He nodded and sipped the coffee. His head remained down, and he was staring into the brown liquid in the cup.

  “Roy, you’re worrying me. Did something happen?”

  “Nothing happened. How did you like Chicago, at Mickey’s?”

  “It was good; they were really nice to me.”

  “They?”

  “Rivka and Shlomo and his sister.”

  “Rivka and Shlomo…” he repeated after me, drawing out each word.

  “Yes, his parents. We had dinner together, and his sister and husband were also there. The truth is, I wanted to come home a day earlier, but they convinced me to stay.”

  “I see.”

  “Roy, look at me,]. Is there something you want to tell me?”

  He lifted his head and looked at me for several long minutes, but didn’t say a thing.

  I raised my voice. “Roy, why are you so distant?”

  “You don’t understand anything, do you?”

  “I don’t understand why you’re talking to me like that and why you look like you do.”

  He looked at me again, then suddenly got up and said that he had to leave. He moved his cup to the center of the table, dragged the chair under the table, turned around, and began to walk toward the door. I went after him and stood with my back to the front door, preventing him from opening it.

  “I want you to tell me what happened.”

  “Eva, I have to go.”

  “Roy, you are not leaving until I know what’s going on.”

  He moved closer to me, his face inches from my own. His eyes were tired and he suddenly looked much older. I felt uncomfortable and tried to break away from his gaze, but his hands caught my arms and didn’t let me move. He didn’t say a word the entire time; he continued to look at me as if he wanted to infer something from my eyes. His grasp tightened and began to hurt me. I must have wrinkled my face in pain, because he let go of my arms all at once, moved me aside, opened the door, and was swallowed by the darkness outside. I knew that something had changed between us.

  In the following days, I tried to comprehend what had happened, but I gave up in the end and decided to put my thoughts aside for the time being. The knowledge of my being Jewish began to slowly get buried under layers of denial and repression. I convinced myself that everyone was wrong and they were reaching illogical conclusions. I wanted to go back to the life I knew: dull, soporific and safe.

  Two weeks after my meeting with Roy, Mickey called. He had left me two messages on my answering machine in the last month, but I hadn’t called him back. I was afraid that contact with him would awaken the need to deal with what Rivka told me about my mother. It’s possible that his being Jewish deterred me. I didn’t want any connection to that religion. When I heard the phone ring, I picked up the receiver and immediately recognized his voice.

  “Eva, how are you?” he asked. He didn’t bring up the messages on the answering machine.

  “I’m fine, and you?” I answered calmly.

  “Just fine. I finished the work at the office and yesterday the company officially closed.”

  “And how do you feel?” I probed.

  “Bittersweet relief.” He chuckled.

  “I understand. And how are Rivka and Shlomo?”

  “They’re fine. My father reads a lot.”

  “And your mother?”

  “She’s always busy. She cooks a lot. Lately she’s also been volunteering at the Jewish Center in our neighborhood. Aside from that, she also tutors, sometimes cooks for special events, does paperwork…”

  “Great.”

  They both were silent.

  “Eva, I was thinking of coming to visit you,” he said finally. When I didn’t respond, he said, “How about next week?”

  “The weekend is good for me.”

  “So, Friday?”

  I gave him directions to my house and we hung up.

  From that conversation until he arrived almost a week later, I walked around in a daze. There were times when I picked up the telephone to cancel his visit, but then hung up at the last minute. I didn’t know how to entertain anyone. We never had guests stay for very long at our house. Does he intend to stay? Should I invite him to spend the night or let him go back to Chicago? The house is embarrassing—old on the outside and on the inside. Maybe when he sees it he will want to run away. What am I supposed to do with him for that many hours? Will I have to cook? My cooking repertoire is extremely limited. I was totally confused.

  On Thursday I decided that I had to do something. I crossed the street and knocked on Sarah’s door. She welcomed me with a big smile. As soon as I set foot in her home, comforting thoughts took over. This was the impact she had on me. I sat on the sofa and was careful not to wrinkle the embroidered napkin that decorated the armrest. Sarah went straight to the kitchen.

  “Tea?” I wasn’t sure if it was a question or a decision.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  She returned in one minute with a small painted tray carrying two cups of tea and a plate of warm cookies. Every time I come over, there are always warm cookies, like she knows I’m coming. Her gaze caressed me, and my body relaxed as though it had slipped in a hot bath with bubbles. My muscles relaxed, and I sank deep into the dent my body made in the sofa.

  “I need your help,” I announced as soon as I finished my first sesame cookie. Sarah raised her eyebrows in surprise.

  “I need to cook tomorrow, and I don’t know what to make or how.”

  The one thing I had learned about Sarah over time was that she didn
’t ask too many questions. I was sure she was surprised by my showing up and my announcement, but she suppressed her curiosity and didn’t ask a thing.

  “For how many?” she asked.

  “Two,” I answered, feeling my cheeks redden.

  “Have you been to the market yet?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “What do you want to make?”

  “Something tasty,” I said with a smile.

  “OK, come with me into the kitchen.”

  I followed her. She pulled out a cookbook covered in stains, witnesses to the many times she had used it.

  “I suggest a meal that is simple and nutritious,” she said.

  “No meal will be simple for me,” I said.

  She didn’t reply. She continued to flip through the pages of the book until she stopped and said, “Oh, here we go: broccoli and cauliflower pie and mushroom quiche. I recommend a fresh green salad on the side and coleslaw or another salad that you like.”

  “That sounds OK,” I mumbled, thinking to myself that the foods she mentioned sounded difficult and complicated for me to prepare.

  “Here, take a piece of paper and write this down,” she commanded. She read me the list of ingredients I needed to buy and added also bread and butter. But then she changed her mind and said, “Actually, I suggest one quiche and honey-baked ham. That’s very easy to make, but it makes an impression of being complicated, and it’s delicious.”

  When she finished dictating the long list, she said I should go grocery shopping today in order to have enough time tomorrow to prepare the meal. “Are you free tomorrow morning?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I answered. “I took the day off.”

  “Great. Then I’ll come over around nine o’clock and we’ll cook together.”

  Like a block of ice that melted the second it touched heat, the tension built up inside me melted. Suddenly I was encouraged. I told myself that the meal would be good and therefore the time with him would be pleasant.

  Sarah arrived at exactly nine o’clock a.m. She moved around the kitchen as if it were her own. She knew where everything was, opening cupboards, taking out containers, spreading out different utensils on the counter, and giving me orders as if it were her kitchen. If she had prepared the meal on her own, we would have been finished within the hour, but she wanted me to learn, so she allowed me to try my hand at cooking. When I made a mistake, she pointed it out. When I didn’t stir enough, she told me to continue. The meal was ready by the afternoon. She left me with instructions on how to warm up the meat before serving the meal and even helped me set the table. The table was tastefully arranged, and flowers in the vase I placed at the center gave it a relaxed atmosphere. Now all that was left was to wait.