Life in a Box

by Einat Lifshitz Shem-Tov

  26

  Two weeks had gone by since Mickey left my house. It was an ordinary day. I left the office at the end of the day; on my way home, I stopped at the supermarket to buy some things, stopped at the dry cleaners to pick up a coat, and went to the ATM to withdraw some cash. My heart was heavy without really knowing why—it felt as if a thunderstorm or an avalanche was coming, and the atmosphere was inundated with anticipation. It was a little past seven. As soon as I went inside the house, I turned on the lights in the east wing of the house. Something was bothering me. The answering machine light was flashing, but I ignored it—the message was probably from either Donna or Roy. After putting my grocery bag down in the kitchen and hanging up my coat, I went to take a shower. The running water caressed my body, but didn’t calm the vague feeling of unease.

  Afterward, on my way to the kitchen, I saw the flashing light of the answering machine again and went over to turn it on. The message interrupted my plans for a quiet evening.

  “Eva, this is Rivka. Mickey has been in an accident and I would really like you to come.” She stopped for a moment. I could hear her crying in the background, and then she continued, “He’s not doing well, and I’m sure he would be happy to see you… Please, come.” Again I heard her sobs, and then she hung up.

  I continued to stare at the answering machine. Mickey was hurt in an accident. My legs turned to lead and my body slumped to the floor. I knew he was in a bad way. Rivka wouldn’t have called if he wasn’t in critical condition. I dragged my heavy body off the floor and headed toward my room, where I sat on the edge of the bed and couldn’t get up. I knew.

  “Mickey,” I whispered. “What have you done?”

  About an hour later, I was on the main road to Chicago. I didn’t see a thing along the way—it was important for me to get there as soon as possible so he wouldn’t be alone with his story. He has to live, I told myself, pushing hard on the gas pedal. The drive seemed endless, but every journey comes to an end. I knocked on the door of the dark villa. The garden light was turned off, and the house didn’t seem as large as I remembered.

  The door opened and Shlomo stood in front of me. He’d aged considerably, as if years had gone by instead of the few months since I’d seen him last. His body was hunched over and his hands shook. He didn’t look like the man I knew. I almost asked if Shlomo was home.

  “Come in,” he said and turned away from me.

  The house was silent and not a soul was in sight.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked.

  “At the hospital.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m here. I don’t like hospitals.”

  It was the one of the very few complete sentences I had ever heard from him. Shlomo sat down in the chair he always sat in at the table, but this time, instead of the usual newspaper that always hid his face, he held a prayer book. He looked detached; I thought for a moment he didn’t remember that I was there. His lips moved in silent prayer and his body rocked back and forth in tiny movements. I looked at his face. It was gaunt and his cheeks were lost inside the contours.

  “Would you like me to fix you something to eat?”

  He shook his head no but didn’t stop praying. His lips continued to move independently. I went into the kitchen and made a cup of tea. The remains of a pound cake rested on the counter. I sliced a piece of it and placed it next to the cup. He didn’t see me or hear a thing. He was in another place, in another country, one that haunted him.

  ***

  It was already one o’clock in the morning when I arrived at the hospital. The nurse took me to his room. Rivka sat at the foot of his bed and his sisters were huddled by the window. They didn’t see me. Mickey was hooked up to a million machines. A monitor next to him beeped. His heartbeat was irregular.

  “Rivka,” I said, putting my hand on her shoulder.

  “Oh, Eva, I’m so glad you came!” She got up and gathered me to her chest. Her sobs grew stronger and her tears stained my blouse. His sisters stayed by the window, looking at us from a distance.

  “What happened?” I asked after she released me from her embrace.

  “It was a mistake. Mickey was cleaning his gun and a bullet accidentally fired and hit him.”

  “I see,” I said, and avoided looking over to the window. “How’s he doing?”

  Rivka began to cry again. She said, “Not so well. The doctors say the next forty-eight hours are critical. If he makes it through them, he has a chance. Eva, talk to him. I’m sure he can hear—he would be so happy to know that you’re here.”

  Rivka gave me her chair. She called her daughters to leave the room with her. “Talk to him,” she said. She went out and left me alone with him.

  I didn’t know what to do. It was hard to speak to Mickey; he didn’t look like a human being, but an extension of a machine. I took his hand, which was lying beside his body, and rubbed it. I wanted to feel the warmth of his body, I wanted to be sure that underneath all these machines there was a person, the first person I made love to. Somebody who spoke to me, who held me and whispered words of love to me.

  “Mickey, can you hear me?” I whispered. “I’m so sorry, so very sorry. Please live. We have so much more to say to each other.” I squeezed his hand and expected to feel him squeeze in return, but his hand remained limp, like an inanimate object. What else should I say? The day’s unease suddenly became clear, and now it was growing to enormous proportions. The night he told me about his father burned in my brain. He can’t die, I told myself. I have to explain it to him first.

  ***

  I lived at the hospital that week. Rivka saw me as being faithful and loyal, but if Mickey had been conscious the whole time, he would know the real reason for my dedication. Two days after I arrived, the doctors announced that his condition had improved, but they were careful not to encourage false hope, saying that he needed to be closely monitored. Three more days went by. Every once in a while, I would leave his room and pop over to the villa to shower and eat something, but most of the time I was at his bedside.

  Friday night. His sisters had all gone home to sleep; Rivka went with them. I sat on the window sill looking out into the darkness that had fallen over the city. There was something about Friday evenings, something that made them special. I remembered the sacred atmosphere of the Fridays I spent with his family. The aromas of Rivka’s cooking, Shlomo in one of his more stylish suits, Rivka covering her face, with her hands over the candles, reciting the prayer, the table decorated with a pure white tablecloth, Shlomo’s Friday night prayer, all of us answering “Amen.” There was something there I had never encountered before, and my heart opened up to it in anticipation.

  “Mom?”

  For a second I didn’t understand where the voice was coming from. Somebody had disturbed the peacefulness of my Friday.

  “Mickey?” I got up from the window and went over to his bed.

  “Eva, what are you doing here?”

  “Mickey, you woke up,” I said in a voice that sounded foreign to me.

  “Eva, why are you here?”

  “Your mother asked me to come.”

  He turned his face away from me. I took his chin in my hands and moved his eyes back toward me. “I’m glad that she asked me to come,” I added.

  “Why?”

  “I would never have forgiven myself if…”

  “If I had died.” He completed my sentence.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “So now that you see I’m alive, you can go.”

  “No, Mickey, I’m staying.”

  “I don’t want you here,” he said. He was having trouble talking.

  “I know, but I intend to stay anyway.”

  He turned his gaze away from me once again and for a long time didn’t say a word.

  After this conversation, we didn’t speak at all. I would come to the hospital, and as soon as he saw me, he would turn away from me. Rivka was aware of the tension between us, but didn’t mention a thing
. She preferred not to deal with what she saw because she believed that my presence contributed to his recuperation.

  At the beginning of the second week of my stay there, I felt that it was time to leave. I went up to Rivka and told her that I was going home. She hugged me and said, “Please, Eva, stay a few more days. I know that something happened between you, but despite the way he’s acting toward you, I’m sure he wants you here. Sometimes he can be very stubborn and unpleasant, but it only means that he’s in pain. It’s hard for him to admit it out loud, so he hurts other people. He’s very much like his father in that respect.”

  “Shlomo hurt you?”

  My question caught her off guard and I instantly regretted asking her. “I’m sorry, Rivka.” I wanted to take it back immediately. “I don’t have the right to ask you.”

  “You know what, Eva? You do have the right to ask me. I am, after all, the one who asked you to be a part of what we are all going through, and you agreed right away. I think that you absolutely have the right to ask me this question. Shlomo, as you must have noticed, doesn’t speak much. His silence has continued for many years. When we were young, I saw it as an advantage—I thought he was a very wise man, and the things he chose to say seemed in my eyes to be very intelligent. But over time, I’ve come to realize that my relationship with him has sentenced me to a lonely life. What little communication we had between us turned into short questions with yes or no answers. Shlomo became more and more withdrawn and was a mere shadow in the house, although at work he behaved completely differently. The children were born into this atmosphere and his silence drove them as far away as possible.”

  “Except for Mickey,” I said.

  “It was different with Mickey, much more complicated.”

  “Would you like to tell me about it now?”

  “Come, let’s put off this conversation to another time… Our souls are heavy enough, no need to add any more.”

  She wasn’t going to talk about what happened. She was quiet, like her husband, but her silence was different than his. Before she could get up from the sofa, I got up and hugged her tightly. At first, she was surprised by the sudden gesture, but then she embraced me and we stayed like that for several long minutes, taking comfort in each other’s arms.

  “Will you stay?” she asked with a shaky voice.

  “Yes,” I answered without hesitation. “Let me just call my office and tell them I’m extending my vacation.”

  My soul has been linked with this family, and my connection to it will remain, irrespective of my relationship with Mickey. Of this I am sure.

  ***

  Slowly but surely, Mickey began to recover. Every day brought new improvement to his condition. He moved his head more easily, his limbs woke up, and the medical team agreed to let him get out of bed and take short walks. He still frowned at me, but he was used to my presence. He let me hold his arm while taking slow steps, agreed to let me help him eat, and sometimes even listened to me giving him a summary of current events, even though he pretended to be asleep.

  After a few days, the doctors announced that he was being released from the hospital for the weekend. Mickey reacted with indifference, but Rivka was already planning the dinner she would prepare for him.

  When we arrived at the house, Mickey stopped at the entrance and looked around. He scrutinized the house as if it was the first time he’d seen it.

  Shlomo was nowhere to be found. I asked Rivka where he was, and she whispered, “It’s hard for him.”

  The Sabbath passed in silence. Mickey barely spoke, answering Rivka’s questions with only “yes” or “no.” Shlomo closed himself up in his room and came down only for meals. Mickey’s sisters called. They said that even though they wanted to come, they couldn’t, and that they would try to visit next week. I really wanted to go home, but I couldn’t bear Rivka’s sadness, so I stayed till the end of the weekend.

  Rivka spent most of the time in the kitchen and asked that I sit next to her. I knew she was afraid of the moment when I would leave and she would be left completely alone in a silent world. Our conversations centered on normal topics and we were careful not to touch on any subjects that were too emotionally charged. Mickey chose to spend his time in his bedroom. He refused Rivka’s invitation to come downstairs.

  On Sunday morning, I went up to his room. When I went inside, he said that he was tired and asked me to leave him alone. I ignored his request and sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “Mickey, we have to talk,” I said to his back.

  “We don’t have to do anything,” he answered.

  I felt my anger raise its head, but I tried my best to keep it in check. I tried again. “Mickey, stop this now. Let’s talk.”

  “It’s not important anymore,” he answered, his back still a barrier between us.

  “It’s important to me!” I said loudly. I got up to move to the other side of the bed.

  A sigh escaped his lips and he turned around, sat up, and leaned his body against the pillow.

  “Eva, I really don’t think we have anything to say to each other. You made that perfectly clear the last time we were together.”

  “I didn’t make anything clear,” I answered angrily. “You came over with your father’s story and expected me to comfort you. You don’t understand that I have my own story and my own guilt and I can’t share in yours. You’re not angry at me, Mickey, you’re angry at yourself, like I’m angry at myself. It takes time to deal with the guilt you unjustly took upon yourself.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, you understand just fine, but you’re not willing to open your eyes to see it, to see the years you’ve wasted. To understand that the father you loved so much passed the burden of his actions on to you instead of carrying them himself. But now you are a big boy and not so naïve, and you need to shake this load off your back. Enough already, Mickey. No more running. Nobody expects you to continue. You owe it to yourself. Somebody has to release you from the burden of this legacy. It has to be you.”

  I was distraught and angry. Not at him, at his father—maybe not even at Shlomo. Mickey’s situation was also mine. We both have been victims by choice. For years, he and I have denied what was in front of us and allowed life to pass us by without really touching it. We are both carrying the burden of guilt on our shoulders.

  I was caught up in my thoughts when I heard the sobs. At first they were weak and choked, then the crying grew louder, shaking his emaciated body. Mickey covered his face with his hands. I wanted to go to him and hold him, but I held back. I backed up quietly, opened the door, and left.

  I went downstairs wearing my backpack. Rivka was leaning against the table in the kitchen with her back to me. The house was dark except for the light in the kitchen. Her head rested against her arms and her back was slouched forward. I wanted to go to her, to caress her and promise her that everything would be OK, but instead, I opened the front door and left the house, not knowing if I’d ever see them again.

  27

  Two months passed and I didn’t hear a word from Mickey or Rivka. There were days when I debated whether to call them, but I never did. Mickey will call me when he is stronger—he can have the time he needs. My blessed routine carried me through intense working days. Donna and I got together at least once a week. Sometimes we’d go out to a movie, and sometimes we would sit at my house and talk. My search for an organization to help me gain information about my mother took up most of my time. Each one I called told me that they didn’t search for people not connected to World War II. Except for one—a pleasant man answered the phone and showed real interest in my story. His name was Josh and he informed me that the chances of finding my mother through his office were slim, but he took down my details and promised to contact me if anything should come up.

  At some point, I got tired and called Rachel. She was happy to hear my voice and asked how my search was going. She was disappointed to hear that nothing had
changed since the last time we met. I was surprised that she didn’t offer to help.

  I called Roy, but he didn’t answer. I waited till evening and called him again. His mother told me he would be back in a week and promised to tell him I had called. It was obvious to me that she wouldn’t tell him a thing.

  I went to Sarah’s house, the only place where I didn’t feel the need to protect myself. She accepted me with her usual warmth. After I sipped the tea she made me and tasted the crunchy cake she served, she casually asked how my investigation was going.

  “Not very well,” I answered.

  “Why?”

  Instead of answering her question, I turned to her and, with a direct look into her eyes, asked why she made me leave her house when I asked about my mother.

  “I didn’t make you leave, my dear.”

  “But—”

  She cut me off, saying, “You want answers from me that I can’t give you. I came to live in this house about a year after your parents moved in. I didn’t know anything about them. Over time, after your mother and I became friends, I realized that their relationship was very complex. Your mother told me very little about what was going on with them. She spoke mostly about you.”

  “About me?”

  “Yes, she loved you very much.”

  “So how come I never felt that love?”

  “I can’t answer that for you. I expect she had her reasons.”

  “What reasons?”

  “I’m sure that if you keep searching, you will find the answers to your questions.”

  A little while later, back at my house, I thought about what Sarah had said. “She knows more than she’s telling,” I said aloud to myself. “She’s pushing me to keep looking.” Of that I was sure.

  I was determined to go forward with my search. I called one of the organizations I had spoken to before, but this time I presented them with a different story. I told them that my grandfather and grandmother were Holocaust survivors and would like to know if anyone from their families was still alive.