TWO
1
Nachum died on the twenty-fifth of December, the birthday of the Son of God.
Four days earlier he’d woken up in the middle of the night unable to breathe. An ambulance took him to hospital, and from that moment on they no longer needed Emilia. Nurses and doctors cared for Nachum. His children came to the hospital and sat outside his room, and Emilia guessed from their facial expressions and what little they said to one another in Hebrew that he was going to die.
She sat next to them in the corridor, but felt uncomfortable, so she took the lift to the ground floor and went out into the cold open air of the hospital plaza. When she returned, a Russian-speaking nurse asked if she was Nachum’s caregiver, and when Emilia said she was, the nurse told her she should start looking for a new job. The doctors had put Nachum to sleep and hooked him up to a respirator and he would not last more than another two or three days. All his systems were in shutting down.
“How old was he?” the nurse asked, as if Nachum were already in heaven.
Emilia said, “Eighty-four.”
“How many years have you been caring for him?”
Two years.
Since the day she came to Israel.
During the first year he got around with a walker, and he talked, and he made Emilia a notebook with letters and words so that she could learn Hebrew. But in the last few months he no longer talked or walked, and she would take him out in a wheelchair so that he wouldn’t be cooped up at home all day. He would sit in the wheelchair in the sun with his eyes shut, for an hour or two, depending on the weather. His head would droop on his chest as if he’d fallen asleep. Sometimes his eyes would open suddenly and he would look around, perhaps startled, afraid he was alone, until he saw Emilia next to him and calmed down. The sun would light up his face. She would sit next to him on a bench under a tree.
She didn’t know much about him, except what his wife, Esther, had told her: he had been a paediatrician, he’d been born in the city of Linz in Austria, he’d had his first stroke four years ago, at eighty, and had been otherwise healthy. Before the stroke he’d enjoyed playing with his granddaughters, but wished he had grandsons. Since retiring as a doctor his hobbies included writing a book about treating children’s diseases, and building wooden toys with little engines, like steam trains or merry-go-rounds, neither of which he was still doing by the time Emilia arrived.
At midday, Nachum’s older daughter suggested that her mother go home to rest, because there was no point in her waiting around. She asked Emilia to go with her.
Emilia offered to cook, but Esther didn’t want to eat, and Emilia had nothing else to do. She sat in her room, the room she would have to leave in a few days. An almost empty room, with walls of faded white, a narrow bed, a wardrobe, a little television on a low table and a transistor radio.
At the funeral held in the cemetery in Petah Tikva, no one came up to console Emilia.
Nachum and Esther’s four children were just as courteous as they’d been since she’d started working for them. They told her she could stay in the little room until she found new work and a new bed. She offered to help during the shiva—she could cook, serve food, wash dishes, clean the living room and the bathroom at the end of the day—but they refused. They said she wasn’t a maid, that she’d been there solely to take care of Dad, and that in any case the whole family would help with the shiva. Guests brought platters of baked goods and biscuits, and some relatives came with pots of soup or other dishes. Women washed dishes in the kitchen. Emilia had no reason to be there, so she came back to her little room only at night, because for now she had nowhere else to sleep. She left at half past seven every morning, after breakfast with Esther and before visitors arrived to offer their condolences, and returned at ten or eleven at night, when everyone had left and the flat was dark. She began looking for new work through the employment agency that had brought her to Israel, in classified ads in the Russian newspapers, and by asking the few other caregivers she knew. She tried to learn Hebrew again, using the notebook Nachum had made for her, but as with her previous attempts, she felt that she couldn’t even cross the barrier of the peculiar shapes, even now, when it was so critical.
Until a few months ago she’d hoped the Hebrew was growing inside her like a tree, that the characters were its trunk and the words were the leaves or fruits. But now her hope was fading, as though it had died with Nachum or remained in the little room she was about to leave.
Nachum’s family wrote a short recommendation letter for Emilia in Hebrew and told her in English what it said: that she was a trustworthy, diligent worker, that she had taken care of their father like a devoted nurse or a mother caring for her baby. A man who came for the shiva heard them praising her and asked if Emilia would be willing to move to Haifa to take care of someone’s mother, but it turned out that without very good Hebrew she would not be able to do it.
Emilia sat on the bench under the tree where she used to sit with Nachum, and tried to work out whether she should go back to Riga. The days were cold, which reminded her of things she had forgotten. The thought of moving in with a different family frightened her. But two days after the shiva ended, a woman named Nurit from the agency told her they’d found her a job with a new old lady in a nursing home in Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv. It was a parttime job, three days a week, no overnights. Nurit said that Emilia would have to find somewhere to live until they decided if the job would become full-time and include room and board, so she started to look for a flat to rent in Bat Yam before she’d figured out whether she would stay in Israel.
When Emilia packed her two suitcases and said goodbye, Esther asked what was in the flat she’d rented. She said Emilia could take anything she needed from the little room, including the television and the radio. Emilia debated whether or not to take them, and in the end she said no. Esther asked, “Do you have pots and pans there? Kitchenware?” But Emilia would only agree to take the mug she used for coffee in the mornings. Esther asked her not to disappear: “You may not know this, Emilia, but it wasn’t just Nachum—I’ve also grown attached to you.” Emilia promised to visit.
She took the lift in which she used to take Nachum down to the garden in his wheelchair, and she passed the bench she used to sit on next to him and the tree that had protected them both from the sun and the rain.
She was certain it was the last time she would see either of them.
2
Esther phoned almost a month later.
Tuesday, early February. She called in the morning, while Emilia was at the nursing home in Bat Yam with Adina, the new lady. Emilia answered the phone and whispered that she couldn’t talk and would call Esther back later. When Adina took her afternoon nap, Emilia stepped out on to the balcony. Esther’s voice made her happy. She asked in Hebrew, “How are you, Emilia?” and Emilia was going to apologize for not being in touch, but Esther said, “Where have you been, Emilia? You said you wouldn’t disappear but you did. Are you working hard? Do you not have time to come and visit? You don’t know how difficult it is for me at home without Nachum.”
Esther’s voice brought back to Emilia the sight of the little room she’d left, with the kids’ bed she’d slept on for two years and the greying walls. She told Esther in English, “On Thursday I have day off and I can visit you in morning. You will be home?” Esther answered in Hebrew, “I’m home all day. Today I might go to the hairdresser. But call before you come so I can get ready.” It was clear from her voice that she did not want to end the conversation when she said to Emilia, “But tell me how you are—are you happy there? Do they treat you well?”
On Thursday she went to visit Esther, as promised.
On the bench under the tree outside the building a young woman sat next to a pram. Emilia remembered her: the neighbour from the ground floor, the wife of the tall man who’d helped her push Nachum’s wheelchair into the lift when one
of the wheels got stuck. When Emilia left, the woman had been pregnant, with an enormous belly. She greeted Emilia with a smile; perhaps she remembered her, even though they’d never spoken.
Esther opened the door in her brown nightgown, even though it was half past eleven and Emilia had called at ten o’clock to remind her that she was coming. Her grey hair was dishevelled, as if she hadn’t brushed it since Nachum died. They hugged, and Esther asked, “What is this, Emilia? Why are you so thin?”
On the coffee table there was a tray with biscuits on a little dish and a shop-bought marble cake. Nachum’s wheelchair was gone, and the blinds on the window facing the garden were shuttered. But the smell of the flat was still the same smell that had been so foreign in the first few weeks and had since become the smell of home: it was Nachum’s body odour and medication, Esther’s lotions, the old walls and the decomposing wood in some of the kitchen cupboards. Esther asked Emilia if she wanted tea or coffee, and when Emilia offered to make it herself for them both, Esther said, “Of course not, you sit down. Today you are a guest.” She went to the kitchen and Emilia stayed alone and did not know how to be a guest in a flat that up until a month ago was both her home and her place of employment.
When Esther came back with the cups she started talking immediately. And she talked as if she hadn’t spoken to anyone for weeks. She told Emilia that she was still going to the pool three times a week but didn’t have the strength to swim so she only did aerobics. She said that the kids visited but not much, and she felt she was still recovering from the shiva, with all the visitors. Sometimes the kids’ friends came in the evening and stayed late, and one couldn’t ask them to leave, even though she was used to going to bed early.
Seeing that Emilia wasn’t eating anything, Esther asked again why she looked so thin and if she’d stopped eating. Before Emilia could answer, Esther added, “I’m so sad that you left, Emilia. If it were up to me I would have kept you, but I’m still strong, what can you do? Maybe if you’re in Israel when I get sick you’ll come and care for me. You’ll stay here, won’t you? You’re not going back home?”
Emilia said she wasn’t, even though her thoughts of returning to Riga were becoming more frequent.
When she told Esther that the flat looked neater, Esther said, “Should I tell you why? It’s because I started removing his things. Very slowly, because I don’t have the strength. First of all the books. Every day I put two or three books out in the stairwell, and the neighbours take them or throw them away for me. Today I put out his old stereo, remember? Didn’t you see it outside?”
She did not invite Emilia to see the little room that used to be hers, and Emilia did not ask. And they hardly mentioned Nachum beyond the conversation about his belongings. Esther asked how Emilia was getting along in her new job, and Emilia did not tell her so as not to sadden her or complain. She changed the topic and told Esther that she was looking for extra work to cover her rent, and Esther asked, “Would you like me to ask the old people around the neighbourhood or at the pool? How many free days do you have?” Emilia said she had two, Saturdays and Thursdays, and also weekends, if necessary. She could work early in the morning, as soon as the buses started running from Bat Yam, all the way to the evening. She told Esther that a caregiver she’d met in the dining room at the nursing home had offered her a job cleaning lobbies or flats or offices on her free days. As she talked she constantly looked for Nachum, as if he might still be there; she often had trouble believing he wasn’t. She did not tell Esther that she saw Nachum when she was alone in her flat in Bat Yam or at the nursing home, and that she sensed he was trying to tell her something but was unable to. The first time she saw him it was just a flash, among the dozens of old people in the dining room, and his face scared her—his eyes were sunken and his skin almost translucent—but since then she’d grown accustomed to his deathly pallor, and he no longer frightened her.
Esther said, “Why should you do cleaning work, Emilia? I don’t think that’s a good idea. Wouldn’t it be better for you to take care of someone else? You do it so well. Besides, are you allowed to do that?” Emilia said that the caregiver she’d met in the dining room had said it was good work because you could do it for cash, without permits and without telling the agency. If she didn’t want to get into trouble she could also consult a lawyer and find out how to change the work permit she’d been issued from the Ministry of the Interior so that it would be legal. Esther said, “You know what? Why don’t you ask Gil? You know he’s a lawyer, right? I’m almost positive he works with these matters too. You remember Gil, don’t you? He’d be happy to help you. I’ll feel better if you do it properly, because otherwise they could deport you. You know what they do here now because of the blacks, right?”
Esther went to her bedroom and came back with her mobile phone to call Gil right then and there, but he didn’t answer, and she said, “Well, he never picks up when I call.” She wrote down his number on a piece of paper for Emilia. Then she asked Emilia to stay for lunch and insisted, even when Emilia refused because she could see that the visit was tiring Esther since she had to speak in English part of the time.
They had lunch in the kitchen, at the table where they used to drink coffee every morning. And they hardly spoke during the meal. Emilia asked Esther who cooked for her and Esther replied that she’d started cooking a little again, and she asked if the soup was all right. She kept saying to Emilia, “If I hear about any work here, I’ll tell you,” and she added at least twice, “Don’t forget to phone Gil. I’m sure he’ll be nice to you.”
When they said goodbye she urged Emilia to visit again, but Emilia sensed that this time Esther would not phone.
3
This is what Emilia tried to hide from Esther, and believes she is successfully hiding from others: she is sinking. She needs a hand to reach out and stop her from drowning. Or at least a sign that help is on the way.
Her work at the nursing home in Bat Yam is completely different than it was with Nachum. The home is made up of two tall towers that are like two hives of old people and caregivers, right near the beach. Emilia is not alone. She meets caregivers, men and women, from Ukraine, Bulgaria, Thailand, Colombia, Romania, Poland, Moldavia and the Philippines. She meets them in the lift, in the skyblue-carpeted hallways, in the lobby, in the dining room that has yet to be renovated and is dank and dark, and in the courtyard. Here and there conversations evolve. Some of the caregivers live in the home with their patients and some in rented rooms like Emilia’s. In little groups or alone. Some of them have families and children in Israel, some have families in the countries they come from. The main topic of their brief conversations is money. They are all looking for extra income. Many work two jobs. Emilia is asked, “How long have you been in Israel?” “Which agency brought you?” “How long are you planning to stay?” Over and over again. The questions she asks herself are much more desperate.
The lady she takes care of, Adina, is ninety-two. She speaks very little English. She can say basic words like come or go out or clean, but she understands more. She has a daughter, Hava, who is about sixty, and judging by the framed photographs on a shelf in her room she might have had a son, too, who died. And five grandchildren, one of whom is doing his military service.
On the first day at work Hava told Emilia that her mother is no longer completely lucid. There are days when she knows what’s going on, and days when she knows less. Until two years ago she was completely independent, and for the past two years an Israeli woman had come twice a week to clean and do her laundry and shopping. Now things are deteriorating. Adina needs supervision for most of the day and night. She cannot be left alone for more than two or three hours during the day, while she’s watching TV. So Hava comes on Saturdays and Thursdays and weekends, and the rest of the week will be Emilia’s. If the social worker determines that Adina needs constant care, they can hire Emilia full-time, although there is also the possibility of moving h
er into the nursing ward. If Emilia wants to stay she will have to improve her Hebrew, because otherwise it will be very difficult to spend twenty-four hours a day with Adina, even though most of the staff at the home speak English and can help.
Hava is less courteous than Nachum’s children. More suspicious. And her interactions with Adina are unpleasant. There is something violent about her movements and her expression when she touches Adina to help her get up from her seat or sit down on the old couch in the tiny living room, and in the way she instructs Emilia about how to do things with her mother.
Emilia learns quickly. She walks Adina to the dining room and serves her a peeled hard-boiled egg, a slice of white bread, some cut-up vegetables and a spoonful of cottage cheese. After breakfast they go for a walk in the lobby and the garden. If it isn’t raining they go to the boardwalk opposite the home. Adina asks to sit far away from the building, to avoid conversations with the other residents, and she watches the passers-by with a focused look, as if searching for someone. Then Emilia takes Adina back up to her room on the seventh floor and does various jobs. She goes out to buy medication or food if needed, cleans the room, does the laundry. They communicate with Emilia’s meagre Hebrew and Adina’s limited English, but mostly with hand signals. Most of the time Adina is sullen. She raises her voice. She says things Emilia is happy that she cannot understand.
After lunch, which they eat with everyone in the dining room, Adina has a rest and usually falls asleep. In the afternoons they are supposed to go to a lecture in the auditorium or play cards in the basement, but sometimes they stay in and Adina watches television, and after dinner Emilia helps her shower.
She leaves after eight, when Adina is almost asleep. Above her bed is an emergency call button and the home has on-call staff who will come if she presses it. Emilia locks the door with the key Hava gave her. Adina barely responds when Emilia tells her she’s leaving and when she arrives again in the morning.
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