Three

by D. A. Mishani

  The priest said nothing about their encounter that morning on the bus and neither did she. She wondered if it had really been him. She asked him in English if she could speak with him, and the priest asked her to wait while he said goodbye to the congregants. Then he beckoned for her to follow him, and they went to the priests’ room down the hallway, behind the prayer hall.

  It was a large, hot room. They sat on wooden chairs at a long table covered with a red tablecloth. The young priest asked Emilia if she wanted a drink of water and she said yes. How did he know she was so thirsty?

  As she’d feared, Emilia had trouble talking when she sat facing him. She could not find the right words.

  From up close he looked so young, even younger than she’d thought. Younger than the age her son or daughter would be today if she hadn’t miscarried. His eyes were green, too, like Nachum’s and his son Gil’s. The priest could tell she was having trouble starting and he tried to help, asking her name and where she was from and how long she’d been in Israel. He asked if she’d been coming to church since she’d moved here, and she shook her head and said only in the past few weeks. When he asked why now, if something had happened in her life that had made her start coming, she became confused and said she didn’t know. The priest smiled and said, “Perhaps my question is wrong, actually. You don’t need a reason to start going to church.”

  He poured more water from a glass carafe into her empty glass, and told her that he’d been in Israel only for a few weeks. His name was Tadeusz. He was born in a little town near Poznan, in Poland, and for the past two years he’d lived and worked in Sheffield in England. He was still getting used to life in Israel. The things he said really did help Emilia. She managed to ask Tadeusz, “Did you request to come here?” He said no, and when she did not say anything, he added, “We do not request. Not usually. We can try, but we almost always go wherever we are sent. Did you want to come here?”

  Emilia shook her head and put her glass down on the table and suddenly felt able to talk. She told him about Nachum, about how before she came here she didn’t know who she was going to care for, but the moment she’d seen him she’d felt there was a reason she’d been sent to care for him, perhaps to make amends for not having cared for her mother when she’d been ill many years ago, or for her father. She said that now, when she was no longer caring for Nachum, she didn’t know if she should stay in Israel or go back to Riga. She was searching for the reason she was here but had not found it yet. Caring for Adina could not be the reason, but she felt that the fact that she was here was no coincidence. Then she plucked up the courage to ask the question she’d wanted to ask the priest since she’d first entered the church: “How do we know if we’re on path He intends for us, or if we should go different way? If we’re wrong and should change direction?”

  When Tadeusz smiled at her, Emilia was certain he was the man she’d seen that morning on the bus. It was the same generous smile he’d given her when she’d offered her seat. His face was as soft as a child’s and his hair smooth and fair, and he ran his hand through it while he talked. He said, “We do not know, Emilia. Or at least most of the time we don’t, I think. Most of the time we don’t know, and only sometimes there are brief moments of knowing inside us, and we try to follow them. I don’t know you well enough yet, but I think you are walking on the path He has intended for us, because I believe that He always guides us to help others—and that is exactly what you are doing.”

  On the way home Emilia stops at the homeware shop on Balfour Street. The shopkeeper recognizes her by now. She doesn’t know that her name is Emilia Nodyeves, nor how old she is or what she does in her life, and that she should not be spending so much money at the shop. But she does know the thin older lady whose hair is short and fair and who almost always wears baggy grey jeans and a grey short-sleeved T-shirt, even on cold days, and large sunglasses with red frames, and who spends a long time in the shop. And even though there is no point in Emilia buying anything for the flat she is soon leaving, she buys a set of decorative coasters and a little copper bell with a string that can be hung from a window frame.

  On her remaining evenings in the flat she makes sweet tea and copies into her notebook Hebrew words and sentences she gathers from newspapers or brochures she finds in the nursing home lobby. She keeps drawing the name Emilia in Hebrew, and also writes Jaffa and Tadeusz and St. Peter Simon Cephas.

  Nachum sometimes appears in her room and sits next to her while she draws the characters in pencil, and she does not dare look at him. His skin is slowly disappearing, his eyes are growing darker. She wants to ask Tadeusz about the world after this world, about the place where her mother and father and Nachum went, but for now she prefers not to because she is afraid of alarming him. And she knows she will not tell him about seeing Nachum anyway.

  She sets the alarm clock to wake her early in the mornings, so that she can prolong her time alone. She drinks her coffee in the winter light at the open window.

  5

  The first of March arrives. Emilia packs her belongings in two suitcases again. She has new homeware that she wraps in newspaper and buries among her clothes. In the nursing home she transfers them to a cardboard box that she is given by a Moldovan kitchen worker, which she places on the floor in the corner of Adina’s balcony, under a plastic chair, where it is protected from the rain that will soon stop.

  Adina wakes up frequently at night, crying and yelling. Emilia gets up from her sofa bed and goes to her, and to her surprise she is able to calm her. She strokes Adina’s withered arm and thinning hair until she falls asleep. Those are the good moments. In the daytime Adina grumbles and curses, and even tries to hit Emilia when she helps her get dressed. Her health seems to be declining, and sometimes she does not remember who Emilia is.

  Now Emilia has two homes to miss: the little room at Esther and Nachum’s, which is slowly fading from her memory, and the flat that was hers for several weeks in Bat Yam, with the traffic and the neighbours’ voices coming through the window. In the nursing home she has neither a room nor a bed. Every evening she folds out the sofa in the living room, takes a sheet, blanket and pillow from the linen box underneath and makes her bed for the night. Every morning she removes the linens, puts them back in the box and folds up the bed.

  What is especially difficult for her is that she has no quiet moments. And without that quiet she cannot hear anything, she cannot understand where He is guiding her, and she gets lost. She gets up early, but the minute she turns on the tap to wash her face, Adina wakes up. In the evenings she can hear her breathing heavily in the bedroom. Her restlessness gets worse. Even when she tries to escape, she cannot. The other caregivers have a lively social life in the evenings, and when Emilia leaves Adina’s room she meets people in the hallways and lifts, and groups of caregivers sitting in the courtyard ask her to join them. The second thing she suffers from is the smell. The smell of the nursing home is different from the smell of old age in her father’s house or at Nachum and Esther’s. It is now the smell that engulfs her life, and it makes it difficult for her to breathe.

  Only on Sundays does Emilia remember that she is still searching. Hava begrudgingly gives her four free hours, and she walks to the Jaffa port, arriving long before Mass, and waits for Tadeusz on the front pew. When he walks into the prayer hall he sees Emilia first, and after prayers he invites her to the priests’ room. He can tell that she is increasingly distraught, but when he asks if she’s eating she says yes. She does not hide her anguish, but in their conversations she gives it different names. She asks him about the searching, about the lack of understanding, and Tadeusz says that in life there are misunderstood periods, weeks or months or even years when there is seemingly nothing but meaningless suffering, and that often it turns out later that these were in fact periods or preparation, of ripening.

  Emilia says she knows that, but when she is in the nursing home she finds it impossible to beli
eve. Tadeusz explains that precisely because that is where it’s most difficult for her, that is where she must be for now. He reminds her of the forty days when the Son of God was in the desert without bread, being tested by Satan, and after that He began to spread the revelation. To lift her spirits, Tadeusz asks Emilia which language she prefers to read in, and promises to bring her a copy of the New Testament. But he also wonders if she should ask the agency about a different job and whether she is in touch with anyone from her family. He is so young, and when she looks at his smooth face she frequently thinks that he could have been her son, if she had had a son. The skin on his face is golden, as though anointed with olive oil. Despite his youth he is full of quiet confidence when he speaks, and there is something reassuring in his eyes. He tells her, “Each of us is in this place for a purpose. You knew that before you met me, and that is why you came and asked to talk to me. Not so that I could help you find the purpose, but so that I could accompany you on the road you are taking towards it. And if you are patient and brave, I know you will find it.”

  She does not think about her meeting with Gil until he calls her, and she even sees Nachum less now, because she is always at the home with Adina and Nachum is usually revealed to her only when she is alone.

  Gil phones on a Tuesday evening, just after nine. A strange time. Adina is asleep and Emilia is just getting her bed ready. She answers in a whisper and takes the phone out to the hallway.

  Gil asks how she is and apologizes for taking so long to get back to her. He also apologizes for not having good news. At first Emilia does not remember what he’s talking about. Her life has changed so much since she moved into the home that her previous life has been erased. Gil says he hasn’t given up completely but it doesn’t seem that he’ll be able to change her work permit without a formal request from the agency. If Emilia wants to take on extra work, she will have to do it without a permit. She doesn’t tell him that there’s no need any more—how can she tell him when he’s made such an effort for her? She even asks how much she owes him and hopes she can get hold of the sum.

  He says there’s no need to pay because he was unsuccessful.

  After a pause he says that even though there is still a small chance he’ll manage to change the permit, he wants to give her back the documents she left with him because she probably needs them. She suggests coming to his office when she has a morning off, but he says he’s in Bat Yam and can drop them off at her flat. She continues to lie, perhaps so that he doesn’t find out she’s already got a full-time job and his efforts were wasted, or perhaps for a different reason. She doesn’t tell him that she left her flat and moved into the home. When he asks if she can come down and meet him outside so he doesn’t have to find parking, she says yes, but that she isn’t at home now and can only get there in half an hour.

  It is a surprising event, not yet understood, in a routine of days and nights that contain so few unexpected occurrences.

  Emilia puts a white sweater on over her grey T-shirt because the evenings are cool. A moment before she leaves the room, Adina wakes up and calls her name, but Emilia manages to get her back to sleep quickly. She takes the route she used in the weeks when she walked from the nursing home to the flat. The grocery where she bought fruits and vegetables and bottled water is open and the shopkeeper is smoking a cigarette on the sidewalk outside, but the homeware shop is closed. The kitchen window where Emilia liked to sit is shuttered and the flat is dark, probably because it hasn’t been let, but the flat upstairs is lit and familiar sounds emerge from it. Emilia remembers. The husband and his wife are still fighting. All that was only a short while ago, but it has drowned in the depths of her memory during her distressing days at the nursing home.

  Her phone rings, and at the same moment a big car pulls up.

  Emilia steps on to the street and goes over to the car window and Gil holds out his soft hand. The documents are on a briefcase sitting on the passenger seat. He apologizes again for not being able to get her permit and reiterates that he hasn’t given up. He asks if Emilia has spoken to his mother recently. Emilia feels guilty for not talking to Esther and asks Gil how she is. He starts telling her that she’s having a rough time, but then he stops because his car is in the middle of the street. He asks if Emilia wants to get a cup of coffee and she gets into the car and sits down next to him in the front seat, which he clears of papers and the briefcase.

  Emilia has to get back to the home because she mustn’t leave Adina alone for too long.

  Gil leans over and puts his hand under her feet to show her how to move the seat back. He asks if she knows any cafés nearby, but she hasn’t been to a café since she came to Israel. During the short drive, Gil continues to tell her about Esther, who rarely leaves the house and had a bad case of flu that turned into pneumonia, and Emilia is sure he’s going to ask her to leave her job and come to care for his mother.

  No one else is in the café by the boardwalk. Emilia asks the waitress for a coffee and remembers the morning when she took the bus to Gil’s office in Ramat Gan and saw Tadeusz. She tries not to let the happiness inside her break free too soon but it’s not easy. Gil looks at her with Nachum’s eyes. His slow movements and the way he sits on his chair also belong to his father, and Emilia is certain he’s going to ask her if she can take care of Esther—there could be no other reason for them sitting there. In her imagination she goes back to the little room and puts her suitcase under the narrow bed, but a moment later she discovers that the conversation has a different purpose.

  When Emilia asks Gil how his wife and daughters are, he says nothing. Perhaps he’s debating what he might say to this older woman who was once his father’s caregiver but with whom he’d barely exchanged more than a few words before tonight. Then, as if having decided that he can talk to her, he starts by saying that he is also going through a difficult time. He asks Emilia not to tell Esther if she sees her, and explains that he and his wife are getting divorced.

  It was planned long ago but postponed because of Nachum’s illness and then his death. Now they’ve decided there’s no point in waiting. “I don’t know if you’ve ever been married,” he says, “but if so, I’m sure you understand. We’re at a point where it can’t go on any longer.” Gil says he’s rented a flat near their house, and he has to get it ready for him and his daughters, who will split their weeks between the two homes. When he asks Emilia if she knows anyone who could deep-clean the rental flat and help him get it set up, she offers herself because she is sure that is what he wants, and is surprised when at first he says that’s not what he meant.

  Emilia forces herself not to be disappointed. She insists that she’ll be happy to clean his flat but she can only do it on Sundays. If Hava agrees to let her leave the home earlier, she’ll have time to work for Gil before church.

  “What’s important is that you not tell Mum, if you talk to her, because it’s the last thing she needs to hear. We don’t want to upset her, she’s having a hard time as it is,” he adds.

  Emilia tells Gil she has to leave, still without disclosing that she must get back to the nursing home. They drive there in his car, he stops and lets her off in front of the building on Balfour Street, and Emilia walks in and waits for Gil to drive away before she goes back on to the dark street and walks to the home.

  On the way she gets a first text message from him. He writes, in English:

  Thank you for everything, Emilia. I’m glad we met. And on second thought, can you come on Sunday?

  6

  Sunday, shortly before noon, first visit to Gil’s flat.

  Emilia waits for him on Balfour Street, in front of the building where he thinks she lives. The idea of having to clean his place did not make her happy when she woke up, and the disappointment that he hadn’t asked her to care for Esther, as she’d believed he would, still stung. But when he picks her up he is smiling and pleasant, says he’s pleased to see her and asks how
she is. That is a big change after a gloomy morning with Adina and Hava, who came to take over from Emilia and made sure to let her know that she was not happy about giving Emilia every Sunday off. This is the second time Emilia has been in Gil’s car, and the proximity to him in the closed space takes her back to Nachum.

  Gil says he visited Esther over the weekend and told her he’d seen Emilia. Esther sent warm regards and kisses. She is happy they are in touch. He tells her that he encouraged his mother to go out and she promised to take up swimming again. He says his mother misses Emilia, and wonders if she doesn’t miss the neighbourhood where she lived for two years. Emilia says she does. He did not tell Esther anything about the flat Emilia is going to help clean, because she doesn’t know about the divorce and he isn’t planning to tell her for now. He doesn’t ask Emilia to visit or phone Esther. When he stops the car, Emilia unbuckles her seatbelt because she thinks they’ve arrived, but Gil says, “Not yet. Hold on, I have to buy a few things for you. I’ll be right back.” In the bag he holds when he gets back into the car there are bottles of floor and bathroom cleaner, rags, rubber gloves, and ropes that he will ask Emilia to attach to two rusty iron rods sticking out of the exterior wall under the bathroom window, to use for hanging laundry. As they drive he says, “I feel bad that you’re ending up doing this. Are you sure this is how you want to spend your day off?” But Emilia does not regret it, and when they walk into his flat for the first time, she knows she was not wrong.