Had she had her way back then, she would have stayed and become a nun, she said. But I find that hard to believe. She seems too opinionated for a monastic life. Besides, she is an attractive woman, and I think she knows it, even if she does not call attention to it. She told me about life in the convent and on the kibbutz. She told me that on the kibbutz they hate Arabs, I told her that in my village they hate Jews. We walked in silence after that, but even when there was silence between us, it was not awkward. I felt more comfortable with her than I have with anyone, ever, even if my heart was pounding, my head swooning. It was a combination of ease and excitement, co-existing in a paradoxical yet harmonious way. It is difficult to explain, Father Allah. But I think it may be love. Or at least the beginnings of it. Like the bud of a flower, ready to open and bloom if the conditions are right.
When we reached the old olive tree—the one with the three connected trunks that Abu Ahmad says has been in the valley for as long as anyone in the village can remember—we sat on the flat rock and talked. We talked until the sun started to set and we both knew we had to part ways. The days are short this time of year, and this time of the lunar cycle, there is no moon to light the night sky.
I hope I will see her again. But I will have to watch myself if I do. She was not dressed like a nun, nor like Naima. Umm Ahmad says we desire more what is not out in clear sight, but I am not sure she is right. I fell asleep remembering the sunlight reflecting off of Marie’s hair, the contour of her sharp collar bone peeking through the V of her blouse. And when I awoke, I wrote this poem. It was the first time I felt moved to write a love poem.
Bombs are falling,
Sirens wailing,
Children crying,
The noise of past, present and future going up in flames.
And then one day
I meet my angel.
Dressed like my comrade.
Is she hiding wings beneath that brown buttoned blouse?
I wish I could take her hand and fly up and away.
But I dare not touch.
Not now. Not yet.
RUBY
“IT’S GOOD YOU finally showed up,” Ruby snapped when Tikvah arrived with Cane at the Tree of Hope, their usual meeting spot.
Tikvah looked tired, with dark circles under her bloodshot eyes. Her graying curly hair was blowing across her weathered face. Ruby wondered if their trip to Yaffa had been too much for her. “Sorry. Sunday mornings are always busiest. The weekend guests checking out and all.”
Ruby should not have greeted Tikvah so gruffly. But she was still flustered from earlier that morning. Hussein had come to talk to her while she was painting out in back of the house at sunrise. Since meeting Tikvah, she began a new series of paintings set in Hope Valley. Something less political this time and more pastoral. Less angry, more hopeful. She had set up her easel overlooking the valley and was so absorbed in her work, that when her brother came up behind her, she jumped. Luckily, he had not looked carefully at what she was painting. If he had, he would have been more upset than he was already when he approached her.
“Who’s that woman I’ve been seeing with you out in the valley?” he had demanded. He did not even have to say the word “Jewish,” as it was implied in his tone.
Ruby had not been prepared with an answer. “She’s just a woman who walks her dog out there and keeps asking me questions about foraging.” She had tried to sound casual.
“Should I tell her off next time I see her bothering you?” he had asked.
She dared not tell him the truth about her relationship with Tikvah. Once she had the diary in her hands, she could tell her brothers the whole story. But she had not been invited to the house yet. Slowly, she was enlightening Tikvah—and hopefully gaining her trust. And now there was the matter of Talya, too, and her request. Today, she would try controlling her outbursts.
Ruby gathered herself now and tried to smile. “Yes, of course. Let’s just get going.”
They walked through the surrounding olive groves, with Cane following close behind. It was a hot late August day. The air was humid and heavy. There would surely be another heat wave or two like this one before the first rain and the start of the olive harvest. Today, they would look for more wild turmeric, garlic, and onions. This required getting down on hands and knees, and soon, as the sun rose higher in the sky, it would be too hot for that kind of work. Ruby explained to Tikvah how to know where to dig for the roots and bulbs.
After some time had passed, Ruby looked over at Tikvah and noticed her cheeks were flushed. Beads of sweat were collecting at her temples, and her hands were shaking. A few minutes later, she simply sat down in the shade and put her head in her hands. Symptoms of her illness, no doubt. Or maybe its treatment. Sometimes it was hard to know what was worse. Ruby knew from her own experience with cancer and chemo.
“Are you okay?” Ruby asked her. “I know I’m done for the day. It’s too damned hot out here.”
Tikvah simply shook her head and took a drink of water from her thermos. Ruby could tell she was hesitating, unsure of how much she wanted to reveal. She knew how that felt. Although she was a generally straightforward person—perhaps too much so—she knew what it was like to not want people’s pity. That was why she had not told Tikvah about her own prognosis. Yet, she felt close to getting Tikvah to open up to her.
“Do you want to come with me to the edge of the forest now?” Ruby asked. “It’s one of my favorite spots. It has a beautiful view of Mt. Sapir, and it’s shaded. I’m not ready to go back home yet, but I can’t forage anymore. How about you?”
“I don’t know. It’s getting late. We have a new round of guests checking in later. I have to make sure the rooms were properly cleaned, start preparing dinner.” She glanced ahead at the pine-tree covered hills. “It does look tempting, though.”
“It’s up to you. I’m going anyway,” Ruby said, starting to walk. Cane followed. So did Tikvah.
The temperature dropped immediately when they entered the forest. It was comfortable, even if not cool. They walked in silence, with Cane keeping pace. Acorns, pine-needles and -nuts cracked where they tread. Ruby wondered if Tikvah would open up to her, finally.
They walked for about ten minutes, until they reached a clearing at the edge of the forest, with a view of rolling brown hills and Mt. Sapir, the tallest of the bunch, spread out before them. Ruby looked at Tikvah steadily. She sensed if she did not ask her directly, Tikvah would say nothing.
“Do you want to tell me? Or should I guess?” she finally asked. “Is it Parkinson’s or just a bad case of the shakes?” She did not want to let on that she knew exactly what was ailing her.
Tikvah exhaled, her shoulders drooped. She seemed to be collecting herself. “Neither. I have MS, multiple sclerosis.”
“I figured it was something like that,” Ruby said, softly. She stroked Tikvah’s upper arm. “Is there anything I can do?”
“There’s nothing anyone can do,” Tikvah said, but she looked relieved to have it out in the open.
And she kept talking, which was proof that she was glad to have someone with whom to share. Ruby wondered if she had any other outlets for this kind of conversation. Perhaps she couldn’t even discuss it with her husband, if he was as traumatized from his army experiences as Tikvah and her daughter let on.
“My immune system is attacking the linings of my nerves. It’s why my hands shake. It’s different for every person, but I get shakes, numbness, weakness, tingling, dizziness. I’m unsteady. Not to mention the side effects from the treatments. Who knows what else is in store?” She let out a bitter laugh.
“Not so different from me,” Ruby said. “Toxic cells multiplying without end. Our bodies are destroying themselves.” As she said this, she thought about the larger relevance of her words. A Jewish and a Palestinian woman, self-imploding.
Tikvah looked taken aback, but she went on. “My last episode—they call them episodes, relapses, flares, or attacks—was several months ago.
And mine are sometimes accompanied by epileptic type fits, too. And, yes, you are right. MS does not go away. There is no cure. I feel like I’m just waiting for the next one to hit me. Each one leaves me more scarred. I know my time’s running out. I feel like I was meant to do something more with my life . . .”
“Your dharma.”
“My what?” Tikvah sighed.
“Remember, I spent time in the Far East. It’s Sanskrit.” Ruby sat down on a rock and patted the space beside her.
Tikvah sat down, too. “So what is it?” Cane lay on the ground next to them, put her head down, and closed her eyes.
“It has many meanings and no precise translation,” Ruby explained. “You could say it’s about the right way of living, but it’s not a code of law. It’s more individual than that. I like to think of dharma as the way one is in the world when living in spiritual alignment, fulfilling your life’s purpose. Anyway, it’s just a word. The point is about living from the heart and feeling at peace with one’s choices. And, of course, living the life only you could live.” Ruby thought of her conversation with Talya only a few days before.
Tikvah’s eyes brightened. “Yes. If only I knew what it was. I feel lost. Off track. Like I am meant to be doing more with my life.”
So here was the heart-to-heart Ruby had been hoping for. She could get closer to Tikvah and hopefully the diary, and also perhaps help Tikvah and her daughter as well. “I get that. Although once I was out on my own, doing what I wanted, that feeling passed.”
“I felt that way too when I left home, actually. But ever since my illness started, I’ve lost that feeling. I knew what I wanted then. Now I’m not sure. It’s so complicated . . . You don’t feel trapped now that you’re back? I know I would if I went back to where I grew up.”
How did Tikvah sense what Ruby was feeling? How did she know that all the progress she had made letting go of her anger had fallen away as soon as she stepped off of the plane at Ben Gurion Airport and saw the WELCOME HOME sign in Hebrew and English but not in Arabic? She had thought she had no regrets, no more resentments. Until she came home and the wounds that had been bandaged over with hard inner work opened once again.
“Sometimes. That’s why I come out here.” As Ruby talked, she realized how good it felt to be sharing. Even with her mother, she knew she had to measure her words. She did not want to worry or upset her. She had been through so much already: the Nakba, being widowed at sixty, her only daughter running off only to return twenty-five years later with lung cancer. Maybe with Tikvah, she could at least share about this part of her life, even if she could not tell her about the diary. At least not yet.
The only person she had been able to share her full self with, without regretting it later, was her father. She missed him so much she almost didn’t mind her grim prognosis. If she had known when she left that she would never see the person she loved most in the world again, would she have had the courage to leave? Probably not. If he had not died so quickly after the heart attack, she would have come home to see him and say goodbye. By the time her mother reached her, it was too late. Maybe he was waiting for her somewhere in a next life. Maybe his soul was with her right here in this life, living out his karma, helping her live out her own.
“Me too,” Tikvah said. “I feel like I’m touching a part of myself I have not felt in years when I’m in the valley, wandering in the orchards and fields. I don’t have to be anything for anyone when I’m out walking with Cane. With the trees, the birds, even the bugs, I can be myself. I don’t have to be careful around them.” She paused for a moment. “You know, when I was younger, I used to go to the ocean to feel connected to myself, and to something bigger.”
“You mentioned that when we were in Yaffa. I could also see it in your face, in your whole body, when we were on the shore. My father also loved the water,” she said, looking out at the view of the reservoir in the distance, to the left of Mt. Sapir. “He took us to Buhayret Tabarriyah, the Sea of Galilee, often. And the Hayfa shore, too.”
Tikvah looked wistful. “I spent my best childhood times at the beach. I also lived in Tel Aviv for years, before coming to Galilee. When we first moved here, I didn’t miss it so much. I had my art, and the cabins. Talya was still at home. But now she is grown and my art is gone. I feel blocked. I used to see a picture in my head that I needed to get down on canvas. It was like I was channeling a vision that needed to become an image for others to see. But it’s been so long since I’ve had that ability. I don’t know how to get it back.”
Ruby remembered one of her most powerful lessons from the ashram. “Did you try surrendering?” She too could use a dose of that now.
“Surrendering?”
“It’s when you stop trying to swim against the current and just let it carry you, instead. It’s about learning to surrender to the flow instead of trying to grab on to rocks along the way.” Ruby lifted a stone from the ground, tossed it up, and caught it. “Because in the end, you won’t be able to hold on forever. Rocks are slippery, and no one has endless strength. Nothing is permanent. Everything is constantly in flux, even if we don’t realize it, or want to admit it. Even a rock gets worn away by water eventually.”
Tikvah looked like she was considering Ruby’s suggestion. “It’s a powerful idea, but I can’t make myself surrender. I have to feel it somehow. When I’m in the water, I feel something. It’s surrounding me, holding me, lifting me. And I’m part of its vastness.”
A muezzin chorus sounded from the surrounding villages. “Allah Hu Akbar!” Ruby looked at Tikvah. “They’re calling for prayer. I have not prostrated myself in so many years. But, you know, I’ve been thinking about giving it another try. And this might be just what you need now, too. An embodied practice. Sufis explain the prostration pose as a physical surrender to Allah, to the Beloved, to What Is. With a capital W and a capital I.”
“Sufis?”
“Muslim mystics. Kind of like your Kabbalists. And it’s not particularistic. It’s like Buddhism in that way. There was a woman Sufi mystic and poet with a name like mine, except pronounced a bit differently. Raabiah Basri. My father told me he had her in mind when he and my mother chose my name.”
Ruby removed the blue head scarf she had tied on that morning, spread it out on the dirt, and knelt down on the puddle-like makeshift prayer rug. She could see Tikvah was trying not to stare at her bald head, which shocked Ruby, too, as much as the sight of herself with a head scarf did. She was no shaved-headed Buddhist monk, would not even call herself a Buddhist at all. She felt no need to limit herself with a label. But she did find much wisdom there.
Ruby patted the ground, motioning for Tikvah to join her. Tikvah knelt beside Ruby. They both looked out at the view of Mt. Sapir and at the reservoir below. Two birds were circling above: a pair of Bonelli’s eagles, a rare sighting. Her father said seeing even one was a good omen, but a pair could be the harbinger of miracles.
Then again came the call: “Allah Hu Akbar!”
Ruby closed her eyes and reached to the sky. Slowly, she brought her head down to the earth and spread her arms out before her. She held that position for a few quiet moments before straightening and reaching her arms up again. A perfect combination of the prostration posture she had watched her father do five times a day and Child’s pose from her later years of practicing yoga and meditation.
“This feels just right. Think about letting go into the flow.” Ruby looked around and started to sing, improvising as she went along: “Picture yourself in a boat on a river, with cedar pine trees and sapphire skies. The muezzin calls you, you answer by bowing.” She looked into Tikvah’s eyes. “A woman with hazel cat eyes. Tikvah in the flow with Ruby. Tikvah in the flow with Ruby.” She took a breath. “Why don’t you try it?” she added, still in the tune of the adapted Beatles song.
“Very cute.” Tikvah laughed. Then Ruby laughed. And then they both became silent when the muezzin called again.
“Just try it,” Ruby said.
“I don’t know. Jews bow like that only on Yom Kippur. It’s one of the only times Alon and I go to synagogue. I guess that’s the Jewish day of surrender.”
“Yes. Exactly. Surrendering to life, or God—it’s a human need, if we want to prevent our own suffering. It’s not limited to Buddhism or Islam.”
Tikvah looked out at the view in thought. “I guess Yom Kippur is coming up. And doing the posture out here does speak to me more than doing it inside the synagogue, closed in by walls, surrounded by other people . . .”
“Well, you’re welcome to join me if you want.” Ruby lifted her arms, reaching up to the sapphire sky. Sapir. Yakut al-Jalil. Even when the village itself was gone, even with all the pain that was buried beneath these pine trees, the sky remained so purely blue.
The next time the muezzin called, Ruby folded Tikvah’s hand in hers, and she felt no resistance. Allah Hu Akbar. God is the Most Great. God is the Most Vast. God is All That Is. She closed her eyes and asked for the strength to surrender. A strong warm wind blew along her scalp and on her cheeks. She took a deep breath, letting the scent of life fill her nostrils. Life that would be in this very same spot long after both she and Tikvah and also Cane were gone. Even the Tree of Hope would not last forever. But the flow would continue.
Ruby lowered her face to the ground, Tikvah’s hand still warm in hers. Her eyes were closed, but she knew Tikvah was bowing along with her. She felt the energy of her own surrender flowing from her heart and through her arm, her hand, the tips of her fingers, into Tikvah’s fingers, her hand, her arm, and up into her heart. And for those few long minutes, there was no separation.
“I feel it, Ruby,” Tikvah whispered. “I feel one with the flow. Thank you.”
THEY LEFT THE forest together with Cane leading the way. Ruby walked Tikvah to the hole in the fence, but before Tikvah went through, she turned to Ruby, her skin aglow.
Hope Valley Page 15
