Chutzpah & High Heels

by Jessica Fishman

  This new doctor begins manipulating my knee.

  “AHHHHHH!” I scream in pain. I don’t think even a healthy knee is supposed to move that way.

  “I’m sending you to get an MRI.”

  This is the type of diagnostic test I should have been given from the beginning, but I didn’t because it is too expensive for the army.

  “But, I don’t have medical insurance here.”

  “That is okay. This one is on the house, as a thank you for your service to Israel.”

  I try not to laugh. But it is nice being back in Minnesota where I have my family to take care of me. I feel as if I can finally put my guard down. I don’t feel like I always have to be ready for some type of battle. I know that if I fall here, my parents are here to pick up the pieces. Here, I’m important to someone and not just another faceless soldier.

  As I lay in the MRI tube, I think about how, because I’m a lone soldier in the army, the IDF social worker is supposed to make sure that I’m okay, but she doesn’t even bother answering her phone. As the machine bangs around me, I begin wondering, “How am I going to get through another year in the army? How am I going to get my knee fixed?” I lay still, almost hoping that if I don’t move that I can stay in the safety of this tube forever.

  The MRI reveals that my meniscus is torn. Realizing that without proof of the injury, the only way I’ll get medical attention in the army is if I shoot myself in the knee, I ask for a copy of the film.

  When the month is over, I head back to Israel wearing a knee brace and carrying an MRI picture, newly determined to get the surgery that I need.

  Remote Control

  I don’t know why the E.R. is called the emergency room; it really should be called a waiting room. I have been sitting here for three hours now. Even while sitting, I cry from the pain in my knee.

  My new commanding officer sent me to the doctor on the base to have my knee looked at again. Since I got back from the US two months ago, I still have yet to receive medical attention. I have almost become resigned to the fact that I’ll be disabled for the rest of my life. When I showed my MRI film to the grumpy army doctor, he threw me out of his office, as if he was a fashion designer who did not like my portfolio. Even with proof in his hands, he still didn’t believe me. Maybe he thought that I had stolen the MRI film from somebody?

  In order to get approval to go to the E.R., I had to get a referral from a doctor in the army. I refused to go see the orthopedic doctor again, so instead I went to the base’s head doctor. I had arrived there just as he was leaving for lunch. Instead of deciding to take five minutes to look at me and write a referral to the E.R., he went to go eat while I sat outside his door in pain for the next hour. I shouldn’t have been surprised that hurry up and wait applies here.

  “Jasseeeka Feeshman.” My name is finally called in the E.R.

  I limp into the room.

  “You know there is a song about you?” the doctor asks.

  “I’ve heard,” I say, hoping that he won’t sing it.

  “So, you are having some knee problems?”

  “Yes.” I can already tell that this doctor is a better diagnostician than the one in the army.

  I explain that the pain has been getting worse for the past few months and detail the incompetence of the army doctor on base. He does not seem surprised and gives me two weeks of sick leave, a prescription for inflammation, and a referral for crutches. Unfortunately, I don’t get approval for surgery. For approval, I have to go to the central medical base to be seen by a specialist.

  With all of its tanks, APV’s, F-16s, and helicopters, the IDF cannot even provide me with a simple pair of crutches. I have to rent them from Yad Sarah, an organization that aids the disabled, poor, elderly, housebound, and now, one lone soldier.

  While the crutches prevent me from having to put weight on my knee, they don’t help me become more mobile. I can’t figure out how to use them. They fall out of my arms. I slip. My armpits get chaffed. And I get tired after walking with them for less than thirty seconds. I thought that getting two weeks of sick leave was going to be great. I’d have time to rest in bed. My knee wouldn’t hurt as much. And I could just have some down time. But by the end of the two weeks, I’m suffering as much mentally as physically.

  I’m bored out of my mind. I didn’t think that I could be any more bored than I was in the army, but I am. At least there I had people to talk to. Here I feel like I am in solitary confinement.

  I can barely leave my house. The crutches limit me to a fifty-meter radius. I’m alone all day with nothing to do but watch reruns of trashy American TV. My friends are busy with their lives. It’s hard buying and making food on my own. I can’t carry a glass of water into my room because of my crutches. Without money for an air conditioner on my lone-soldier’s salary, I sweat profusely in my bed. I feel trapped between the four walls of my bedroom. I’ve lost hope that I’ll ever get better. I feel more useless than the UN peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon.

  I’d rather be on night guard duty.

  * * *

  “Yep, I see a small tear,” the orthopedic surgeon says while holding my film up to the light. “I usually see this type of tear in knees of eighty year olds and don’t recommend surgery for them. But since you are young and active, you should have surgery, especially considering the amount of pain and immobility you are experiencing.”

  This is the first competent doctor I have seen in Israel. It is probably because he is a civilian doctor. Serving as a doctor in the army is only part of his reserve duty.

  “You definitely think I should have surgery?” I ask.

  “Yes, the tear will only get worse. It is like when you have a small tear in your jeans. It will keep getting bigger if you don’t patch it up. You will come to my office at the hospital for another checkup and there we will schedule a surgery date.” He has a quiet voice and a serious demeanor.

  Hearing someone from the army finally recognize my pain is as big of a deal as if the Palestinian Authority was to actually recognize Israel’s right to exist.

  Jagged Little Pill

  I just threw up at the Tel Aviv central bus station. The pain killers, which were supposed to ease my knee pain while walking and riding the buses, didn’t sit well with my stomach. No one noticed me in my army uniform puking next to the drunks who were pissing all over the place. The foreign workers and North African refugees just kept walking past me as I heaved, and the homeless people barely even tried to avoid my puke.

  I couldn’t sleep the night before when the army called me unexpectedly and told me that I had to come to the medical base. I was so nervous that they were going to delay my surgery again.

  Two months after my doctor’s visit, I’m now heading back to the central medical army base. I’m still limping. I’m sweating. I’ve been here three times already and my surgery still hasn’t been scheduled. I feel like I’m being tossed back and forth between bureaucrats, as if I am just another file that ends up on someone else’s desk.

  Just as I start to feel faint, my bus arrives. Holding onto the poles and the back of seats, I finally find a seat. I sink into it.

  “Jeeessikah? Is that you?”

  I try to open my eyes.

  I see a girl wearing a long, flowing skirt and a baggy shirt. I focus on her face. She was in boot camp with me. Why isn’t she in her uniform?

  “Oh, you’re still in the army?” She seems shocked.

  It hasn’t even been a year since boot camp ended. Both she and I have at least another year of service left.

  “Of course. You’re not?”

  “No. The army isn’t for me. I’m pretending to be religious so I don’t have to serve. I go to yeshiva a few hours a day and then I spend the rest of the day at the beach.”

  It seems as if everybody knows how to work the system except for me.

  She gets off at the next stop.

  I close my eyes. I think back to last week during my pre-surgery checkup in
the civilian hospital. While waiting for my turn to see the doctor, I looked around the room. Across from me, there was an elderly woman clutching her purse like it held a million dollars. A man in a wheelchair, who was probably a Holocaust survivor, had been parked next to a chair where his Filipino foreign worker sat.

  “What happened to you?” The twentyish-year-old guy sitting next to me with orange-ish hair and a matching scruffy beard asked.

  The two of us started comparing our “war wounds.”

  “Oh, so you really do have a torn meniscus?” he asked me suspiciously.

  “Yeah, I do. I’ve been trying to get approval for surgery for the past few months.”

  “Oh . . .” he said, contemplating if he should say more. “Well, I actually have approval for surgery, but I am trying to get it cancelled. I don’t actually have a bum knee. I just knew what to say so they would think I do. You see, a lot of my friends were killed in an army operation. I only have a few months left of service, but I can’t go back in the field after seeing my friends dying. I just want to finish my service on sick leave.”

  “Why haven’t they given you an MRI to confirm it?” I asked.

  “It’s just cheaper to do exploratory surgery.”

  I wanted to keep talking with him, but my name was called.

  I walked into the room and was greeted by a new doctor who made Dr. House seem like Mr. Rogers.

  “On the exam table,” he ordered me with the arrogance of a surgeon and the rudeness of an Israeli.

  Without saying anything he began moving my knee in ways that not even acrobats in Cirque du Soleil can.

  I cry out in pain, but he doesn’t seem to hear me.

  “You don’t need surgery. I’ll inform the army.” And then he motions to the door.

  I couldn’t believe my ears. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move, but this time it was not only because of my knee that I was left paralyzed. This army is so backwards. There was a soldier sitting outside who is supposed to get surgery who is pretending to have the exact same condition that I actually have, but they won’t approve surgery for me even though I actually have proof of a tear. I felt like my life was turning into a Greek tragedy. The irony in my life makes that of Oedipus’ life seem mundane.

  “I need the surgery!” I yelled at him.

  “No, you don’t. All you need is physical therapy.”

  For the past two months I have been going to physical therapy. All I got out of that was electric shocks to my knee like I was some kind of serial killer.

  He opened the door and pushed me out, without even a sticker or a lollipop.

  “I want my dad,” I cried to myself.

  I open my eyes. Trees and buildings are rushing past us. The bus comes to a stop. We’ve reached the army base. I slowly get up, hoping not to puke. I’m still sweating. I probably look like I’m hung over. My stomach hurts so much that I can’t stand up straight. I limp off the bus.

  After everything I have been through, I’m as bitter as a cup of Starbucks. All I want is to have the surgery that I so desperately need so I can go back to serving in the IDF Spokesperson Unit. Maybe when I get back to the unit, I’ll actually be able to have a more meaningful service.

  I slowly make my way to the base. Soldiers walk past me. I’m envious of them for being able to walk . . . no, I’m mad at them for being able to walk.

  Limping down the long path to the army base, I’m out of breath and dehydrated. When I finally make it onto the army base, I slouch down in a chair. I put my head in my hands to keep the room from spinning.

  When my name is called, I hobble into a female officer’s office. My army shirt is untucked and partially unbuttoned, my hair is a mess, and I am wearing flip flops. I no longer care about meeting dress code.

  As I sit down, the officer looks at me, but doesn’t really see me. Without feeling, she says, “Your surgery is not approved. You will report back to your unit tomorrow for duty.”

  I’m a piece of paper to her.

  I no longer care about the consequences of the army. I don’t care about this woman. Who the hell is she to tell me that I’m not going to have surgery? My eyes narrow. I’m happy that I am not holding a weapon. I don’t say anything. She may not be the one making my decisions about my surgery, but she is the only person I have to yell at. It is too hard to fight a system; it is much easier to fight a person.

  The storm hits.

  “I refuse to return to base until I have surgery. Release me from the army. I’ll go back to the States and pay for my own surgery out of my own pocket. Then I’ll return. I’m a volunteer soldier.” I’m so mad that I’m shaking. “I’m not trying to get out of my service or my duty. I even asked my officers for permission to work from my home. I’m sick of being in pain every day. I’m sick of dealing with this army bureaucracy.” Words just keep flying out of my mouth. “The army is supposed to give its soldiers medical care. You take better care of your M-16’s than your soldiers. You better figure out how to approve my surgery before I give myself the surgery with a kitchen knife!”

  I’m not sure who is more surprised by my rant—her or me. It was the type of rant that would make Glenn Beck’s seem sane.

  She stares at me blankly. She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. She looks down at the file in her hands.

  I get up to leave, but before I do, I say, “I’ll be at home. Call me once the surgery is approved.”

  Chicken Soup for the Nose

  “Have you had any surgeries?” asks a religious nurse and a nurse in training.

  “Yes, on my oaf,” I say, wearing a hospital gown that looks like it has been around since the creation of the State.

  They both give me a strange look.

  I point to my nose.

  “Oh . . . off.” They laugh. “Not oaf.”

  Oops, oaf is chicken. This type of misunderstanding is bad before surgery. I need to make sure that I remember how to say left versus right in Hebrew so I don’t tell the surgeon the wrong leg. My nerves are getting to me.

  It turned out that my rant worked. I’ll need to remember this in the future.

  When I received approval for the surgery, my mom decided to fly in to take care of me. It suddenly feels strange to me that my mom is here for me. I feel like I have been trying to escape her history all my life. Back at the sorority in Indiana, I was embarrassed by my mom. All of my sorority sisters’ mothers had come to help them move in. Their moms were sociable, fashionable, and outgoing. They were typical Jewish mothers. My mom was nothing like them. I had told my mom that I didn’t need her help. My mom wore Birkenstocks and Patagonia. When their moms gossiped, my mom was quiet; when they were out looking for fur coats, my mom was volunteering at the zoo, and while they were out shopping for Fendi purses, she was praying in synagogue or volunteering as the Hadassah chapter president.

  I wonder if moving to Israel was also part of me trying to redefine her history. But it seems as if no matter how much I push her away, she is always the first one there to help me when I need her. I wonder if this will always be true. If she will always be there for me. But before I can further contemplate, I am wheeled into surgery.

  * * *

  It didn’t take me long for me to recover from surgery. In fact, I was able to walk out of the hospital holding my mom’s hand. Walking out of there, I had a renewed sense of hope. I felt like after getting my way in the Israeli army, I could accomplish anything—maybe I could even become useful in the IDF Spokesperson Unit. After all, I had now acquired Israeli super powers.

  * * *

  1 . A mezuzah is a piece of parchment, contained in a decorative case, inscribed with specified biblical Hebrew verses. These verses comprise the Jewish prayer “Shema Yisrael,” beginning with the phrase, “Hear, O Israel, the lord our God, the lord is one.” A mezuzah is affixed to the doorframe in Jewish homes to fulfill the biblical commandment to inscribe the words of the Shema “on the doorposts of your house.”

  7

&nb
sp; A New Leader

  Arafat, the man who popularized suicide bombs, is on his death bed and I’m right in the middle of the controversy.

  During my four months of sick leave, the Rapid Response Department had been dismantled, like some temporary settlement in the West Bank. Shmuel had left for the Galapagos Islands, now enjoying his retirement and his new tooth. The other two girls had been transferred to other departments, and a whole new branch was created in the IDF Spokesperson Unit. The new departments are usually as ineffective as the last. But this branch feels different. We are actually making an impact here.

  “Jessica! You sit with Bar and start contingency planning for Arafat’s death,” Yoni, my new head officer in the Strategic Initiatives and Research Unit, delegates. “How will his death impact the security situation? What are all of the threats and opportunities? Will this bring about a new peace deal or more terrorism? How will the global community view this? The two of you will have a great international perspective.” He never commands us. He has too much respect for us to command us. Despite his short stature, he knows how to control a room. While Yoni is a sgan aluf, lieutenant colonel, he is not obsessed with his rank. He jokes around with us, informs us of the workings of the upper echelon instead of just barking orders, and is the first officer that treats me as more than just an eighteen-year-old soldier. He actually recognizes that my degree and experience can benefit the army. He sees my potential. I feel as if I’m actually making an impact in the IDF, that my contribution will be a part of Jewish history.

  Bar and I head into the other room to brainstorm the different outcomes of Arafat’s death—from Arafat coming back to life to the Palestinians being ready for a peace deal (with the first one seeming much more likely), and the IDF’s response to each.

  Bar, a new immigrant from France, is the first soldier I have met who is older than I am. With his quiet and calm demeanor, I’m surprised Israel let him into the country, much less the IDF.