The Best Place on Earth

by Ayelet Tsabari

  They drove on a multi-lane highway through a graceless monochrome landscape, the view dirtied by slush, spat on their windshield by passing cars, then wiped clean, the wiper blades squeaking rhythmically over the glass. The road curved, hugging the shore of a silvery lake, and the city skyline emerged, jutting out of the earth and moving rapidly toward them. Matthew took an exit, and they were on a busy street with two-storey buildings coloured reds and blues, small quaint stores and cafés, their windows painted over with snowflakes and Santa Clauses, chains of blinking lights framing their edges.

  Their house was just off the main street, long and narrow and wedged between two other houses, with snow on its turret roof, like something out of a fairy tale. The trees that lined the street were stripped naked, their branches bowed over, weighed down by a thick layer of snow. Reuma stepped out of the car and her boots squeaked on the sidewalk. “Careful,” Matthew said, and mimicked losing his balance. “Very slippery.” He carried her bags as she walked up the stairs, holding on to the cold railing. Ofra swung the door open with her arms wide and Reuma fell into them, inhaling the baby and breast milk smell of her.

  “You look good,” Reuma said, though Ofra was clearly tired, her curly hair unwashed and gathered into a messy bun, her complexion faded by winter.

  “I’m so happy you’re here,” Ofra said. “Matthew’s mom just left yesterday but … it’s not the same.”

  “Matthew’s mom?” Reuma felt a stab of jealousy. “I thought she didn’t live in Toronto.”

  “She doesn’t,” Ofra said. “She came from Winnipeg for two weeks.”

  “Where is he?” Reuma looked around.

  “Come.” Ofra smiled as if holding a secret. Reuma followed her up the narrow carpeted stairs to their bedroom, where Yonatan slept in his crib. “My God.” Reuma’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Isn’t he handsome?” Matthew whispered, poking his head in between mother and daughter.

  “Bli ayin hara,” Reuma said. “Ugly, ugly. You shouldn’t call a baby beautiful. It brings bad luck.” She smiled, as if aware of how silly this might sound. “I also brought a hamsa you can hang over his bed.”

  “Okay,” Ofra said. “Later.”

  Downstairs, her daughter made her tea with fresh mint, served with what Reuma suspected were store-bought cookies. Matthew had left to run errands. “I even bought you Nescafé,” Ofra said proudly.

  “I brought food too,” Reuma said, bending down to unzip her suitcase, unleashing the sour smell of Yemeni spices.

  “Ima,” Ofra said. “You shouldn’t have.”

  “Of course I should have.” Reuma pulled out a jar of green, spicy schug, some jichnoons wrapped in foil, and a bag of savoury ka’adid cookies, dotted with black nigella seeds. “And some Hebrew magazines,” Reuma said, handing Ofra women’s and parenting magazines, “to read when you breastfeed.”

  “Thanks, Ima.” Ofra leaned over to hug her, and took the food into the kitchen.

  Snow had started to fall, soundless and slow, sticking to the glass and then sliding down. The fogged-up windows were decorated with a chain of flickering Christmas lights. A Hanukia covered with hardened wax drippings stood on the windowsill. Reuma could tell that someone had made an effort to tidy up, but there was still a layer of dust on the furniture, Ofra’s hairs tangled in the carpet. She had her work cut out for her.

  When Ofra returned, she told Reuma of Yonatan’s sleep patterns, his eating habits, his rashes, his dandruff, his gas, and Reuma asked questions and made suggestions—olive oil for the dandruff, tomato juice for the gas—feeling like an authority, an expert.

  “I forgot, I brought some baby clothes too.” Reuma hurried to pull the clothes, wrapped in tissue paper, from her suitcase. “And this is from Shoshi, and wait, I have some from your sisters-in-law too.”

  “So how’s everybody?” Ofra said. “How are you?”

  “Getting old.” Reuma sighed. “Soon you’ll have to hire me a Filipina, or maybe put me in a home.”

  “Stop it,” Ofra said. “You’re only sixty-eight. Your mother lived to be a hundred.”

  “Or you can come back and live with me, because your brothers sure aren’t going to.”

  Ofra just smiled.

  Reuma told her about her brothers, how things hadn’t been so good between Itay and his wife lately, how Rami hadn’t been over for weeks, and Elad’s daughter had been diagnosed with learning disabilities. She shared the neighbourhood news: Arnon the butcher had passed away, Shlomo, their neighbour, had already remarried and it hadn’t even been a year. She was going to wait to tell her about Shoshi’s daughter and her recent move home, but she got carried away, describing the new villa they were building on their grandparents’ lot in Sha’ariya, how happy Shoshi had been since she came back. Petah Tikva was changing too, she said; it was no longer just a sleepy suburb. They even had sushi there now, a Japanese food young people raved about, and good cafés with the espresso drinks Ofra used to go to Tel Aviv to get.

  Reuma paused, noticing her daughter yawning behind her hand. “You should sleep too,” Reuma said. “If the baby is sleeping …”

  “Yes,” Ofra said. “Let me get you set up.”

  The guest room’s walls were dark blue, the trim a glossy white. A desk with a computer was placed under the window, and a corkboard covered with photos hung on the wall next to it: Ofra and Matthew clinking wine glasses around a patio table with people Reuma didn’t know; the two of them holding hands on some white-sand beach; a black-and-white photo of Ofra pregnant, wearing a sheer white dress that made Reuma uncomfortable. Outside, the snow was thickening, hiding bushes and fences under a soft blanket. Reuma stood by the window and tried to imagine what was underneath the snow, what the large shape in the corner of their backyard was, how deep the lawn was buried. She lay down on the sofa bed, just to rest her eyes, and fell into an easy sleep.

  She woke up to the baby crying and lay in bed for a minute, adjusting to her surroundings. The room was dark. She glanced at the clock radio. She had napped for an hour and though it was only just after four, the daylight was already gone. She walked out of the room and saw that the door to her daughter’s bedroom was ajar. The baby was lying in his crib, kicking and crying. She heard the shower running. “Hello, sweetheart.” Reuma picked Yonatan up and placed him against her chest, rocking him and tapping him lightly on his back. “My eyes, my soul.” She kissed his face, his neck, inhaling his smell, and then lifted him and smelled his diaper. “You made poo-poo?” she said, laying him on the chest of drawers.

  Ofra rushed out of the shower, wrapping her body with a towel as she walked over, her hair dripping a wet trail along the floor.

  “Finish your shower,” Reuma said. “Why am I here? I can do this. He needs changing.”

  “He’s hungry.” Ofra extended her arms, and Reuma reluctantly handed her Yonatan. Ofra sat on the unmade bed and gave him a nipple. He latched on to it.

  Reuma started collecting clothes from the floor.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Ofra said.

  “I want to help.”

  “You just got here.”

  “I can do things. At least I can help with the baby.”

  Ofra sighed.

  “Something’s wrong?” Reuma said, heart pounding.

  “No.”

  “With the baby? With you?”

  “No. Well, there is something we need to talk about, but we can do it later, over dinner. But nothing is wrong.”

  “Did you let Matthew’s mom change him?” Tears welled up in Reuma’s eyes.

  “Fine.” Ofra took Yonatan from her breast and handed him to her mom. “Change him.” Yonatan started to fuss.

  Reuma looked at her daughter with suspicion.

  “Go ahead.”

  Reuma placed the crying Yonatan on her shoulder and soothed him, whispering words of comfort. Then she laid him on the chest of drawers, buried her face in his belly, cooed at him. Yonatan stopped crying and watched her, i
ntrigued. She lifted his legs up with one hand and pulled the diaper off. She drew a wipe from a box on the chest and cleaned his bum. Then she saw it, a ring of foreskin around her grandchild’s tiny penis, a shrivelled mushroom. She stared at it, counting days. It had been over four weeks.

  “You haven’t done brit milah yet?” She looked up.

  Ofra shook her head no.

  “Was there a problem? Did the doctor say to wait?”

  Ofra tucked a wet curl behind her ear. “We decided not to do it.”

  Reuma stared at her, letting the boy’s legs down. He started crying. “I don’t understand.”

  “We don’t think it’s necessary.”

  “Not necessary,” Reuma repeated.

  “Ima—” Ofra started.

  “He’s Jewish,” Reuma said. Yonatan’s cries grew louder and she turned to him, raised his legs and slid the diaper underneath, working in urgent motions. “Of course it’s necessary.”

  “Why?”

  “Because … because this is what you do. You don’t think about it. You just do it.”

  “That’s not a reason. Why hurt him?”

  “Because it’s tradition. Because it’s what Jews do. And it’s also more hygienic and healthy …”

  “That’s not actually true.” Ofra spoke quietly, calmly. “And I know other Jews who haven’t circumcised. It’s traumatic for the child. I won’t put him through it.”

  “But you have to.” Reuma raised her voice. “Who heard of such a thing? A Jewish boy, uncircumcised? Have you lost your mind?”

  “Maybe we should talk about it later.” Ofra stood up, tightening the towel over her chest. “I printed something for you to read.”

  “You think I wanted to hurt your brothers? I had to close my eyes to not see how they cried. No mother wants to do it. You just do.” Reuma remembered how faint she had felt when Rami was screaming, his face turning dark red. She had run to the washroom, sobbing until she heard the ululating sounds of the women and knew that it was done. It didn’t become easier with the second or third. But did she ever question it?

  “But Ima, I’m not religious …”

  “Religious or not, it’s tradition. Your brothers aren’t religious.”

  Ofra sighed.

  “I won’t allow it. You should be ashamed of yourself.” She lifted Yonatan and planted him in her daughter’s hands. He kicked his legs and smiled at her. She looked away. “I won’t hold him,” she said. “I won’t.”

  Ofra stared at her in shock. “You can’t be serious.”

  Reuma stormed out of the room and down the stairs.

  “Ima,” Ofra called after her. “Wait.”

  She put on the coat, slid her feet into her boots, wrapped a scarf around her face and walked out the front door. The cold felt like an icy slap. Where was she going? Street lights shone cone-shaped beams on the road, and Christmas lights—dangling from porches and draped over evergreen trees—warmed up the whites, blues and greys. The snow was piled high, blurring the borders of things, turning the sidewalks into narrow tunnels. Her tears froze on her face.

  Reuma had prided herself on moving with the times, unlike some Yemeni women from the neighbourhood who held on to the old ways, resisted modern appliances, still dressed as though they were in Yemen. Many years ago, when Shaul was still alive, Reuma had taken off the head scarf and learned how to drive; she even drove on Shabbat. She hadn’t asked questions about Matthew’s other half, the non-Jewish part, and she had always been proud of her daughter, saw it as a sign of her own progress and success, that despite Reuma growing up with illiterate parents and never earning a high school diploma, she’d raised a daughter so smart, so successful. Shoshi’s daughters may have married young, but her own daughter had a Ph.D., which she had acquired in Canada, in English.

  But this was too much.

  She pulled the scarf up to cover her stinging nose. She saw the lights of a café on the corner. She just had to make it there.

  She missed Shaul now, grief gnawing at her as though she’d just lost him yesterday. What would he have done? Shaul, who went to synagogue every Friday, out of habit more than religious duty, his time with the men a reprieve from her and the kids. He watched TV on Shabbat, turned on appliances. He would have been able to talk some sense into Ofra. Perhaps she would have circumcised Yonatan had Shaul been alive; she had always wanted to please him. And when Shaul and Reuma fought—and they had fought endlessly when they were younger—Ofra had always taken his side, always blamed her mother. “You and Shaul are fire and fire,” Reuma’s mother used to say. “You have to give up every now and then, let him be a man. You’re pushing him away.” Later, in their older days—both mellowed and tired of conflict—they had become best friends again. But Ofra was living away by then, in Tel Aviv and then Toronto. She only remembered the bad times.

  Reuma finally made it to the café, her coat speckled with white and her glasses steamed up. She stood at the entrance, blind, then found a seat by the window and heaved herself onto it. Thinking of Shaul here, in this faraway, cold place, made her feel lonely. Perhaps she had pushed him away. Maybe she had pushed Ofra away too. Across the world. Maybe it had all been her fault. When Ofra was thirteen, she had accused Reuma of treating the boys differently. “Why do I have to help with the dishes after dinner? Why do they just get to sit and watch TV?” Reuma’s mother, still alive, smiled at Reuma and said in Yemeni, “This one is like hot pepper. Worse than you.” Years later, she had overheard her daughters-in-law complaining that their husbands didn’t raise a finger at home, didn’t know how, that it was Reuma’s fault, she had done everything for her boys. “Poor Ofra,” one had said. “Can you imagine?” It was true: Reuma had been harder on Ofra, but she’d done it for her own good. She had thought she was preparing Ofra for marriage, the same way her own mother had done for her.

  A streetcar rumbled outside, and then stopped across the street, letting passengers off onto the slushy road. The same year that Ofra had accused Reuma of favouring her sons, she had invited her aunt Miri, Shaul’s younger sister, to Mother’s Day in junior high—a school on the other side of town, where kids from an affluent neighbourhood, most of them Ashkenazi, were integrated with Yemeni kids from Sha’ariya. The teacher had called to inquire about Reuma’s health because Ofra had said that she was ill. Soon after that, Ofra stopped eating Reuma’s food—Reuma found the sandwiches she had prepared for her in the garbage. “It smells funny,” Ofra said. “Kids make fun of me.” It wasn’t just Reuma she had rejected: she despised anything Yemeni, even her curls, which she began straightening every morning. She even changed the way she spoke; as a little kid she spoke like her parents, with guttural hets and ayins. Reuma lost her daughter over and over again: first she became Ashkenazi, then Canadian; it was in her melody of speaking, the polite words she’d started peppering her sentences with, the way she smiled at passersby on the street. Reuma had heard her speaking on the phone to her friends, and then to Matthew, in English, laughing in English. A stranger. And now she was no longer Jewish.

  Ofra burst into the café, her cheeks flushed. “My God, Ima, you scared me half to death. Let’s go home.”

  “No.” Reuma crossed her arms against her chest, not looking at her daughter.

  “We planned a special dinner for you,” Ofra pleaded. “And I need you here. Please.”

  Reuma stared out the window.

  “Let’s at least talk about it,” Ofra said.

  Reuma watched a woman decorating a Christmas tree at a store across the street, hanging sparkly ornaments on its branches. She looked around the café, the young people hunched over their blue laptop screens, the steam rising from the coffee machine behind the bar. She got up and put her coat on.

  They walked the two blocks silently, the wind whistling between them, their faces buried in their scarves. Everyone they passed was bundled up, faceless, anonymous figures. What a lonely place to live, Reuma thought.

  The warmth of the house envelop
ed them. Matthew peeked out from the kitchen and smiled. Reuma hurried in, scowling in his direction, and climbed up the stairs to her room.

  Ofra followed her. “Don’t be mad at Matthew. We made this decision together.”

  Reuma scoffed. “He’s not even Jewish.”

  “Who? Yonatan? Of course he is.”

  Reuma jerked her chin toward Matthew in the kitchen. “What’s half-Jewish? You and I both know there’s no such thing.”

  Ofra gave her a hard look. “He was raised Jewish. He feels Jewish.”

  “Doesn’t matter. According to the Halacha he’s not Jewish.”

  “Since when did you become a rabbi?”

  “Is that why you married in city hall? Like the goyim?” Reuma felt as if she couldn’t stop. “You’d never think not to do brit on your own.”

  “That’s not true,” Ofra said. “I’ve been thinking about it for years. I’ve done a lot of research. You know, I prayed for a daughter just so I wouldn’t have to deal with this.”

  “It’s not right.” Reuma sat on the bed, inconsolable. “Your father would have never accepted it.”

  Ofra looked down. “I know.”

  “He would have been furious at you.”

  “Ima, you’re acting like it’s the end of the world. If you just took some time …”

  “It is.” Reuma shook her head. “It is.”

  “But we’re happy, I’m happy. I have a son, a family, a home. How can you not see that?”

  “What am I going to say to people?” Reuma started crying again.

  Ofra sighed at the ceiling. “Who cares?”

  Reuma glared at her.

  “Fine, then lie.”

  Reuma looked at the photos on the corkboard, the strangers hugging her daughter, the photo of Ofra in the sheer dress. It was as though she didn’t know her daughter at all. What a fool she had been to think this trip would bring them closer.