The Book of Trees

by Leanne Lieberman

  I lay my hands flat on the table. “Michelle, don’t bullshit me. You don’t really believe that.”

  “I do.” She looked beatific.

  “Get out of here.”

  “You don’t believe?”

  “I mean, it’s a beautiful book, a really great creation myth and all, but…”

  Michelle’s mouth tightened into a taut pucker. “If you don’t believe, then why are you here?”

  I didn’t know what to say. We sat staring at each other. “I like being Jewish and I thought it would be good to learn a little more. I mean, I believe in God, you know, like he’s a force around us…”

  Michelle looked anxious. She tugged on her hair.

  “Oh, well.” I waved a hand dismissively in front of my face. “I can pretend it’s all true when we study together.”

  Michelle gave me a doubtful look.

  “No, I get it,” I continued. “Noah and his family were the only righteous people, and Moses knew it all— past, present, future. Got it.” I knew I didn’t sound convincing. I secured one of my braids with a bobby pin. “So, what does Rashi have to say?”

  Michelle stared at me for another moment and then looked down at her book.

  During our class discussion, I listened carefully to the other girls. Like Michelle, they all took the Noah story literally, as if it had really happened. They weren’t reading it as some cool myth; they believed it was the Word of God. I knit my hands together and tried to keep from squirming in my chair. I suddenly felt like an alien. No, I’d stumbled into a group of aliens, and I was the normal one. I excused myself from class and went to sit in the lounge. I took a long drink of water. Was this the kind of thing Sheila had been freaking out about? I shook my head. I’d imagined God had giant ears and listened without making judgments or suggestions. You could say, “God, I haven’t a clue what I want to do with my life,” and he would say, “Huh, I hear you.” I thought God was something we could create ourselves, by singing, by praying.

  I suddenly knew why I’d never fit in at B’nos Sarah. It wasn’t the dating scene or my lack of knowledge or even being secretly in love with Andrew. It wasn’t that no one cared about the plight of Palestinians or Israel’s human-rights record. The problem was I didn’t believe in God the way the rest of the B’nos Sarah girls did. I didn’t glow with the light of believing. I hadn’t been saved. I peered back into the classroom. I could see the students laughing. I headed up to the roof deck and sat in the shade.

  I sighed and looked out over the desert. I imagined standing out there, being so hot, with nothing but the horizon in the distance. I could breathe out all the crazy thoughts in my head about the Torah, about Andrew, about the trees. I’d just be a body in a space, walking, drinking, breathing, being.

  Maybe there was a hike I could do myself, nothing too strenuous, but just out there. I could do the hike to Ein Gedi I’d read about in my guidebook, the one with waterfalls.

  My next class was starting, but the thought of a chair in the beit midrash made my shoulders ache. I didn’t want to read about our foremothers and forefathers in the desert. I wanted to be in the desert.

  I wouldn’t go back to class today. I needed to keep moving, to keep my head empty of Andrew, the trees, the B’nos Sarah girls and their beliefs. I walked quickly down the stairs and back to the dorm. A hike in the desert would clear my thoughts. At the end, I could soak in the Ein Gedi waterfalls.

  In my room I traded my prayer book for my backpack with a water bottle, a sandwich and a guidebook and headed for the central bus station.

  The bus left the busy streets of Jerusalem and descended into dry brown hills. Tire heaps surrounded a cluster of plastic-tarp shacks; goats wandered along the side of the road. Up close the desert was more rocky hills than flat sand.

  The bus dropped me off at the side of the highway. I gazed uncertainly at the bus driver. “Here?”

  He pointed into the brown expanse of desert.

  I felt my guts tighten. “I just start walking?”

  Below me the bus rumbled. The other passengers stared out the windows. I saw a soldier roll his eyes.

  “Look.” The bus driver pointed. “There’s the entrance.”

  I squinted into the glaze of dust and sand and made out a small hut. “Oh.” I stepped off the bus and watched it continue into the desert. If I stood on the other side of the road, the bus would eventually come back. I almost did that: just stood there, sipping my water. Who goes hiking alone in the heat of a desert afternoon? I crossed the road and crouched in the dirt.

  Up close the desert was a scorched, hot brown. Heat rose from below me, swirling in little gusts. The sun blazed down, burning through the thin layer of my shirt. In the distance I could make out the shimmer of the Dead Sea.

  From down the road, a man approached. He wore a tank top and loose cream-colored pants. Over his shoulders spilled a mane of long dark ringlets. He carried an old-fashioned water bottle, the soft-fabric kind, slung over one shoulder. I watched him walk toward me until he stood across the road. He was in his thirties I guessed, dark-skinned and muscular. I noticed he wore thin-soled sandals with narrow straps. He looked into my eyes without smiling, and in heavily Israeli-accented English he said, “We meet in the desert. It’s so beautiful.”

  I stood up. “Pardon?”

  “You are hiking?”

  “Um, yes.”

  “Then we go together. Come.”

  “Oh, you go ahead.”

  “You are waiting for someone else?”

  “Well…no.”

  “So, come.”

  He made it sound simple, so I got up and followed him to the ticket kiosk. He greeted the attendant by name and they started talking in Hebrew and laughing. He turned to me. “I told him we met in the desert. It’s such a beautiful thing. Now he says you are my desert queen.”

  I burst out laughing. I wanted to say I was nobody’s queen.

  “Here.” He reached for a bottle of water from behind the kiosk window. “You don’t have enough. Take this.”

  I accepted it.

  “You must drink all the water. Come, we’ll go together.”

  I stammered, “Okay,” and started to follow him down the trail.

  The guy, whose name was Tal, rambled on about growing up in the desert, his years selling jewelry in Denmark, the best recipes for juicers and his job trucking in the north.

  “You’re religious, right?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “You have kids?”

  “No.” The heat seared me, burning the back of my bare hands. I had trouble keeping up with Tal’s pace. He kept stopping to let me catch up, but I never had a real chance to rest. I sucked at my water bottle continually.

  “Then how can Moshiach come?” he asked.

  “Pardon?” The heat made it hard to concentrate.

  “How can the Messiah come if you’re not having children?”

  My hands became fists by my sides. “I just got religious.”

  “Then how is it your family lets you out alone?”

  I licked my lips. “It’s not like that.”

  “You know, the religious here, they don’t have to serve in the army. They just study all day.” His face twisted with resentment.

  Would he ever stop talking? I wanted to stand and absorb the desert. Up close it was rocky and dirt brown. A cliff loomed to one side of the path, and on the other side, low bushes clung to a meager stream. My head felt strangely cloudy, as if I’d drunk too much wine. I stumbled a little on the path and then caught myself. I stopped to guzzle more water. Tal waited patiently. He didn’t even look hot. My face throbbed and my skirt clung to the back of my legs. I sat down on a rock. “I think I’ll rest awhile. You go on without me.”

  “Ah, but we’re almost there. Besides, don’t you know you aren’t supposed to hike alone?”

  “I don’t feel so well.” My head pounded and red spots flickered behind my eyes. I thought I might throw up.

 
“You are drinking your water?”

  I held up one empty bottle.

  “Headache?”

  I nodded.

  Tal hunkered down on the sand beside me and dug in his bag. “Probably you are dehydrated. Here, I have oral rehydration powder. It’s for Egyptian babies but it works on American babes too.”

  “I’m Canadian,” I mumbled.

  Tal shrugged and poured a yellow powder into my water bottle. “Drink this.”

  I tipped my head back and drank the bitter liquid. I put my face in my lap and tried to block out the harsh light.

  “Come. You’ll feel better in the water.”

  I got up and shuffled down the path, head down, oblivious to everything except putting one foot in front of the other. My head ached and my legs were like jelly. At least I felt too crappy to think about Andrew or the trees.

  When we arrived at the waterfall, I undid my hiking boots, threw off my hat and waded into the water, fully dressed. The water slipped over my head. Delicious coolness surrounded me. I could feel my skin drinking. Forget the desert, forget God and Allah. Truth was in water.

  “I’m going to start a new religion—water worship,” I told Tal.

  “You feel better?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “The desert is my home. I want everyone to feel welcome.”

  We crouched quietly in the water, side by side. I looked up at the cliffs, at the sun blasting into the tight hot canyon. The desert wasn’t welcoming. It had sucked me dry. It wasn’t the vast space I’d imagined.

  Then a group of Israeli teens hurled themselves into the water, screeching and laughing. I stopped thinking about the desert and watched them splashing. They seemed so carefree.

  I hiked back to the road with Tal. I still had a headache, but I no longer felt like throwing up. The bus wouldn’t come for another hour so Tal invited me for a float in the Dead Sea.

  The beach was only a couple of minutes walk down the highway from the bus stop. From the road I could see the pink and purple hills of Jordan on the other side of the water. I knew the Dead Sea was the lowest point on Earth and the high salt content of the water made it easy to float in. I didn’t know it would feel like swimming in warm Italian salad dressing, or that the salt would make every pore on my recently shaved legs burn.

  Tal laughed as I waded in and then barreled out to shower off at a tap on the beach. A group of men stared at me as I tried to rinse the salt off my stinging legs without lifting my skirt. Tal chuckled from the water. I silently swore under my breath and turned my back on them all. Some European women arrived in bathing suits and no one paid any more attention to me.

  Thankfully the bus home was air-conditioned. I sank into my seat, happy to be out of the glare of the sun, away from Tal’s appraising eyes. My head ached, my skin still stung from the salt, and my collarbone throbbed from sunburn where my shirt had slipped down. Israeli teens sat at the back and butchered Beatles’ classics. Tal’s voice rang in my head. We meet in the desert. You are my desert queen. I sighed. I wanted to sit in my shower stall at home with the lights out, surrounded by the sound of the water pattering around me.

  The bus slowed down. I looked up to see a man get off. He wore western clothes but carried a long knife at his waist. I couldn’t see any towns or villages nearby, nor any of the squalid encampments of goats and shacks I’d seen on the way down. I craned my neck to watch the solitary figure head out into the desert hills. Where was he going? Did he live somewhere out there, beyond the roads?

  I would never own the desert, I knew that now. You could only go in and survive, if you knew how. And the gorgeous views? Up close the desert was rocks and dust, not sand. Which was better? Standing and watching and not really knowing it, or walking and finding it different? Was there a third possibility? Could you go there and feel a connectedness? To love? To God? What if the two melded together? I wasn’t sure, but I wanted to go back soon.

  When I got home, Aviva was in our room, sprawled on her bed with her books and papers. She stared at me. “What happened to you?”

  I ran my hands over my dirty T-shirt. The craft center went on a field trip? I had a new job volunteering in a sandbox? “Oh, I just walked a lot today,” I said quietly, keeping my head down. I could feel her piercing gaze.

  I knew Aviva hadn’t believed me when I told her I’d been with Mrs. Shanowitz the night before when I’d really been with Andrew.

  I turned my back so she wouldn’t see my tattoo and pulled off my dirty T-shirt. I hoped she wouldn’t ask any more questions. At the sink I splashed cool water over my red face.

  “Are you sure you don’t have heatstroke or something? Your face is so red.”

  “I did overdo it, but I’m feeling better now.” I pulled off my skirt, shoes and socks, ignoring the small pile of sand falling around my feet. “I think I’ll take a shower now.” Aviva stared at me as I nudged the sand under my bed on my way out of the room.

  ELEVEN

  The air-conditioned lounge of the King David Hotel was deliciously cool. I sat directly under a vent and let the icy breeze blow directly on me. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my surroundings: the well-dressed tourists, the expensive art on the walls, the neat waiters, even the Muzak in the background.

  I held a stack of postcards in my lap, but I hadn’t written a single word. Dear Mom, I’ve met a boy. Dear Mom, They read the bible literally here. Dear Mom, They planted trees over people’s villages.

  I kept thinking what Sheila would say if I told her about the Nakba. She’d be so outraged she’d get out her placards and start making signs to organize a protest. We’d stand in front of the Israeli embassy with Palestinian women. Sheila never just said, “That sucks.” She took action. I used to hate her protests and petitions. All her marching and knocking on doors embarrassed me.

  And Don? He wrote songs about the world’s problems instead.

  Maybe I could just write a song. Stolen trees bear sour fruit. What rhymed with fruit? Root?

  We try to set down new roots

  But stolen trees bear sour fruit.

  Too harsh? Maybe, but also true. Aviva would say they were stolen from us in the first place, that we were just taking them back. Reclaimed trees bear sour fruit? And who was the “we”? Was I really part of this?

  I tapped my pen on my notebook and jotted more lyrics.

  You say this is your ancestral land;

  We say these are our rocks, our sand.

  Does it matter who came first?

  Our prayers cannot quench our thirst.

  If I played the song, other people would know about the trees, and they could stand in front of bulldozers and oppose the government. I thought about driving a car like Don’s station wagon miles and miles across North America to sing and then returning home, tired and depressed. One of the reasons I became religious was to avoid the wandering, lonely lifestyle of a musician.

  Two couples sat down at the next table. I heard a man say to one of the women, “How did you find the Dome?”

  “It was amazing. Absolutely fascinating.”

  I turned to look at the tourists, two older couples in Tilley hats and expensive travel clothes. The backs of the men’s necks were deeply lined by the sun.

  One of the women said, “It just glints in the sun. I can’t imagine what it’s like when they’re all there to pray. Stunning, I bet.”

  “We really thought it was the highlight of our trip. That and the Wailing Wall on the Sabbath.”

  The Dome. I had gotten used to its gleam, had become almost indifferent when I saw it on my runs. These tourists had walked where the Ir Hakodesh used to be, where the high priest had talked to God.

  After Aviva said it wasn’t a good idea to go, I’d put it out of my mind. Now I yearned for it. I wanted to walk on holy ground. It would take my mind off the trees. I got up from the table, paid for my drink and headed toward the Old City.

  Half an hour later I clutched my backpack to my chest as I
passed through the metal gate to the Temple Mount. My pace slowed as I gazed up at the soaring Dome. A group of women in headscarves stared at me from under the graceful trees lining the walkway. I tried to keep my eyes forward. Did they think I was Jewish, or just some tourist? I passed a fountain surrounded by a wrought-iron enclosure and then stood in front of the stairs leading up to the Dome. I paused, trying to absorb the beautiful arches and intricate mosaic tiles before I entered. Inside was darker, cooler. My eyes adjusted and I could see the giant rock surrounded by a railing. Carved lattice windows shed intricate shadows on the floor. “Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh,” I whispered, involuntarily rising up on my toes. Holy, holy, holy. I closed my eyes and imagined Mohammed in a white robe sailing toward heaven, his arms reaching up like a lover in a Chagall painting. I felt my spirits lift, light and frothy, as if I too was soaring through the sky.

  This spot with the rock. Did the ancient Jewish priests talk to God here? I felt a shiver run down my spine. I started to walk around the rock, humming a line from prayers. Adonai melekh. The Lord is King. If I could speak with God, what would I say? Would I pray for peace, or for the earth to go back to seed and start over?

  I walked away as if in a dream, my feet moving through the plaza of the Kotel and the narrow alleys of the Jewish Quarter, until I stood in front of Andrew’s hostel. I hadn’t seen him since our afternoon in the park. I could hear Neil Young’s “Helpless” coming from the roof.

  I climbed the stairs to the roof deck and waved to Andrew. I pulled up a chair next to him and let the melody pour over me. It was as refreshing as entering the Ein Gedi oasis. I sang along, not caring how loud I sang. My smile was so big, I thought my face might break in half.

  Andrew turned to me. “You look happy.”

  “I just went to the Dome of the Rock.”

  “Ah. Beautiful.”

  “Yes.”

  Then I saw Kyle walk up the stairs. When he winked at me, I pretended to study my sandals. He took a seat across the circle and started to play a bongo drum, poorly.

  The song ended and the travelers chatted and drank beer. I sat watching the group, my gaze still on the Dome.