by Miryam Sivan
And remembering this chat, Isabel pushed away from the desk and went into the kitchen to start cooking. Yael would be home in two days. The fridge needed to be stocked. Isabel knew they fed the soldiers on base, but watching Yael eat, you’d think they didn’t. She put up a pot of basmati rice. She roasted red peppers and eggplants. She sifted through orange lentils for a soup. She soaked cannellini and kidney beans in water. On Friday she would put them in a slow cooker with onions, garlic, potatoes, carrots, and bulgur. A vegetarian hamin, or cholent as Suri called it, for Saturday’s lunch. She felt better and decided to call Lia in India. It had been a week since they spoke and she missed her terribly. When they tried to reach her the night before—Uri wanted to talk to her before the Genesis ceremony—the call didn’t go through. Not unusual. Plenty of places in the world didn’t have good reception. And now again Lia’s phone rang and rang and rang.
Isabel made herself a cold coffee and went to sit on the porch swing. Tomorrow morning she would make up for today’s delinquency by waking up extra early and planting herself by the desk. She was behind, true, but she would catch up. She needed a good run of typing to make the deadline. It wasn’t clear to her why after so many books it was this one, Jaim’s life in Greece during the war, with no actual scenes of ghettos, aktions, transports, or camps, that was hardest for her. Maybe she was just tired. Too many lives. Too much atrocity. Maybe it was the shared Spanish heritage or the link Jaim Benjamin made between the Inquisition and the Holocaust. Emanuel said Jaim Benjamin’s book was going slowly because of Dave.
“And you don’t want to go there.”
“You’re a mathematician, not a shrink,” Isabel countered when Emanuel offered this interpretation.
“Still, it all adds up,” he said gently but with conviction.
Emanuel might be right. But Isabel didn’t want to admit it. Dave was long gone. So was the pain of his bitter absence from her childhood and from Suri’s life. When it came to Dave Isabel agreed with Suri. Gone was gone. Let the dead rest.
Isabel drank some coffee and opened the tablet to read the news. When she read and then reread the headline all wind was sucked out of her. Bomb found on tracks in Himachal Pradesh. She read out loud to understand better. Mountain Railways of India. En route to Chandigarh. One bomb went off before train crossed. Second bomb detonated by Bomb Disposal Squad. Her guts ran cold and she continued reading: It is not yet known how many injured from sudden halt in service.
She started heaving. Her heart hurt. Lia was there. She said she wanted to see Le Corbusier’s urban design. That explained the unanswered phone. Maybe there were hostages. It was just a matter of time before Jews were separated from the others. Then the Israelis from the Jews. Terrorists would negotiate for their lives. Or kill them off one by one after rape and mutilation to send the world a message. Isabel clutched her stomach. She staggered to the lawn.
“No,” she cried to the tall trees in the yard. “No, not Lia.” She rushed from one end of the property to another. An alarmed Woody stayed close to her heels. How could this be happening?
“No, no, no!” she wailed out loud. “I told her to stay home and rest. She works so hard. What is she looking for in India?” Isabel screamed at the yawning blue sky. It was so beautiful she hated it. She wouldn’t live if something happened to one of her children. Dread rippled through her and she collapsed near the pomegranate tree.
The phone rang. Isabel pulled it out from her pocket. And listened.
“Isabel?” Suri asked. “Isabel is that you?”
“What?”
“Honey, are you crying?”
“What?”
“What what? What’s going on?”
“Lia!”
“Lia?”
“Lia’s on the train with the bomb . . . Suri . . . I can’t . . .”
“Isabel, Isabel, listen to me.” Suri was stern. “Stop all this right now. Lia’s in an ashram. Not on a train.”
Isabel fought to breathe evenly. Really?
“Honey, Lia’s in an ashram in Kerala.” Suri repeated herself slowly. Softly.
“How do you know?”
“Because I spoke to her a few days ago. She called to wish me a happy birthday. She knew she wouldn’t be able to call me from the ashram on my birthday. Such a thoughtful person.”
“Lia’s in an ashram?”
“Yes, in Kerala.”
“In an ashram in Kerala? You sure?” Isabel started to laugh and cry at the same time. “I can’t believe . . .”
“Isabel, sweetheart, you don’t sound well. And not just now. Lately. I don’t want to talk about your work, you know my thoughts about that, but you need a vacation. When Lia comes back from India, you and Emanuel should go away. Just the two of you. To rest. To sightsee. To spoil one another. Like your father and I used to.”
Isabel wiped her eyes and nose on her arm. Yes, she thought, just like that bi-annual charade of closeness. That was exactly the kind of relationship she wished for herself.
“Lia’s in an ashram in Kerala?” she cried with joy. “You’re sure?”
“Yes. Yes. Are you better now?”
“I don’t know what came over me.” Isabel stood and pulled her shoulders back. “You’re right. Lia told me she was going to Kerala, but I forgot. I can’t keep track of her plans. I can’t believe I worried so much.”
“Shh. I love you. Is Uri there?”
“He’s with Alon . . . wait, here he is, coming through the front door.”
And as Uri chatted on the phone with his grandmother in New York, Isabel washed her face and straightened out her clothing. She made a quick salad for supper. After hearing all about the pony, she put Uri in the bath, then bed, then joined him under the covers to read his favorite new chapter book. He had made the blanket into a tent and held the book in one hand and a flashlight in the other. She opened the book to where they had left off the night before.
“We’re in a cave, Ema. Like Bet She’arim.” Uri turned the flashlight to his face when he spoke. Then turned it on her abruptly as if it were a microphone and this an interview. Her turn to talk.
“A cave?”
“Yes.” He turned the light on his face. “And we’re hiding from the enemy.”
“Uri, let’s read the book.” Terror rekindled in her. She was in a cave with a child or two or even three. Protecting them. Praying they’d be quiet. Patrols outside. Dogs sniffing them out. She felt suffocated.
“Ema?” he shined the flashlight on her face again and stared at her.
“I don’t feel well.” Isabel pulled the blanket off and breathed deeply into the dark room. “I need a minute.” She left the bed and went into the bathroom to drink.
When she returned Uri lay on his side, facing the wall, spooning with Woody, the blanket pulled up to his neck. She had ruined it for him. She lay down behind him and stretched her arm over him and the dog. “Do you want me to tell you a story from when I was little?”
He shook his head yes.
“There’s a place in the middle of New York called Rockefeller Center. And in the winter, my father, your grandfather Dave, liked to go ice skating there. I liked it too, though Grandma Suri didn’t. She said she couldn’t get the hang of the skates and waited for us in a restaurant nearby, or sometimes she didn’t come at all. Special time for me and my father. Do you remember we went there last summer?”
Uri nodded slightly.
“Well, I had an ice skating outfit. A jacket and short skirt made from black velvet and custom white boots. I think Dave thought I’d be some fancy figure skater or something. But I fell all the time and made holes in my stockings.” She laughed softly. Pulled in tighter to Uri and Woody. “Do you remember there’s an enormous gold statue there, against one of the walls? Prometheus bringing fire to . . .”
She didn’t know how long her phone rang, but sudde
nly she heard it, tumbled out of bed and staggered to her bedroom to answer.
“I’m outside,” Emanuel said. Judging by his tone he had been there awhile.
“Sorry, I fell asleep.” Isabel shuffled to the door. “I’m really sorry, it’s been a rough day . . .” She opened it for him.
Emanuel also looked tired but smiled. “If I had a key I wouldn’t need to wake you up, Issie. I’d just join you in bed.”
“Please don’t start now.”
“Fine.”
✶
The year they built their house in town Isabel and Alon’s marriage fell apart but Isabel was too busy falling in love with concrete to notice. On pour days she waited anxiously for the mixers to arrive and Alon acted like a jilted lover. He didn’t know why she spent so much time on the construction site and complained she neglected the family. He didn’t understand why she refused to change her last name from Toledo to Segev. All the other women he knew took their husbands’ names. He claimed this was another sign she never really cared for him. Isabel waved his complaints away. Alon had stopped understanding her. She had explained to him many times why a woman would choose not to give up her birth family’s name and become subsumed in her husband’s tribe. Then he complained bitterly about the ghosting. But when she discovered the magic of construction, he lost all hope of ever being a dominant player in her life again.
And funnily enough it was this unexpected passion that cemented her relationship with Zakhi. He understood her love of concrete and always invited her to witness pour days on his construction sites. A week after the Genesis ceremony, Isabel dropped Uri off at school and drove to the Winkler site. It was a pour day. She turned into the village. The Winkler plot, on a hillock at the end of a lane of new homes, had a dramatic view of shifting grades of field and mountain. Isabel drove into the pastoral beauty when suddenly dogs exploded on either side of her car. They barked frantically. They bared their teeth. They dared her to touch them. “When you get to the gate you’ll have to run . . .” Every time Isabel entered the village she knew it was coming and every time the dogs took her by surprise. And terrified her. “And the furies kept on screaming, Schneller! Schneller!” Isabel pressed down on the gas and horn simultaneously. Nonplussed, the dogs flanked her tires and bumpers. When the car squealed to a halt on the gravel of the Winkler property, they stopped too, high from the chase. Not even waiting for her to cut the engine, they made sharp U-turns and were back in their driveways, panting, sated, waiting for the next car.
Isabel closed her eyes. She placed her forehead against the steering wheel. It wasn’t just the dogs’ fierceness that troubled her. But her own. Every time she ran the gauntlet she craved hitting back. A small leg caught under a heavy tire. A rump clipped by the front fender. She controlled herself but also hated herself for wanting to hurt them.
She sat in her car a moment longer to compose herself. Zakhi’s truck was there. So was Moshe’s, the plasterer. Since Isabel had been visiting Zakhi on sites for two years she knew some of the contractors he worked with regularly. She got out of her car and walked to the western and southern facades of the house. The scaffolding was in place and the naked concrete block walls were being dressed in their grey petticoat. From color samples on the wall, Isabel could see that after the grey a soft yellow exterior plaster would be applied. The dress. Slowly she walked back towards a large opening that would eventually be the front door but stopped when he heard Zakhi shouting.
“I don’t care who’s dying this week. Nothing’s completed. Nothing. What’s installed needs going over. I haven’t approved one piece of stone you’ve laid.” Silence. Obviously Sucrat the stone mason was defending himself.
Zakhi walked out of the house holding his phone. His scowl became a smile when he saw Isabel. He came towards her and together they looked towards the road, waiting for the concrete mixers. Isabel was nervous. And excited. Zakhi got a call and walked away to take it. He was a gentleman and never yelled at his contractors near her. When he came back he handed her a cell phone. “Call the concrete company for me, dear. Let’s make sure they show up today. If not, I’m going to totally lose it.”
Isabel took the phone and dialed the number. The phone rang on the other end. She never remembered seeing Zakhi so unnerved. Maybe it was because he was not only the electrician but project manager, supervising construction from excavation to carpentry. Maybe it was too much for him. He was so easy going when he was only responsible for the electrical work. Or maybe another woman was playing with his heart.
The ringing continued. Isabel closed the line and pressed redial with more force than was necessary. Zakhi’s antagonism was contagious. In the momentary quiet between each ring, indignation snapped through her. She closed the line again. Pressed redial. How could a concrete company’s office not answer at eight in the morning? Day light hours were critical. Morning hours even more so. It was not summer but the days were still warm. Dehydration compromised concrete’s strength. Zakhi would be watering the newly poured surfaces at regular intervals over the next few days, slowing the curing process.
Isabel closed the phone line. Each time she pressed redial, her nerves surged. She wanted nothing more than to throw the phone to the ground. To stomp on it. And then she saw them. Large and serene like elephants, two concrete mixers rolled noisily down the narrow village lane. The ground rumbled under their weight. Their fat elliptical drums turned round and round, keeping the aggregate mixed and moist. They were so large and so imposing that even the dogs knew better than to give chase. They stood in their driveways to stake out their territory, but were rooted in place. Zakhi came to stand by her. Isabel purred with excitement. The masonry crew stepped forward to meet the mixers.
After twenty minutes of prep, concrete began to flow from the drums. A metal pipe held high by a brontosaurus-like crane swallowed it and channeled it to a thick rubber hose. Isabel rocked with anticipation. The head of the crew seized the hose and used all the weight and force of his body to control the heavy surge of grey lava that rushed out of the bucking black hose.
“A beast,” Isabel said, awed yet again by the power and rush of the concrete.
The workers used long metal rakes to spread the concrete evenly throughout the wooden forms on the ground. These were the outdoor walkways circumventing the house. The second concrete mixer pulled up. The crew filled vertical columns and horizontal slabs for a small cottage at the edge of the yard. The concrete would harden in a few hours. Enough to step on within twenty-four.
“Tohu vivohu,” Isabel said rapturously to a distracted Zakhi. What was he thinking about so intently? “The primordial matter of Genesis. Swirling chaos. Fast flowing matter dividing into form.”
Zakhi smiled at her, not moved at this moment by the poetry or her passion. His phone rang. He moved out of earshot.
When Lia and Yael studied the Book of Exodus in third grade, Isabel read along with them in an English translation. They learned that Bezalel was commanded to build the portable tabernacle for the Ten Commandments. All the strict building specifications were laid out—from exterior walls to interior partitions, from floors to roof, from lighting fixtures to sacrificial ornaments and vessels—straight from the Lord’s mouth. No room for change orders, ornery or delinquent contractors. Bezalel was in charge of it all. Bezalel the artisan. Bezalel the artist. Bezalel the project manager. Bezalel son of Uri.
The crew finished with the concrete slabs and wooden forms. Meantime Moshe and his team mixed lime, cement, and sand for the plaster and worked on the western facade. The concrete mixers with their emptied drums turned away. The dogs watched them rumble towards the gate, still daunted by their mass.
“Is something wrong with me?” Zakhi walked back to her. “Is it so wrong to expect people to show up for work, and once here to work?” They watched Sucrat’s young assistants get into their truck and drive away. “He has the nerve to say that the kid with the blue
shirt is his son and has wonderful hands. That I should give him a chance.” Zakhi looked as if he were about to cry.
“I’m sorry.” Isabel kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Can we meet tomorrow? Maybe I can cheer you up?” She smiled playfully.
Zakhi nodded and dialed Sucrat again. She heard the phone not being picked up and walked to her car. She did not have energy for the dogs and drove slowly in the opposite direction, taking the long route all around the village.
The Libels
1
Isabel had said yes right away when Itka Schwartz invited her to the commemorative dinner in Prague. A chance to run away from Schine and his pages, Isabel, I need pages, pages. A respite from Emanuel. Lia, just back from India, would stay home with Uri. And in a few days her children would join her in Prague for a brief family vacation. She wanted Yael to come too. Not that big a deal anymore to request permission to leave the base and country for a short spell. But Yael said that when she took time off, she’d be heading to Eilat with friends. The brilliant blue Red Sea, the purple orange mountains, the snorkeling, the hookahs, civilization a step behind, that was what she called a vacation.
So for now Isabel was on her own among Prague’s heavy greys. No one to care for but herself in this city charged with beauty and echoes. She decided to focus on the beauty this visit. Back burner the echoes, the heavy tread of history. From the plane she welcomed the wide Vltava River. The carved stone bridges. The terracotta roofs. The Castle perched on a hill. How lovely! The long leash of home slackened.
And she would see Jiri.
✶
After a quick shower at the hotel, Isabel made her way down Celetná Street. She had been here enough times to swim in the pleasure of familiarity. She paused in front of one of Kafka’s former residences, right next door to Jiri’s studio. Kafka lived here from the time of his bar-mitzvah until his early twenties. 1896–1907. Did the fierce black spires of the Church of Our Lady before Týn also induce tremors of the hunted in him? How Franz loved and suffered his native city.