The Celestial Gate

by Avital Dicker

  She touched her belly with its new flaps of skins. Today, in the shower, she’d been able to see herself in the mirror and had been shocked. Nobody had prepared her for this flabby mess. The women in the room said it would go away in a few months, but she wasn’t sure. In any case, she had more pressing matters to deal with. Someone opened the door and Sual, embarrassed, hurried to wrap herself in her robe, thanking God she’d remembered to pull the privacy curtain around her bed. She peeked out past its edge to see nurses rolling a fourth bed into the room.

  As if it’s not crowded enough already, she thought with exasperation. The new woman wouldn’t stop crying. Sual heard a man’s voice speaking softly in a foreign language in an attempt to comfort her. Just what we need right now, she thought. Her whole body was in pain, she hadn’t slept the last two nights, and after Mahmud’s family saw the baby tomorrow, she couldn’t be sure she’d be allowed to live. She covered her head with her kufiyah and shuffled down to the nursery.

  Theo looked at the Arab woman walking past him, her eyes cast down, and decided to speak with the department head tomorrow. Claudia has suffered enough, he thought. She shouldn’t have to lie in a room with three other women.

  Claudia had stopped her sighing; maybe she’d fallen asleep. Theo breathed in relief and decided to take the opportunity to visit the cafeteria and grab a sandwich. He hadn’t eaten all day long and his belly was definitely rumbling. He bent low to kiss Claudia but then noticed the blood-soaked sheet. Frightened, he ran out of the room, shouting for help.

  Doctors were on the scene within seconds. The urged him to remain outside and drew the curtain around Claudia’s bed.

  Theo sat in the waiting room, the neon tubes burning his eyes. Only seven hours had passed since the first contraction on the plane. Seven hours of eternity.

  At first, everything had seemed fine. An ambulance had been waiting for them at the airport and from the moment Claudia had been wheeled into the delivery room, everything had been done professionally and efficiently. When Mor was finally out and breathing on his own, the nurse gave Theo the scissors and, profoundly moved, he cut his son’s umbilical cord. As another nurse put the infant in his arms, he felt enveloped by bliss.

  When did it all start to go wrong? he wondered, anxiously waiting outside. He’d never forgive himself for having given in to Claudia and allowed her to fly in the ninth month.

  A doctor finally came out of the room to speak with him. “Everything is fine,” he said. “This sort of thing happens sometimes. She’s lost a lot of blood and she’s weak, but she’s in no danger.” Rubbing his weary eyes, the doctor left Theo standing there, deeply relieved.

  Theo hurried in to Claudia’s side. Against the green hospital sheets, her pallor was striking. Softly, he stroked her hair. “I want to see my baby,” she whispered.

  Sual had just finished feeding Anise when Theo entered the nursery. Anise had fallen asleep on her breast, so Sual carefully put her back in the transparent crib and rolled it back to its place in the middle of the row on the left. A few cribs away, Theo was lifting Mor into his arms. He looked at his son’s long, black eyelashes. They look as if they’d been painted, exactly like his beautiful mother’s eyelashes, Theo thought. His eyes locked with Sual’s, and he smiled with joy. It seemed she knew exactly what he was feeling because she returned a similar smile.

  Theo rolled the crib down the corridor to Claudia’s room. “Mommy’s resting,” he whispered in his infant’s ear, kissing the tiny hand. “She worked very hard today.” Raising his voice a bit, he said, “I’ve brought you your son, my darling,” he said, stroking his wife’s head. But something didn’t feel right. He touched Claudia’s cheek. It was cold. He shook her lightly, and when she didn’t move, he screamed “Nurse!” as loudly as he could.

  A few minutes later, the doctors covered Claudia’s body with a sheet and rolled her out of the room.

  At five in the morning, when Sual again got up to nurse, he was still sitting there.

  She looked at the handsome Italian in the elegant suit. His gaze was hollow and the newborn in his arms was crying without him paying the slightest attention.

  Sual hesitated for a moment but overcame her shyness and placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “I think your baby is hungry,” she said gently.

  For a moment, Theo came out of his stupor and looked at her in fright. It was obvious that he had no idea what was happening.

  “I can feed him. I’m breastfeeding my daughter, and I have plenty of milk,” Sual offered.

  She didn’t know if he heard her, because he was again staring at the same spot somewhere in middle space. Gently, she took the baby out of his arms. He didn’t object; he seemed to not even notice. Sual found a quiet spot where she could feed the motherless newborn.

  Sual was thinking how, just a few hours ago, Mahmud had stared at the little girl with the single blonde curl who’d opened her big blue eyes to look at him.

  When Sual had realized she was pregnant, she’d decided to speak with her husband. She promised him she’d keep his secret if he agreed to give her child his name. She’d raise the child; he wouldn’t have to do a thing, and all the whispers behind their backs would stop. This way, he’d have a family and be free to do whatever he wanted. Mahmud had agreed. In fact, he’d been relieved. But that was when neither of them had expected a blonde, blue-eyed baby.

  “If you come back home, we’re all dead,” Mahmud said, his panic making his voice shake. Sual knew he was right. What a world, she thought. One newborn without a mother, and another newborn without a father.

  Later on that night, Aisha came to see her, bearing a basket of Sual’s favorite foods, but Sual only stared at the plate, incapable of eating. She looked at her mother who stubbornly refused to meet her eye. Tears streamed down Aisha’s wrinkled cheeks.

  Her mother took her old black wallet from her handbag, grabbed a thick wad of cash and put it on the table, then pushed a battered old suitcase across the floor to the edge of Sual’s bed.

  “Mother!” Sual grabbed Aisha’s hand and started to sob.

  “May Allah have mercy on you, Sual,” said her mother, then turned around and left.

  Sual looked at her mother’s heavy body disappearing past the maternity ward’s automatic doors. She knew she’d never see her again. Against all odds, she hoped she’d somehow manage to leave Jerusalem before they came looking for her.

  The beautiful infant had finished his feeding and fallen asleep. She tried to put him back in Theo’s arms, but he wouldn’t take the baby. After what’s happened to him today, it’s hard to blame him, she thought, and decided to put Mor back in the nursery herself.

  At noon, the hospital’s automatic doors closed behind her. Sual, holding her blanket-wrapped baby tight against her breasts, looked around cautiously. None of Mahmud’s brothers was around; only the Italian man from yesterday whose wife had died was sitting on an outdoor bench, his son in his arms.

  Sual heaved a sigh of relief. She was still alive. She had no idea where to go from here; she knew no place except for the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. She’d hardly ever left it. Maybe she’d go to the city’s central bus station and there decide which bus to take.

  A black consulate limousine pulled up. The chauffeur got out and opened the rear door, waiting for the man on the bench to get in.

  Sual looked at the man who seemed lost in his own thoughts and suddenly had an idea. The chance was slim, but she had nothing to lose. As it was, she had nowhere to go. She decided to try.

  She approached the large black car with some hesitation, reaching it just as the chauffeur was turning the key in the ignition. The Italian was seated in the back. Sual took a deep breath, screwed up her courage, opened the rear door, and started to speak without giving herself a chance to change her mind.

  “I’m so deeply sorry for what happened,” she
said to the stranger looking up at her. “If you want, I can help you take care of the baby, even if only for the first few days. I’m already breastfeeding and have a lot of milk.” She hoped he couldn’t hear the pleading in her voice.

  The man didn’t answer and Sual blushed with embarrassment. What was she thinking, accosting him like that? Her fear must have unhinged her. She was turning away, humiliated, when Theo suddenly motioned in her direction. Without looking at her, he moved over in the spacious back seat and made room for her and Anise.

  For a moment, Sual was frozen in place, not believing her good fortune. Then, protecting her baby’s head, she ducked into the car and sat down. It will never occur to anyone to look for her at the Italian Consulate, she thought as the car started moving. She’d been granted a miracle. She would live.

  Yam

  Yam is already in kindergarten. Grandma Rebecca wakes him up with a good morning kiss and helps him get dressed. Afterward, on the way downstairs, he peeks through the crack in the door to his mother’s room: she’s still sleeping.

  Grandma motions for him to be quiet. “Mommy was studying until late last night,” she whispers in his ear. “She has a big exam today.”

  In the kitchen, Grandma puts a chocolate granola bar into his backpack, and then, just to make sure, adds a handful of sweets.

  The kindergarten teacher has tried to convince Rebecca that it isn’t healthy and, anyway, the kindergarten serves breakfast, snacks, and lunch, but Grandma isn’t convinced.

  “Happiness is the healthiest thing in the world,” she always says.

  On the way to school, Grandma has to stop to rest and both sit down on a bench in the boulevard.

  “Our bench,” Grandma calls it.

  Grandma wipes the sweat off her forehead and gives Yam his water bottle. Then she says, “Today is a special day because your daddy is coming back to Israel.”

  Yam doesn’t remember him. He has only one picture of his father holding him in his arms from when he was a baby, not even a year old. He gets up to look for a pebble to kick. He sends it flying far, far away.

  Mom has told him that Daddy is a famous painter and that’s why he doesn’t live in the same country they do. Every few months, he gets a postcard from someplace else and he and Grandpa use a colored pushpin to stick it on the map of the world he has on the wall in his room, then Grandpa tells him a story.

  Yam loves his Grandpa’s stories. Once, after Daddy sent a postcard from Shanghai, Grandpa told him about emperors and palaces and people with slanted eyes.

  At school, there’s a girl in his class. Her name is Lee and she’s from China and she really does have funny eyes.

  But Yam still can’t understand why his daddy has to be so far away when he has a son here who misses him. He doesn’t want a daddy who sends postcards. He wants a daddy like the other kids at school have, one who gives piggy-back rides and kicks a ball around with him. Through his thick curls, Yam scratches his head hard and tries not to cry, but it doesn’t help. Lots and lots of salty drops drip down his cheeks.

  In the afternoon, Mommy picks him up from school and on the way home they stop to get him an ice cream cone.

  Yam orders a vanilla cone with chocolate syrup and sprinkles while Mommy orders a coffee for herself. He’s licking his cone when Mommy suddenly hugs him hard. So hard that ice cream gets on her top, but she doesn’t even notice.

  “Daddy hasn’t been here in a very long time. He’s missed you so much and really wants to see you, if it’s OK with you,” she says.

  Even though the cone is really delicious, Yam throws it down on the sidewalk.

  Mommy doesn’t get mad. She just strokes his hair and tells him it’s OK to be mad because he’s probably missed his daddy very much. And she stays she’ll stay with him the whole time and if he gets bored even a little, she’ll take him away.

  On the way to the playground, Mommy talks about how she’ll soon become a lawyer and they’ll find a place to live for just the two of them. Yam isn’t sure if he wants to live without Grandma and Grandpa, so he doesn’t say anything and only makes sure not to step on the cracks in the sidewalk.

  At the playground near home, there’s a humungous slide and it’s connected to a scary rope bridge high, high in the air. Yam climbs up to the slide and Mommy sits down on a bench.

  He’s managed to get almost to the middle of the bridge when this really annoying kid starts rocking it really hard. Yam loses his balance, but at the last second, he manages to grab the railing, right when Mommy calls to him from below.

  He looks at the man who’s now standing next to Mommy. The man looks exactly like the picture he has at home, except now he has a beard. Mommy motions him to come down. Suddenly, Yam is confused and lets go of the railing, loses his balance again, and starts to fall, only this time he doesn’t manage to grab anything at all. Seeing the ground rush up at him, Yam screams really loudly, but at the last second, the man with the beard catches him. “Hello, Yam,” he says and hugs him hard.

  It took some time for Yam to calm down and feel safe enough to tell Amalia that she could leave. By this point, he wanted to be alone with his father, and his dad took him to the beach and taught him how to skip stones over the water. Afterward, he got Yam a hamburger and French fries and told him lots of stories about faraway countries. Yam ate, giving his father sidelong glances, thinking that his dad’s nose and his own were exactly the same. On the way home, he got sleepy, so Daddy picked him up and carried him in his arms the whole way.

  At home, Dad put him to bed, tucking him in and giving him a sloppy kiss on his forehead. Before he left Yam’s room, he asked him if it was OK with Yam that he see him tomorrow and the day after, until Yam got sick of him.

  Yam said that he didn’t think he’d get sick of him, at least not soon. Daddy laughed and tucked him in again, promising to return the next day.

  Anise

  Anise woke up drenched in sweat. She’d had that strange dream again. She turned on the flashlight she kept next to her pillow, sat up, and carefully touched her toes to the freezing-cold floor. In Jerusalem, the floor tiles are always cold, even in summer, and it was winter now.

  She walked silently down the dark hallway, opening the fifth door on the right. Walking in, she found Mor sleeping diagonally across the bed, as usual, taking up all the space, his head under the blanket. Anise smiled to see bits of messy black hair peeking out. Mor had a lot of hair. Maybe that’s why he always had tangles and hated the comb.

  Mor was her best friend in all the world. He always watched out for her and hit anyone who was mean to her at kindergarten and made her laugh when she cried. She was going to marry him when they grew up. Mor’s dad was the Italian consul or something like that, and her mother had told her what an important job that was.

  Mommy also says that Theo is nice, but Anise thinks he’s much scarier than nice. And he isn’t nice at all to Mor, who is his kid. They’re nothing alike. Mor has straight black hair and coal-black eyelashes that look painted on. He looks a lot like the woman in the picture inside the silver frame that stands on the desk in Theo’s study.

  Mommy says that she and Mor are both her children, even though Mor hadn’t been in her tummy. Anise doesn’t mind sharing her mommy, because her mommy has lots of love inside and because Anise loves Mor more than anyone in the world.

  Her mommy is in charge of maintaining the whole consulate building and works lots, but she always finds time for Mor and her. Except for the nights, when lots of guests in fancy clothes and smelling of perfume show up. Anise hates those parties. The food is always icky and she and Mor have to dress nicely and be quiet.

  Anise pushed Mor aside so that there’d be room for her too and climbed into bed. Mor opened sleepy eyes. “Did you have your strange dream again?” he mumbled and immediately fell asleep again.

  In the dream, she’s barefoot, running throu
gh a forest, branches scratching her arms until she bleeds. In the distance, she can see an opening. It looks like the entrance to a cave and light is shining out of it. Anise knows that that’s where she must go. She runs as hard as she can. Jackals are howling all around her, she’s running out of breath, the earth beneath her is shaking with hoofbeats. In the dark, Anise cannot see who’s chasing her, but she can feel them closing rapidly on her. Suddenly she hears a child’s voice calling her name. She sees him from afar, running toward her. With the last of her strength, she increases her speed. The boy holds his hand out to her. She’s almost there. The light spilling out of the cave casts a halo around his blond curls. She tries so hard to grasp his hand. And then, like every night, she hears a roar. She stumbles and the creature’s open jaws gape above her. Anise wakes with a scream.

  In the morning, Sual found both children asleep in Mor’s room again. She looked at her beautiful daughter. While Anise spoke fluent Hebrew, her Arabic was rudimentary, even though it was, literally, her mother’s tongue, causing Sual to feel a pang in her heart.

  For her it was already too late, but not for Anise. Her daughter would grow up to be anyone’s equal. Nobody would be marrying Anise off at sixteen. She would love whomever she chose to love and she would attend university. Her girl would grow up free. She wouldn’t be anybody’s chattel.

  The children are starting to become too big for this, she thought. She couldn’t allow them to sleep in the same bed for much longer; she had to protect her daughter. She wasn’t going to risk Anise’s future.