From a Sealed Room

by Rachel Kadish

  In the dim orange glow of the firelight, Gil’s face is a mask of fury. I’ve never seen him so enraged. At any second his anger will erupt, but Yair stands unflinching opposite him. Now, alongside my dread, I feel a strange excitement.

  Yair speaks. “So be as crazy as you want. Be as lunatic as you like in the privacy of your own home, I truly don’t care. Tell your American girlfriend anything you want about the rest of us, it’s not my affair. But you could have killed someone that day in Gaza.”

  A murmur of recognition passes through the group. “So he was the one,” someone says from behind Yair. “That was before I started my service. But I heard the story.”

  I am dizzy with bewilderment, unable to look at Dov or Rina. All I can think is that the two of them brought us to this place as their guests, and now it will be impossible for us to stay. But neither of them speaks. They are as helpless as I am to stop the scene playing out in front of us. We all wait for someone to make a next move.

  “I’m not the crazy one.” Gil spits the words. “Look at yourselves. Playing your soldier roles and your peacenik roles, calling yourselves hawks or doves, as if it mattered. Keeping up your damn patriotism in the face of more stupid, pointless deaths.”

  “So what do you suggest we do?” A thin spectacled young man calls out.

  “Nothing.” Gil’s smile is the snarl of a cornered animal. “There’s not a thing you can do.”

  The girl with the guitar is in tears. “You think my boyfriend’s cousin got blinded because she was too patriotic? She was walking on the wrong street at the wrong time.” A friend takes her by the shoulders and rocks her. “I’m just trying to make sense of things, that’s all. If you think that’s pointless, then leave the damn country. And good riddance.”

  “You think I’m just not properly Israeli, is that it? You think I just don’t understand sacrifice enough to deserve to live here?” Gil’s hands curl against his thighs. “I’ve made a bigger sacrifice than any of you. My father died for this goddamn promised land and I know things are never going to change. So if anyone here knows it’s hopeless, it’s me.”

  Beside me, Rina stands.

  “Take your self-pity,” someone says, “and get out of our way.”

  Rina is walking across the circle toward Gil. I can’t see her face, only the deliberate set of her shoulders. She stops so close to him that a person watching from a distance might think she was going to embrace him.

  Taut as a bow, he watches her. At any second Rina will stumble backward onto hard dry earth; I see it so clearly that I react as if it had already happened. I rise.

  Standing on her toes opposite Gil, Rina extends her arms. For a second it seems she is going to embrace him after all. Instead, her knuckles brushing his chest, she lifts the strap of his binoculars and takes them from around his neck. Gil, his face inches from hers, appears immobilized. Rina turns her back on him; now I see her expression, at once fearless and grim. She walks to the end of the shelter, to the stone-lined edge of the pool. In one graceful, athletic motion, she skips forward and throws Gil’s binoculars far above the water.

  There is a brief silence. Then, a splash.

  Gil has not moved. His mouth hangs open.

  Rina faces Gil from across the circle. In a soft and clear voice she says to him, “You are the ugliest thing war can produce.” Her arms rest at her sides, she is breathing hard and her green eyes are unafraid. I’m struck for the first time by how beautiful she is. “And I’m sorry about your father.”

  Gil has not moved. He regards Rina as though he’s having trouble recalling her name. Then, with a sudden and wild energy, he turns in place, from one closed, impassive face to another. At last his eyes settle on me, and his expression clarifies to one of pure hatred.

  He pivots one last time, his heel digging into the packed dirt, and leaves the shelter. His footsteps sound on rock. There is a short pause; then a slow, uneven splashing.

  Everyone is watching me.

  As Gil did only a moment ago, I look from one of Dov’s friends to another. Some sit with dinner plates on their knees; others cradle tin cups. They’re not friendly and not unfriendly. They’re simply waiting for me to choose, so they will know whether to take me in or leave me be.

  All except Dov. He is not looking at me, but rather staring at Rina with an incredulity I recognize as love. He speaks to her quietly, and now the others listen in silence; Dov and Rina are their tutors, this towering shelter their classroom.

  “I’m tired,” Dov says.

  And as if the simple sentence were the permission he’d been awaiting, the thin one with the glasses begins to speak. “When I was in the West Bank, do you know what it was like?” he says to Dov. “There was a terrorist attack and we had our orders to seal the border. And just at the end of our patrol, a boy broke through. He was about eleven years old, a little slip of a kid with big gray eyes and eyelashes so long you knew other boys must have teased him. He was carrying a bundle and wouldn’t give it up for inspection. And we were all shaking our heads over this latest hassle—just what we needed, a kid on our hands, in a few minutes for sure his mother will be screaming at us. My friend Dan started gibing me. ‘Dudi, you can try sweet-talking the mother into giving over the bundle this time.’And next thing you know, the boy ran right past Dan, he was past the barriers and into the orchard in a flash. We ran through the orchard, four of us from the unit, but we couldn’t find him. We looked, then we gave up and started heading back to the barrier. And all of a sudden he was behind me with a knife.” Dudi shakes his head. “An eleven-year-old boy with a knife. I didn’t even see him. All I heard was the shot. And Dan had to shoot. He didn’t have a choice. It was one or another of us going to die.” Reflections of firelight curl on Dudi’s glasses as he pauses. “He lay there with his mouth open hke he was going to ask us a question,” he says. “What kind of question could an eleven-year-old boy have?”

  There is a long silence. Dudi’s palms turn up, he might be trying to weigh the starlight. He speaks deliberately to Dov—it is important that my cousin hear every syllable. “I never learned his name. I didn’t want to know.”

  I see Rina take Dov’s hand.

  My cousin’s head droops with fatigue, he struggles to keep his gaze from dragging to the ground. “Rafi was a peacenik,” he says. “We used to argue about it all the time, and I told him he was a fool. Why should we make concessions, they wouldn’t bring safety. ‘Peace through security,’ I told him. ‘Security through territory.’” A look of wonder crosses Dov’s face. “I always won the arguments, too. Rafi couldn’t be as obstinate as I was, never when we were kids and never when we were in the army. And I was so sure I was right.”

  The breeze has settled, the night is still. The splashing from the pool has stopped.

  And then, before my eyes, without speaking another word, Dov makes a promise to Rina. Tightening his hand in hers, he lays his life before her.

  The circle of our bodies has drawn closer. All around me, my cousin’s friends sit listening. I understand that Dov is their unspoken leader, and now that he has made a choice, something is poised among us all: a question suspended here beneath the absent roof, awaiting an answer so large it might fill the spaces between the stars.

  More than anything, I want to stay. I try to shape their wondering expressions on my own face, I count the beats of my heart against the steady rhythm of their silence. But my body stiffens on its own, as if I no longer have any say in my own actions. If someone would stop me, lay a light hand on my forearm or even whisper, “Stay,” I would sink to the ground and never leave this gathering again. But no one moves. I wrap my fingers around my empty cup and leave the shelter, walking in the direction where Gil disappeared.

  How bright and solemn this heat. How swift the people wandering beneath it. Honking cars, drivers curse in bold Hebrew. How unfamiliar, this city to which I have never raised questioning eyes, though years of evenings I have hurried beside its gates.

&nb
sp; Sounds of rumbling buses, slam of doors. Hills surge upward then give way before me, pavement stings my feet.

  Where are You, my salvation?

  Carts selling children’s socks, vegetables heaped in trays, milk spilt and sour in market gutters. Chicken heads lopped in open stalls, a tangle of voices. Bread laid on conveyor belts, women pick it into sacks and brush aside shouts of competing vendors.

  I scan the faces of this market, aisle upon green-dappled aisle, but do not recognize You.

  Schoolchildren move in a tight circle down the sidewalk. My legs burn with weariness. The jostling of shoulders and hips, the scowl of a mother with a stroller. How creepingly the sun vaults white sky, day hangs in balance. Stone buildings rise high and higher, my gaze is struck down by brightness. Blackfaces and tan flow past, street singers sing. I seek You in shadow and light my American.

  Ten pitas for five shekels, the best guaranteed, hot or you don’t pay.

  Inside fancy glass doors, guards look me over for suspicious objects. Enjoy your shopping. Stairs move up and up into the air, glittering colors spread below. A kingdom of rubies and pearls, plastic sling-backed shoes. I trip and grab a railing, we are moved like cattle, shunted like lice into invisible sky. I cannot get off. At the top I cling to the rail and my arm is pulled in its socket. May I help you? the woman says. Fresh powdered face. Have you shopped at the Mashbir before? Swimwear here on the second floor, women’s shoes downstairs.

  Perhaps she has seen You.

  American styles are on all floors, she assures me.

  Outside, sun claps heavy on my head.

  Demonstrators with placards, shouting. Share the land. Opposite, boys in yarmulkes. Death to the Arabs. Thunder of airplanes, thunder of a red and white bus, thunder of a shopkeeper opening his grate to sell carrot juice. I shrink from the metal sound, flee this bustling cobblestone street. Turn from these rushing crowds this mournful air, these ancient walls this urine-soaked alley.

  Across and across, down and down. Wide streets and then narrow, twisting veins of a city. Smell of overripe fruit, crowded houses spill children onto the street, spices thicken the air. Men and women walk past in headscarves, my vision ripples with heat. Clotheslines crisscross overhead, bright alleys roil with layers of laundry. On balconies and stoops women sit, hearts burn in silence. A small thin girl watches me, suspicious. I cut my eyes at her, meanly. Then I am sorry. Perhaps she can help me find You. But she is gone. An old man at my side speaks now, his accent the accent of the rug peddler. His voice carries as from a long distance. But your eyes are bloodshot, he tells me. Are you certain you’re all right? What’s a Jewish grandmother doing wandering an Arab neighborhood, you know Jews are not quite welcome on our side of Jerusalem in these times. I’ll bring you a drink, won’t you sit in the shade? When you and I were children, he says, there were better days.

  Have you seen the American.

  What American? His face locks, wary.

  The American, I tell him. My American, I cry for Her in hill and valley, She does not answer.

  Old woman. He laughs. You’ll find no Americans here, and none fond of them. Tend to your health. You shouldn’t go for walks on days like today, this heat could kill a camel.

  I shake loose from his arm, his voice no longer reaches me.

  A shop, a wall, a jeep. Sights of a fractured city.

  In a park, dogs yap at my shadow. In an alley, flies encircle me. Beside tall buildings, in shadows of clouds, I search. In trash bins I peer for Your clues, hissing cats scatter like angry sparks. I seek You in gutters and on uneven pathways, sun beating on my bare head.

  The schoolchildren who gawk are nothing to me, they are released from class and race each other home, I am forgotten. My feet are swollen, I no longer feel them, my head splits with pain. I walk. Passersby stare, a soldier offers her uniformed arm but I refuse her.

  Smells of cooking, windows flung open as children are summoned. American, why do You hide Yourself? You see I am a worm, less than human; You see how those who encounter me mock me. All my bones are disjointed, American; my heart melts like wax.

  The city is sloping down, the city funnels toward one point. The sidewalk’s cracks draw me on just a few steps farther, my knees buckle with obedience. Every path leads me into this valley, this rose-colored tan-colored sun-blasted neighborhood of stone.

  Home.

  I have arrived at the street where I began. Here in the byways of this neighborhood, evening awaits. Birds twitter along electric wires, their chatter mocks my journey.

  And I see now what You have meant me to see.

  There is no future. You will not come for me.

  You will not come.

  The rug peddler’s calls rise, and fade away.

  This engraved archway. These broad steps.

  This narrow doorway.

  The blacks are soaked with prayer. A fat red-cheeked one bars my path. This is the men’s section of the synagogue, he instructs. Women go to the room on the side.

  I turn as if to go.

  He resumes his prayer. How he rocks with devotion. He does not know, then: You have abandoned us.

  How easy it is to pass by this praying man as he sways. I am quick, I have learned; I am easily forgotten. None see.

  The blacks hunch together, an ocean of nodding heads. From them rises deepest music. Chants swelling beneath the roof and trembling within these stone walls. Hear our voices, they sing. Answer us.

  Oh Mother, how you despised them. How Father stood fierce at the parlor doorway, guarding house against his lame brother.

  The blacks raise their voices to heaven, I want to tell Mother they are beautiful. I want to tell her, Mother did you not see I could not hate you? Did you not understand, if I had been dull-witted I might have hated you, but I could not.

  My feet drag so heavily now. I would like to settle to the floor here, and rest awhile.

  How sweet Uncle Hayyim’s psalms rose, mist of tears under my window. Every word of his prayers for Halina reached me, a kneeling expectant girl. Nights of shouts and longing, how I knelt upon the sill of life.

  If I sing for You, American, will You love the sound of my voice?

  Zion Zion will you not ask after the welfare of your prisoners ? American American can You not make these broken things whole?

  I am weary.

  The synagogue, an eruption of shouts. There is a woman here, I heard her sing. Voices batter these walls, assail my ears but I shall not be moved. Gesturing hands find me out, fingers point.

  Hail of words, babble of voices, none shall move me.

  They remove their hats and slap them at my shoulders to chase me away.

  Your skullcapped heads, I tell them, are shorn close as once mine was.

  They do not hear, now they bat me with seat cushions I am driven backward against my will.

  The flurry has deposited me on the street. The sky is an evening purple, I make no answer to their outrage. I stand motionless on this sidewalk. They tell me Go but I do not. There is no place left to go.

  Soon the blacks disappear into synagogue and there remains only one. He watches me, patient. He is not unkind. I won’t leave until I see you go into the women’s section, or else be on your way, Grandmother.

  I draw breath. In my head afire burns. My feet are pillows of ash. The world does not want to hear your stories, I say to him.

  The world does not concern me, he replies. Only God. God hears all.

  The world hates you, I tell him. He listens respectfully: He is a young black, he will not scorn me. You bear the past in your face, I explain. They are like Father, they look at you and see what they left behind. They live in their bright today, they want no reminder.

  God will mend, he says.

  The world hates you because you bear the past in your face, I insist. I confess to him: The world despises me as well. We are alike, you and I.

  He brushes his thin beard and sighs with thought.

  I turn away from him, the
street blurs dim in my vision. The Messiah will come, he says from behind me. This world will be healed. I turn back. No, I tell him gently. She has not come.

  God be with you, he says.

  A darkening street, a dusty scent of flowers. A valley, a valley of ghosts.

  Now a low wind rises. A mournful sound fills the air. Wail of a cat, cry of a child, voice of this breeze blowing softly about me. Into it are emptied the murmurs of Halina and Lilka, the voices of Feliks and Grandmother and Hayyim and these praying blacks. All our whispered longing, sweeping over walls and walls and walls of stone.

  This dry air seals my mouth. I shall not speak again.

  He stands alone by the far side of the pool. He does not look at me, although he knows I am only a few paces behind him. In one hand he holds the binoculars, the strap dripping. He lifts them to his eyes; he is gazing up at the stars although surely the lenses are beaded with water. Shivering in the cooling air, I look at the sky.

  “Gil.”

  When he walks away, I know I am meant to follow him. Away from the pool, up a low hill.

  “Gil.”

  He walks faster; he does not turn around as he begins speaking. I rush to catch up.

  “They don’t have the slightest idea. Rina and her precious Intelligence job, they never sent her to put down a riot. They never sent your cousin with his fancy paratrooping uniform to patrol a village every day for a year and a half.” Gil moves swiftly up the path. “You’ll never understand, either. You’ll never understand what it was like there.”

  At the crest of the hill he stops. He speaks as if the words taste of ash. “You’re just an American girl.”

  The wind has risen again. It brushes my cheeks, combs my hair away from my forehead. The touch is almost human.

  Once more I’m visited by a memory of the woman from downstairs. I recall now the way she gripped my arm before she turned for the stairwell. Her hold was unexpectedly strong, almost painful—I nearly cried out. I recall how she addressed me: she seemed to think me capable of anything.