To Be An Israeli: The Fourth Book in the All My Love, Detrick series

by Roberta Kagan

  “You must eat,” and Rachel guided her to the table and began making her a plate.

  The women who’d set up the shiva prepared tables of food for everyone who had come from the funeral. For the next seven days, visitors would continue to come to the house. They would all bring food for the mourners, and everyone who came to pay their respects would be sure to take nothing from the house with them and to eat something sweet before they left. Katja picked at her plate but Rachel persisted until she ate some dates, falafel, and hummus.

  Katja heard the ten men gathering for the Mourner’s Kaddish. It would always begin the same, “Yit’gadal v'yit'kadash sh'mei raba…”

  The sound of the words of the kaddish unnerved Katja.

  She ran into her room when the minyan for the dead began and covered her head with a pillow. She could not bear to know that these prayers were being said for her young husband, the husband she would never see again.

  Over the next seven days, Katja was aware that the house was filled with people. Harvey, Mendel’s boss, and his wife both came to pay their respects. All of the friends that Katja and Mendel had made were in and out of the house while Katja watched them, her mind in a haze. At some point, Elan had sat beside her on her bed. He’d taken her hands in his and turned her head so that she could look at him through her swollen eyes.

  “Kat, I’ve never stopped loving you,” he said. “I want you to know that.”

  She nodded. Katja had just taken a pill, and her senses were dulled.

  “I know you still love me. I knew it when I saw you and saw the look on your face at the Zilberman show,” Elan said.

  The Zilberman show… Katja’s mind went back to that moment when she came out of the bathroom and saw Elan standing there. Had she really still felt desire for him? Suddenly she was ashamed, terribly ashamed by that memory. For a single instant, Katja wanted to strike Elan for bringing that moment back.

  She realized the truth now, now when it was all too late. The truth was that she had loved Mendel. He was her one true love. Any feelings she’d once had for Elan were gone. Now she thought of him as just an old friend. Katja shook her head. Even the anger and hurt he’d once caused her was gone. Everything was gone.

  “I want to try again, I mean, with us. Please, Kat. I made a terrible mistake. Now, I’ve grown up. I’ve learned a lot of things, and I am willing to face the world and say that I don’t care who your birth parents were. I love you. To me, you are and will always be a Jew. I love you, Kat. Marry me…”

  “No, Elan. You must go now.”

  CHAPTER 46

  Rachel was the last one to leave Katja’s house. She stayed until the end of the shiva. Before she left, Rachel hugged her old friend and told Katja to stay in touch. No one but Katja knew that Rachel was a lesbian and living with her lover. Other than Katja, only Mendel had known. The three were old friends, and it was hard to believe that now there were only two.

  “Listen, you can call me anytime, Kat, anytime. Day or night, I mean it. I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you.”

  Katja nodded.

  “Are you going to be all right?”

  “As all right as I’ll ever be. I don’t know what I am going to do with the rest of my life, Rachel. I thought that I would spend the rest of my days as Mendel’s wife, that we would have another child… I don’t know who I am or what I am going to do without him.”

  “I’d stay here longer and try to help you, but I can’t. My job expects me to be back,” Rachel said.

  “I know, and Sandy is expecting you, too.”

  “Yes, and Sandy, too. I wanted to bring her with me, but I knew it would just cause everyone to gossip, and I figured you didn’t need that.”

  “How are things going with you and her?”

  “We love each other. There are problems for sure. We try to stay as inconspicuous as possible, but people are always watching and talking. Sandy lost her job as a teacher because they said they thought she was living a questionable lifestyle. It’s not easy.”

  “I’m sure it’s not.”

  “Kat, look at me,” Rachel said, taking Katja’s hands in hers. “You’re stronger than you know…you’ve always been stronger than you realized.”

  “No, Rach, you were always the strong one. You were the strong one, Mendel was the smart one, and I just tagged along.”

  “You are strong, Kat. You’re strong, you’re young, and you’re beautiful. I know you’ve lost someone—the man you love and your best friend. I realize that the pain is overwhelming right now, but the pain will lessen as time goes on, and then you will decide what you want to do. You still have a long life ahead of you…”

  “If it weren’t for Ima, I would take a bottle of pills and end the whole thing.”

  “Yes, maybe so, but the fact is that you do have Ima to think about. God was good to you and gave you a daughter. Now you must find a way to go on, to give your life purpose, if not for yourself, then for Ima.”

  Katja hugged Rachel tightly. “Thank you,” she whispered, “for everything.”

  Rachel kissed Katja’s forehead then she got up and left.

  Long after everyone had gone and the house was dark, Katja sat alone with only her thoughts and memories for company. The guilt she felt for thinking about Elan that last night that she and Mendel had spent together devastated her. How could she have ever allowed herself to think she had feelings for anyone but Mendel? He’d been such a good friend and such a wonderful husband. In fact, it was not until he was gone that she realized just how much she’d really loved him, how much she had always loved him.

  What a difference a couple of weeks could make in a person’s life. Only two weeks ago, she’d been carefree, getting ready for a show she’d been planning to attend with her husband, his boss, and his boss’s wife. She’d been busy obsessing over the importance of having just the right dress, perfecting her hair, and getting a manicure. She remembered how smug she felt when she saw her reflection in the mirror, and how she’d known that she was beautiful.

  Later that night, the night of the show, she’d walked out of the bathroom with her freshly-applied lipstick, and her eyes met Elan’s. After so many years she’d been secretly glad to see the admiration in his eyes. He’d hurt her once, she remembered as she looked at him, and now she was rich and beautiful. She’d felt so triumphant. They’d stood there fully returning his gaze for a few minutes. Then she’d returned to her seat beside Mendel.

  None of that even mattered to her anymore. Nothing mattered to her except Mendel. Mendel! God, what she wouldn’t give to have Mendel back with her now. But that night, the last night they’d had together when she and Mendel returned home, her heart had betrayed her husband. As they lay in bed together, all she could think about was Elan. How could she ever have done that?

  Of course, at that time, she’d not known what would happen just a few hours later. How could she know that, on that very night, as she lay beside Mendel with memories of Elan burning in her heart, it would be the last time she would ever feel Mendel beside her? Her hands pressed at her temples hard as if she pushed hard enough, she could drive that memory right out of her head then she tore at her hair. If only she could change the past. She prayed to change the past as tears rushed down her cheeks. If only, please, God, if only, please let me change what I did, what I thought, what I felt…

  CHAPTER 47

  Elan decided that he would change his life from this day forward, this time for good. He no longer had any doubts about where he saw his future. He’d made a mistake moving in with his mother and taking over his father’s fruit stand. After fighting in this war, Elan knew his destiny. He was a soldier. He loved Israel, and he loved to be in the company of others who had the same great love for this country.

  Two days following Mendel’s shiva, Elan Amsel went to the office of the Mossad and asked to join. His record in the IDF was undeniably impressive. They told him to go home and wait for three days while they reviewed his appl
ication. During those three days, Elan went home to his mother’s house and told her his plans.

  “I’m going to join Mossad,” he said.

  “Are you crazy? What are we going to do with Papa’s shop at the market? There is nobody else to run it!” she screamed. “Elan, you can’t do this… What am I going to do? What’s going to happen to me?” His mother cried and carried on, but Elan paid her no attention.

  “Sell Papa’s store and take the money. I’ll send you whatever I can, but I am never going back to the market. I’m done with that,” Elan said.

  “Your wife? Where is your wife? If you don’t care about me, and I can see that you don’t, at least you have to keep the shop open to take care of your wife!” his mother shouted.

  “She left me. When I was called up, we were in the hotel in Tel Aviv. She said that if I went to war, she was going to leave. It was my duty to go, and I did what I knew was right. She went home.”

  “To America? Was it another man?”

  “Yes, to America. There was no other man. It was me, Mama. I want something different than she wants. It’s better this way.”

  “Elan, you’re talking crazy. I’m not saying that she was ever good for you, but you stood under the chuppah with her. You’re married. Aren’t you even going to call her to see if you can work things out?”

  “No, if she wants to leave, that’s her business. I don’t care. In fact, I think it’s best. Like I told you, I’m going to join Mossad if they will have me, and I’m going to work for Israel.”

  “Elan?” His mother wrung her hands on a dish towel. “You’re talking crazy. You’re a married man with a wife to take care of and a mother…”

  “I’m sorry, Mama. This is the way it is going to be.”

  For the next three days, while Elan awaited the decision from Mossad, his mother tried everything from guilt to anger to convince him to change his mind. She could see that she’d lost her hold on her son. Even trying to make him feel guilty about leaving her alone after the death of his father no longer had any effect on him. Although Elan’s mother hated his wife, Janice, she had tried to call her in America. When Janice’s father answered the phone, he told Elan’s mother that Janice was ill, that she had suffered a miscarriage because of Elan and that divorce papers were already on the way.

  Elan’s mother was frantic. She called his brother, Aryeh, and asked him for help. Aryeh drove to his mother’s house that same evening and tried to talk to Elan, but Elan was firm in his decision and pushed his brother away.

  He wanted quiet. He was nervous and edgy while waiting to hear from Mossad. If they denied him, he still planned to leave his mother’s house. He had no idea where he would go or what he would do, but he was done with working in the market.

  Even now with everything on his mind, Elan’s thoughts would drift to memories of Katja. God, how he missed her. He couldn’t believe that she would have ever married that skinny runt of a boy, Mendel Zaltstein. Mendel had hardly been man enough for Katja.

  She was the woman Elan had always loved, the only woman he’d ever truly loved. Well, there was little he could do about that now. She rejected his marriage proposal at Mendel’s shiva. Just the thought of losing her forever felt like his heart had been struck and then sliced by a furious bolt of lightning. Somewhere deep inside of him, Elan had always held a secret dream that he would see Katja again. He knew he could never marry her, but the yearning to hold her slender body in his strong arms, to touch her skin, to kiss her yielding lips, to feel her soft golden curls fall across his naked chest never stopped.

  The letter from Mossad arrived on time, precisely three days after the interview. Elan opened the envelope quickly, slicing his skin and causing a painful paper cut on the first finger of his right hand. He cursed as the blood came to the surface and spilled onto the white envelope, but he was too nervous to stop and wash his finger. Instead, he unfolded the letter. When he read it, a sigh of relief left his lips. Elan Amsel was accepted. He would be a member of Mossad.

  ***

  Elan found the divorce papers waiting for him when he arrived back at his mother’s house to pick up the rest of his things. He opened the envelope that contained the letter from Janice. It said she had miscarried. It was probably best. The child would not have had two parents. But even so, knowing that his child had died in the womb was like a hammer fist to the back of his head. At this moment in time, Elan wanted nothing to do with any woman ever again.

  He’d thrown himself at Katja, bared his heart and soul, and she’d just looked at him blankly and said she loved Mendel. It was hard to believe that she’d forgotten everything they’d once shared. Elan had refused to accept that Katja could love Mendel more than she loved him. But when he told her how much he’d regretted their breakup, her response was emotionless.

  Women were nothing but pains in the ass. Elan shook his head. At that moment, Elan vowed never to take another woman seriously. Then without hesitation, he signed the divorce papers. However, he never read them thoroughly. Therefore he never even noticed that his father-in-law had offered him money to agree to the divorce. It probably would not have mattered anyway. Elan had too much pride to take anything from that man. Elan didn’t need his father-in-law’s American money. He could take care of himself.

  He shoved the letter into his back pocket without looking at it again. He’d throw it into the mail as soon as he saw a box on his way back to Tel Aviv, and for him, it would be like tossing away the trash of his life.

  Stuffing the pain in his heart deep into the recesses of his mind where he would bury them for years, Elan packed the remainder of his things. As he was bringing his suitcase to the door, his mother met him.

  “Where are you going!” she demanded.

  “I’m leaving, and I won’t be back.”

  “You are an ungrateful son! I will die if there is no one here to take care of me! If only your father were alive to see how you treat your mother!” Her screams cut the air like a knife and could be heard at the next apartment building. She wailed as mournfully as if she were at a funeral. “Please, Elan, don’t leave me!”

  “Sorry, Mother, I have to go.” And so, with his mother screaming loud enough to wake the dead, Elan Amsel got into his automobile and drove out of Jerusalem, away from his mother and the market on Ben Yehuda Street forever.

  There was a bounce in his step as he headed forth. He tossed the duffel bag into the back seat of his car. Then he let out a laugh as he reached his arms up to embrace heaven. Elan had just closed the door on his past and was on his way to report to the office of Mossad in Tel Aviv.

  CHAPTER 48

  “It’s a girl,” the doctor said as he looked at the tiny, trembling form that had just come into the world.

  Janice had been in labor for the last fifteen hours, and they had been the most difficult hours of her life. Her hair was stuck to her head with sweat, and her body was still shaking with the effort.

  But once the child was born, some miraculous change took place deep inside of Janice. She knew as soon as she lay eyes on the baby that she would never sign the adoption papers. This was her child. The nurse placed the infant wrapped in a white blanket into her arms, and Janice felt her heartbeat quicken. How could she ever have thought that she could walk away from this part of herself. Tears fell from Janice’s eyes.

  “Tell the adoption agency that I have changed my mind,” she said.

  Janice and Elan had planned to name the baby for Elan’s father. If it was a girl, they were going to call her Gabby. But Janice wanted nothing to do with Elan or his family. This baby would be named for her maternal grandmother, the middle name would be for her paternal grandfather, and the child would carry Janice’s maiden name.

  She would be called Bari, for her grandmother Bertha, Lynn, for her grandfather Lawrence, and Lichtenstein for her family name.

  Bari Lynn Lichtenstein, Janice loved the name, and her parents were honored and joyful that she’d not even considered Elan or
his family in any way when naming the baby. It was decided in a conversation between Janice and her parents before Janice even left the hospital, that little Bari Lynn would never know her father. The plan was to tell Bari that her father died in Vietnam. Bari Lynn would never know about Janice’s life in Israel, never know that her father was an Israeli. It was best that way. If she never knew about Elan, and Elan believed that Janice had miscarried, there was no chance of him ever interfering in their future.

  Ronald Lichtenstein insisted that his daughter have help with the baby, so he hired a nanny. Her name was Violet Davis. She was a tall, slender woman with skin the color of night and eyes that twinkled like the stars. Violet had an apartment in the Lichtenstein’s basement, with a bedroom and adjacent bathroom of her own. Her primary job was to help Janice with the baby, but she also did light housekeeping. She stayed with the family from Monday through Saturday and went home to some mysterious place that Janice knew nothing about on Sunday.

  In the first few weeks when she’d just brought the baby home, Janice had no interest in Violet’s life as she was far too consumed with taking care of her child. But as the weeks slipped by and Bari Lynn began to sleep through the night, Janice and Violet became friends.

  Their conversations were short at first. It seemed to Janice that Violet was secretive about her personal life. But Janice began to regard her as more like a friend than a nanny. Having a baby had alienated her from her former friends who were out enjoying their single lives. Because Violet was the one that Janice trusted Bari Lynn with when she went to class, it seemed as if Violet was the only person who she could relate to. Violet cared for Bari Lynn like she was her own child. Janice told Violet about her feelings of alienation, and Violet was a good listener. Sometimes she offered small bits of advice, but mostly she just listened.

  One afternoon, Violet was folding the baby’s laundry while Janice was feeding Bari Lynn.

  “I don’t know much about you,” Janice said, testing the bottle to see if the formula was too hot.