Hope Valley

by Haviva Ner-David

  Tikvah looked at the wood-burning stove in the center of the room. Only some embers remained of a previous fire. A hookah water pipe, half the size of Tikvah, took up one corner of the room.

  “Diwan. Is that what you said you call this place? I love it,” Tikvah said, facing Ruby, who was still leaning on her arm. Tikvah dropped her hands to her sides, and Ruby’s gaze followed.

  “What happened to your knee?” Ruby asked. “It’s bleeding. And your pants are ripped.”

  “I fell on the climb up here. It’s nothing.”

  Ruby’s eyes opened wide. “You came all the way from the valley by foot?” she asked, sounding pleasantly surprised at Tikvah’s effort to see her, but there was also concern in her voice. “I assumed you drove.”

  “I went out to meet you at the olive tree, but you weren’t there. I was worried, so I just started walking.”

  Ruby smiled. “Let’s go inside the main house so you can clean up.”

  But Tikvah just wanted to rest. “There’s no need, the blood’s already dry. I’ll put iodine on it when I get home.”

  “How will you get home? Should I ask my brother to drive you back?”

  “Let’s see how I’m feeling then. Now, I just want to sit. I had a frightening encounter with a gang of teenagers, too, not far from your house. Cane scared them away.”

  “Good for you, Cane,” Ruby said, massaging the dog’s neck. “Let’s have a seat, then.” She indicated the couches surrounding the stove.

  Tikvah helped her friend ease her painfully thin body onto what looked like a comfortable cushion with a sturdy back. Ruby had been skinny before, but not skeletal like this. And now that they were inside, Tikvah noticed that she smelled stale, almost sour. Cane sat down next to Ruby, and Ruby rubbed the white spot between her ears. The two seemed happily reunited.

  “Would you like to smoke with me? Nargilah,” Ruby said, pointing to the hookah. “I could use something for this headache. The scarf helps, as do the pain killers. But not enough. It will also help calm me.” She rubbed her temples with her middle fingers. “It’s just sweet tobacco, but it does the trick. For now.”

  “I’ve smoked it before, but not since some seedy bar in Jerusalem years ago. Before Alon. With Alon I smoked weed. Although we haven’t done that in years.”

  “I could probably use some of that now, for the pain.” Ruby paused, leaving opportunity for Tikvah to ask about the apparent deterioration in her condition, but Tikvah did not take the bait. She did not really want to know. “Mustafa and I used to smoke, too. Tobacco and weed. Hasheesh. He grew it in his family’s yard. I guess I was always into weeds.” Ruby chuckled and Tikvah started to giggle as well. But then Ruby started coughing, a phlegmy cough that seemed like it would never stop.

  Tikvah would have offered her friend water from the thermos she had in her backpack, but it was empty. She gathered her strength and stood to search the room. There was no sink, but there was a pitcher of water with small glasses on a table in the corner. She poured a cup and brought it to Ruby, who drank. After a few minutes, the coughing slowly died down.

  Then, as if nothing had happened, Ruby said, “Well, I’m going to indulge. You’re welcome to join me.”

  She reached for a small ceramic dish and filled it with a bright pink mixture, covered it in aluminum foil, poked holes in the foil, and placed the dish on the hookah. When she leaned over to get some coals from the embers, her hand was shaking. Tikvah gently took the metal tongs from her. Not that her hand was steady either, but it was steadier than Ruby’s now. Ruby nodded gratefully at the gesture, but Tikvah detected resignation in her friend, something she had never sensed in her before.

  “Now place it on top of the water pipe,” Ruby instructed. After a few moments, Ruby put the pipe to her mouth and inhaled. Then she offered it to Tikvah.

  “If you insist . . .” Tikvah said. She took in her own long puff of the sweet vapors, and then another, letting the smoke out gradually. Already, she felt light-headed. “I guess it’s like riding a bicycle.” She laughed. “Wow, it’s like strawberry-flavored cotton candy. Burning.”

  Tikvah tried to relax but the atmosphere was full of what remained unexpressed. She realized she was doing the same thing now with Ruby that others did with her: waiting for Ruby to speak of what was wrong. She knew she should ask why she was so thin, why she had not been in the valley. She knew she should open the door for Ruby to tell her what she already knew must be true; but instead, when the silence became unbearable, she asked, “You painted those?” The paintings were done on wood, all of them different forms of circular shapes with shells, crystals, and other natural objects.

  “Yes. They’re my mandalas. When you first look at them, it’s hard to find the focal point,” Ruby said. She took another drag from the hookah and pointed to one of the paintings. It was a group of overlapping circles. Shells and feathers hung from different points on their radii.

  “Like me.” Tikvah sighed. “I have yet to find my center.”

  Ruby took another puff. “If you step back and get a broader perspective, you will find it. In my paintings, too. Ironically, moving out of your own narrow view of things can give you more focus, at the same time that it makes you realize how ephemeral and relative it all is.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I know it’s something that has taken me a lifetime to learn.”

  Had Tikvah heard correctly? Had Ruby just said “a lifetime”? And was that a tear at the corner of her friend’s eye? She knew she should reach out her hand to comfort her. Something was obviously wrong. But, still, she could not do it.

  Ruby opened her eyes. “Clearly, you have been on a path, and not just the one you fell on today. Just remember that not all paths are linear. Like in these paintings.”

  Tikvah looked at Ruby. The light coming in through a stained-glass skylight created a halo effect around Ruby’s head. Tikvah closed her eyes. Specs were floating around inside her brain. She knew Ruby’s words were important. Precious. She felt the urgency in listening, although she did not want to admit why. “But how can I move forward if I feel I am circling back at the same time? Please say more.”

  “These paintings combine the linear and the circular. As does life. We move forward as we spiral back to our core. Each reconnection to our essence strengthens us for the next spiral. Hopefully even correcting past mistakes, healing old wounds.” The rainbow lights were illuminating Ruby’s whole face now. She looked calm, angelic. Until she started a fit of coughing again.

  Tikvah put a hand on her friend’s arm and asked her the question to which she did not want to know the answer. “What’s going on, Ruby? Now it’s your turn to tell me what’s wrong,” she said, remembering that day in the forest when Ruby had encouraged her to share.

  That tear stubbornly fought its way down Ruby’s cheek. Then another. “It’s spread to my brain. The cancer. Khalas! My incarnation in this body is coming to an end, and I want to be as present as possible for the time I have left. More treatments may give me a bit more time, but with too much of a price. I’ve accomplished my work in this life. Thanks, in part, to you. I thought if anyone would understand, you would.”

  Tikvah went cold. She trembled.

  No, she did not understand. She knew Ruby was ill, just as she knew she was; but knowing when the end is coming—seeing it before you, as you stand on the edge of a cliff, the wind pushing you from behind as you look down at the vast ocean beneath you—was another thing entirely.

  Ruby leaned close and touched Tikvah’s face. The stale smell of her was overwhelming now. Tikvah flinched at the feel of Ruby’s chafed skin against her own. Her whole body stiffened. Ruby looked at her softly, searchingly. Could Ruby tell that Tikvah had turned to stone? Tikvah looked back at Ruby, straight into her sunken eyes. But what she saw was her own reflection. She could not sit there any longer. She needed air.

  “I feel like I’m going to faint, Ruby. I shouldn’t have come,” she said, standing abruptly and grabbing
her backpack. “I must go.” She looked around for Cane, who had gotten up on all fours when she saw Tikvah standing. The dog threw her a questioning look.

  As Tikvah left, she heard Cane whining behind her and Ruby calling, telling her to come back, that it could be dangerous for her on the streets now, that her brother could drive her home. But Tikvah kept going. She did not look back. She walked out into the village, leaving Ruby sitting with her dizzying mandalas. She hoped Cane would follow. With no destination, she continued walking forward. Anywhere was better than being in that artificially sweet, smoky, airless room with death.

  Before long, Tikvah heard shouting up ahead. There was a crowd down the road. Fire, and flying rocks. A stench of burning tires filled the air. She heard yelling in Arabic. Angry voices were calling out, “Yahud!” mixed with other words she did not know. Maybe it was that gang again, the same one who had harassed her earlier. But this one looked bigger, and there were older-looking men as well.

  Then Tikvah remembered Cane. She turned and looked back from where she had come. The dog had followed her and started barking. Tikvah grabbed her collar, attached her leash, and turned a corner.

  “Ssshhh . . .” she said, giving Cane a hug. “It’s okay, girl.” Her heart was beating all the way up in her head. Her whole body was shaking. She could have sworn she heard the word “Sapir,” too.

  Were the rioters headed for her moshav? They did seem to be moving towards Hope Valley. Surely, they had heard about that racist vandalism on the Arab family’s house. Perhaps even from Ruby. Tikvah should never have mentioned the petition to her. Perhaps Ruby had told her brothers. The news from the territories, Jerusalem and Nazareth, would have riled them up even more against the Jews who lived right across the valley. And with a general strike on, no one was at work or school. That left plenty of time to riot.

  Tikvah ducked into an alleyway behind a garbage dumpster, and with a trembling hand, took her cellphone out of her backpack to call Alon. She forgot she had turned it off. Maybe he had been trying to reach her. He would not be happy to hear where she was, but she had no choice. He was her only hope to get out of here. And she wanted to warn him about the gang heading to Sapir. Later, she would deal with his anger. She just hoped it, and the pressure and tension from what she had gotten herself into, would not paralyze him with fear.

  She turned on her phone and called Alon.

  “Tikvah? Thank God you called,” he said as soon as he answered the phone. “I have been trying to reach you, but your phone’s been off. I’ve been wondering where you are, waiting for you to get back. You’ve been out so long. Like I said, this is no time to be wandering around. I was just listening to the news. The country is on red alert. Galilee too. There’s rioting in Nazareth now, even. And it’s spreading to the villages. Bir al-Demue will surely join in. Where are you? Come home as soon as you can.”

  “I wish I could, Alon. But that’s where I am. In Bir al-Demue. Please don’t ask me why now. Just come get me. There are riots beginning already.”

  “You went to see your friend from the village. The woman who claims we stole her house.” He stated it as fact. He still knew her that well, despite the chasm between them.

  “I . . . she . . .” Tikvah stammered, trying to find the right words.

  “I told you not to wander too far, but it never occurred to me you’d consider going there. Especially not with what’s going on in this tiny country right now.” Alon’s voice was shaky but forceful. “Where in the village are you?”

  “I don’t know exactly. But we’re hiding in an alleyway.”

  “We?”

  “Me and Cane.”

  “Right,” he said. He was trying to hide his frustration.

  She looked around for a landmark and spotted the green dome of the mosque. “Near the mosque. Follow the green dome, and you’ll find me, too. The rioters seem to be headed away from me, down into the valley. You may want to alert the police.”

  “I’ll call them from the car on the way to get you. Let’s hope no one’s blocking the entrance. I’ll be right there. Don’t move. I’ll call you back as soon as I get off with the police.” Alon sounded surprisingly grounded and focused, as if he had gone straight into emergency army mode. “I’ll tell them you’re there, too, in case they can get to you before I do. Then I’ll call you back and we can stay on the line until I find you. Don’t worry. I’ll get you home safe.”

  Alon hung up. Tikvah hoped none of the demonstrators would come her way. She also hoped, as Alon suggested, that there was no rioting at the village entrance, where Alon would have to pass in order to reach her.

  The phone rang again about ten minutes later. “Tikvah, I just entered the village. It’s quiet here. The police are on their way into the valley to intercept the rioters before they reach the moshav.”

  “Good. I’m trying to remain calm, but I’ll be glad when you get here.”

  Tikvah heard the car radio in the background. Alon was trying to stay abreast of the latest developments with the general strike and rioting. “I cannot fathom that you chose today of all days to go into this village. But if this ends well, it’s a good thing you did. Otherwise, those rioters would have made it to the moshav, and it would not have been pretty.”

  “The graffiti on the Regev house is not pretty, either, you know,” Tikvah whispered into the phone. She did not want to risk being found. But she wanted to keep talking to her husband, to hear his reassuring voice until he found her.

  “Pretty or not, this is the way things are here. I told you that. Now I see the mosque. I’m heading towards it. Good thinking hiding there.”

  Tikvah thought about the men who had been gathered in the mosque in Yakut al-Jalil the day the village was captured. It had said in that book that twenty-eight young men had been shot that day. And others, including an older man, had been mauled by dogs. She wondered if they had thought the mosque would be a refuge for them, too. “Okay, I can see the dome of the mosque. Where are you exactly?”

  “Just a few meters away. On the side of the front entrance. In an alley behind a metal dumpster. If you park near the front gate and get out, facing away from the mosque, you’ll see the dumpster.”

  Not more than a minute later, Tikvah saw Alon pull up in their pickup truck. She stood and waved her arms so Alon would spot her immediately. He got out of the truck, slammed the door, and ran over to her.

  “Tikvah! Thank God you’re safe,” he said, taking her into his arms. The familiar smell and feel of the sweat and sun on his skin helped her breathe again.

  “I’m so sorry,” Tikvah said. “I should never have come here. I should have listened to you.”

  “Never mind that,” Alon said, smoothing down her hair, looking into her eyes, kissing her tears. “What matters is that you’re safe now.”

  “You don’t have to worry. I’m through with all this,” she said.

  He placed his strong hands on her slight shoulders. “Listen, Tikvah. I only want to protect you. You’re my life. There is real danger here. It’s not a game. I’ve seen much more than I will ever tell you.”

  Tikvah looked straight into Alon’s eyes. She wanted him to tell her everything. Didn’t he understand that? Well, even if he was not going to come completely clean, she would. Keeping secrets from him had led her nowhere except to hiding behind a dumpster in a hostile Arab village, waiting to be saved by her knight in shining armor. “There’s more.” She took a deep breath. “You’re not going to like it, so I’ll just tell it to you straight. Talya has been dating a young man from Jaffa. An Arab.”

  “What?” Alon dropped his hands from her shoulders.

  “He’s a nice guy. And accomplished,” Tikvah said, to reassure herself as much as Alon. With Talya not answering her phone, and the Israeli Arabs joining in the uprising, she was not sure what to think. “He’s studying law at the University.”

  Alon’s freckled face was getting redder by the minute. “I don’t care what he’s studying! How did
this happen?”

  “She met him. They hit it off.”

  “I mean, how long has this been going on?”

  “I don’t know exactly, a few months maybe,” she said. “Maybe more. It’s getting pretty serious.”

  “You’ve known about this? You’ve lost your mind.”

  Alon closed his eyes. He put his hands to his temples. Tikvah tried to put her hand on his arm, but he jerked away. “Alon?”

  “You didn’t try to stop her? And why didn’t you tell me?” Alon grabbed at his hair. “There’s an uprising going on around us, terrorists planning their next moves, and you kept this kind of information from me? Who even knows if he’s who he says he is?”

  Alon was right. Once again, she had wanted to believe in something better, but the futility and cruelty of it all hit her now even harder than ever. She had thought she wanted to know the truth, but the truth was just too hard to bear. Had her original negative instincts been correct? Was Ruby right about Udi? Were her suspicions warranted? Was it too late? A veil like her mother’s, to blur the harsh reality of life, would have served Tikvah well now. She began to shiver, despite the heat.

  “Alon . . .”

  “Damn, Tikvah. How did you let this happen?” He hit the dumpster with his fists as if it were a punching bag. “We have to put an end to this. I’ll get you home and drive to Jaffa. Talk some reason into her. Or we can go straight there. Together.”

  Tikvah sank back onto the dumpster. “She wouldn’t be in her old apartment. She’s moved in with him,” she managed to get out. “But I don’t know where she is. I’ve been trying to reach her, and she hasn’t been answering.”