by Ragen, Naomi
Anochi esmach b’Hashem
Through the vast silence of the dark wilderness the sound began to roll, the way rare rainfall thunders and rolls through parched desert wadis, gathering strength as it storms through the arid stretches of uninhabited wilderness where moisture is a rare blessing. Their voices, too, blessed this place, rising with joy, invigorating their tired footsteps along the rocky pathways as they walked toward the unknown, following their leader, and each other. Their song voiced their connectedness to each other, to the world, and to their place in it at this moment in time, the sound echoing at the bottom of the deep canyons, bouncing back from the mountaintops, until they felt as if they were walking through it, suspended in it, wafting upward with the notes. Above them, a billion stars blinked, staring, as if the curious eyes of the entire universe had decided to focus on this one strange and wonderful scrap of human activity.
Seth trailed behind silently, moved and yet stubbornly resisting the temptation to feel the astonishment that was welling up inside him. He fought it with every rational tool he had. “I’m just tired, and this is just weird,” he told himself. “A bunch of crazy old hippies marching through this godforsaken pile of dirt in the middle of nowhere, toward another pile of dirt in the middle of nowhere.” His heart was bitter with resistance toward this thing he could not explain, which had no rational explanation, which could not be explored or measured by any of the criteria he was used to.
Abigail felt herself float through the sound. Bathed in moonlight, the ground beneath her seemed to soften and flatten, rising up to meet her. This was a shared journey, she realized. But it was also a solitary road. Whatever they were experiencing together, each of them was going through a separate path. She and Kayla were each on her own journey, disconnected from anyone else’s. Each step Kayla took led her forward on her own chosen path. No one could stop her, Abigail realized, no longer afraid for her.
The road began to narrow, rising upward, until it turned into a footpath where people had to walk single file, clinging to the side of the mountain, because the other side was a sheer drop down into a wadi, hundreds of feet below. Abigail felt suddenly paralyzed with fear. What if I slip? she thought, looking down, horrified. Ariella reached for her. “Take my hand, and don’t look down. Look at me.”
She hesitated. Could she do that? Sometimes, you simply had to admit that you weren’t in charge of the universe. True, she risked falling. But if she hung back, sitting on a rock, who was to say she wouldn’t meet a yellow scorpion?
What you did or didn’t do, each thing had its own path, its own rewards, its own risks. The only way to absolutely avoid dying was to die. If you lived, you were vulnerable. Whatever happened, good or bad, it was there to teach you something. If you were so afraid of death, of pain, that it paralyzed you, then you might as well already be dead. Because nothing was more terrible than stagnation.
The time had come for her to lift up her feet and trust God to catch her.
She reached out, grasping Ariella’s strong, womanly arm. They smiled into each other’s eyes and began to inch their way along the path that led upward.
“Mom!”
“Are you coming, Kayla?” Abigail called back, reaching out for her.
“Kayla, don’t! This is crazy!” Seth, an experienced climber, shouted out. “It’s too dark to see anything, the drop is treacherous. This is insane.” He took her arm, holding her back.
“Don’t be afraid to move forward, Kayla. I won’t let anything happen to you,” Daniel said suddenly. He was in front of her, holding out his hand.
Impulsively, she reached forward, grasping it.
“I trust you, Daniel. I’m ready to move forward. But are you?”
Even before he answered, she felt his reply in the way his hand tightened around hers.
“I’m ready, Kayla.”
Kayla looked at him. “What about Seth?”
Daniel looked back. “Are you coming, Seth?” He moved to Kayla’s left, reaching out his hand generously toward his rival, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Kayla, take your mother’s hand. She’s just ahead.”
Seth turned away, looking behind him. What was more dangerous? He calculated. Trying to find his way back to the caravans, thus risking getting lost in the desert? Or taking his rival’s hand to navigate a dark, treacherous mountain pass? Cursing softly under his breath, he took the offered hand, terrified and humiliated. Who, he thought, would get the brownie points for this effort? Would Kayla view him as brave and self-sacrificing, or as the recipient of his rival’s generous good nature? Was he making himself, or his rival, look good?
He tried not to look down, expecting any moment to hear screams and the thud of falling bodies. But the only thing that met his ears was the gentle scrape of careful footfalls. Daniel held on to him firmly, supporting him at every step, whispering encouragement. This surprised him. After all, Daniel’s behavior was just between the two of them, hidden from disclosure. Kayla would never know what passed between them. Daniel could just as well have jerked him around, or ignored him. It was hard for Seth to fathom the other man’s behavior. Were the situation to be reversed, he couldn’t imagine being as generous.
Finally, they reached the summit. The road suddenly widened, spreading out in the moonlight like the sea.
Kayla and Abigail hugged each other, then reached out to Ariella and Daniel.
Seth dropped to his knees, his whole body shaking.
He felt Daniel’s hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right, Seth?”
“Yes, thank you,” he said stiffly, jumping up and brushing Daniel aside.
“Really, Seth?” Kayla asked him, the back of her hand brushing his cheek.
“I did it for you, Kayla. All of it. I hope you know that. I want to see what it is you see.”
“Yes.” She nodded, wondering if he was telling the truth yet stricken with guilt anyway for all she had put him through. She had at one time thought she loved this man; that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. What was it she had seen in him? she asked herself, searching to find it again.
The first light of the breaking dawn began to spread through the darkness. The horizon was black, then deep violet, crimson, and finally gold. They bathed in the light, like people diving into water after a drought. They held their palms upward, closing their eyes and turning their faces toward the rising sun. What had been frightening, even life-threatening, just moments before became benign, then joyful.
It was still cool, and the breaking day illuminated the still, magical vistas of ancient mountaintops, the green-black outcroppings of tenacious desert flora. In the distance, they could see the faint outline of caves embedded in the mountainsides like pencil drawings.
They picked up the pace, singing intermittently, but gradually they were overcome by weariness, dragging themselves forward. The sun rose quickly, the heat supercharged and unbearable as it beat down on their heads. It was like some gigantic hair dryer set at the maximum temperature blowing against them, Abigail thought, feeling her knees buckling.
“Mom, are you all right?” Kayla grabbed her.
Daniel quickly took her other arm. “Come, sit down here in the shade. Have some water.”
“Rav Natan says we are only a few hours away. He says we will rest now,” Ben Tzion told them. “We will reach the cave before nightfall.”
“Imagine. We are only hours away!” Ariella rejoiced. “Ben Tzion! Let’s make some coffee!”
He reached into his bag and brought out a little portable gas burner and a small pot. Soon they were resting beneath the shade of the tents, drinking the thick, sweet brew, chewing on granola cookies, pita-bread sandwiches, and apples that volunteers brought back from the supplies sent ahead.
Abigail leaned back against a large rock, exhausted, her body aching everywhere. Adam’s silent disapproval, his sense of betrayal, had pulled at her, weighing her down, she realized, making every step forward a statement of rebellion, an
d thus an ordeal. Still, she had no regrets. This journey had been her choice. She was anxious for it to continue, excited by her place in it and filled with curiosity and hope about what she would find at its end. But she had to admit: It had taken a toll on her.
Why did it have to be this way? She argued with Adam silently, filled with anger and a touch of bitterness. Why did she need to stop growing to feel loved? To remain his obedient good child? Was she still that same young girl who had tossed her food money into a young man’s hands to win his approval and forestall his contempt? When was it going to end, this feeling of having to prove herself again and again to earn her husband’s love?
And it didn’t just end with Adam, she realized, startled. Every move she had ever made was calculated to win someone’s approval: her friends’ and neighbors’, her children’s, the rabbi’s, her parents’. God’s. When was it going to end? When would she be able to see herself as a finished product, something whole and beautiful, fashioned in her own image, not someone else’s?
She looked at her daughter, a flood of sudden understanding filling her heart, like the light now filled this wild uninhabited place. They had forced Kayla into the only life they’d ever known, the same life they had been forced into by their own parents. Buying that plane ticket out of it was the first real act Kayla had chosen freely to please herself. It was a real sign of growth. Why couldn’t Adam understand that?
She saw Seth curled up in the shade of one of the tents, his hand flung over his eyes, fast asleep. Nearby, Kayla sat talking intimately to Daniel, looking tired, but exhilarated.
How would I feel if they got married, settling down in this wild, unpredictable little homeland in the Middle East, so far from home? Abigail wondered, swallowing hard, close to tears. Her little girl. But it wasn’t about herself, or Adam. She loved Kayla enough to hope she would find her place, and not reach sixty before realizing how much of her precious time on earth had been frittered away chasing phantoms: other people’s dreams for her, other people’s ideals of safety and prosperity and happiness. She closed her eyes, weary with trying to figure everything out.
“Did you mean it?” Kayla asked Daniel.
“Mean what?”
“What you said back there when you took my hand. That you were ready to move forward.”
“You understood me perfectly, Kayla.” He took her hand in his, kissing it. “I will always love my first wife and my baby. They will always be a part of me, of my life.”
“Yes.” She nodded, her eyes soft with compassion.
“But something has opened up inside me. I’ve made the climb at the edge of the cliff. The road has widened. I can go forward. I must go forward.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I love you,” he whispered, winding one of her curls tenderly around his finger.
“How will we live? Will you go back to practicing medicine?”
“Will you finish your law degree?”
They looked at each other, startled into laughter.
“We have to do something in the world, no? Why not something we do well?”
“Everything you do, you do well, Kayla. Did you love the law? Was it what you wanted, expected?”
She hesitated. “At first, it was all about the terror of flunking out, the competitiveness of outranking others . . . But then, I began to see some things. I’ve been thinking about all my father’s been through. When you are targeted by evil, sometimes only the law can protect you from being eaten alive. Whatever else it may be about, fundamentally the law is about pursuing justice, as it says in the Bible. Of course, some people become lawyers to protect the wealthy, and to become wealthy themselves. But that is a choice. It doesn’t have to be that way. I was free to choose what kind of law I wanted to practice, what courses to take. I think I didn’t make the right choices for myself. That is also why I ran away. But it’s not too late for me to go back and correct that. What about you?”
“Medicine is not like law. There are no stays of execution. When you make a mistake, people die.”
“But how many more would die if there were no doctors? And is it always about saving lives? What about comforting the sick, and giving them hope, whatever the final outcome? What about applying skills and trying?”
He took both her shoulders in his hands and held them, looking deeply into her eyes. “I just don’t think I can do it anymore, Kayla. I don’t think I have the courage or the arrogance to play God.”
“So, what’s next then?”
He shrugged, releasing her. “Live. As best I can. Doing whatever I can. My needs are simple and few. I can retrain. You know, being a surgeon isn’t all that different from being a plumber. The pipes get clogged, you unclog them.”
He smiled.
She didn’t.
Would it be possible? Kayla Samuels, married to a plumber, living in a little rented walk-up in unfashionable Brighton or a run-down two-bedroom in a working-class suburb of Jerusalem? She would run free legal-aid clinics, and he would fix drains. She would buy cotton dresses from discount stores, and they would go to free concerts in the park, or take long walks? She tried to look at the idea dispassionately but found she couldn’t. The old Kayla was sitting on her shoulders, horrified.
Seth opened his eyes slowly, taking a moment to focus. Where am I? he thought, his head aching almost as much as his feet. His throat was parched. From the corner of his eye, he saw Kayla. She was sitting next to Daniel. They were talking quietly and, it seemed to him, passionately. A sudden flash of hatred coursed through him for them both. The more he tried to fathom the connection between this unwashed failure and his lovely fiancée, the more unfathomable it became, and the greater his feeling of betrayal.
Had Daniel been extremely handsome or successful, he would have felt less betrayed and humiliated. But to be thrown aside for this scruffy loser with a hard-luck story? It made no sense. It was a random kick in the behind, an “anyone but you” choice. He found that unforgivable.
And then there was Mrs. Samuels! He sat up, searching for her among the resting hikers. She was supposed to be his ally! Yet she had incomprehensibly changed camps with no warning. He would never forgive her for that.
And, last but not least, what of Kayla? Did he really want her back? He was too confused to know at that moment what he would do given the opportunity, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t pursue his real goal: More than he wanted her to choose him, he realized, what he really wanted was the status quoante. He wanted to be in a position to accept or reject. He wanted power and control over his fate.
He sat up, splashing water on his hands and face. He found his comb and ran it through his dusty hair. He saw Kayla raise her head, looking away from Daniel in his direction, alert to his every movement. He smiled to her, waving.
30
They gathered their things together, helping each other up, as the message went through the camp that it was time to continue. They moved slowly out of the shade, as one dips a toe into water to test its temperature. The sun had released its fierce, destructive power, leaving behind only a hint in the form of a brilliant white light that soon darkened.
The rapid transformation was mystical—even a bit frightening—to one unaccustomed to such intensity, Abigail thought. There was something strange and primordial about this place, its scents, its sound, like entering through a magic portal to a lost kingdom. Even time was altered, moving more slowly, the days and nights stretching on endlessly. She felt a shiver go up her spine. How would it have been to have died without ever having experienced this? To have lacked so much without even having realized it? If you didn’t know what you were missing, did that mean it didn’t matter? Or was it a tragedy?
The trek had taken its toll, she thought; the pains in her stomach were getting worse. All this tension, all the unaccustomed food, she thought, vowing to eat very little and to drink some of Ariella’s chamomile tea. Along with fears of her irritable bowel attacks, she had always been terrified o
f getting sick on a trip, far from medical care.
“I refuse to be afraid anymore,” she told herself. “It’s enough! Fifty years of being afraid. And where has it gotten me? Did I save myself from humiliation? I was the pillar of the community until all this happened to me, something I had nothing to do with and couldn’t have prevented. So who cares if I make in my pants now?”
She smiled to herself.
“Mom, are you sure you’re all right? You don’t have to do this, you know. I’ll take you back to the camp. You can see a doctor. Don’t feel you need to prove anything.”
“Kayla, I’m fine. I’m wonderful,” she told her daughter, making herself believe it. “I feel like I could walk a million miles if I had to. Don’t let me hold you back.”
“The cave is only minutes away, just over the hill. But Rav Natan says we’re to stop and sleep until daybreak, because it’s too dark to enter at night and the artifacts are too fragile and precious to be surrounded by torches. Besides, I wanted a chance to talk to you.”
Abigail looked at her, surprised. “Sure. About what?”
“Mom, what’s gotten into you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why aren’t you trying to talk me into going back with Seth? I mean, that’s the reason you came here, isn’t it?”
Abigail said nothing.
“Mom?”
“Don’t put me on the spot, Kayla! Honestly, I don’t know what to say. I came here because your father sent me. Begged me. Put me on a plane. I did it for him, not for you.”
“So, you thought I was doing the right thing all along?”
“No. The truth is, I just didn’t care.”
Kayla inhaled, shocked. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“My darling, what it means is that I was finished mothering you, Kayla. There is just so much you can take from a child. You know we—your father and I—called you Her Majesty between ourselves.”
“I didn’t know that.” She found, surprisingly, that this hurt her deeply. “So, you didn’t care if I was throwing away my expensive education, my perfect Jewish, Harvard-educated fiancé?”