The Memory Palace

by Mira Bartók

  The weather is perfect: clear sky, low humidity, a cool breeze from the sea. The three of us go into the caves to explore. The water is so translucent that in some places we can see twenty meters down. There are only two tourists in the first grotto we enter—a Swiss woman and her boyfriend. They are kissing beneath an elegant stalactite swirling over them like filigree. Stalagmites rise up around the lovers like crystal towers from the floor of the cave. Athanasius Kircher wrote about these speleothems—stalactites and stalagmites—in his Mundus Subterraneus, strange subterranean forms made from water seeping through bedrock. I could lie down and sleep in this cool, dark palace of crystals and chalk, the only sound, my breath and the water dripping from above.

  We leave the grotto and search for a refreshment stand. On the beach, looking out at the sea, I feel a weight lifting. It’s the relief from the stress of being stalked in Ma’alot, relief from something else too. I become giddy with laughter and want to jump in the waves, release something back into the sea. I picture myself escorting my mother and the soldier to the shore, helping them with their bags into a boat. I say goodbye and push them off toward Cyprus and farther on to Greece.

  On the beach, everyone is in love. There are couples everywhere—lovers and soldiers holding hands, kissing, eating ice cream with semiautomatics slung over their shoulders. The sun is setting when we finally leave and drive back to Ma’alot. When we arrive, the town is quiet because it’s Shabbat. That night, I have the first good sleep I’ve had in weeks. The next day I catch the tail end of a story about missiles attacking some spot along the northwestern coast. One of the people killed was a Swiss tourist. Was it the woman we saw kissing in the cave?

  It’s mid-September when Barbara and I travel to Jerusalem. We meander through the maze of old stone streets to the Western Wall, where Jews have come for centuries to mourn the destruction of the Temple. According to Muslim lore, it is the place Muhammad tethered Buraq, his great winged steed. We stand in an open plaza and watch bearded Orthodox men in black hats daven, shuffling in place, lost in prayer. I find their movements disconcerting. They look like my mother bobbing back and forth because of tardive dyskinesia. I think about how she told me once that before she died, she wanted to travel to Israel with my sister and me. I remember her pile of magazine pictures she kept beside her bed: a photo of the Western Wall, one of Moshe Dayan with his black patched eye, a stern portrait of Golda Meir, and publicity shots of her favorite Jew, Sammy Davis, Jr., standing with the Rat Pack, smoking, holding a martini in his hand.

  At their post, above the wall, flanking both sides, soldiers with long-range rifles stand guard. Behind the wall and beyond is the Dome of the Rock; to the left, the ancient stables of Solomon. Visitors stick everything in the cracks of the Western Wall—notes, prayers, money, stones, even chewing gum. I write a wish for my mother on a slip of paper: Please help her. I roll it into a tiny scroll and push it into a crack between two big yellow stones. “Just in case,” I say to Barbara as we are leaving.

  Barbara and I place stones on graves everywhere we go, an old Jewish tradition, and I collect small stones from the ground to take back home. I take them from every place I visit in Israel. On the walls surrounding one cemetery, there are holes from rockets and gunshots. In the Orthodox part of Jerusalem, a young boy hurls a pebble at my back for carrying a bag on Shabbat. I’ve also forgotten to conceal my hair beneath a scarf or a wig. We walk toward East Jerusalem, into the bowels of the medina. Barbara and I wander down streets of stone buildings and boarded up stores; almost every shop is closed, for some reason. “Must be a holiday,” I suggest.

  My face is tanned and could pass for anything here—an Italian tourist, a Greek, even an Arab. But people can somehow tell that Barbara is an American Jew. Suddenly it is raining pebbles upon our heads. A group of Palestinian boys sitting on a ledge have launched an attack. The stones are much smaller than the ones the Orthodox kids throw at me in Ma’alot but who knows which way things could turn?

  “Let’s get out of here,” I say. We shield our heads with our hands and run.

  We go into what appears to be the only open shop in the neighborhood, a small general store. “Why is everything closed?” I ask the man behind the counter.

  “Muhammad ascended to heaven today,” he says. “It’s a holiday.”

  “What now?” I ask Barbara. “Should we go back?”

  Out of nowhere a mass of Israeli soldiers barrels toward us down the street, holding their guns above their heads, shouting. A group of terrified children scatter out of the way. We lean up against a wall, not sure what to do, which way to turn. We scan the street for signs of life and commerce.

  “There’s a place,” says Barbara.

  Across the road is a store with a light on inside. We knock and a woman around fifty, with short gray hair and glasses, unlocks the door and hurries us in. “Come and sit down. I’m closed right now but you can stay here till they’re gone. I’ll make some tea.”

  All around us there are exquisite tiles, cups and pots, platters and plates decorated with birds, vines and flowers, and fanciful trees heavy with fruit. The shop floors are covered with rich burgundy rugs. The woman returns from a room in the back and sets out a tray of tea and dates. “If you don’t mind watching me work, you can stay as long as you like. My name is Amani.”

  She sits at a tidy worktable and goes back to glazing a traditional Palestinian tiled mural. Barbara and I sip sugary mint tea and watch delicate birds emerge from her tiny brush.

  “What’s going on outside?” I ask. “The soldiers, the closed shops? A man said it was a holiday.”

  “No holiday today.” Amani frowns. She plucks a sprig of mint from her glass of tea and goes behind the counter to get something. “Is it too much mint for you? I can make you more if you like. Here. Try one of these.” She offers me a date.

  “Why are there soldiers?”

  Her face clouds over again. “It’s not a good day. It’s the tenth anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.”

  “Did Israel invade the camps?” I ask.

  “No, but they allowed it to happen. It was a confusing and brutal mess. Anyway, everyone around here closes down on this day, but of course the army has to put on its little show.”

  “So what happened in ’82? Were you there?”

  “Let me show you around the studio,” she says, avoiding my eyes. Later, she doesn’t talk anymore about Sabra and Shatila but tells us a little about how the Jews came and took over her ancestral home. She was only a small child when her family had to flee. When they could finally return there were strangers living in their house.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” she says. “I have nothing against the Jews. It’s the government and their policies I don’t like.”

  Everyone I meet in this country, young or old, seems to have lost something—a son, a daughter, a family, a house.

  When dusk falls, things quiet down outside. Barbara and I decide to go back to our hotel.

  “Just a minute,” says Amani, and goes behind the counter. “Here. Take this. You might need it.” She hands me a small silver charm in the shape of hand pointed downward. “It’s a khamsa—for good luck. And here’s a chain for it. If you hang it around your neck it will protect you.”

  I think of Toda, her ashen fingerprints on mirrors to keep away the Evil Eye, her clumps of black tea leaves, glowing icons, and herbs. “Shukran,” I say.

  “You are welcome,” says Amani. “Be safe. Bissalama.”

  It’s hard parting ways with Barbara. She has always been, like Nancy, my mameleh, my surrogate mother. After she leaves, my thoughts return to my real mother. Where is she? Why do my letters come back? The soldier in Ma’alot continues to stalk me but in my dreams it is my mother who is the stalker. In one dream, she follows me to town, hides behind bushes at Hilai, carries an AK-47 on her back. She whispers to me in my ear, All you have left is a hand and a name and the name isn’t even y
ours. I wake up sweating, my hand, palm outward, protecting my face.

  Behind Hilai there’s a bomb shelter painted with bright flowers and geometric designs. It looks like an ugly psychedelic rock album cover from the sixties. I try to imagine what people do here during bomb raids, how they climb inside, put on gas masks and cover their heads with their hands. It reminds me of our bomb drills at Riverside Elementary School in Cleveland, how we had to crouch below our desks when the special bell rang. “Duck and cover!” our teacher would shout, and we’d hit the floor. Something ominous was coming from above, from the slate-colored clouds, heavy with rain, or from a missile far away—who knew where it would land and when? A sickly yellow cat lives out behind the bomb shelter. I leave him bowls of water and food. One day, as I’m setting down a bowl of kibble, Etan steps out from behind a tree.

  “Why you don’t come with me?”

  “You have to leave me alone. Do you understand? Leave me alone.”

  Etan grabs my shoulder, his gun peeking over his back.

  “Let me go,” I say, trying to pull his hand off. He finally backs off.

  “I am here, not American boyfriend. I come back later. Then you go with me.”

  Etan turns abruptly and walks off toward his base across the street. The cat creeps toward the bowl with his tail between his legs. I step back so he can eat in peace. He gulps down the kibble but keeps a watchful eye on me. Even the cats here are mistrustful and afraid.

  I’m getting close to the end of my time in Ma’alot. It’s October and most of the people I’ve met have left and gone back home—Dennis, Shalom, other artists and writers who stayed at Hilai. Barbara has left as well. In the end, my idealistic dream of doing Arab and Jewish workshops has failed—I had to do them separately in two different schools. In the Arab school, almost all the stories the kids wrote were about meeting a stranger on a road carrying a gun. In the Jewish school, most kids wrote about meeting a strange man with a bomb or a knife. If the children think this way here, in a relatively safe zone, how can there be hope for peace?

  One day I go on a hike by myself. I know I’m not supposed to do that around here, but I feel stuck inside Hilai and the town, especially with the soldier always lurking about. In my hiking-in-Israel guidebook, the rules are clear: (1) have a hat, sunscreen, and rest often in the shade; (2) water, water, water, and bring your own; (3) watch out for scorpions and snakes; (4) watch out for wild animals, including leopards; (5) watch out for live minefields; (6) watch out for remnants of military anything; (7) never be alone.

  I bring a hat, a sandwich, and water and that’s it. My day is grand—no soldier, no distant sounds of gunshots, no scorpions, leopards, or mines. I eat a peaceful lunch on a hill and draw in the shade of a tree. It’s twilight when I head back to Ma’alot, tired but content. But as soon as I get to Hilai, something feels wrong. The light outside the door isn’t on, and it always is. I don’t hear a thing. I try the front door. It’s not locked; someone has forced it open. I slip inside without making a sound, careful not to let the door slam shut. I know that no one is in the building, since everyone has left town, but why is the hallway so dark? I tiptoe up a couple stairs, far enough to get a glimpse of my door and the landing. The red safety light barely illuminates the stairwell. I sense someone is there but can’t see a thing. Then I spot the shadow of a man.

  The soldier is leaning against the wall to the left of my door, hidden from view so I can’t see him when I walk up the stairs. He presses his body against the wall, AK-47 in his arms, not swung over his back like it usually is when he walks through town. He is holding it in the position he has been trained to use when it’s time to shoot. I inch quietly toward the exit, open it slowly, and shut it carefully behind. I am twelve years old and my grandfather is pointing a pistol at my mother’s head; I am five and he is shooting a rifle off by my feet. Girls should be seen and not heard. As my mother would say, War is war. I run like hell.

  I tear past bomb shelters and the ugly concrete fountain where the children play, through the park, and past unfamiliar streets. I keep running and running until I finally have to stop to catch my breath in a deserted parking lot. I hear a small clanking sound, like someone kicking a can. I see a figure, a man, walking toward me. The man speeds up; so do I. My chest is heavy from running so fast but I have to keep going—but where? Which way?

  I find myself at the entrance to a forest. A woman at Hilai had warned me, “Whatever you do, don’t go into the forest,” just like in a fairy tale. She said she heard there had been snipers there. I had only been in the forest once, with a violinist named Lily from town. We had cut through the forest to meet some friends of hers on the other side. Could I find those people again?

  I sprint through cypresses and pines. I can’t tell if he’s behind me. I wander without direction but can’t stop moving. Finally, I stumble into a ravine. My body makes a soft thud against the damp earth. Should I stay here among the roots and the worms? Should I keep on going into the night? The forest is silent and black. I hear an owl and the wind in the trees. It feels good to lie in the soft fragrant earth. I feel invisible, like when I hid in the woods behind my grandparents’ house. Will I always have to hide? I think of Lily, the violinist, how, when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands a Dutch family hid her in a small cupboard behind a wall. Lily said she was separated from her mother from the time she was three till she was eight. Her mother could only come to visit her once. She made a drawing of her daughter’s small hands, reaching out from behind the shelves.

  Everywhere around me there are dark trees and sinking moss; beyond the forest, a desert of burning stones. What is it I have learned to love? My closest companion has been a horse; my bedfellow, fear; my pillow, fevered sleep.

  I wait for half an hour or maybe it’s only fifteen minutes or maybe I’ve been there all day. Time is suspended beneath the shadowy trees. The Holocaust survivor I knew in Chicago who survived the end of the war by hiding under those dead bodies—he said he focused his mind on the feel of the mud in his hands, the rich dark earth below him. He said he knew the earth was alive with roots and burrowing things. He imagined himself a plant, dormant, waiting to be born.

  I pick myself up, climb out of the ravine, and keep on running. Somewhere along the way, I lose a shoe. I slow down, hobbling, with one shoed foot, the other bare. I can feel the cool silver chain around my neck where the little hand, the khamsa, dangles. There is no one here but me, I decide, except for all the nocturnal beasts and birds. I hear a coyote howl and then the other members of the pack, one by one, picking up the song. There is the sky, the trees, the soft mossy ground—if I sleep here, no harm will come.

  I relax and slow down to a normal gait. The North Star flickers through the trees leading me to an opening and the glow of streetlights. It’s the neighborhood Lily had taken me to before. A museum curator and his family live there; I remember their collection of curiosities from around the world, carpets from Turkey, Moroccan bowls, woodcarvings and masks. I can’t recall the number but remember their name, Kesos, written on a sign in front. I find it almost immediately—a vine circling their family name, which means “ivy.” The windows are lit up so bright I feel a pang, a longing to be in a house full of music, people, and light.

  I knock hard. The family welcomes me for dinner. It turns out they are friends with the soldier Etan’s superior officer. The father makes a call and the officer comes right over to talk. The next day, the soldier is sent away to another base.

  On one of my last days in Ma’alot, I am walking through town with Lily, the violinist. She brings Arab and Jewish children together each week by teaching them Suzuki violin. I finally begin to feel safe, now that I am leaving. And especially with Lily, even though she is very shy and small. As we walk through the market in town, we suddenly hear the sound of children calling her name, “Lily, Lily, musica, musica!” We turn and see a group of Falashas from the Ethiopian refugee camp, holding something high above their heads, a rough-hewn in
strument made from wood and wire. They gather close around us. “Look, Lily,” they cry. “We made violin!”

  They follow us all the way back to Hilai, singing and calling out Lily’s name, their hands waving in the air.

  When I returned to Chicago that fall, I finished transferring everything to my new name. My mother’s first letter addressed to the “old” me arrived two months after I got back. She had shown up at Nancy’s husband’s office downtown and told him that she was now living on the North Side. She gave him a Chicago PO box number and said to pass on the information. My mother insisted he tell her where I lived but he refused. Enclosed with the letter was, of all things, a crude map she had drawn of the Middle East.

  In her first letter, the one she began with: Dear Daughter, Today is Yom Kippur... my mother quoted from the Song of Songs: For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come. On the back was a drawing of a plant. In her sketch the sky is sunny and raining at the same time. I am living day to day, she wrote. Where are you? So many changes have occurred over the past thirty years or more! Countries achieving independence, countries joining, countries splitting apart. How is it overseas? I can’t wait until we are together again. I fear your sister is in a war zone, hiding. Someday, before I become blind, I would like to see the enchanted cities of the world. The reading I’ve done suggests that the state of California will join the sea, sooner than expected.

  At the end of her letter, my mother wrote: Baruch atah adonai, elohenu melech ha’olam. I am teaching myself Hebrew among other things. Did you know that green plants are primary producers, the first link in the food chain? Did you know that photosynthesis makes things from light?

  In my memory palace, I place my mother’s map in an empty sun-filled room the color of sand. I place it next to the khamsa, the little hand charm the woman in East Jerusalem gave me. Next to it is a photograph of me in the desert on a horse, squinting at the sun. The horse is tall and chestnut-brown; the rider is still harboring a secret.