But it isn’t that simple. At my office, I sometimes counsel couples that are getting divorced. Men can’t appease their jilted wives with a good settlement. It humiliates them. They want something else, but what they’re asking for can’t be given. They want to leave with a new soul and their illusions intact. The Palestinians are a proud people; but they’re fighting to reclaim something that is dead: the past. Even if they one day claimed all of the land in Israel, they still wouldn’t be satisfied.
As for us, we believe that the Palestinians’ clumsy and sometimes shameful acts justify our own. David Grossman said that being strong and seeing oneself as weak is a great temptation. We, the all-powerful, with our tanks and our bombs, have convinced ourselves of our weakness and impotence when confronted with the ill will of a betrayed woman. Yes, the Palestinians have been betrayed.
And what if that woman’s family stopped pitting her against her ex-husband? If her friends stopped telling her he was a bastard so that, gradually, happier times could bubble up to the surface? Even without marriage, even with distance, like friends, those two people could offer each other a great deal.
Anyway, Harry, I’ll stop my rabbinical metaphors. My son leaves for the army tomorrow. The idea that he could have a human target at the end of his rifle makes me nauseous.
I hope we’ll see each other soon.
And regarding the question you didn’t ask: my answer is that there is no shame in being in love with your ex-wife.
The loop is closed, isn’t it?
Moshe
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: June 20, 2009
Subject: Adolescence
Dear Annabelle,
Are you on benzos, Prozac, or some other kind of med with an alien name? Jeremy Lucas! He must have a saggy ass and three kids by now.
As for the record you sent, no comment. There’s always something shameful about the first time. It wasn’t the lay itself or the girl. It was my choreography to that song afterward. Even with that, nobody (not even me) figured out that I was gay!
Yes, I’m happy, sometimes. Not too much so. I’m a writer, so that would be counterproductive. I was touched by your music. Quit your studies. Compose. Fuck. Live.
As a result of prolonging your childhood, you’re going to die having never become a woman. Take the risk and dive into the deep end. The water is cold, I won’t deny it; but you get used to it and, sometimes, you have a lot of fun.
Your brother,
David, who still drinks just as much vodka …
From Harry Rosenmerck to Monique Duchêne
Nazareth, June 20, 2009
Dear Monique,
It’s funny, I get the impression I’m just now beginning to understand who you are. Years later. Unless we’re molting and you left your old skin in our apartment on West 26th Street?
We’ve had two kids. We’ve loved then hated each other, been disgusted, then indifferent, and then deeply moved. What are we to each other? Family? A piece of us that we planted along the way—lost youth, maybe?
Dear lost youth,
Dry your tears.
Why do you think David’s sexuality is your fault? Why blame yourself? David isn’t a victim of the consequences of our actions. David is David. My reasons for being angry with him are deep inside of me. I don’t think I can reveal them without falling apart. Love him as he is, and more deeply, because I don’t think I am capable.
We aren’t guilty and he isn’t sick; he’s just different. It’s the consequences of that difference that are stuck in my throat as a father, not the differences themselves.
You’ll be there. You’ll always be there. You’re a pain in the ass. And death won’t get a hold of you.
Harry
From Annabelle Rosenmerck to David Rosenmerck
Nazareth, June 26, 2009
Dear David,
It’s true, I’ve got childhood stuck to my shoes.
And real adult heartache that I can’t seem to shake—unless it’s really just a hideous wound to my pride. Or boredom. One day, I’m going to have to decide to establish some roots. Choose a place, a job, a life, and a man who loves me.
Dad and I are going to Grandma’s grave at Herzliya—a kind of road trip. I made a picnic.
Dad has lots of nice employees that take care of the pigs. Most of them are Christian. Tricky for Jews or Muslims to touch pigs …
We never talk about the Christians in Israel, but life isn’t easy for them either.
Every religion has a different version of history. It’s funny and terrifying. Where is the truth buried?
When are you coming, dear brother? I miss you …
I’m trying to talk to Dad about you, but the wall seems impenetrable.
Annabelle
From Harry Rosenmerck to Rabbi Moshe Cattan
Nazareth, June 26, 2009
Dear Moshe,
My apologies for not answering sooner. I am crazy with work.
I liked your analogy of the “betrayed woman.” However, the international community has nipped and tucked her to the point of a lie!
When you think that Yasser Arafat received the Nobel Peace Prize! He who only ever knew terrorism, autocracy, and corruption! This Nobel really is a clownish decoration.
The entire world throws stones at the shameful husband that we are. It isn’t just kids who’d rather see stones skipped on water than the ones that fall at the feet of our young soldiers, but newspapers all around the world.
Oh yes, it’s true, the Palestinians refused to make peace. So what do we do now?
Endure the attacks without responding?
It’s a horrible impasse. And over the coffee and cigarettes shared with my Arab friends from Nazareth, we’ve come to the same conclusion: we all want the same thing. King Solomon has proposed cutting the baby in two—one of us has to bow out in order to stop it!
It’s time to be Jewish mothers, to leave. It’s the only way to save Israel.
But even if we wanted to, where would we go?
Harry
From Father Eusebius Martin to Harry Rosenmerck
Nazareth, July 4, 2009
Mr. Rosenmerck,
You dishonor your people by raising pigs on Holy Ground.
We, the representatives of Christians, the Pope, and of Monsignor Jesus Christ, ask you, once and for all, to pack up your belongings and your pigs and leave this land.
That place, the cradle of the world, is the property of God and the Church.
Go in peace,
Father Eusebius, savior of purity
From David Rosenmerck to Harry Rosenmerck
New York, July 4, 2009
Dear Dad,
Do you remember our summer vacation in Botswana? It was before you and Mom separated—a few months before. What a bizarre vacation. It was winter there. You wanted us to see something different. Other faces. Another way of life. Just before you changed ours forever. We would wake up at dawn to see the sun rise over a foreign land. The day before we left, we saw the Okavango River that crosses Namibia before arriving in Botswana. You explained that, after a geological accident, it gushed into the Kalahari Desert instead of emptying, as it most certainly should have, into the Indian Ocean. People call it “the river that never finds the sea.”
I woke up in the middle of the night. I dreamed about you and that river. We were standing together before it. You were describing it to me as if I were a child, but at the same time, you were talking about me. I was the river that never finds the sea. That spills out into the desert. Of course it seems useful—it creates a kind of enormous sea the size of Ireland! It can water whatever it likes. But it cuts off the cycle, and therefore life.
You see, Dad, I do love women. Like you love the lights on Christmas trees. They don’t displease me—they even enchant me. But they’re not presents for me. My presents come with strong hands and men’s faces. Yes, men’s faces. That’s the way I am
. And it’s next to a body like mine that I just woke up in tears. I suffer from it, like the river, but I’ve created something in my own way; I’ve created art. And you are my source, not the Indian Ocean. I shouldn’t be cut off from you. I’m in Israel on the first day of next month. Back to the source, Dad.
David
From Rabbi Moshe Cattan to Harry Rosenmerck
Nazareth, July 6, 2009
Harry,
It’s wedding month and I can’t take it anymore. All the tears of joy and piles of wedding cake. I’m getting fatter by the minute.
See, dear Harry, you also victimize yourself.
We’ve claimed so often that the Palestinians don’t want peace that we’re now totally convinced of it.
You need only consider the indifference that welcomed the Arab League’s proposal for peace in 2002. It’s like an overdose of family drama. All of the young Jewish immigrants from Algeria think they need to get revenge on the Arabs who kicked them out, and the Russians who come to the Promised Land bring their fathers’ racism with them …
Anyway, we’re screwed. What are the Arabs trying to tell us? What do we do? I tend to opt for passive resistance, education, and sharing. When my grandmother spoke to me of her native Tunisia, she remembered open doors, dinners at this person’s home or that person’s home. The Arabs were her cousins.
With love,
Moshe
p.s. Enclosed is a photo of my son Simon in uniform. He looks like a kid dressed in a costume. I can’t stop taking pictures of him—probably because I’m terrified of losing him. Not just out of fear that he’ll die, but out of fear that his face will change forever.
From Monique Duchêne to Harry Rosenmerck
La Capelle-et-Masmolène, July 4, 2009
Dear Harry,
I’m at my parents’ house—I say that as if they might appear at any moment. Maybe the kids will feel that way about us someday?
Do you remember our first weekend here? Mother had, of course, prepared a pork roast for the first dinner with my Jewish boyfriend. She swore she didn’t know that Jews didn’t eat pork or that she’d forgotten. I laugh about it now, but it nearly broke us up …
The weather is nice here, as always. And the scent of the pines comforts me. Would you believe that La Capelle and Masmolène—two villages that previously loathed each other—now form one continuous town? The town hall was built smack-dab in the middle! The residents still hate each other, despite living in the same town. They only agree on the one thing that unites them: their love for their mayor.
The fig tree you planted looked dead last week. It was on its last leg, nearly on the ground. But I righted it with ropes, as if tying it to life, and dug a hole around its base in which I poured water. Now, little green shoots have appeared and tiny figs are growing. It wasn’t easy to bring it back to life and nothing is certain; but that tree is like me and its roots are planted in the ground of my home. If it grows again and produces fruit, maybe I can, too?
Your tree gives me strength.
I’m going back to New York tomorrow to see David. He’ll be in your neighborhood soon …
Monique
From Harry Rosenmerck to Rabbi Moshe Cattan
Nazareth, July 18, 2009
Dear Moshe,
We don’t see our sons and daughters grow up. No matter how old they get, we always see them as children. I’m thankful my son doesn’t have to play war.
But his mother is sick. She’s going to die. I am too, one of these days. I’d like to be able to taste the wedding cake at my daughter’s wedding.
I’m troubled this morning. I dreamed about my mother and it was so real.
She told me to reconcile with my son, David. I’ve never spoken to you about him.
Mother kept saying, “If you don’t get up to take him in your arms, I won’t come and see you.” To which I replied that she was dead. “This is proof that I’m not,” she answered. Then she gave me a hard smack that really hurt. This morning, I woke up with a huge red mark on my cheek.
Harry
From Rabbi Moshe Cattan to Harry Rosenmerck
Nazareth, July 20, 2009
Dear Harry,
Every morning when we wake up, we give thanks to God for giving us his soul out of pure love.
Of course, I’m a rabbi, so I believe that God is in all things. Though I am certain of the existence of the subconscious, I also think that the Eternal sends us indirect signs through our dreams—that he is a part of what we don’t know about ourselves.
What was your mother trying to tell you, Harry? In your opinion?
Perhaps you place too much importance on things you thought you’d get out of life that your son is depriving you of? Maybe a tree’s roots are as important as the blossoms at the end of its branches? What do you think? And yes, I am genuinely asking you, because this is important.
Moshe
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: August 1, 2009
Subject: Emergency
David,
Mom gave me a note to slip into the Wailing Wall. Remember how she told me I was too old to be writing letters to Santa when I was five?! Anyway, I’d almost forgotten about the note, but today Dad and I went to Jerusalem to see Robbi—you know, his friend the bookseller.
I know I never should have read the carefully folded note, but I thought she’d be asking God for something frivolous, like:
Make it so that I find a man
I want grandchildren
That kind of stuff …
But David, my heart is pounding right now as I write. She asked God to heal her. From what, David? If it’s from her heartache or her secrets, it’d still be a funny request.
But what if she’s really sick? You should go and see her, David, just to be sure.
I’m actually scared.
Do you remember the first time we went to Robbi’s? We walked for hours in the sun and were out of breath when we finally got there. He only had soda water. We hated it, but we drank it anyway.
My throat is tight and I haven’t taken a single step. Take care of Mom.
Annabelle
From Monique Duchêne to Harry Rosenmerck
New York, July 27, 2009
Dear Harry,
I don’t know who to turn to. Your God, who became mine? The one of abstraction. The Jewish religion is right not to give him a face. Should we even give him a name?
What remains of our lives? I imagine it’s all the little things that decorate bookshelves; the little treasures that prevent you from grabbing a book on the first try. The frames? The class photos? The invitations? The jewelry box painted by little hands that was originally used to package Camembert? The broken Russian dolls? Annabelle’s high school diploma? All that’s left is the desire to keep on living. The hope for a last embrace, one more affectionate glance. The desire to keep adding treasures to the bookshelf so we can’t grab on to the book, the one with the truth.
I’m not going to get better, Harry. And I need you to tell the kids.
Monique
From David Rosenmerck to Harry Rosenmerck
Newark Airport, August 1, 2009
Dear Dad,
The sky is clear.
Not even a kite.
But they’ve announced a technical problem and I won’t be taking off tonight.
I want to get on a plane, but I’m not going anywhere.
I have to give a conference at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem tomorrow. But nobody cares about that, right?
It’s as if the whole world is trying to stop me. As if a thousand protesting feet wanted to trample our story, our reunion. But I’m coming to see you. Without so much as a word, I’ll break down your door.
I won’t let life just take its course.
David
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: August 1, 2009
; Subject: Re: Emergency
Annabelle,
I’m just reading your email at the airport. Do I need to turn around?
From Harry Rosenmerck to Rabbi Moshe Cattan
Nazareth, August 4, 2009
Dear Moshe,
I received a bizarre letter this morning. The anti-pork group, the saviors of purity as they call themselves, are asking to meet at Our Lady of the Fright Church in Nazareth tomorrow.
I don’t know the place, but the name is far from inviting. They want us to reach a compromise and apparently have a solution to propose.
I’ll write you as soon as I’m back.
I’m sad that I can’t invite you to my house for dinner.
I think that between the nuts who want to shut down my farm and the impossibility of inviting you to my desecrated abode, I’ll end up throwing in the towel. Especially since you can’t exactly say I’m making money! I bet on the golden calf. I’m like a dealer. Every society needs transgression, and my pigs are a reasonable one!
With love,
Harry
[Handwritten note]
Harry,
I’m slipping this under your door. I hoped I’d find you here. I’m going to try and join you in front of Our Lady of the Fright, but I’m not allowed to enter the sanctuary of another cult. If, by some miracle, you haven’t gone, please stay at home!
Our Lady of the Fright Church was built on the hill where the angry Nazarenes wanted to take Jesus to kill him. If we’re dealing with the kind of enlightened types we think we are, you may be in danger.
Moshe
From Harry Rosenmerck to Rabbi Moshe Cattan
Augusta Victoria Hospital, Jerusalem, August 12, 2009
Holy Lands Page 6