Colors of the Shadow

by Nava Dijkstra

  They went together to the baggage section and from there, they went to the arrival area. A large number of people were waiting outside and Sherry couldn’t see anyone she knew. After a slight recovery, she saw a cardboard where her name, ‘Sherry,’ was written. Behind the cardboard, she recognized her father’s brother, Shmuel standing there. He was tall like her father, but his body was broadly built, just like Sherry grandfather. Itzkhak and Hannah, who were next to him, were small and slender like their mother, as Sherry remembered her. Aside from these differences, everybody had a typical western look. Sherry walked towards them with a polite smile. One by one planted her kisses, wiping their tears endlessly. ‘Crocodile tears,’ Sherry thought.

  “How was your flight? We’d done the best for you, and now that I see that you are pregnant. I’m glad we arranged first class for you.” Shmuel spoke to her in Persian. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders. Sherry tried hard not to take his hands off her.

  “The flight was pretty comfortable,” she replied in Persian.

  “Good. And that’s not all. We have organized one week of experiences for you. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, and I invited the whole family to my house to celebrate together. Is there something more important than family?” Shmuel looked at Hannah and Itzhak, who confirmed his words with a smile that looked ridiculous to Sherry. She saw the Indian woman from the airplane standing next to a limousine while the driver was loading her bags into the trunk.

  “Just a moment,” Sherry apologized to her family. She quickly took the plastic folder out from the suitcase and ran towards the woman. “I think I have a gift for your son.”

  The Indian woman looked at her with a smile that turned to an expression of curiosity. Sherry pulled the portrait of her sister out of the plastic folder and opened it in front of the Indian woman’s eyes. “What do you think? Look, there are all sorts of things here that are related to Hollywood. I think your son will like it.”

  The woman looked at the painting with admiration. “I don’t understand anything about painting, but this thing is simply amazing. I’m sure that this is a special gift. My son will be surprised, no doubt.”

  “I painted my sister. She wanted to be an actress. She wanted to go to Hollywood.” A tear fell from her eye. “I’m sorry,” Sherry apologized.

  The woman hugged her. “I’m sure my son will love my gift, your painting. I’ll hang it in a prominent place.”

  Sherry parted from her in high spirits, feeling that she did a great mission for Esther. There was no better place for it than the apartment wall of a famous actor in Hollywood. She got into Shmuel’s car that was waiting in the near parking lot and he began to drive across the various houses while updating her about their values. Sherry looked at them without any internal arousal. It didn’t impress her. Finally, they stopped in one of the houses that looked like any other. “This is my house,” he declared.

  Sherry entered the house and was in shock. It was the grandest house she had ever seen in her life. High ceilings were designed with special sculptures, and the walls had new colors that seemed invented just for them. When she entered the living room, she noticed antique paintings that were painted in wood. The paintings beat the antique furniture and the doors were carved with great charm until they looked like the furniture.

  “Do you like it?” Shmuel’s question pulled her out of her reverie.

  “This is a masterpiece. Brilliant.”

  “We are in the diamond business. Our house must be sparkling.” He laughed at his own joke.

  The next day, all the family members gathered at home, the children and the grandchildren of her uncles, the distant cousins and many more whom Sherry didn’t know. “What are you doing now in life?” the daughter-in-law of Itzkhak asked, a medical student who bothered to learn the Persian language fluently, even though she was of Canadian origin.

  “Waitressing.”

  “Don’t you have a profession?” Ilana, Itzhak’s wife, asked.

  “I do. I paint and I hope to study painting in the future.”

  Itzhak’s wife smiled sarcastically as her husband said, “It’s not something that you can live from. You can’t make a living from painting.”

  “Most of the painters were desperately poor and succeeded only after their deaths,” someone said.

  Sherry replied, “So I guess I have a chance to succeed in the world of art, because the half of the formula already existed in me.”

  The surrounding didn’t know whether to laugh or to shut up. Shmuel broke the embarrassment. “What will you do now that you’re pregnant and can’t work as a waitress? Maybe check with your husband if you can move and live here. I guarantee you that I can get you a good job and a permit to live and work here.”

  “My boyfriend got a study leave from the army to go to the University for a bachelor’s degree. I don’t think he will give up on this for the benefit of living in the U.S.”

  There was silence and Sherry noticed the shocked faces around her for the discovery that Shlomo’s daughter went astray, had sex before the wedding and got pregnant. There was an awkward silence all around.

  “Your father is surely turning in his grave.” Itzhak’s wife went on and managed to drag Sherry to the end of her rope. Sherry called this the peak of arrogance.

  “Who are you to talk on behalf of my father?” Sherry asked angrily. “No one in this family has the right to talk on behalf of my father. I’m sorry to be rude, but I’m here because you invited me, and if it’s not because of the will, I’m doubtful if we would otherwise meet. I promise you that after this, I will disappear and you won’t need to bother yourselves anymore about my moral level.”

  “You’re our family even if others will think that you are not respectful or humble enough,” Hannah suddenly said quietly. “How are you not ashamed to judge her and think that you’re better than her? Was it not enough that you didn’t help her father when he came to you, and now you also want to offend his daughter? If her father’s grave will turn, it’s because of you, because of how he sees you treat her.”

  Sherry recalled the conversation when her father told her mother that he wanted to go to his brothers and ask money from them. She didn’t know that he did it at the end, too.

  “Hannah, relax.” Shmuel turned to her. “You are stressing Sherry. No one knows what happened there, not even you. Maybe we should tell Sherry the story, and she can decide what to believe and what not to.”

  Hannah was silent, but the anger remained in her face.

  “You probably want to know what our sister, Hannah, is talking about,” Shmuel said, turning to Sherry.

  Sherry nodded. “I want to know everything about my father.”

  “Well, it’s not pleasant to talk about it in front of everyone, but Hannah already started it.” Shmuel began to tell the story with a high-pitch voice and lack of emotion, as if he reported to her about an event that was not related to him. “As you know, our father had a big jewelry business. He took your father as a business partner without him investing a cent. It turned out that our father knew what he was doing when your father proved himself to be intelligent. The business grew up and they decided to hire two more workers─close family relatives who sold their jewelry out of Iran.

  “Meanwhile, Itzkhak started a business and took me to work with him. After I learned the job, I became Itzkhak’s partner and our business also expanded. I’m explaining all this so that you will understand why Itzhhak and I were not connected to the business of our father and didn’t know where he and your father hid the key. Well, the rest you already know. It turned out that several days earlier, my father and your father used almost all their money to buy diamonds that would be embedded in six plastic chains and three bracelets that were placed in the safe until escaping to America. But, one morning, when my father went to the safe, he found it open with the key in it. Probably from tension, your father forgot his key at the door of the safe.”

  Sherry noticed that Shmuel clearl
y put the blame on her father about the steeling and she helped out to protect him. “If my father was the thief, where exactly did he hide the diamonds? Why did we have to live in a very difficult situation?”

  “Our father believed that your father had collaborated with the burglars, and they betrayed him.”

  “Did our grandfather think that maybe he’s wrong?” Sherry queried.

  “What can be wrong here? Your grandfather lost the diamonds with the use of your father’s key. He lost all the money that he accumulated all his life, and he was not young anymore. All his life was inside that safe.” Shmuel took a slight break to sip from the cup of tea. “My father vowed that he would never forgive your father or acknowledge his family until the recovery of the diamonds.”

  Sherry thought that her presence here proved that her grandfather retreated from his vow and forgave at the end, otherwise why did he include her to his will?

  “When we left Iran, my father was broken because of the story of the stealing of the diamonds, but we helped him recover and include him in our business as an equal partner. As you see...” Samuel waved his hand to the grandiosity around. “We succeeded. Not bad for six and a half years.”

  “Why did you leave us behind? Especially when you knew what happened to Esther?”

  “Your grandfather objected to include you in the escape. He said that if Shlomo would come, he wouldn’t come. We had to make a decision, and obviously we could not leave our father alone in Iran.”

  “Why did you not give my father some money so he could live in dignity?”

  Shmuel didn’t answer, but Itzkhak was crying softly. “We were sure that your father stole the safe; we had no doubt about it.”

  Itzkhak’s wife approached her husband and stroked his shoulder. “I think it’s time to move to a more pleasant conversation.” She looked at Hannah and added, “Look what you’ve caused.”

  Sherry spent the previous day reading the will with Itzkhak’s sons, Ehud and Tzedi, and with Hannah’s daughter, a pharmacist. They took her to Hollywood. Sherry looked at the hands of the celebrities that were engraved into the concrete tiles and imagined Esther’s hand on one of the tiles. She sighed, thinking that if the diamonds were not stolen, Esther, close to sure, would have been a Hollywood star. Nothing would have stopped her.

  “What are you thinking?” Tzedi asked.

  “My sister wanted to be a star.”

  “Like everyone else,” he chuckled.

  “She was not like everybody else,” Sherry resented. “Do you know an actor named Kumar Baht?”

  “The whole world knows him. Look at that!” Tzedi pointed the big billboard hanging on the building. “He starred in the movie, Days of Heroism.”

  Sherry looked up and was pleased. She couldn’t a better place for her sister than the house of a famous actor.

  The reading of the will came. Sherry sat in the notary office, anxious. A secretary wearing a formal suit and high heels led them to a large-dimensioned conference room loaded with heavy furniture. Even the curtains were thick with a grayish color that added to the compressed atmosphere of the room. Although the room was clean and bright, Sherry smelled something disturbing that she couldn’t explain, a smell that couldn’t be smelled from the nose, but rather from the heart, a smell that was related to a bad feeling.

  The lawyer began by explaining the procedure and then took out the will in a dramatic ritual, putting on his reading glasses and lighting the table lamp. They spent half an hour reading things that were a prelude to the will, and Sherry did not understand the connection to the details on the division of property. Shortly after, the lawyer took out a brown envelope, looked at those present and began to read the will. “The property amounting to forty million dollars, will be divided into three parts...”

  Sherry immediately realized that she was not included in the three heirs.

  “One-third for Itzkhak, one third for Shmuel and the last third is for Hannah...”

  The lawyer raised his eyes to Sherry and began reading the reasons that her grandfather specified for removing her father from the estate. Explanations that included descriptions and nicknames were a total disrespect to her father. The lawyer went on reading. The words go dug a hole into Sherry’s heart. She wanted to get up and run, but the pain taped her to the chair. Even until her grandfather’s deathbed, he was full of hatred and revenge. He considered the severe events that the family experienced, including Esther’s disappearance, as a punishment from above. Sherry’s face was bathed in tears. Did they bring her here to humiliate her? Did she not pay enough?

  After the reading of the will, the lawyer explained that although Sherry’s father was not included in the will, his daughters would receive their parts as a gesture of goodwill. Half of a percent of his property was to be shared equally among them, a quarter percent each.

  Sherry thought that her presence here expressed evil for evil and not any other reason. The half percent that she received was designed for one purpose, to bring her to a humiliating situation. Indeed, one hour of humiliation─this was the price that she paid for not realizing the evil side of her grandfather.

  The three brothers left the office in silence, hiding their eyes from Sherry. They also felt how embarrassing it was to bring her to Los Angeles to hear that she and her sister would only get half a percent.

  Itzkhak and Shmuel approached her and apologized.

  “Do not be sorry, I can’t lose something that I should never have.”

  Hannah approached her and hugged her. “If you need anything, you can always come to me.”

  In the morning before going to the airport, Shmuel asked for her bank account details so that he could be able to transfer the half percent that her grandfather left for her and her sister. She politely rejected his request. She had no intention of taking something from her grandfather.

  She took her flight back to Israel in first class again. But this time, she was filled with anger towards her uncles. The thought that her father, after all, asked them for a loan and they refused him, aggravated her, especially since she knew how hard this whole thing was for him. But her grandfather was infinitely worse than them, to write that her father’s family got what they deserved? That was a bit devilish. His devil’s curse continued to plunge on the family, otherwise, why were the survivors of Zarian family sentenced to live apart from each other?

  Poverty was the revenge of her grandfather to her family, and her uncles, however, never offered to mend the injustice of their father and divide the inheritance into four parts. Despite their vast wealth, they were afraid to lose a pinch for her, for the sake of their brother. She recalled their insult when she told them that she was a waitress; what upset her most was the “know-it-all” attitude that they exhibited when she told them about her intention to turn painting into a profession. So far, no one had insulted her talents.

  She wanted so much to succeed and prove to them that she was worthy; that she could indeed make a living from painting… that the daughter of Shlomo and Mazal succeeded in spite of everything… Their derision pushed an urge within her to pursue her dream, to succeed in painting. Armed with these heavy thoughts, she decided to arrive in Israel and take a loan from the bank in order to go to University. The decision called a challenge to her family. “You may not believe in my success, but you can’t prevent it,” she murmured. She wore a smile on her lips. Her eyelids closed over her eyes and her body was thirsty for fame.

  21

  Sherry arrived at her apartment in Tel Aviv. She rolled into bed immediately. She hoped that Eyal would call, and he did call late at night. “What’s going on, sweetie? What was in the will? You left me in suspense.”

  “Until now, I couldn’t get over it. It was the most degrading thing of all. They brought me there just to hear how low my father was, and I, his daughter, won’t get any of my grandfather’s property. He left everything to my three uncles.”

  There was silence from the other side.

&nb
sp; “Eyal, are you there?”

  “Yes, sweetie, I was thinking that I should have come with you.”

  “Yes, it would have been a help.”

  “And how did your uncles react to the news?”

  “You mean, did they offer me something?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They were sorry about what happened to me, but this did not cause them to divide the inheritance into four, and they left me with a pathetic half percent that my grandfather left for me and for my sister. And what irritated me the most was their claim that they did not help my father because my grandfather opposed them. What is their excuse now that he’s dead and they could decide to divide the property into four? Before I left, Shmuel, the ‘righteous,’ asked me for my account details so he could transfer the half percent, more appropriate, one fourth percent for me and one fourth percent for my sister. Do you understand? They insulted my father and offered me a march of dimes.”

  “I hope you agreed. If the inheritance is big, a quarter of one percent can be a lot of money, which can be a lot of help to us.”

  “It comes close to $200,000 for both me and my sister, but I refused to take my share. I could not be dishonored anymore, especially after what my grandfather said about my father. Even if my father had stolen the money, he shouldn’t have said that we received the punishment that we deserve from above. I don’t even know how he dared to dictate such things to a lawyer or how his children dared to listen and just shut up. As the lawyer reads the will, I was sitting in shock. I could not move from the place. “

  “I understand you, and yet it’s about a lot of money. You can’t give it up. Why do you care on what he said? He is dead and took his curse and opinions with him.”

  “First of all, half of the amount belongs to my sister, but in any case, I can’t take it even if I’m starving for bread. Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “I’m not disappointed, because I’m sure that when you will calm down a little bit from the storm of criticism, you will think logically and take the money.”