No Time for Tears

by Cynthia Freeman

  When she heard the door open, she wiped her eyes quickly and lay with her face to the wall.

  “Sheine,” she heard Chavala say, “may I please speak to you?” Sheine didn’t move.

  “Sheine, please … forgive me. I know it was me you wanted to run away from. I was too hard on you.”

  Slowly Sheine turned toward Chavala, her eyes cold as steel. “How kind of you, but why the sudden concern for me? Are you feeling guilty for what papa said to me? That should have made you very happy—”

  “Oh, Sheine, please, let’s not fight. Our lives are difficult enough. All we have is each other. I love you, Sheine … you’re my sister … I just hope you can love me in return.” She reached out, took Sheine by the shoulders and hugged her close.

  And somehow in that moment the anger vanished and the two sisters cried in one another’s arms … Chavala because she hoped so intensely that the two would become closer. Sheine’s tears, though, were because she knew that she would always be jealous of Dovid’s love for Chavala, and not her. She wished she could feel differently, but she couldn’t Maybe there really was a dybbuk in her. God help her…

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AVRUM HAD BEEN so preoccupied with God that he had failed to notice the great changes in his children.

  Moishe and Dovid gradually left the tradition of putting on the phylacteries and were absent from the morning prayers. He would have thought that they would have clung to their faith after getting to this holy place, but he came to the realization that Eretz Yisroel for them was not, as for him, a place to drench their souls. He felt in some way he had failed. His children seemed to grow further apart from the traditions of their faith, and painful as it was to face, in the freedom of their newfound hope he trembled that they were becoming nonbelievers. His heart nearly broke when he admonished Moishe for deceiving him, when he found out he was not attending the yeshiva…

  “Papa, I beg you to understand,” Moishe said. “I love God as much as I ever did, but papa, you must understand that if a man is born free he must pursue his religion according to his times and needs. I will observe, but not in your way. I can’t go to the yeshiva, because that means to live on charity, and that is something I can’t live with. I think, papa, the time has come for me to be a man and contribute a man’s share to his family. I’ve taken a job in Mea Shearim cutting stones—”

  Avrum clenched his hand out of fear that he would hit his son. But more than his own anger he actually was afraid that God’s wrath would descend on his child. Where, he asked himself, have I failed as a father? And how had he failed by not being able to reach Dovid? Dovid wanting to use the sacred words of the Torah was something that Avrum could not tolerate. Dovid’s words rang in his ear: “If we are to be a nation we must speak a common language. Today Eretz Yisroel is like the Tower of Babel, a hundred tongues are spoken here…”

  “If God had intended for our sacred words to be spoken to one another it would have been written in the holy text. I forbid it, do you hear me, Dovid, I forbid it.” And saying it, Avrum thought how much he too had changed since coming to Eretz Yisroel … he would never have imagined that he could feel such anger against his children, or Dovid … he had always been, after all, a rather meek man, but his children were demanding things of him he just could not condone. He hadn’t come to Eretz Yisroel to change the word of God … he’d come here to do God’s will, to live and be buried in the sacred earth.

  Chavala knew that nothing Dovid could say could convince her father. True … they spoke a bastard language, the outgrowth of living in the ghetto, an extraction of German mingled with Russian, a jargon that made it near-impossible to communicate. But Avrum would not give in.

  Dovid tried again. Hebrew, he said, was the language of their forefathers two thousand years ago, and it should have been like honey in his mouth, but Avrum shook his head and turned more than ever to his dedication to God through prayers … including more for Dovid’s and his children’s salvation. Avrum Rabinsky’s had become a divided house…

  Chavala lay alongside Dovid and said, “Don’t be angry at papa, Dovid. Remember, he’s an old man who has only one reason for living—his faith. Please don’t challenge him anymore—”

  “I don’t challenge him, Chavala, I try to explain. All right, I’ll try. Still, we have to try to fulfill ourselves too. We’re entitled to our dreams—”

  “I know, Dovid, dreams are fine, as I said so long ago, but we mustn’t have our dreams at the expense of other people.” She laughed mildly. “I’ll tell you what my grand dream is right now… to own a sewing machine.”

  “Well, that’s not such a difficult one. For that we only need money.”

  Remembering the small amethyst brooch that belonged to Dovid’s grandmother, Chavala thought she needed a machine much more. Her sisters should be dressed decently … “I have the money, Dovid …”

  “How do you happen to have the money?”

  “From the dowry I held out on you,” and not wanting to press the matter she nestled close in Dovid’s arms and whispered, “We’re always so serious, Dovid, do you realize you haven’t made love to me for … well, I wonder if you still know how?”

  Putting his mouth to hers he kissed her and whispered, “I still know how.” And, blessedly, there was no more talk that night.

  Dovid bought an old sewing machine from an Arab tailor in Jerusalem, which raised Chavala’s spirits considerably. In the marketplace she bought material and set herself to making peasant skirts and blouses like the ones they’d worn at home. She made an especially beautiful one for Sheine. As she admired it a sudden thought grew … why shouldn’t she find a small stall and become a merchant herself … ? The idea alone made her excited, even more so when she imagined Dovid sharing the stall with her. Here they were, both of them strong, each with a good trade, and Dovid seemed to be wandering aimlessly about. Good God, why hadn’t she thought of this before? She could hardly wait for Dovid to come home.

  When he did, for the first time since their marriage, angry words erupted between them.

  “I didn’t come to Eretz Yisroel to be a ghetto bootmaker.” Chavala stopped her pedaling and looked across to where Dovid sat on the rickety wooden chair. “You’re not going to be a bootmaker? What then, a doctor?”

  He ignored the sarcasm. “Chavala, we both know that this is not why we came to Eretz Yisroel.”

  “I thought we came to escape the pogroms.”

  “That’s true, but there must be a deeper meaning to our lives. Surviving isn’t enough …”

  “Not being killed has plenty of meaning for me. At least the Turks don’t massacre us.”

  “Chavala, let’s not play games. We didn’t run away to settle behind a ghetto wall. Look how we’re living.”

  Her pulse beat a little faster with hope. Maybe Dovid was disillusioned with Eretz Yisroel, after all … “Then this isn’t what you expected it to be?”

  “You’re right, Chavala, I didn’t come to pray at the Wall. You know what I want.”

  Of course … for a moment she had allowed herself to think he’d changed his mind, wanted to choose America with her … Yes … she knew what he wanted … to live in the wilderness on some Godforsaken kibbutz, but if she gave in to that she could forget about ever leaving Palestine. When the time came she would fight him. She had something coming to her too, her dream of America … “I don’t see anything so terribly wrong with the way we’re living … if you wanted to make a living you could—”

  “I know … I could be a bootmaker. Well, I won’t do it, Chavala, not even for you. I want to help build a land—”

  “In America you wouldn’t have to build a land. It’s already built.”

  “But America is not our country. This is.”

  “Is it? Forgive me, but this country belongs to the Turks and Bedouins, and the decay and rot and pestilence. Please, Dovid, let the Lovers of Zion have their fantasy, but I’m afraid Jews will never have a country. We will always be t
he intruders who plead with the world to just let us survive. Only in America, Dovid, can you and I really be free.”

  “No. This land, by rights, belongs to us, and one day, Chavala, we’ll have it.”

  “You’re still back in Reb Kaufman’s basement, listening to that great sage, the Bilu who came from Palestine to save us. To build a country. But how can you build a country when you can’t even buy land?”

  “Legally, as individuals, no. But in spite of it all, land is still being bought up, settlements are being established …”

  Chavala loved Dovid so she found it almost impossible to deny him … except, she couldn’t help thinking, why was it always she who had to give in? But what she said was, “What about my father? You know he’d never leave Jerusalem.”

  “I’ve thought about that. Sheine’s old enough to take care of him. It isn’t that I don’t love him, Chavala, I do. But you and I have a life to make—”

  “And what about the rest of the family? Have you thought about them too?”

  “Yes … whoever wants, can come. It’s for them to make the choice. But you, little Chia and I will go.”

  “I didn’t say that I would—”

  “I’m begging you, Chavala. If we’re to find a life, it can’t be here in Jerusalem.”

  But all she could say was that she would think about it

  That night they slept back to back.

  The next morning as she watched Dovid leave in anger, Chavala was reminded of another day, a day that now seemed so far away … their wedding night. But at least it served to remind her that Dovid Landau was not a man to be wrapped up like a package. For all his kindness and love, he expected his wife to love him enough to go with him. She was his wife, and since the days of Ruth a wife went where her husband went He didn’t say when he would return, and her heart beat too fast as she fought back the tears…

  Dovid had journeyed far into the hills of Metullah, dodging the marauding Bedouins, spurred on by his hope of finding land to settle on … But that hope was soon crushed when he found that at the settlement of the Baron de Rothschild only Arabs were employed. Not one Jew worked the land—it was cheaper for the baron to hire fellaheen. The only Jews to be seen were administrators and overseers, and they had been imported from France, as had been the agriculturists who taught the Arabs how to farm.

  He felt duped, deceived by the Lovers of Zion who had filled his and so many other minds with visions of a Jewish Utopia.

  Angry, frustrated, he left and went back to Jerusalem….

  At Mea Shearim Dovid found a job as a stonecutter, working with his brother-in-law Moishe. As he chipped away through the rough rock, he thought, well, at least better this than a bootmaker. “I’m a builder, a builder of dreams,” David Ben-Gurion had said to him that night. Here, cutting the stone, at least in a small way he was helping to rebuild the land. This stone would go into new dwellings to build a country…

  When he returned home that evening his disappointment over not being able to work in the fields was so great he said nothing about working for the diminutive Yemenite in Mea Shearim.

  Chavala, though, could hardly overlook his scratched and calloused hands, but since Dovid would say nothing to her, well, she wouldn’t ask why he had stayed away, where he had been … She wouldn’t even tell him she’d missed him … oh God, how she’d missed him …

  That evening was only a prelude to the week that came. Each morning he left for Mea Shearim only to return silent, withdrawn.

  After a week Chavala could no longer stand it. That night she moved closer to her husband, waited for him to turn to her… he only lay there, rigid, his back to her.

  Getting out of bed, Chavala began to pace the small room. Her anger had gone to hurt, and the hurt eventually became guilt… he was her husband, and there came a time when it no longer mattered who was right, who was wrong. “Dovid, how long is this going to go on?”

  Silence.

  “Dovid, please, speak to me.”

  He turned to look at her. “I don’t know how to solve this, I don’t.”

  Again, silence.

  “Dovid, there must be an answer, let’s try to find it—”

  “Do you think you could stand the truth?”

  “What’s the truth, Dovid?”

  “That you are my wife and your place is with me. You know why I came. My reasons are the same.”

  “But what about the family? How can I leave them—?”

  “Look, damn it, I love them too … but don’t we have a right to our own lives? Maybe it was foolish, but I honestly believed that once your father was settled we would be free to leave Jerusalem. I was even foolish enough to believe that after all we went through in Russia that you too would see that our only hope for survival was an Eretz Yisroel restored. I was wrong. I’m not blaming you, you just don’t feel what I do …”

  “And I’m sorry for that, Dovid, truly sorry, so what do we do … ?”

  “Chavala, as much as I love you and the family I can’t stay here and rot … give up my mission. When two people can’t share the same needs and hopes, well, I suppose you must do what you feel best I won’t beg anymore. The decision is yours, but I tell you … I must leave here or I’ll just cease to exist…”

  The words cut through Chavala like a knife. If she did not go with Dovid she would lose him, and if she went her family might be lost, especially her father … she tried separating the pieces. In her heart she knew the answer … her place was with her husband … “All right, Dovid, have you decided where you want to go?”

  “Yes, to the Galilee.”

  She’d never heard of it. “Is it very far?”

  “From Jerusalem, yes.”

  “Isn’t it possible to find a settlement closer to Jerusalem where you could be happy?”

  “I wish you could have said we instead of … never mind … most of the settlements are failing, Chavala, but at least there’s hope in the Galilee.”

  And he proceeded to explain that a strain of wheat had recently been discovered by a man named Aaron Aaronson, whose fame as an agronomist was worldwide. On his recommendation the purchase of a large parcel of land had been made from an absentee Arab effendi who lived in luxury in Beirut. The discovery held the promise that the Galilee could become the most productive farming area in Eretz Yisroel, and five American Jews of great wealth were contacted. Their allegiance to the rebirth of Palestine was as deep and strong as those who had inhabited the land for centuries. They too had once fled the ghettos of Russia and Poland. It took little persuasion to convince them. The money that was sent to the Zion Settlement Office in Jaffa and five thousand dunams of land now belonged to them.

  When the effendi signed over his ownership he looked at the document and considered the Jews to be, as always, stupid fools. They had purchased a parcel of swamp and malaria-ridden earth that could never be redeemed. It was a place, in fact, where even birds of prey never ventured, but Jews were children of death anyway and he had properly disposed of this uninhabitable scourge, this abominable cancer in the earth, by selling it to the lowest of human vermin.

  Twenty-five men, one single woman and four married couples with small children accepted the challenge. This settlement would be worked for Jews by Jews and when they reclaimed the land, as they were determined to do, it would be because of the sweat and toil of their hands. They would be in debt to no one. No foreign administrator and no baron. It would be a commune based on social equality, democratic justice. They would become a judiciary unto themselves. Marriage and divorce, education and the rearing of children would be implemented by the consent of all. And so this small group of people set out to prove to the world that they were more than idealistic dreamers …

  It was a moving story, but Chavala was still desperately unhappy with the choice she had to make. How to prepare her father? Still, she decided, finally, that her place was with Dovid. The debate was over … “I’ve decided to go, but dear God, how do we tell papa?”
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br />   “He trusts you, Chavala—if only you could convince him to come with us.”

  “Oh, Dovid, you know he would never do that, for him Eretz Yisroel means Jerusalem.”

  Dovid knew Chavala was right. “Well do the best we can … Chavala, I will try to make you happy, I love you very much…”

  She put her head on his shoulder. “I love you too, Dovid, much more than you can imagine, especially …” she smiled “… considering the way I act sometimes.”

  The next night after supper, the family around the kitchen table, Chavala’s courage almost collapsed as she tried to explain the reasons they had to leave, and Dovid felt at once grateful and guilty.

  “Papa, please, I beg you, come with us.”

  His hands shook slightly as he embraced his holy book. “Never …” The old man sat with his head bowed, then looked at Dovid. “And you, who I’ve considered a son, have forsaken me, listened to false prophets … I know about your Zionists, and to them I can … I came to this place because it is written that from the seed of Abraham—”

  Dovid did not want to hear the rest of the quotation.

  Moishe thought back to those days when he’d first heard about the Lovers of Zion and knew that he felt like Dovid. He must not bend to his father’s will either. His father was an old man who was like iron in his determination to live out his days as he felt he must Well, Moishe would do the same … “Papa, please try to remember that I love you, but I must go with Dovid and Chavala.”

  The old man slowly shook his head, it was a new world where respect and honor were no longer important to show a father. He was losing his children.

  As if reading his mind, Moishe said, “Papa, if you love Eretz Yisroel as you say, you must see how very important this is to us. We were once a great nation and we must be that again. It’s for us, papa, to make the greatness of our people known to the world.”

  Now the old man was not listening. His children, it seemed, all of them, had become bewitched by the devil… “And you, Dvora, what about you …?”