by Nora Gold
“You’ll catch up,” she says, patting her arm. “The first day back is always weird. I’ll help you with the stats. If I can do it, you definitely can.”
Then she asks Judith if Darra can join them for lunch. All this term, with Judith and Pamanaliza gone, she’s been hanging out with Darra. Judith, despite a flash of jealousy, agrees. She doesn’t mind Darra. She is pleasant and passionate about social work, and is taking the same two morning courses as Judith and Cindy. They eat lunch at a round pink-and-aqua table at Le Petit Café, and Judith feels a stab of sadness recalling her dinners here with Suzy. She wonders if they’ll ever have another dinner together. It’s only twenty-five minutes until Suzy’s class, and she gets increasingly anxious as the minutes tick by. She is only half there with Cindy and Darra.
Finally they stand, bus their trays, and say goodbye, and Judith starts down the hallway alone, her hands feeling cold and clammy. When she reaches the classroom, Suzy isn’t there yet. Several minutes later she enters, and after arranging her papers on the table at the front, turns to face the class. She stands there silently with a forbearing expression, waiting for them all to notice and stop talking, and meanwhile she scans the room. When she sees Judith, her eyes widen with surprise and she smiles slightly. Judith smiles back. So it’s all right then, she thinks. Everything is going to be okay.
Suzy begins her class and, as Judith already suspected from the readings she has done for this course, this really is more a continuation of last term’s than anything substantially new. So much so that she feels like she’s barely missed anything in the first four classes. This is a comfort after feeling so lost in Hetty’s class. But still Suzy’s class is hard for her. With all the strain and pain in their relationship, it is hard to have to sit and look at Suzy for two hours straight. Especially since she isn’t particularly looking at her. She is not singling her out like she used to. Fine, thinks Judith. You tune me out; I’ll tune you out. So she stops listening to Suzy and summons Moshe, and he helps her get through this class.
* * *
After class, Judith waits in line outside Suzy’s office. There are three people ahead of her, and whoever is inside with Suzy has been there for over ten minutes. Bored, she wanders down the hall. She has never been further than Suzy’s office before, and now discovers a narrow corridor, a short alley in shadow, providing a shortcut between Suzy’s office on one side and Weick’s on the other. At Weick’s end of the alley, there is a poster. She draws closer to see it in the poor light. Unlike the poster at Libertad, this one doesn’t have an Israeli flag being burned. It has no picture at all. But it has all the same language: “apartheid state,” “Zionist aggression,” and so on, and like the poster at Libertad, this one is announcing a rally. Oh shit, she thinks, here we go again. This time the rally is taking place on February 17. This date rings a bell. Then she remembers: February 17 is Anti-oppression Day, just two weeks from now. This rally is part of Anti-oppression Day. It’s the “rally over the lunch break” that someone mentioned at one of the SWAC meetings, meant as a follow-up to Brier’s talk. An action to implement his words. Or, as Greg would say, “praxis.” In Judaism, praxis would be saying the blessing over the wine and then drinking it. But this rally will not be an act of blessing, but of cursing. Cursing Israel.
The bottom half of this poster is a paragraph of text. In the dim light she squints to read it. The DSU and SLAP are calling on every good person at Dunhill, every person of conscience, to boycott all student and faculty exchanges between Canadian and Israeli universities, all joint research projects between Canadians and Israelis, and all international conferences being held in Israel. They are also calling for a boycott on Israeli exports of any kind: agricultural produce like oranges, dates, and olives, technological products like computer software, and medical inventions and devices — everything grown or developed in Israel. This poster also urges people to prohibit Israeli citizens from publishing their work in international academic journals, serving on the editorial boards of these journals, or holding honorary chairs at any university in Canada.
She feels the bottom drop out of her stomach. Then fear turns to anger. Firstly, at the malice behind this call to boycott, and secondly, at its sheer stupidity. Are these people evil or stupid? she wonders again. And this time answers: Both. Because the woman who is organizing the international social work conference in Israel next month, Dorit Benezra — someone Judith has met (she’s Yonina’s upstairs neighbour, and head of the Israeli social work union) — is a long-time peace activist and a founder of Peace Now. An outspoken critic of Ariel Sharon and his government, she insisted that the theme of this year’s conference be “Social Workers’ Responsibility as Advocates for Social Justice and Human Rights.” This is the conference the poster is asking social workers around the world to boycott, so they can show their disapproval of Israelis’ purported indifference to social justice and human rights. It’s insane.
As for publishing — she stares at the last item on this poster — according to this boycott, Yitzchak Lichtenshtein and Sami Massarwa shouldn’t be allowed to publish in any international journal their critically important cross-cultural research. Last week in Ha’aretz she read about this study: a significant collaboration between a Jewish Israeli and a Palestinian Israeli, both social work professors at the University of Haifa, comparing the emotional trauma experienced by Jewish and Arab children in Israel, and developing joint initiatives for addressing the mental health problems in both populations. The boycott advocated in this poster would prevent the publication of this bridge-building, peace-promoting research, since Lichtenshtein and Massarwa are both Israeli citizens. Mind-boggling. If the real purpose of this boycott is to promote more peaceful relationships and professional collaboration between Jews and Palestinians in the Israeli academe, then this project should be precisely the kind of thing they would want to support. This boycott makes no sense.
Unless … Unless its real purpose is not to promote peace and coexistence, but to punish Israel. If that is the intent, then this boycott makes perfect sense. It’s all very logical if you believe that Israel is the most evil place in the world, and therefore everything Israeli is intrinsically worthy of condemnation — even its best, most positive projects. If you view things from that angle, then this boycott is comprehensible. This also explains why there are no posters on the walls of this school calling for an academic boycott of any country other than Israel. Not Zimbabwe under Mugabe. Not China, even though China’s human rights abuses are a matter of public record. Only Israel. Out of the whole world, only Israel deserves to be boycotted. This is antisemitic.
Someone should tear this poster down. It is hate literature. It encourages passersby to hate, and hurt, one specific group of people. Someone has to take it down. But who? She can’t. She can’t just tear down a poster.
Or maybe she can.
She peeks around the corner of the alley. There are now only two people in the hallway waiting for Suzy. Mike is holding what looks like a term paper. He is pacing back and forth, his term paper flapping at his side, obviously unhappy with his mark. He’ll be in there awhile for sure, arguing with Suzy over every little point. It will be at least ten minutes till it’s her turn, even if the guy ahead of Mike is quick. She ducks back into the alley and scans the poster from top to bottom. It’s disgusting. It’s obscene. Someone should rip it down.
But she can’t. You don’t go around ripping other people’s stuff off walls. If you do that, you are no better than the people who put up this kind of crap. You’ve descended to their level. Posters are free speech. A symbol of democracy. If I rip down this poster, she thinks, I am ripping the fabric of democracy. I may not agree with what this poster says, but “I’ll defend to the death its right to say it.” Whoever put up this poster had a right to.
Yes. That’s true. But then, equally, I have the right to tear it down. That is democracy, too: multiple voices, each defining reality in its own terms. The person who put up this pos
ter may perceive Israel to be the most scumbag country in the world. But I don’t have to agree. I have a right to my own point of view. I also have a right, equal to anyone else’s, to speak. With my lips. Or my hands.
But violence. Violence is not only wrong; it’s illegal. This poster is university property, it has the university stamp on it. I could get into trouble for tearing it down.
Now she sees herself standing in front of the poster, vacillating. Like Rina vacillating about letting her kids go downtown. Rina wrote she felt as indecisive as Hamlet. Well, so do I, thinks Judith: To tear or not to tear, that is the question. Then she laughs at herself. She is being ridiculous. Look at some of the acts of courage Jews have performed throughout history, for instance in the Warsaw ghetto. Risking their lives every single day, and not to save just themselves, but also others. And here she can’t even pull down a goddamn poster. Her and those namby-pamby left-wing sensibilities of hers. Keeping her from doing what she knows she should do.
She thinks of her name, Judith. Judith in ancient times lopped off Holofernes’s head without even batting an eyelash. Come on, she tells herself. Be strong like your name. You can doubt, dither, and deliberate all you want beforehand, if that makes you feel like a moral person. Agonize to your heart’s content. But in the end, act. Sartre was right: ultimately there is nothing but action.
She reaches out her hand. Act. Do it. Have some impact on the world.
She tears the poster off the wall.
— 8 —
Alone in the hallway, Judith stands outside Suzy’s door, waiting for Mike to finish so she can have her turn. Her face is flushed with pride over her small act of defiance. Especially since tearing down this poster turned out to be more complicated than she expected. She was mortified by the loudness of the ripping paper and the way it resounded through the silent alley and out into the hallway. Even after the poster was off the wall, it continued to make noise — a loud crackling sound — when she tried squishing it into the nearby garbage can. The poster seemed to fight back. She felt like she was wrestling a living thing, a resisting leviathan. Eventually, panting and perspiring from the effort, she succeeded. But at that moment she sensed someone peeking into the alley. What if someone saw her? She’d destroyed school property — there must be some consequence for doing that. She is nervous, too, about being alone with Suzy again, about meeting her soon for their first real conversation since the Christmas party. She starts pacing. Finally Suzy’s door opens. Mike leaves and Suzy appears in the doorway.
“Hi, come in,” she says, in a friendly yet professional voice. Not warm but also not cold — somewhere in the middle. Judith enters her office and sits in the same chair as always, while Suzy closes the door behind them. She feels the seat under her, still warm from Mike’s bum. She waits in silence as Suzy settles into her chair. Then Suzy speaks, in the same professionally friendly manner. “It’s nice to see you back at school. Does this mean you’re back now for good?”
“I hope so,” Judith says.
“Good,” says Suzy. But she does not sound particularly pleased, or even interested. She seems distracted and far away. Then she returns from wherever she was, and asks, “What can I do for you?”
The abruptness of this question jolts Judith. There has been none of the chit-chat that usually precedes getting down to business; even her dentist exchanges more pleasantries than this. Never mind, she thinks. We’ll do this Suzy’s way, getting the business over with first. Then we can have the other conversation. So, using the language of business, she says, “I have two items.”
“So do I,” says Suzy. “Maybe they’re the same. But you go first.”
“Okay,” Judith says. But she is not feeling okay. She expected some weirdness with Suzy, but she wasn’t prepared for this total absence of connection. She pauses now before going on. It doesn’t feel comfortable, or smart, to ask someone for a favour who is so obviously ill-disposed toward you, and in a way both of the “items” on her agenda, the RA’ship and the thesis advisor issue, are favours she is requesting of Suzy. But she has no choice now but to proceed. Suzy is glancing at the wall clock: it’s 4:20, and Judith knows from last term that Suzy likes to leave school by 4:30, 4:40 at the latest, to get home in time for Natalie’s schoolbus. So she plunges in.
“The first thing is, I was curious if you’ve heard yet about your research grant.” Suzy looks at her blankly. “You know,” Judith continues. “The one we talked about my RA’ing for if it came through. Exploring community-university partnerships in anti-oppression work.”
Suzy frowns slightly. “Yes,” she says. “I did hear back. I got the grant. I heard from them right after the Christmas vacation.”
Judith stares at her, unable to absorb the good news because Suzy’s nonverbals don’t match what she is saying. She doesn’t seem happy at all about getting her grant. But anyway, Judith is deeply relieved. She feels the anxiety that has been sitting in her bones all this time begin to seep away. She’ll be able to pay that heating bill. Her house will be warm and she’ll have enough money for food. Everything will be all right.
“That’s great!” she cries. “I was so worried you wouldn’t get funded. This is terrific.”
But still Suzy is not smiling. She isn’t saying anything, either — just gazing pensively at her. Judith’s relief and joy turn to confusion and anxiety. Finally Suzy speaks. “I did get that grant,” she says, “but I didn’t know you were still interested in RA’ing for it. You and I last talked about this back in November, and I didn’t hear anything from you after that. So I offered it to someone else.”
Judith gawks at Suzy. “What do you mean?” she asks hoarsely. “You told me if you got this grant, I would be your RA. I was your first choice.”
“Yes,” says Suzy. “But that was a long time ago.”
Judith doesn’t understand. She has been counting on this. She passed up a scholarship for this, because Suzy asked her to. This is impossible. It can’t be happening.
Suzy sits in her chair with her legs crossed, looking calm and professional. As if she hasn’t done anything terrible; just some ordinary, even minor, thing, like hiring a new plumber to fix her sink instead of the guy she has used till now. Judith is still gawking at her. Suzy continues wearily, as if explaining something so obvious it shouldn’t be necessary.
“You weren’t here, Judith. You disappeared. You fell off the face of the earth. You didn’t call, you didn’t email. I had no idea what was happening with you, and I had to get started on my research. This is only a four-month grant, I was notified about a month ago, and to keep on schedule, I had to have all the preliminary interviews finished by this coming Friday, just four days from today. If I’d waited for you to resurface, I would be in very big trouble right now.”
Judith can’t believe what she is hearing. It’s true she hasn’t been in touch for the past month, but Cindy and Phoebe have been keeping her informed. “I’ve been sick,” she says to Suzy. “You knew I was sick. Cindy told you, and Phoebe.”
“I didn’t know what to think.” For the first time today Suzy looks at her frankly and openly. “First I hear from Cindy you’re sick, almost deathly ill from the sounds of it. You have a high fever, you can barely sit up in bed, and there’s no way of knowing when you’ll be well enough to return to school. The next thing I know, on the same day you’ve missed my third class in a row, I see you gallivanting around the mall, happy as a plum. I’m sure you can understand my confusion.”
Gallivanting! thinks Judith. Happy as a plum! I was sitting on a bench trying not to vomit when you came along. But she doesn’t say this aloud. She just gapes at Suzy. Then she understands what’s expected of her. She’s supposed to grovel and try to convince Suzy that she is a good, honest person who really was sick. She slides her right hand into the pocket of her jeans and fingers the note from Bernie Braunstein. She has half a mind not to show it to Suzy, because Suzy should believe her without it. Suzy should have trusted her all this time, r
egardless of appearances, just because she knows her and the kind of person she is. Okay, she thinks. I’ll play your little game. Here’s your proof that I’m a good person. That I wasn’t lying. She pulls the doctor’s note from her pocket and thrusts it onto the desk in front of Suzy.
Suzy lifts the note, reads it, and puts it down. “You seem upset,” she says empathically, looking and sounding almost like her old self. “I’m sorry if this catches you by surprise.” But then her voice turns colder: “It was your responsibility, however, to be in touch with me about this RA’ship, to let me know you were still interested. I had no idea when, or even if, you were ever coming back.”
These last few words, “ever coming back,” sound familiar to Judith. Then she remembers Suzy saying her father had left home and never come back. Does she think I abandoned her, too? she wonders. Does she think I’m like her father? “I was sick,” she says to Suzy.
But Suzy barely seems to have heard. Her face remains impassive. “I’m sorry, Judith,” she says, “but none of this matters now. It’s water under the bridge.”
Judith peers at her. She can’t really mean this — that it’s all settled, and nothing can be done about it now. I passed up a scholarship, she thinks. I passed it up for you. Now I’m left with nothing.
But Suzy is unruffled. She seems perfectly relaxed in her chair, legs crossed, wearing a pink silk shirt, a black skirt, and a string of pearls.
“May I ask,” says Judith, doing her best to control her emotions, “who you gave that RA’ship to instead of me?”
“I don’t see what difference it makes.”
But Judith sees the redness climbing up Suzy’s neck. Good. At least she’s ashamed. “Was it by any chance Elizabeth?” she asks.
Suzy fixes her with a sharp, probing look. “And if it were?” she asks. “Would that be a problem for you?”
Judith stares at her, then bursts out laughing. After the recent roller coaster of emotions, she can’t do anything now but laugh. It’s that or cry, and she certainly does not want to cry in front of Suzy. Of all people, Elizabeth. The daughter of the manager (Cindy told her) of the largest bank in Dunhill. Blond little rich girl, thinks Judith. Because of her, I won’t have enough money for heat or food. Laughing, she sees herself wasting away to skin and bones in her cold, dark bedroom, feeling more and more frigid as the Canadian winter wind whistles in through the old, cracked walls of her father’s house. Her laugh becomes giddy. There is nothing left between us now. It’s all over. You don’t care, Suzy, what happens to me at all. Abruptly her laughter stops.