by Nora Gold
Bobby looks up. “Who?” She looks at him. “Come on. Suzy doesn’t hate you.”
“That’s what it felt like when she wouldn’t look at me.”
“Look,” he says, pushing away his paper, “you just got caught in some political crossfire, that’s all this is. The good news is, eight more weeks of school and you’ll never have to see her again. Only eight more weeks …” His voice trails off.
Uh-oh. She does not want this conversation to go where it looks like it’s heading.
He gazes at her with a steady, level look. “So what exactly do you see happening eight weeks from now?” he asks. “We’ve been avoiding talking about this, but sooner or later we’re going to have to.”
She looks down at the newspaper: there’s a photo of a smiling woman with an arm around her dog. Judith frowns at Bobby. “I don’t see why we have to,” she says. “I mean, why ruin a perfectly nice breakfast, and maybe even the whole day, by discussing this? There’s nothing to say we both don’t already know, and I don’t feel like spending our remaining two months together constantly processing this. Let’s just leave it alone.”
“Leave it alone?” he asks, leaning forward in his chair. “What do you mean, ‘leave it alone’? You’re telling me that eight weeks from now you’re leaving me to return to Israel — and I’m supposed to pretend this isn’t happening?”
She is silent.
Bobby continues: “Maybe I’ve been living in a fool’s paradise. But I guess I’ve been hoping if we were happy together, maybe you’d change your mind about Israel and stay here with me. I don’t know — it seemed to me we were doing pretty well. Like any couple we have our issues, but we’re pretty happy.” He looks at her questioningly. She nods. “But now you’re telling me there’s no chance. That I’ve just been deluding myself.”
For a moment she doesn’t answer. Then she says, “I’ve had a rough day, Bobby. I don’t have it in me to get into this right now.”
“Then when do you want to get into it?” he asks. “An hour before you get on the plane?”
“Stop it,” she says weakly. He is the prosecuting lawyer again, trying to beat her down.
“I thought I could persuade you,” he says more softly. “I thought if you were happy …”
Something plucks at her gut, like the pluck of a gut guitar string. A twang of guilt goes off inside her. “It’s not anything you’ve done,” she says pleadingly. “I just can’t live here. It’s nothing personal.”
“What do you mean it’s nothing personal? What could be more personal than ending our relationship?”
“I told you all along. I never lied to you. I can’t live in Canada. I don’t belong here.”
“What does that mean, you don’t belong here? You were born and raised here.”
“I can’t help where I was born and raised,” she says. “But this will never be my home. My home is in Israel.”
“Bullshit. You’re not really at home there. You’re an outsider linguistically and culturally. You’ll always speak Hebrew with an accent. You’ll never be a real Israeli.”
This hurts. She says, “It doesn’t matter about my accent. Israel is a country of immigrants.”
But he has seen the flash of vulnerability in her eyes, the momentary flinch. Encouraged, he persists: “What’s so great about Israel, anyway? Its economy is in the toilet. The crime rate is skyrocketing. The peace process is dead. Bombs are going off every Monday and Thursday —”
“So what?” she says. “Sure, Israel has its problems, but what country doesn’t? I love Israel. It’s my home. And whether or not I have an accent in Hebrew, that’s where I plan to spend my life.”
She stops. She sees that nothing she is saying is getting through to him. She is not making the slightest dent. “But how could I expect you to understand?” she adds. “You’ve spent your whole life in Toronto, and you think this is the centre of the world.”
“No, I don’t. But you’re right that I don’t understand when you keep saying” — here he raises his voice into a high-pitched children’s taunt — “‘it’s my home, it’s my home.’” She flushes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. You keep saying this like it’s some sort of magic mantra. But when I ask you to explain it, you can’t.”
“Yes, I can.”
“You never have yet. You just keep repeating it over and over. Like E.T. in that movie: ‘E. — T. — Phone — Home.’ Ju — dith — Go — Home …”
She restrains her anger. “You’re not getting it, so I’ll try one more time.” She looks at him hopefully: Maybe this time he will listen and understand where she’s coming from. But no — his face is brick-red with anger. He’s in mid-battle: a battle to keep her here in Toronto and keep her love, a battle against his rival, Israel. The last thing he’s interested in now is hearing her sing Israel’s praises.
With a sense of futility, she says, “I’m not saying Israel is perfect. But at least in Israel we control our own destiny. We shape our own history. Whereas here in Canada” — she looks searchingly into his eyes — “we’re living in exile. A relatively comfortable exile — we’re not slaves like we were in Egypt. But still we’re in exile. Someone else is letting us live in their country, and ‘letting’ is the operative word here. It’s their home, not ours. We’re always just guests. Even if they are nice to us, even if they let us stay for a long time and make us feel accepted, ultimately it’s not our home. The only real home for a Jew is in Israel.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, this Jew’s home” — he points to his chest — “is right here in Canada. This is where I was born and raised. This is where I belong.”
“I know,” she says, kindly, even sadly. “But that’s exactly the problem. That’s what’s so sick about galut. After even one or two generations of living somewhere, Jews start believing that’s their home. When it’s not. It’s just where they happen to be. It’s where their parents or grandparents ended up, fleeing from somewhere worse.”
“It’s true my grandparents came here from Russia. But now this is my home.”
“You think it’s your home,” she says, “but it isn’t. Most Jews today, because we’ve been in exile for two thousand years, can’t even imagine what a real home feels like. So they believe that Canada, for instance, is home. But it’s not.”
While she’s been speaking, he has gotten up and brought the bagels and coffee to the table. Now he angrily spreads strawberry cream cheese on half a bagel. Spreading it roughly, as if he hates this bagel and wants to hurt it. He says without looking up at her, “So only in Israel can a Jew live a good or happy life. And if someone like me happens to be happy somewhere else, obviously I’m delusional, or ignorant of my people’s history, or both.”
Her mouth twists with impatience. “I’m not saying that. You asked me to explain what I meant by home, and I did. But if now you’re raising the question of happiness, that’s something else altogether. You, Bobby, can be happy wherever you want. But for me to be happy, I need to live in Israel.”
He looks up at her. “I don’t believe that for a moment. I believe people can be happy anywhere if they put their mind to it.”
“Now you sound like my mother.”
“Maybe your mother was right.”
“She wasn’t. She never understood about me and Israel.”
“That makes two of us.”
She peers at him. That’s a low blow, for him to side with her mother against her.
“I mean it,” he says. “I agree Israel is a special and important place. I think it’s fabulous the Jewish people finally has a state of its own, and we should support it financially as best we can. But living there — why would I want to do that? Why live someplace where I could get blown up any day walking down the street? Call me selfish, call me a man with no ideals. But I’d rather not get blown up if I can avoid it. And fortunately, I can.”
“I see. So your life is worth more than the life of an Israeli. It’s okay for an Israeli man your age, yo
ur profession, to die defending the Jewish state, as long as you can live your life in safety and comfort.”
“I’m not saying my life is worth more than his. But it’s my life, and I can do with it what I want.”
She stares down at the empty plate he set before her several minutes ago. Then she says, “It’s true, obviously, that it’s safer here than in Israel. No one can deny that. But Canada is galut. And it is sterile, materialistic, and capitalist.”
Bobby sniggers. “‘Capitalist’! Like Israel isn’t?”
“Israel at least was founded on socialist principles.”
He laughs. “I hate to be the one to break it to you, Judith, but whatever principles Israel was founded on, it’s not a socialist country anymore.”
“What do you know about Israel?”
“I know what I read in the papers and in the articles I get from the Toronto Jewish Community Board, and socialism is basically dead now in Israel. Even the kibbutzim, the symbols of socialism, are no longer dreaming the socialist dream. Even they have turned capitalist. You have this romantic vision of the sun rising and setting over artichoke fields, but there are almost no kibbutzim left that haven’t moved from agriculture into industry. The Israel you’re so in love with doesn’t exist anymore.”
She is angry. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. So what if the kibbutzim are privatizing? It doesn’t mean the dream they represented is dead.”
“Yes, it does. That’s exactly what it means. The reason the kibbutzim joined the real world — in other words, capitalism — is because socialism doesn’t work.”
“It may not have worked well economically,” she says, “but it worked in other ways.”
“Like what?”
“Socially. Israeli socialists built communities. They designed a new world. A different social reality. But you wouldn’t understand. Forget it. There’s no point discussing this anymore.” She rises.
“Fine,” he says. “Walk out of the room if you want. But that doesn’t make what I’m saying any less true. The Israel you love, Judith, exists only in the minds of a few idealists like you who still live in the past. Israel now is just a country like any other, except more fucked-up because it’s constantly at war. And there is only so long a small country surrounded by millions of enemies can hold out. Face it: the great Zionist experiment has failed.”
She stands in the doorway, trembling, poised for flight. He is attacking not just her — that alone maybe she could take — but everything she loves and believes in. He is attacking the promise she made to herself that day in the desert: the glowing throbbing orange of a vow buried in the centre of her heart, which is what keeps her alive.
“It hasn’t failed,” she says. “Yes, we’re going through a difficult period now. We’ve been through difficult times before, though, and we’ll come through this like we always have. But Jews like you don’t make it any easier.”
“Jews like me?”
“Yes. Jews with resources, education, and skills who could help build the land, but stay here in galut, because of the safety and comfort.”
“Is that what you think?” He looks astonished. “That I don’t want to live in Israel because of — what do they call it in the Bible? — ‘the fleshpots’?”
She gazes at him steadily.
“What, anyway,” he asks, “is a fleshpot?” The word fleshpot he pronounces heavily, comically, with a Russian accent.
She smiles slightly. “A pot of meat. But I’m not saying I think you’re particularly materialistic, any more than anyone else. Just that life here is much easier for you than in Israel, and that’s why you won’t come.”
“Of course it is,” he says. “I won’t pretend otherwise. Firstly, I don’t speak the language, so over there I’d be completely lost. Also, at the material level, the fleshpot level, if you will, I won’t pretend that I like poverty or deprivation. I don’t. I don’t see why I should leave one of the best, one of the most affluent and safest, countries in the world to go live in what is, in many senses, almost a Third World country. I also don’t think that because I feel this way I’m a shallow or bad person.” She still stands in the doorway, listening to him. “Sit down,” he says. There is no anger in his face. Just weariness. Some sadness, too. Looking at him, she also feels sad. And scared.
“Please,” he says.
She hesitates. Then she sits down.
“Look, Judith,” he says, leaning toward her. “You keep saying I don’t understand you, but you don’t understand me, either. You act like I don’t want to come with you to Israel because I don’t care about you enough. But that’s not true. I’ve never loved anyone more than you. You know that.”
She feels tears welling up. And again, fear.
“It isn’t that I won’t go to Israel, Judith. I can’t.”
“Why not? Why can’t you?” she asks, bordering on a wail. “You haven’t even tried. You’ve never even thought about it.”
“Of course I have. Other than my work, I’ve thought about little else for the past seventeen months because I know how badly you want this. But I can’t do it. I don’t know the language or the culture. It’s not Jewish culture over there; it’s Israeli. It’s something completely different from what I know. I was there once, I told you about this, and I didn’t like the food, and I couldn’t stand how people talked to each other, they shouted all the time. To me it was an interesting country, but ultimately a foreign one. You might as well be asking me to move to Swahililand. Not to mention that for my first two years there at least, I wouldn’t be able to work.”
“What do you mean?”
He sighs, pouring himself more coffee. “I’ve told you this before, but each time you don’t take me seriously. Law in Canada is totally different from law in Israel. There it’s some mixture of British, Jewish, and Turkish law. I’d have to spend a year or two learning Israeli law, then write Israeli bar exams, and article in an Israeli firm. In other words, start my career all over again from scratch.” He searches her eyes. “I can’t do it, Judith. I’m thirty-three years old, I’m a junior partner in one of the best law firms in Toronto, and I can’t throw it all away to try and scrape something together in a foreign language and foreign culture, competing — at a huge disadvantage — with Israeli lawyers.”
Her eyes are cloudy and her lips pout. “You could do it, though. If you wanted to.”
“Judith,” he says, “you’re not listening to me. Everyone has a line they can’t cross, and this is mine. You’re asking me to do something I just can’t do.”
She studies him: he looks totally honest and sincere. But she doesn’t believe him. If you will it … If he loved her enough, he’d find a way to come to Israel.
“Okay,” she says. “Fine.”
He looks at her hopefully. “What do you mean, ‘fine’? Do you mean you’ll stay?”
She frowns. “No — I just meant fine. I hear you. I hear your decision.” Tears fill her eyes.
“You act like I am breaking up with you,” he says. “But I’m not. You’re the one who’s breaking up with me. You’re the one who is leaving. For the second time.”
She wipes her eyes and cheeks with a napkin and blows her nose. He leans forward and looks into her eyes. “What I want is to marry you,” he says. “I want to spend my life with you. Have children with you.”
His eyes are deep and green like an ocean, and she feels herself getting sucked down into their depths. With an effort of will she pulls herself up and out of them, like saving herself from drowning.
“I can’t,” she says. Looking at him, she is filled with pain.
“If it was some other guy, maybe I could compete with him,” he says. “But I can’t compete with a country. With a dream.”
She sits there miserably. She imagines getting up and leaving, but she feels paralyzed.
He says, “This isn’t only about Israel, is it?”
She looks at him uncomprehending. There is a peculiar, lit-up expressi
on on his face, like a new idea just struck him.
“Maybe,” he says, “it’s true in a way this isn’t personal. Your father warned me, you know. He told me last year that you could never make a commitment. That you were too afraid.”
“What? He never said that!”
“Yes, he did,” Bobby says, smiling smugly. “He and I had lots of time to talk last year.”
“I don’t believe you. But anyway, leave my father out of it. He has nothing to do with this.”
“Fine. But it’s true.”
“It’s not true. I’ve made lots of commitments in my life.”
“Name one. One time you’ve ever committed yourself to anything. What job have you ever had for longer than a year before you flitted to something else?”
“‘Flitted’? I don’t ‘flit’! I’ve had lots of different jobs because I’m interested in lots of different things. I’m not, like some people I know, a one-note song. I’m not someone who just went from high school to college, and then to a job that forty years later they’ll probably die in.”
“I’ll duck that one,” he says. “But name one thing. One thing you’ve ever stuck with.”
She feels like she is on the witness stand again. “I stuck with Israel. That’s one commitment I made and kept.”
“Yes, but Israel is just an abstraction. An idea. An ideal.”
“No, it’s not. It’s real. It’s earth you can touch with your hands. It’s as real as anything else in this world. As real as you.”