by Tammar Stein
“How was it?” my mom asks, after hugging her.
“It was terrible.” Ofra’s head droops in fatigue. Dark circles add the only color on her pale face. “So crowded.”
“Wounded soldiers?” my mom asks.
“Yes, and so many civilians. The nurses were running around deciding who would get painkillers and who didn’t need them so much.”
“They’re worried they’ll run out?”
Ofra nods. “They think thousands more might be coming.”
“God forbid,” my mom says, a hand to her mouth.
“I should take the children back upstairs,” Ofra says wearily.
“Are you crazy? They’re all asleep.” My mom turns Ofra and shoos her out. “They’ll be fine here. Go rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”
After Ofra leaves, my mom gently picks up Yoram and buries her nose in the crook of his little neck. I crawl back into bed.
At some point in the night, Shira must have kicked Esther in her sleep. All I know is there’s a loud thump and then Esther wails loudly, waking everyone. It takes a long time before my mom can settle her down again and she falls asleep.
All night I hear artillery shells booming in the distance. We’re out of the bomb shelter, but the war is still raging on.
* * *
We spend the next morning playing pick-up sticks and card games, too unnerved by the past two days to play outside. The light that pours into our living room is bright and harsh. All my life, the morning sunlight streamed into the house in dappled circles, shaded through the branches of the eucalyptus tree. Now there’s no shade. No tree. It makes being in my own home feel weird and different. It’s hotter in the living room now. And exposed. I can see straight through to the building across the courtyard, and the windows in those apartments stare right back at us. It’s even worse in Shira’s apartment. Their west-facing flat has no glass in the windows.
All morning I’ve had a restless feeling. I assume it’s because I’m stuck inside with too many kids in the apartment. There’s a pressure inside my chest that keeps me from sitting still. I shift and turn, trying to get the tightness to loosen.
We’re all in the living room, sprawled on the cool tile floor reading and coloring, when the music playing on the radio is interrupted by an urgent update. Everyone falls silent, even Esther and the baby.
This report just in: Colonel Motta Gur, commander of a reserve paratroop brigade, has just announced: “The Temple Mount is in our hands.”
My mom screams. Shira and I freeze, not sure we understand what’s happening.
“What’s wrong?” Beni cries. We spent yesterday and the day before in a bomb shelter. Hearing my mom screaming at news from the radio is scary.
“Children,” my mom says, her voice wobbling, her face flushed, her eyes rimmed with tears. “Do you understand? The Western Wall! The Old City! It’s ours again!”
She grabs Beni and smothers him into her bosom. Shira and I exchange wide-eyed, open-mouthed looks.
There’s a rap on the door, and before we can open it, the Pinskys from upstairs spill into our apartment.
“Did you hear? Did you hear the news?” Efraim Pinsky shouts, his wrinkled face shining.
“Yes!” my mom says, gasping with happiness. “I can’t believe it!”
“I am seventy-three years old,” he says. “When I lost my parents and five siblings in the Holocaust I thought that God had abandoned me and the Jewish people. Now I know that God has blessed me. For me to see this day!” He raises hands dotted with age spots to the ceiling. “God has not forgotten the Jewish people!”
Mrs. Friedberg and Shlomo and Ofra enter through the open door.
“Did you hear?” they cry.
The next thing I know, all of us except Ofra are somehow holding hands in a big circle. Me, Beni, Shira, Esther, my mom, Efraim and Miriam Pinsky, Shlomo and Mrs. Friedburg, and we’re dancing the hora in my living room, singing “Hevenu Shalom Aleichem” and laughing like crazy. The same people who huddled in the bomb shelter the day before. We’re dancing.
Efraim, his wispy white hair standing on end, kisses my mom, a big juicy kiss right on her lips. He lets her go, and before I can do anything, he plants one on me. I stagger back, and then Beni gets kissed. I start laughing hysterically at the look of horror on my brother’s face. Mrs. Friedburg has her hands up like she’s going to stop Efraim from kissing her next, but he dodges the halfhearted effort, wraps his hands around her face, and kisses her long and hard.
Happiness spills out from everyone in a different way. Miriam Pinsky is doing some dance move from the 1920s, as little Esther tries to mimic her steps. Shlomo cuts in, and they start doing a soft shuffle by the bookcase, dancing cheek to cheek. Ofra sits on the couch, her bandaged leg propped up, and wipes tears of happiness from her face.
Shira holds baby Yoram and our eyes meet. In the happy chaos, for one tiny moment, all the noise falls away. There is such pure joy shining in her big, brown eyes. The crazy grin on my face eases into something more normal. A happy smile. It feels like there’s only Shira and me and a beautiful world where prayers are answered and amazing things, impossible things, can happen.
My mom breaks out the good brandy and the adults all toast each other, then the paratroopers, Colonel Motta Gur, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, pretty much anyone they can think of. They laugh and hug, unable to wrap their minds all the way around the fact that the impossible has actually come true.
* * *
Eventually the Pinskys go back to their apartment. Ofra hobbles upstairs to rest. Mrs. Friedburg announces she’s going for a walk. And it’s back to being us five kids alone in the apartment with my mom.
Yoram, too keyed up from a bad night’s sleep and all the excitement, screams instead of napping. There’s nowhere in the apartment to get away from his ear-piercing shrieks. He hates the pallet my mom made for him from blankets and pillows. He wants his bed. But she can’t take him upstairs to his mom yet. Ofra needs quiet and rest.
“Go outside,” my mom commands us. “You’re keeping him awake.”
Little Esther stays, but Beni, Shira, and I head out.
There are cars on the road, people in the street. Yesterday’s eerie silence is gone. The corner market has reopened and shoppers are inside, stocking up on groceries. Everything is back to normal. Although we all know it’s not. Not really. The Old City might be ours, but the war isn’t over. Our soldiers are still fighting, and if they lose ground, if the momentum turns, then we’ll be under fire again. Buildings will be blown up. More people will be hurt. The radio had said nearly a thousand civilians in Jerusalem have been injured in the shelling of the past two days.
The three of us enter the corner store. The familiar smells of newsprint, cardamom, and coffee greet us. The wire racks that hold the morning edition of the local papers are nearly empty. Everyone’s been buying a copy, wanting to know what’s going on. There are newspapers in Hebrew, Yiddish, English, and several other languages that I don’t even recognize. Shoppers chat excitedly about the news report. It’s clear our lives will change after this war is over.
The owner of the shop eyes us as we enter, but he’s too busy with a line of customers to hassle us for hanging out in his store. Besides, it’s not a normal day. He stands behind a glass counter that usually holds pastries and snacks. But the bakery isn’t up to full speed and the only thing he has to sell is bread.
A transistor radio mounted on a high corner shelf beeps with a news update. Everyone in the store falls silent as the latest report from the front lines comes on. In addition to repeating Motta Gur’s pronouncement about the Temple Mount, the announcer mentions that information is still coming in from a fierce battle in the Old City that took place late last night. A place called Ammunition Hill. Another battle near the YMCA was nicknamed “The Alley of Death” by the soldiers who survived it. Only half the original force managed to cross five hundred meters.
I shiver at the thought of it.
Shira has a few coins in her pocket, and she buys three pieces of Bazooka gum that she shares with Beni and me. The bright pink gum fills my mouth with delicious sugar. Everything is normal. Sort of. We read the jokes inside the wrappers, but they aren’t very funny.
As we leave the shop, I see Moishe across the street.
He’s carrying something, and we jog over to see what he’s got.
“Check this out,” he says. He holds up the black metal tail fin from a Jordanian mortar shell. It looks like part of a satellite or a rocket. I am instantly jealous. This is the neatest thing I’ve ever seen.
“Where did you get that?” I demand. “How come it isn’t in bits and pieces?”
Moishe grins at my reaction.
“Duds,” he says. “Some of the shells land funny and the tail pops off. Sometimes the tail survives a live round too.”
“Where did you find it?” I ask again. Maybe there are more. I can already picture one on the small shelf above my bed. Or if I found two, I could build a little stepping bench with tail fins for legs.
“That building that was hit on Rodef Street. The tail was just lying there, near some of the stones.”
Beni and I exchange looks. We passed that building yesterday, not far from the white cat. If only I had thought to stop and look for tail fins instead of petting a cat!
I don’t even ask if Moishe would trade for it. I know that I have to find my own tail fin.
“Did you hear?” he says. “School starts back up tomorrow.”
We groan a bit, and then he leaves to show off the tail to David and Avi, who just stepped out of another shop. I see the small huddle that forms around him. Everyone’s going to be on the hunt for those things.
“Come on,” Shira says. Her eyes are twinkling like mine. “There’re other places that were hit. I passed one on the way home from school yesterday.”
Shira’s all-girls school is in the opposite direction from mine and Beni’s, so I haven’t been that way since before the shelling.
“Let’s go,” I say.
“I don’t want to,” Beni says, in a near whine.
“Don’t be a baby,” I say, irritated. “We have to go now, or someone else will find all the tail fins. And then we’ll miss our chance forever.”
“I don’t want to.”
“So go home!” I say. “If you’re such a baby, then you should just nap with Yoram and Esther.”
Beni draws himself up to his full height.
“I am not a baby.”
“So come with us.” I suddenly realize I have to get him to come. If Beni goes home and tells my mom we’re digging around the rubble for dud shells, it won’t go over well. “Come on,” I wheedle. “Let’s check it out. Who knows what we’ll find.”
Beni scowls at the ground. I’ve hurt his feelings, and he’s digging in his heels.
Shira watches us and, seeing that my charm and powers of persuasion aren’t working, comes up with a better solution.
“I’ll buy you another piece of Bazooka,” she offers.
Beni considers the bribe.
“Two pieces,” he says, his eyes narrowed.
Shira sighs. “Fine. Two pieces.”
“Deal!”
“But after we look for the tail fins,” I hurry to add. Not that Beni is a weasel, but it’ll be safer to pay the bribe after he does what he says he’ll do, not before. I’ve pulled off that little trick too many times to fall for it myself.
He looks like he wants to argue, but I cut him off. “Time’s wasting. Other people are looking for tails too. And school starts tomorrow, so we go now and you get your prize after.”
“Okay,” he says. “But you have to promise you’ll really buy me two pieces.”
“I promise,” Shira says. She looks at me, as if trying to tell me something, but I can’t read her gaze. I hope she really does have the extra money for two pieces.
The three of us head off to the bombed-out building.
The restless, uneasy feeling from this morning is back. It feels like a strange itch or a pinch. I’m twitchy and I can’t settle. Even though I got my way and we’re off to look for tail fins, I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong.
The news report about Ammunition Hill particularly bothers me, though I’ve had this unhappy feeling even before I heard the news. The thought of people fighting and dying so close to where I live makes me feel sick.
I glance uneasily over my shoulder as we walk. I can’t put my finger on it. I check Shira and Beni with a sideways glance, but they seem fine. Beni chatters about a magic trick with a cup and a stick that one of the teachers in the shelter showed him. Shira smiles and nods. Maybe I look normal on the outside too.
When we get to the building, there are a few Civil Defense men organizing a cleanup crew. There’s no way we can poke around the crumbled stones and concrete.
“Let’s go around the back,” Shira says. “They won’t be able to see us in the alley.”
“Good idea,” I say.
There isn’t much rubble in the shadow-dark alley. The blast hit the front of the building and scattered it into the street.
The alley reeks of urine and rotting trash. The garbage men are busy fighting a war. The cobblestones are slick from where someone dumped a bucket of soapy wash water. Dirty soap bubbles have settled in the edges of the worn stones. “This is stupid,” I say after a while. “We need to look somewhere wide and open where shells would land without hitting anything. That’s where the duds are going to be, not in the alley.”
“Don’t give up so quickly,” Shira says, picking her way around an overflowing metal dumpster. “A shell hit the front of the building, so maybe something landed back here too.”
“It stinks,” Beni whines. The old trash has meat in it, and the smell of rot hangs heavy in the air.
“Yes, we’ve all noticed,” I say, annoyed.
The unhappy feeling inside me grows. I feel like my skin is too tight.
Then Beni moans and grabs my arm.
“Motti,” he says. “Look!”
Chapter Fifteen
Too Late
A glimpse of white fur catches my eye.
It’s the snow-white cat from the day before. It’s on its side, half under a dumpster, its legs sprawled in a graceless tangle. Even in the dim shadow of the alley, its fur gleams. The sight of it lances me with pain.
“Don’t go near it,” I say, grabbing Beni’s upper arm, holding him back.
Shira looks at me and at Beni, not understanding why we’re so upset.
“Don’t let Beni near, okay?” I tell her.
“Sure,” she says. She has younger siblings, so she knows how to take charge. “Here, Beni.” She digs into her pocket. “Why don’t you hold the money for your gum?” She hands Beni a half-lira coin that he eagerly reaches for.
I really don’t want to take a closer look, but maybe the cat is only injured and we can help. Maybe it’s a different cat. I swallow thickly. It looks deflated. Like a puppet without a hand inside to make it move.
As I approach, I know that it’s too late. I crouch to get a better look. It’s the same cat. Pure white and small. Its eyes are slightly open and dull, its chest totally still. I can see now that it was hurt, probably by falling debris. It must have staggered here, hoping to hide while it recovered. But instead it died, all alone in a smelly back alley.
It’s a stupid stray cat, I tell myself, fiercely blinking back tears. It doesn’t matter what happens to it. But even as I lie t
o myself, I know it’s not true. This cat was beautiful and funny. It saved me and Beni. If something as perfect as this cat can get smashed, then nothing and no one is safe.
Shira and Beni watch me as I rise to my feet. I shake my head.
“There’s nothing we can do,” I say, still looking down at the cat. “It’s already dead.”
“We just saw it yesterday,” Beni says, almost confused at how something could go from alive to dead so quickly. “We should have brought it inside the bomb shelter.”
He’s right, we should have.
“The adults would never have let you bring it inside,” Shira points out. “You know how they are about stray cats.”
It’s true. My mom always hisses when she sees a cat, shooing it away.
“Should we bury it?” Beni asks in a small voice.
“Yes,” Shira says simply. “We should.”
I don’t know any other girl who would be so calm and helpful right now. She doesn’t ask why we’re upset, why we care about this cat. Our eyes meet. I am so full of words and feelings that nothing comes out. But Shira seems to understand.
“It was a really pretty cat,” she says.
“This cat saved our lives,” I finally say. “When I brought Beni back from school.” I tell her how petting the cat kept us away from the courtyard when the shell hit the tree.
“Oh,” Shira says. She blinks rapidly.
I don’t tell her how I tried to kick the cat last month or that Gideon was the one who stopped me.
We find an empty cardboard box and tip the little body into it. We carry it home, taking turns holding the box. It’s a strange funeral procession.
A few neighbors have already started cleaning up the mess from the blown-up tree in the courtyard. It’s easy to borrow a shovel and find a quiet corner to dig a small grave. A light breeze kicks up as I dig, cooling my sweat, bringing with it the smell of cedar and smoke. A tumble of silver-green eucalyptus leaves, remains of the tree, scatter in the light gusts.
Shira dashes to her apartment and returns with a clean nappy. We tip the cat out of the cardboard box onto the square white cloth. Shira rolls it into a shroud. We each grab an end and lay the small bundle in the hole I’ve made. We stand above the hole, looking at the small thing inside.