Two Sides of Me

by Nora Sarel

  The girl took a few steps to the tiny kitchen, which was on their left, the oil lamp guiding her way.

  “What is she doing there?” Ido asked.

  “I think she’s heating water on a camping burner; can you see the orange thing? That’s a part of the burner that crossed the kitchen line and into the room.”

  “It’s all so small and narrow. I’m sure the whole house is just this room and the tiny kitchen. I don’t think they even have a toilet here,” Ido whispered.

  “Enough, let me listen.”

  The girl placed small cafezinho cups on a wooden platter. Its strong aromas tickled their nostrils and the steam reached them quickly. By then Gadi could clearly see her beautiful facial features. “Tudo bom?” she asked shyly when she stood in front of them. She didn’t wait for their answer and just handed them their cups of coffee. She then invited them to sit on a mat next to a mattress, where a child slept. They leaned against the wall and felt the warmth of the house.

  Bernardo joined them with another brother and said, “I can see that you have already met Anna-Maria. Now meet Francisco, he’s seventeen years old, and here on the mattress is Antonio who is ten years old.” He then explained to his siblings that this was Bernardo and his friend Ido, “I met them at the Macumba, they don’t speak Portuguese very well.”

  They smiled when they heard his name, then fell silent. Only the cat yowled outside, the silence broken by the sounds of its nails scratching the door.

  Sitting on the stone floor, without any introductions Gadi suddenly said, somewhat casual, “Aho sao irmaho – I am your brother.” They looked at Bernardo with confusion and waited for him to explain. But he remained silent.

  “What’s your name?” Anna-Maria asked, as if wanting to figure things out.

  “Bernardo, and I am your brother,” Gadi replied again. Her puzzled expression turned to her brother once again, yet he kept silent.

  “Our brother? How?” Anna-Maria wondered.

  “We found each other tonight,” Bernardo replied impatiently.

  Gadi and Ido couldn’t understand everything they had to one another but could read Anna-Maria’s expressions and hand gestures. She seems confused by the news.

  “You really do look alike, and you have the same name. It’s funny. You have his eyes, too,” Francisco lightly laughed.

  “Where are you from?” Francisco, who strangely accepted the fact he had a new brother he knew nothing of until a few minutes ago, asked.

  “From Israel,” Gadi replied.

  “From Israel? Is that far away?”

  “Very far…”

  “Why did you bring them so early in the morning?” Francisco asked his brother, who fell silent again.

  “We can’t go on like this,” Ido said in Hebrew, “they can’t understand us, and we don’t understand them. They don’t know what Bernardo knows and it seems he’s unwilling to keep them in the loop.”

  “So, what do we do?” Gadi asked both Ido and himself.

  “If we keep sitting here, it’s a waist of time, nothing will come of it.”

  “Did you say you were our brother?” Anna-Maria asked again.

  Gadi looked at Bernardo, hoping he come to his rescue. “Maybe you could explain it to her?” he asked, but Bernardo strangely kept quiet.

  Gadi understood Bernardo would not cooperate with him and decided to take matters into his own hands, “Yes, I’m your brother. I came to meet you and see your mother. Where is she?”

  “She left for Bahia, to Salvador.”

  “Why?”

  “She couldn’t find a job here and we didn’t have any money. She said she would send some and, in the meantime, we’re hardly getting by on money we borrowed.”

  “Come on, let’s say goodbye and get out of here. There’s no point to this. We need to talk only with Bernardo and explain to him that he needs to tell them about their new brother,” Ido said impatiently.

  Ido’s remarks didn’t stop Gadi from sitting on the torn mat and trying to feel the flow of the blood they shared. I found my brothers, he thought. I have waited for this moment so long, and now that it’s here I’m not the slightest excited. Here I am, sitting here coolly, artificially trying to connect with this family. He was reminded by the biblical story of Josef and his brothers, how he loved to read this chapter in Genesis, he saw himself in Josef. He remembered a verse he would repeat constantly, “Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘Come close to me.’ When they had done so, he said, ‘I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt!’”

  He wanted to say, I am Bernardo, the brother your mother gave away. Tell them of everything that had happened to him since, of his home in Israel. He wanted to hear everything about them. However, the abyss between them created over the years prevented him from doing so. He wanted to tell them of how Josef was sold to the Ishmaelites, how he grew to become related to the royal family and how he had met his brothers who came to Egypt to relieve their hunger. But he couldn’t express himself.

  Now when I need Liam, he isn’t here, he thought to himself. Then, when the silence grew louder, Bernardo stood up and interrupted Gadi’s thoughts.

  “Francisco and I need to go to work soon, we’ll see you in a couple of days.”

  “Why not today?” Gadi insisted.

  “Can’t.”

  “Maybe tomorrow afternoon?” he asked, “and you’ll tell them who I am, right?”

  “I will, don’t worry.”

  Gadi took out his wallet and gave Bernardo a 100-hundred-real bill, which he did not refuse to accept.

  Gadi kissed Anna-Maria, hugged Bernardo and Francisco, then turned to leave. When the door opened, the fat cat sneaked in and it closed behind them.

  Gadi was then overwhelmed with great sadness. He experienced what he had longed for but could not handle it.

  He felt he had missed an opportunity. The trickle of rain had also failed to become full round drops and did nothing more than moisten the road. That morning was especially gloomy, even the sun would not shine in all its glory but instead remained snuggled between the clouds. They made their way to the hostel in Olinda, and the whole time, Gadi spoke. He had a great urge to express his feelings, he wouldn’t hold them in; as if he felt this was the right time to break 22 years of silence. He spoke of the hurtful feeling of knowing that it was he who was given away, of the disconnection from his roots, of his disappointments and hopes as well as Bernardo’s silence.

  “Everything squeaks here,” Ido said when they opened the metal gate. Gadi didn’t reply and quickly climbed up the stairs leading to their room on the second floor.

  “Someone is waiting for you,” the receptionist yelled behind them. However, they were too tired to ask about the guest, and in fact, hadn’t thought it was worth inquiring about.

  “A girl is waiting for you, muita bonita – very beautiful,” the receptionist laughed.

  “I’m guessing it’s Adi. I knew she wouldn’t give up and come to you.”

  “I asked her not to come, I can’t be with anyone right now. But if it is her, I’ll be here for her.”

  Indeed, in the room were Omri, Liam and Adi, who had arrived from Curitiba after a replacement had been found for her. The moment they entered the room, Omri and Liam showered them with questions, “How was it?” Adi stood aside, as if embarrassed to barge in without being invited. Gadi approached her, kissed and hugged her without saying a word. Her presence didn’t prevent him from answering all their questions. He spoke in length about what had happened in the fort, of what he felt during the Macumba ceremony, about Bernardo and the house at the top of the hill in the Casa Amarelafavela in Recife, of his three siblings and their nightly rendezvous. He spoke and he spoke, until the Carmo church bells rang twelve times.

  “You see, I’m searching for my roots and it reminds me of the trip my grandparents to
ok me on when I was thirteen,” Gadi told with a great smile on his face. His legs were stretched before him and his hands folded behind his head, “All my life is one big root-tracing journey, only that back then we were tracing Grandma’s roots. She thought that if she found hers, she could share them with me, so that I would have roots to grow on. Frankly? I prefer her roots over Nessia’s. It’s so strange to think that if she hadn’t given me away, I would have also lived in that poor house in the favela. Maybe I would have been happier? Who knows? All and all, it’s a terrible feeling knowing someone did you a favor by taking you from where you were unwanted, it’s been haunting me for years. Although, I must admit, my parents and especially my grandmother, tried always to make me feel as if I was theirs from birth. I know I always bothered them and myself by telling them no, thank you, I have my own. But now, I think, unknowingly, they succeeded and I adopted all that was theirs. I am sure now, more than ever, that my roots are in Israel and that I am in fact an Israeli. See, I was even named after my grandmother’s brother who fell at the Sinai Operation. So, I’m a part of him, or at least I will carry his name on to the next generations.”

  Gadi suddenly stopped talking. He puckered his chin, his lips moved strangely, as if he were holding on to something in his mouth. He then made a muffled crying sound, as if wanting to burst but unable to. No one broke the silence, not even Liam. They embarrassedly sat around him, looked down and waited. Only Adi stretched her hands out to Gadi, holding his hand with one and stroking his knee with the other.

  “On the other hand,” Gadi kept on quietly, “did you hear my siblings’ names, Ido? The eldest is Bernardo, the same name Nessia had given me, the second is Francisco, named after my biological father, the third is Anna-Maria, after my godmother’s name, Dona Anna. I just can’t figure out who Antonio is name after. If you think about it, you’ll realize that their roots are bound with mine. I’m sure that when Nessia named her children she was thinking about me. I was with her each time a new child joined her family, I was with her every time she spoke with one of them. It means she hasn’t forgotten me, but never looked me up either. I really don’t know what to think, but I keep revisiting different moments in my life. What can I tell you guys? When I was there and met my siblings, I had a strange feeling. I’ve been waiting for this moment and planning it my entire life, but when it came, I felt like I don’t belong there, as if I missed my chance to be Brazilian the moment I was adopted. I kept thinking to myself, what am I doing here. They’re nothing like me. But when you look at them, you realize that they are in fact like me. Especially Bernardo, and yet they are different from me. I’m confused.”

  Adi wouldn’t take her eyes off Gadi, and when he finished, she stood beside him, placed her hands on his shoulders and caressed his hair. Gadi wasn’t indifferent to her displays of affection. He stood up and hugged her for a long time, until she pulled away and said, “I missed you, I came here just for you, and I don’t care if everybody hears it.” Gadi smiled but didn’t answer, just kept on, “I’ll visit them tomorrow. I want to go alone, I hope you’re not offended.”

  “Not offended, but worried,” Liam replied, “I don’t think it’s smart for you to go on your own. We’ll go with you and wait outside. It’s essential that we take you there.” Liam’s natural leadership took over again.

  “OK,” Gadi acceded.

  “I would like to join you,” Adi said.

  “Of course,” they replied.

  “Ninety-two, ninety-three,” Gadi counted while they barely climbed up the crookedly broken stairs, “one hundred forty-five, one hundred forty-six, we’re here. Just like Bernardo said.” At 5 PM they stood in front of the scratched door at the top of the tallest hill at the Casa Amarela favela. However, expect for the yowling cat, there was no one there to greet them. They sat on the concrete floor by the house, between the Geranium flowers sticking out of blue tin pots and the cat. They leaned on one another and looked like a large ball that was stuck and unable to roll over. Adi leaned on Gadi from one side and Liam was on the other. She tried feeling Gadi’s body and when he moved, she was delighted with his every touch.

  While they sat there idly, Liam suggested they each tell something about their family.

  “What, like truth or dare?” Ido asked sarcastically.

  “Kind of…” Liam replied, “if you don’t keep looking for ways to refuse it, you might actually enjoy it.”

  Gadi then decided to speak and said, “Ok, I’ll go first. I would like to take this opportunity and tell you a funny story with a moral lesson; it’s what I started telling you the other day. I’ll tell you about the trip I took with my grandparents to Corfu.”

  Liam closed his eyes and tried concentrating on what Gadi was saying, Omri looked down while Ido inspected both Gadi and Adi. “We traveled to Corfu, which is where my grandma was born. The moment we landed on the island, she wanted, before doing anything else, to visit the Jewish cemetery. She made me and my grandpa come along. This is where some of my family is buried, she told us, you forgot that you joined us because you’re doing your heritage school project,” Gadi imitated her.

  “She gave us a grouchy look, which is why we followed her to the Jewish cemetery in Corfu. My grandma walked like a little girl between the beautiful tombstones and the large grand burial plots. When she recognized a familiar name, she murmured something, placed a rock on the tombstone according to Jewish custom and wept. Suddenly, she found her grandfather’s grave. He passed away when the Nazis invaded Corfu. She began cursing the Nazis and showed us the Jewish letters on the tombstone,

  Here rests

  Gdalyah Benbenshti the Righteous

  Passed away at the age of נ"ח

  How old was he? I asked her, because I could not understand what the letters meant.

  Young, fifty-eight. He died of a broken heart because of the Nazis, she replied while looking at the tombstone and cried again.

  All tombstones had Jewish letters engraved, I told her, not just on your grandfather’s.

  Grandma didn’t answer. She was determined and paid no attention to me.

  Grandma’s grandpa was truly righteous; everyone loved him, especially her. How else would she have remembered every single detail about him? When her young brother was born, he was named after him, and when I was born, I was named after both.

  We kept walking around the cemetery. After a few minutes my grandma stood by a grave plot and said this is where the Toledano family was buried. She told me Myriam Toledano was her best friend, a pretty girl with long black curls. She disappeared even before they transported everyone to Auschwitz. When she stopped crying for Myriam, she immediately pointed at the Valero family grave. We quickly stood by her and comforted her when she burst into a heartbreaking cry. Rivka Valero was taken with her family to Auschwitz and after the selection, they disappeared. Grandma hasn’t seen any of them, they were probably all killed in Auschwitz.

  Grandpa and I hugged Grandma Zipora and asked her to leave the cemetery for now.

  On the way to the hotel, Grandma kept crying about her friends and family who were killed because of the terrible war and damned Nazis, as she would say every time the war and the Nazis were mentioned.

  That evening, Grandma struggled to go back to normal, she wanted to stay at the hotel, but Grandpa and I wouldn’t let her. Especially me, since I wanted to go to the mall behind our hotel. You know, I wanted all sorts of presents. Grandma Zipora gave in, and lagged behind us, leaning on Grandpa and sighing, there’s no way around it, that’s what the kid wants.

  That exact moment, when we crossed the first floor and were already at the top of the escalator, two women passed by us. They were talking Ladino and not Greek. My grandpa and I hadn’t noticed it but my grandma, whose mother tongue is Ladino, jumped up, ran after them and asked, ‘Las seniores pablan Ladino? Do you speak Ladino?’ what she meant to ask was, ‘are you Jewish? Because only
Jews spoke this language

  “Yes,” they answered in a surprised duet. These two strangers Grandma insisted on talking to, were well-kept women. They wore clothes which, I thought, were inappropriate for shopping at the mall in the middle of the day. I looked at them and couldn’t understand what it was about them that made Grandma start pestering them. Grandpa and I stood next to Grandma like a protective shield, to make sure their clothes don’t make them act superior enough to treat Grandma in a demeaning way. However, surprisingly, after a few moments of long and deep stares, the women yelled something in Ladino. The three fell into each other’s arms, hugged and kissed, spoke, cried and yelled.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ Grandpa asked me.

  ‘These are two of my friends from Corfu’s Jewish school,’ Grandma said, ‘Rivka Valero and Myriam Toledano, whom I have both eulogized this morning at the cemetery.’ Then she turned to her friends and said, ‘this is my husband and this is my grandchild.’

  The three friends stood there a while longer, laughed and cried. Grandma didn’t seem to remember we were there or that she had complained about being tired. That is how, surprisingly, Grandma’s story changed. In the morning she told us one thing and later that day the story changed. I have a feeling that my story as well as my four siblings’ story is about to change.” No one dared interrupting him, they all sat in complete silence.

  “Life stories are always different than what you think, because when you tell the story you don’t always mention everything – whether purposely or not. Sometimes there are things you don’t know and others that you don’t want to admit. This gap between stories and real life is always surprising and I can’t wait for the surprises in store for me.”

  Gadi hadn’t finished speaking and two of his siblings were already there, Bernardo and Anna-Maria. “Hoi, tudo bom? Entre por favor,” Anna-Maria said.

  “You go in,” Liam said, “we’re waiting for you here,” he pointed at the stairs. “Take your time, don’t worry about us.”