To Kill a Shadow

by Ronen, Nathan

  “Yes, Rachel and I spoke two weeks ago. She told me he now lives in an ashram in Rishikesh in north India, studying yoga. The place is called Parmarth Niketan. I have the address. I sent him some money there. Here, write it down.” She started dictating a long sentence which ended with the words “Rishikesh, India.”

  Arik had no intention of sending a letter there. It would take more than a letter to heal his relationship with his son. “Did she let him know about the wedding? Is he going to come?”

  “She’s left a couple of messages. He never got back to her. The hostel owner said he is probably in a vipassana workshop so no one would be able to reach him for ten days. She tried to get hold of him at the ashram, but they have a policy of not giving the guests any messages. Have you tried speaking with Mom?”

  “I tried a few hours ago. She’ can’t really communicate. I spoke with the nurse and asked her to call me when Mom is more lucid. I really want her to be there at the wedding. It’s important to me.”

  “With all due respect for what’s important to you, dear brother, the question is whether Mom, in her current state of health, would be able to drive all the way from Haifa to Jerusalem just to attend some ultra-religious wedding ceremony. Do you think she’d even know where she was?”

  Arik sighed with frustration.

  Naomi tried to soften her words. “Arik, please understand, the wedding is going to involve tedious prayers and blessings and speeches given by rabbis. She will need to sit in a separate area for women, among women she doesn’t even know, with the foreign nurse. It’s not an easy situation to be in, even for a healthy woman.”

  “You and Rachel are going to be there too,” Arik insisted. “It’s important to me that we’ll be there as a family. You know the saying we Ashkenazi Jews have. ‘May you dance at your grandchildren’s wedding.’ I believe she wants to attend her eldest granddaughter’s wedding.”

  “Oh, Arik,” Naomi said with desperation. “When it comes to emotional matters, you still act like a little child.”

  “Thanks for your support,” Arik hissed with irony.

  “All right,” Naomi relented, “a beloved little child.”

  Chapter 35

  “Shuvu Banim” Yeshiva, Mount Zion—Jerusalem

  The building that housed the Breslov Yeshiva and Religious Seminary, Shuvu Banim, towered above the old city and the David citadel in Jerusalem. At the yeshiva entrance, a page containing the marriage ceremony prayers and blessings was handed out to the guests along with leaflets glorifying various Breslov orthodox institutions around the country. Men and women sat at separate tables and signed up guests for donations.

  Eva walked next to Arik, modestly dressed and wearing a small, matching hat. Arik’s knit yarmulke was immediately snatched by a burly man wearing Hassidic clothes and replaced with a black one.

  “And you are?” the man asked.

  “The father of the bride,” said Arik trying to follow Eva, who was gently led to the women’s section on the other end of the banquet hall.

  The burly man led Arik to two elderly men who sat on ornate chairs. “This is the rabbi who will hold the wedding ceremony and join the couple in holy matrimony, and this is the groom’s grandfather, Rebbe Nahman Feivish Steinsaltz,” he said reverently.

  Arik reluctantly shook both their hands.

  “Come, Rabbi Arik Bar-Nathan,” said one of the rabbis and rose from his seat, aided by the burly Hassid. “Come and say the evening Maariv with us.”

  The burly man aided the other elderly man to rise to his feet, and the two rabbis began to pray. A multitude of men wearing black surrounded them. They all rhythmically swayed back and forth with ritual movements and shouted their prayers to God in Heaven. A prayer book was placed in Arik’s hands, and a finger showed up from nowhere to indicate the passage he should read from.

  Arik, whose only visit to the synagogue had taken place during his son’s Bar Mitzvah, felt like a complete alien. His Holocaust survivor parents had indeed come from religious families but blamed God for His indifference to the terrible fate of the chosen people during WWII and became complete atheists. Arik asked to be circumcised in a hospital when he was twelve, only after his classmates had pestered him endlessly, asking to see what a gentile’s member looked like.

  Now he felt like an anthropologist watching a strange tribal ritual. His eyes wandered and sought Naomi, Rachel, or Eva, but a crowd of people separated him from the partition dividing the men’s and women’s sections. As soon as the prayer finished, he hurried to make his way there. He lifted the curtain a bit and examined the forbidden area filled with women, most of them pregnant, all wearing head scarves or wigs. Small boys ran to and fro, knotted ritual fringes dangling from their pants. Little girls in puffed-up pink crinoline dresses stood next to their mothers. On a small stage, almost swallowed by a huge white armchair adorned with floral arrangements, sat his daughter. She wore a white, long, and loose dress that concealed her figure and looked completely different from the daughter he had once known. Her penitent friends were standing next to her, chatting excitedly, while she was entirely absorbed in a small leather-bound prayer book. His ex-wife stood to her right, mummified by a blue satin dress that was too tight and wearing a large, fashionable hat. Their eyes met, and she nodded with a sour expression.

  Arik walked around the partition and approached his daughter. He tried to kiss her, but she gently pushed him away and told him in a foreign, Yiddish accent, “The father is allowed to kiss the bride, but he ought not do it in public.” Tears of happiness welled in her eyes, but her expression told him his presence in the women’s section troubled her.

  He turned back and found Naomi standing beside Eva, who looked at him in embarrassment. Only then did Arik remember he had forgotten to tell her they’d sit separate from each other that entire evening. Lacking any other choice, he returned to the men’s section.

  A Hassidic song sounded from the speakers. “Come in peace, crown of her husband, both in happiness and in jubilation, amidst the faithful of the treasured nation. Come, O Bride! Come, O Bride!” The burly man who had placed the yarmulke on Arik’s head approached him again and asked him to come to the dignitaries’ table and witness the groom signing the ketubah.

  At the table sat the two rabbis, the witnesses, and the groom, his body wrapped in a traditional white silk kittel, a large, white yarmulke on his head. Only the first traces of a beard could be seen on his face, and he looked thrilled—but exhausted by the traditional fast the bride and groom had to undergo on their wedding day.

  Arik was invited to sit between the rabbi, the groom, and the groom’s father. A long sheet of paper shaped like a parchment rested on the table. “What is the amount to be written on the marriage contract?” asked the rabbi and straightened his eyes to the groom.

  The groom hesitated. He didn’t want to appear poor or stingy but was afraid to put down an amount he would not be able to afford should he ever choose to separate from his future wife. Finally, he turned to the rabbi and asked, “Rebbe, what amount do we normally put down?”

  “Based on the writings of the holy books, the amount for a Cohen’s daughter is at least four thousand shekels which means a yeshiva student’s yearly salary times eighteen.”

  Arik had forgotten he was the offspring of a Cohen family. He watched the groom’s trembling hands. “Write one hundred and eighty thousand,” said the groom with a faint smile. The rabbi noted the amount, and the groom signed along with two of his friends who served as witnesses.

  “Do I need to sign anything?” Arik asked.

  “No need,” the rabbi ruled. “Mazel tov, congratulations!”

  The groom looked at Arik in awe. “Which of the seven blessings should the father of the bride say?” he asked the rabbi, eager to please him.

  “Unfortunately, the father of the bride does not uphold the commandments of the Torah,” the rabbi mused aloud, completely ignoring Arik’s presence. “So it is better that he doesn’t say
any blessings under the wedding canopy so as not to attract the evil spirits. In order to bless the newlyweds with success and prosperity, it is important that only the righteous would speak there.” The groom submissively lowered his head before his spiritual teacher and mumbled a few words of apology to Arik.

  The rabbi rose, supported by the burly man, to perform the wedding ceremony. The groom walked by his side, led by his father, who carried a lit candle in his hand. All the hundreds of men erupted into song and dance to please the groom. Arik lagged behind, angry and rejected.

  The groom and his entourage approached the women’s section. Arik took a look and saw the groom covering Nathalie’s face with an opaque veil. From there, the men continued to the wedding canopy. The song “Eshet Chayil” rose from the speakers. It was only after all the men had left the hall that the bride got down from her stage, accompanied by the rabbi’s wife and Rachel, who each held one of her hands, their other hand holding a candle. They began to walk toward the wedding canopy as well while Nathalie’s friends accompanied her by clapping their hands. Not one of them had joined the singing, as orthodox religion forbade the singing of women in public.

  Arik’s eyes chanced upon the image of Eva, standing on a chair, looking about her in wonder and photographing the Jewish wedding ceremony. To his surprise, it appeared that she liked what she saw.

  Suddenly, he felt the familiar sensation that someone was staring at him. He looked around and his eyes caught the firm, somewhat familiar image of a man standing at the edge of the hall. He focused his eyes on him. It was a dark-haired waiter with slightly slanted eyes. A bulge was clearly visible above his belt. Arik tried to see if his fingers were tattooed, but they were covered by white gloves.

  He was so focused on the waiter that he hadn’t even noticed Claire, his secretary, slipping like an uninvited guest to the outskirts of the banquet hall, placing gift envelopes she had collected from Arik’s office co-workers into the gift safe.

  Arik was now fully alert. He had no doubt about the identity of the man and the reason he was there. He sent his hand to the phone in his pocket, wondering whether he should alert the General Security forces. The sound of the rabbi reading the marriage contract was heard from the speakers. Arik could only imagine what his ex-wife, sister, and daughter would say should the banquet hall be suddenly flooded by security forces. He decided to act alone.

  Concealed by the corridor leading to the kitchens, Arik drew his Glock and covered it with a napkin he pulled from one of the tables. The man left the hall and headed to the kitchens, and Arik knew he was looking for him. When the waiter entered the corridor, Arik lunged at him, placed the pistol against his head, and dragged him into a darkened storage room with a choke hold.

  The man gagged and tried to resist, but Arik held him tightly. He instructed him to take off his gloves, and the man obeyed. Arik examined his fingers. In the darkness of the storage room, he couldn’t see any tattoos. He felt the bulge in the man’s hip area. It was soft. Had he wrapped his weapon to conceal it better?

  “What is your name?” Arik whispered.

  “Misha Guryonov,” the man answered with a slight Russian accent.

  “What is this?” Arik pointed at the bulge.

  “It’s… I’m ashamed to say.”

  “I’m with the security forces. You’d better tell me the truth.”

  “I’m…I’m a disabled army veteran. I’ve had a colostomy, this is my stool drainage bag,” the man muttered with embarrassment.

  Arik sent a hand and dug the man’s wallet out of his pocket. He closed the storage room’s door and blocked it with his body. The man didn’t attempt to run away. To the light of his cell phone flashlight, Arik checked the photo on the man’s driver’s license, then illuminated his face.

  “What are you, a cop?” the man asked.

  “I’m not a cop.” Arik opened the door. “All right, you can go.”

  “You bastard!” the man said. “I’m going to call the police.”

  Arik slowly began to retreat out the banquet hall. From there, he decided he’d call Eva and ask her to meet him outside.

  A hand suddenly tapped his shoulder. He turned around in panic. A young man stood in front of him, tall and lanky. His beard was trimmed and his tangled hair was rolled up behind his head. He wore amber-colored Indian sharwal pants and a traditional Indian shirt with a matching color. An earring twinkled in his earlobe, and a rudraksha prayer necklace hung around his neck. He looked at Arik, mummified in his suit, and smiled. “Hello, Dad. I came straight from the airport. The buses here are even slower than those in India.”

  A wave of happiness washed over Arik. He hugged the young man and said, “Michael, my dearest son, you’re finally back home!”

  Chapter 36

  Hawarim Canyon—The Dead Sea Valley

  It was Friday night. Arik loaded his H-D Night Rod Special motorcycle on a trailer and opened the SUV door for Michael. They were both silent during the drive south all the way to the Marlstone Canyon, next to the Sde Boker Field School. They were welcomed there by a vast and silent desert moon. Arik started the motorcycle, and Michael sat behind him. Hot desert dry air caressed their faces as they sped through hills and wadi sands. Mesa cliffs cast their shadows on the white marlstone rocks that gleamed in the light of the full moon.

  When they returned to the SUV in the parking area, Arik took out two bottles of frozen beer from a small refrigerator in the trunk.

  “Are you having a good time?” asked Arik.

  “There are positive vibes in the air, and Nathalie’s wedding this week was interesting and very moving,” said Michael

  “What I meant to ask was how do you like spending time with your old dad again?”

  “It’s not easy, but I’m glad we’re doing it.”

  “Why isn’t it easy?”

  “Look, Dad, life for us children with you and Mom was no picnic. You weren’t home most of the time, and you left us with a dysfunctional mother who closed herself up in the room most of the time, depressed and crying, consoling herself by eating Belgian chocolate. Whenever you were actually home, you preferred to run away from your endless arguments with her by going to play with your Harley Davidson toys. I can’t judge your relationship with Mom. You’re both adults, but you should have reached the decision to separate much sooner. Instead, you’ve used your children as tactical weapons in your war against each other.”

  Arik remained silent. He had never heard his son speaking so harshly.

  “I’m sorry for bringing up such painful memories. I’m not doing it to settle a score. But it’s time for us to talk. The last time we met, I was still a confused little boy. We hardly spoke to each other, just spent some time together, rode an ATV, had barbecues, watched action movies and westerns, or went to the zoo. It was as if we tried to do everything imaginable other than having a real conversation.”

  Arik nodded in agreement.

  “You call yourselves ‘second-generation Holocaust survivors,’ but you know what? We third-generation Holocaust survivors have fought, struggled and got hurt too. I understand that you, as the son of parents who were mentally wounded by what they’d gone through, felt the need to compensate yourself by having fast cars, beautiful women, and lots of action. You felt like the world needed to compensate you for all injustices inflicted on your parents. Am I right?”

  “Yes…in a way,” Arik admitted.

  “And I can’t help but ask myself what for?” Michael pondered aloud. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about this in India. We Israelis have become a neurotic nation that chooses to sanctify its Holocaust paranoia. We keep shedding tears while fighting. We think of all wars as ‘wars of necessity,’ as if the whole world is still against us. But there is no justification to conquering and ruling another nation—the Palestinians—just because we’re an anxious people who do not trust Arabs or anyone else in this world. I keep asking myself, ‘is it possible to break this vicious circle in which the victim b
ecomes the victimizer? Must an abused child become an abusive parent?’”

  Arik shuddered. He had never told anyone he’d been beaten as a child, most certainly not his son.

  “I wish it were that simple.” Arik sighed. “We live in a country which is a kind of villa in the middle of the jungle. And that jungle is the Eastern Mediterranean. When you live in the jungle, you can’t ask a hungry tiger you happen to meet in the forest to spare you because you’re a vegetarian or donate to the SPCA. In such an environment, a person who doesn’t fight gets eaten alive.”

  “Let’s not talk about high politics,” said Michael. “Let’s talk about us, your children. No one compensated us for the suffering you and Mom caused us. Do you even know how hard Nathalie took it when you went away? Did you ever know she tried to commit suicide in order to get your attention to her plight? You never listened to our troubles. You were always too busy fighting your wars.”

  Arik’s heart lost a beat; he shed a tear and was happy the desert darkness concealed his face.

  Michael kept pounding him with his words. “I ran as far as I could away from you so I’d have the opportunity to build my self-confidence after years of growing up as an insecure child with no parents. I’ve taken self-awareness and Tao workshops to learn to be able to objectively look at my inner world. Today, I’m able to look at you with compassion and without anger. You should know, though, that Nathalie is still very hurt. I think you should do more to heal her wounds.”

  “I’ve tried, but she won’t let me,” Arik whispered.

  “Then keep trying, again and again. She needs to see that you care, that you’re trying, that she means the world to you.”

  Michael placed his large hand on his father’s shoulder, “Don’t get me wrong, Dad. I love you very much. I’m happy to have you as my father, and I believe you’re making a real effort to find a way back to our hearts, but there’s something about your personality that doesn’t know how to commit, that is afraid to give in to your emotions.”