by Naomi Ragen
CHANA: Thank you, sister.
They approach each other, but cannot bridge the gap that will allow them to hug. Pause.
SHAINE RUTH: The vote is over. It’s unanimous. Our mother—that is—Chana Kashman, is allowed to see her children.
CHANA: Finally. My daughters [embracing them and sobbing.] “From the depths I cried out to Him and He answered me…”
ZEHAVA: I never believed you’d win!…You’ve won. [embraces her.]
CHANA: How often I dreamed of this!
SHEINHOFF: [in the meantime, dialing the phone.] Hello? Yes Rabbi…[corrects herself ] yes Mister Aaron. This is Goldie Sheinhoff. Rebbitzen Sheinhoff. No, no we haven’t gotten rid of her. The opposite. We already know the truth and now we’re going to bring her to the children. Don’t threaten me, Aaron. Have you no fear of heaven in you at all? You or your hooligans? Yes, so what will you do? Break my hands and feet, the hands and feet of all the women here? [beat.] You don’t frighten me. I’m afraid of only one thing: The Holy One Blessed be He. [slams down the phone.] Come, Chana, let’s go. The children are waiting.
The phone rings again, it rings and rings, but no one bothers to answer.
WOMEN and CHANA are poised to leave.
SHAINE RUTH: We have to…
BLUMA: Wait, there’s something…
CHANA: [dismissing their concerns with a smile.] You’ll tell me after. After I hold my baby Shifra in my arms again. After I bury my face in her neck and breathe in that baby smell once more. After I kiss her fingers, one by one…and she laughs and laughs. My baby…. Then I’ll bring them all back here and we’ll all sit around the table and talk, me in my place, as if it was the Sabbath, and you’ll all understand that not for a moment, a second, did I stop loving any of you…
Everyone exits. BLUMA and SHAINE RUTH linger behind looking at each other. They too exit. Off.
FRUME’S VOICE: Quiet! Move out of our way. Have you no respect for honorable Jewish women, you criminals? Get out of here. Go back to your yeshivas, you still have a lot to learn! Oh, how did I dare open such a mouth against the men…!
Epilogue
The stage becomes a street. Large street posters hung on the walls warn women to dress properly, to act in accordance with community dictates. Graffiti against CHANA in red paint call her a whore, and say her punishment will come.
BLUMA and SHAINE RUTH enter, hiding in the corner on the street. CHANA enters from the opposite direction. She is traumatized.
BLUMA: Ima…
CHANA: Their eyes—oh God! Their eyes! So cold…[frozen, her voice dry and cracked.] Moishele looked at me as if I was a monster. And Ruchele cried when I came near her, as if I had come to eat her alive. Eliahu couldn’t catch his breath…
BLUMA: Rav Aaron told us to tell the children that Satan had taken you away. And the proof was—
SHAINE RUTH:—that if they looked you in the eyes, they’d die.
CHANA: [heartbroken, and yet relieved.] Ah! I see.
The girls murmur apologies, asking forgiveness.
SHAINE RUTH: They aren’t to blame. It’s not their fault.
CHANA: [tiredly.] No. It’s my fault. Granny Frume was right. Children are not a suitcase you can put down and pick up. It’s late. The children need to come home and be put to bed. I must leave here.
BLUMA: Where will you go?
CHANA: Don’t worry about me, Bluma. Take care of the family you’re building…
SHAINE RUTH: Really Bluma?
CHANA: Good-bye, my girls.
SHAINE RUTH: Ima, Wait! Please, don’t go! Bluma, we can’t let her go like that! [BLUMA shrugs. To CHANA .] What will happen to you?
CHANA: I’ll live somehow. Don’t forget I love you, always. And take care of the little ones. Try to explain to them. In time, maybe a miracle will happen and our people will learn to have the same compassion as our God…. Good-bye my darlings. [the girls both cling to her.] And may God deal kindly with you both.
SHAINE RUTH: [refusing to accept.] Ima, wait! I’m going with you.
BLUMA: Shaine Ruth, you can’t! You have to stay. Without Aba or Rav Aaron, who will arrange for your marriage?
SHAINE RUTH: [in revulsion.] Do you think, Bluma, after everything I’ve heard I’d let those two men choose a husband for me?
CHANA: Shaine Ruth, your sister is right. I have no money. No place to live. I’m an outcast. You’re better off staying with your father and his family….
SHAINE RUTH: [determined, quoting from the Book of Ruth.] “Whither thou goest, I will go. Wither thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people will be my people and thy God, my God!”
CHANA: [embracing her.] My child!
CHANA and SHAINE RUTH exit. BLUMA is left alone. The street is full of noises. The men’s voices call out epithets, demands. Looking at the posters telling her how she must live her life, she re-enters her world with full knowledge and disappears.
CURTAIN
About the Author
Naomi Ragen
Naomi Ragen is the author of several international bestsellers, among them Jephte’s Daughter, Sotah, The Sacrifice of Tamar, The Ghost of Hannah Mendes, Chains Around the Grass, and The Covenant. Born in New York, she earned a BA from Brooklyn College and an MA in English from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. For the past thirty years, she has made her home in Jerusalem. The translation of her books into Hebrew in 1995 has made her one of Israel’s best-beloved authors. An outspoken advocate for gender equality and human rights, she contributes to numerous periodicals, including The Jerusalem Post, The Miami Herald, and Moment Magazine. Ragen’s hit play Women’s Minyan, commissioned by Israel’s National Theater, Habimah, has been running for two years, and her weekly e-mail columns on life in the Middle East are read and distributed by thousands of subscribers worldwide.
The author welcomes reader comments and can be contacted at pob 23004, Jerusalem 91230, Israel, or through email: [email protected]