River

by Shira Nayman

  Grandma had made porridge, spiced with nutmeg and cinnamon, just the way we liked it. She served me a bowl with brown sugar and milk. My hunger was overpowering: that same grinding hunger that had plagued me on my journey. But I only managed to get down a few spoonfuls; though I still felt ravenous, my stomach also felt uncomfortably full.

  “It’s going to take time to get your appetite back,” Grandma said. “You’ve lost weight, your stomach has shrunk. They gave you intravenous fluids when you were in the hospital. It will take a little while until you can eat properly again. Don’t worry, though; you’ll be back to normal in no time. Here, take a few sips of juice.”

  Grandma had squeezed fresh orange juice. As I sipped, I thought again of my mother, who loved orange juice. Liquid sunshine, she called it.

  “How’s Mama?” I asked.

  Grandma went quiet. “Thank heavens, she’s doing much better, too.”

  My heart fired to thumping. “What do you mean—thank heavens?”

  “She had a reaction to the chemotherapy. Right about the time …”

  “Right about the time …?”

  “… that you also took a downward turn, while you were in the hospital. She was in the ICU for two days.”

  I waited, the sound of my own breath loud in my ears.

  “She stabilized quickly, thankfully. They started her on a new regimen—a two-month course. One week on, one week off. And she’s tolerating it well; the doctors are optimistic. She’s been very worried about you, needless to say. I waited until she was doing better before I told her you were so sick … I had to tell her, of course …” Her voice trailed off.

  Grandma checked her wristwatch. “I called her this morning, after Doctor Barter left. He told us you’d turned the corner. I can’t tell you how happy she was! I also spoke to your papa.”

  Papa. I saw his face before me, filled with relief. “He’s been so worried about Mama,” I said. More than worried, I thought. More like devastated.

  “Is she … going to be … okay?”

  “We all have our own versions of prayer, don’t we,” Grandma said.

  I nodded.

  “It can be a very powerful thing, all that prayer. Your Mama has a lot of people in her corner.”

  She went quiet for a moment.

  “You know,” she said after a time, “your parents are very lucky to have found each other.” She seemed to be speaking more to herself than to me.

  Nahum’s face flashed before my eyes and my heart lurched.

  “What is it, darling?”

  That confusing little voice reared up again inside—Mama and Papa, destined for each other, it said. Then: was he your one and truly?

  “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost!”

  “It’s just that—I met a man once—” I said, but then cringed at how absurd I sounded.

  “A man?” Grandma smiled a slightly bemused smile.

  “A boy, I mean,” I said, hot tears of confusion springing to my eyes. “You know, Grandma, girls my age used to marry, back in biblical times.”

  The smile fell from Grandma’s lips. “I’m sorry, darling. You’re right. Love can come at any age. It’s silly of us oldies to make light of it to young people.”

  She waited, perhaps to see if I’d say anything further.

  “What happened? To the boy, I mean.”

  I shook my head. It was terribly hard to speak. A tear spilled from my eye.

  “That feeling will come again,” Grandma said. Her face was grave, but her eyes shone with feeling. “I know it, darling. You’ll find your soul mate, just as your mama found your papa.”

  Grandma’s eyes were like rays of hope; I felt, in that moment, that I would in fact find Nahum again some time, some place. He would look different, his name would not be Nahum, but there would be something—some clue, some sign—that would let me know that this man, whoever he turned out to be, somehow shared in Nahum’s soul.

  Grandma was consulting her watch. She counted under her breath. “It’s the middle of the night in Brooklyn now. We’ll call her later, and you can talk with your mama yourself!”

  The thought of that—of talking with Mama—made me so happy, I could hardly stand it! I grabbed hold of Billy again and held him tight.

  “Stop, Sister! You’re hurting me!” Billy called out, but he was grinning ear to ear and hugging me back.

  After three days of careful feeding and slow walks around the house, I started to feel my strength return and I was able to stop taking the heavy-duty pain medication. I still felt unsteady on my feet and had bouts of nausea and dizziness, though the most difficult persisting symptom was a sensitivity to light. Lamps and overhead lights were the worst; they made my eyes ache and triggered a return of the dreaded pain in my head. Grandma gave me a pair of her sunglasses, which mercifully reduced the effect. Billy thought my wearing them indoors was great fun.

  “Sis is a movie star!” he said. “You gonna wear them outdoors, too?”

  “Yes, I think I will.”

  “The paper-ratzy gonna come take pictures?”

  Grandma smiled. She loved Billy’s little-boy malapropisms.

  “Who told you about the paparazzi?” I asked, reaching out my arms. Billy nestled close, taking care with his movements. Grandma must have primed him to treat me gingerly.

  “I saw it on TV. Lots of people with cameras. Flash, flash flash! Grandma told me the word. Did I get it right?”

  “You sure did, little guy. Did you wonder why they call them that?”

  Billy fiddled with his finger.

  “Yeah, but I don’t wanna make a mistake.”

  “Well, it isn’t actually anything to do with paper and rats,” I said, stroking his arm. “It just sounds that way. It’s from an Italian movie by a famous movie director named Fellini. He had a character called Paparazzo who was always taking pictures. That’s where the word comes from.”

  Billy nodded. “I see,” he said, trying to sound grown up.

  “I tell you what. I think we should go out. I’m starting to feel cooped up.”

  “Cooped up?” he asked.

  “I’ll explain in the car. What do you say, Grandma? I feel like we should go out—to celebrate! I haven’t been out in the longest time!”

  “That’s a grand idea!” Grandma said. “Where shall we go? But let’s not make it too ambitious. It’s early days yet.”

  “How about that lovely pastry shop on High Street? They have little tables—we can have a real Australian high tea!” Though my stomach felt achy from my few spoonfuls of porridge at breakfast, it grumbled at the thought of pastries, which I especially loved.

  “Excellent. Anything that might help you put a bit of weight back on.”

  I washed my face and hands, brushed my teeth, then slowly dressed. I felt very draggy; everything was an enormous effort and seemed to take forever. Billy hovered outside first the bathroom door, then the door of our room, chattering about this and that, clearly not wanting to be too far away from me.

  Grandma appeared in the doorway.

  “You look almost as good as new!” she said.

  She offered me her arm and we walked down the long hallway. By the front door, I paused to get my breath. I was already weary from the exertion. I turned to see a vase on the sideboard, holding fresh flowers.

  “Camellias,” I said, examining the four velvety pink blooms, nestling against sturdy, shiny leaves so perfect and bright they didn’t look real.

  “Divine, aren’t they,” Grandma said, the light in her eyes shining like distant stars.

  “Your favorite flowers,” I said.

  “That’s right!” She gave me a querying look.

  “Grandma’s favorite! Mama always says that, whenever we see camellias.”

  Camellia. The name felt newly sweet and heavy on my lips; it had been my name—the velvety pink beauty that seemed to come straight from Grandma had, for a strange but crucial day, actually been part of me.

  I sa
w again Joel’s eyes—Joel, beloved by Grandma in her childhood and youth, whom I’d actually met!—also deep with velvety beauty: kindness and suffering shining together like the glimmering of a still body of water in moonlight. Heard, again, his voice. Camellia asked about the river. She may not have voiced the words, but I felt the question. He’d heard my soul’s echo even before I’d noticed it myself. I hadn’t known what I’d been looking for—I only knew I was on a terrifying, though also exhilarating journey; all I knew was that I was searching.

  Perhaps that was the point: that the journey, in fact, was about the search. Joel’s wise words swam back into my mind. We must travel the river we’re thrown into. How lucky I was, I remember thinking as he was speaking, to have been thrown into the river that was my very own life. To have the warm and loving family I had, and so many opportunities and freedoms. Though my heart squeezed around the knowledge of how many people, even in my own wonderful country, the United States, were still subjected to suffering and injustice. Every river has its story, Joel had said; I heard his voice again in my mind’s ear. Their sources reach far, far away—and their destinations … well, those are the greatest mysteries of all. That mystery stirred within me; it gleamed and beckoned, filling me with an uncanny feeling I could not name.

  “Come,” Grandma said, “let’s get going.”

  We climbed into the back of Grandma’s small red car; Billy sat close beside me and put his hand in mine.

  “I love you, Sis.” This was the third time he’d said this since I “came to,” as Grandma put it, as if his repeated declarations might be necessary to keep me from slipping back into illness.

  We drove some fifteen minutes through Melbourne’s wide streets. I silently greeted each tram as if they were my own personal pets.

  We pulled up to an open parking space in front of the pastry shop.

  “Look, they kept us a spot!” Grandma said. “They must be expecting us!”

  We got out of the car, then stood for some time before the window, surveying the offerings. Beautiful chocolate cakes, each boasting shavings or frills of real chocolate; fruit cakes, with visible chunks of nuts and dried fruit; a huge tray of cupcakes topped in brightly colored Sesame Street characters rendered in cream. Delicate lace-like cookies dipped in dark chocolate; shortbread sandwiches filled with red preserves; ball-shaped nut biscuits dusted in sugar. And smack in the middle of the window, a tray of enormous napoleons, with their layers of flakey pastry and thick custard cream.

  For a moment, the cakes in the window seemed to waver, as if readying to collapse. I leaned against the windowpane, feeling woozy.

  “Darling, are you okay?”

  A wave of incredible exhaustion washed over me. “I’m tired,” I said, my voice sounding weak and far away.

  “Let’s go in,” Grandma said, taking my arm.

  Billy chose a free table up close to the counter. He tried out each of the stools, which had padded orange seats and the marvelous advantage of making 360-degree rotations.

  Four middle-aged women sat at the next table, talking and sipping tea. I sat down and closed my eyes. The dizzy feeling lifted; when I opened my eyes again, the world had stopped wavering.

  “I’ll go and order,” Grandma said.

  “I’ll come with you,” I said, slowly rising.

  I pointed to a chocolate cupcake with white frosting and sprinkles. “One of these for my little brother, please,” I said to the woman behind the counter, “and a plateful of those.” Now, I pointed to the napoleons on the shelf in the window.

  “A plateful?” the woman serving me said.

  “I don’t know, four or five,” I said. “However many will fill up a plate.”

  The woman behind the counter turned toward Grandma expectantly, as if to say—Surely you don’t need a whole plateful! Just two of you, after all. But Grandma nodded decisively.

  “Thank you. A plateful sounds just grand.” She turned to me and whispered, “Whatever we don’t eat, we can take home.”

  We ordered hot chocolate for all three of us, then rejoined Billy, who was engrossed in the thrilling phenomenon of the rotating stools.

  The server brought our pastries and hot chocolate. I placed the largest of the napoleons on a plate and handed it to Grandma, then took one for myself.

  “Funny, I didn’t know you liked vanilla slices,” Grandma said, taking as dainty a bite as anyone can manage with such a large, flakey, custardy confection.

  “In New York, we call them napoleons, and yes, I love them,” I said.

  Now, that same questioning perplexed look I’d seen in each face of all the girls I’d encountered in my journey passed across Grandma’s features. When she spoke again, she seemed to be talking to herself.

  “That’s what we called them in South Africa as well.”

  I spoke before thinking. “I know.”

  “I often wished I could have one of these when I was a child,” she said, “but I never got the chance.”

  “I know,” I said again, in a voice as quiet as hers.

  “You do?” That flickering look in her eyes …

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Did I tell you that? Or perhaps it was your mama …?”

  “No,” I said, “it was you. A long time ago.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “Before I was born.”

  I leaned across to Grandma and whispered in her ear. “We were standing together by the window of that little pastry shop in Koppies. I promised that one day, I’d buy you a whole plateful. Remember?”

  Grandma patted my hand. I drew back and looked into her face. Her eyes were spiked with tears and she was biting a little at her lip. She just nodded again then looked for a while down at the white tablecloth. I wondered if it was possible both to know something and not know it at the same time

  I looked at Billy, whose face was smeared from nose to chin and across both cheeks with frosting and sprinkles.

  “You little monkey,” I said. “How do you manage to get it over so much of your face? That’s quite a talent, don’t you think, Grandma?”

  “Yum yum yum!” Billy said.

  Grandma had collected herself; now, she smiled at Billy.

  “Little monkey is right,” she said. Now, she turned to me.

  “Emily, you’re going to have to take it slowly. For the next two weeks, we’ll stay close to home. After that, we can do some of the things we had planned. I know Billy will just love the planetarium. Do you remember what you said the time I took you there, when you were Billy’s age?”

  I shook my head, no. “I remember that we went, but I was so little …”

  “Well, when they put up the night sky, you could hardly believe it. ‘Our sky in Brooklyn looks different!’ you said. ‘It has trees in the way. Big ones. With squirrels!’”

  “That’s true!” Billy said. “Our trees have got squirrels! Here, you got possums. And magpies. And kangaroos!”

  “We can go and see the kangaroos at Healesville. But that’s a long drive, we’ll have to wait until your sister’s feeling better.”

  Billy’s face went serious. “Yes, Sis has to get better. Poor Sis.”

  “We still have two whole months—we’re going to have so much fun!” Grandma said.

  Every few days, we got to talk to Papa, who told us that Mama was “a trouper” and “hanging in” and that she loved us so much, too much to ever convey over the telephone. Two weeks into my own recovery, Mama felt well enough to speak on the phone. The sound of her voice was like jolts from heaven. I was so choked by tears, I could hardly speak.

  “Mama, I miss you so much,” I said.

  “I’ve been thinking about you, darling,” she replied, her voice echoing a little on the long-distance wire.

  “I know,” I said, my own voice an echoing whisper, “and I’ve been thinking of you.”

  “Silly goose, getting so sick.”

  “You’re a silly goose, too,” I said.

  “Yes, I am.”

  �
�I’m much better,” I said. “Grandma says I’m almost back to my old self.”

  “I’m doing much better, too,” Mama said. I didn’t hear anything forced or unnatural in her voice—I felt certain she was telling me the truth. And I heard something else, something so forceful, it almost came to me as color—rosy, warm, the incarnation, somehow, of health.

  “Yes, I can hear it,” I said.

  “What can you hear?”

  And now, pure joy coursed through me, a sunny feeling glowing and thick like honey.

  “That you’re going to be okay.” The words fell from my lips without my fully realizing what I was saying. “I feel as if I know that, in my bones.”

  Mama had gone quiet.

  “Mama?” I asked.

  “Yes?” I could hear from the sound in her voice that she had tears in her eyes, I could almost see them spilling down her cheeks.

  “We know things, don’t we,” I said.

  “Yes, darling, we do.”

  Two weeks later, I was pretty much back to normal. My eyes were still very sensitive to light, and most days, by late afternoon, I’d find I had a dull headache. But I was well enough to go out and do fun things with Grandma and Billy as well as with Uncle Michael and Auntie Liora and her children, my cousins. But the best thing of all was the phone calls with Papa and Mama, who was tolerating her treatments so well. When Papa told me the doctors “were pleased with her progress,” I could hear the hope and relief in his voice.

  I didn’t want to ask them too many questions, so I asked Grandma instead.

  “I think the term is ‘guardedly optimistic,’” Grandma said. The full smile on her face told me what I needed to know—that my mother was doing better than expected.

  The days began to gallop. And of a sudden, it was time for us to leave. On the day of our departure, Uncle Michael arrived at Grandma’s house early. Auntie Liora also came by to say goodbye. We sat around the kitchen table for the obligatory tea. Grandma had stayed up late the night before to make two cakes: Billy’s favorite—chocolate, of course—and mine, an apple cake baked in an oblong Pyrex dish, topped with a rich crust sliced diagonally and filled with apricot jam.