by Barry Rachin
“I’m not going,” Sonny said tersely and his mother hurried out the door.
*****
“Sonny!” One evening in late October, Mrs. Gossage came rushing up the stairs like a bull elephant on the rampage. Her voice was shrill, borderline hysterical.
“What’s wrong?” Sonny was at his desk finishing a chemistry assignment.
“Mrs. Shamir is downstairs and needs to speak to you.”
Sonny closed the book. He hadn’t seen the woman in over two months. “What does she want?”
“It’s a long story.” Mrs. Gossage, still gasping for breath, waved her hand fitfully implying that he should speak directly with the neighbor.
Dressed in a strapless black evening gown and high heels, Naomi Shamir was standing in the foyer with Ruthy clutching her mother’s hand. “Asone gadoal... a huge calamity,” Mrs. Shamir announced with a pained expression. “I have a dinner party this evening, and my babysitter called out sick at the last moment. Is there any chance you could mind Ruthy for a few hours?”
Sonny stared at the woman. Something was subtly different. The woman never wore a stitch of makeup, but tonight she sported a glossy, wine-colored lipstick and eye shadow. Nothing more. That was all she needed. The steep V-cut in front of her dress left nothing to the imagination. “I didn’t finish my homework,” Sonny stammered. “Can I bring my books?”
“Of course. My date is due in due in fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll be over in five,” he replied.
She angled her dark eyes toward the ceiling and murmured. “Barooch haShaim!”
“What’s that mean?”
“Thank God!”
“I thought you weren’t religious.”
“It’s just an expression.” Naomi clarified.
Mrs. Shamir’s date arrived promptly three minutes after Sonny. Mr. Solomon was a solidly built, rather handsome Israeli man with angular, chiseled features and a wide jaw. From the minute he entered the house he spoke in rapid-fire Hebrew, ignoring Sonny altogether.
“If you’re hungry,” Naomi said, “there are bagels and cream cheese, some leftover pizza and a plate of hummus.”
“What’s that?”
She brought him into the kitchen. Cracking the refrigerator open she pointed to a dish containing a coffee colored sauce. “Hummus – ground chickpeas, jalapeno pepper, lemon, parsley, garlic, a dash of olive oil and tahini, which is a paste prepared from sesame seeds. You can eat it with bread or crackers.” In the living room, Mr. Solomon, was pacing about rather impatiently.
When they were gone, Sonny looked at Ruthy. “You got half an hour until bedtime. What do you want to do?”
The girl, who was already dressed for bed in flannel, feety pajamas, scampered into the living room. “SpongeBob SquarePants!” She jumped up on the couch and, grabbing the TV clicker, channel surfed until she found her favorite cartoon. When the program finished, Sonny let the girl thumb through some picture books while he polished off his chemistry homework. Finally she threw the books aside. “I’m tired.” He took her to bed and ten minutes later the child was sound asleep.
Sonny wandered into the kitchen. Removing the hummus from the refrigerator, he fished a spoon from the drawer and a box of Ritz crackers. The Middle Eastern delicacy definitely had a distinctive taste. Like savoring a fine wine, he let the creamy dip linger on his tongue relishing the exotic seasonings. A half hour later the food was gone, the entire plate wiped clean. Having finished with the hummus, Sonny wandered through the house. Every room was neat and tidy. In the master bedroom a large hard cover text lay on the bedside table: Diseases of the Eye: etiology and treatment options by Dr. Rudolph Heffernan. Sonny slid his thumb under the bottom cover and lifted the text. The book ran to over a thousand pages.
The queen-size bed was covered with a patchwork quilt comforter, a pair of pillows propped at the headboard. What would it be like to crawl into bed next to Naomi Shamir and, when she was finished reading a chapter or two of Dr. Heffernan’s seminal work, to snuggle, pet, comfort, cuddle, make love and to do all that was required?
Sonny went back to the living room and began an English assignment due later in the week. Around eleven Mr. Solomon brought Naomi home. She didn’t invite him in. Rather she kissed him on the cheek rather brusquely, said something in her native language and the man drove off.
“Let me change out of this silly Halloween costume.” Kicking her high heels off, she hurried into the bedroom and emerged a minute later in jeans and a cotton pullover. Naomi went and checked on her daughter.
“Everything okay?”
“I ate all your hummus,” Sonny confided. “It was very good.”
“No great loss. It only takes a short while to mix up a fresh batch. “Did Ruthy give you any trouble?”
“No, she was good.” Sonny stole a glance at her chest but, since abandoning the svelte evening dress, there was nothing to see now. Still, he couldn’t get his brain disentangled from Naomi Shamir’s stunning cleavage. By all estimates, it had been a vertical drop of two to three inches from the beginning of the voluptuous furrow to the steep ravine that disappeared beneath the delicate lace material that defined the top of her evening dress. “How was your date?”
Naomi pursed her lips and cocked her head to one side but did not answer immediately. “Rather disappointing.”
She went a second time to check on her daughter who was scrunched up like a tight fist under the covers sleeping peacefully. “Americans tend to be rather …” She stared at him helplessly. “I know the words in my own language but not in English.”
“In Hebrew, what would you say?”
“Metoosbach... metooskal,” She threw the odd-sounding words out with confident authority. “A person, who worries about the silliest things and can’t simply get on with his life, is ‘metoosbach’.” She nodded her pretty head up and down as though confirming the truthfulness of what she was telling him. The other word is quite similar.”
“Compulsive. Neurotic.”
“Yes, that’s it! You said it perfectly!” Naomi’s eyes brightened and her strong white teeth flashed with satisfaction. “It’s not good to be a tortured soul, but a certain amount of hardship builds character. Mr. Solomon unfortunately is like…” Again she was floundering at a loss for words, stymied by the unmanageable language.
“He’s like a bowl of hummus,” Sonny offered, “with just the mashed up chickpeas – no garlic, parsley, olive oil or tahini. No seasoning at all.” Naomi smirked—a conspiratorial gesture—and Sonny grinned back at her.
Mr. Solomon was an arrogant dolt. The one-dimensional, cartoon character, SpongeBob SquarePants, had more personality, if somewhat less innate intelligence, than the Israeli Adonis. “Are you going to see him again?”
“He already asked me out, but I don’t think I’ll accept.”
*****
A week later when Sonny returned from school in the late afternoon Laverne, was standing next to her mother grinning foolishly. “Your girl friend stopped by,” his sister announced in a taunting, singsong voice. “Brought you a little present.”
Sonny turned to his mother. “Mrs. Shamir was here about ten minutes ago.” She went to the refrigerator and removed a plastic Tupperware bowl with a green lid. “She dropped this off by way of thanks for helping her out the other night when the babysitter stood her up.”
Sonny cracked the lid and sniffed. “What is it?” Laverne pressed.
“Hummus… it’s what they eat in the Middle East.” He returned the container to the refrigerator and, with a newfound sense of pride, lumbered upstairs to start his homework.
Later that night Sonny spooned a generous helping of the brownish dip onto a dish and left it on the counter to warm to room temperature. A half hour later he tore some pita bread into small pieces and settled in with his exotic treat. Laverne sidled into the kitchen and sat down at the table. “How is it?”
Sonny dabbed the bread in
the plate, sopping up the hummus. “Goddamn good!” He plunked the soggy bread in his mouth and reached for another piece.
“No need for foul language.” Mrs. Gossage was standing in the doorway.
“So what’s it taste like?” his sister sniffed the air to no avail.
“Impossible to describe.” He tossed a crust of bread across the surface of the table and watched with a smug grin as Laverne shoveled the bread the length of the plate before plopping it in her mouth. “So what’s the verdict?”
Laverne’s eyes became glassy and the girl’s features melted into an ecstatic grin. “Double-damn good!”
Mrs. Gossage cringed. Lurching forward, she grabbed a piece of bread. When the plate had been wiped clean, she added, “It would appear that our Israeli neighbor is a woman of many talents.”
*****
From late October leading up to Thanksgiving, Sonny babysat for Mrs. Shamir on three separate occasions. For a variety of reasons, none of the would-be suitors measured up and, falling back on the ‘hummus metaphor’ that worked so well with the rather crude, stiff-jawed Mr. Solomon, Sonny discretely offered his unsolicited two cents on the matter.
“I am making a visit to my country the beginning of December,” Mrs. Shamir said, “and I was wondering if you could look after my property while I’m gone... water the plants and just keep an eye on things until we return.”
The announcement caught him off guard. “How long will you be gone?”
“A month, that’s all.”
A month, that’s all. Sonny felt panicky. “Yeah, I can come by every week. If there’s anything seriously wrong like a broken pipe, my father will know what to do.”
Suddenly and without forewarning, the woman swept Sonny up in her arms and planted a sticky kiss on both cheeks. “You are the sweetest boy imaginable! Just like mishpachah, family.” She abruptly thrust him away at arm’s length, fished about in her pocket and handed him a brass key. “How can I thank you enough?”
Sonny rubbed the wetness on his cheek. “I think you just did,” he mumbled. He wanted to say more but Mrs. Shamir had already gone off to check a pot roast in the oven. How many times had he seen her sweep little Ruthy up in her resilient arms and spontaneously shower the girl with affection?
The kiss pierced his soul like a benediction – a wondrous, ineffable blessing.
*****
The Saturday before Christmas the snow came down in a wet slurry. Mrs. Gossage, who had been out shopping for groceries, trudged upstairs. Sonny was lying on the bed reading National Geographic. He wasn’t looking at the bare-breasted woman of West Africa. That didn’t interest him quite so much anymore. Rather, he had located an article: Potable water and the Gaza Strip: a humanitarian crisis. “I got you something special in the deli department.” She winked impishly and left the room. Sonny threw the magazine aside and went downstairs.
On the counter next to the electric can opener was a small container of Athenos original style hummus. “They also sell roasted eggplant and another selection with artichokes and garlic,” Mrs. Gossage explained, “but both sounded a bit extravagant.”
Sonny cracked the lid open. The gritty texture didn’t look terribly appetizing. He found a spoon in the drawer and sampled the mix, which tasted like sawdust. “Well, what do you think?” Mrs. Gossage was leaning forward expectantly.
“Actually, it’s quite good,” Sonny lied. Replacing the lid he went back upstairs. Closing the door, he flopped down on the bed, curled up in a fetal position and began to cry.
What if. What if. What if. What if…
What if Naomi Shamir never returned? She got the obnoxious real estate broker, who flimflammed him out of five bucks, to put her property on an internet multiple listing website? Now that certainly wouldn’t represent an Eclipse of God, a human tragedy, but it didn’t make him feel any better. A half hour later, he washed his face in the bathroom, patting his eyes dry.
The day the Israeli woman took the early morning connecting flight to New York, Sonny moped about the house. Her religious nuttiness taken aside, the boy’s mother had the common decency to leave him alone and not make things worse. The hummus was an act of maternal devotion. Not that the gesture helped one single iota. All Sonny could do now was traipse over to the house with the emerald green shutters, water the plants, check to make sure everything was in order and wait. Again, he reached for the National Geographic. The problem of clean water for the Palestinian residents of Gaza – he would learn a thing or two about why one group had glistening, perfectly clean water to cook, bath and even wash their pets with while their neighbors subsisted in abject filth.
*****
The day after New Years, Sonny visited Vision World. “Can I help you?” A middle-aged lady in a lab coat behind the counter was inserting a tiny screw into an earpiece with a spindly screwdriver.
“Is Doctor Shamir in today?” Sonny tried to act blasé, as thought he hadn’t a solitary clue that the woman was on the other side of the planet.
“No, she’s away for a while. Can anyone else assist you?”
“No I don’t think so. Do you know when she’s expected back?”
“Another week and a half,” the woman replied. “She’s visiting relatives.”
Sonny shifted back and forth on the balls of his feet. “She didn’t quit or anything?”
The lady lowered the tiny silver screwdriver and peered at him over the tops of her bifocals. “Is this an emergency?”
“No, I’m just looking after her property while she’s away and wanted to make sure everything was all right.”
With no great sense of urgency, the woman removed her glasses. She sprayed the lenses with a mist from a small bottle and rubbed the lenses in a circular motion with a polishing cloth. “Do you have any reason to believe otherwise?”
Sonny felt the façade disintegrating, coming apart at the seams. “No, I just …”
Having finished polishing her glasses, the woman held them at arm’s length scrutinizing the sparkling glass. “Why don’t you wait here a moment and I’ll check with another staff person. She went off down the hallway. As soon as the technician was gone from sight, Sonny bolted for the door.
Back at the house, Sonny did damage control. What had he accomplished as a consequence of his moronic visit to Vision World? He learned nothing more than what he already knew before his abortive trip. To get his mind off the fiasco, he went over to the Israeli woman’s house and watered the plants then pushed the heat up on the thermostat. The boiler immediately fired up. He lowered the temperature and the aquastat shut down. He checked the basement. Everything looked dry. The electric iron was unplugged. Right is tight; left is loose - both water intake valves on the washing machine were closed.
Back upstairs he went and looked in the woman’s closet. The faint smell of perfume clung to the evening wear. He sighed and slid the closet door shut again. Next to the night table, something was sticking out from under the dust ruffle. Sonny bent down and fished Dr. Heffernan’s weighty clinical text out from under the bed. A ragged slip of paper was wedged between the pages. Sonny sat down on the bed and cracked the book open.
Histoplasmosis is a disease caused when airborne spores of the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum are inhaled into the lungs, the primary infection site. This microscopic fungus, which is found throughout the world in river valleys and soil where bird or bat droppings accumulate, is released into the air when soil is disturbed by plowing fields, sweeping chicken coops, or digging holes.
What was he doing? His only legitimate purpose in being there was to water the stupid plants and check for problems. Sonny had a premonition that such voyeuristic behavior could only end badly. He slammed the book shut and sat listening to the silence. A minute passed. An oil delivery truck turned the corner and sped off down the street. Naomi had topped the tank off before leaving; the floating gauge over the metal, heating oil reservoir in the basement still registered three-quarters full. Sonny ran the palm of
his hand over the binding, reopening the book to the flagged page.
Histoplasmosis is often so mild that it produces no apparent symptoms and any symptoms that might occur are often similar to those from a common cold. In fact, if you had histoplasmosis symptoms, you might dismiss them as those from a cold or flu, since the body's immune system normally overcomes the infection in a few days without treatment. However, even mild cases, can later cause a serious eye disease called ocular histoplasmosis syndrome (OHS), a leading cause of vision loss in Americans ages 20 to 40.
Scientists believe that Histoplasma capsulatum (histo) spores spread from the lungs to the eye, lodging in the choroid, a layer of blood vessels that provides blood and nutrients to the retina, the light-sensitive layer of tissue that lines the back of the eye. Scientists have not yet been able to detect any trace of the histo fungus in the eyes of patients with ocular histoplasmosis syndrome. Nevertheless, there is good reason to suspect the histo organism as the cause of OHS, and in cases where …
Sonny slammed the book shut a second time, placed it back under the bed and went home. In less than two weeks, Naomi Shamir, the unrequited love of his life, would be returning home. Hopefully, if between now and then, he contracted ocular histoplasmosis syndrome, his failing vision would hold out for a few weeks longer.
Back home Laverne was waving a postcard teasingly up over her head. “Mail man just delivered a love letter from your Hebrew sweetie pie.”
Sonny relieved her of the card which featured a picture of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Arab East Jerusalem. The dome of the six-sided, ornate shrine was covered in gold, the upper portion decorated with blue and pale green mosaic tiles. Ivory marble columns lined the front entrance. On the back, Naomi had scribbled: See you soon. So much to tell! Love Naomi and Ruth.
*****
Late Thursday the third week in January, Mrs. Shamir’s snow-covered BMW drove down the street. Sonny’s father was in the driveway clearing snow from the most recent winter storm. He went back inside. “That Jewish lady’s home now,” he said. “They’re probably all tired out though from such a long trip, so you might want to go over and help shovel them out.