Faye Kellerman - Street Dreams

I felt myself smiling and quashed it by drinking my coffee. It was very acrid. “So how long have you lived here… in the U.S.?”

“Eight years. First I moved from Ethiopia to Israel in 1983 before Operation Moses. I was eleven. Things were very bad for my people after Haile Selassie was deposed. Ethiopia became Marxist country and not friendly to Beta Yisrael. They outlaw our practices. Sometimes they torture our elders. Then came the drought. My mother died shortly after childbirth with my sister. Then we begin our trek through the Sudan. By then, we were all sick with starvation. I lost another younger sister, but four of us siblings survived-my two older brothers, Yaphet and Yoseph, my younger sister, Naomi, and me. In Ethiopia, my father was very respected qes -a priest. He knew Orit, of course, which is our Torah, but that is in Geez or Amharic. But my father also knew Hebrew Chumash, and this is very, very unusual. He only knew because his grandfather was Yemenite Jew who came to Ethiopia in 1900 and brought with him Hebrew books including Chumash. So I have a little Mizrachi in my blood. My father tells me it is from my great-grandfather where I get my light eyes.”

“I noticed.” Under the fluorescent bulbs, they were sauterne. “They’re lovely.”

“Thanks.” His smile was shy. “I trade you my eyes for your gorgeous red hair.”

I smiled back. “Thank you. Just be careful what you ask for.”

“Indeed.” He took another sip from his cup. “Bitter tonight. Must be dregs. Anyway, my great-grandfather’s last name was Yekutieli. It became Kutiel.”

“So you have family in Yemen?”

“No. They all move to Israel in 1950s in Magic Carpet when Israel takes Yemenite Jews. My brothers and I actually know some Hebrew when we go to the Holy Land. Most Beta Yisrael have to learn. As sons of a qes, we were started on Orit at two, because in our culture it is the qes who reads Orit. I pick up languages very quick. By bar mitzvah-which was new custom to us, by the way-I had most of Orit and Chumash memorized, although I forget much of what I learned. My brothers too.”

“That’s amazing,” I said. “What about your sister?”

“The girls learn nothing. They obey their husbands, keep house, and have babies. Maybe make a little pottery to sell in the marketplace. But, of course, they give the money to their husbands.”

“Now you’re baiting me,” I told him.

His smile was playful. “It all changed when we settle in Israel. My little sister embraced liberation very well. Still, she must thank my father. Now there are about seventy thousand of us in Israel.”

My eyes widened. “Seventy thousand? I had no idea.”

“Have you ever been?”

“No.” I felt my face go warm. As if by failing to visit the Holy Land, I betrayed my ancestral heritage. “One day, I’ll go. My father went about ten years ago. My stepmother lived there for a while with her first husband.”

“Your stepbrother’s father.”

“How’d you… Oh, yeah. The one who’s also named Yaakov. We call him Jake or Yonkie.”

“And he is your only sibling?”

“No, I have a half sister named Hannah and another stepbrother, Sam. The boys are much younger than I am. They go to college back east. Hannah is ten-the baby.”

He nodded. “My entire family lives in Israel now. My brothers are officers in Zahal -the Israeli army. My sister is also a nurse and lives in Tel Aviv with her family. My father remarried an Ashkenazi woman whose husband had been killed in Lebanon. Batya had four children with her first husband. So for a while we were ten in a very small apartment. Then she became pregnant by my father and they had twin girls. But by that time my brothers and my three stepbrothers had moved out, so there was more room. A year later, I move out at seventeen to do Meluim for three years.”

“ ‘Meluim’?”

“Army service. After that, I decided to be a nurse. From the army, I already knew the skill. I just needed the book learning. I did an accelerated course and was out in two and a half years with a B.S. in nursing, and a job.”

“So you kind of paved the way for your sister.”

He thought a moment. “Yes, I think so, although in Israel many Ethiopians learn nursing. She is the nurse with a nice, clean office job. My father was very mad at me for becoming a nurse. As a Kohen, I am not supposed to be near dead bodies. My stepmother said if I don’t respect the Kahuna -the priesthood-at least be a doctor.”

“That sounds like a Jewish mother.”

“Yes, Batya is a very Jewish mother. In the end, I follow my heart and my parents make peace with me. I am the youngest son in the family… very spoiled. They don’t stay mad. It is good that I am aware of death. If a baby codes on my shift, I do everything to revive that infant. Of course, the best way not to get a code is to be very watchful. I am very, very watchful.”

“Dedication is good,” I said, throwing back his own words. He smiled at the recognition. “You have a master’s in public health.”

He regarded his badge. “That was four years ago. First the hospital sent me to get a master’s in nursing for one year. They get more federal money if their staff has degrees. I come back and do exactly the same things, except now I have more letters after my name. And I got a bump in salary, so that part was good. Then I think I want even more money, so I do the M.P.H. at state university for another year during the day and work at night. The M.P.H. is for hospital policy, so I get an administration job. And the work does pay better, but it is so boring.”

I smiled.

“Oh my goodness, Cindy, it is one meeting after another. I go out of my mind. I last six months; then I say forget it and go back to nursing.”

I inwardly smiled, flashing to my own parents. My mother had expected more from my father than just a cop’s salary. Dutiful man that he was, he went to law school, passed the bar, then set up shop with my maternal grandfather, doing wills and estate trusts. He also lasted about six months. “You had no trouble getting your old job back?”

“Yes, I have problem because now Marnie has been promoted to my old position. I let her be in charge as long as they don’t cut my money. They say okay because with nurses, there is always a shortage, especially if you have degrees and specialties. I am a critical-care nurse. I specialize in pediatrics because I like to help the children. In Ethiopia, they do nothing for the children and the babies. We were the last to be given food. We were the first to die.”

“That’s horrible,” I exclaimed.

“It is cruel, but it has to be that way.” His eyes darkened as they intensified. “If the parents starve, who will take care of the children? Who will work? If the mother goes hungry, how can she nurse? You need working adults to keep the family going.”

“I don’t know, Koby. It goes against everything I was taught. But I’ve never lived in a subsistence economy.”

“Baruch Hashem,” Koby stated.

I couldn’t help myself. I laughed. Baruch Hashem was an expression that Rina used all the time. It meant “thank God” in Hebrew. To hear those words uttered by a black man was simply incongruous.

Koby smiled. “You know what that means?”

“Yes. I’m not a total Jewish ignoramus.” I sipped coffee, then made a face. I had forgotten it was so bad. “Do you like working here?”

“At Mid-City Peds, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, it is a very, very good hospital. And the doctors care so much. Why else would they work in an inner-city hospital? As for me, I love the little babies because they represent life. I love life. It is easy to love life after seeing so much death.”