Eshkol Nevo - Homesick

During that whole muddled speech, I was feeling that I couldn’t tell her the real truth. That there was something else behind all of that, something inaccessible to me. Like when you try to remember a word in English and it’s on the tip of your tongue but doesn’t come out.

Sima tasted her coffee and said: I didn’t know that he and Yotam were friends. It’s very nice of Amir to spend time with that boy. And I thought, oh no, it’s happening again, she’s falling in love with him, captivated by his good deeds, like my friends, like my parents. Like everyone.

*

It took me three months just to learn the functions of the chesspieces. I remember my father showing me over and over again the peculiar way the knight moves, two forward, one to the side. The sound of disappointment in his voice: What? You still don’t understand? Yotam, on the other hand, mastered the whole game in two weeks. He even caught on to castling very quickly. Maybe children today are used to that kind of thinking because they’re always on the computer. Maybe I was especialy slow because my teacher was too set on making me a champion. I don’t know. In any case, with Yotam, I very quickly moved from the status of omnipotent master to the status of an opponent who should be respected, but whose days of having the upper hand are clearly numbered.

There’s only one thing I can’t get him to understand no matter how hard I try: the idea that sometimes it’s worth sacrificing a pawn in order to achieve a greater, more important goal like defending the king or taking a bishop. He refuses to accept that and puts up a fierce fight to save the life of every one of his pawns.

Last Saturday, a winter sun suddenly appeared over Maoz Ziyon and we carried the folding table with the chessboard on it out to the empty lot. Yotam wanted to go outside and I was glad of the chance to get out of the field of high tension that had been buzzing between me and Noa since Thursday. They’d shot her down at school again, and I’d just come back from the club all shaken up: Dan, a shy, quiet man who spends most of his time playing draughts wasn’t there, and when I asked Nava why, she said he’d had a relapse and was back in the closed ward. When she said that in her cold, professional voice, I felt slightly dizzy and my knees shook. Dan was the sanest crazy person in the club. Conversations with him were a refreshing change from the strained talks with Shmuel, and I had the feeling that I was actually getting through to him and encouraging him. Obviously, I wasn’t. Obviously I didn’t understand anything. I went outside to inhale the fumes from the buses, and for the whole day, I couldn’t get myself to stay in the club for more than a few minutes at a time. I felt as if the walls were closing in on me. As if the drawings were laughing at me. And the cigarette smoke was winding around me like a rope. During the training session we had after the members left, I tried to talk about Dan, but Nava kept on shifting the discussion to the relations between the trio of volunteers until I gave up and said to myself that I’d talk to Noa about it instead. She’d help me put the crosshairs of my internal camera on the right spot. But when I got home and stumbled into the living room and said that Nava is driving me crazy, all Noa could say was that my shirt stank of cigarettes, as if I didn’t know, and that I should go and have a shower. I deliberately kept the shirt on and sat down on the sofa, and she said, OK, if you’re not going to have a shower, I will. I had a killer of a day and I have to wash it off me.

Yeah, I could’ve followed her, put the toilet seat down, sat and asked her in a sensitive tone what happened, but I felt as if I’d given her an opening that she hadn’t taken, so why should I take hers. I stayed sitting in the living room and looked at the blank TV screen, and a few minutes later, when she called my name, I pretended not to hear, but I was thinking what if something happened to her, what if she fell, but I still didn’t answer her. I stared at the walls and didn’t answer. I thought about how small the apartment was and didn’t answer. I thought about Dan from the club and didn’t answer. When she came out of the shower, dripping, she walked past me without saying a word.

*

Moshe is racing to Tiberias. It’s the only thing he can do. There’s rain on the window and it’s hot inside — inside the car and inside Moshe too. How could his wife have left him outside all night after their fight. How could she have thrown the blanket at him. How, how, how. He coughs. Vapour rises. He tries to consider possibilities, but everything melts in the blaze of his wrath. He’s not thinking about the kindergarten any more, he’s not thinking about the boy. All he wants is to be right. The bus descends to the Dead Sea; on the left is the tempting new casino in Jericho. He vacillates. Maybe he’ll stop there and play. Menachem’s in the yeshiva now anyway. No, he rebukes himself, and turns to the Jordan Valley Road, this can’t wait. I need help, without doubt. Menachem got him into this mess, so he’ll have to get him out. He reaches Tiberias, earlier than expected. The city is sooty and neglected. Balconies are on the verge of collapse. But the large yeshiva building is freshly painted. Even though he has no skullcap, he goes inside. Young students walk past him, looking at him in surprise. He stops one and asks if he can tell him where to find Menachem Zakian. If you mean Rabbi Zakian, the student says in a tone filled with awe, of course I can. Yes, Rabbi Zakian, Moshe confirms, and the student directs him to the end of the corridor. That is the Rabbi’s office, the last one. Moshe walks past the pictures of the tsaddikim quickly, to overcome his chagrin, hoping the door is open and his brother is in. But the door is closed and he has to tap hesitantly with his finger. There’s no answer until he knocks again, and then he hears his brother’s voice from inside: Come in! Come in!! He goes in, words of apology all ready. But when Menachem sees his face, he gets up and takes his hand. It’s an honour, he says, and pulls his brother to his chest in a warm embrace. He explains to his students: this is my brother, Moshe, who has come all the way from Jerusalem, the holy city. To what do we owe this honour, my brother? Moshe blushes. How can he reveal his shame in front of all these students. He doesn’t want their pity. No … that is, if we can talk, he begins to apologise. Menachem smiles into his eyes. Please, my brother, sit with us. We’ll be finished in a minute. In the meantime, you can listen to pearls of wisdom from these young scholars. Moshe obeys and sits down on a chair that’s a bit small for him. The students go back to praying, looking at the Rabbi with reverence in their eyes. On the agenda: Genesis, chapter 44, verse 18. Joseph pretends not to know his brothers, who are standing before him in Pharaoh’s palace, until he can no longer control the cries of longing rising in his throat. ‘Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried: Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And he wept aloud; and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard.’ Menachem reminds his students not to forget that these are the same brothers who threw him into the pit. Just because they were jealous of him. They threw him into the pit and walked away. But Joseph does not hold a grudge against them, God forbid, he forgives them. And why does he forgive them? What gives him the strength to forgive? ‘Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves,’ Joseph said to Reuven, ‘that ye sold me hither; for God did send me before you to preserve life.’ And what do we learn from this?