Fields of Exile. Nora Gold
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Bruria, is full of typos, spelling mistakes, and half-finished sentences. It’s hysterical and breathless, and if a letter could be one great long sob, this one is. Or perhaps, rather, it’s a series of broken screams, like shvarim, the broken blasts of the shofar at the end of Yom Kippur. Bruria writes she is proud of Noah — she knows that what he’s doing is morally right. But she is also terrified for him. He’s been in solitary confinement for three days, and she and Pinchas haven’t been allowed to see him. She doesn’t know if he’s been given food or water. She’s mad with worry that he’s losing weight, or that he’s very weak or sick and not being cared for, maybe even being mistreated by the prison staff. She and Pinchas spoke today with the best lawyer in Israel for these sorts of cases, but he is only willing to take on Noah as a client if they agree to a group lawsuit with two other boys in the same situation. Bruria and Pinchas aren’t sure about this, and are trying to figure out what’s best for Noah. They have only twenty-four hours to decide. “Judith, I’m so scared. Solitary confinement! Please pray for our boy. Pray for my baby.”
Judith would like to pray, but right now she can’t. All she can do is curl up on the couch, breathing deeply. This is too much pain for her to bear. It is so naked, coming at her from people she loves. This is how it is whenever she reconnects, even for an hour, with Israel: she feels everything people there feel — they are her people, and whatever they feel, good or bad, she feels too. There is no boundary between her and them. She’s defenceless against this love. So now she lies curled up on the couch, breathing deeply and steadily. Trying to calm down. And after a while, lying on the couch in the darkened living room, she falls asleep.
— 7 —
Four days later, on September 27, it’s the last of the eight days of Sukkot, Judith’s favourite holiday. She’s standing under the leafy roof of a sukkah, the makeshift hut — in this case adjoining a shul — replicating the booths the Israelites lived in during their forty-year journey in the desert. Shellacked gourds, ears of purple-and-white Indian corn, pomegranates, and carobs hang from the latticed ceiling; children’s colourful drawings of men and women from the Bible adorn the rickety wooden walls; and down the middle of the sukkah, a long, thin table is spread with a vegetarian/dairy feast for the worshippers. Services aren’t quite over yet, but she’s come out early to have some time alone in the sukkah before the hordes descend for the meal. She loves its bright, cheerful decorations and dangling fall fruits, the constant rustling of the fresh-cut branches on the roof, the smell of the pine needles on the floor, and the sharp sunlight slicing into the sukkah through the slats in the walls. But she also loves being in a sukkah because it exemplifies what she experiences as the most essential human truth. That life is fleeting and fragile. This makeshift hut, thrown together out of thin planks of wood and a few boughs for a roof, is a structure a wolf could huff and puff and blow right down. Nothing, she thinks, can truly protect you. Other than God, if you believe in Her. Which I probably don’t.
People start wandering in. They’re wearing winter coats — not like in Israel, where people in sukkahs sometimes sport sandals and shorts. Now there’s a flood of people into the sukkah in one huge wave, noisy and exuberant, with many little children running underfoot. Soon Rabbi Elaine in her orange-and-pink tallis recites the blessing over the bread. Then Judith piles her plate high with lasagna, salad, tabouli, babaganouj, marinated vegetables, and a brownie, carefully balancing an orange drink on the edge. She is just stabbing a fork into the lasagna when someone shouts her name and touches her on the arm, nearly toppling the whole plate. She rights it just in time, but not before a slice of marinated yellow pepper and a square of purple onion slide onto her shoe. It’s Flora, her father’s old friend, whom she hasn’t seen since shortly after the shiva. Her kind, horsey face.
“Sorry,” says Flora.
“No problem.” Judith surreptitiously kicks away the pepper and onion.
Flora asks how it’s going at Dunhill. Judith says, “Fine.” Flora asks if it’s hard being back at school.
Judith smiles. “Everything’s relative. It’s easier than trying to bring peace to the Middle East.”
Flora laughs.
Judith adds, “Thanks again for helping with that application form. Without you, I wouldn’t be there now.”
“My pleasure. You know how I felt about your father.”
Judith nods automatically, but then something in Flora’s tone makes her look sharply and more closely at her. No, she thinks, actually I don’t — what do you mean exactly? But Flora is looking down at her food and her face doesn’t give anything away. For a while they eat in silence. Judith is relieved to not have to talk and eat at the same time. She’s never understood the logic of socializing over food, when good manners prohibit talking with your mouth full. Furthermore, the eating now is difficult: her marinated vegetables are as slippery as wriggling snakes. Two small boys dart between her and Flora, laughing and shouting.
“How’s the atmosphere at Dunhill?” Flora asks.
“Good. Friendly.”
“No more rallies or riots, I hope? Last year the worst incident there began as an anti-Israel demonstration. Nothing weird going on there now?”
Judith takes a sip of her orange drink. Now she understands the question about the atmosphere. “No,” she says. “There’s a strong anti-oppression movement at Dunhill, and there’s an anti-oppression committee at my school. But I’ve just been asked to co-chair it, so I don’t see any cause for concern. All that must have just been last year.”
“I’m delighted to hear it,” says Flora. “I’ve thought about you numerous times, Judith, and I admit I was worried.” Judith looks at the kind, lined face. She’s touched to discover that, without her even knowing it, someone has been thinking about her, and concerned for her, all this time. “It’s only the beginning of the school year,” Flora adds. “Let’s hope things continue as well as they’ve begun.”
Judith can’t keep back a smile. Flora sounds just the way her father used to. What can you do? It’s that generation. Always anticipating something bad, always fearing the worst for the Jews. It used to drive her crazy when her father said things like this, as if he were deliberately acting gloomy and pessimistic just to put a damper on her natural hopefulness. An undertow trying to drag her down. But now she gazes tolerantly at Flora. There’s something almost quaint about her comment. Flora, like others of her circle, still lives in the past. Not in the extreme way of a teacher Judith once had, an old man who, whenever a balloon or a car tire exploded, would dive under his desk, still traumatized from the war. But something changed in that whole generation of Jews, she thinks. Even her father and Flora, who both spent the war years here in Canada. Judith feels wistful now, reminiscing about her father. And compassionate, too. She has an impulse to put her arm around Flora (Did Daddy ever put his arm around Flora? she wonders because of her strange comment), and to say, “Don’t worry, Flora, the world’s not like that anymore. Antisemitism is a thing of the past. That’s all behind us now.”
But she can’t. Because even though she first met Flora back in high school, she doesn’t actually know her well enough to put her arm around her. It might even seem condescending. Also, Judith isn’t sure it’s true that antisemitism is a thing of the past. Some people are saying it’s back, and even on the rise. But she doesn’t believe it. Sure, there’s a lot of criticism nowadays of Israel. But some of it is justified. The constant expansion of settlements, the excessive use at times of military force — these things deserve to be criticized. But antisemitism, as she pictures it, is something quite different from criticizing Israel. The mainstream Jewish community always equates the two, she thinks, but that’s because they don’t know enough, or care enough, to be critical of Israel, and they always rubber stamp whatever the Israeli government does. No, she decides, antisemitism is not a problem anymore. There’s nothing to worry about now.
But still … When in doubt, kiss — a rule she came up with when she was four and her cousin Paul, who was three and a half, cried all the time — she’d kiss him and like magic he’d stop. So now, moved by a mixture of emotions, she leans forward and lightly kisses Flora on the cheek.