Family Secrets (Historical, Political, Love Novel) by Silverman Dorit

Author:Silverman, Dorit [Silverman, Dorit]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-03-10T04:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

THE FAMILY SECRET

*

The day Rachel, my mother, died, I left Sharayim. I was fourteen and a half. I haven’t been there for three years, but the yard hasn’t changed.

Only the top of the fig tree has grown wider. A few neighbors have left, replaced by new ones. I’m there for a quick visit because they told me my father was very sick, but my eyes are immediately drawn to Bella’s house. The door is closed. I stand there looking around, scanning everything, the children, the women. Where is little Bella?

Suddenly a rolling ball of fire attacks me, smothers me with hugs and hangs on my neck. “You have a mustache!” she screams in my ear.

I think I must be blushing.

“Little Bella.”

“Enough, I’m ten already, stop calling me that,” she says and stands in front of me. Her braid is as thick as a rope that’s three fingers thick. A rope-colored braid. Some loose strands of hair the color of wheat are lying here and there on her forehead. Her eyes are gray and large, like the sea on a winter day. I’ve taken the childish idea of marrying her so far that my girlfriend on the kibbutz is called, of all the names in the world, Bella.

“Come say hello to Mom,” Bella says, pulling me toward Talia and Amos’s room.

“You changed rooms?” I figure it out.

“Yes. Here’s the neighbor who took ours. Avram, Masouda. Masouda, Avram.”

“Nice to meet you,” Masouda says and walks toward me. A young woman who came from Yemen with her husband and two children, who are standing right behind her. Her baby is hidden on her back. I see a beautiful woman with two black braids, the ends untied, resting on her black dress.

When Masouda and her husband reach Bella and are standing in front of me, I understand the switch: Masouda and her husband are Bella’s height, the height of a ten-year-old, and can stand up straight in the room.

*

Finally, I press down on the handle of the door behind the stonecutter’s workshop.

“Papa…” I call, and my voice gives my feelings away.

Papa is lying in a bed like a gate sentry. He thrusts his arm at me like a stop sign and orders me, “Don’t start crying now!”

I swallow, pull my emotions back down into my throat, blink my eyes to dry them. Like a silent movie running in reverse, I pull myself together, as he ordered.

“Yes, I’m going to die, but I’m still alive!” My father Nachman roars, then adds quietly, “Speak no evil of the dead.” We don’t hug, don’t kiss, careful not to let any tears escape.

“Papa,” I say quietly and don’t know what else to say. What can you say to a dying man? Ordinary words are out of place and I never learned any holy words. And after being away for three years, even the few I learned in synagogue wouldn’t come out of my mouth right.

I’m embarrassed.

I was never a word person.

But I don’t have to worry for long.

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