The Berlin Girl's Diary by Tzvia Golan

Author:Tzvia Golan [Golan, Tzvia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-04-29T04:00:00+00:00

* * * *

Avner considered the last sentence. He couldn’t ignore the feeling that again a mirror was being held up to him and that he had to consider himself more thoroughly, or like Nisim always said: to look into the whites of the eyes. He himself had often tried to connect with people, to be part of the group, but he was never very good at it. He had never been the life of the party and was always quiet, shy.

Now, reading Eva’s clearly articulated words brought back memories of his childhood home, and for possibly the first time he admitted to himself that maybe for whatever reason his social skills had not developed was not because he was an unsociable child but because he hadn’t wanted to have friends over to the house. And it wasn’t that he hadn’t had friends. He didn’t even have to try hard to remember, he still knew the names of the children from school.

He remembered Eitan best, a freckled, skinny boy whose dad worked in the Foreign Ministry and every time he came back from abroad he would bring Eitan back toys that Israelis had never seen before. Eitan’s mother was a teacher at their school. She was tall, with thick arms that always looked to him like they could protect you from anything. Eitan’s mother spoke fluent Hebrew at school, which was replaced by slang the moment she left work. Eitan was proud of her. She was an unusual mother, who rode a motorcycle, and had the helmet and the attitude for it. She loved animals and got Eitan a formidable Rottweiler.

Avner would look at Eitan’s mother, ashamed to admit that he was insanely jealous of Eitan, and that he wished his own mother was like Eitan’s, including the motorcycle and the attitude. But Avner’s mother did not ride a motorcycle. She didn’t even drive a car. The word “dog” was forbidden in the house, and God forbid anyone mention a “Rottweiler.” His mother would sit at home on her armchair, usually staring at an ambiguous spot on the wall. Sometimes he wanted to ask her why her fingers looked broken, but she would look at him as if she didn’t even see him, and he lost his nerve time and again.

Luckily she didn’t act that way all the time. When she took her medications properly, there were better days. She cooked, cleaned, ironed, baked, and even hugged her son. On days like that she talked matter-of-factly, almost like other mothers. But on other days she would say disturbing things.

Another memory arose mercilessly. He was talking with Eitan, inviting him to come over after school. He knew that he was taking a risk because he couldn’t know ahead of time how his mother would be, but he so wanted Eitan to see that he also had a room full of toys so he ignored his fear. For many years afterward he never invited another friend over. Eitan came and, regrettably, his mother was not having a good day.

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