"There is no such place": the first chapter from Shafra Kornfeld's new book Israel today

When Perry was twelve years old, his mother left home and did not return for two whole months.

In the first weeks he kept thinking that here she is, in a moment she will be back.

She just needs some time to relax, as always.

She will take two days off and it will pass.

But then two weeks passed and she didn't come back.

Then a month and she didn't miss her enough to even pick up the phone and ask how they were.

He found the number of the retreat she went to and called every day.

The phone rang and rang, but no one ever answered.

Yona his sister wrote her letters, told her how much she helps father with Yehuda and Yoel and with Tamara and Dina, who was just a baby at the time, but her letters were also all returned.

One Friday his father came back from the Western Wall, from morning prayer, dressed the little ones, put Dina in the cart, told him and Leona to hurry and they all went together by bus to the Arabah, got off at the station in the middle of nowhere and walked along a long and dusty path, until they reached a small village of cabins that were very far away one from the other.

They entered the one with the sign "Kabbalah", and rang the bell.

At least ten minutes passed before a woman arrived wrapped in a woolen shawl, her gray braid wrapped around her head like a crown.

She had kind eyes and a soft smile.

Perry hated her immediately.

She said, almost in a whisper, that it is very unacceptable to appear like that in the middle of a retreat, and that Shaida finishes three weeks of silence only the day after tomorrow and she cannot be disturbed.

No, she will not be able to tell them which cabin a community member is in nor give any more information.

"It's a shame you didn't call before coming all this way," she added.

Shefra Kornfeld's book, photo: none

"We called every day!"

Perry wanted to shout, "And her name isn't Ida! And she's not your parishioner, she's our mother!"

He wanted to go out and run through all the thatched huts in the eco-village and shout, "Mommy! Mommy!"

But his father put a hand on his shoulder and said that if they didn't get on the bus back now they wouldn't have time to sit down.

They drove home without mom and all the little ones cried.

Baby Dina cried, two-year-old Tamara cried, and Yoel, who is only a year and a half older than her, cried too.

Yehuda tried terribly to hold back but broke down when he saw that Perry couldn't hold back the tears either.

Yona hugged the little ones, told them, "Enough, shhh" and gave him a look of what are you broken, you are one of the big ones, you are needed hard now.

"Don't worry," she said in the tone of the one who always knows everything, "Mom knows we came and now she will come back," she leaned her head on the window, closed her eyes and fell asleep all the way to the central station in Jerusalem.

His mom came back on Sunday, just like Yona said.

She was calm and even happy, and for a moment the Harmans were a normal family again.

The kind that doesn't need the neighbors to take turns who sends lasagna for dinner, who brings an extra box with apple slices and raisins for the little ones, who once again came alone with the older brothers to the garden.

Kornfeld, photo: Coco

A year has passed, two years have passed and it seems that everyone has forgotten about those two difficult months without her.

So, when she told Perry one morning that Aunt Bonnie, her sister who lives in Canada, was inviting him and Yuna to visit her, he didn't ask any questions.

Just happy and excited because he has never been abroad.

He sat by the window all the way to Toronto.

Excited by the sight of the earth moving away from him.

All the millions of people with all the complicated emotions they carry with them like coils of thread that cannot be untied.

All the confusion and anger and disappointments that fill all the rooms in all the houses - are reduced to tiny dots until they disappear.

Only the order of the streets remains.

Lines and squares - things Perry understood.

Roads curved like rivers, spilling into beautiful round interchanges.

Green and brown and yellow fields were arranged in geometric patches like patchwork quilts.

Only when they passed through a cloud did he suddenly panic.

He pulled the blanket over him and closed his eyes.

In the seat next to him Yona fell asleep a long time ago.

He took the headphones off her head.

The walkman was his, the aunt sent him to a bar mitzvah, but his mother immediately said - as she said about everything they ever received - "This is for the two of you. Divide."

The inscription water resistant on the lid required testing, he filled a tub with water and a second before he dropped the Walkman in, a pigeon came and snatched it from his hands, slapping him hard on the cheek.

"Why do you always have to be so verbal?"

she said in despair.

He didn't slap her back despite - and maybe because - he was already much bigger than her.

He couldn't remember when and if there were any beatings after the Walkman incident (when he was alone at home he filled a bathtub, put on the headphones and went into the hot water with the yellow device. The Walkman continued to play, not noticing the difference between land and sea, between dry and wet. He didn't tell his sister. She lost the right to know what she didn't have the courage to try.)

Reading recommendation, photography: none

From the moment he learned to hold a pencil, Perry always drew the same house, with a triangular tiled roof perched on top like a crown.

A chimney, a curl of smoke, and a large tree that overshadowed the house with wide branches and a generous cloud of leaves.

He didn't know anyone who lived in a house like that.

All his friends lived in ordinary Jerusalem buildings, cast in concrete and faced with stone, with five-meter balconies closed with white plastic blinds, stuffy stairwells and brown metal doors.

But here, the driver who was waiting for them at the airport with a sign, "The Herman Twins", stopped in the middle of a sleepy residential neighborhood in the heart of Toronto and outside the window safely stood the house he had been drawing all his childhood.

Perry and Jonah did not move.

When the driver saw that they did not get up, he got out and opened the door of the black car for them, gesturing with a theatrical hand gesture towards the path.

Stunned, they walked to the wide wooden door and knocked on the large brass knocker that was shaped like a fist.

The woman who opened the door was much smaller than she remembered from her visit to Jerusalem years ago.

She was standing barefoot in the doorway and his gaze was drawn to her toes which were smeared with shiny burgundy nail polish and continued to scan her up the black pants into which a black turtleneck t-shirt was tucked.

Her hair was perfectly bobbed and dyed black as well, only her glasses were golden and round, the thick lenses making her eyes look comically large.

She wasn't as beautiful as his mother, but she had that thing he already knew was presence.

The magic that makes a woman with a height of fifty meters and a bit fill the entire space of the huge house.

She hugged him, short and to the point, not knowing that women are not allowed to hug boys who have passed the bar mitzvah age even if they are their mother's sisters.

He liked her immediately.

"We are a house without shoes," she said in the plural even though she lived all alone.

"Shuz-off," she repeated slowly and sweetly, as if it suddenly occurred to her that her sister's neglected children did not understand English.

"Okay, Auntie Bonnie, I'll remove my shoes," his sister replied with exaggerated diction, trying to show superiority.

"Nooo Anti. Just Bonnie," corrected his aunt, blinking twice.

Perry is thrilled with the house.

Five bedrooms, basement and attic.

And all this for Bonnie alone.

At home he shared a room with Yehuda and Yoel, three sons in one room.

A bunk bed that spewed out another one on wheels every night.

Clothes and belongings covered every inch of wall, ceiling or floor.

Yona shared a similar room with the little ones, a bunk bed, a pull-out drawer and chaos.

His biggest dream was to take over the tiny warehouse under the stairs.

Every time he went into it to find a screw or to get a bucket or a broom, he stayed in it for a few minutes and imagined how he would clear the unnecessary pile of things that was crammed into a room where it was impossible to stand upright.

How will he put a mattress on the floor, a reading lamp and one small shelf instead of a table, where he can sit and draw his pictures - and that's it - he won't need anything more.

Only a lock for the door, so that no one will enter.

On the counter in the white kitchen were arranged a coffee machine and a juicer and three different types of toasters: square pops, crushed triangles and one especially for bagels because they are round and need a wide opening, Bonnie explained and her enlarged eyes blinked twice again.

He spread cream cheese on a bagel, added a thin slice of smoked salmon, poured orange juice straight from the juicer into a glass cup and coffee from the machine into a ceramic mug, and sat down at the table.

The phone rang - his father.

"Have you put on a tefillin yet?"

Ask hello instead.

Instead, how are you?

Instead of how the flight went.

"Yes, father, I put on a tefillin," he said.

And he didn't say he was afraid.

who felt alone.

Shiona slept the whole way as if she was flying over oceans the whole time, and only he didn't close an eye from takeoff to landing.

"Did you land on the plane or when you landed? You know this is a very big halachic question where do you land when you take off at night and land during the day. After all, you have passed through so many sunrises! And what about the road prayer? Did you say it on the plane I hope?"

"On the plane, yes."

"But you don't need a taxi from the field anymore, you know that, right? Don't say a blessing for nothing, and don't forget to pray three prayers a day and put on tefillin. And disposable plates! Your aunt promised to buy them. And don't eat anything hot there - only sandwiches of cheese and vegetables and cornflakes and milk in paper bowls!"

And Perry said, "Okay dad, Promise Islands," and his dad said, "Set up the board and make the first move. You'll be white this time. I'll call you again tomorrow, tell me what you moved and where," and Perry said again, "Okay, dad, we'll talk tomorrow ."

and hung up, and did not even think for a moment to pass the receiver to his sister.

He went to the toaster, pulled out another slice of bagel, spread butter and strawberry jam on it.

He took a bite from the half with the salmon and immediately from the other half as well, "Ah June," he said to his sister with a mouth full of smoked fish and jam, "What fun!"

"Why are you having so much fun with mom flying us here," she muttered, half to herself.

"What's wrong? Aren't you glad we came to Toronto?"

"Must be fun. Especially the part where our parents are getting divorced now and we flipped here so we wouldn't be in the way."

"how do you know?"

he asked and suddenly felt so unnecessary.

"How come you don't know," she said, sipping from the coffee mug, even though she never drank coffee at home.

What did they do there for so long at Bonnie's?

He didn't remember much.

Much did not want to remember.

And anyway, everything was erased the day they landed and his mother was waiting for them alone at the airport.

"Two stops," she said to the driver of the service taxi, "one in Musarra."

She stopped, held the air in her lungs, stretched her palms tightly, made a fist and stretched again while exhaling the air slowly, "Delivered, okay."

Said the driver, "And a second stop ma'am?"

(Yes ma'am? Perry joined the driver's questioning, where else can you go besides the house?) "Second stop in the Bekaa. Bethlehem Road corner Yehuda."

Perry fell asleep on the way.

He only woke up when his mother gently patted him on the shoulder, saying, "Fri'ella, June and I will get off here. You take the taxi home."

That's how she said, "Home," and kissed him on the head while he pretended to sleep, but he was already very awake and very alone in the big cab that had long since emptied in the entrances of the city, Ramot, Har Nof, Givat Shaul.

It was already morning when he entered the apartment where he was born.

An apartment where all the walls are lined with books from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall.

Reddish brown leather bindings with gold lettering flickering on their spines.

With the green aquarium with the angel fish and the gold and the sad carp that his mother bought to grind for Gilead and Yehuda saved at the last moment from death.

With the red carpets and the green corduroy sofa, the portraits of the rabbis on the walls.

With the storage under the stairs, the bunk beds and the pull-out drawers.

His brothers were still sleeping when he entered quietly.

Passed the empty girls' room.

His father had already left for prayer and was standing at the Western Wall.

The prisms his mother hung in the windows caught the first rays of the sun and spread dancing rainbows all over the house. 

There is no such place, Shafra Kornfeld, Zamora Publishing, 252 p.

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