"In order to tell you how I killed Ramon, I have to tell you how I killed Ahitov. And in order to tell how I killed Ahitov, I must first tell you how I killed my mother."
A young woman named Avital Ohion hides in a monastery in the Old City of Jerusalem.
There she writes a long confession, addressed "to the judge, welfare workers and all social workers".
Apparently she is asking to confess to a crime, and the parts of the book are all named after legal or semi-legal terms: "identification order", "opening a case", "detention until the end of the proceedings", "social disorder", "unlawful birth" and "The proof phase".
But the confession - which covers almost all 250 pages of the book - soon turns into a complete life story, which leads from Avital's childhood to the present moment.
As the title of the book implies, orphanhood is a formative experience in the life of Avital, who did not know her parents: "Ever since I can remember, I have longed to know who got my mother pregnant. As far as Grandma Malka is concerned, the whole world got her, the prostitute, pregnant, and I just I came out of one of the seeds."
She grew up in her grandparents' house near the Lipta spring on the outskirts of Jerusalem, in an environment where poverty and neglect are its fundamental characteristics: her grandmother works in washing corpses in the nearby Givat Shaul cemetery, and sends the girl Avital to steal a desert for her from the grocery store, and her street cleaner grandfather hosts a "parliament" every night in which the men participate They put the young girl on their lap and grope her.
It is not surprising that at the age of 15 she leaves home and moves to the street, with all that implies.
Contrary to the impression that may be created from the last paragraph, the book really does not relish the suffering: the really difficult parts, such as the time when the girl Avital worked in prostitution, are given in general outlines or allusions.
Avital also goes against many of the readers' automatic expectations about who grew up in her situation: she spent the long days away from home as a child in the city library, and her world of images is full of literary classics.
She uses a private and rich vocabulary to reflect her surroundings ("Never trust the original names of men," she warns): thus, the word for "father" is "lyr" (after the king);
Her grandparents are referred to as "the intelligence and military branch officer";
And the one-legged shop owner with whom she befriends is "Ahab" (named after the captain).
The unique language of the heroine is one of the main strengths of the novel: it refreshes the point of view and makes the pain more bearable.
The descriptions of orphans and hardship, along with the literary contexts, create a clear connection between Avital's story and the stories of famous orphans from 19th century literature, such as Dickens' Oliver Twist or Hugo's Cosette, and this connection, in turn, gives additional depth to the story and shapes the readers' expectations.
As in those classics, there is a story here that includes dealing with the darkest, neglected and most indifferent sides of society - but one that also leaves room for optimism.
The main plot takes place in the early 20s of Avital's life;
She has already managed to stabilize her life to some extent, get out of the cycle of prostitution and alcoholism, find a job and an apartment, and even what might be the beginning of love.
But then she encounters Ahitov Porat: an elderly and rich pensioner from a Mossad institution, who showers her with love and concern.
He takes Avital into his luxurious home in Telvia, and even brings her together with his daughter Atlia, the theater woman, and his son-in-law Ramon, the senior officer;
And in general it seems that Jean Valjean has found her Cosette and that her fate is about to change.
However, a host of ominous clues, as well as letters from a lawyer/private investigator woven into Avital's confession, teach us that the meeting between the two was not accidental at all, and that Ahitov's motives are more complex than it appears at first glance.
Without going into plot spoilers, it can be said that "Orphan's Luck" actually consists of two layers: one is the story of Avital's life and coming of age, and the other is a suspense and mystery plot of a detective nature - which is hinted at from the first line of the novel and becomes dominant in its last third.
While the coming-of-age story is excellent and presents a unique, rich and sympathetic character, the suspense plot is significantly weaker.
After an abundance of frightening clues that promise hidden motives and sensational revelations, the solution is ultimately quite predictable, and even a little disappointing.
Furthermore, the suspense plot comes to some extent at the expense of developing more interesting storylines and character arcs, and forces the book to have a hasty ending and a resolution that does not fully follow from what preceded it.
A striking example of this is an almost uncharacterized character, who plays a central role in the ending even though she was only introduced through one letter, and did not have any significant interaction with Avital during the book.
One of the great qualities of Dickens or Hugo - to which Dan Carlebach, as mentioned, places her story in relation to them - is the extraordinary interweaving between the personal and the social, which mirror each other.
Like those books, "Mazel Yatumah" deals with those who are on the fringes of society.
This is hinted at in a clever way already in the opening, in the description of the mother's tombstone, Shula, where "the letter God has been erased and only a shul remains in the middle of the tombstone" - an announcement that the fringes stand here in the center.
However, it is difficult to identify a significant social statement here.
In the background of the plot are the political events of the 1990s and early 2000s, such as the assassination of Rabin and the second intifada, and the family into which Avital is absorbed includes senior security personnel, and opposite them - a family member who was released from the army on mental grounds, left Israel and is now writing a research paper on a pacifist monk Tenth century old.
But all these components do not come together, and remain at the level of the atmosphere of the story, and nothing else.
Of course, not every book needs a social statement in order to be successful, or even excellent, but there is a kind of promise here that is not fulfilled.
The book is fluid and well written, and the character and language it creates are enough to make reading a fun and immersive experience.
There are many sentences here that are worth quoting, and even poetic peaks that arise organically from the world of the narrator's images, such as: "I wanted a strong, white light that would pour into all the holes and take out all the garbage. I kept dreaming of a huge lantern that at night reaches all the dark and wet places of Jerusalem And everyone comes out of the holes. I dreamed of a huge dairy that sprays milk on everything. White, oily milk, with lots of crust."
But precisely in light of these qualities, it is difficult not to finish the book with a slight feeling of being missed.
Galit Dahan Karlibach / Mazal Yatumah, Hazut Beit, 258 p.
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