Chapter 4 - New Life
Every Monday and Wednesday, Yehoyadaʼs father collects the garbage and every Tuesday Yehoyada brings the mail - thatʼs how the earth goes ʻround in No where.
Yehoyada didnʼt have a mother. She left Nowhere shortly after he was born. Packed her things and went. Nobody was surprised, but everyone was hurt.
They say she was beautiful and that Yehoyadaʼs father Yaakov was in love with her to the point of insanity. He let her amuse herself all day, and when he returned home from work in the evening, would finish all her tasks.
The women of Nowhere admired and hated her and the men feared her.
She had a little garden filled with plants she had brought from the city of her birth, plants that no one here recognized.
The neighbors claimed that Rachel had bewitched the garbage man, so all was destined to be lost.
When beautiful Rachel was pregnant, everything changed; no one saw her. She didnʼt leave the house. The garden dried up. Her long glistening hair was plaited into two thick braids which didnʼt get combed for nine months. It was no wonder she left; she was never really here.
Poor Yehoyada. A boy who carries this kind of longing on his back is easy prey. His clothes were always too long for him - she wasnʼt there to shorten them; his hair was always in his eyes - she wasnʼt there to push it away.
And his face, always cold. She wasnʼt there to kiss it.
Yehoyada looked very much like his father but his eyes were his motherʼs. He was orphaned by both sides of the family - Mother hadnʼt left him her good looks, and his fatherʼs family, reminded of her every time they looked into his eyes, averted their glance in bewilderment.
Days passed as is their custom and Yehoyada, like most people, got used to being in his body and its limitations. He learned to watch out for people and gave his love only to those who really deserved it. Every day he would whisper to himself in the mirror “How nicely youʼve grown”, “Youʼre
improving so much.” A little bird had whispered to him that people need warm words in order to blossom.
Not a day passed that he didnʼt want Mother.
Two years ago, just a bit after we moved to Nowhere, Yaakov the garbage man found a new wife. Leah, a native of Nowhere.
Leah was in her thirties, Yaakov in his sixties. Leah was small and pale, Yaakov big and hairy. Leah was innocent; Yaakov remembered love.
But he protected her and every day she prepared supper for him and Yehoyada in lots of little pots. The house was always clean, their clothes mended. The garden was blooming again - Leah raised radishes and geraniums. Yaakov, who by now was almost old, had learned to love her. Yehoyada continued to miss his Mother.
Last night contractions began. Nobody believed that she would be able to carry the babies of this huge man. Leah gave birth at home. The quiet little woman who didnʼt waste a word screamed until the heavens split. Leah screamed for all the times she heard them whispering behind her back, “Sheʼs
boring.” for all the years she sat in her parentsʼ house, and for her lost hope of ever being beautiful.
Praline chose to ignore the sounds and remained curled up all night long in her shoe armoire. I could see her back trembling. But we left each other, each to her own soul. The men of course slept.
By morning the rain had stopped and Leahʼs screams had ceased. A baby boy had been born, big like his father and pale as his mother. It was impossible not to forgive him.
The sun was already shining, its hard, bright light difficult for the eyes of two tired women. I stood in the kitchen, a bit angry, a bit happy. The tears continued to flow, even though everything was fine. They descended on the unpleasant memory engraved by the night. In every home in Nowhere honey almond cakes were going into the oven, to be brought to the home of the brave new mother. Only for me it took a little longer to move from sadness to joy.
Suddenly I felt that I wasnʼt alone, even though the kitchen was empty. As though someone was looking at me. A kind of itch. Everyone was still asleep. Even Praline had passed out after attacking the last ball of dust and all the shoes stood in a gleaming row. I looked out the window and there she sat, with suitcase and scarf, barefoot.
