secret

When Daddy comes home we'll tell him how good you were.
Even if it's not true,
even though you broke and smudged.
He'll come, shake out the oak and pine dust from his pants,
put down his tools,
give you a hug and love you.
He'll never know.
He'll say: “How brave you were.. ”
“You're Daddy's big boy.”
Just you and I will know
the secret that we had.
That today you were
so very very bad.

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.

Chapter 3 - At Home

When we got home I tried calling Mother, but got only her recording: “The sea and I are very busy.”
There were whole days when she didn't answer the phone, sometimes weeks even. I missed her, but also felt relieved. Mother and the sea were the best of friends, and if she was sitting at home by the telephone, this was usually because they were fighting.
They were both too proud, and neither would be the first to stand up, speak, and make up.
I put the jams on the table, and took the bread out of the oven. The children would be coming in a bit. I didn't know how they would take to Praline, and I was hoping that she would love them, even though they love to yell and don't like to shower.
Rafael the two-year-old entered the house first, threw his coat on the floor, saw Praline, and shouted, “A cat!”
We all burst with laughter.


The children related to Praline as to a small animal and they played together all afternoon. She beat them at cards, but let them find her easily in Hide-and-Seek. She managed to convince them to cut their nails and taught them a song in rhyme.
Daddy called to say he's coming home early...he too has not yet met our guest.


I prepared some meat for him as I always do after I've spent a lot of money or the children have broken something he loves.
We sat around the table, Daddy with his roast, the children with their chicken cutlets, and Praline between them. Daddy stared with amazement at Praline cutting Rafael's chicken. The children looked happy. I smiled; I wasn't in pajamas. Daddy doesn't ask
questions if everything's good...in our house, there have been and always will be miracles.

             Doll by Natcase1

Chapter Two -  “Milk and Honey”
As hostess I felt an obligation to show Praline around Nowhere, particularly the part of it that I love. Her coat had dried, she was wearing it and she looked curled up and ready for the weather. Winter this year had been especially cold and wet. Because there was no building in Nowhere important and high enough to block the wind, it raged around to its heartʼs content. I took the empty jam jars from the kitchen and knew just where I was going to take my
guest.

A pair of sisters manages the little coffee house called “Milk and Honey”. Itʼs not clear whoʼs the younger and who the older - the difference in their age is blurred. Today they look like girls exactly the same age. Their hair is already white, but I feel that beneath the white is hidden a purple tint and that weʼre part of the same family.
Only insiders and true friends know about their jam. They donʼt offer it to people whoʼll eat it as if itʼs something ordinary. They offer it to people with longing in their eyes: for a parent whoʼs no longer here, an unrequited love, for childhood, when their feet were lighter and they could skip above the ground. I was fortunate to get some and taste it. Maybe because of the purple, maybe because of my longing, maybe because I remained a girl. Only my body grew up and so my heart was a little more broken than others.
When my children were especially good I took them to “Milk and Honey” to celebrate and the sisters would serve us all their good things. We would shout and crow from our throats with importance and eat with our hands. I’d bring the jars back to be filled when they were empty - it was a wonderful outing. I put Praline in my pocket and she stood in it quietly. We left the house, me trying to walk very slowly since I didnʼt want to upset her stomach. Every time someone passed us Praline lowered her head and hid.
Eve and Ruth were busy - “Milk and Honey” was packed with old people and mothers with new babies. I caught their eye, and they rushed to finish. I made my way through the people and went on past the counter - there was an old wooden chair back there, and I seated myself on that. Eve, who was the first to finish with her customers, invited me into the kitchen. In their kitchen there was a smell that made me want to be a better person - a fragrance that had been in the world since before we started with our mess. There were herbs, balls of dough waiting to rise, roots and vegetables...and I had a weakness for anything that had once been connected to the earth.
I pulled off a stem from a bouquet of Louisa above my head and prepared myself some tea. A little movement in my pocket reminded me...
With a lightly limping, almost unnoticeable dance, Ruth entered the kitchen, and the two of them looked at me. The sisters had grown up by the sea and they missed it. This longing gave birth to fascinating stews and unbelievable dishes, but still, it hurt, and every day, they tended their wounds.
Ruth and Eve claimed that I brought the sea with me. They looked into my eyes and saw its waves. They tasted its salt. I told them a few of Motherʼs stories, about ships and lights and a sunray carried by the foam. About gifts that it's given us without our asking.


“Iʼve got something to show you,” I said, and lifted Praline out of my pocket. “Mother sent her.”
It was hard to know if they were surprised, so difficult was it to read their faces because of all the wrinkles. I was delighted when Praline was the first to speak up. “Do you have any chocolate cake?”
Suddenly I remembered we hadnʼt eaten breakfast. A generous slice of cake was cut immediately, and Praline sat on her knees and went at it with her fingers. We just watched her. Praline filled up in a minute and asked to take the rest home. Eve wiped her mouth for her, and Praline thought this was very funny. “People think Iʼm a baby because Iʼm little, but Iʼm really no less than a million years old.” The sisters, who had survived The Flood and crossed The Sea when it split, were extremely happy to finally hear that someone had been here longer than them. Eve took her to help fill the jars with jam. I thought Ruth would pounce on me with questions, but she just looked at me lovingly and asked, “Howʼs Mother?”
They had already seen so much, nothing could disturb their calm.
I told her that Mother was fine and that she was looking forward to their visit in March. Ruth and Eve always asked me about her and loved hearing me invite them and remind them of the awaiting visit in the spring. Eve returned with the jam and as always her wrinkles organized themselves into a smile. Ruthʼs wrinkles too were whispering to describe a smile. I smiled too and so did Praline, who already felt that she had more than one home.

                               Doll and hat by Natcase1

Moving to the middle of Nowhere.
First of all, we live right in the middle.
All the stores have Biblical names.
The people too.
Nothing moves,
except for the wind which blows exactly every hour on the hour
and occasionally carries with it sounds from the nearby town
of a car driving or a streetlight changing.
Once a week the mail comes.
The neighbors' son brings it.
He's always hungry and has a large space between his front teeth.
Yehoyada.
He always asks if we have anything good to eat...
I send him to the kitchen to snoop around
and in return he hands me the letters in his patched mail bag.
I root and rummage,
sniff an envelope from Japan,
feel a small package from Massachusetts...
until I reach my little envelope.
Every week my mother sends me a kiss.
I open the envelope carefully,
so that the kiss doesn't run away
kisses are really, really unpredictable.
I close the palm of my hand over it.
Quickly stick it to my cheek.
Immediately the odor of the sea fills my nostrils,
little breads with sage
unconditional love.
When the neighbors' son has had his fill
he takes his bag of longings
and continues his rounds in Nowhere.
To every place he goes
he brings a world and its fullness.




Chapter one - “It Was Good”


Tuesday of the double goodness - mail day and the day that Dad comes home early to
prepare supper. Exactly half an hour after two-thirty comes the sound of a blessed knock on the door I was waiting so; today especially I needed my kiss. The laundry was endless , and from the morning Iʼm hearing the hum of a fly and havenʼt managed to get rid of it. Itʼs been a hard day for Bilaam the spaniel too. All day heʼs been crying...all dayʼs heʼs been unpleasant. Youʼd be too, if you were a dog tied up, dreaming of freedom. On top of everything, my right ankle was itching, the itch I always get before the arrival of an unannounced guest. Yehoyada,an old boy-man, goes into the kitchen to help himself to yesterdayʼs Shepherdʼs Pie.
I pounced on his mailbag, almost as I started to cry. These days, days of two left hands, tears come quickly. As if in spite, my envelope wasnʼt there. I emptied the sack of letters on the floor, because this is what Lev would have done, and suddenly I missed him terribly. I sat in the middle of the pile like a marionette waiting for someone to pull my strings. Yehoyada, whoʼs pretty organized, at least for someone with teeth like his, finished eating and wiped off the counter. He looked at me dumbly. He wasnʼt used to seeing people my age sitting on the floor, nor so many letters out of his bag at one time. “Mrs. Hershberg,” he told me, “no letter for you today...thereʼs a package,” and he pulled it from the pile and gave it to me.
I helped him pick it all up, sort of threw him out. I  wanted to be alone with the package. Maybe there would be more than one kiss inside and I would have to run after them. I didnʼt want Yehoyada to see me behaving like a little girl again and then tell everyone on the sidewalk across from the library. They havenʼt gotten over my purple hair yet...I prayed that the day would come when the elders of Nowhere would stop pointing at me on the street. My mother always knows what I need. On a day like this - a day of left hands and a fly and crying...just an envelope would have been be a bit too little. Maybe she sent a hug too? Or a pair of warm socks without holes? or a globe... Iʼve always wanted a globe.
My name was there, a bit erased by the rain, but there. My mother gave me my name when I was already big. She wanted to get to know me first. I loved to see it written in her hand. I brought the package close to my ear, hoping to hear the sound of the sea which kisses her bedroom windows. I was waiting to hear her tell me breakfast was ready and that thereʼs hot water for a bath. But instead of the sea I heard little thumps...like the thumps of a babyʼs heart. Could there be something alive inside? Iʼd have to open it...to give it some air. I was suspicious, but my curiosity was always stronger than my fear, and as it struck the cat it sometimes strikes me.
The package had by now begun to shake and dance, so I had no choice. As I opened the box, a sweet little thing, shaking to her core, holding in her hand my kiss, slid out immediately to my knees and began trying to warm herself with it. In her hand was a little note in Motherʼs handwriting:
“Too humid here.”
I didnʼt always understand Mother...
She was of the sea, and I was earth. But I knew she loved me; there was no doubt about this. I looked in the toy drawer for some little dry clothes. I wanted to help her change but she wouldnʼt let me. She turned her cute back to me and managed by herself. I went to the kitchen to make her some oatmeal with cinnamon stick, like I prepare for the children when they come home with wet socks. The little thing looked at the oatmeal and grimaced.
“Chocolate milk?”
I boiled water in the whistling kettle and sat down next to her. I thought sheʼd tell me about herself... where she was from, if she had stopped here on her way to the big city...or just to another Nowhere. But she just asked
“Where am I sleeping?”
“Do you perhaps have a shoe cabinet?”  
“Yes”... I answered.
“But you donʼt want to sleep there.”
Before I could tell her about the smell, the mess, and the spiders, I heard the door of the shoe cabinet squeaking.
I examined her wet little coat. In the lining was embroidered in golden thread “Praline”.
She was so tired she had forgotten to drink her chocolate milk.
I drank it for her.
And it was exactly what I needed.

                Doll by Natcase1