Shay walked out of the gates of Shaary Tzedek hospital and headed up the hill, to the tram line. Absentmindedly, he broke a small branch of the rosemary bush that grew behind the low stone fence, and inhaled the spicy scent. The news was not good. In fact, it was terrible. His father was given a month to live, at most. The doctor, a tall bold man with round glasses and red, inflamed eyes, looked somewhere above Shay’s shoulder, when he pronounced the words “hospice” and “keeping him comfortable”. Shay stared down at the doctor’s polished shoes, thinking, “He won’t even look me in the eyes. I guess that’s how he copes.”
Despite his name, Eitan, which means “mighty”, his father had been very weak after the last round of chemotherapy, mostly bedridden. The sores in his mouth would not heal, and the situation was getting worse by the day. The doctors explained that his whole digestive tract became too ulcerated to process any food at all. His cheeks were so sunken that they looked blue with a day’s old stubble. Shay’s mother, Rosa, spent her days and nights by her husband’s side, looking thinner and older all the while. There were no relatives who could help out, but Rosa still refused to share her burden with strangers. Shay was their only child, and both of his parents were only children, as well. There was no way to explain the genealogy of Holocaust survivors to Moroccans or others, like the guys at his office. Above their desks they hung pictures of all those numerable cousins and nephews and nieces, sitting on toy cars and holding ballons, reading the Torah for their bar-mitzvas or getting on planes. When you have so many grandchildren that you cannot even remember them all by name, from your own eight kids… sitting round your table ‘like olive saplings’… he sighed. What was this sudden Scripture quotation business? Did talking of his father’s impending death really make him superstitious? Never! This, too, Moroccans could never understand, just how far removed he felt from the tradition. Being an atheist had its advantages. This was one instance where he had been proud of his ignorance. The day was a regular July furnace, but he could not find any shade. “Maybe I should cool in the shade of my own cold Ashkenazi heart”, he chuckled to himself.
He got off the tram by the central bus station, and settled to wait for the bus to Mevasseret, a small but luxurious suburb, where he lived with his wife Angela and his own two children, one of whom was getting married in just over a month. If father dies now, the wedding would have to be postponed… she shuddered with guilt at such thoughts, but the grim reality could not be changed by any amount of guilt. The sun was beginning to roll down towards the Sacher park, dipping in the cool shade of the pine trees by the Israel museum. He had to shield his eyes with his hand to see the number of the bus which almost knocked him off the pavement. The only free seat was next to his neighbour, the most talkative old woman called Zlata. Usually, he avoided her like the plague, but now it was too late – she had seen him. Grudgingly, he climbed up onto the free seat next to her, waiting for an onslaught of words to hit his ears, expecting useless comments about the weather and the inept politicians. But instead, she reached deep into her knitted purse, and searched in it for a really long while. When she found her glasses, she settled them over her head, sliding them all the way to her tiny grey bun, which sat there cozily on top of her head, and continued searching. At last, she pulled out a worn newspaper cutting, and handed it to him. “Here,” – she whispered. “Something for your dad. I wanted to slide it into your mailbox, but look, God has brought you all the way here, to save me the trouble.”
“Thanks!” – Shay suppressed another internal cringe, because the last thing he wanted was publicity about their situation. Still, the circumstances demanded that he cooperate, and so he did. Opening the article, he began reading. “Israel Today” had sent a correspondent to visit a plant nursery in the North, where a line of desperate people queued up day and night, the line of cars stretching for kilometers down the road. They were all asking for the extract of something called “Leafless Shrubby Horsetail”, and the nursery staff was being run off their feet trying to produce a sufficient amount for all the patients battling cancer in the country. Shay grunted noncommittally and thanked Zlata, trying not to exhibit the skepticism he felt. Had the herb been so magical, surely the doctors would have known about it, no? But he managed to keep this sentiment to himself. “I know you don’t believe in anything alternative. But look, it’s worth a try! I know it’s not good, son.” She put her tiny dried out hand onto his wrist. He put the “son” address where his skepticism about alternative medicine was being stored, and thanked her again. Her hand on his arm was making him think of birds’ feet. It was just as dry and weightless. Angela would never believe how well he restrained his temper today. “Oh, I see you’ve been changing your opinions!” – Zlata was pointing at the rosemary branch, which he was still clutching in his left hand. “Yeah, it smells nice,” – he conceded, still deep in his thoughts and totally absent from the conversation. His dad had really wanted to see the wedding… he sighed. This is when all those believers, whom he always thought to be mental weaklings, unable to face the grim reality of human demise, would high-pitch their prayers, begging for a few more days in this world, even though they would be just more pain and fear. So immature.
Zlata carried on with questions about Angela and kids, then shared her own petty grievances, but Shay had only half-heard her. Nodding at regular intervals did the trick with old lonely women. At last, he got off the bus, then helped her. Shay thanked her profusely for the article, wished her all the best at least a few times, and finally found himself in his own apartment, still flooded with sunset glow from the west-facing windows. It was totally quiet, save for the hum of the dishwasher. Angela must’ve loaded it after work, before running out to accomplish some more errands for the wedding. Those of Eastern European descent were too neat, he thought. Once the kids grew up, the house began to resemble a museum, where things never moved, until moving them almost became an act of sacrilege, like violating the age-old custom. Almost like in a tomb of some Pharaoh. What on earth was wrong with him today? – Shay chided himself for not being his usual skeptical atheist self. Well, it’s not every day that he gets the kind of news he got today…
He fancied a cigarette, but remembered just in time that he actually quit smoking two years ago, when his father was first diagnosed. He grunted, and deciding there was nothing to lose, looked up the number of the plant nursery mentioned in the article. A pleasant-sounding girl informed him that now they had distributing stations in all major cities. All he had to do was to go to a street called Shomrey Emunim, and take the first turn to the left after the bus stop. There was a small private pharmacy there. He nodded, while rapidly entering the address into Maps. The girl hung up just as Shay realized he would have to go into the deepest, darkest, and most stringent bastion of Orthodoxy – into Meah Shaarim itself. No matter… for his father… if these drops would even ease his pain just a bit… we would go visit the devil himself, if need be.
Right after work the next day, instead of going to the hospital, he decided to go straight to the pharmacy. Jerusalem’s #2 bus, with a route as long and monotonous as the great Exile, sped up from one modest black-clad area to another. Plain-looking women with black or brown kerchiefs on their heads lifted their double strollers onto the bus, followed by at least a dozen kids each, then stood behind his back conversing in rapidly flowing Yiddish or in Hebrew, while the children wreaked havoc all around. Shay closed his eyes and opened two more buttons on his shirt, waiting for his phone to buzz a signal to get off. He was feeling quite claustrophobic being surrounded by so many noisy people.
When he got off, at last, the street lights had already come on. He looked around. Ivory-coloured buildings, tiled with Jerusalem stone and dotted all over with miniscule balconies, with occasional black rash of age clinging onto them, looked very much one like another. There seemed to be very few people around, but a squat building nearby, which he immediately identified as a synagogue, was buzzing with the sounds of prayer. Shay regretted not bringing a kippa – he would have certainly felt more comfortable with one covering his head. On the steps of the synagogue, he spotted a youth with long peyot and a bizarre flat hat. His face was partially obscured by a tiny book he was reading in the light of the street lamp, as he rolled back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Rabbi Ashlag, The Secrets of Creation” – the book title proclaimed. When Shay coughed and ventured a meek “excuse me…”, the youth looked up, and Shay nearly jumped back, for the face looking at him was Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi in every exact detail. Gathering his wits, he managed to ask for directions, and when he turned back for one more look at the uncanny resemblance, the same unblinking stare nearly made him lose his gall. “Zai gezunt,” – his mouth produced suddenly. The man smiled with one side of his mouth, nodded, and dove back into the book.
Shay felt shivers crawling up his spine. The place was uncanny. It was hard to believe that barely a kilometer away there were restaurants, bars with alcohol and dancing, and even – oh no! – a cinema.
The pharmacy was hidden between a shop full of sewing paraphernalia, which sported a finely dressed board in the window for a mannequin, and a Judaica shop with tightly barred windows. Shay pushed the door, and tiny bell rang above his head, announcing the visitor. He looked around. Most of the boxes he saw on the shelves looked nothing like modern medications. “Oh… it’s an alternative place… not a pharmacy. But of course.” – he thought as he took in the boxes of dark cardboard with Yiddish and English writing on them. Instead of a counter, the pharmacy had a decrepit-looking wooden table, with an abacus settled in a corner. Above it hung a strange looking clock. The hours and the numbers were traced with fluorescent green paint. Next to it, there was a large hand-drawn placard, depicting medicinal herbs in the order of the Aleph-Bet. Even more strangely, the shop was lit by two ancient gas lights, buzzing faintly on the wall opposite him. “Those… they don’t recognize the State.” – Shay thought, with a tinge of his old, nearly extinguished anger. He looked down and noticed the floor paved in the most ancient tiles, with red diamonds and green clubs inside them. Across two of them lay a wooden toy, the kind that you pull along on a string. Just then, a stooped man with a long white beard shuffled slowly out of some back door which Shay failed to notice. His clothes looked home-spun, and his glasses could have easily been older than the State itself.
He eyed Shay suspiciously, then asked in a surprisingly young voice: “Vos vil herr….?”
“I am looking for the famous cure… for the Illness.” – Shay answered in Hebrew. He remembered that in the Orthodox circles, cancer was never referred to by name, for fear of the Evil Eye.
“Yes, of course… We have it.” – replied the man.
His Hebrew, which normally rolls around on your tongue like a hard-boiled sweet, gave off a distinct flavour of moth balls.
“Whom is it for?”
Shay explained about his father. The pharmacist nodded a few times slowly, scratched his head, then reached down under the counter for a small bottle of dark glass. Then he took out a yellowed sheet of paper, and proceeded to fill it with instructions, writing with quick strokes of a pencil. Then, he folded the paper and wrapped it around the bottle, which was filled with brownish murky liquid and stopped with a strange-shaped cork.
“How much is it?” – Shay asked.
“Thirty”.
Surprised at the low price, Shay took out his credit card, then, realizing how useless it would be here, he took some change out of his pocket, and handed it to the man. Least of all was she prepared for his reaction.
“What is this money? Give me liras.”
“What do you mean, what is this money?” – Shay did not even realize he started yelling, as hot rage flooded his belly and began rising into his head. “It’s shekels! Are you people so ungrateful, that even after the Holocaust and seven victorious wars you refuse to acknowledge you owe the State your lives?”
The man’s next question made his stop in his tracks, though.
“Vos iz der Holocaust?”
It just could not be. There was not a Jew alive who did not know. Maybe the man was going senile? Shay forced himself to calm down, and still his voice was heavily laced with sarcasm, when he began explaining. Yet, the man’s reaction could not be faked. He began rocking on his stool, pulling out his hair, tearing his shirt, and wailing in the most aggrieved voice, but refusing to believe a thing.
“Oy, you evil, evil man. A true Rasha! Making up such lies.” – The man sobbed. “My brother in Cracow, and another one on Lodz. It just cannot be! Oy, Gotenu!”
Shay stood there, quite helpless, and very much puzzled. It just could not be. What a ridiculous situation!
“Look, I’m sorry you didn’t know. But now we have the State. Our own Jewish State.” – Shay ventured again. “It was all a very long time ago… as opposed to our wars with the Arabs…”
The man looked at him as if Shay was crazy. “Hush, hush… the Turks will hear.” – He muttered. Now Shay knew the man was insane, all doubts gone.
He started pushing Shay out of the pharmacy. The tiny bell above the door rang again and again in distressing notes.
“I will never have enough liras to pay another bakshish. Just take the medicine and go. Go, I said! No need to pay.”
Shay had no choice but to retreat, clutching the bottle close to his heart.
Outside, Jerusalem waited for him quite the same, permeated with smells of the cooking supper from the open windows, and the muezzin’s call from East Jerusalem. Shay felt dizzy, shaken by the experience. He decided to walk all the way to the central bus station to give himself time to think. The bottle of medicine weighing down his pocket proved that the encounter was real, and he did not imagine it, however bizarre and impossible it was. He made up some lame excuse when his mother phoned to find out why he hadn’t been to the hospital, and poured himself a glass of wine as soon as he got home. Angela, practical as ever, took the strange bottle out of his hands and put it on top of the fridge, claiming it was too fishy to even consider giving it to a very sick old man.
The next day she took some time off work and drove all the way to the nursery in the North, where they swore by all that is holy that they never had any cooperation with any pharmacies in Meah Shaarim. On the way, she stopped by her friend Sharon’s lab in Herzliya, where the mysterious bottle was revealed to be full of the strongest unadulterated opium.
“You asked for the ‘medicine’, and he gave you ‘medicine’” – Angela retorted, when Shay tried to explain his experience, perhaps to himself, once again. He was being consumed by guilt. For her, the world was simple and devoid of any mystery. He only wished his skeptical atheist attitude could bring him such clarity, and especially – such calm. He also wished he cold get rid of what he called “hereditary Jewish superstitions”, but for some reason now it was harder than ever to let go of them.
At the wedding, Zlata was given an honorary seat next to Angela and Rosa, who kept smiling at her very thin and pale, but very much alive husband, not really seeing the wheelchair or the drip line, but the eyes of the man who had made her so happy for the last fifty odd years.
