The dragon who waited

I am playing that I have a dragon.

If I had a dragon, she would be purple.

She’d have a saddle with golden tassels.

She’d carry me on her back.

She’d hold my heart for me

And then I wouldn’t have to

Sweep it off the floor

When my breath trips up

And my stomach crumbles.

I wish I had a dragon.

***

She is real, and she is mine.

Nobody will ever know

That I carry a dragon

She fits in my jeans pocket.

***

The dragon did not grow…

I think she might be dead.

And I think I am dead, too

Inside my own pocket.

Maybe she was just plastic

And maybe so was I.

***

Now when I pinch my skin

On the back of my hand,

It doesn’t spring back.

I am a popped balloon.

A raisin looking in the mirror

Wishing for a veil

Of forgetfulness

Then, horrified,

I retract my wish.

Behind the mirror

Is my wallet with secrets.

Withered secrets

Sixty years of age.

An ivory elephant,

A leather strap,

A die with numbers,

And a purple plastic dragon.

The dragon unfolds her wings…

“Where have you been?”

“I’ve been looking for the way

Out of my own pocket.”

Sparks of glitter

A lotus rising

Out of my middle

Chitin shell cracks

I will never sweep my heart up again

It clings to the light

It’s time.

Please allow me to surprise you

She notices me from afar, pushing my trolley at the supermarket, and really not bothering anyone. She speeds towards me, folding her face into a grimace of a pity party as she approaches.
- How are you?
Naively, I thought I could just return the question and go on with my shopping, but no. The supporters of certain health-related ideology never miss a chnace to share thier views. Her pity gets more intense as she reaches me. I am divorced, after all, therefore - her job is to nod at my complaints.
- I am good, - I reply, - how 'bout you?
- Oh, but really, how are you doing? - the pity overspilleth. Well, I never miss a chance to rip people's expectations of me to shreds.
- I am celebrating life, - I say. - it's absolutely wonderful and highly recommended. I do what I want, you know... working in my three favourite jobs and dealing with my four favourite kids.
The pity party won't give up.
- Oh, but how's your health? - I did not realize I had reached an age when this becomes an apropriate question. She glances at my trolley, which is full of veg, as pretty much always. Then she checks my waist circumference, and finds it overly expanded, I think.
- It's wonderful! I am doing absolutely great! - I think I'm overdoing it. - and you?
- I'm sure, you seem to be eating right to stay healthy.
Thank you, woman, I happen to have a diploma in holistic nutrition. Amen to that.
But there are other people in my house, and they are not raving health fanatics, and I will honour that, you know. My crazy is my business and stays at home. And the kids get to eat what they like at least half the time.
I listen to a bit more ideology talk, and how stupid everybody is to not live in the only right way to live (alas, I've been hearing it since age 5, about different things, and I am thankfully immune to such brainwashing.) They also said this about Communism, you know.
She is distracted by another raving health freak, as I cautiosly retreat into the junk snacks area - no way on earth she'd look for me there. I hug a packet of bamba to recover my senses... I am still too sore from my weights workout yesterday to properly run away, and then what about the shopping.
Dear people, chill. Live and let live.
And I drink Coke at kiddushes in Shul. But please, don't tell anyone. 

For Israel's 70th

It’s my 23^rd year in Israel. Let’s see what I remember.

In 1991 I was hiding a copper Magen-David necklace under my clothes. Because if “they” see it, I will be beaten. Again. I will get stones thrown at me. I will get a “dirty Jew” - “Zhidovka”, and the rest of the package. They did see it… but this time, to my surprise, there were no fists in my solar plexus. “You are so lucky, you have your country to go to”. Lucky? Me? Well, isn’t Ukraine your country? You will grow up and make it wonderful, yeah… But I do have my country, and I will move there as soon as I can. Away from you lot.

In 1990, someone gave me a Jewish calendar - but it only ran until 1999. How will I ever know when Chanukah is, if the calendar runs out before I find other Jews? Or Yom Kippur? Who would tell me, nobody knows and nobody cares. Those were my worries.

In 1993, a proud owner of a real frum denim skirt and a real Siddur from America, accented English and basic Hebrew, I landed here for the first time.

A spiralling serpentine of the old road to Jerusalem. Chalk rocks, sliced through. And the light - so bright, I didn’t know it could be this light in this world. A whole city of light, the ivory buildings turning pink when they reflect the sunset. Bright blue sky and the ringing silence hugging the Kotel. The smell of “Fantastic” cleaning solution, the sound of a sing-song learning that hasn’t been interrupted here for 2000 years, and lots of “special” kids on the street. I’ve never seen a Downs kid before. What, sick or different people get to live here just like everybody, and not beg for kopecks in the underground? Unreal.

Kids here get to move and talk and be silly, and nobody yells at them. Kids are allowed to exist. They are real. They are loved. They don’t carry a weight of fear in their eyes. And they are so gorgeous my breath catches. I want to have kids like that one day.

A city of light and sharp shadows, I fell in love with you from the first second I saw you, and forever. The city of the wailing shofar and slippery fish scales at the Shuk. The city of colourful crazies and whispering stones, piercing drafts and a song carried by the wind.

Back in Kiev, I dreamed of the city of light awake and asleep. Every day in the grey dimness seemed to last a year. And only the letters with funny crowns at them reminded me that the city of light, where they came from, was real, and I was going back there.

Autumn 1995. I am finally back.

The new reality is confusing, I am washing floors to buy some more food and film for my camera, and to call home once a month. People from all over the world in our dorm, USA and Denmark and France and Argentina, and we all communicate in Hebrew.

People help each other, as if they were family, and not a cursing drunk family I’ve seen before, a real family… they wear such funny slippers, they talk loudly, and I learn to strategically imitate a temper tantrum, just like they do. Accent included.

I cannot and will not ever get lost in Jerusalem - it’s impossible. The city is tiny, and you can always ask… and it waits to show you its secrets. Just come…

Novermber 4^th 1995. My door opens.

-Rabin was killed! - she yells in and runs on.

- Who is Rabin? Why is everybody so agitated? Please, somebody explain to me what’s going on.

A roof of the bus on Rehov Hertzl. The rest of it, burnt away, stands on Rehov Yaffo. There’s shattered glass in the bushes. Police sirens slice through the air. People, silent and powerful, cling to the tape, someone is chanting Tehillim out loud. I feel the separate individuals merging together into a Shimshon, ready to rip a lion. Candles on the floor. Flowers. Tears and prayers. Again and again and again…

1999

A police officer is walking towards us. The old Soviet part of me tenses, even though we’re just chilling in the Safra square with a three-months old baby.

-          Geveret, - he says… (who, me? I am 21… ) - cover your baby’s head. Jerusalem isn’t a joke, you know. Just saying. - and he walks off.

It rains and it shines, and I’ve brought a baby to this city, where there are thousands of people, but even more ghosts. A city like a layered cake, sitting on its past, and hugs you so tight you choke.

Your eyes are shining emeralds

when the sun rays touch you

you are soft and smell of milk

And your hair is curly and golden

like Yerushalayim in evening sun,

I want to always understand you,

be near and listen, and feel as close as now,

my little darling daughter.

2002

A man sitting right in front of us on the bus has long peyot.. a regular chassid. Or not? Oh my God, they are glued to his hat. We roll off the bus in a total panic. Only to realize that we got scared of a man with alopecia. But… there is an explosion a day. Buses, trains, stations, restaurants, streets. Blood pouring out, my country is bleeding, can anyone please stop this? I learn to listen to the radio at all hours. My Walkman fits in my pocket, and I’m glued. Ten prevented, one not. The stuttering and confused testimonies of eye witnesses. I figure out the Right and the Left, the Knesset and the Prime Minister. Am I Israeli now? Chadera, Haifa, Jerusalem. Again and again - Jerusalem.

7^th of July 2005

It’s our wedding anniversary, and we’re going out in London. Vacation time.

Just kidding, we are not. For once, the Brits got to experience what Israel lives through every day. We’re hoping they’ll get it… but of course, they don’t. The museum doors stay open two meters wide, and no one is checking our bags. Are they crazy, I ask?

July 2006

From a comfortable couch in London, the deserted streets of Haifa look even more absurd. Sirens and bombs and… totally chilled British life outside, where a burst pipe in some borough or a lost duck makes national headlines. Why is the BBC reporter so calm? Our soldiers are getting killed, my country is bleeding again. My heart… Why are we not going back? I am trying to imagine my people as they were in 1996, huddled together, forming One Big Jew - Shimshon Ha-Gibor - once again. My heart yearns to be included, even if we are in England. I am with you, my country, praying for you, holding onto the edge of your tallit, in awe of you. Pray for Jerusalem.

Cast Lead and Pillar of Defence, they blur in my mind. Why are they not calling it a war, when it’s exactly what it is, - a war? I am trying to imagine those boys in tanks, in collapsing buildings, those wailing mothers, it’s not Sisra’s mother’s cry, it’s our everyday neighbours and friends ripping their clothes for the dead. For them the time stops and never ticks again… they fall off the cliff of destiny. And then I hear them on the radio, inspiring others to live. I hug my kids tighter, so so tight, and put on the radio again.

Steel cold gaze of an Arab holding a pickaxe. No, I am not afraid, the fear stayed in Ukraine, I tell myself. But if eyes could kill, we’d all be dead by now. In this country time is measured from one chag to another, birth-wedding-kids-death, repeat…  from one war to another… tick-tock, three to the next war.

Protective Edge. The three boys who united us more than anything before or after.

Every pair of eyes meeting asks first - “nu?” - “nothing”. - “nu-nu…” Crowds taking chala, the street is blocked. Crowds saying tehillim, crying and begging, bring the boys back. Our boys. Where are our boys?

The day they were found, a blanket of lead silence covered Jerusalem. “Nu?” - “I know”. - “You know?” - “Nu…” There were no words and no tears left, just a huge chasm, anger bubbling forth, in Hebrew Israel is a she, and that day she wept. She wept for all the boys and all the girls, for all the thousands and millions who will never come home again. The tune of Eicha and ashes raining from the sky.

My three year old knows about the rockets and the anti-rockets of the Iron Dome, she knows the airplanes cracking the zenith are ours, there are our boys piloting them, and we mustn’t be afraid. “Tili” - a cartoon for the kids who are afraid of the air raid sirens. The ground shakes from the 200kg bombs we are dropping on Gaza - barely 40 km away. And we aren’t afraid, but when we walk on the street, I am obsessively searching for where I will run if a siren goes off. “I will cover you, and mommy will cover the baby, if there is a bomb”, - says my 11 year old son to his 7 year old brother. As if that’s so normal. “I will cover you, don’t worry”. My sons, these brothers, will be soldiers one day…

My teenage daughter flips the light on. “Mommy, it’s a siren! Get up!”

“Are you OK?” - “yes, I am OK”. Messages from one closed bomb shelter room to another. “The kids OK?” And the Brits walking during an air raid, as if nothing, as if it’s a soft British drizzle that will make their national news… but no, it’s our molten Israeli drizzle of cast lead and “we have no other land”. Tili against the bad rockets, look, somebody filmed it. Look, we outsmarted the death itself. It’s the good Tili, not the bad one, don’t cry, my baby. And people helping, helping one another. Hosting, collecting food, nobody is forgotten. The elderly, the disabled, new immigrants, patients in hospitals. The dogs abandoned by terrified owners. Piles of socks and wipes spilling over. It’s us, yes, it’s our land, our home, our people. Forever and ever - our people.

I have finally learned to cry. It’s as easy as sweating in the chamsin, you know. Seventy-three funerals, one after another, faces in the newspaper, young smiling faces. You just learn, you know. And then you cannot stop, because it’s so easy.
2018
My two nealry adult children are wiping tears during the commemoration ceremony for the soldiers. One of mine will don the olive-green uniform, get a gun, and go serve the country all in three months time... My mute respect for her, a person who thinks for herself, is too great to fit even in tears.

When my children have those round-the-year parties in gan and school, I remember my calendar, and my biggest fear of not knowing when the holidays might fall out. It’s OK, I tell myself. I have kids who will remind me. The costumes blend into a veil of tears, because who’d ever believe I would merit this. A country to feel safe in. Even during an air raid siren. A country where the bomber airplanes are piloted by Jews, and the policemen are not anti-Semites - because they are Semites. We walk without fearing a drunken fist in the middle of the night, if we die - there is a purpose to our death, what more could a person wish for? Who would believe? A country protected by miracles. It’s real, and I can have as many calendars as I want, and I will always know when the chaggim are.

Is it me, or people have really softened to each other over the last 20 years? I’d like to hope so.

I’d like to hope that because we all live our days as if each one was the last, we are living them fully, to the last drop of shoko, squeezing the bag until no more comes out.

I hope we appreciate the gift that this Land is, breathe its air with relish and savour its water, for all the ancestors who didn’t, and all the heroes who will never taste it again.

Is it me, or the sky here is more blue, and the sweetness is sweeter, and the pain is more piercing, and the love is more loving? The leaves born every spring are so pulsing with green, and the heartbeat of life itself counts pace in our ears. The flowers open and hang down to you, when you need them most, the kids here are the most beautiful in the world, they don’t wear the fear of Galut on their souls and around their necks, and the time runs with the kids, wearing the iron weights of centuries in its shoes. For God is your shadow here, you cannot escape His breath on the top of your head, his Hugs and His slaps. Here He is - right behind the Wall.

Damien, who brings freedom.

I looked in the mirror, even though it was useless and only made me more sad. Will he even recognize me? Like me like this? It’s been almost 30 years. My thin waist was now framed by thick folds of the only substance that still allowed for public shaming in the Western culture. My face was entirely Botox-free and wrinkle-full. My clothes were what was left over from better years, when Tony was still alive and spoiled me all he could. I re-folded the napkins, wiped the dust that wasn’t - yet again, and made sure the wine was chilling in the right position. At an impulse, I ran into the bedroom and ripped my dark-blue skirt right off, turning it inside out in my crazy rush, tripping up on it and stepping on it all over. It landed onto the bed belly up, like a gutted frog. Black would go much better, of course, how did I not think… My hands were shaking. Now a black stone on my neck to match…the darned clasp. Oh, but he remembers me as a young and carefree hippie, with hair loose… he won’t know me in this proper lady. Who is this lady in the mirror? Oh, but the song is about a doggie. Help, I’ve lost my mind, as if I was sixteen again. Too much excitement… Maybe I should pick up my hair in a clip? No, that would draw attention to my double chin. How lovely of Dave to find the time…

A loud crash in the kitchen made me jump. My first thought was “Thomas!”, but then I remembered that cat was run over by a neighbour some four years ago. I don’t even know whom I missed more, my husband or the grey furry weight of him on my back when falling asleep. I ran towards the sound, the slow run of a middle-aged overweighed matron, heart thumping, and there he was - Thomas. Sitting on a chair I prepared for Dave, and looking at me with this totally human expression. For the first time in my life, I understood what “scared to death” meant. My breath left my body, and I grabbed the door to keep myself steady. The window was open, he must’ve come in through there. A lookalike? No way. This was Thomas, down to the shape of the white heart on his chest and the soft tuft at the end of his tail. Thomas.

-          - Won’t you even offer me some tea, Leah?

I stared at him, and my knees started bumping on each other in a funny way - bump-bump-bump. All my folds were shaking, a mini-earthquake. A Leah-quake. My mouth went dry. Where’s the phone, I must call myself an ambulance. Maybe I had meningitis. My friend told me she saw things when she had it. Either that, or I’ve gone schizophrenic in my old age.

The cat’s voice was vaguely familiar, as if I’ve heard it before.

-        -  Dammit, those humans are such scaredy-cats. Every time the same thing…- grumbling like that, Thomas lifted the kettle with his front paws and poured himself a cuppa. I felt the floor touching my bottom, the walls going somewhere up and away.

-          And now she’ll faint, and I’ll have to get water… arhgg. Get up, woman! - the cat was shaking me. He seemed to pour off the chair, in one swift move, like a wave of black and silver. He gave me one last push, then jumped back up, again much like a wave, and sipped his tea in silence.

Grabbing the furniture, I slowly lifted myself up. If he could shake me, he was real. Or was he? Maybe I imagined that, too.

-        -   Who… who are you? - oh my God, I am talking to a cat. And the cat talked back.

-          - Your guardian angel, of course. Don’t you recognize me? - Thomas pretended to lift up a hat with his paw. - I used to look a bit different, I admit, and you people never see through this - he patted his chest. But it’s me all right. And we’ve got to talk, Leah.

I thought back to my childhood. The golden shadow that sometimes sat behind me in the car, and some other times it cuddled up with me when I cried in my cot. It healed my bruises, and once it tripped up a boy that wanted to hit me. That was in kindergarten… so many years ago. It was soft and glittery, and I loved it. When did it go? I didn’t even notice… What else? I’ve forgotten all about it. I never told anyone, of course, all I needed was a psychiatrist to diagnose me with God knows what.

-          - Correct, it’s me. Damien. That’s what you named me then.

-        -   Do all children get… those? - I mumbled.

-         -  Of course they do, - the cat seemed to be smiling.

-         -  So… what did you want to talk about? - my heart was still racing, but a bit less now.

-          - This is not what we agreed on, Leah. This is not the life you wanted… You tell me why I’m here. Go on, now.

I looked down at the marble kitchen table. The lines of it assumed shapes… I was watching a film about another Leah. A powerful witch of a woman, not a junk-grazing TV addict. She was me… yet, she wasn’t. She had an engine in her behind, or at least that’s what everybody said behind her back. Doing so much, she seemed to be present in more places than one at the same time. Her life had more than 24 hours in a day… she was so brave. Such a giver, such a kind soul, dancing through life. She was fun to be around, and she made everybody laugh. I think there was a motorbike and a pair of shiny black Dr. Martin’s. Dreads and a guitar, bitter tonic and an enchanted song, flying over the forest. And she wasn’t fat. She was age-less and beautiful, a wild untamed beauty, arching back and powerful arms, tight behind and legs used to running. She was… will she ever be? It’s everything I’ve ever wanted, and held back. Held back, biting the back of my hand at night to choke down my tears. Pinched my belly every time I spaced out, called by the invisible… How much could a person betray themselves, really? More than anyone else could betray them, that for sure. It’s my life, it’s now or never…

I woke up to a sound of a door closing. “Dave?” - so much for my date. He must’ve seen me passed out on the floor, and he just ran. The floor was digging into my shoulder blades, and it was colder than I remembered. For the second time that day, I pulled myself up. A thin trail of blood was running from my cheek to my chest, and then onto the floor. I felt the graze, and to my utter horror realized there was a pair of manicure scissors lodged in the back of my head. I dropped them before, and didn’t bother picking them up. But to fall onto them? The curved end went into my scalp and got stuck. I gave a tug, and the thing came out, spraying droplets of blood everywhere. Strangely, I felt no pain. Dave must’ve thought I had been murdered… a trail of blood running from my head onto the floor… poor man. Coward.

“To freedom”, - the words formed in my mind. Damien, a golden shadow again, was wrapped around my shoulders. I wondered if it was fun for him to turn into a cat for a bit, to make me remember and see him again. 

The backpack I had been hiding from Tony was exactly where I had left it, in the bottom drawer, where his back didn’t allow him to get into, and it still smelled of lavender oil that I sprinkled on it last time I took it out. The night smelled of damp and fog, the metal- taste of exhaust fumes, and of all the future I could encompass. Sirens wailed in the distance, as I walked away from my door, leaving it open. They will find nothing but shadows in here.