A bottle of sweet wine

 

In a tiny café, that had been selling cheesecake to the residents of Jerusalem since the days of Ben Gurion himself, a man of about fifty years old, with a tidy beard and a large black yarmulke, pushed back the old wooden chair and got up. His business partner left a few minutes ago, but Reuven, being a religious man, stayed back to say the prayer after eating foods that are made to sustain a human being – namely, foods that contain flour, but yet aren’t bread. The nameless café had the best cheesecake in town, but because it was so small, and lost in the bendy streets near Meah Shaarim, only the locals knew of its delicious secret. And it was cheap, too. In other places you’d pay at least double. Of course, the cheesecake was not such a healthy lunch – Malka never ceased to remind him of his awful habits – but, what a wife doesn’t know, can’t hurt her. There were exactly three steps between the shaky black table, balancing precariously on one leg, and the counter. Reuven waited for David, the owner, to finish weighing up exactly 50 grams of cake for a hungry kid, who shyly left a five shekels coin on the counter, asking if he could bring the thirty agorot he owed after tomorrow. Of course, it wouldn’t occur to David to doubt his customers, even if they were all of seven years old. In the pizza place next door, a child was wailing, dragging out the word ‘eeemmmaaa’, Hebrew for ‘mother’, on the same unwavering note, sounding like a handle of an aluminium bucket from Reuven’s childhood, when the bucket would get old and creak when he carried water in it. Reuven cringed, both with his face and his shoulders, secretly delighted that his years of having little kids were long past. If only Malka would give up her crazy ideas of having ‘just one more yingale or meidale”… she was windowed so long ago, that both of her children were married and fully independent, and now, luckily, she was married to him. It is not good for a man to be alone, the Torah says, and oh how true that is. Since the day of their chuppa, Reuven woke up every morning to freshly ironed shirts, smelling of starch, and a healthy breakfast of fruit and porridge with honey. She gave him everything he wanted, she was his home and his neshama sang at the sight of her. Yet, the only thing she really wanted, that he could not give her… He sighed. Everything is God’s will. He pulled up the ever-escaping belt over his bulging belly, and took out his wallet. Maybe it was time to start wearing suspenders, like an old man.

“How much do I owe you?” – he asked David.

David caressed his long beard, and bent down to check the register. “Twenty-six shekels”, - he replied.

“Oh! That’s a special number! Thank you, you made by day, and not just with your delicious cakes this time! This is clearly a message!”

“Yeah, it’s not every day that your bill comes out to be the same number as Hashem’s holy name in gematria!” – David accepted the money, put it away, and dragged his hurting legs – the whole town knew how he suffered from gout, and nothing ever helped, and the doctors were useless – to the chair behind the counter.

Reuven thanked him again and walked outside. The sunset wind was just beginning to rise up, sweeping up the dust on all West – to – East oriented streets into great swirls. The heavy blanket of summer air lifted off towards Mamila and the valley that gave hell its name, then settled down there for the night. Malka was waiting at home… he needed to hurry. But first, he had to stop at a shul to pray mincha. Turning into the street of the Prophets – not towards the side that ended in that despicable new hotel, but the side that winded back towards the holier neighbourhoods – he hurried towards his favourite “prayer factory”, a one-room synagogue with nothing extra, just a room filled with tables and chairs and prayer books. Strong gusts of wind were still flapping around the signs with “Vote for Moshe Leon for a mayor of Jerusalem!” and “Donate to Ohr La-Chayal to help our soldiers!” There were other signs, colourful and with strange words in them, always some kind of “festival” or some “DJ Uplift Apollo” – which he could not comprehend and suspected of being deeply unkosher. One of the larger signs almost hit him in the face, but he caught it in time with his hand.

When he was but a few steps away from his destination, a woman suddenly stepped in front of him. Her snood was pushed back from her hairline, and some long hair strands had managed to escape from it, spilling all over her shoulders. She was dressed in a typical settler style, many layers, none of them matching, her brown toes sticking out from under the third skirt. Her appearance reminded Reuven of the ragged tea doll his mother used to place over the samovar pipe, to keep it from cooling down too fast on Shabbos. The woman held a bottle of sweet Kiddush wine, wrapped neatly in a torn supermarket bag. About half of it was gone.

“A sgula! Do you want it?”

Carefully avoiding any touch with her, as any religious man would, Reuven stopped in his tracks. Even the most conservative members of the Ultra-Orthodox community knew about Jerusalem syndrome. Either way, those affected were nearly always harmless.

“What kind of a sgula?”

“For having children, of course! What else?”

“Why are you giving it away?”

“My daughter just gave birth over there, in Bikur Holim Hospital. So, she doesn’t need it anymore. It was blessed by the holy Rav Baruch himself!”

Doubtfully, Reuven turned around to gaze at the gouged out windows of Bikur Holim. As far as he knew, it closed down about eight or even ten years ago. Nobody had given birth in it for a very long time… Perhaps a part of it, on the left side of the street, with intact windows, was still operating? Was that righteous man and kabbalist from Netivot still alive? Reuven didn’t know.

“So, do you want it or not? Your Malka would pay any money she had for a sgula this powerful!”

“Wait… how do you know? Are you a friend of hers?”

The current of people streamed all around them, avoiding them carefully, like two pebbles in a spring downpour. Nobody complained, even though the pavement was barely half a meter across, and only a woman with a double stroller threw an angry look over her shoulder, but then the stroller was wider than the pavement, anyway.  

She hesitated.

“You could say that.” – she answered at last, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, and nervously biting a dirty nail on her left hand. “She wants a child, but you don’t. So how could it happen, you tell me? How could a neshama come to a father who doesn’t want it?”

“I never said…” – Reuven began, horrified. “How could a Jew not want a precious new baby to come to his family? A child is always a blessing. Even a sick child!”

“You didn’t have to say it”, - the woman snorted. “Everybody knows it here, anyway.”

“It’s not true,” – Reuven made a gesture, as if to push her away. “And where is ‘here’?” He was beginning to feel the first stirrings of anger somewhere around his stomach, and a constriction in his throat, as if he wanted to cry and yell at the same time.

“Here.” – she waved her arm up and about, in the general direction of the hospital.

“But Malka is forty-eight years old. By the time this baby grows, she will be old, and I will be ancient. It’s not fair to the baby, to grow up without any siblings his age, just with his old parents...”

“More unfair than not being born at all? Hashem is angry at you right now! For those words.”

Reuven took another step back, fearful that the mysterious lady would just hit him with the bottle. But instead, she just pushed it into him. A twisted smile distorted her features.

“Take. And light a candle in memory of Sara bas Yaakov when the baby comes. Promise!”

Numbly, Reuven nodded.

The woman turned around and walked away back to the hospital building, in a slow shuffling gait, without looking back at him.

The bottle stood by his side all the way through Mincha and the evening prayer. If his fellow shul-goers were surprised by him having a half-drunk bottle of kiddush wine with him, they did not show it in any way. There was an old man who always showed up with a bag containing a freshly killed and dripping carp, bought at the Machane Yehuda market, barely a kilometre away. There was also a man who never washed. That was way worse than just wine, but nobody mentioned it to them, either.

A smell of pumpkin soup greeted him as he opened the door, and something inside his heart melted when he saw his wife, so simple and yet so special, standing by the stove. Really, Hashem had been very kind to them. If finding a spouse the first time is as hard as the splitting of the sea, what’s to be said about a second time, when both are burdened by kids and burnt so badly by life… he sighed. “I will be ready in a minute, wash your hands!” – she called to him, pouring the soup into his old and cracked crème coloured bowls with a fancy ceramic ladle she brought from her home. A loaf of freshly-baked spelt bread was resting in the middle of the table, a king of this meal, surrounded by an entourage of dips.

“Sara was my school friend…” – Malka said, barely holding back tears. “She was killed by a bus on a street in Bnei Brak in the early nineties… and she had been pregnant. The baby was saved by the doctors, but not her… And I never dared call her family or visit, I didn’t want to remind them of their loss. I never even visited during the week of mourning… Her parents probably were very upset with me. I should call. She used to like dressing like a settler, even though she wasn’t…” Malka sat there, transfixed, massaging her left hand with her right, and staring into space for a few more minutes, then she seemed to reach a decision.

She sat down by the phone, a clumsy beige deal of a landline, for a long time, gathering her courage, and hugging herself round the shoulders. Reuven went away into the kitchen to avoid embarrassing her, and drank his evening green tea staring into the tiny window, at the view of Geula neighbourhood, strangely quiet in the evening hours. Downstairs, two teenage boys in long black coats and hats were discussing today’s lessons in Yiddish. He wished he could have some more cheesecake, but of course Malka would never allow such frivolities on a weekday… it was not good for his health, unlike this bitter tea. He sighed. It was good to be married and taken care of again. A bit of cake is really a small sacrifice, that’s for certain.

A loud “Mazal tov!” interrupted his musings. Indeed, as he figured out, Sara’s daughter had a baby today, but not in Bikur Holim, of course. That had been closed for over a decade.

Reuven felt a chill crawling up his spine. He looked hesitantly at the bottle of wine, waiting on the table, still in the torn bag. Maybe he should not have taken it. Maybe it’s all a crazy coincidence… They would have to move to a place where a baby would be more comfortable… Nobody would ever, ever believe this story. He really couldn’t tell it to anyone.

Malka finished her conversation and came to hug shoulders from behind. He tensed, because he hadn’t realized she had visited the mikve, and now they could touch again. Some things never become old, even if your body is as old as Metushelach’s. He got up and pulled the curtains closed against the night and the neighbours. He really hoped no smell of the cheesecake had lingered on his face, and that he would only smell of the pumpkin soup and the dips.

“Pour me some of that wine,” – she asked, at last. He obliged.

 

 

 

 

 

One Sunday morning in a supermarket

Sunday mid-morning is quite a dead time in Israeli supermarkets. Usually, after the usual crowds of Friday shoppers fill their trolleys with food for shabbat and rush home to cook, the workers put everything away and lock up for the weekend. Then, on Sunday mornings, the local kids run in before school to get their “ten o’clock snack”, usually a bread roll with chocolate milk in a plastic bag, the corner of which you have to bite off to enjoy the drink, everybody’s beloved “shoko”. Sometimes, a busy office secretary will pick up some vegetables, or even a birthday cake. Then it becomes really quiet. Only the withered Moroccan grandmas with all of Israel’s wars embedded in their wrinkles, and the immaculate Russian ladies with wickedly glowing red hair collide in the aisles, discuss the prices in simple Hebrew, then part with much mutual satisfaction.

This is exactly how it was this Sunday, as well. Oren, the somnambulic vegetable guy, slowly emptied carboards boxes full of tomatoes, cucumbers and onions into the empty racks, the radio in his pocket blaring romantic songs of the past decades over the static. If you came close, you’d catch a distinct whiff of stale alcohol, sweat and cheap aftershave. Oren never spoke about his life, but it was no secret that his wife of sixteen years left him for a colleague after their son grew up, and his successes in the love front were nothing to write home about, his hopes diminishing every year. He was living a life of cheap kebabs fried in soybean oil and shoved inside a pita, football and comedies on TV, and cheap arak, and it was undoing him, slowly, but surely, and he knew it just as well as his colleagues. Radio is a poor substitute for a life partner.

Farida, an Azerbaijani woman of about fifty-five, who cleverly married a man of Jewish descent in her distant Soviet past, was now the chief manager with basic-level Hebrew without much grammar in it, and uptight, bossy manners. She considered herself a success, despite the deeply shameful fact that her husband gave up on conquering Israel from his couch and had bought a one-way ticket to Russia five years ago. She hadn’t needed a man to push her two kids through higher education with a deliberation of a well-oiled military vehicle, and now the photos of her pride and joy, her first grandchild, were hanging on the wall above her desk. Sunday morning was the time when she could chill, smoke a cigarette out of the window in her booth, savour a strong black coffee and read a newspaper in Russian, which didn’t sell on Friday and would eventually be returned to the publisher. Today she was unsuccessfully trying to reach Muhammad, the delivery man, over the phone, as he didn’t show up for work, and his partner, Hamza, was rather frustrated by the prospect of carrying everything alone. Yet, there wouldn’t be much to carry on a Sunday, Farida mused. She shouted to Oren over the aisles to help with the deliveries, if he was done with the vegetables, but Oren pretended not to hear. Farida’s fringe, dyed jet-black, flew up with her frustrated exhale, but she decided to let it be – for now.

The two active tills were manned by Leah, an Ethiopian girl with perfect features, as if chiselled out of smooth marble, and equally perfect skin, and Tanya from Ukraine, who liked to dye her hair a screaming shade of pink, and wore gothic clothes underneath her purple supermarket shirt. There were nine earrings in her left ear and five in the right, a stud going through her lower lip, and some hoops in her eyebrows. There were more piercings in places which could not be exposed at work, but everyone knew about them, anyway. There was also a tattoo of a bat, spreading its wings over the two sides of her neck, meant to symbolize death and rebirth. Tanya had been brought up by very educated and culture-loving parents, who took her to see opera from the age of six and stuffed her brain with copious amounts of recitative Russian poetry. Their cozy world crashed on them in February 2022, when Putin invaded Ukraine, and the family cut contact with all relatives who supported the war, and even attempted to switch to speaking Hebrew at home. Tanya needed a new identity urgently, and her parents were forced to accept a goth, who took the place of their book-wise little daughter almost overnight.

Tanya knew that Leah’s name wasn’t really Leah, but Tirunesh, which is what her parents named her officially, but for the convenience of the school teachers the name had to be changed, and Tanya secretly wished her parents had done the same for her, as well, while Leah resented the cultural intrusion. She was proud of her heritage, even if some things looked strange to Israelis, like carrying babies on the mother’s back in a special white sling, or eating Injera instead of regular bread. She knew how to blend in just enough to have friends of all kinds, yet remained steadfastly faithful to everything she learned at home. As a kindness to her friends, she still allowed those who knew her as Leah to continue calling her that.

An Israeli name would have made life so much easier, Tanya thought. It was a bit strange to be bullied for being Russian, as she had never even visited Russia. The girls were friends, at least while they worked and had some time to chat, like today. Leah was sharing her impression from the new TV series, as Tanya passed the products through the scanner for an old Yemenite man with shaking hands and watering eyes. He packed his things carefully, one by one, into a chequered trolley mounted on little wheels, and walked away pulling it after him, stopping briefly by the door to examine the receipt. Then again everything was quiet. Farida sent Leah to go and help the butchers by the fresh meat counter to unpack the delivery, and when she came back, Tanya was eager to share her most recent goings with her new boyfriend, Moshe. According to her, he was the most perfect man who ever existed, thoughtful, kind, and caring. He was educated enough to provide ample topics for their conversations. “He had read classics, too, when he was a kid.”- she said, a dreamy smile rising on her face. “And do you know what he did yesterday?” – Tanya was finally getting to the core of her story. She waited until Leah could focus fully on her words, just as another customer walked out with heavy bags. “He took me to the park. He packed a whole picnic, sandwiches, drinks, fruit, everything. He knows I love apples, so he baked an apple tart – by himself!” By now she was glowing. “What’s so special about an apple tart?” – said Hamza behind her back. “Or a picnic?” He was fidgeting with a cigarette in his fingers, as he was on his way out to have a smoke. “If I was courting a woman, I’d buy her chocolates from Max Brenner in Tel Aviv, and perfumes and clothes.” – he shrugged and pulled up his jeans, which had a habit of sliding down quite often. “And then, when she agrees to get married, I’d buy her jewellery. And then a car. Not apples.” – and he winked at Leah, who ignored him. “It shows that he cares enough to find out what I like, he doesn’t just get standard gifts,” – Tanya explained. – “Anyone can buy chocolates.”  - and she looked at Farida for support. “Why not both? Chocolates and apples,” – Farida said from her booth. – “A good man buys proper gifts, girl.” – she stared at the girls from above her glasses, sliding them down her nose, as they were meant only for reading. Leah, who wasn’t interested in dating, made a “hurramph” noise, and turned away. “But listen…” – Tanya got her attention again. “He said he would pick me up from work today, and take me to the cinema in Jerusalem.” – “Amazing!” – Leah replied half-heartedly, thinking how she hated this talk of men and relationships, especially with Hamza standing behind her back. She wore that unshakable self-confidence, characteristic of beautiful women, just like a crown, knowing full well that when the time came, she would find a man without any difficulty. She would gladly stuff her earphones in her ears and listen to some music, but that would be quite rude, so she was stuck listening to the same stories over and over, especially since Tanya met Moshe three months ago. “Well, then we’ll finally meet him,” – she said cheerfully. “Have you even kissed yet?!” – she asked, and Tanya’s face lit up with a crimson blush, and she pretended to be busy with her phone, until the next customer asked her the price for a particular cut of beef. Later that day, the monotony was interrupted by a woman fainting outside the supermarket, and Nissim, who usually guarded the entrance with a gun he hadn’t used in fifteen years, ran clumsily to pick her up, then had to call for an ambulance. They all discussed what might have happened, with theories ranging from a heart attack to a seizure, and came to the conclusion that it was most likely a diabetic who didn’t do a good enough job monitoring her blood sugar. “It’s all because of the stupid vaccines!” – Rodrigo the butcher just would not let the issue go, and blamed every ill of the world on the pharmaceutical companies. Oren did his best to not respond to the provocation, which earned him and thankful look from Farida.

Then Farida had to deal with a kid who attempted to steal a packet of chips, and let him go with a threat of the police being called “next time”. “Well, next time he won’t be comin’ in here, don’t you think?” – Oren commented. – “You are much too nice to them!” Leah and Tanya exchanged glances. Their shift was very nearly over, and they hoped they would go home without seeing Farida locking horns with Oren, who resented having a female boss, yet again.

“Well, he has a mother, too, I was thinking of her,” – Farida shrugged. – “And in the end, he didn’t manage to steal anything.” Oren went back to the vegetables without giving a reply, and continued trimming the leaves off the cauliflowers with a sharp knife, his radio now broadcasting a comedy show. Farida lit up another cigarette, which was strictly illegal, of course, but she tried to stay close to her window.

“Geveret!” – an old man in faded polyester trousers and a shirt that used to be white decades ago was suddenly shouting at her. “It makes your lungs black like soot!” The tassels on his white ‘Rabbi Nachman’ kippa were rocking back and forth as he shook a finger at her. “Not good! It will give you wrinkles and make you old and ugly, and if you continue, it will give you the accursed disease, may its name be erased!” Leah and Tanya saw some of the customers nodding in ascent. “It’s so ugly when women smoke! Ew!” – a woman muttered, lifting her goods onto the belt of the till. The man shuffled to the transparent plastic wall, which separated Farida’s booth office from the tills, his long white beard getting in the way of his bags. “Drop the poison, Geveret!” Farida, who had been a smoker since her early teens, and had absolutely no intention of stopping, glared at him over her glasses. “And you know this… old and ugly… from experience?” – she retorted. “Me? God forbid!” – he made a motion of spitting on the floor. “I merely keep the holy Torah, where it says we must protect our health! Here…” – he started fumbling with the ties of his cloth bag, and eventually produced a leaflet with a few Psalms printed on it, and a red string. – “If you say these, and tie the string on your right wrist, the Holy One, Blessed be He, will fulfil…”

“Get out.” – Farida’s tone had left no room for argument. “Out. Now!” She had very little patience for “fanatics” or for people who tried to “teach her how to live life”, as she would say.

“She is not Jewish,” – Hamza had to add in his heavy accent. – “She’s Muslim, like me.” The old man gave him a look of absolute blazing resentment, then walked away. Farida let out a bellowing laugh, and even Leah allowed herself to chuckle.

Just then, there was a commotion by the entrance, and they saw Nissim helping a man get a Zimmer frame up the inclined ramp. Above the frame, a large bouquet of yellow sunflowers was being waved around with the effort of every step, concealing his face. “Moshe is here!” – Tanya breathed, and ran up to accept the flowers, leaving the till to Natahsa, who arrived not even five minutes ago. Beaming, she walked beside him back into the shop. Moshe’s knees were knocking into each other with every step, his heels turned outwards and lifted awkwardly, so that he almost walked on tiptoes. His arms seemed unnaturally tense, clutching the frame with all his might, and shaking with the effort. “You came! I am so happy!” – Tanya gave him a quick peck on the cheek, then proceeded to introduce everybody, her burning glare warning them to not even dare think of saying something about the Zimmer frame or ask about his condition, now or ever. “I am so pleased to meet you all,” – Moshe said with a slight French accent, his jaw moving in the same spasmed way from side to side, and distorting his speech, but they all understood. His eyes were so dark, they almost looked black, their expression soft, but confident. “You are so lucky to have my Tanya as a colleague!” – he added, making her blush again, and brushed his long hair out of his face with the back of his hand. Leah held her phone so tightly that her knuckles stood out, becoming almost white, then got up and went to shake his hand, making him let go of the frame for a second. “Nice to meet you!” – she said. Moshe nodded to her, Tanya ran to get her bag, and then they walked out slowly, with Tanya hugging her flowers, to the grey “Honda” Moshe left in the disabled spot right by the door. Nissim got up again to help with the Zimmer frame, and then they were gone.

“How does he drive?” – Oren said into the silence.

“Who cares?” – Farida answered, as she lit her sixth cigarette for the day. She looked thoughtful, almost sad. “There are many wonders in this country.”