The Book of Trees (19 page)

“What?” Aviva’s face turned red. Her hair stuck out several inches wider than usual, almost afro-like, as if she’d been running her hands endlessly through her curls. “You put yourself in danger for some Palestinian who doesn’t like the rules? And then, oh great, his cousin comes and bombs you?” Her words cut into me like glass.

I thought, Who is this stranger?

I sat down on the floor and pulled off my sneakers and socks and fanned my toes. I walked to the sink in our room and hoisted a foot in and turned on the tap.

“What are you doing?”

“Washing.”

I stuck my feet under the cold water. Aviva watched me rub soap into the brown caked dirt. The cold made my shaking stop. Now, sandals. Flat ones made of worn, suede-like velvet. I shoved my wet feet into the grooved toes and headed to the door.

“Wait.”

“Later.”

My stupid skirt flapped around my calves; my sandals slapped against my heels. People stared at me. I looked at my reflection in the side-view mirror of a parked car. Ash smudged my cheeks. My skirt was bloody from my skinned knee.

I walked around the neighborhood, looking at children playing in courtyards, at men carrying briefcases, until I was hungry and I needed to pee all that juice out of me.

Aviva was waiting for me in the hall in front of our room. I walked right by her into the bathroom. I stripped off my clothes and stood under the shower. I scrubbed my fingernails, brushed my teeth, shaved my legs. I washed my hair three times. When I came out I ate four slices of bread slathered in butter. I stood at the edge of the lounge, looking at the news on the tv. Aviva sat on the couch, watching with some other girls.

“That’s my bus.” I pointed to the carnage on the screen. Someone quickly turned the channel to a mindless yogurt commercial. I sat down on the couch and stared over the screen, trying to think of nothing. It could have been me on the bus. I could be dead.

In the morning I awoke with a sweaty start. My hair still smelled like smoke.

Aviva asked, “Are you going to go to class today?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll stay here with you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“It’s okay. We could go somewhere quiet.”

“No, thanks.” I rubbed my eyes and shook my head. A cloud resided between my eyes. “I have a letter to write.”

I went up to the roof with a stack of postcards and a pen.

Dear Don,
I wrote.

A very large bomb went off and killed many people
inside a bus I was supposed to take on the day I went
to rebuild a Palestinian house. I’m thinking about this
today as I sit on the roof which has a beautiful view of the
Judean hills.

I wrote on a postcard of the
Kotel
with the Dome of the Rock in the background. Over the picture I wrote,
City of Peace, my ass.
Then I crossed the whole thing out and blackened it into an ink blob, like a storm cloud over the Western Wall, because I didn’t want Don to know how naïve I really was.

Aviva kept coming up with coffee, with water, with toast. I let it all go cold, ignoring her.

“Are you coming in now? Do you want me to microwave your coffee?”

I stared at the cup in my hand and gulped the whole thing cold. “Thank you, it was good.”

“You should eat the toast.”

I shrugged, ate it, went to our room and closed the door. I sat on the bed and waited to see if Aviva would follow me in. She didn’t. I grabbed my journal and read the lines I’d already written. Then I added:

Stolen trees bear sour fruit;
We must find other ways to take root.

Buses burn, children cry,
City of Peace is a lie.

The lines sucked, but then I wrote:

These trees are like lovers,
Roots clasping deep.
Jerusalem, oh City of Peace,
Why must all your people weep?

Chorus:
What we all need is a new Jerusalem;
What we need is to start over again.

I could hear the melody under the words. I tried to hear the guitar chords in my head, but they wouldn’t come. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. I couldn’t. People were killing each other. We were demolishing their houses, and they were bombing our buses. I wanted to untangle who was right or wrong, but I didn’t have the whole story. I probably never would. I wished God really was up in the sky, meting out justice, untwisting right from wrong, like when you got in a fight with your brother and you were both right and both wrong and only a watching parent could figure out who really started it all. If only God was like that.

TWELVE

I
started to wake to the call to prayer again each morning. I had gotten used to it, had even slept through it, but now its plaintive wail set me on edge. I lay in bed, wondering about the people it was calling. I tried to imagine a Muslim girl thanking God for making the new day. I wondered what she thought of the trees, the burning bus, the bodies consumed by fire. How would she feel about using violence to defend her homeland?

I didn’t leave our dorm for five days. I missed a week of school and the overnight trip to Massada. In the mornings I stayed in bed, pretending to sleep, until Aviva left for class. Then I’d wander around the dorm trying to shake the ringing sound of sirens out of my head, like I used to shake the water out of my ears at the lake. When I tried to write chords for my Jerusalem song, I saw train wrecks and volcanoes and the bus in flames, the metal twisted into a burning cage.

One morning Aviva woke me up before she left for classes. “The night hike you wanted to go on is tonight. Are you going to come?”

“Oh, I guess so.”

“A bunch of us are going for dinner first, if you’re up for it.”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

“It would be good if you came. You could go to classes too.”

I sighed. It all seemed so loud and overwhelming.

“Are your ears still bothering you?”

“They’re fine now.”

“Then you’ll meet us for dinner?”

I nodded.

Aviva gave me the name of a restaurant off Ben Yehuda.

I got up, took a shower and got dressed in the red-and-white-checkered dress with the cinched waist I’d worn on the first day of school.

When I arrived at my Torah class, Michelle was sitting with a girl I didn’t recognize. Michelle hugged me. “I heard what happened. Are you all right?”

I nodded. “How was your exam?”

“Look.” She held out a necklace with a Jewish star dangling from it. “I’m Jewish now.” She beamed.

“That’s great. I’m really happy for you.”

Michelle looked relaxed, even buoyant. She introduced me to the girl sitting at the table, Sofia, a Czech immigrant in the process of conversion. “You weren’t here, and Sofia didn’t have a
chevruta
…”

“That’s fine.” I waved a hand in the air. “We can all work together.”

I sat down at the table with them, but I had trouble keeping up. Michelle’s Hebrew had soared from all her studying.

During break Michelle and Sofia talked about a shower for Chani.

“Is that today?”

“Yes.”

“Crap.” I’d forgotten all about it.

“I was going to get a gift from both of us, but I didn’t know when you were coming back.”

“You could have called,” I mumbled.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

On the way to Chani’s shower, I stopped on King David Street to buy a present. The Judaica was too expensive. A stationery store had only candles and paper. I went into a lingerie store squished between shoe shops. I fingered a lace camisole. It felt cheap. I gawked at the price tag. I moved toward a table of panties. Did Orthodox girls wear thongs?

A clerk with dyed red hair asked, “Can I help you?”

“Everything is very expensive,” I murmured, not looking up.

“It is for yourself?”

“No, a shower gift. Do you have any underwear? Maybe something a little sexy?”

The clerk pointed to a table. I sorted through checked boy-shorts, lacy thongs, shiny black briefs with cutout gauzy windows. A box hanging on the wall caught my eyes. Edible underwear. Ooh, fun. I picked the box off the wall without checking the size.

The shower was in an apartment building on a tree-lined street south of Rehavia. A giant crayon drawing of Chani’s fiancé, Yosef, with the title
Pin the Kippah on the
Rabbi
adorned the wall facing the door. I froze. Would we really play, or was it a joke? Girls hovered around a table of food. Chani sat on a couch by the table, opening gifts with some girls from Israeli dancing. I sat at the edge of the group, gnawing on carrot sticks. Chani received a wine carafe, candles and stationery sets. The girls passed the gifts around for everyone to admire and decorated Chani with the bows and ribbons from the wrapping. I eyed my gift, the jaunty little box sheathed in shiny red paper. Even the wrapping was loud. I bit my lip. I should have bought her a piece of pottery. The girls oohed and aahed over an embroidered
challah
cover Sarah Shapiro had made.

I whispered to Michelle, “What did you get her?”

“I gave my money to Nomi. She bought something from a bunch of us.” Michelle pointed to a large box. “You?”

“Um, well, you’ll see. I… ”

Michelle’s eyebrows lifted. I lifted mine too and tried to smile.

I thought about the panties again, their glossy indecent glow in the plastic wrapper. Oh my god, what if they weren’t kosher? I never checked. I stood up abruptly and went back to the table and grabbed some chocolate-chip cookies. A silly nervous feeling came over me. I should leave, or grab the gift when no one was looking, claim a sudden rash, asthma, a migraine. How would a rabbi decide if they were kosher anyway? Would he visit the edible-undies factory and inspect the melting gelatin? I felt nauseous, yet also giddy.

I sat down with the group again and nibbled cookies with determination. Chani opened the large box from Nomi and the other girls and pulled out a hand-painted
challah
plate. “This is gorgeous.” While everyone was still admiring the delicately painted porcelain, Chani opened my gift.

“Brace yourself for this one, baby,” I whispered to Michelle. Chani unwrapped it and studied the photograph of the semi-clad couple on the box. She looked confused.

Michelle drew in her breath audibly. “You didn’t.”

“I did.”

Chani’s cheeks flushed. “Thanks, Mia. That looks like…like fun.”

“You’re welcome.”

Michelle grabbed my hand and pushed me out to the narrow balcony.

“Do you really think we’ll have to play Pin the Kippah on the Rabbi?” I asked.

“What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know. I thought it would be…fun.”

“Have you tried talking to someone, maybe one of the teachers at school? Or praying?”

“I pray all the time.”

“Then you need to get help, professional help.”

“I think I am beyond help. I think I’m seeing clearly for the first time.”

Michelle stared at me like I was crazy. “I’m not sure we should be studying together anymore.”

“Oh.” I stopped. Of course she wouldn’t want to be associated with the crazy girl. “Don’t worry about it. I can find someone else.” I waved a hand in the air. “I think I’ll go now. Tell Chani bye for me.”

“Mia, wait.” Michelle looked concerned. “It’s just—”

“No, it’s okay. I understand.”

I left Michelle standing on the balcony and started walking toward the Old City to see Andrew. I imagined telling him about the shower, rehearsing how I’d describe Chani’s face when she opened the gift. He’d laugh and shake his head. I started to laugh, walking down the street. People looked my way, but I didn’t care.

Andrew wasn’t in his room or on the rooftop. In the empty kitchen I looked at the table where I’d sat in shock the week before. The room smelled of garlic. Dirty dishes sat in the sink, attracting ants. The room was silent except for the hum of the fridge. A dog barked somewhere in the distance.

Andrew had been with me in that horrible moment, when my ears burned and my skin hurt. After the noise subsided, just the two of us were left sitting together. He was with me when my head pounded and my ears rang. That crazy underwater feeling—only Andrew understood it.

I felt tired. I wanted to take a nap upstairs in Andrew’s bed, to wrap myself in his Andrew-scented sheets. I could be safe there; it wouldn’t matter if he was there, but if he was…I imagined us lying in the bed together and felt myself flush. I sat for a few more moments, and then I got up to go meet Aviva on Ben Yehuda for dinner.

As I was going down the steep tile stairs, I saw Andrew coming in from the street. Heat crept up my neck. I felt my pulse quicken.

“Hi.” I pushed my sleeves up my arms and then tugged them down.

Andrew put down his backpack. “Hey, guitar girl. I was thinking about you.”

“You were?” I held my breath.

“I was wondering if you were okay.”

“I’m all right. You?”

“Sure, fine. As fine as I can be.” Andrew leaned against the wall and took off his sunglasses. He had dark circles under his eyes. “I wasn’t sure if you’d come by again.”