The Book of Trees (13 page)

“He made a mistake.” Dan helped himself to rice.

“But everyone makes mistakes,” Leah said.

Shit. I had been swimming in Tel Aviv and chasing Andrew instead of learning the week’s Torah portion. “So, what’s the story of the week?” I tried to keep my tone light.

Conversation stopped. Aviva raised her eyebrows at me. My cheeks grew hot. “I missed class yesterday,” I mumbled.

Dan took a sip of wine. “The Jews enter Israel after wandering in the desert for forty years, but Moshe isn’t allowed to enter because he doubted God.”

I knew Moshe was Moses, but I didn’t know this story. “How did God know Moses doubted him?”

Aviva explained. “God told Moses to strike this rock with his stick to get water. And Moses hesitated a moment, which shows he doubted God.”

“Poor Moshe,” Leah said. “Such a good guy, and never rewarded for all his trouble. The plagues, the forty years in the desert.” She sighed.

“No.” Dan smacked the table with his fist. “Moshe was a leader, a role model for the other Jews. He had to be made an example.”

I wondered why we were reading this section now. Shouldn’t it be read just after Passover in the spring? “Is that the end of the chapter?” I asked. “They go to Israel, but Moses doesn’t?” Could I sound any more ignorant? I really needed to read the whole bible this summer, or at least Genesis and Exodus.

Aviva helped herself to more salad. “They get to Israel and they make war on the Ammonites who live there, and they win and resettle the land.”

Whoa. “They got there and there were other people, so they just killed them?”

“It was a war,” Aviva said.

“It wasn’t just a war.” Dan waved his fork. “It was our promised land. Of course we would win.”

I frowned. You just kill the people who get in your way? I hadn’t thought about the trees in the last few days. I’d been too focused on Andrew. Now they came rushing back to my mind. No wonder the trees didn’t bother my religious friends. They were probably used to reading about violence in the Torah. I opened my mouth and closed it without speaking.

“Were you going to say something?” Leah asked.

“Uh, no.”

“The Torah is full of bloodshed,” Dan continued. “Our people’s history has been difficult.”

“The military is a reality here.” Leah patted her rounded tummy. “Our little one will serve.”

“Doesn’t that bother you?” I felt vaguely nauseated.

“It’s a privilege,” Dan said.

“Better to fight than be frightened.” Leah folded her napkin.

“Or have to hide,” Aviva added. I stared at Aviva. Did she really agree with them?

Dan helped himself to a second helping of chicken. “Besides, he’ll be fighting for
Eretz Yisrael,
the land of Israel.”

“Amen!” Leah raised her wine and clinked her glass against Dan’s.

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.

Dan looked at me and smiled. “Mia, I love all people, I really do.” He put his huge hand over his heart. “But it’s like your family. If your brother, God forbid, is hurt, you’re going to rescue him before any stranger. These”—he gestured with an outstretched arm, suggesting all of Jerusalem—“are my people. Moshe and the Jews had to think of themselves before the Ammonites.”

I nodded and pretended to smile. I wanted to leave their apartment immediately. Who else did the Torah say to kill? I felt like I’d gone to see a movie billed as a romantic comedy and it turned out to be a bloody war epic. Why was everyone so accepting of, even excited by, all this violence? It was crazy. I stared at Leah. Was she really okay with her kids growing up to be soldiers? Who were these people?

After dinner Aviva cornered me in the kitchen. “How come you weren’t at your Torah class?”

“Oh, that. Right, well. I stayed late at volunteering.”

Aviva hesitated a moment and then nodded.

Shabbos morning we went to Dan and Leah’s
shul
. In the afternoon Dan and Leah lay down for a nap. Aviva sat next to me on the balcony, reading a novel. I found a bible in Dan and Leah’s living room and flipped through to the section about the Ammonites.

I read for a while, and then I closed the book and looked out over the desert. No wonder the army could plant trees over Arab villages or knock down Arab houses. It was in the Torah; modern Israel fulfilled biblical prophecy. I felt sick to my stomach.

I shuddered and leaned my head back. I couldn’t stay with these people any longer. Aviva and I were supposed to hang out until Shabbos ended—five more hours. I tapped my feet on the concrete patio and twisted in the hard plastic lawn chair. I stood up abruptly. “I think I’m going to get going.”

Aviva looked up sleepily. “Huh?”

“I feel kinda anxious to go home. I think I’ll just head back to the dorm.”

Aviva sat up. “You’re going to walk in this heat?”

“I’ll be okay.”

“What should I tell Dan and Leah?”

“Oh, just tell them I felt sick or something.”

I quickly retreated from the balcony, leaving Aviva staring after me.

Down on the street, the sun scorched the pavement, but I felt relieved. I walked down the hill toward the Hyatt Hotel. Four o’clock Saturday afternoon and no one knew where I was. I wondered what Andrew was doing. Playing guitar? Drinking a beer? A slightly exhilarated feeling took over me. Too bad it was Shabbos and I could only get places on foot. I stopped in the shade of a bus stop to look at the view. Below me stretched East Jerusalem and then the Old City. The Dome of the Rock gleamed in the midday sun. What if you were Palestinian and you fled in 1948 and you never got to come back and see this view again? My heart felt pinched, imagining it.

Why hadn’t I ever jogged through East Jerusalem? Even the bus from downtown took a circuitous route through West Jerusalem. Was East Jerusalem really that dangerous? It didn’t look that way from here. I fished in my backpack for my map. I studied the streets and then stuck the map in my pocket. I hesitated a moment. Aviva would have a fit if she knew I walked there, yet I wanted to see what it was like. I’d head straight down to the Old City, just to check things out. I took a swig from my water bottle and headed downhill.

East Jerusalem’s quiet streets of apartment blocks and high-fenced buildings had an unkempt, shabby appearance. A thin dog missing patches of fur followed me for a block before disappearing into an abandoned lot. Pink and yellow plastic bags snagged the fences and clung to the corridor of the road like icing on a dry cake. I stopped at a rough-looking gas station, unsure which way to go. Around me buses spewed exhaust. I stood looking down the road, trying to get my bearings. I fumbled in my pocket for my map, but I was reluctant to take it out. Two small boys stared at me and a group of young men looked me up and down suspiciously. There were no women around. Did these guys’ families lose their villages? I wanted to say, Sorry, it wasn’t me who did it. I looked nervously around again, crossed my fingers and decided to turn the corner. I hurried along a road without a sidewalk, praying it was the right way. Once this city had belonged to those young men’s fathers, and now it didn’t. I couldn’t imagine how that felt. I walked quickly, without looking back, until I arrived at a more familiar part of the city, not far from Damascus Gate.

Sweat meandered between my breasts and dampened the waistband of my underwear. The sun bore down, fiery on my forearms. Now what? I could walk by Andrew’s hostel and see if he was there. What I really wanted was a pool. Last week I’d walked over to the King David Hotel and had ice tea in the lobby. I’d stared at the swimmers enjoying the water. Surely there was a women’s swim club somewhere. Or maybe I could pretend to be someone else, just for an hour, and strip off my modest sundress and plunge into the water. I used to own the cutest aqua bikini with little bows at the hips. I sat down at a bus stop and flipped through the pages of my guidebook to look for a hotel, the fancier the better.

The streets were deserted except for a young religious guy across the street in a black hat, black jacket and white shirt. I saw him look at me and then quickly look away. I guessed he was bored on Shabbos and out for a walk too. I tried to ignore him and concentrate on my map. When I looked up, I saw the guy’s dick jutting out of his pants. Sick. I jammed my guidebook in my bag and ran several long hot blocks until I came to the American Colony Hotel.

Dust swirled around a young Arab boy selling fruit juice in front of the hotel. Where did he live? Then I stopped in the entranceway of the hotel and gazed at the stone walls, the elegant greenery, the mosaic floors. At the far end of the hall an archway led to a tranquil pool. There was also a small bookstore. The desk clerk eyed me. I strolled right past him.

I walked down the hallway to the pool, sat in the shade of an umbrella and kicked off my sandals. I felt cooler just looking at the water. A waiter came by and I ordered an ice tea, which you’re probably not supposed to do on Shabbos
,
but I could wait until sundown to pay for it. That was okay, wasn’t it?

NINE

O
ne of my Bubbie Bess’s friends, who had moved to Israel to be near her kids, called me up and invited me out to tea. Mrs. Shanowitz used to have the lawn chair next to Bubbie Bess at her Florida condo.

“I’ll take you somewhere where it won’t feel like Israel. Meet me at Ticho House.” Only a few blocks away from Zion Square, Ticho House was nestled in a rich green garden with a shady café patio.

I wasn’t sure why I agreed. I’d never really liked Mrs. Shanowitz. She was a busybody who always said you looked either too thin or too fat. She always had a nice boy she wanted to set you up with, someone who was going to be a lawyer or had just got into Yale. I only agreed to meet her because her voice reminded me of Bubbie Bess.

Mrs. Shanowitz wore closed-toe shoes despite the heat and the same kind of white polyester pants with a sharp crease down the front and giant sunglasses that Bubbie Bess liked to wear. A huge diamond sparkled like a chandelier on her left hand.

Mrs. Shanowitz gave me two noisy kisses, one on each cheek, and then peppered me with questions about Sheila and Flip. I felt briefly homesick for my family, listening to her accent. She said
gas
the way Bess said it—
gaz
—as if she was speaking French.

She ordered tea and started complaining. Israel was too hot, too dirty, too dangerous. Still, she couldn’t afford another broken hip from the ice at home. Her health insurance made Florida too expensive. She couldn’t go gallivanting to see the sights because the uneven Jerusalem stone on the roads and sidewalks might trip her. Her children were too busy with their own lives and didn’t have time to ferry her around.

I tuned her out and drank in the tall trees at the edge of the garden. Don would like to sit under those.

“I’ve only been to the Wall once since I came here,” Mrs. Shanowitz said.

“Would you like to go now?”

“Oh, I’m a little tired. It’s so hot.”

“We could take a cab.”

“If it’s not too much trouble.” She looked pleased.

The cab driver took us to Dung Gate, where the tour buses let off tourists close to the
Kotel
. I helped Mrs. Shanowitz across the plaza and to a chair by the wall. I sat a few rows back. It was mid-afternoon and very hot. Tourists thronged the wall, gawking at the stones instead of praying. I sighed. A wall, people, a symbol. And me? I was sick of thinking about it.

Mrs. Shanowitz didn’t pray; she people-watched. After a few minutes she asked to walk around. She held tightly on to my arm and kept up a steady commentary. “Christians, hmm. I can’t imagine what they get out of all this, but I suppose they’re curious. Do you think they could have restricted times? Oh, I guess that would be unpopular. Wow, look at the size of the men’s side. So much bigger. I guess that’s religion for you, squishing the women off in a corner. Oh, I hope I haven’t insulted a nice girl like you. Oh good. That goes to show.”

When we got back to the gate, I stuck Mrs. Shanowitz in a taxi.

“I’m going to send Bess a card and tell her how delicious you are.” She squeezed my shoulder. “You keep safe. No riding on buses or wandering alone. Okay then.” She planted more rose-scented kisses on my cheeks, and then I closed the taxi door.

I tried to wipe the smell of old-lady perfume off me as I climbed the stairs back up to the balcony overlooking the plaza and the
Kotel.
Tourists strolled across the ancient stones, others prayed at the wall, the Dome glinting in the background. I’d seen pictures of the first soldiers to arrive at the wall when it was recaptured in ’67. They were the first Jews to get there in centuries. The pictures made me feel like crying, as if hands were squeezing my chest. I couldn’t imagine the city without the
Kotel
. Yet how many Ammonites or Palestinians had to be killed to get it? I kept wondering, had the Israeli army killed Palestinians because they’d read in the bible that the Jews had killed the Ammonites? Did it make it easier?

I’d tried to explore other Arab parts of the city since my walk through East Jerusalem. I’d wandered down a street full of Arab cafés and falafel stands near Damascus Gate and seen the lines of people outside the Ministry of Justice. I’d stopped at a corner store to ask for a café recommendation from a teenage boy snacking on a bag of sunflower seeds. He thought about it for a moment, called out in Arabic toward the back of the shop and was joined by three other boys. They conferred and wrote down several names for me. “We go together?” asked the oldest. I hesitated and said, ‘No, thank you,” as politely as I could. I’d wandered by the cafés but didn’t go in because there were only men in them. The only women I’d noticed were two old women sitting cross-legged, selling baskets of leafy green vegetables in front of a shoe shop on King David Street. They looked out of place in their headscarves on the busy road.