The Book of Trees (12 page)

“I’m going in. You coming?”

“What’ll you wear after?”

“We’ll just dry in the breeze.”

“Well, okay.”

We laid our backpacks on the shore where we could see them and walked into the waves. I let the water close over my head. When I surfaced I looked over at Michelle. “You look relaxed,” I said.

“I’ll feel even better once I pass my conversion.”

“That’ll be good.”

“Yeah, I won’t have to pretend anymore.”

“Whaddya mean?” We bobbed in the waves.

“I’ll have a Jewish name, and I’ll be able to go on dates.”

I nodded. “How does your family feel about your conversion?”

“I’m not in contact with them. My mom’s dead.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know…” I thought about the picture of the woman on the inside cover of Michelle’s notebook.

Michelle waved her hand. “It’s been a year now. She wasn’t well, you know, in her mind. It’s better this way.”

“What about the rest of your family?”

“I don’t have a dad. My grandmother is in a rest home. My older sister lives in a trailer park with her kids in Kansas. We don’t speak. Do you want me to go on?”

“Wow. No, that’s okay.” I felt a heaviness settle over me.

“I feel like I’m getting a new family though.” Michelle brightened. “You and the other girls. It’s all new and good.” She smiled.

“That’s great.”

When we got out of the water, we walked all the way down to the end of the beach and back to dry off our clothes. The wind whipping our skirts and hair felt so good I practically danced along the shore.

Michelle turned to me. “Thanks for bringing me here.”

“Like I said, sometimes you need a break.” I twirled around. “And this is just the beginning. After this we’re going to hear some music.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Where else do you have to be?”

“At home, studying.”

“Right, just that crazy little room with your books.”

“I don’t do secular music anymore.”

“Oh, c’mon. It’ll be fun.”

“No.” Michelle crossed her arms over her chest. “Secular music was part of my old life.”

“What, you want to be like the others, engaged at twenty?”

Michelle looked dreamy. “If it was the right guy. Besides, I’m already twenty-three.”

“C’mon. Don’t you think those girls, like Chani, going on
shidduch
dates, should live a little first, get some life experience?”

“I wouldn’t want to go through all that again.”

“All what?”

“You know.” Michelle hesitated. “The drinking, the sleeping with people you don’t care about.”

“Don’t you feel you had to go through all that to get here?”

“No. Absolutely not.” Michelle pushed loose strands of her hair back into her ponytail.

“What if you’d never heard the Dead?”

Michelle waved a hand in the air. “What a waste of time. I could have been learning and celebrating
Hashem
. I was heading somewhere bad.” Her face clouded. “But I’m going to be okay now.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you are.” We were back at the bus stop. “So, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You’re really not coming back?”

“I think I’ll hang out a while longer. You can find your way, right?”

“Well, sure, but…” Michelle frowned.

I gave a little wave. “Not to worry.”

I waited until Michelle’s bus came. As soon as she was out of sight, I forgot about her. I was alone in Tel Aviv. I felt so normal, like any girl in a big city with plans for the night. I went into a hotel bathroom to change my clothes and wash some of the salt off my hands and face. I tried to comb out my hair but it was so tangled and frizzy from the salt and humidity, I rebraided it and put my hat back on.

The intensity of the sun was diminishing and the city had a post-workday feel. I glanced at the address on the flyer Andrew had given me and started walking toward Dizengoff Street. As I got away from the big hotels, the shops became smaller and more interesting, filled with high-end clothing and funky shoes. I passed several restaurants and bars crowded with fashionably dressed people.

When I arrived, the café was half empty and Andrew wasn’t there. I couldn’t decide if I was disappointed or relieved. The café was long and narrow, with a bar along one side and a few tables at the very front next to a microphone and chair on a small stage. I took a seat at the back of the bar and ordered a salad and a beer. The bartender wore a halter top with spaghetti straps and pants so sheer I could see the outline of her thong. She had nice shoulders. I remembered the feeling of rubbing my bare shoulder against my cheek on hot nights. I used to own a great pair of wide-leg pants. They rode low on the hips, showing just a hint of skin—sexy, but not slutty. I sighed and adjusted my skirt. I wasn’t dressed too badly: a long straight skirt, cute sandals, my plaid rockabilly blouse with the rosette buttons. At least I’d brought my funky sun hat, a 1930s cloche style with a big flower over one ear. Sheila had found it for me in a thrift store.

The bar filled up, and I started to feel out of place. Everyone was so much older, and I felt shabby in my skirt and blouse compared to the girls in their strappy tank tops and tight jeans. I watched in amazement as this guy kissed a girl hello and gave her bare shoulder a squeeze. She ran her hands through the guy’s hair, laughing. I felt shocked. It had been so long since I’d seen people casually touching each other.

I was about to leave when Andrew came in. He was wearing jeans, his sunglasses pushed up on top of his head, making his hair spike up. My stomach tightened when I saw him. He settled his guitar case by the bar and leaned in to kiss the bartender. I couldn’t hear what they were saying because a woman in a red dress and red highlights was singing a Hebrew pop song. Andrew stood at the bar near the stage drinking a beer. He didn’t see me. Then a couple in matching Mao military hats sang “No Woman, No Cry.” The audience joined in. Everyone in the bar seemed to know each other. They clapped one another on the back and exchanged kisses.

I moved closer to the wall by the bar. After a few more songs Andrew got up and sang “Crazy.” I liked the way he tilted his hips forward to support his guitar. The bar made me think of playing with the Neon DayGlos
,
the excitement of Flip counting us in to play “Walking After Midnight.” I could feel the cowboy boots on my feet, see the spiderweb tattoo on Matt’s biceps.
And a
one and a two.
The low twang of the banjo sang out under my fingers.

Andrew caught my eye as he came off the stage and headed over to me. I twisted my skirt between my fingers.

“You came.”

“I shouldn’t have.”

“Why not?”

I shrugged. “I liked the songs you played.” I wanted to run my fingers through his hair, have him squeeze my shoulder.

“So, guitar girl, if you were up there, what would you play?”

I tilted my head to the side. “Maybe some Carter Family or an Alison Krauss song.”

“I’d like to hear you. Any chance you’d get up tonight?”

“Nah, I don’t think so.”

“Oh, c’mon. I bet you’re great. I heard you sing the other day.”

“Well…”

A guy with reddish hair wearing baggy shorts and a T-shirt clapped Andrew on the back. “Great set, dude.”

Andrew turned toward the guy. “Thanks.”

“Hey, I want you to meet some people.” Before Andrew could introduce me, the guy was herding him toward a table of his friends.

“I’ll catch you later.”

“Sure.”

Andrew moved off to shake hands with a dyed blond in a cute sundress. His friend with the reddish hair had his arm around another girl.

I checked my watch. It was already 8:30 and unless I was going to take a shared taxi back to Jerusalem, I’d have to leave now to make it before curfew. The doors of the yeshiva locked at 10:00 pm. I took a last look around the bar. It was just like the bar where I used to play: the casual hookups, the guys checking you out. I could almost taste the flat combination of beer and cigarettes flavoring Matt’s mouth. It was the taste of disappointment. Right. I was done with that.

I finished my drink and slipped out of the bar into the warm Tel Aviv night and started walking to the bus stop.

EIGHT

T
here were no classes at the yeshiva Friday morning so Aviva and I slept in. We spent the morning cleaning our room and shopping at the grocery store in French Hill. In the afternoon I gave Aviva a guitar lesson. When she tired of practicing, she went to talk to some friends, leaving me with the guitar. I played some of the new Jewish songs I’d learned, and then I found my fingers playing the
Abbey Road
medley the guitarists had played on the rooftop of the hostel. I thought about Andrew playing “Crazy” in the bar in Tel Aviv. When Aviva asked what I’d done the night before, I told her I’d gone out with Michelle. She’d yawned and said she’d gone to Israeli dancing. I was relieved she didn’t ask for details.

In the afternoon, Aviva and I went to stay overnight for Shabbos with Aviva’s cousins, Dan and Leah. They lived on the outskirts of French Hill. When I walked into their apartment, I couldn’t stop staring at the fabulous view of the Judean Desert from their living-room window.

Dan had already left for
shul
by the time we got there, so Aviva and I helped Leah in the kitchen. Leah had a pretty face with a sprinkling of freckles across her nose, but she wore a head covering like an oversized sock over every single hair on her head, and a giant apron dress over her enormous pregnant belly. I noticed she wore white socks so not even her ankles or feet were exposed. I curled my toes in my sandals to hide my polished pink toenails.

Aviva set the table and I made a fruit salad while Leah rattled off her list of baby worries. Would her mother arrive in time for the baby’s birth? What if Leah didn’t understand the doctors and nurses at the hospital? Dan and Leah had moved to Israel a year ago. On the counter by the phone was an open notebook with a list of questions written in Hebrew and their English translations.
I am in pain. Please give me an
epidural. Please call my mother!

Leah couldn’t imagine how she’d manage the holidays with a newborn in the fall. I couldn’t imagine having a baby, period. Aviva seemed enthralled with Leah’s pregnant belly. She put her hands on Leah’s stomach and even whispered, “Hello, little baby.” She was already offering to babysit.

When I finished making the salad, Leah and Aviva were still discussing bassinets and high chairs.

Leah finished wiping down the counters and came to sit with Aviva and me at the table. We each had a glass of juice.

“So”—Leah looked at me—“Aviva told me this is your first trip to Israel. Are you loving it?”

“Yes. I can’t wait to explore. We’re supposed to go on some trips soon.”

“We’re going to Massada in a couple of weeks, and then there’s a night hike at the end of the month,” Aviva said.

Through the kitchen window I could see the desert, pink in the fading evening light. “I’d like to be out there right now.” I pointed to the sunset.

“Too hot,” Aviva said.

“And dry,” Leah added. “I feel parched just looking out there. Ugh.” She drank the rest of her juice and got up from the table.

Leah went to pray in the bedroom, and Aviva headed for the spare bedroom with her prayer book, leaving me in the sparsely furnished living room. The couches had been pushed to the side of the room against a bookshelf filled with Talmudic volumes to make space for the dining table. Elaborate silver candlesticks stood next to mismatched silverware and cheap dishes.

What was Andrew doing right now? Drinking with friends? Clubbing in Tel Aviv? I tried to imagine him all scrubbed up for Shabbos, wearing a
kippah.
I suppressed a giggle.

I flopped onto the faded gray couch. I wanted to sing the psalms to welcome the Shabbos queen the way I had at Aviva’s parents’ house, praying together to create the divine presence of God, not speed-reading through the prayers the way Leah and Aviva were. When I sang alone, I was just one lonely voice, but at school when we all sang together, we created the feeling of God.

I stood up and wandered out to the balcony. The heat overwhelmed me after the air-conditioned apartment. I stood quietly observing the desert hills. Dan and Leah’s apartment was at the edge of the city. If you crossed the road, you’d really be in the desert. The sun had gone down and the sky at the horizon was a dreamy swath of pinks and blues.

I imagined the desert like a giant empty plate, a place so big it would obliterate all thought. It wouldn’t matter what music you liked or how you dressed. I wouldn’t be thinking about Andrew or the trees. I’d just be a body moving in a space, motivated by physical sensations: thirst, hunger, heat, exhaustion. If you were surrounded by nothing but sand, were you still the same person or would the landscape change you?

I shook my head and thought about standing in that huge wide-open space. I couldn’t even envision it; it felt too big to fit in my head. I’d be swallowed up in the vastness.

I closed my eyes and started humming one of the Friday-night psalms. “
Yedid Nefesh, Av harahaman
.” Soulmate, loving God. I pretended I was singing with a bunch of other people, and I tried to conjure the feeling of Shabbos calm, of God’s presence.

Leah came into the living room to light Shabbos candles. She offered Aviva and me little tea lights in glass holders so we could say the blessing. I wondered if I should sing along with them, but before I could decide, Leah whispered the blessing, without looking at us, and then went back to the kitchen. I sang the blessing alone.

Then Dan came in calling, “
Shabbat Shalom
.” He was a young guy with a big barrel chest and a brown scruffy beard. We gathered at the table for the blessing of the wine and then we washed our hands. Dan said
hamotzi,
the prayer over the bread, and passed everyone a warm, ripped-off chunk of
challah
. Then Leah brought in the food, and Dan and Leah started discussing the week’s Torah portion.

Leah passed me a platter of chicken. “I always think it’s crazy Moshe never got to enter the holy land.”