Part II
Synopsis: Naomi has made aliya with a family of nine
children. Energetic, effervescent and capable, she is ever
looking for new vistas for her talents and is now determined
to become a writer.
"It's either now or never," she told her mother. And though,
even to Naomi it seemed more never than now, on the first day
of her childrens' summer vacation, she gathered all her
lovely chickadees round her to try to work out a schedule in
which, if they would run a day camp in the corner park from
nine to one every day, allowing her to write undisturbed
during those hours, she would take them all afterwards to the
beach...
Though the alarm clock had given them an early start, the
Shelner Morning Day Camp was already an hour behind schedule.
Naomi looked at the clock in panic. The morning would slip
through her fingers if this kept up. The bags of coloring
books, picture books, puzzles, crayons, refreshments and
drinks that Director Miriam was preparing to take along to
the park was beginning to resemble a moving job, and in the
middle of it all, sniff, sniff, the baby Mindale needed a
fresh diaper.
They were finally ready to go; nine shining, smiling
cherubs.
Naomi heaved a sigh of relief and fled to the storage porch
where her typewriter sat waiting. She hadn't prepared either
lunch or supper, as she should have, according to her
schedule, and she hadn't put up a load of laundry either.
But, she told herself, one has to be flexible... even if it
meant that they would have to eat leben for lunch and maybe
even for supper... Just this once...
"See how flexible you've become?" Naomi congratulated
herself, all the while trying to ignore the chorus that would
later ring in her ears. "What, Mommy! Leben for lunch and
leben for supper? But we already had leben for breakfast!"
Naomi promised herself that the next day she'd really make up
for it and prepare a gourmet meal. Maybe something she could
reheat the rest of the week.
Though Naomi sat on her storage porch, surrounded by empty
valises, bundles of hand-me-downs, containers of kerosene for
heaters, cartons of Pesach dishes, and dolls, which over the
years had lost their limbs and clothing, all she saw was the
typewriter. The silence was unbelievable. No squabbling, no
fighting, no shouting, no teasing, no crying. An empty house.
All alone. This had never happened to her before! Was it
really possible that for four hours she would not be
disturbed and be able to reach again for those heights to
which, once long ago, she'd thought herself destined, but
had, in the never-ending merry-go-round of living, somehow
abandoned?
"Hashem, please watch over my children!" Naomi entreated,
glancing upward with trust, and started to type the story
that had been bubbling inside of her all month, begging to
find form and essence.
The words gushed out like a gurgling brook, natural and easy,
tumbling over little stones, cascading from distant heights.
They just kept coming, filling page after page.
"Maybe Mama was right," Naomi thought with excitement. "Maybe
I am a born writer. And to think that all it takes is an
empty house..."
But bells do have a way of ringing.
Naomi tensed up like a porcupine.
"No, this can't happen to me," she insisted. "Not after all
the sacrifices the children are making to grant me this
freedom! Not after all the detailed scheduling and frantic
rushing and fussing to get the children out. Not after all
the prayers, those thousands of silent prayers for peace and
quiet and being alone, just me, myself, all alone with
nothing but the sound of my soul and the whisper of my
heart."
"I'll just ignore it, that's what I'll do," Naomi decided
without further compunctions. "I'll simply ignore the bell
and whoever it is will go away. What would they do if I was
also out in the park together with my kids, like a good
Jewish mother? It's not really a lie."
The ringing persisted. Naomi continued typing. "I'm not home.
Go away," she said out loud. But the ringing kept right
on.
Naomi finally got up, angry that she hadn't done so right
away and saved herself all that agonizing indecision and
guilt.
She opened the door. A beggar stood outside. He was neither
apologetic or impatient after waiting so long, but just took
Naomi's coin without expression and turned to go.
This time, when Naomi closed the door, she latched both
locks.
By the time she got back to the typewriter, she'd lost the
thread of the story and the feel of the mood. She started
scratching out words, switching phrases and words. Then she
tore up pages that just minutes before she'd thought were
nothing short of poetry.
And then the doorbell rang again.
"Let them ring all they want. This time I'm not moving,"
Naomi said.
The ringing stopped. Naomi let out a tremendous volume of
breath.
But then the banging began.
"You're not home!" Naomi said out loud in a hypnotic
monotone. "You're really not home. You're out with your
children like a good Jewish Mother. It's no crime not to be
home."
But home or not home, whoever was out there banging was going
to break the door down if Naomi didn't get there fast. So
Naomi huffing and puffing got to the door.
The real-estate salesman who stood outside, acting as though
it was perfectly normal for him to break down doors as part
of his job, nonchalantly threw Naomi a floor plan, saying,
"You might be interested in this apartment."
When he left a half hour later, Naomi returned to her storage
porch, which was by then flooded with sunshine. While
attempting to pull the typing table into a shady corner, one
of the legs collapsed. The typewriter came crashing down and
a pile of paper scattered in every direction.
She bent down to be reassured that the typewriter still
worked and started collecting the sheets of paper filled with
words of inspiration that had flowed like a stream, that were
as deep as a well, like a reservoir of clean, pure water...
and braced herself for her children's arrival.
They would be home any minute, she realized in panic. She
hadn't made lunch; she hadn't prepared their swim suits. And
though all she had to show for her first morning of freedom
were two pages of crossed out typing, she was thoroughly
exhausted and hungry, too.
Naomi could already hear the family approaching: the whining,
arguing, teasing, the shouting. "A lovely family," was the
way strangers described them.
Some were already racing up the steps, each child determined
to be the first to give Naomi her version of the same
tale.
The door banged open. Her `lovely family' barged in: sweat-
stained, tear-stained. A dirty diaper trailed behind two-year-
old Estee. A red-faced Mindy had fallen asleep on ten-year-
old Fraydee's shoulder and was unceremoniously dumped on the
floor, thumb still in her mouth. At least it was cool on the
stone tiles...
"You'll tell me about it later on at the beach!" Naomi
promised the circle of complainers that had immediately
formed round her. "Just get into your swim suits, a fast
lunch and we're off."
When the house vibrated with the happy shouts of the children
dressing for the beach, Naomi hurried into her bedroom,
closed the door behind her and feeling like a miser hoarding
his pennies, shoved her two typed pages under her
mattress.
*
As the bus bounced along through Tel Aviv traffic, Naomi told
herself sadly, "Well, let's face it. This morning was a total
flop! Maybe I should listen to Mama, and push off the writing
till the children are grown up."
But once on the beach, the roar of the water, the rush of the
waves, the glare of stone-breakers mirroring the sun... and
the happy shouts of children splashing in the sea all lulled
Naomi to a calm.
"Maybe what I really need is to be alone on a raft in the
middle of nowhere," Naomi thought with a chuckle. No beggars,
no salesmen, no laundry, no meals...
"Your problem is that you want both worlds," Naomi told
herself sharply, "and you refuse to understand that you can't
have both at the same time."
Suddenly Naomi realized that she was talking to herself and
burst out laughing. The mother within her was chastising the
child inside her who, at thirty-nine, had still not grown up.
"And your greatest problem," the mother continued, "is that
you never ever appreciated how blessed you really are."
"Look out to sea, hear your children's laughter," the mother
inside Naomi told her more gently. "When all else is gone,
this is what you'll keep forever."
Naomi's reverie was rudely interrupted with her childrens'
insistent calls. "Mommy, watch me swim, watch me swim." She
sat up and watched as they dived head-first into the oncoming
wave, wiggled to the bottom and just as Naomi was getting
nervous that they were underwater so long, they each surfaced
with fists jabbing at salt-filled eyes, noses spurting water,
coughing, choking, but smiling proudly as each one
proclaimed, "See, Mommy, I can swim!"
The stretch of sand and water, sky and sun, were whispering
something to Naomi, but as hard as she tried to understand
what they said, their message was elusive, and then, just as
Naomi was ready to give up, she suddenly understood.
"Yes, I can also swim," she shouted, and ran to her children
in the sea...
