"Ima, You're not listening."
The ten-year-old had to shout and Hadassah turned her head in
alarm. She turned the mixer off simultaneously and silence
reigned in the kitchen.
"What happened?" she asked quickly.
"Nothing," the girl laughed, "I didn't mean to shout, but I
didn't have a choice." She indicated the mixer. "I called you
like ten times and you didn't hear."
"What did you want?" she asked, carefully adding egg
whites.
"To go to Shoshi till four." That's it? The mixer began
whirring again.
"You can go," Hadassah opened the baking powder and added it
to the flour. Something looked a bit strange. Cream sugar
grains came out instead of powder. Vanilla sugar. "What a
stupid mistake," she thought. "Yankee," she called her six-
year-old son, "Please go up to Deutsch and ask for some
baking powder." Yankee did as he was told but Deutsch weren't
there. The Golds weren't home and Mrs. Levanon was resting,
according to her children.
"Levin," the little one offered in trepidation. "Should I
knock at Levin?"
"No," Hadassah answered, alarmed. No way! That's all she
needed. "We'll send someone to the store."
But that someone wasn't there. She had gone to Shoshi, she
remembered too late. The older ones weren't home yet. Her
husband was in Kollel and the baby was napping in his bed.
There was no one to go to the store.
The batter was waiting in the bowl, hard and swollen. You
can't bake without baking powder. Yankee was as disappointed
as she was.
"So, I'll knock at Levin?" he tried again.
"You are not knocking at Levin. No cake? A kappara. No
one is knocking at the Levins. "Why does it have to be like
this?" she thought gloomily. Why did they have to live in
this building? They're so revolting.
Yesterday she had cleaned the house with the blessed help of
Nancy, an incomparably efficient Slovakian. "Now the
windows," Nancy intoned business-like. Hadassah looked at
them askance. She hated doing windows.
"They're really not that dirty. Maybe we'll wait till next
time?" But Nancy had disappeared and returned in a flash with
all the equipment:
"Take," she handed her a rag, broaching no compromise. "Also
last week, you say no need. Nancy says need." She started
cleaning energetically leaving Hadassah no choice. The
windows, as Nancy had said, had needed cleaning. Now they
gleamed like polished glass and Hadassah looked at them
admiringly. Nancy folded up her blue housedress, put the pail
on the balcony, said goodbye in her unique accent and left,
leaving behind a sparkling house and a calm housewife.
An hour later, it happened. One drop, then another and then
another. Small rivulets of water made channels on the shining
windows. "What is that?" the sun was shining in a light blue
sky and there were no clouds on the horizon or anywhere.
Hadassah went out on the balcony to find the upstairs
neighbor watering her flowers in her flowerbox with her
plastic watering can. Apparently, the flowerboxes were well
hydrated because what they didn't soak up flowed through the
tiny holes on the bottom directly onto Nancy's handiwork.
Anger choked her. An hour's work for nothing, and the woman
is watering flowers unconcernedly.
"Leah," she called up to her. The neighbor looked up in
surprise. "Didn't you notice that your flowerbox is dripping
on our windows?"
"Oh, really?" the neighbor asked and continued her task. The
answer annoyed her no less than the brown rivulets.
"Could you stop watering? I just washed the windows and
they're getting all dirty."
"Oh," the neighbor said in an apathetic tone that drove
Hadassah crazy: "That's too bad. Next time, tell me before
you clean and I'll water before," she said and disappeared
into the house, holding the watering can aloft.
Hadassah also ran into the house, taking out the cloth and
spray to stop the springs erupting on the windows. "Why is
she so horrible?" she thought to herself wiping the windows
with vigor she didn't possess. Her anger welled up inside
her, awakening dormant cells of old wrongs. It seemed that
Leah looked for ways to aggravate her; as if she had been
waiting for the windows to be cleaned in order to go and
water her flowers. Hadassah knew she had no basis to think
that way and logic dictated that the neighbor had no
knowledge of the windows below. But her angry thoughts kept
logic at bay.
From the time that the Levin family came to live there, she
had frequently felt overwhelmed with anger. Hadassah had
never thought of herself as someone prone to conflict,
certainly not with a neighbor. She had never quarreled with
any of her classmates. She wasn't one for cliques or grudges.
She was a friendly and easygoing type who welcomed Mrs. Levin
happily. The first day, she sent them a large cake and the
children made a beautiful welcome sign. In the evening she
had sent a salad and reminded her that they were just
downstairs if they needed anything. The neighbor had said a
quick and preoccupied, "Thanks a lot," gave her family name,
and added, "Thank you, but we're managing, Boruch Hashem,"
and closed the door. Hadassah went downstairs, and
disappointment buried her good intentions. She hadn't
expected this response or this type of neighbor.
"She's obviously very busy and a little distracted." Hadassah
tried to judge her favorably. "And maybe she's shy or
emotional or everything together." A little bird whispered to
Hadassah that this was probably the norm and not a one-time
thing but Hadassah chased the bird away and told herself that
not every neighbor has to be a good friend and that if she
was nice, they'd be nice too. Later on, the bird came more
frequently and Hadassah didn't always have the energy to
chase it away, especially when she felt the bird was
right.
If only the neighbors were strange or dangerous or had some
problem, Hadassah would have been willing to restrain
herself, to feel pity and judge favorably. But the well-
groomed Levin family managed just fine and no problems were
apparent. Leah Levin was in the habit of inviting friends
over and having long conversations on the cordless on the
balcony — Hadassah was not a friend. That's it. It was
the horrible impassiveness that drove Hadassah crazy —
leftovers, packages and vegetable peelings that fell on her
balcony several times a week.
"Watch them better," Hadassah went upstairs one day to her
neighbor to find out in what honor they had received a rain
of pasta in tomato sauce on their balcony.
"This?" the neighbor asked unemotionally. "I'm sorry, the
children ate lunch on the balcony," she said as if it's
natural to throw food through the bars onto the plastic table
of the downstairs neighbors.
"So maybe they shouldn't eat on the balcony," tried Hadassah,
tall waves of anger lapping the walls of her heart.
"Not eat on the balcony?" the neighbor sounded almost
shocked, as if someone had thrown a plate of pasta directly
in her face. "But they love it so much," without looking
down. "How could I refuse?" Really, how can you? Hadassah
went downstairs in a temper. All she could do was scrub the
pasta with tomato sauce that had dried everywhere.
There was also the jumping of the children on Shabbos
afternoon precisely when Hadassah and her family tried to lay
their weary heads on their pillows, and Hadassah babysitting
from time to time when the dear neighbor had to go only for a
moment to the clinic or run an errand at the shopping
center.
When Hadassah, on the other hand, would dare to ask, she
would be met with phrases such as: "I was just going out,"
uttered with an apologetic smile, or: "I was just about to
clean or bake or do something else."
An anger her heart had never known before took root. Whenever
someone said the name Levin, she was especially sensitive.
"Levin's children are hitting," "Levin's mother is giving out
popsicles and we want also," (No tact, why in front of
everyone?) "Levin said we're making noise in the stairwell,"
(Look who's talking). We have to do something!
One lovely summer night, dotted with many shining stars, and
a heart full of goodwill, Hadassah returned from a lecture.
The lecturer spoke of "as water to water so the heart of one
person to another," and Hadassah felt the words making
inroads in her heart. It was a moment of elucidation. To
recognize that one can implement this not only on children
and close family but also on an annoying, upstairs neighbor.
And she implemented it. It took great internal strength and
tremendous restraint but Hadassah was determined.
Friday night was the night she decided on. Hadassah baked her
pear cake, "the one no one could resist," as her husband
always said, put on a festive robe and went up the 22 steps
which seemed to her like Mount Everest. She knocked gently.
No one answered. They just kept asking, "Who is it?"
[final part next week]
