I was sitting with Mrs Tzaddik this afternoon, in the glorious sunshine. \u00a0Light breeze. \u00a0Not too hot. \u00a0One of those rare perfect moments. \u00a0There too, was one of the caregivers, and my friend T, a large white male akin to a polar bear. \u00a0I was trying to convince her to record her tales so that they would be preserved. \u00a0I think I used the word posterity.<\/p>\n
“You just want me to tell the real stories of Seymour,” she said. \u00a0Well, sure, that’s part of it. \u00a0But I wanted her own tales \u2014 so very different from his own. \u00a0 These were two powerhouses, after all, not one. \u00a0I said something like that. \u00a0It didn’t take.<\/p>\n
“What about you,” she accused. \u00a0“Why don’t you tell your<\/em> stories?” \u00a0She gave me a knowing look.<\/p>\n The polar bear intervened.<\/p>\n “She is<\/em> writing her stories,” he said. “Her own daughter insisted.” \u00a0Something like that. \u00a0And very true. \u00a0Mrs Tzaddik shooed his explanation away like he was a butterfly not a large white bear.<\/p>\n “What about all the drugs,” she said pointedly, ” did you tell her about the drugs?” \u00a0She even remembered the drug dealer’s name, which I promptly forgot again right after she mentioned him. \u00a0She remembered because of the \u2014 \u00a0but don’t let me get ahead of myself.<\/p>\n “Of course I’ve talked to her about drugs,” I said, “and that was very long ago.”<\/p>\n She grunted. \u00a0And then looked up with victory in her eyes.<\/p>\n “Gypsy!” \u00a0she said. \u00a0“Did you tell her about Gypsy?”<\/p>\n Well, no. \u00a0I’ve never told anyone about Gypsy. \u00a0Not even my precious daughter. \u00a0Not even as a cautionary tale. \u00a0Not even to my brilliant firstborn son. \u00a0Not a word about Gypsy.<\/p>\n “The FBI was looking for her,” she told the large white bear. \u00a0“The CIA.” \u00a0The this. \u00a0The that.<\/p>\n “And what about that Jewish boy?” she said. \u00a0“He was terrified when he came to us. \u00a0They were going to put him in prison.”<\/p>\n I remembered that. \u00a0They were looking for Gypsy.<\/p>\n “He wasn’t Jewish,” I said lamely.<\/p>\n She wins, of course. \u00a0She always does. \u00a0She deflected the whole Oral History issue onto one Gypsy.<\/p>\n Gypsy thought she was so smart. \u00a0There she was, 18 years old, and living in Jerusalem and it was the ’60s outside \u2014 even there. \u00a0And the sights of Jerusalem were overwhelming. \u00a0But one of the biggest sights she fell into seeing were bricks of hashish as big as large loaves of bread.<\/p>\n She had turned into the wrong alley. \u00a0Or maybe someone led her there. \u00a0An Arab part of Jerusalem, even when the city was divided. \u00a0And she was used to pebble-sized bits of hashish. \u00a0That’s all she’d seen at home. \u00a0But a brick \u2014 a solid brick! \u00a0Oh my. \u00a0The Arab held a big long knife over a candle. \u00a0Heated it up really really well, and began to slice a thin slice. \u00a0About a 1\/4″ thick, not more. \u00a0Again and again he’d dip the knife into the fire. \u00a0Until at last \u2014 a slice of bread. \u00a0And then he’d weigh it. \u00a0And then he’d sell it.<\/p>\n And so Gypsy sent some home. \u00a0To the boy. \u00a0Who wasn’t Jewish. \u00a0Who, it turned out, was on probation. \u00a0He was, what was called in those days, a ‘meth freak.’ \u00a0And in Gypsy’s magnanimity, she thought perhaps to send him in a different direction. \u00a0But hash is just no substitute, is it? \u00a0He taught her that before she’d left the country. \u00a0One shot. \u00a0And 13 seconds later \u2014well, I’m sure you know. \u00a0And he brought her back down safely after letting her see what the crash was like. \u00a0And she learned with just one hit: \u00a0meth is really really really bad stuff. \u00a0And she never did it again.<\/p>\n She’d have liked to have seen him ‘clean’ as it was called. \u00a0And so she sent him presents. \u00a0The boy was doomed really. \u00a0His mother had hooked him. \u00a0“It’s gonna happen sooner or later,” she had told him. \u00a0“You might as well learn at home.”<\/p>\n I always took that tale for granted. \u00a0Until I had kids of my own. \u00a0The thing I warned them about the most \u2014 was meth. \u00a0But you know how kids are.<\/p>\n So. \u00a0Gypsy. \u00a0Came upon this other stuff. \u00a0And thought maybe this<\/em> might work for him if hashish didn’t.<\/p>\n Do you see what a nice moral tale this is?<\/p>\n It was a light green powder she’d never seen before. \u00a0But what the hell. \u00a0Anything’s better than meth.<\/p>\n She stuck it in an envelope in a little baggy. \u00a0Made sure there were no fingerprints. \u00a0Return name: Gypsy. And mailed it off.<\/p>\n This is when the FBI came to his door. Or something like that. \u00a0Who was Gypsy, they wanted to know. \u00a0Hours of interrogation!<\/p>\n He ran to the tzaddik, of course, and confessed. \u00a0And the tzaddik fixes everything. \u00a0He called Jerusalem and gave her the name of a well-connected lawyer. \u00a0Mrs Tzaddik told her not to write to anyone or send a single package of anything ever again to anyone on planet earth.<\/p>\n Gypsy shrugged. \u00a0No problem.<\/p>\n So. \u00a0Here’s the problem.<\/p>\n It’s not a very good story. \u00a0Gypsy waited and waited for men in dark suits to break down her door and haul her off someplace nasty, like they thought she was some kind of criminal. \u00a0It’s not a good story, because the only thing that happened was that suddenly \u2014 there was talk of war. \u00a0And war trumps everything.<\/p>\n Wars are the events that mark a person’s life, not bits of green powder leaking out of envelopes.<\/p>\n What happened was that the Civil Defense came to their Institute. \u00a0They taught Gypsy and the South Americans how to load and aim and shoot an Uzi. \u00a0How to take it apart. \u00a0Put it back together again. \u00a0How to clean it. \u00a0Big warning not to lose it. \u00a0How, when someone comes to your gate, you’re never alone. \u00a0One person aims the Uzi. \u00a0The other, a high power flashlight in the intruder’s eyes. \u00a0If they can’t identify themselves satisfactorily \u2014 well, blow them away. \u00a0Gypsy decided to specialize in the flashlight part, if she could get away with it. \u00a0She was from Berkeley.<\/p>\n She learned to tape up windows so they wouldn’t shatter when the bombs began to fall. \u00a0How to build a bomb shelter, with mattresses wall to wall down in the cave. \u00a0How to do blackout. \u00a0How to recognize the difference between a MIG and a Mirage. \u00a0Signals of when it was safe to climb the stairs and get more water. Med kit stuff, and what to do about the poisoned water supply.<\/p>\n The neighbors joined their shelter \u2014 and cried and wailed in fear. \u00a0 Their house had been bombed to smithereens, but here they might be safe. \u00a0Once, in the middle of the night \u2014 the telephone rang. \u00a0Outrageous, really, for all the phone lines were down. \u00a0Someone risked his life to sneak upstairs. \u00a0The ringing phone made them all feel visible. \u00a0Vulnerable.<\/p>\n Back down to the cave, he came perplexed.<\/p>\n “Malkah,” he said, “your mother’s on the phone.”<\/p>\n No fucking way.<\/p>\n Who knows how she got through, but there she was. \u00a0How are you, she wanted to know.<\/p>\n “Um, mum, there’s a war going on. \u00a0I can’t talk right now \u2014”<\/p>\n After three days in the bomb shelter, Civil Defense said it was okay to come out now. \u00a0All but one other rushed up for fresh air. \u00a0But Gypsy’s lover had the key, and they locked themselves in. \u00a0Bumper to bumper mattresses were worth exploring. \u00a0And there were three more days of war.<\/p>\n And when it was done, she helped clean up the rubble. \u00a0And the road was cleared that led up to the Kotel. \u00a0The first gathering for prayers at the Western Wall since before Independence. \u00a0They all marched the path together. \u00a0And Gypsy turned her head.<\/p>\n Terrified eyes were looking out from behind the stone-walled hovels. \u00a0White flags were waving, inside and out. \u00a0She caught some pleading eyes and they caught hers, and held her. \u00a0And then she passed.<\/p>\n The only story here are in those eyes’ first meeting. \u00a0One set with fear. \u00a0One set with childlike wonder. Gypsy disappeared that day forever. And that was the short life of Gypsy Gypsum. \u00a0 Malkah returned that very same day. That very moment.<\/p>\n She was staring into eyes which were staring into hers, and she felt heartsick. \u00a0All history changed that day. \u00a0the map redrawn. \u00a0Temporarily, they said. \u00a0Peace for land, they said. \u00a0Negotiation they said. \u00a0We’ll give it back, they said. \u00a0Make a deal, they said.<\/p>\n Eighteen years of only one clear way of thinking \u2014 or taking things for granted, not thinking anything at all. Eighteen years of nothing matters. Eighteen years of it’s a playground. \u00a0But now the questions flooded in; she was awake. \u00a0 There was only one thing for her to do, she thought, though it sounded drastic. \u00a0Balance out her education and study Arabic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was sitting with Mrs Tzaddik this afternoon, in the glorious sunshine. \u00a0Light breeze. \u00a0Not too hot. \u00a0One of those rare perfect moments. \u00a0There too, was one of the caregivers, and my friend T, a large white male akin to a polar bear. \u00a0I was trying to convince her to record her tales so that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[250,222],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","category-tzaddik-stories"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2992"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3003,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2992\/revisions\/3003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}