tortured and killed. Ya’el received a photograph of his bruised and mangled body in the mail from an unknown sender. For nearly two years she held futility like a knot in her gut. Then Caddie moved in, and the two women began talking. And maybe because Caddie was an outsider, attentive in a way that tended to draw people out, or maybe simply because the timing was right, Ya’el spilled it one evening. How furious she’d become. Afraid and sad. And, finally, how much better she felt after telling it all to Caddie.
Caddie never understood how releasing a flood of words could possibly be comfort enough. She couldn’t understand why Ya’el didn’t try harder to find out who sent that photograph, who murdered her brother. That submissiveness, a reminder of Grandma Jos, irritated her. But she never said so. She listened. A journalist’s job.
Now Caddie clears her throat. “Tell me about the girls. And how’s work?”
Ya’el stares a moment, then shakes her head. “I guess a sore must become a scab before it heals,” she says.
The doorbell saves Caddie from having to reply. Ya’el opens the door to Mr. Gruizin, the mailbox painter, followed by Mrs. Weizman, carrying her rose-patterned soup tureen.
“Now, bubeleh, don’t get up,” Mrs. Weizman says.
Goulash. Mrs. Weizman’s famous opinionated goulash—absolutely no to the green peppers but you can never add too much paprika—brought forth for each death, disaster, or even infection. So then. That means everyone in the building knows what happened. But Caddie should have figured that. Nothing is secret in this country for long; it’s always been that way. Probably every Israeli over the age of ten knew when their enemy King Hussein toured Tel Aviv in bearded disguise, though no journalist reported it for more than a decade. For months, they all knew that Ethiopian Jews were being spirited into the country, even knew the government had dubbed it Operation Magic Carpet, though the censor had forbidden a word of it in the local or international media. When a military operation goes awry, the street knows hours before it’s broadcast. So what’s the surprise that news of the ambush has traveled from Ya’el on the fifth floor to Mr. Gruizin at ground level, back up to Mrs. Weizman on third?
Ya’el heads into Caddie’s open kitchen with the soup. “I’ll make coffee.”
“How did you all know I was coming back today?” Caddie asks.
“We didn’t,” Mr. Gruizin says.
“I did,” Mrs. Weizman says. Mr. Gruizin’s eyebrows lunge into his forehead. “No, I did, Ya’akov. I felt it.” She strokes Caddie’s cheek with her papery fingers. “Feh, what a sorrow to see you so pale.”
“What do you mean? She looks wonderful,” argues Mr. Gruizin. “Am I right, Ya’el?” he calls.
Ya’el steps back into the living room. “She’s coping.” It comes out sounding like a lie, and Ya’el blushes and withdraws again.
Mrs. Weizman leans closer to Caddie. “How can you say so, with those washed-out cheeks?”
Caddie lowers her face but can’t escape their stares. She starts to rise. “Ya’el, you need help?”
Mrs. Weizman reaches out a hand to stop her. “Sit, bubeleh.”
“She looks better than should be expected, anyway,” Mr. Gruizin says after a moment. “She’s a strong girl. It’s my red, you know. Did the trick. Kept her safe.”
“Ya’akov!” Mrs. Weizman shakes her head. “I’ve never known such a superstitious man. Caddie isn’t so superstitious. Are you, dear?”
Caddie manages what she thinks is a smile, but it fails to translate somehow, because Mrs. Weizman quickly takes Caddie’s hands and squeezes them between her own, as though Caddie had broken down, instead of borne up.
“Oh, bubeleh,” she says, her voice thick with intent to comfort. “Sometimes it’s not the doctor but the rebbe who knows the cure. I remember once my palms started itching; they were itching for a week, all the time, night and day. I couldn’t sleep, it was that bad. This cream or that cream, the doctors said, but nothing worked. Of course I thought of the old superstition, my grand-uncle used to say it all the time when I was a little girl, he would say, ‘Nala, when your palms itch, you are going to come into some money.’ But for a few shekels, I should keep waiting? I went to see Rebbe Kroyanker. ‘Gevalt!’ I said. And he told me. He knew how to cure it.”
Mr. Gruizin sighs. “We’re ready already. What did the rabbi say?”
Ya’el, pouring them all coffee, gives Caddie a private grin. They’ve often laughed at how like an old married couple Mr. Gruizin and Mrs. Weizman are.
“Nu, this is the point,” Mrs. Weizman says. “He told me I needed to make peace with my sister, we’d been arguing for months—about what, it’s not important. And I thought, feh! A little squabble with my sister should cause this tsouris? The rebbe must be, forgive my disrespectful tongue, meshugener. But I was desperate. And what do you think? We made up. Three hours later my itching was gone.”
“A miracle worker,” says Mr. Gruizin.
“Yes, that’s what I mean.” Mrs. Weizman turns eagerly to Caddie. “So if you won’t go to one of ours, you could see your . . .” she waves a hand, “whoever you go to see. Everyone can use a bit of God sometimes. Am I wrong, Ya’akov?”
Mr. Gruizin nods and begins to talk, but Caddie lets his words slide by unattended. She remembers the town church of her childhood, a smooth and generous pew, the congregation’s voices soaring in hymn.
All praise to Him who came to saaave, Who conquer’d death and scorned the graaave
She remembers the hard bread on her tongue, the heat of gathered bodies, and Grandma Jos leaning close, smelling of Ivory soap and talcum and mint tea. A simple trust, Caddie, will lead us into the calm valley.
Caddie never replied. She understood that Grandma Jos needed to imagine His arms around her to soften the hard angles of a life gone strangely amiss: her spouse—Caddie’s grandfather—living twenty miles away with another family in a white house with yellow shutters, her daughter—Caddie’s mother—sleeping somewhere in a corrupt city and bathing too infrequently, her granddaughter—Caddie herself—abandoned at her doorstep. To blame Him would have been foolhardy, because who would Grandma Jos have then? Grandma Jos thought she was teaching Caddie about religion, but what she was really teaching was what it meant to be alone.
Caddie knew even then, though, that a calm valley was not what she sought—it sounded, in fact, like torture. Nor, despite Grandma Jos’s dire warnings, did she want redemption. Nor a savior, nor a tearful walk to the front to be welcomed into the community of believers. God, she already knew to be as icy as a winter dawn. He rarely paid attention, and was not to be trusted when He did. Grandma Jos used Him as an excuse for living with things as they were. Caddie had no use for Him at all.
“Caddie! Are you listening?” Ya’el touches her arm and Caddie looks into her friend’s face and there it is again, Ya’el’s effort to hide a worried expression.
Caddie can’t still an involuntary shudder. “Sorry,” she says. “Go ahead, say it again.”
There is a moment of quiet, an exchange of glances, before Mr. Gruizin speaks. “You
