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Authors: Margot Singer
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whenever she came in. So the biggest effect her death had on me was that my mother, who was in mourning, could no longer accompany my sister and me to our weekly dancing lessons, so my aunt agreed to be our chaperone. Luckily for me, my aunt was always too busy chatting with the other adults to pay much attention to what I was up to. My sister was always well behaved, but I was a terrible flirt, always running off with the boys. This period after my grandmother died was one of the happiest times of my life.
Date
My auntâs doctor friend takes me out for lunch to Isfiya, a Druze village in the hills. The road winds up, the vegetation growing sparse and dry as we leave the sea. The doctor is pale and on the pudgy side, although he speaks English well and is a lively enough companion. We stop at an outdoor restaurant and he orders for us bothâfalafel and hummus and baba ghanoush, little plates of pickles and olives, a stack of pita bread. Do you know Arabic food? he asks. Do you think I live on the moon? I donât say. Across from where we sit, an Arab villa is going up, with arched windows, a tiled roof, a satellitedish. A Mercedes is parked in front of the piles of dirt. I donât tell him that Iâve been to Isfiya many times before. Would you ever come to live here? the doctor asks. Would you make aliyah? Israelis often ask me this question. Maybe, I say, although I know now the odds are slim. I doubt the doctor would move even as far away as Tel Aviv. We sit in the lengthening shade of a tree I donât know the name of, lunch almost done, sipping cups of sweet coffee fragrant with cardamom, or
hel
. It doesnât feel like home to me. Of course, I could say that about many places in the States as well.
After the doctor drops me back at the hotel, I go to take a swim. The only other person at the pool is an old woman in a rubber-flowered bathing cap swimming sinking breaststroke laps. I think of the summer I was sixteen when we spent three weeks at this hotel. I hung out by the pool for most of every day. A boy my age did back flips off the diving board while his older brother flirted with me. He was in the army, a paratrooper, he said; he was twenty-two. The edge of my hand brushed against his. He had a solid build, blunt features, greenish eyes like mine. He took me to the beach one afternoon in his orange VW Bug. When my mother found out later, she was irate. I rolled down my window as we drove along the winding mountain road and let the blue wind rush into my face. He rested his right hand on my bare thigh, lifting it only when he had to shift. He parked by the roadside and we walked through the sea grass to the sand. He handed his keys to a woman sitting by the shore. Hold these while I go in the water, he said to her. Donât steal my car, Iâm coming back. I ran into him again a few years later, by chance. I was nineteen then and he would have been twenty-five. His skin looked thicker, his eyes smaller, receded into the flesh, as if something vital had been concealed. We snuck out onto the hotel roof and kissed, but it wasnât the same.
Palestine 1948
It is cold, colder in the flat than outside, the tiled floor sending a dull ache up Lilaâs chilblained shins. Theyâve been forced out of their flat by the British and this new one, on the French Carmel, is damp and unhealthy, facing onto the sea. Lila stays inside and bakes. Apfelstrudel and kugelhopf and a chocolate wafer cake that hardens in the fridge. Hazelnut cookies dredged in powdered sugar with a dot of strawberry jam. Today, kletzenbrot, a dense fruit bread. It will keep for a long while. She measures and sifts and recombines. Josef has managed to buy sugar beyond the ration on the black market and for this she is glad. She loves baking: the transformation of sugar into caramel, of flour into bread, the frothy exuberance of yeast. Once, years ago, she wanted to study chemistryâa teacher called her
Date
My auntâs doctor friend takes me out for lunch to Isfiya, a Druze village in the hills. The road winds up, the vegetation growing sparse and dry as we leave the sea. The doctor is pale and on the pudgy side, although he speaks English well and is a lively enough companion. We stop at an outdoor restaurant and he orders for us bothâfalafel and hummus and baba ghanoush, little plates of pickles and olives, a stack of pita bread. Do you know Arabic food? he asks. Do you think I live on the moon? I donât say. Across from where we sit, an Arab villa is going up, with arched windows, a tiled roof, a satellitedish. A Mercedes is parked in front of the piles of dirt. I donât tell him that Iâve been to Isfiya many times before. Would you ever come to live here? the doctor asks. Would you make aliyah? Israelis often ask me this question. Maybe, I say, although I know now the odds are slim. I doubt the doctor would move even as far away as Tel Aviv. We sit in the lengthening shade of a tree I donât know the name of, lunch almost done, sipping cups of sweet coffee fragrant with cardamom, or
hel
. It doesnât feel like home to me. Of course, I could say that about many places in the States as well.
After the doctor drops me back at the hotel, I go to take a swim. The only other person at the pool is an old woman in a rubber-flowered bathing cap swimming sinking breaststroke laps. I think of the summer I was sixteen when we spent three weeks at this hotel. I hung out by the pool for most of every day. A boy my age did back flips off the diving board while his older brother flirted with me. He was in the army, a paratrooper, he said; he was twenty-two. The edge of my hand brushed against his. He had a solid build, blunt features, greenish eyes like mine. He took me to the beach one afternoon in his orange VW Bug. When my mother found out later, she was irate. I rolled down my window as we drove along the winding mountain road and let the blue wind rush into my face. He rested his right hand on my bare thigh, lifting it only when he had to shift. He parked by the roadside and we walked through the sea grass to the sand. He handed his keys to a woman sitting by the shore. Hold these while I go in the water, he said to her. Donât steal my car, Iâm coming back. I ran into him again a few years later, by chance. I was nineteen then and he would have been twenty-five. His skin looked thicker, his eyes smaller, receded into the flesh, as if something vital had been concealed. We snuck out onto the hotel roof and kissed, but it wasnât the same.
Palestine 1948
It is cold, colder in the flat than outside, the tiled floor sending a dull ache up Lilaâs chilblained shins. Theyâve been forced out of their flat by the British and this new one, on the French Carmel, is damp and unhealthy, facing onto the sea. Lila stays inside and bakes. Apfelstrudel and kugelhopf and a chocolate wafer cake that hardens in the fridge. Hazelnut cookies dredged in powdered sugar with a dot of strawberry jam. Today, kletzenbrot, a dense fruit bread. It will keep for a long while. She measures and sifts and recombines. Josef has managed to buy sugar beyond the ration on the black market and for this she is glad. She loves baking: the transformation of sugar into caramel, of flour into bread, the frothy exuberance of yeast. Once, years ago, she wanted to study chemistryâa teacher called her
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