On the bus a calm young woman sat in front of her, one of those who believe – long skirt, covered hair and a little book of Psalms in her hand. She was reading in silence, her lips moving rapidly, her serene, biblically beautiful gray eyes studying everything around her – yeshiva boys, people on the bus stop, a granny getting on the bus, and the lips kept moving, repeating the important ancient words.
And suddenly Sarah regretted bitterly growing up without faith. How she would like to know all her life in advance, to say all the prayers exactly on the day you are supposed to say them, to be absolutely certain about the right and the wrong – and to believe that you will never be alone.
But her family did not acknowledge any gods – only science, only medicine. Her dad was the best gyne-cologist and obstetrician in their little town, her mom – his beloved nurse.
Sarah was born prematurely – way too early, she was told that if it wasn’t for her dad, she wouldn’t be born at all.
He saved her, treated her for ten different conditions, kept her warm in his arms, kissed her and whis-pered into the tiny bird-like body: hang in there, my Sarah, together we will pull through.
Of course, she pulled through, with her dad there wasn’t any other option, but she forever remained a ti-ny, slightly lopsided little sparrow with spooked eyes.
Miry, the neighbor, was whispering theatrically to her mom in the kitchen that no one would marry her, and that she won’t be able to give birth…
Sarah would cover her ears and look through the window. I don’t want to get married; I don’t want any children, she was thinking.
But when Miry brought this nice accountant boy from her workplace to their house and he said that he was in fact interested.
“If young lady, uhm, doesn’t oppose…”
She was quiet for a while and then replied – “No, young lady doesn’t oppose”.
And then an endless gloomy hell had begun.
Her husband desperately wanted kids. Three silent abortions, each tore her poor heart into pieces. Her dad has frowned harder and harder each time, and one day he invited her to his office and asked her to be careful. I need my daughter alive much more than I need grandchildren, he said. I will talk to your hus-band myself, he said.
Nice accountant started ignoring her, sleeping in another room, stopped coming home for dinner, and one day just left, after explaining politely that a barren wife gives him a right to a divorce, according to Torah.
Sarah remained on the ashes of her family life. In four years she seamlessly turned into this puny useless person, incapable even of simplest things any woman could do.
And she kept withering and drying up quietly for two more years, getting more and more convinced in of her own uselessness.
And then her dad got sick. So she put up a chair next to his bed and lived there – luckily, she never asked for much. Holding his hand after the chemo, wiping his mouth after vomiting, collecting his lush hair from the pillow… And pondering, pondering…
When daddy got better, she signed up for software classes. To her bewildered parents she explained: “It’s all girls there, it’s a special program for women, nobody will hurt me, and I… I just want to move on. I just want to live”.
And living she was, trying as hard as she could, just as she did back then, when she was lying in an incu-bator under the lamplight and tried to survive with all her 2 pounds.
She got off the bus and walked through the park, trying to stay calm before her very first job interview.
She noticed this palm tree from far away. Tumbled by the wind, it twisted around and kept living.
Sarah laughed.
It’s me, she said to herself. It’s me, living in spite of everything.
I will survive and will be happy, she said to herself.
I will be happy, I will be loved and everything is going to be fine, she said out loud to the palm tree.
And the palm tree replied: Of course, mami, everything will be fine…
Translated by Diana Shnaiderman-Pereira