•••

Her brother Yoeli has gone out to beg among strangers. He’s in Meron with his hand out, and Nechami is suffering from the very thought of it. It’s absolutely secret; even his wife doesn’t know. The thought makes her skin crawl, and Shua’s “schnorrer” jokes after midnight aren’t doing anything to lift her spirits.

“There was this schnorrer who brought his kids with him when he went collecting at Zichron Moishe,” he tells her, “because he had a chiyuv to teach them a trade…”

“Please,” she implores him. “Just stop.”

“Hey, calm down,” he says. “You think it’s something so terrible, but others will just see it as the practical, sensible thing to do.”

“So let the others calm down,” she says, continuing to tidy up the house. She bends down to pick up disposable cups and tissues. On the arm of the sofa, in the corner where Chanochi likes to sit, there’s an exhibit she could name “What I Noshed on This Evening”: the composition includes a plate with remnants of pasta in tomato sauce, a red-stained fork, a small, empty Bissli bag, and an apple core.

“The others are perfectly calm,” says Shua, telling her what she already knows. “You see things so starkly. So your brother is letting people know we need to raise money — that’s not the end of the world. Every shekel is under the supervision of the fund in Beit Shemesh, and it will all go to the best of causes — to help a young girl come home with two normal ears and perfect hearing.”

She picks up the apple core by its thin brown stem and drops it into the Bissli bag. She puts that on the plate, together with a few discarded tissues. She takes two steps, and the whole pile tumbles down. Oof!

“You know what?” she says, staring at the mess on the floor. “Everything you’re saying is true. And it still hurts.”

Yoeli has already collected 10,000 shekels. She shudders, as if a chisel were chipping away at her. He’s asking people for money. He’s asking people. Asking.

Shua bends down to pick up the Bissli bag.

“Don’t,” she says, pushing away his help. “I’ll clean up. I’ll manage.”

He doesn’t listen to her. With industrious precision, he gathers up tissues and cups.

“Yoeli is a special person,” he says.

I know, she doesn’t say. That’s why I feel so sad.

“Why does everything go smoothly in other families?” she asks. “Why does everything feel so impossible for us?”

He doesn’t attempt an answer; she isn’t expecting one.

“My other siblings are doing well, actually,” she remembers. “Chaya’s chassan, the chevrehman, got two thousand shekels’ worth of vouchers this week, to spend in a seforim shop. That was his stipend for the tests he took all winter. He went to the bookstore and managed to trade in the vouchers for cash, and then he sent it to my parents, for the fund. Chaya was proud as a peacock.”

Shua nods. “And Tzvi’s already done,” he offers helpfully. “He just has to add up all the checks from his shver’s parlor meetings.”

“Yes,” Nechami agrees. “His shver has generous friends, and Tzvi himself knows how to be persuasive. I was getting daily reports on every detail. After they finished his mother-in-law’s seven-layer cake, served on dainty hand-painted china, with tea served in matching cups — by the way, did you know there are people who actually use those tea sets with the painted flowers and gilt edging? I thought they were just for passing along to the next generation — anyway, after that, they were very touched by the story, and they all opened their leather wallets and took out checkbooks and credit cards.”

“Baruch Hashem for Yidden who do well in business and are happy to give.” Shua’s voice is entirely free of the cynicism that laces hers.

“Yes. Dudi and Yaffa’le are making good progress, too, using means that Gedalya wouldn’t approve of,” Nechami says. “I don’t mean they’re publicizing it — they’re being very careful about Tovi’s privacy. They’re only making one-on-one appeals to people with money to give. But, um, the tools they’re using to contact those people would never pass Gedalya’s censor.”

“No one appointed Gedalya the family censor, Nechami.”

Nechami plows forward. “And only in one house in the heart of Jerusalem live a couple of slackers who’ve managed to scrape together 500 shekels, which is 1.6 percent of their pledge, and who have no idea how to move forward from there, aside from donating this month’s and next month’s maaser money to the fund.”

“He doesn’t know how to ask for money,” Shua points to himself, “and she doesn’t know how to take it,” he gestures toward Nechami.

“They daven to the Borei Olam that He should make them win the lottery,” she says, while sweeping vigorously. “It doesn’t have to be ten million, a sweet little prize of thirty thousand is enough.”

“Forty,” Shua suggests, “as long as we’re winning the lottery. That way we can also cover Beri’s bar mitzvah and his tefillin.”

“Fifty, so I can also redo the boys’ room, like I’ve been wanting to.”

“Why not sixty, so you won’t have to work so hard for the next couple months?”

“Seventy,” she says. “I’ll give a little to my sister to upgrade her little hovel. Then she could at least get new windows and doors put in. And new flooring.”

•••

Yaffa’le irons Dudi’s shirts. The light blue and the lavender fabric passes under her quick hands and emerges smooth and crisp.

“You’ve been wrinkling your forehead too long,” she comments.

“Because I’m trying to figure out how to say that energy is discharged from a cesium atom at fixed frequencies, but it keeps getting too complicated. What is energy, what does ‘discharged’ mean, what is an atom, what is cesium—”

“I’m not that dumb,” she interrupts, insulted. “You want to say there’s a certain rhythm at which something happens in an atom?”

“Yes, you got it!” His eyes light up.

“And that rhythm doesn’t change, for all the atoms of the same substance?”

“Right!” He’s so happy. At last she’s with him, taking in the beautiful vista of the Swiss Alps, the soaring, snow-capped peaks, the little cottages, the gentle clang of the cowbells.

“And cesium is an element, like oxygen and hydrogen and all that?”

“Yes.” It’s so easy to make this husband of hers happy. The thought amuses her. Just listen to him for three minutes, and you’ve got a happy man. Intuitively, she takes it a step further. “So they measure an atom of this stuff, whaddaya-call-it, and they see at what rhythm it emits radiation or whatever, and that’s how they measure seconds?”

“You could be a science teacher!” he enthuses.

She laughs. “I’d rather stay with my PR work. But you still haven’t answered the question, how do we know that time passes. You’ve only said how it’s measured.”

Now, very carefully, she’s ironing her swoon-worthy dress, the one she bought for Chaya’s wedding. She picked it up today from the embroiderer, after they’d finished adding the appliques she’d requested.

“Look at this workmanship,” she says.

Oranges and autumn daffodils glow before Dudi’s eyes. The glow on his face dims. Once, he’d wanted to show his mother a thing or two. To make her realize he and Yaffa’le had a life of their own, that he couldn’t be poured like chocolate into a mold. Once he’d been glad, deep inside, to see the frown on Ima’s face when he and his wife emerged from their car and walked into a simchah hall. Once, he’d had a chip on his shoulder.

It’s not like that anymore. But where are the words to explain it?

He’s tired, ready to call it a night. Yaffa’le follows him into their room and takes her wig, the old one, out of the closet.

“You know how your mother can’t stand this sheitel?” she says. “So I was thinking, maybe for the wedding, since it’s old anyway and I hardly ever wear it…”

“What do you want to do with it?”

“So I was thinking I’d take it to Shilat and have her cut it a bit shorter and restyle it a bit. For sure that would make your mother happy. What do you think?”

“Only if that’s what you want.” The old Dudi is still in there, alive and kicking. You won’t tell me what to do, Ima. You won’t tell my wife what to do.

•••

It’s very simple, how we know that time passes. It doesn’t require an atomic clock equipped with tubes and transmitters. There’s no need to count photon emissions or measure frequencies. Dudi knows it passes.

Yaffa’le knows too — because yesterday they had something to prove, and today they know how to smile and be agreeable. Yesterday they wanted to educate the people too unsophisticated to understand them, and today they just want to make them happy. Yesterday they were ready for battle, and today they’ve learned to breathe deep and let the storm pass. Tomorrow they’ll move forward, in peace. That’s how we know time passes.

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 888)