S

oon after he’d arrived in the hospital, the doctors had drained a large portion of the excess fluids from Musa’s swollen body and given him medication to help remove the remainder. They’d also discovered an infection in his abdominal cavity and administered a strong dose of antibiotic. Now he was relieved of his suffering enough to argue with the nurse about the tasteless food on the blue plastic tray beside him.

“Nurse, how I am supposed to eat this, without a speck of salt in it?”

“You’re on a strict low-sodium diet, adoni,” the nurse answered firmly. “The dietician receives orders from the doctor and sends instructions to the kitchen staff.”

“But ma’am, I’m at the end of the road. What difference does it make what I eat now, when I’m already at death’s door? Can’t they at least give me something I can taste?”

“As long as you’re under our care, sir, we can’t allow you to eat anything that’s liable to harm you.”

“You’ve taken away my last pleasure in life. What could be more harmful than that?” Musa croaked, trying unsuccessfully to pull himself into a sitting position.

Lulu, sitting by quietly, tried to take advantage of the moment. “Would you like me to help you eat, Musa?”

“No… I feel sick… nauseous,” Musa groaned. He lay his head down and shut his eyes.

“The scarring in his liver caused high blood pressure in the vein leading into it,” the intern explained to Lulu. “And those two factors combined to cause a buildup of fluids. His kidneys aren’t in great condition either, and that impairs his ability to expel fluids and contributes even more to the swelling. All those fluids stagnating in his abdominal cavity led to an infection. So what we’re seeing now is a liver that isn’t doing its job, kidneys that are worn out and just barely chugging along, and bacteria having a field day in there.”

“So this condition… is it curable?” Lulu asked, knowing full well what answer to expect.

“No,” the intern said simply. “I’m afraid not.”

“Not even with a transplant?”

“Not even with a transplant. You see, with all these complications — the infection and the weak kidney function — the chances of a successful transplant are practically zero.”

The conversation was clearly over. Lulu thanked the intern and went to the nurse’s station.

“Could I make a phone call from here?” he asked with a pleading expression.

“We don’t usually allow it,” said the nurse, “but all right.” She made a mental note to disinfect the receiver the moment he finished.

Lulu dialed Bugi’s cell phone number from memory.

“Hello?” Bugi answered sleepily.

“I guess you’re at work now, so I’ll make this quick,” said Lulu.

“I’m not at work.”

“What, they changed your shift?”

“No.”

“What, they fired you?”

“No. Not yet, at least.”

“So why aren’t you at work?”

“I didn’t feel like going.”

“But Bugi!” Lulu felt rage coming on.

“What?”

“What’s the matter with you, Bugi? For months we were all behind you, helping you plan this, encouraging you. You said you wanted a new start, we found a nice apartment for you. And now that you got there, you’re going to just throw it all away?”

Silence.

“All right, I’m coming over there,” said Lulu. “Even though it means I’ll have to leave Musa alone in the hospital.”

♦♦♦

Perhaps someone could explain why people like Nochumku bothered having cell phones at all, if they were going to leave them home most of the time. How was anyone supposed to reach them?

Yanky looked at his watch. Ten. Even if he went out right now and ran straight to Nochumku’s kollel, he wouldn’t get there before the end of coffee break. He scrolled through his contacts until he found Meller, his brother’s chavrusa.

“Shalom, Harav Meller. This is Yanky Kleiner, I’m looking for my brother Nochum. Is he there with you?”

“Yes, just a second, I’ll pass the phone to him.”

“Hello.” Nochumku sounded cheerful, as usual.

“I couldn’t get hold of you,” Yanky complained. “Don’t you have your phone on you?”

“I took a break from my phone today. But as you see, anyone who really needs to talk to me can reach me. Nu, so what’s up, Yanky?”

“Bugi didn’t show up at work today, and Shmulik Michaeli is mad at him and at us.”

“Why didn’t Bugi show up?”

“Because he didn’t feel like it. That’s what he told me. He’s at home, lying in bed, and staring at the ceiling. When I tried to get him out of bed, he said I had no right to talk because I’ve got everything he doesn’t have — a wife and family, an apartment of my own, and a supportive community.”

“It’s true, we really can’t judge him, nebach.”

“Yeah, he’s a nebach. But the question is, what do we do now?”

“We go over there after seder and see how he’s feeling,” Nochumku suggested. “But actually, maybe we should go to Michaeli first and get their take on the situation.”

“But I have to be home at 1:30 to give Bentzy his lunch.”

“Oh, don’t make it so complicated. I have to take care of my little ones, too. All right, I’ll tell you what. Let’s skip Michaeli. I’ll come over to your place with my kids, and we’ll deal with them on the phone.”

They met at the entrance to Yanky’s building just after 1:30. Already, they could hear shouting from the ground floor apartment, and they quickly brought the children up to Yanky’s house and came back downstairs.

“You want to end up like Musa?” someone was shouting passionately. “You want to be like Musa, wasting your life on the street with a bottle in your mouth, until you die like him, puffed up like a balloon and vomiting?”

The door was ajar, and the two brothers peeked in. Lulu was standing there, the hand-me-down gray stroller at his side piled with rags, and the walls were shaking along with his deep voice.

“Don’t yell at me,” Bugi protested.

Yanky and Nochumku quietly stepped in.

“I’ll yell at you all I want! I won’t let you throw your life away! You know what happens in the end to everybody who lives in the street, don’t you? You were with us in the dirah, you saw what they get addicted to, how low they sink, and what happens to them! Do you want to find yourself at the age of 60 eating in a soup kitchen and begging for coins at the bus station? Is that what you want?”

“I don’t want anything,” Bugi mumbled. He didn’t know what to do with Lulu when he got into this mood, with his eyes flashing like that. It scared him a bit, and he was glad Yanky and his brother had stepped in.

“I thought you did want something.” Lulu rummaged through his bundles, and pulled out the brochure from the Mamilla Hotel. It was rumpled and a bit stained, but still impressive. “I thought you wanted to make something of yourself!” His voice softened. “Don’t you remember this beautiful hotel you wanted to go to? You said you’d get there within a year. It’s a place where guests are treated like princes. There’s plenty of fine food there, and you get to stay in a fancy room with a balcony. Wouldn’t you like to have a wonderful weekend there, Bugi?”

“I’d like it,” Bugi admitted. “But it’s not going to happen. I just don’t have what it takes.”

“Of course you do. Work for three or four months, save up for it, and you can have your dream!”

“But I’m tired.” Bugi turned toward the wall.

At this point, Yanky and Nochumku, feeling defeated, retreated upstairs. What could they add to Lulu’s barrage of tough love? And the children were waiting for them, hungry and thirsty.

“Sometimes you just want to take that guy and give him a good shaking,” said Yanky. “And then set him down hard on the right path.”

“I know just what you mean,” said Nochumku. “I’ve had the same feeling. Not with Bugi, but with someone else I know.”

“Someone else?” Yanky looked at his brother suspiciously. “Anyone I know?”

“Yes. I mean you.”

“Me!”

“Yes, you. Tell me, Yanky, why are you going to that watchmaker’s shiurim and getting involved with those weirdos? What do you need that for?”

“You want to know why?” Yanky stood at the entrance to the kitchen, ready for battle. “Because I don’t want to ‘throw my life away,’ like that Musa they were talking about.”

“Like him! Aren’t you ashamed to compare life in our kehillah, under the wings of the Rebbe shlita, with the life of some miserable shikker?” Nochumku was truly shocked. “I can’t believe how far you’ve gone!”

“Don’t talk to me like that. I didn’t compare anything to anything. But for me, to spend 80 years in a place that’s not right for me, with no space for my own thoughts or my own will, is just as tragic as being a shikker on the street.”

“So that’s how you see us — as a bunch of shikkers on the street.”

“Don’t put words into my mouth. You’re all wonderful people, living the life that’s right for you. But it isn’t right for me, and sometimes I feel dead inside.”

“Who asked you to feel dead? You should feel alive! Does Meir feel dead? Is Feivele dead? Am I dead? None of us is dead or feels dead, we’re all full of life and simchah. But you go looking for excuses to run away and search for what you have right here, running to shiurim from some strange rav who attracts all the misfits…”

“Don’t talk that way about my rav.”

“You’re calling him your rav already? Hashem yishmor.”

“Nochumku, would you mind just leaving me alone?”

“No, I won’t leave you alone.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re my little brother, and I love you, and I can’t watch you make such a big mistake.” Nochumku took a deep breath and continued in a softer tone. “Yanky, I know that right now you feel like a big chuchem, ‘searching for yourself,’ ‘striking out on a new path,’ and all that sort of stuff. You’re going through an emotional crisis, and you’re acting without thinking. But one day, when you come back to your senses, you’ll realize what a mistake you made — and then it might be very hard to find your way back.”

“If I’ve been acting without thinking, it wasn’t any time during the last six months.” The three children had finished up the last of the schnitzels from the tray in front of them, and now they were wiping their greasy hands on the wall. “For 29 years I acted like a robot, doing everything everyone else was doing. That’s when I wasn’t thinking.”

“And what was so bad about that? Look what came out of it — you became an exemplary avreich, you raised a beautiful family, and everyone was proud of you.”

“I wasn’t happy, that’s what was so bad about it.”

“There you go again with the foolishness. I’d like to know who put this idea into your head that you aren’t happy — I’d go and give him a good potch. You were perfectly happy, everything was going fine, and you were at peace with yourself — and all of sudden, out of the clear blue sky, you got this notion that something’s wrong.”

“What makes you think I was perfectly happy?” Yanky focused his gaze quietly on his brother. Behind them, the three children were standing on their chairs and eating mashed potatoes straight from the pot — with spoons, forks, and hands.

“What makes me think so?” Nochumku retorted. “Because it was a fact! You were a normal avreich, the pride of the family, a masmid and yarei Shamayim, and you were happy.”

“It wasn’t a fact, Nochumku. It was an illusion, a façade. Beneath the surface, there was nothing.”

“How can you say that? Beneath the surface, you were you.”

“I wasn’t me. It was a shriveled-up shadow of me that did everything it was told, without really thinking or feeling.”

“And by the watchmaker you’re really thinking and feeling?” Nochumku spat out the question with a mixture of amazement, disappointment, and disbelief.

“I’m learning how to think and feel.” A smile lit up Yanky’s face. “It takes time to develop the courage to really think, to really feel. I hope to get there.”

“Well, I hope you’ll get your head clear of all these thoughts pronto,” Nochumku said fiercely. “And I hope you’ll realize they’re just a lot of fluff and come back to where you belong, with the kehillah that loves you. We’ll be happy to have you back, believe me. Most people don’t even know you’ve been drifting away.”

He grabbed his two little ones’ hands and pulled them off their chairs. “That’s it, kinderlach, we’re going home.”

to be continued...

(Excerpted from Mishpacha, Issue 782)