"All we knew was that Daddy had a brother who’d gone off to America, and they weren’t much in touch with each other”

O

n Thursday evening, Yonatan Eliav sat bent over his laptop in the hotel lobby, typing a list of instructions to the draftsman. Plans for the house renovation project lay on the table to his left, and a cup of coffee to his right. He would send the list to the office tonight, and on Sunday morning they could already start working up the plans in AutoCAD.

“Thank goodness I don’t have to write this in Hebrew,” he murmured to himself. “The clients for these high-end jobs probably know even less Hebrew than I do.” Yonatan completed his list and reviewed it. It looked good; he could send it off now and forget about work until Sunday. Midafternoon tomorrow, he would travel to Ramat Beit Shemesh to spend Shabbos with Tante Hindy and her family.

His phone rang as he shut down the computer and gathered the papers into a folder. It was his sister Judy.

“Yonatan?” Her voice sounded a little uncertain, less confident than unusual.

“Yes, Judy,” he replied, leaning back comfortably. “How are you?”

“Oh, I’m fine… I just wanted to ask you about that odd bit of paper that was left in the backpack from your last trip. I understood from Mum that you didn’t really want to talk about it, but… but you see, it’s very important to Daddy.”

“What’s all this about my not wanting to talk about it? I’d talk about it all night if I had anything to say. But I don’t remember a thing about it. What’s all the fuss about this mysterious scrap of paper?”

“Have you really got no idea?” She sounded hesitant.

“Not the slightest.”

“You mean you never… you haven’t had anything to do with Shalom behind Daddy’s back?”

“Behind Daddy’s back? Why on earth would I have secret dealings with some charity collector called Shalom, and why on earth are Mummy and Dad all worked up about it?”

“Yonatan, please, don’t act as if you’ve never heard of Daddy’s brother Shalom!”

“Uncle Shalom? But how does he come into this? Last I heard, he was living out in Los Angeles, running some kind of store.”

“Well, it seems he’s not living out there now.”

“What are you trying to tell me? That Uncle Shalom gave up his business, moved to Jerusalem, and decided to go into the schnorring business instead?”

“It may sound strange, but that’s the impression Mum and Dad got from that peculiar ‘business card’ they found in your bag. It seems that Uncle Shalom may not have been as mentally healthy as we thought. I guess that’s why Mum and Dad never spoke much about him, especially after he left London. All we knew was that Daddy had a brother who’d gone off to America, and they weren’t much in touch with each other.”

“Oh, so he must be the mysterious family member I always hated,” Yonatan said. He was turning pale.

(Excerpted from Mishpacha, Issue 785)