“Uh huh,” Yitzchok said solemnly, “but it will help to know where you live. This way, if we plan to meet and you don’t show up, I know where to find you.”

“Hey!” I punched him lightly in the arm. “You’re the one who didn’t show up this time.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, rubbing his shoulder. There was no way he was hurt — he just likes theatrics sometimes. In the hospital he’d sometimes pretend to be in desperate pain just to get the nurse’s attention. It was like a game to him. And he was very good at it.

“So what do you say we do?” I asked. “Because every time I see one of those Brits it makes me so angry!”

“And we can’t just walk up and punch a British police officer in the face.”

“ Or smash a rock over their heads.”

“Or throw garbage in their faces.”

“Or…”

Our ideas of what we wished we could do to the police officers got stranger by the minute. We couldn’t actually do any of those things, but after we had exhausted all of our ideas, I could feel that some of the anger had left me. Almost like taking a hammer and smashing things until my anger was gone.

“Okay,” I finally said, “I really need to go or my mother will worry. When can you come next? Because we need a real plan. Real action.”

Yitzchok thought for a moment. “How about the day after tomorrow?” he finally said.

“Let’s choose sometime next week,” I countered. So we did. I didn’t tell him why the day after tomorrow wasn’t good for me. I didn’t tell him about the bochur from yeshivah who was going to learn with me starting the day after tomorrow. By next week, I’d be able to get away with missing one night of learning. That was what was driving me, and the thought scared me. In Chevron, nothing could have kept me away had an older bochur asked to learn with me. Nothing. But now? The only thing I could see was the face of that British police officer ignoring our pleas for help. That, and Papa’s face as he had looked when I came to help him and ended up watching him die. Papa. He would have been so proud to see me learning with one of the bochurim from the yeshivah. Now he wouldn’t be there to see it.

I would get back at the people who were responsible for that.

Elka

The broom felt right in my hands as I moved it back and forth along the floor. Mama had asked me to sweep the floor. Mama! After two long weeks at the orphanage, it felt so good to finally be listening to Mama. We had found an apartment in Geula, not too far from Mama’s cousins and not too far from the new building the yeshivah moved into. But more than anything, Mama was here — and we could all be together.

I watched Mama sitting on a chair beside me as I swept the room, pulling in the dirt from even the tiniest corner. It’s good that she’s sitting, I told myself as I swept. A good thing. She needs to rest. But even as I thought it, the feeling was strange. When had Mama ever just sat still? When had I ever seen her with her hands in her lap just watching me sweep the floor? And then Leiba ran into the room.

“Mama!” She jumped onto Mama’s lap, ignoring Mama’s bandaged hands.

I saw Mama wince, but then put her arms around Leiba. “Leiba’le, how are you?” Mama asked.

“I was playing with Bracha’le,” Leiba answered excitedly. Bracha’le was Mama’s cousin Yocheved’s oldest daughter. Now that we were living in Yerushalayim, we had cousins only a few blocks away. “Miriam took me there. It’s so much fun where they live.” She proceeded to describe every minute of her visit to our cousins. “And she even told me she’s going to start school in a few days, Mama.”

“Yes, Leiba’le. And so will you. All of you,” Mama added, looking in my direction.

School. I froze, my hands still holding the broom. School. I had forgotten. We left Chevron during the summer, but now it was almost Elul. With all the moving, and Mama and Dovid finally getting out of the hospital, and then finding an apartment for us to live in, I hadn’t even thought of school. School? It didn’t even seem possible.

As soon as I could, I found an excuse to run over to our cousin’s apartment.

“Faiga!” I called breathlessly the minute I stepped over their doorstep. Faiga is just my age. If anyone could tell me what school would be like here, it would be her.

Faiga appeared out of the back bedroom of her apartment.

“Faiga,” I continued before she could even say anything, “school. I just realized I’ll be starting soon! I didn’t even think about it for a second. What’s it like? What are the rules? What do I need?”

Faiga smiled and sat down on a chair in their dining room, pulling out another chair from the table for me as she did. “It’s probably not so different from your old school,” she said. “Only much bigger. There’s a whole class of girls just our age, and Miriam will have a whole class of girls that are her age too. You’ll see. It’s really fun. It’s a long walk, but don’t worry. It will be fun. And we’ll get to do it together!”

Despite her reassurances, the  nervousness  in the pit of my stomach didn’t leave. How I wished we could be back in Chevron. Or even in Kovno. I couldn’t start again. I just couldn’t.

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Jr., Issue 914)