Ima always called Abba Yaakov. So did Rabbi Eisen and his wife. So did all their neighbors. But she wasn’t dumb, she wasn’t this wide-eyed little girl who didn’t know her parents were different from the neighbors, who’d been frum forever. When Abba got mail from the bank in America, the envelopes said Jacob.

“Yes, that’s my father.”

“Great. Is he available? Can I speak with him?”

Tamar knew her instructions. Back when she was little, she had learned that we never disturb Abba while he’s working unless there’s a fire or someone needs stitches.

Now that she was in high school, she had a better understanding of her father. Abba didn’t do things halfway — he was either wholly absorbed or not involved at all. The programming work he did required the kind of deep immersion that would take too much time to recapture after a disruption. Plus, his bosses over in that company in America could be monitoring him remotely, for all she knew. Computers these days were basically like spies, it was crazy.

“I’m so sorry, he’s not available,” she said crisply, just as she’d been trained to do. “But I can take a message for him.”

A pause. “You’re sure?” He sounded disappointed.

This guy was weird. Did he not believe her? Did he think he could bargain, like in the shuk? “He’s not available now,” she repeated. “Would you like to leave a message?”

“Okay. Tell your father that Micky — err, tell him that Robin Pollack’s brother is in town. I’m staying in Tel Aviv, but I’ll be in Jerusalem tomorrow, and I’d like to catch up with him. Here’s my cell.”

Tamar took down the name and number with her pink marker-pen. “Okay, so, Micky Pollack. Can you repeat the number? Got it, no problem, I’ll tell him.”

“Abba,” Tamar said when Yaakov returned from Maariv, “I have a message for you. Someone called this afternoon, while you were working.”

Yaakov hung his coat on the hook and stepped inside the living room. “Thanks, sweetie.”

“His name is Pollack, I think? An American. Let me get the paper.” Tamar dug through the pile of schoolbooks on the dining room table and pulled out a yellow Post-it note. “Pollack, I remembered right. Robin Pollack’s brother. He said he’s visiting and wants to catch up with you.”

“Micky? Micky Pollack called?” Abba had become very still.

“Yeah. Want his number? I took it down for you.”

Abba’s eyes were focused somewhere else, somewhere far away. Tamar felt uneasy.

“Abba, I have his number. I wrote it down.”

Abba didn’t answer.

“Here,” Tamar shoved the note into his hand. Whoops, wrong hand, she needed the one with all the fingers intact. “Here, Abba,” she tried again. “I told him I would give you the message.”

Abba put the paper into his pants pocket without a glance at the bubbly pink handwriting.

“Aren’t you gonna call him?” Tamar needled. “He wanted to speak to you.”

“Maybe,” Abba said shortly.

Tamar looked at him appraisingly. Something about the set of Abba’s mouth looked… sad? Angry? She wasn’t sure. But she knew enough to change the subject.

“You have to see this math we’re learning, it’s crazy hard,” she said.

“Hard? For Tamar Markowitz? The best math brain in the entire Bais Yaakov?” Abba teased. The remote Abba of just a moment ago was gone.

“Okay, you’re right. Not hard, actually pretty cool. Here, let me show you all the homework I slaved over this afternoon.”

Abba obligingly bent his head over her notebook. If he felt the yellow Post-it note sticking out of his pocket, he didn’t indicate it.

“AH,here’s Lazer! And his friend Mr. Smooth!” Heshy opened the door to Banshak Hafakot with a smile. He had on the same booties he’d been wearing last time, but this time he’d paired them with an Adidas sweatshirt. “You came during our lunch break. Perfect timing. Come in, come in.”

Lazer and Shloimy followed him into the small studio.

Fulli was perched on top of the mini fridge. “Ahlan. I’m Fulli, remember me?”

Shloimy nodded. Ever since his unplanned recording session last week, he’d kept replaying Fulli’s incongruous mix of super-cool haircut and thick, curly peyos, his clichéd Hebrew verses and raw, throaty singing. It didn’t add up. He couldn’t stop wondering about it.

Avrumi, the quiet bassist, was there too, half-asleep on the couch.

“Lazer took some precious time from his bein hasedorim,” Heshy announced theatrically, “to share some music with us while we recover from our morning session. I hope you appreciate his great sacrifice.”

Lazer pulled out his MP3. His voice was light, but Shloimy could sense a certain gravity in the way he addressed the chevreh. “I brought this because I know you want different, Fulli. This is different.”

Heshy raised his reddish-blond eyebrows skeptically, but he took the device and inserted it into one of the many slots on his console. He clicked once, twice, and then leaned back in his chair as the warm twang of a guitar came through the speakers.

The chords the guitar was playing — Shloimy couldn’t figure them out. They weren’t the classic chords he’d learned during his music lessons, or even the sevenths and ninths Lazer had taught him. Each one was layered and nuanced with mysterious complexity. And yet they weren’t jarring. There was something alluring about them.

The guitar kept going, and soon a bass joined in, hitting notes that were surprisingly unexpected but somehow complemented the guitar perfectly.

Then a male voice, hard and gritty, singing in English about a chained heart, a heart beating to a rhythm it couldn’t control, a heart imprisoned. Who held the key to its freedom? When would it ever go free?

Startled, Shloimy suddenly realized this was the type of song a Bais Nachum boy wasn’t supposed to be listening to. He stole a glance at the rest of the guys. No one seemed disturbed.

They probably didn’t know English. Or maybe they did — these guys clearly listened to things other than L’chaim Tisch — but they probably didn’t realize how bad the song was. He looked at the floor, ears red.

Heshy’s fingers were softly tapping on the console as the music played. Avrumi had sunk deeper into the couch, forehead wrinkled. He was trying to decipher the chords, Shloimy knew — those weirdly wonderful, compelling chords that didn’t follow any of the familiar sequences of the music they knew.

Fulli had slipped down from the mini fridge. He was standing very still, eyes clenched shut. As the guitar picked up volume and intensity, launching into a key change, his hand extended involuntarily, gesturing upward, prayerlike.

Shloimy knew how he felt. There was something so beautiful, so original and real, about this music. It was wholly different from the oompahs and polkas of the chassidish dance standards, so much more nuanced than the predictable frum trances. And, Fulli surely knew, eons fresher than the wannabee “Abba” he’d recorded last week.

The sound was less lush, in a way, than all the frum music Shloimy heard everywhere he went — none of that forty violins and ten trumpets, two percussion sections, three bearded singers plus one wunderkind and a backup choir. This was just a guitar, a bass, and a single vocalist. But those three managed to hit every note the song needed to fill him. It was the most satisfying thing he’d ever heard.

When the song finished, no one spoke. Shloimy barely breathed.

Then Fulli whistled. “Lazer, I don’t know where you found this, but we have to figure out how to cover it. With new words, obviously.”

Heshy swung his swivel chair way from the console. “Avrumi, you think we can do it?”

“It’s gonna be hard.” Avrumi’s forehead was still wrinkled. “I think I figured out the first few lines, but the rest… I’ll have to listen again. Maybe a lot of times. It’s different, you know? Not like our regular music.”

“No, no one’s doing anything like this,” Fulli said enthusiastically. “That’s what’s so great about it. It’s really fresh. Really different! Lazer, how did you even find it?”

Lazer cracked an evasive smile. “It wasn’t easy. But I’m good at digging.”

“Nu, tell us more!” Heshy commanded.

“It’s an American band. From a while ago.”

“A famous one?” Fulli looked worried now. “We can’t use something too famous. People will know it.”

“Nah, it’s a band that no one really heard of. Some indie band that lasted for a year and then disappeared.”

“Wow. Heshy, play it again,” Fulli commanded. “Imagine we figure this one out, give it new words — it will be a game changer. Everyone will be talking about it. Talking about us.”

“You’ll need a video clip, too, I think,” Lazer said authoritatively. “Not just a recording. Clips are what goes these days.”

“Genius!” Fulli said. “Lazer’s right. A good clip will make this viral. Heshy, you have any friends who do video?”

Heshy thought for a moment. “I might have one. And if he’s not available, he’ll be able to recommend someone. But we’ll need a budget. It’s gonna cost a lot more than an in-house Banshak single. We’ll have to talk about that, get estimates, maybe a barter?” He stroked his sandy beard. “Back to the song — we need to figure out if we can pull this off. It will need new words…. Fulli, can you do that? You’ll have to get your poetic soul to work. At least Hebrew is easier than English, almost everything can rhyme.”

“Yeah,” Fulli said, eyes bright. “I’ll work on it. I have half an idea already.”

“Great.” Heshy tapped the console. “So you get moving. Avrumi, I’m making a copy for you. Listen to it, learn it. Plus we’ll need a really good guitarist.”

Everyone’s heads swiveled in the same direction. Shloimy felt his cheeks get hot.

“Nu, Mr. Smooth,” Heshy drawled, “I told you we’re going to be using your services again.”

To be continued….

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1047)