The walls are stained with what Nechami instantly recognizes as mold. And the plumbing in the kitchen must be corroded — a faint odor testifies to that, along with a row of relatively new floor tiles parading between the old, worn and chipped ones.

“This is crazy! It’s like all the worst apartments in town lined up to meet us,” says Chaya, young and innocent. In her hand is the bag holding the magnificent dress they just bought today for her sheva brachos, at the end-of-season sale.

That’s because of your price limit, Nechami doesn’t say. And even that limit was reached by hard work and careful saving. A huge mortgage to be carried on young shoulders. Ima’s hard-earned trust fund, the gemach loan Abba would take, the money you squirreled away, shekel by shekel, night after night, creating your slide shows.

“Where are all the nice apartments?” Chaya wants to know. “Cute, airy apartments with sunny porches and two and a half actual rooms?”

Nechami doesn’t answer.

The bag rustles in Chaya’s hand, little beads softly clicking against little pearls.

“I know where they are — in Beit Shemesh, and Neve Tzinobarim, and all the other places the young couples go to.”

“But your chassan needs an apartment here in Jerusalem,” Nechami needlessly reminds her sister. “And he said it doesn’t matter where it is or what it looks like, as long as it’s within walking distance of the chareidi center of town.” And you agreed to that, little sister. You came home from your second date with starry eyes sprinkled with diamond dust and said you were willing to do whatever it takes.

“Yes, but when you’re sitting in Yocheved Beigel’s nice, big living room, looking out over Ramat Shlomo and the whole city, listening to stories of yeshivah life and all-night learning sessions, you’re willing to take any cramped apartment, climb as many steps as you have to, to paint the peeling walls with your own hands….” Chaya trails off.

Yes. To give away all the chickens you don’t have yet.

“All right, let’s go to this last address,” Chaya resumes with a glimmer of hope, glancing at the paper in her hand. “He said we could come until nine.” The address says Batei Reichlin. Weary, they arrive, and find themselves in an authentic Yerushalmi courtyard.

“I could get used to this. It’s picturesque,” Chaya says with a note of cheer. “I could see myself hanging out laundry while the children play out here, on these old cobblestones….”

Nechami isn’t going to encourage any false hopes. They enter a crumbling apartment. It’s a bit reminiscent of the Old Yishuv Court Museum. The owner is an aged man with a croaking voice and a love for this apartment that is clearly unconditional. He was born here, he informs them. Right here in this living room. Wonderful. His bris took place here, too. So nostalgic. Under that sky-blue chandelier, swinging on its ancient brass chain. The room is huge and includes a kitchen as well. Adjoining it is a small room. Electrical wires are strung from every corner to every corner. And a telephone wire. Where is the third room?

“Ein minut, mein zuhn vet kumen noch a bissel,” the old man says soothingly.

The son arrives. He seems around seventy. He opens a side door, which they’d thought was a closet, and starts down a winding staircase.

“It’s a basement,” Chaya whispers.

“In case you ever want to hide away a treasure for future generations,” Nechami whispers back.

“Right. When we’re sixty, and we’re finished paying off the mortgage, we’ll start saving up a treasure for the grandchildren.”

The whispers are unnecessary, because the old man’s hearing isn’t very sharp anyway. Carefully, they follow the son down the metal steps. A cold echo arises from the walls. A single light bulb in a wall socket casts a pale circle of light. The presence of moving, breathing humans stirs up the dust on piles of unused objects that would make Marie Kondo break out in a rash.

“There’s a window here, too,” says the septuagenarian son, pointing to a skylight of glass bricks. Nechami glances up at this “window.” There’s something familiar about it from somewhere.

“Uh, is this… a water cistern?” she asks cautiously.

“That’s right.” The son doesn’t seem too pleased at this revelation, but he doesn’t deny it. “There was a cistern here, many years ago, in British Mandate times. We plastered it and put in a floor, added a staircase, and the opening up there, we turned into a window — and there you have it, a nice room. It could be a bedroom for the children, let’s say, or….”

They murmur a few polite words of thanks and turn back, round and round the dizzying staircase, and make their escape. Only when they’ve emerged from the alley leading to the nearest street, at a safe distance from the owners’ ears, do they start laughing in disbelief.

“A water cistern from British Mandate days! That tops everything!” Nechami makes an effort to lower her voice, but she can’t stop giggling as they keep walking, as far as possible from that stifling basement.

“But seriously now,” Chaya shushes her. They sit down on a bench on Rechov Yaffo and watch a light rail train gliding past them. “Is this what’s available in Jerusalem?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“So in other words, if I want an apartment near the city center that costs under a million and a half shekels, my range of choices is anywhere between a moldy wreck and a solitary confinement cell?”

“You’re putting it a bit harshly, but… yes.” Nechami sighs. “A proper apartment, with two and a half real rooms, will cost more.”

“Even to pay a million and a half, I’ll have to slave away for a lifetime.” Suddenly, Chaya’s voice is trembling.

Nechami isn’t ready for this. She hasn’t prepared herself for the moment when reality falls like an axe on her sister’s delicate dream, chopping it into pieces. “I thought… I thought you knew how much an apartment costs these days,” Nechami says, treading carefully.

“I thought that everybody manages somehow in the end,” Chaya murmurs. “In all the stories, the avreich gets a brachah, and against all odds he finds a great apartment for the price he had in mind, with enough left over for furniture, too. Or hashgachah leads him to an old man who lets him live in the apartment for pennies, and the next day the old man dies, or something, and the avreich gets the apartment. That’s what you read in the frum papers, anyway.”

“But you can’t live in a newspaper story,” Nechami says. “Come, Chaya, let’s go into this cafe and get you a nice hot cocoa. With whipped cream. We’ll stop off at my house, maybe, to drink it. Tomorrow we’ll continue apartment-hunting. You’re not going to live in a moldy wreck or a solitary confinement cell.”

Chaya is preoccupied with calculations. How many thousands of nights of work will it take to pay to live in a water cistern. And how. And why. And when. And what’s going to be.

“What will you have?” the young man behind the counter says to Nechami. Chaya declines with a wave of her hand. “No, thanks.”

“Why not?” Nechami asks her.

“Because this is no time to be spending money on treats.”

“Oh, don’t be silly!”

“I even feel like returning this dress to the store. It cost seven hundred shekels. That’s how much less I’ll have for an apartment. For the wedding. And to live on.” Nechami sees that dangerous glint in her sister’s eyes. That totality. She knows it well — she’s seen it often enough in the mirror. “I’m about to go into debt for a million-shekel mortgage. I’ll be working for forty years to pay off that debt. I’ll be an old lady with false teeth and a dried-out gray wig, and I’ll still be working night after night to pay for a cramped apartment with a leaky ceiling. I’ll…”

“Hot chocolate, please,” Nechami says to the server. She knows exactly what Chaya likes. “With a little whipped cream on top, and chocolate shavings. And a swirl of caramel. Thank you. Oh, and some shredded coconut.”

“I said no,” Chaya protests.

“I said yes,” Nechami informs her.

••

A cup of hot chocolate has 240 calories. That’s one megajoule of energy. The same amount as in a stick of dynamite. But the stick explodes, and the hot chocolate doesn’t.

“It’ll take hours of walking to burn off these calories,” Chaya frets. “I won’t be able to get into this dress.” As if the dress were her biggest problem now.

“That’s good,” says Nechami.

Hot chocolate doesn’t explode, and dynamite does. That’s because its energy is compressed, repressed, cramped and imprisoned. And then it’s all released in a millionth of a second. Hot chocolate doesn’t do that. Hot chocolate believes energy should be released slowly. Gently. One millijoule at a time.

•••

A few days earlier, when Chanukah still lit up the windows of the night, Shifra sat in Dudi’s car, not saying a word. Her lips were quivering. Everything she’d heard was churning, choking her. A fund for Tovi. A tzedakah fund, with receipts. For her child.

“We’re not doing any campaigns,” Gedalya reassures her. He asks Dudi to take them to Ramah Alef; they had promised to bring the children sufganiyot from Nechama’s Bakery.

“Should I wait for you outside?” Dudi asks.

“No, thanks. We’ll get home on our own.”

They eye the display of sufganiyot, knowing they’ll be buying a precise number and must decide how many of each kind.

“People will be giving us money and getting tzedakah receipts,” Shifra says.

“They won’t be giving it to us. They’ll be giving it to that expensive doctor. The fund is just a vehicle.” Gedalya is almost pleading with her. “Just a way of making it easier to raise the funds we need. There won’t be any PR campaign, don’t worry! No pictures, no promotions, no stories about Tovi. We’re just creating a fund, so the proceeds and expenditures will be properly documented and tax-free. It’s just a technical issue.”

There’s a strangling lump in Shifra’s throat that’s saying no, it’s not a technical issue, and she can’t even choose sufganiyot for the kids. Gedalya chooses, pays, takes the bag, and heads for the door.

“Let’s walk home,” she says, trying to overcome that lump of tension.

“Wait — let’s go in here first,” he says, stopping in front of an ice cream shop. Behind the glass, an array of yogurts, frozen fruits, ice creams, granola, chopped nuts and shaved chocolate beckons.

“What for?”

“To buy you something you like.”

“Gedalya, it’s expensive here.”

“That’s all right,” he says, stroking his beard. “It’s my treat.”

“No, Gedalya.”

“Yes, Shifra.”

He strides in and asks for a frozen yogurt, size medium. With mango. And peach. And kiwi. Some halvah, please, and a little honey. He skips the berries. He asks the server to top it with chocolate shavings.

“The first thing Tovi needs is a strong mother,” he says. He asks for a bag and a spoon and pays. And they step out into the night.

On Rechov Nahar HaYarden, they walk and walk. After seventeen years, they don’t need words. Shifra looks at all those houses, other people’s houses. The people in there don’t have to set up tzedakah funds for their children, even as a technicality.

“Actually, that’s not even true,” Gedalya says when they’re nearly home.

“What’s not true?” She looks at him, probing.

“You don’t have to be strong for Tovi. You have to be strong for yourself.”

She’ll go home and sit at the kitchen table with her yogurt, with the kids popping up all around her asking for a taste. Gedalya will shoo them away. “Don’t bother Ima,” Sari will tell the others. “She needs strength to take care of us. Right, Abba?”

“Ima needs strength,” Gedalya will say. Period.

And she will look at him and at her children, freckled with powdered sugar and sticky with jam, and she’ll have strength. Even for a fund. With receipts.

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 873)