Dovid comes up from behind and hands her a Zero. It was only after they had climbed up to the Citadel and found a craggy shelf to sit on that they discovered their drinks had stayed behind. He’d told her to stay put while he went back down to find a kiosk. Here he was, ten minutes later and barely out of breath.

“Do you know that an average of five people die every year trying to climb Everest?”

Dovid grins through the straw he’s chewing. “Cheerful thought. Quads that painful?”

All those steps. The whole Old Cemetery, from Rabi Pinchas ben Yair all the way up to the Arizal Hakadosh. And then up, up, through the maze of the Old City, and the final trail to the Citadel, where the panorama is worth it. This whole trip has been worth it.

Still, Mimi thinks as they enjoy their lunch with a view, they should have started at the top and made their way down.

Her legs still ache as the bus begins its climb up to Yerushalayim, and her thoughts somehow bring her back to the Himalayan peak. What happens to the climbers who don’t make it all the way to the summit? Mimi thinks of the rigorous training, the fortune paid, the dreams of returning home as conquering heroes of Everest… and then an avalanche. Unfavorable weather conditions. Crowding. Failure.

She steals a sideways glance at her husband of six months, sleeping as soundly as if he were in his own bed. The majestic Belz building crowning the hills comes into view, but instead of the rising anticipation she used to feel, Mimi wonders what happens to girls who get everything they begged and davened for. The top learners who want to stay in Israel forever. The family who finally come around to the idea after months of pleading and promises that this is it, this is the dream, and it’s not a passing fancy. The doting Gramps who wants to help buy an apartment even though he has no idea why his Mimmie-Mouse has chosen the life she has.

What happens, Mimi thinks, as Dovid opens the front door and dumps their knapsack on the floor with a sigh of relief, if a climber gets all the way to Camp 4 and is suddenly incapacitated by altitude sickness?

They’re out of milk and tomatoes. What else? Mimi flips through a cookbook she’s never used. She knows better than to have faith in the photos, has learned to look through the ingredients and method before blithely trusting the process. That’s good for stir fries and chocolate chip cookies, not for the fancy meal she has planned for tonight.

But the store ruins those plans. Mimi should be getting used to deciphering odd packaging and having to ask friends what they use instead of whipped cream cheese. But she suddenly finds herself sick of substitutions, and wanders instead up and down aisles, eyes scanning shelves for things that don’t exist here. Snap peas. Tater Tots. Creamsicles and Cherry Coke and Entenmann’s donuts.

The plastic bag feels heavier than it should as she walks up the incline, as if her thoughts weigh it down. It’s the adjusting, Mimi tells herself. Slow exposure to new elevation. Really, she shouldn’t get so upset because the vegetable section has only one kind of potato and that today all the greens were soggy in their cellophane bags. Dovid loves the honey mustard nuggets she’s made too many times to count; he won’t miss arugula salad with portobello mushrooms.

Just outside her building, Mimi trips on thin air. Vanilla extract, soy sauce, mustard — all round objects that gain velocity as they roll off in opposite directions. Mimi stands up and tries to brush off her palms and pride, hoping none of her neighbors are at their windows.

“Here, geveret, let me help. At b’seder?”

Before she can catch her breath, Mimi’s shopping has been gathered together and slipped back into the bag. She can feel an ugly blush rising as she takes it from the stranger and mumbles todah before fleeing for the safety of her apartment.

She drops the shopping onto the table and sinks into the armchair. Her mind plays and replays the embarrassing incident like a video clip in slow motion. Trip. Fall. Bottles scattered everywhere. And that man, picking everything up for her, shaved head inclining slightly as she thanked him, eyes hidden behind aviator sunglasses.

Wait. Mimi pauses her mental reel. Where has she seen that man before? He’s not the type to live in this predominantly frum area. Still. She’s definitely seen him recently. Something about the broad shoulders and square jaw makes it difficult to forget him. Right, she remembers him standing across the road, watching the two of them when they arrived home from the Kosel one evening.

Mimi shakes her head, even as a tightness spreads across her chest. Maybe she’s finally coming down with the flu she was worried about before they went to Tzfas? Things have felt strange since she woke up too early this morning, the sun shining across her face through trissim she’d forgotten to close.

She really should make supper. It’s not right to let her husband come home from his day in kollel and give him anything but a piping hot meal and a happy wife.

But Mimi stays right where she is, and tells herself that nothing will happen if they have honey mustard nuggets tomorrow instead.

Thankfully, Dovid thinks likewise, and they decide to go to Waffle Bar.

“Should we splurge on dessert? I know things always look better on the other tables, but that coffee-pecan-ice-cream-waffle thing looks too good to pass up.” Mimi thinks that everything they’ve eaten till now is more than splurge enough, but Dovid has a real sweet tooth.

“If you think you can manage that whole dish yourself, go ahead! I’m stuffed. No, I mean it. Not even a teaspoon.”

He settles on an ice coffee concoction with pecans and cream.

“So I’ve been saving up some great news, Mim! It was so funny that you didn’t cook tonight, really bashert. So we can celebrate.”

Mimi happily wonders which of Dovid’s friends is about to get engaged. They’ve been trying to suggest shidduchim for their friends ever since their own engagement.

“Really? That was sneaky!”

Dovid grins and pops a pecan into his mouth.

“The realtor called me back with a great offer on that stunning ground floor apartment we saw that was way out of our budget. Remember?”

The clamor of waiters and diners is suddenly magnified, the restaurant claustrophobic. Mimi tries to pull in some air, but it smells of deep frying.

“O-oh yes?”

“Yeah! And we’ll email your grandfather all the details when we get back home, and if he gives the go-ahead… wow. We’ll have our very own apartment in Israel. Can you believe it?”

Mimi looks at her husband, partner in her expedition. There is so much she wants to say, but the words die on her lips, asphyxiated by thin air.

Mimi stares at what professes to be a beautiful maroon herringbone fabric. But no matter how much she enlarges the image on the screen, she can’t feel the warp and weft, can’t finger the material, imagine it gently draping a mannequin. Fashion Design in 2-D is turning everything flat — her joy, her inspiration, her creativity.

She sighs. The problem with online degrees is the speed and ease with which she can log off and promise herself she’ll catch up sometime later.

Mimi finds herself in Shuk Machaneh Yehudah, once one of her favorite haunts with her seminary friends. How they had laughed, using their elbows to move forward, jumping out of their skin when vendors bellowed about their avati’ach al hasakin and preemiyum chalvah. Maybe if she recaptures her falling in love with the Land…?

But the trip makes her feel worse. Now she is no tourist, thrilling at the exoticism of it all. There’s the overbearing smells of spices she doubts she’ll ever use. The unrelenting crush of people, the atmosphere close and heavy. This is a place to mark off a sightseeing list, write about in a traveler’s diary — went to Shuk Machaneh Yehudah! Saw someone eating a sabra for real!

She stops at a flower stall and looks at the flowers she loves so much. Gladiola, gyp, carnations, iris. And the only word she knows in Hebrew is perach.

A keen sense of misplacement overtakes Mimi. How can she feel more foreign now than she did two years ago? It’s hard to believe that a fact so insignificant as the lack of a return ticket can make her feel as though she’s pulling herself up a steep escarpment, searching for footholds in the rock.

But it’s more, something she can’t even explain to herself. Those funny mistakes a tourist can make and still be tolerated in good humor suddenly seem unforgivable. How long it will take her to learn all the things she should know, and still, still, she’ll forever be a foreigner.

In her mind, she imagines herself telling Dovid in a thousand different ways, I want to go home. And in her mind, his reaction is always different — wide-eyed shock, puzzlement, a flash of anger.

What do you mean? Her imaginary husband asks. We are home.

It’s just after four, and Mimi wonders if it’s too late to catch her mother before work. Her phone rings just as her fingers touch the purple case.

Telepathy. “Hi, Mom! I was just gonna call…”

“Try again, Mims! It’s Michaela. What’s up?” Her best friend never waits for answers to her rhetorical questions. “So listen, guess what Nava gave me before she went back?”

Mimi grins to herself. Sometimes Michaela can go on for five minutes before Mimi gets a word in.

“Her gym membership! Yeah, she had a few months left on it, and me and Tali decided we’re dragging you to Zumba tonight, such fun! No excuses this time, you’re not that shanah rishonah anymore. Anyhow, be ready for 7:45, don’t forget a drink and leggings. I’m not listening to a single word besides yes!”

Mimi thinks of quite a few reasons not to go, but Michaela clicks off while she’s still protesting about being out of shape. She’d better dig some kind of T-shirt out; Michaela would find a way to drag her to Zumba in a wedding dress if she wasn’t ready on time.

That evening, the music pulsates in Mimi’s chest. A half-thought leaps into her head, a vague note of warning about the effect of such volume on her eardrums, but it’s taken over by sheer focus on her next move. Jump, jump, hop, KICK. She puffs in and out quickly. Grapevine to the left, JUMP.

She dodges Michaela’s arm when the direction changes and she’s suddenly facing the wrong way, and slips to the back of the room to find her water bottle. She’s shocked to see the digital clock over the mirrored wall telling her that there’s only ten minutes left to the class, and finds her place again for the last song before cooldown.

“Had fun, huh?” Tali grins at her through a hamstring stretch.

“Mm-hmm.” Mimi’s trying not to lose her balance. “You guys are just the best!”

“Don’t know how to do Zumba any more, huh?” Michaela gives her a friendly jab as they collapse onto a low wall outside the gym. “It’s gonna be soooo embarrassing, I need to stay right at the back, yeah?”

Mimi thinks she can’t really get any redder through her sweaty flush. But she doesn’t need to blush in front of her closest friends.

“Well, I didn’t know I’d know most of the steps! And c’mon, I’m totally out of practice.”

“That’s why we’re forcing you to come with us twice a week. Pilates and Zumba. Honestly, you’re not that busy. And it’s good for you.”

A light giggle escapes Mimi, surprising her. She looks at Tali and Michaela. This is what she needs more of, she suddenly realizes. Going out, exercise, friends.

“Sounds like a plan, guys. Been wondering if I can still manage a boomerang!”

They hang around a little longer, draining their bottles and schmoozing about old friends, shoe sales, and a new place to buy good meat.

“Hey, Mims, did I give you that recipe for doughnut holes I got from Adina?”

“Me, doughnut holes? Dough isn’t my thing, Tali, and you know it.”

“No, this you have to try. It’s got a crazy white chocolate dipping sauce, worth every single calorie. And the frying. And the mess… omigosh, can you believe it’s Chanukah already?”

“Right?” Michaela jumps to her feet and stretches. “I don’t know about you guys, but all I can feel when I walk the streets is lucky, lucky, lucky. The little glass boxes for menorahs and all the stores selling candles and olive oil and dreidels, and the smell of latkes and donuts, hah! Funny after Zumba. But really,” she stops for a small, uncharacteristically pensive pause, flipping the lid of her bottle up and down. “Ashreinu, right? Instead of having to wade through stores full of decorations and music belonging to things we don’t celebrate, we’re here. In Eretz Hakadosh. Surrounded by our own people. Where you can feel Chanukah and Purim and Pesach and all the things that make us Hashem’s Nation. Where taxi drivers tell you Shabbat shalom. Where we belong.”

Lucky. An unfamiliar happiness spreads through Mimi, her internal barometer at ease.

It’s a good day. And there’ll be more.

She can do this.

As she crosses the road a few buildings before hers after an appointment with the sheitelmacher, a familiar figure gets out of a car. He stares at her for a long moment, something about those sunglasses and poker face giving him a sinister aspect, before disappearing into a store. That man, again.

Breath hitching in her chest, pulse thundering in her ears, Mimi runs the last few hundred feet, fumbling for her keys. She checks the lock, twice, hands still shaking.

This is crazy. Is she being followed? Three times is more than coincidence.

Mimi peeks out onto the street, eyes squinting against the glare, but she can’t see very much.

Calm down, Mims. You’re in Israel, not in a spy novel. You’re a boring model citizen.

Still, she jumps when there’s a light knock and Dovid’s key turns in the lock.

“You okay, Mim?”

“I’m… yeah, fine. A little tired.”

He looks at her, forehead furrowing. She thinks she can read his hesitation, unsure herself if she wants him to probe.

“Maybe go take a rest? I’ll sort myself out over here.”

Mimi should be so, so grateful. She is grateful. She lies facing the wall, eyes open wide, and thinks of home, of all those around her climbing ever higher, of strangers with huge arms, of dreams fulfilled and promises broken.

Sleep doesn’t come.

Mimi’s skin prickles every time she leaves her building. She’s nervous, jumping at shadows that turn out to be trees, garbage cans, innocent passersby, and now, to her intense embarrassment, her next-door neighbor.

“Are you okay, Mimi? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” Hadas Golomb is the sweetest lady, serene as a cave pool even with toddler triplets.

“Y-yeah, I’m fine. Oh, so adorable! Is this Yoni or Ari? They’re getting so big!”

Always distract a mom by complimenting her kids. They chat for a few minutes before Ari plops down and starts removing his shoes and socks.

Dovid meets her at the corner and they walk to Effie Shaul & Co.’s office. It’s smaller and plainer than Mimi had expected — according to Gramps this guy has serious name recognition overseas.

Effie himself is also a surprise, shorter and younger than her image of a real estate lawyer. But she sees his professionalism in the brisk nod to her and the firm handshake for Dovid. They get straight down to business.

It’s when Mimi picks up the pen — she’ll always remember how the metallic green glinted at her — that all the jumbled feelings and impressions of the last months coalesce into a single thought. I can’t do this. She looks down at the line waiting for her signature, and her lungs close. She’s stuck on an icy, rocky ridge, terrified to look down, no more strength to look up and see how far she has to go. She slowly puts down the pen, trying to inhale enough oxygen to breathe.

“I can’t do this,” she whispers into the airless room, dimly aware of the two men staring at her. “I’m sorry.”

And then she stands, mutters something unintelligible even to herself, and hurries out of the plain white door.

Mimi rushes up the street blindly, her surroundings fading into a blur until it’s just her, taking big gulping breaths, in, out. What has she done, where is she going, who is she anymore?

She collapses onto the bench in a little nook shaded by a Jerusalem pine tree she discovered during her year in seminary. She’s always loved the riotous growth of bougainvillea, admiring its unapologetically bright colors exploding in abandon all around her. But now she’s oblivious to it all, chest heaving, in, out.

She’s losing her mind.

Mimi sits there as her breathing slows, until she remembers her phone, switched to silent for their meeting.

Nine missed calls.

Oh, no.

“Mimi?”

She’s never heard Dovid’s voice like this before. Frantic. Guilt floods her as she tells him where she is. He runs up a few minutes later, sweating, disheveled.

“What happened, Mimi?” He stands there, breathing heavily, anger and worry pouring off him. She looks at her husband across a chasm, knowing she has to take the leap and break his heart in the process.

It’s strange how clearly Mimi suddenly sees it all

“It’s… the permanence of it. There will always be more weddings and family get-togethers and reunions, and I’ll be here, away from it all….” She thinks of all those she loves growing further apart as their lives diverge at the tangent of her being here and them there.

“Everything I’ve ever wanted with all my heart and soul has become too… impossible,”

She talks and talks, telling of her slow loss of self. Dovid is quiet, sitting still on the bench beside her.

“And recently I’ve started imagining someone is following me.” Mimi knows she sounds crazy, but she must empty it all out. “Every time I leave, every time I come home, I’m looking over my shoulder, petrified of something anxiety has created in my own imagination. I can’t live like that… feeling as if I’m losing my mind piece by piece every day… it’s all just too much. I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Dovid. I know this is what I promised, what we both wanted. But…”

She can’t continue, tears clogging her throat.

Dovid still hasn’t said a word. Mimi thinks she’s known him long enough to read his mood, but now she’s hanging on a precipice, scared to try. She pulls a deep fuchsia bract off the branch near her and crumbles the delicate crepe to pieces.

It terrifies her when Dovid rubs a palm over his face, once, twice. Is he crying?

No, his voice is fine.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me all that ’till now,” he starts, and falls silent again.

Mimi isn’t sure how she should respond. Is that all he’s going to say? She thinks of apologizing again, but then he continues.

“Do you really think I haven’t noticed something’s wrong? I thought…” He trails off.

And then Mimi sees what he must have seen. A wife growing quiet, miserable. Dovid, asking a million different ways if she’s okay and getting a tepid fine in return. The half-truths, fraying ropes that kept them safe.

Horror rises in her chest.

“You thought it was you?”

“What did you think I would think? You’re sad so often. You’re not the Mimi I got to know, bubbling over with interesting stories about your day and your friends and your life….” He looks down at his fingers. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

Mimi struggles to find the answer.

“I didn’t know! I was so busy trying to adjust, trying to make it good, trying to keep myself busy and happy, and hating myself for not managing to make it work… and trying harder, and hoping that this week it would get better. I just…”

The enormity of her stuckness sits heavy on her.

She gulps, trying to talk past the growing lump in her throat. “I was trying so hard not to hurt you — you were happy in kollel, growing every day. But now I’m seeing that I did, I hurt you so badly, I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

Mimi covers her face on a bench in a quiet corner of Yerushalayim and cries for the heights she now knows she can never attain.

Mimi thinks that every rav’s study must look the same — desk piled high with old and new seforim, writing implements, notepad. And a box of tissues in the corner.

She takes some quick, shallow breaths and looks down at her hands, tugging at her rings as Dovid tells his mashgiach about their predicament.

“…so we came to ask Rebbi what our next step should be.”

The mashgiach is silent as he drums his fingers lightly on the wood. Tap, tap.

“Nisht poshut, Reb Dovid. Nisht poshut bichlal. You’ve had the incredible zechus to shteig in learning here, to bask in the avira d’Eretz Yisrael.”

More drumming. Mimi slides her rings up and down over her knuckle, fingers cold to the touch.

“And this has always been your ideal, your plan milechatchilah. But your rebbetzin is having a… difficult adjustment.”

He turns toward Mimi.

“It’s an incredible zechus to live here, I can’t emphasize this enough. The chashivus of your husband’s Torah davka here. And nuch not to have the headache of parnassah. But I understand that to tell you that Eretz Yisrael nikneis b’yissurim is superfluous, something you know already.”

Dovid clears his throat.

“I need to tell rebbi again — this is my wife’s dream, possibly even more than it is mine. She, uh, even kept from me how hard things are because she didn’t want to disturb my learning.”

Even in all this mess, Mimi feels a small flash of gratification — and gratitude that Dovid can acknowledge how tough it was for her to keep silent.

Tap, tap.

“Takkeh. I hear, I hear.” The mashgiach spreads his arms wide. “What can I say? You’re not the first couple to sit here telling me of their difficult adjustments. And a tachshit like you, Reb Dovid… a shvere kasheh. But your choshuve rebbetzin here, keeping quiet, having a hard time for so many months like this when l’maiseh it should be getting easier, not harder…”

Mimi has promised herself she will not cry; she won’t embarrass herself or Dovid.

But the tears rise anyway, as after some more questions and thoughtful tap-tapping, the mashgiach gives his psak. He gently tells Dovid that maybe some time back home will give them more clarity; that in their specific case perhaps it’s more beneficial for him to shteig over there with a happy wife.

And of utmost importance — to leave their options here open, for nothing is permanent. Not their life here, nor their life there.

“So I hear you’re moving back to the States?”

Mimi’s neighbor Hadas bumps into her, tugging a recalcitrant Ari — or maybe Yoni — and looking as unruffled as ever.

Mimi swallows, trying to tamp down the guilt that surges up every time she has to confront the reality.

“Yes, we are. Well, for the moment at least.” She will never forget the maybe.

“Oh, I was sure you told me that you were going to buy here? It must have been someone else and I got confused. Triplets!”

Mimi wonders if she should put Hadas straight, but is suddenly weary of explaining things to people.

Her mom, secretly pleased, Oh, you kids decided you want to be here after all? A confused Gramps, But what’s with the down payment I helped you with? And Dovid’s parents, Well, it was only a matter of time. When will you think about your degree, David?

She bends down instead to chuck the toddler on his chin. “I’m gonna miss these cuties! Even though I still can’t tell Yoni or Ari apart. It’s a good thing Huvi’s a girl….”

But Hadas is looking past her, a frown on her usual placid face. “You know, I’m so sick of this guy hanging around. Surely it’s been a month already?”

This guy? Mimi turns her head to look. A familiar pair of sunglasses, bald head, broad shoulders, square chin, walking slowly down the road. Her heart almost stops.

“A month? What do you mean?”

Hadas gives her a puzzled look. “Didn’t you get a letter in your mailbox from the Sheetrits?”

Mimi is hot and cold and breathing funny. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. A letter? What letter?”

Mimi has no recollection of getting into her apartment. She stands at the window, trying to make sense of a story so wild that if it hadn’t been Hadas doing the telling, she would never have believed it to be true.

Their building is under surveillance. Someone who lives on the ground floor is related to someone in the Shin Bet who received a death threat specifying all his family members.

A hysterical laugh erupts. You are in a spy novel! We’re all being watched!

So if he’s real, Mimi isn’t crazy. And if Mimi isn’t crazy, she thinks, staring at her reflection in the cracked bathroom mirror, maybe she should give their Yerushalayim mission another try?

But when she looks back at all the tiny, painstaking, grueling steps that have brought her here, to this pile of suitcases and sheitel- and hat-boxes, and her handbag ready with passports and tickets, Mimi knows that for some reason, a spooky character had to be the one to make her stop and see that this expedition was just not meant to be.

Sometimes climbers come home and have to live with the knowledge that they weren’t able to scale Everest. They’ll have to bear the hurt in hearing of those before and after them who succeeded where they failed.

But as Dovid locks their door for the very last time, Mimi thinks that as long as they reach upward, they’ll forever be climbers.

And that’s what she’ll always hold on to as she thinks of the mountain that will be there for all eternity.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 772)