Tuesday, afternoon

I see Yosef Schonzeit bringing in police, stepping carefully over the muddy puddles. Then insurance personnel — who else wears suits nowadays? It’s a crying shame.

I’m sure there’ll be builders and electricians and what-not. Even the fancy sign he put up last year just melted right off; the estimates are going to be outrageous.

I feel sick and drop the curtain.

I’m not good for much today. I’ll cancel Ellie.

“Hi, Mrs. G.”

“How are you, dear?”

“Fine, thanks.”

“I’m sorry to do this to you, but I’m just not up to doing anything today.”

“That’s fine, Mrs. G.”  No questions. One reason I enjoy her so much.

“I’ll phone you tomorrow to see when you’re available?”

“I might be busy tomorrow, but try me anyway, is that all right?” I ask. I look around. Not too much out of place here.

“Whenever it works. Thank you, Ellie.”

I push back the curtain. Police again. This is not good.

No one has come round to ask me anything. Yet.

I pray I’m as invisible as I think I am up here behind my net curtain. I never thought I’d say this, but I miss Constable Jenkins, crusty old man.

“Missiz Gawdun. What’s this all about, now?” he’d say, and settle himself down for a nice cuppa while we sorted things out.

But he’s gone and retired. And this is too much of a muddle.

Wednesday, morning

My chamomile tea is steaming up the window, so I rub a circle in the condensation and move the mug further away. Light&Bright, next door to Schonzeit’s place, is still closed. I wonder if there’s a lot of water damage; all those light fixtures probably need a complicated wiring system.

Schonzeit’s — no, now it’s The Meatery — on the corner, huge melted M on the blackened front. Then Light&Bright, which is anything but at the moment. Next on the row is McEvilly’s greengrocers, and I can see Phillip unloading a pallet of bananas, so I suppose he’s all right.

My side of the road is business as usual. Bakery smells wafting up from Kosher Kafé since before the sun decided to make a weak showing. Supermarket, hardware shop… all good.

Is that the phone?

“Hello?”

“Good morning, Mommy, why didn’t you answer before?”

I keep the ringer on its lowest setting because otherwise it makes me jump out of my skin and my heart does funny things. But I’m not telling Esther that. I’ll be at the cardiologist before I can get my hat on.

“Good morning to you, Esther!”

“Are you feeling better after yesterday?”

I’m not myself at all, with all this on my head. But I don’t tell Esther that either.

“Nice weather,” I say without thinking.

“Yes, isn’t it a gorgeous day, Mommy! I was thinking of popping round later. What do you think about going out for a bit. I’m sure the park is lovely today.”

I don’t think about going out for a bit at all. Not on lovely days or miserable days.

“You’re popping round when?”

“Say, one-ish, I’ve got an appointment around the corner. Oh, that reminds me, Mommy, when’s your eye exam scheduled for?”

I don’t know why, but my daughter is determined to pronounce me decrepit and deficit in body and mind, when I’m fine. I’m only 72, for Heaven’s sake. Younger than the King! Since Ezra died and I moved into this sweet flat, Esther’s been a battle-ax.

I put down the phone. A morning to get everything tip-top.

There’d better be fresh milk and bread. No suspicious furry growth on old oranges. No dirty dishes in the sink.

I rinse the mug and let it drain.

See? I’m still compos mentis.

I drift to the window. Compos mentis. I’m thinking of poor Mikey. I haven’t seen him since the fire. His scruffy bag isn’t next to the row of bins in the alley behind the shops. Neither is his blanket. I did see him on Monday sitting at the bus stop opposite. He was packing and repacking that old pipe he can never get to light, carefully tamping down whatever’s in there, which I highly doubt is real tobacco. Talking to himself but scaring no one besides the occasional stranger.

A right kettle of fish I’m in.

The sitting room, put the newspaper in its stand. Straighten pens. Maybe I’ll wait till next week for Ellie’s magic.

Yes, we might be the oddest pair. But at Esther’s son Nechemia’s wedding to Rachelli Schonzeit, I was sitting in the lobby to escape the horrific noise that was an excuse for music — no point losing my hearing, even for my grandson’s wedding — when I struck up a friendship with the other escapee. She still called herself Elisheva back then, and if you ignored the streak of blue I caught hidden in her hairdo, and some extra holes in her ear that G-d never intended, she was the sweetest, most intelligent, most attentive person I’d met in a long time. A genuine old soul no one seemed to understand.

Sister of the bride and the groom’s grandmother; it may have sounded like a Purim spoof, but I’d say we had a better time than anyone else in the hall. Except maybe Nechemia and Rachelli.

Arranging for her to come over and help me once a week gives us both a modicum of stability I suspect she lacks more than I do. She enjoys my company; isn’t that refreshing. Swallows whatever Life has handed her and hides it behind a smile and occasionally acerbic wit. Takes one to know one.

I peek into the spare room and scowl at the walking machine. I’m scared to death of the thing, but no one has to know.

Esther’s got a lot to say about osteoporosis, but what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t have to grieve after — I take my hanging clothes off it and leave my trainers in a strategic position on the floor nearby.

All shipshape and Bristol fashion.

Wednesday, afternoon

I shove the sigh deep, deep down, and open a packet of digestive biscuits no one will eat.

“But it’s not good for you, Mommy. You can’t stay home day after day like this. You’ll get depressed! You need to get out. It’s glorious, let’s make the most of it.”

“Esther, dear. I go out when I’m in the mood. Now I’m not in the mood. I’m enjoying my open windows and seeing the blue sky from right over here.” Change of subject, quick. “Oh, are the Schonzeits all right?” Leading the witness. Maybe I’ll hear something I need to know.

“It’s awful, Mommy. Just awful. They’re thinking it’s arson! I don’t know what they found, but it’s all very suspicious. Who would want to do a thing like that?”

This is worse than awful. I must have been subconsciously relying on the police’s incompetence. They’ve been moving quickly. Next they’ll be on to the big question.

I have to find Mikey before anyone else does, but how?

And now I’ve lost control of the conversation.

Esther gets this look. Dr. Esther with the help of Dr. Google.

“Is something worrying you, Mommy?” She’s shredding the teabag label, keeping her eyes off me. I know what she’s thinking, even with our history of perpetual misunderstanding.

“Nothing’s worrying me, Esther.” I don’t tell her about insomnia, about my nightly mental scroll through telephone numbers of people I haven’t spoken to in years, just to make sure the old gray matter isn’t letting me down. I’ve got my window, my big Tehillim, family photos.

And seeing things I can’t unsee.

“Because someone who doesn’t go out of the house at all, you know… sometimes there’s something scaring them. And then they work themselves up into a tizzy and never go out ever again because each time is worse, and honestly Mommy,” suddenly giving up on the someones, “you’ve become a recluse.”

“That’s ridiculous, Esther. I go out whenever I want. You think I’m agoraphobic?” By the way she drops the confetti she’s made onto the saucer, I’ve hit the nail on the head. “I’m not. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to see a man about a dog.”

She’s shrugging into her coat with a familiar aggrieved air.

“Anywhere I can take you?”

“No thanks, dear. I’ve still got to get the war paint on and make myself presentable. No need to wait.”

I see her out and shut the door.

My lawyer will be arriving in ten minutes. The kettle needs refilling.

Thursday, morning

I keep getting a whiff of charred meat at odd times of the day, making me check my oven just in case I put something in there and forgot about it. Esther will come over all frantic if my smoke alarm goes off.

And then to the window — McEvilly’s looks empty, from what I can tell.

“Phillip? Mrs Gordon. Have you got a spare ten minutes to put together a box for me and pop it across the road? Your green pepper display looked lovely yesterday.”

There’s another wonderful man who’s happy to fill my orders and bring up the best produce he’s got.

Luckily, I’ve got things to take my mind off the fire today — Boruch and Vivi are in town for a family simchah over Shabbos, and I’ll be hosting everyone for a Melaveh Malkah.

Fresh bedding in the spare room. Finally, an excuse to fold up that monstrosity of a machine.

I’m looking forward to seeing my son with his dry wit and bonhomie. So much like Ezra, so hard not to see him more often. I shake myself. No use getting maudlin. On with it.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve done a big bash.

Esther, Michoel, two or three of their marrieds, Boruch, Vivi, their couple, all the teens and children. That’s rather a crowd.

The doorbell goes.

“Hallo, Mrs. G. Got your order here. Can I bring it in for you?”

He doesn’t look too grand.

“Everything all right at home, Phillip? How’s the missus?”

He drops the box on my kitchen floor and runs his hand over his bald patch.

“She’s a’right. It’s the fire.”

“The fire?”

“Joe’s place. Police called me twice for questioning.”

I sit down.

“You? Why?”

“Cameras got me delivering his order on Monday after I closed shop. I’ve got his key, you know.”

Cameras. Cameras! I resist the slap my forehead needs.

“Well, then. They’ve got you putting down the order and leaving through the side door, haven’t they?”

“No cameras at the side. And I went back out through the alley to my van.”

So he did. I saw him. But telling the police means I’ll have to tell them everything else I saw.

“My goodness, Phillip. What do they think is in it for you?”

“Been after Dennis for a while now, trying to buy Light&Bright. He’s not doing well, and I could do with expanding. Fire started on the shared wall.”

I look at him. With half the McEvilly clan drunk and the other half guests of His Royal Majesty’s prison system, Phillip has spent his whole life fighting to keep on the straight and narrow. Phillip with his ruddy cheeks and torn jeans. He’s a guilty-before-proven-innocent kind of person.

I have to fix this.

But how?

I pay Phillip, wish him well.

But it’s not enough.

I watch him stride across the road and look down the alley. I still haven’t seen Mikey.

The nasty yawning hole with shattered windows that used to be half my day’s entertainment makes me shiver. No tattered bags or blankets or a familiar figure with a pipe in sight.

The net curtains are in desperate need of a wash. I’ve asked Ellie to come on Sunday — I’ll have to manage till then.

I run through Monday’s events again. Things are safe as long as no one thinks to ask that one question.

But arson.

Phillip, Light&Bright.

Now, what?

Motzaei Shabbos

Boruch doesn’t make me feel like an old-age pensioner with incipient dementia. I realize that as I’m replenishing the sausage roll tray for the third time.

Everyone is laughing. Esther is relaxed, as if there’s some kind of tension she can let go when her brother is around.

Now he’s leaning against the window, moving the curtain aside.

“Where was the fire, Mommy?”

Oh, here we go again. I can hear the conversation, Esther phoning him up after she spoke to me, tying herself in knots because there was a fire right where Mommy lives, and it’s just not safe—

“Across the road, Schonzeit’s meat shop.”

“And you saw the whole thing go up in flames?”

“Well, yes, I saw the fire before it was under control.”

The orange glow in the windows before they shattered, the dimming and brightening that I knew was a fire even before I saw flames. That part I don’t say.

“It was the middle of the night, you still didn’t tell me why you were up in the first place, Mommy?”

I look at Esther and don’t tell her how I was up long before then. How I was the one who called the fire brigade.

“I decided to close a window I’d left a crack open for air.” Lightly. “More chips, anyone?”

The ketchup and mustard is passed around peaceably; I feel like I’ve dodged a bullet.

“So what’s your grandfather doing about all the investigations?” What, indeed, now we’re talking. Rachelli might be able to bring the conversation past the fire itself.

“Actually, my father’s dealing with it,” Rachelli says. “He’s trying to prove that Light&Bright’s circuit breakers caused the damage. That whole wall is gone. And it seems like half the floor model fixtures there didn’t meet regulations.” She shrugs. “I dunno. Standards and codes of practice. Out of my league, but I hope they sort it out quickly. My grandfather hasn’t finished paying for last year’s renovations.”

I hope my face doesn’t look as hot as it feels.

How does this fit in with arson, I can’t ask. No one else asks, either. Now Yosef Schonzeit and Phillip and Dennis and insurance and licensing and renovations… and all of this is far too much for one woman who saw it all.

“Ha, what’s his name from the lighting place. Charlie’s son. Dennis! Does he still run it?” Boruch is in his trip-down-memory-lane mode now. Good. I need to think.

“Yes!” Esther’s there as well. “Dennis the Menace, remember him?”

“Chasing us down the road, throwing conkers. Narsty bloke from Loight&Broight, innit?”

They’re off laughing again, and still sitting, I pretend to concentrate on putting dirty plates together.

“Come on, Mommy. You’ve got your we-are-not-amused face on. The man was a crook when he was 15, of course he’s doing shady things. Shady things! In a light shop, ha.”

I get up and say I’m serving dessert.

A pretty pickle I’m in now. Too many persons of interest. Too many people with things to lose.

Knowing who did it isn’t enough now.

Sunday, afternoon

It’s a wretched day, I can hardly see across the road. Umbrellas and boots and people dashing in and out of their cars with their shopping. Neon lights flashing in the puddles. I put up the heating just a bit.

These net curtains are too dingy to bear anymore; I’m so glad Ellie’s coming soon.

I take no issue in getting up on a chair to unhook it all, it’s the getting off the chair in yards of net that I’m not too keen on. So I’m more grateful than usual for her help, not to mention how happy Esther is when I tell her I won’t do it myself.

I let Ellie in at five on the dot. She’s dyed the blue streak a shocking purple, but I say nothing.

We get busy with the palaver that is the taking down of net, careful not to rip anything, getting it all into the bath, giving it a soak. It’s dark so early; I don’t like having people see right into my flat. I pull the drapes closed over the bare window.

Empty bus stop, all three lines must have come in one go. No Mikey.

“How’s the English coursework going?”

Ellie pulls off eye rolls that no one else can.

“Animal Farm. Need I say more.”

“Animal Farm. Wait… Napoleon the dictator! Brilliant Orwell.”

“Yeah, but the coursework is a nightmare. I really don’t care how Old Major’s socialist ideas were corrupted.”

So that’s a wonderful conversation we get into, Ellie and I. And when she offers to help me do the gas stove, it’s because she’s a perceptive young woman, and I hate degreasers. I hand her the gloves and the steel wool and get busy with making us a nice supper. Salad, that’s what girls like to eat nowadays, which is why I put aside some of Phillip’s iceberg lettuce and cherry tomatoes.

Ellie loves my photos, so we chat about the latest ones — she thinks Nechemia and Rachelli’s baby looks like our side of the family, which fortunately is not true.

We clear up, and finally rehang the wet curtains to dry in place. It’s stopped raining. A light goes on across the road as Ellie pulls the last loop over the hook.

“Ellie, dear. Can I ask you one last favor?”

“Of course, Mrs. G.!”

“I need to run an errand.”

“You need me to run an errand?”

“No, I need you to come with me while I run the errand.”

She could not have looked more stunned had I said I needed to go to the airfield to borrow a Harrier jet. Or whatever the RAF have replaced them with.

“While you run an errand?”

And before I can think about all the things that keep me at home — the fear of stepping on a slug or a patch of black ice or just a crack in the pavement. The fear of one small slip. Breaking a hip, dramatic decline, and an old age home in less than six months, not agoraphobic, just careful — I let her bring my coat and gloves.

Sunday, evening

The cold shocks me into silence once we’re downstairs.

Ellie, bless her, has threaded her arm through my elbow. I’m pretending to humor her.

“Which way?”

I haven’t planned this at all. And the cars flash by so fast.

“Let’s just walk that way, shall we?” Why not look at the pastries in Kosher Kafé’s window. Trot past the massive supermarket that takes up half the block, then Walder’s hardware place on the corner.

“We need to cross the road.” My fingers are stiff, but at least there are traffic lights.

Ellie is quiet as we turn back at McEvilly’s, walking slowly, careful of stray tangerines turned to mush that would make a woman slip and fall and become a scene.

I run options through my mind as we pass Light&Bright, wonder what I’m going to do next.

“Oh,” I say, “what’s your grandfather doing here tonight? Let’s say hello.”

I don’t look at Ellie as we make our way up the alley to the side door.

“Mrs. Gordon? Ellie? What are you doing here?”

Yosef Schonzeit is no less shocked than his granddaughter. Years of him delivering my meat orders for free. Absolutely not a problem, Mrs. Gordon. It’s my greatest pleasure.

I don’t know what I’m doing here, but I’m certainly not turning back now.

And if he thinks I’m a bit of an invalid and rushes us inside through a horribly peeling hallway into his office where there are two reasonably clean chairs, I’m not arguing.

“So terribly sorry, Mr. Schonzeit.” I wave an arm at the powdery dampness where the water must have mixed with ash, shards in the window frames, a large empty area once packed with customers occupying the up-to-date tables and chairs. A butcher’s shop turned fancy meat restaurant — who would have thought it would be so successful?

“We’ll get it all done up again, Mrs. Gordon. Once insurance comes through.”

“Hmm, yes,” I say, and silently berate myself for having no plan. Not a one. “I heard it was something to do with Light&Bright?”

Ellie’s eyes snap up from her phone, stare at me, at her grandfather, who’s nodding.

“Yes. Terrible, no licensing. Expired permits. Definite overheating over there. Old wiring that wasn’t meeting standards, who knows what else. Charlie must be turning in his grave.”

“And it all happened… over there?” I jut my chin in the direction of the shared wall — or what’s left of it.

“Uh, Mrs. G.?” Ellie’s face is gray in the dim light. “I have to go.”

“But how will I get home, my dear? This shouldn’t take long.”

Needs must.

“What if I tell you, Mr. Schonzeit, that I know what the police found? That it wasn’t anything to do with Dennis and his neglect?”

He goes around the desk and sits down.

“We’ve known each other a very long time, Yosef. Long before this little town somehow turned itself into a city, long before shopping became an anonymous enterprise.” I’m rambling. “You built up an empire here. We share a great-granddaughter. Things we thought were important then seem so silly now. And vice versa.” Still trying to find my footing.

I pull Ellie’s hand toward mine, squeeze it.

“You’ve got a diamond of a granddaughter, Mr. Schonzeit. And you know this tough old bird wouldn’t say that if she didn’t mean it.”

He half smiles at me, at Ellie, wondering what I know. Wondering what I want.

“We’ve all made mistakes in our lives, haven’t we.”

I watch the fog lift, clarity settling the puzzled lines in his forehead.

The one question with one answer.

The alarm that didn’t go off in the night.

“Ellie?”

She starts speaking, and still squeezing her hand, I help her tell the story, fill in the parts that are mine.

Mine is the story of a woman living right near a row of shops on either side of the road. Of a woman who made her time pass by watching comings and goings of humanity in its quest for sustenance and home improvements.

Of a woman plagued by insomnia so often, the chair at her window was of more comfort to her than a bed. Of a woman who saw things other people missed. Homeless people curled up under welcoming overhangs, night shifters, shop owners working late.

Teenage girls doing silly things with matches, cigarettes, drinks, and who knows what else, while the world save one slept.

I sit in their silence until I’m quite sure two of the most sensible people I know will sort things out between themselves.

Then I leave, through the side door. The side door those girls had burst out of in the space between Monday and Tuesday, terror stamped all over them, even though I couldn’t see anything clearly besides a telltale blue streak under a streetlight.

I make my way across the road slowly but unassisted.

We’ve all made mistakes in our lives, haven’t we.

So instead of going upstairs, I carry on down the next road. I’ve got a funny feeling Esther will be delighted to see me.

And look who it is, sitting at the next bus stop on the northbound route.

“Hello, Mikey, are you doing okay?”

He grins and waves his pipe at me, tattered bag at his feet. Mikey, fire, police. Not a good combination, but I should have known he’d sort himself out.

As should I.

I can’t expect to see everything out of my window.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 877)