The Extra

Five

IN MIDWINTER, TWO MONTHS after the death of their father, her brother sent her an e-mail:

My Noga,

I’m writing you an e-mail, not phoning, as I fear that on the phone you will cut me off as you usually do. I therefore ask you to read this calmly and carefully before any knee-jerk reaction.

I’m well aware that you don’t believe Ima will agree to leave Jerusalem and move to assisted living near me in Tel Aviv. But just as I can’t dispel your disbelief, you can’t disprove my belief that this is possible. Therefore we should both submit to a reality check.

Two weeks ago Ima came down with a bad case of flu — maybe you could hear it in her voice in your weekly phone conversations, or maybe not. She almost certainly tried to mask this with you, just as she tried to hide her illness from me. It’s true that flu isn’t life-threatening, not in a strong woman of 75, an age that in light of the amazing performance of our elderly president seems downright youthful. But one of the neighbors, whom Ima asked at the height of her illness to bring her milk, was alarmed by her condition and phoned me.

I canceled a day of work, rushed to Jerusalem, found Ima weak and burning with fever. I called the doctor, bought medicines and decided, despite her objection, to stay the night at her place, to take advantage of her condition to weaken her resistance to the idea. And indeed, by pleading and scolding I succeeded the next morning to get her to agree to try out the assisted living in Tel Aviv for a few months.

I know you don’t believe anything real could come of this trial period. I know you’re convinced it would be a futile exercise. But I’m willing to cling to the imaginary, because sometimes life has a way of making the imaginary into something real. It’s not unreasonable to assume that in assisted living, with devoted care and proper supervision, she will come to understand that this option is preferable to living alone in Jerusalem, where she is increasingly surrounded by strangers, and every illness or accident becomes a threat to her and to me as well, amounting to a test of my responsibility.

And therefore from a moral point of view (forgive the melodrama) you must not only encourage and strengthen me from afar, you must also be a supportive partner not only in words but in deeds.

To be specific:

Abba is gone, and you have chosen an unusual musical instrument that forced you to go far away from home. This is your right. But in so doing you’ve left me alone with Ima. Maybe I’m an old-fashioned worrier, but I can’t help it.

I’ve found assisted living near us. A small flat has become available there, on the ground floor, with an adjacent garden. The management is willing to let her try out the place for three months in exchange for the maintenance fee alone, with no deposit or commitment in advance.

I took her there, she looked the facility over carefully, and with goodwill and an open mind, she visited the unit they are offering, was impressed by the garden, and having brought with her the measurements of the electric bed, realized there would be room for it. At the end she took an interest in the identity of the last occupant and even requested a description of his dying days. Then, suddenly, she spoke proudly of Abba’s silent passing. Her words were so beautiful that for a moment I choked up with tears.

True, I don’t know what she feels in her heart of hearts. You, who resemble her more, can probably guess better than I can. In any case, Ima promised to undergo the experiment with a positive outlook, but on one condition. And this condition, my sister, is addressed to your conscience. A condition imposed by Ima.

Because only after Abba died, and maybe as a result, she thought it right to divulge to me (maybe in the past they had been embarrassed to do so) that they had never owned the Jerusalem apartment, that it was a rental, under the old key-money system. In other words, many years ago, when they moved from Kerem Avraham to Mekor Baruch, the apartment on Rashi Street was acquired for key money alone, which in those days was a convenient arrangement for those who could not afford to buy. The key money was intended to protect the tenant from eviction for life, and also to bequeath that right to his spouse, in exchange for a fixed rental payment which in its day was reasonable but over the years, with inflation, became ridiculously low.

The original owner of the apartment died long ago, and his son and heir died as well, and his widow, who went to live abroad, entrusted the apartment to the care of an elderly lawyer, to whom Abba in recent years would pay the rent every six months. Something totally absurd, like 800 shekels a month or less. Obviously, even an elderly lawyer was aware how absurd this was, so after Abba died, and since the lease was only in his name, the lawyer saw it as an opportunity to take over the property and return it to the inheriting widow. From then on he has been staking out the apartment, waiting for Ima to die or to leave, for only then would he have the legal right to regain control in return for a paltry sum, a portion of the original key money, which had become part of the overall absurdity.

It is therefore of great importance to Ima that during the trial period we maintain our presence in the apartment — in other words, that of an immediate relative. Under the terms of the key-money agreement, we’re not allowed to sublet the place.

Beyond the stalking lawyer, Ima is worried about the apartment itself. The front door and lock are in bad shape, and replacing them in this interim period makes no sense, especially since it’s easy to slip into the apartment from the floor above and the floor below, through the utility porch or the bathroom window. You may ask who would want to break into such an old apartment. What would they find there anyway? So let’s go back to Pomerantz, the nice Hasid who promised when you were young to permit you to play the harp in the Holy Temple if you turned into a handsome lad. The middle son of the Pomerantz family, Shaya, the one who was friendly with you, became a religious fanatic and moved to Kerem Avraham, and of course has countless children, and the two oldest often come to visit their grandparents and loiter in the stairway. Once Ima secretly invited them to watch a children’s show on her TV, and they immediately became zealous devotees of the tube. Ima quickly realized her mistake and refrained from ever inviting them again, but they found a way to get in uninvited, and maybe managed to make a copy of her house key. In any event, when she’s not at home they apparently go out through Pomerantz’s bathroom, shimmy down the drainpipe, enter Ima’s apartment through the bathroom window and turn on the TV, and not only to children’s programs. Ima caught them once, but took pity and kept quiet, maybe because she has no grandchildren of her own in Jerusalem, but the little bastards took no pity on her, and soon enough she caught them again. Sometimes they break into the apartment at night when she’s sleeping. The lust for television drives them mad, and it’s a good thing she warned them her kitchen isn’t kosher, because otherwise they might raid the refrigerator.

And for this reason too, during the trial period (of only three months) someone responsible must stay on the lookout, and we have nobody other than you.

As a practical matter I see the situation as follows: I understand that you used your annual vacation at the time of Abba’s death, and now you can only take a leave of absence without pay. And we thought, Ima and I, how this could be done without causing you financial damage, which I will get to in a moment.

But first the fundamental question: can your orchestra make do without a harpist? You once explained to me that your job consists of two parts, playing the harp and serving as an orchestra librarian, as not every musical work requires a harp, including, oddly enough, the big symphonies by Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Schubert and Haydn. Am I right? You told me that the inclusion of harps in orchestras happened later, with such Romantics as Berlioz, Mahler, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky and others. Am I right? After all, from the age of three I learned to internalize everything you told me. Yes, Nogati, yes.

And if this is the case, would it not be possible to plan your orchestra’s repertoire in such a way that in your absence they would play classical works that do not require a harp, and to postpone the more modern works till after your return.

Don’t get angry — you know your brother and his manipulative imagination. I make a pretty good living from it.

Now, as to the economic side of things. Neither Ima nor I wants this experiment to cost you money, and would in no way approve your dipping into your savings to fund your leave of absence. I know you live frugally, and I also know, of course, that you have no legal right, or desire, to sublet, for such a short period, your rented studio apartment, the charming little flat we saw when we visited you in Arnhem.

Which leads us to the question of your Israeli finances. The Jerusalem apartment, of course, is yours free; electricity, water, gas and phone bills are deducted monthly from our parents’ account. I will set up an open account for you at Rosenkrantz’s grocery, so you’ll have a full supply of staples. But you will doubtless have other expenses. Transportation, dinners out, theater, concerts. So we were thinking, Mother and I, to place at your disposal 8,000 shekels for the three months. And if you need additional funds, there’ll be no problem.

I’m nearly done. I suspect you are someplace between shocked and furious. But Abba is dead, Ima is left alone, and I, Honi, your little brother, am trying to find a good solution for her, so we will not agonize, I and maybe you too, with guilt over abandoning her, albeit as a result of her own free will and stubbornness, leaving her alone in an old Jerusalem apartment, dependent on the kindness of strangers and weirdos.

I await your answer — if possible, reasonable and practical — preferably by e-mail, not phone, so we won’t cut each other off.

Your loving brother, Honi