 |
Original Art by Me,
pictured: Hamtza, and a semi-kabalistic rendering of the Rekiyahs |
It wasn't her boobs that made me stop and gawk. No. Pushing my cart in the dingy grey makolet (corner market),
something glitters in the corner of my eye. I turn. A great golden Hamtza bounces ominously with every
breath she takes. I stop. The filigreed hand bobs up and down waving
at me like the hand of Midas resurrected. This awakens in me sudden anxiety. The feeling someone I think I know is waving at me, but really they are just waving at
the guy behind me. I have to actively suppress the urge the wave back. Instead
I choose to awkwardly run my hand through my hair. Nearly free, I turn to pick
my yogurt, but its single lidless eye captivates me. Transfixed. I cannot, now, resist the
urge to stare. To gawk- to gape – seduced by the unblinking blue eye
cradled in the palm ebbing in the midst of liver spotted cleavage. Against my
will I’ve entered into a staring contest with the eye of Sauron. To blink would
to cause mini-Orcs to come crawling out of the long dark crack of her cleavage.
There’s a truth to this, I reason, like Sauron, the Ayin Hara too is an evil eye. The religiously
superstitious, part of me is
certain that if I break eye contact with this manifestation of the Ayin Hara I will have bad Mazal
(luck) for all eternity. Though, I should have figured that openly
ogling another woman’s breasts in the middle of the market is probably also not
the ticket for good luck.
The older woman clear her throat, and I am thrown back to
reality. Back to the dairy aisle. Back to a world where I must look like a
lesbian. Albeit a desperate, socially-inept lesbian, staring at leathery old
breasts in the middle of the Makolet. Reluctantly,
I break eye contact from the pendant and meet the lady’s gaze. Her eyes are brown
but milky, coated in a blue veil of age. Her round face is dark and crumpled
with cigarette wrinkles.
“Can I help you?” she asks with her eyes and with her
wrinkles.
I have no idea how to respond. I try and make my eyes say “I
might be beyond help Ma’am.”
She keeps staring,
and I assume my eyes said something else. Her cart blocks my way. Should I say
something? Should I use the go-to trick of men caught with wandering eyes? The
ol’ compliment the necklace. Even though it’s true for me, I feel can’t say a line
too often lied. So, should I lie instead and compliment her breasts? No. That
is a horrible idea. They might be hoisted up high courtesy of French
Aerodynamics, but unhinge the clasp and God only knows. Swing low sweet
chariots. The intense desire to wave at the Hamtza
overtakes me again, but before I lift my hand, my mouth takes matters into it’s
hands – lips? – and says: “Do you know where I can find peas?” I ask in English
hoping, praying, she might just show me the toilet and I can have a laugh
later.
Breaking eye contact really did grant me bad luck for
eternity. The old woman smiles, her face creasing further like a giant walnut. She
proceeds to list every different type of pea available to me. Frozen, canned,
fresh, dried, whole, split, green, white, red….
While she lists, my mouth and brain engage in a brief
dialogue:
“Dear Mouth –
Just remember, you
were the one that thought of this,
Sincerely,
Brain”
“Dear Brain,
Please rescue me. I
don’t like peas.
Sincerely,
Mouth”
“Dear Mouth.
This is your baby. You deal with it
Bugger off,
Brain.”
“But but but.”
“But what sweetie?” The old lady asked.
“But what kind peas are best for soup?” I ask.
Evidentaly I’m making soup. I just came in for some
emergency rations: chocolate and pizza. Cure to comorbid PMS and exams. Now
this enormous savta raba has highjacked this plan and I may be stuck eating
something with actual vitamins. I long for rude abrasive stereotypical Sabras. But I have been saddled with the nicest lady. She
drags the front of my cart behind her, snaking up and down the aisle. Wheeling
me around she fills up my cart with ingredients. Carrots, celery, grains, spices
whose names I can’t even translate. We reach the meat counter and I cringe. The
browning red meat behind the glass makes me more homesick for North America
than a thousand Katusha rockets ever will.
The woman negotiates with the butcher for a bit. Rousing him
into service and renegotiating four or five times about the cut and trim of
fat. I should just make a run for it now. Abandon my cart and sleep for a week.
O! glorious sleep. But when I try to move, my shoe squeaks on the linoleum,
catching Savta Raba’s attention. She calls me over. Asks where I think I’m
going. And I don’t know why I feel so beholden to this woman, but Sauron
between her breasts threatens me with his unblinking eye. If I leave now, all of Middle Earth will burn. Or maybe just me. It's hard to read the expression of a lidless eye without an eyebrow.
In a haze of moed aleph exhaustion, the choice of Savta
Raba and Sauron versus making a run for it, staying makes more sense. Besides, she is
being nice. And I could use some nice. There’s not enough nice in this world. I strain a smile and
my face feels like it might crack from the effort. Savta Raba seems to take
this as encouragement. A giant leg bone of a cow lands with a clatter into my
cart. What the hell? It’s nearly as long as my arm. Upside down, the long
bright white Styrofoam and cellophane package shines like a beacon in the
chrome cart.
“It’s good.” She says. With that smile. An enormous half
circle on her round, round body. All round and suishy, she’s wider than she is
tall. An image of her puffed up and rolling down a hill like a human beach ball
pops into my brain. I smile a bit at the thought.
“You’re American?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“New York?” she asks.
“No. Texas”
“Ahh.. Cowboys.”
“Yes. “
“You have family in Israel?” She asks.
“No.”
“You come to me for Shabbat?” She asks, but it doesn’t sound
like a choice.
Right…. Find a way to get out of this. The Eye of Sauron
gives me a dirty look, heaving up and down. I can’t do this anymore. Please God
who may or may not be out there. Send me a lie. Pleeeeeaaasssse! Send me a lie.
Right. Brain. Think of a lie:
“Yes, thank you. I would love to come.” My mouth says.
Seriously, Maybe God!? Not the lie I was looking for.
She let me cut her in line. Graciously, she gestured with
her round gelantonous arm waggling about. Afraid I might actually have to
purchase half a bovine skeleton, I politely tried to demure. No success. Bodily she forces me ahead. I
cringe as the cashier weighs the bone. Maybe I should just cut my losses as
this point and buy a dog. I lay down two weeks worth of grocery money on this
bone. Grudgingly parting with both my dignity and my need for food. Nearly
free, out the door, cart returned, five shekel piece retrieved, Savta Raba
calls out after me.
“I didn’t get your phone number.”
Desperate, I call out the numbers and run.
I return home and lay out my purchases on the kitchen table.
My roommate looks at the bone, looks to me, looks back to the bone and shrugs.
Silently she walks back into her bedroom. We’ve adopted a live and let live
approach to living with one another ever since I took up the uekele. A silent
live and let live approach. So she’s not really going to help me cook any of
this.
The bone lies in a
rectangular sturofoam plate, protruding a bit on both ends. Held in place with
clear cellophane it glistens in my flouresent apartment. I behold the almost its
curved length, the thin strip of pink gristle and chunks of coagulated white
fat. I try to approach it with an apporiginal’s ingenuity. Like an inuit in the
frigid depths of Canada. I could make soup, and a bowl, and some fancy art or a
knife or something.. Perhaps I need to think like a caveman as this has to newly
discovered the mastodon fossil. It’s massive. Enormous. It will take days and
days to just heat it up, let alone cook all that brown marrow thoroughly. I do
the only thing I can do. Put it in the back of the fridge and hope to forget about it.
My phone rings.
“Shalom.” Though the number comes up as unknown, I know. I
know who it is. I know its her.
“Hi.” I respond.
“So you coming?” she asks.
Savta Raba calls me in time for Shabbas. Part of me is
amazed. Another part is certain this would happened. Of course I incurred
the wrath of the Ayin Hara. I blinked.
