LITMIR.BIZ

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      My father and sister were fully embroiled in their usual political argument: she trying to convince him that the settlements were the only bulwark against the erosion of the Jewish soul, he trying to convince her that it was immoral, post-Holocaust, to voluntarily choose to raise a family surrounded by barbed wire.

      They were obsessed with politics, those two. What was the point? The more people argued, the more the conflict spun out of control. Arafat, Sharon, Bush—who would voluntarily watch a play with such an unappealing set of characters? From my father’s meager bar I searched for a stiff drink, but the Scotch had been packed away for the holiday. I settled for a shot of kosher-for-Passover vodka and sank into the omnivorous couch. Political arguments were worse than futile—they reminded the soldier in me of all the things he’d rather not think about. The terror of sniper fire. The hate-filled eyes. The children screaming hysterically as you cocked your weapon and handcuffed their fathers.

      “Shalom, Anat,” I interjected, when they finally came to a break in the sparring. I knew she’d never say hello if I didn’t.

      “Hey, Kobi. You actually have something to say about this? Some psychological insight, perhaps?” Her voice, as usual, was thick with sarcasm.

      “Not really. Just thought it would be civilized to say hello.”

      She stared at me for a moment. “So,” she said, “that wife of yours finally had enough of you?”

      “Yeah, I guess so,” I answered, avoiding her gaze.

      “That’s the way it is in the secular world. Easy come, easy go.”

      “Yeah, that’s just what it’s like.”

      “You’ll enjoy being single. No responsibilities. You always liked the easy life.”

      She unbuttoned, then peeled off her raincoat, and I marveled at the way in which she could make even the most innocent gesture seem aggressive. “Kobi, don’t you know what harm it does to a child to be raised without a father? There was a long article in Yediot last week . . .” and she was off and running on another one of her diatribes. Well, I could tolerate this more than I could stand to listen to her political views.

      She rattled on for a good five minutes while my father cleared his corner of the table of horseradish scraps. Finally, he cut her off. “Enough, Anat, we have a seder to get through, and I’m not letting it go on until midnight. I’m too old for that. Besides, Kobi has to get home tonight—God forbid he should sleep one night in his parents’ house. He’d rather drive through a raging storm to an empty flat in holy Jerusalem. Habi, stop that,” he yelled. Habakuk had been tossing and catching green toy soldiers, which he now flung high in the air. One landed on the lip of the ceiling fixture and remained there, dangling precariously.

      “Everyone sit down,” my father commanded. “Let’s get this thing over with.”

      And so we sat, my mother refusing to remove her apron despite my father’s protests, Habakuk getting up every few minutes to race around the table like a drunken dreidel. The rain lashed at the windows as my father droned through the service, not skipping a word of the sacred text. Anat studied the Haggada intently, while her husband, Tuvya, stared off into space, humming tunelessly under his breath. Other than periodic attempts to get Habakuk to settle down, there was a merciful quiet behind the drone, everyone hoping to get through the evening with as little ill will as possible.

      What was the point of it all? Maybe we’d been slaves a few thousand years ago, maybe not. Maybe we should figure out how to take care of our current problems instead of fetishizing ancient traumas. Didn’t we have enough here-and-now tsuris, what with people blowing themselves up in our cafés and malls? I’d like to see some god liberate us from this miserable, unending war—now that would be a holiday worth celebrating. I listened to the singsong hum of the cloyingly familiar words, sipped the candy-sweet wine my father insisted on using, wondered what sins I might have committed in my former lives to be tied now to the hidebound rituals of this stubborn old tribe.

      After we had all consumed the ritual doses of tasteless matzah and fiery, home-grated horseradish, Anat cleared the table of Haggadas as my mother handed out the first dinner course, a grayish slab of gefilte fish crowned by thin slices of overcooked carrot. I asked if there was any news from my younger brother, Gal.

      My mother sighed deeply and shook her head. “You tell him, Hayim.”

      “Still no word. As far as we know, he’s still communing with the universe in that Indian ashram. For all we know, he’s merged into the Oneness and totally disappeared.”

      “Stop it, Hayim,” my mother scolded him, “you’re as worried as I am. He’s such a sensitive boy, my Gali. The army was so hard on him. Remember how he moped around for months after that early discharge? Welling up with tears whenever the news came on, rescuing every little alley cat in the neighborhood? We didn’t know what to do with him.”

      “That was years ago,” I said, poking at the crumbly mass on my plate.

      My mother shook her head and disappeared into the kitchen. My father glanced at my untouched fish, switched his already empty plate with mine, and continued in a low tone. “Now I look back, I should have taken it more seriously. Not normal, for a grown man to act that way. But then, when he got back from Thailand, I thought he was finally settling down. He was managing that little store in Haifa, selling all that weird junk—psychedelic fabrics, ‘memory stones,’ obscene statues. He’d go on and on about their mysterious powers. It was odd, but at least it was some kind of living. Then all of a sudden, just when we think maybe he’ll have a semi-normal life, he quits his job and goes off to India. He can’t breathe in this country, he says. What can I tell you? If this ashram in India is the only place on earth he can breathe, zai gezundt.”

      “It’s a sin to leave Eretz Yisrael for any reason other than to save a life,” Anat chimed in.

      My father topped his second piece of fish with a thick layer of beet-red horseradish. “I’ll be sure to let him know your thoughts on the matter next time I hear from him.”

      “Maybe this new intifada triggered bad memories,” I offered.

      “Spoken like a true shrink,” he said. “What, any of us like this mishugas? More than fifty years we’ve had this state, there hasn’t been a day of peace. You live in this country, you learn to put up with it.” I watched him quickly down every bite of fish, even the soggy carrots. I had always been fascinated by the methodical way he polished off every plate of food, as if it were an onerous but necessary task.

      My mother returned to the room with the huge pot of soup. She placed it on a trivet in the center of the table and started collecting the used plates. “Kobi, you’ve learned to eat gefilte fish! Let me get you some more.”

      “No, no, Ima, it was delicious. But I know there’s a lot more food.”

      “Are you sure?” She finished stacking the plates and started ladling matzah ball soup into bowls.

      “Well,” I said, “I’m sorry you haven’t heard from Gal. I thought he would have at least called for Passover.”

      My father swatted the comment away and dipped into his soup. “I doubt they’re celebrating Passover in the ashram. I’m sure he’s too mystically elevated to own a calendar.”

      “Stop being so cynical, Hayim. What with drugs and AIDS and terrorists, and all the anti-Semitism in the world, and him such a trusting soul, you think it’s safe, my Gali, floating around the world in a dreamlike fog?”

      “Ima, you talk about him like he’s five years old,” I said, annoyed. “It’s no big deal—he’s just getting the army out of his system. So it’s taking him a little longer than most. Can you blame him for hating all the violence around here? Sometimes I wish I’d spent some time abroad myself.”

      “Who would have ever imagined that you’d be the success story? Such a ball of terror you were as a kid,” she said, warming up to one of her favorite topics.

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