LITMIR.BIZ

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she said, looking at her hands. “I cleaned and cleaned, cooked all his favorite meals, but he never showed up. Not that I was surprised—he never does. I don’t know why I keep going through the motions every year.” She looked up at me. “To be honest, it was a long, lonely week. I kept thinking of all the other families celebrating together.”

      “I’m sorry it was so lonely,” I said.

      She shrugged. “How was your holiday?” she asked. “I’m sure it was better than mine.”

      “It was fine, thank you,” I lied, grateful for once to be able to hide behind the strict rules of therapy. “But we should continue with the intake process that we started last time. Why don’t you begin today by telling me a little about your childhood?”

      She sighed. “Oh, Doctor, you don’t want to hear about my childhood. It was a total nightmare.”

      “Of course I want to hear about it. After all, that’s what we’re here for. What was so terrible about it?”

      She looked up at me, as if to gauge my interest. “I was orphaned at a very young age,” she began. “I never knew my parents. They moved to Egypt before I was born, but both of them died shortly thereafter.”

      I shook my head sympathetically. “What a terrible tragedy. Were you raised by relatives?”

      “I didn’t have any, not that I knew of. I had a terrifying childhood. I really don’t think you’d want to hear about it.”

      She was twisting the fringed edges of her shawl as she spoke, but she’d kept her eyes firmly locked on mine. I focused myself on the task of diagnosis: there was important information here—some kind of major, early trauma—that she was not yet ready to share. But I was sure I would get to the bottom of it. I hadn’t been this motivated to understand a patient in years.

      “What do you know about your parents?” I asked.

      “I know almost nothing about my mother. But I’ve learned a lot about my father from Y.”

      “He knew him?” I asked, hearing the surprise in my voice.

      She smiled broadly. “Oh yes, he was very close to my father. He’s been close to my family for years.”

      Her entire affect had shifted. Clearly, Y was her favorite topic.

      “How did he know your family?” I asked.

      “Well, it all started when he met my great-grandfather, Aba Ibra.”

      I kept my tone neutral this time. “You’re saying that your husband knew your great-grandfather?”

      “Didn’t I tell you? He’s much older than me. I don’t know exactly how old, but older than you’d think.” No name, no age. But in a way, it didn’t matter. I’d come to understand that there was a layer of truth to be found even in the most bizarre delusions. There would be much to learn if I listened closely and kept my skepticism under check.

      “So how did he meet your great-grandfather?”

      “They met in Syria. Y was very young at the time, no more than a teenager. Much younger than Ibra, who was already married and an established businessman.”

      “Is Y Syrian?” I asked.

      “No, Iraqi—at least I think so. Ibra was also born in Iraq, but he’d emigrated to Syria years before. Y was working in Syria as a Zionist recruiter, teaching Hebrew language and Zionist ideology, trying to get people to move to pre-state Palestine. It was around the time when the situation for Jews in Syria was beginning to deteriorate, but before there was a well-organized Zionist underground. It was very dangerous work—the Syrian government disapproved of Jewish nationalism and was not above arresting and killing Zionist operatives.”

      Was any of this plausible? “He was working for the pre-state authorities?” I asked.

      “Oh, no. Y never works for anyone. He was an independent operator. But he’s always been a fervent Zionist.”

      “And your great-grandfather was also an early Zionist?”

      “Not until he met Y. But one day he stumbled upon Y’s class on Zionist ideology, and the connection between them was instantaneous. After the class ended, Y told him that he was looking for someone to set an example for the Syrian community and that Ibra was the one he had chosen. Most Syrian Jews at the time were emigrating to America, or England, or even Latin America. But Y convinced Ibra to set a different example. He told him to summon his wife, pack up their belongings at once, and move to Palestine.”

      “Those early Zionists could be heavy-handed at times,” I offered.

      “To put it mildly. Ibra went home that very day and told his wife they were moving to Palestine. She was horrified, but what choice did a woman have in those days? Within a week they had packed up a few belongings and smuggled across the border with Y, leaving the rest of the family and their business behind. It was a harrowing journey, and dangerous. But in retrospect, it was very prescient—they left more than a decade before the Syrian pogroms and the mass emigration to Israel. Ibra claimed that he was the first modern Jew to emigrate from Syria to Palestine. I don’t know if that’s true, but he was proud of it for the rest of his life.”

      I did a quick calculation in my head: Y would have to be over eighty years old for this story to be true. It wasn’t impossible—it always astonished me how many young women were attracted to older, domineering men—but it still seemed highly unlikely.

      “And then,” she continued, “the most remarkable thing happened when they arrived in Palestine!” Her face was suddenly bright and full of enthusiasm. “Ibra and his wife had been childless for many years, but as soon as they got here, Sana got pregnant! They were astonished, but Y wasn’t surprised at all. He explained it in almost mystical terms—you know, a real Jew has to live on Jewish land, breathe Jewish air, to be fully alive. The air of the Holy Land, for a Jew, would even cure infertility.” I felt lulled by the joy and enthusiasm in her voice. “It sounds preposterous, I know, but that’s how people thought in those days,” she went on. “Ibra was convinced that the pregnancy was entirely Y’s doing, and not only because he brought them to Palestine. Y had been feeding him herbs, doing kabbalistic incantations, all meant to increase his potency. So when Sana got pregnant, Ibra acted as if she had nothing to do with the whole thing. Just like a vessel, or something. Almost like it was really his and Y’s child.”

      The story suggested a new theory, which she seemed to anticipate.

      “Ibra and Y were so close. So close . . . ,” she trailed off. “Well, you’d think it was ridiculous, I’m sure. But the way he talks about Ibra, you know . . .” She eyed me closely, and I concentrated on keeping my expression neutral. “Sometimes I think it may have been more than just a friendship,” she said in a guilty whisper, “if you know what I mean.”

      “You think it was a homosexual relationship?”

      “Oh, my goodness, you put it so bluntly; no, nothing like that. I mean nothing, you know, consummated. Y’s very squeamish about stuff like that. He hates gay people. Calls it a perversion.”

      “But I thought you were suggesting . . .”

      “Well, yeah, I was. I figure it was like that, but you know, maybe without, you know . . .”

      She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I always thought it was a little strange that Y stayed in Palestine after bringing Ibra over. You’d think there were other people to smuggle out of Syria. But they were so emotionally intertwined, those two.”

      I nodded supportively. I’d had patients before with distant or absent husbands who turned out to be gay, living a shadow life with a man. Was this one of those cases? His idealization/devaluation of his wife, in a classic madonna/whore pattern, might stem from the denial of homosexual preference and a hatred of female sexuality that could never fully satisfy; referring to homosexuality as a perversion was a transparently defensive maneuver.

      Israela

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