Freefall Read online

  Our new driver readjusts the mirror, fiddles with the seat, and glances back at us. “He’s been called up.”

  And then we all look at one another: the woman with the fish, the perfumed lady, the soldier at the front of the bus, the religious man glancing up from his open prayer book, the Arab guy reading a library book, and the drop-dead gorgeous guy who minutes ago had his body language all over me and who has just morphed into someone much more serious.

  The radio on the bus beeps the hour. We already know what the first broadcast will be.

  “Israel Defense Forces are being deployed along the Lebanese border as tensions flare and the Syrian-backed Hezbullah shoots rockets over the northern border. Reserve soldiers are being called up . . .”

  We don’t have to hear the rest. The bus driver opens the door at the next stop. I get off and get on the next bus going back—only this bus is eerily silent. We’ve all gotten the message, and even those who haven’t yet, know how to read the signs.

  It’s war.

  Chapter Thirteen

  After running down the last hill, I hop our stubby stone garden wall, snatch a handful of ripe apricots from the tree outside our house, and take the steps two at a time. The door to our house is propped open to let fresh air in and the cooking smells out. Mom has the radio on in the kitchen and doesn’t hear me come in. Hila’s backpack is missing from the entrance. There’s no sign of Dad either.

  “Mom?”

  “In here.”

  I follow the smell of sautéing onions. “Got these for you,” I say, putting a handful of ripe apricots on the table.

  “Thank you,” she says without turning from the stove.

  “Where’s Hila?”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “Mom?”

  “Her group was sent north to help out at one of the old people’s homes.”

  “For how long?”

  She shrugs her shoulders. Her head stays bent over the frying pan. “In the last few hours, five rockets have fallen in the area.”

  I understand Mom’s reluctance to talk about it, but I have to know. “Did anyone get hurt?” I pause. “Will Hila be okay?”

  Mom mixes the onions. “Hila says that half of the old people are too deaf to hear the warning sirens that go off before the rockets fall. The other half who hear are too confused to understand what’s going on, and none of them are able to go running down to the bomb shelters fast enough.” Mom brushes off her onion tears. “I think they’ll move the whole place underground until this passes.”

  Until this passes. I take a deep breath and exhale, not brave or stupid enough to ask how long that will be.

  Mom wipes her cheeks with her sleeve. Onion skins litter the counter and the floor beside her feet. I scoop them up and toss them in the trash.

  “When’s Dad coming home?”

  Mom slices the mushrooms. “Not for a while.” With a practiced swoop she slides them into the pot.

  “He hasn’t been called up, has he?”

  Mom shakes her head. “Not to the front lines. But it seems they need people with his experience.” She scoops up a bunch of parsley, rinses it, and starts chopping.

  “So what’s all the food for?”

  “Your cousins from Haifa are on their way.They’re going to stay here for a while until the situation quiets down.”

  “Oh.” I take this news as a sign that for all of us life will have to adjust. Dad’s been called to help. Hila’s gone north. Mom’s cooking up a storm. The cousins are coming. I feel useless.

  I leave Mom to her vegetables and the radio playing the songs from the sixties, seventies, and eighties between news updates. I go to my room and shut the door. I’m not sure what I’m going to do, but I know that somehow I will find a way to help out.

  The next morning I wake up to my phone beeping in a message. It’s from a number I don’t recognize.

  Rocket landed in our bathroom. Holy Sh-t! Place is a mess. But we’re all fine. Lovin’ Lil.

  I call back.

  “Hey Sugarpear, what’s up?”

  Lily’s voice makes me laugh. I imagine her full-lipped smile, her dark mascara-framed eyes, and her streaked eggplant hair.

  “I just got your message.”

  She laughs. “Yeah, it’s all pandemonium here—hang on—oops.”

  There’s a crash. My heart jumps. “Lily? Are you okay?” I strain to make sense of the muffled indistinguishable sounds. Missiles? Gunshots? “Lily!”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m here. Sorry. I’ve got my hands full of couscous, and I dropped the phone in the kubbe meat.”

  “Kubbe? What’s going on?”

  “Putting you on speakerphone while I cook!” she shouts. I hear what sounds like rocket fire, but then it could be a metal spoon against a mixing bowl. “My cousin Rita’s getting married to this sexy Kurdish guy.”

  “Congratulations, I guess.” I listen to the background noises of voices, cutlery, and pots banging. “And she’s getting married—now?”

  “Crazy. I know.”

  I hear more short bursts of gunfire. “Lily?”

  “Just banging a spoon,” she says. “Anyway, it’s not like Rita doesn’t have a lot going for her.”

  Lily’s voice gets muffled again. She’s either cracking sunflower seeds between her teeth or chewing on a carrot.

  “Mom says the problem is that she’s too choosy. So now that she’s agreed, well”—more bangs and strikes—“my aunt’s afraid to wait in case Rita changes her mind. Mom’s got everyone rolling kubbe balls, and I’ve made enough couscous and soup to last a century.”

  “But when the sirens sound, you go into the bomb shelters, right?”

  Lily laughs. “Of course.”

  I don’t know whether I want to laugh or cry. “Can I help?”

  “You want to roll kubbe?” She snorts. “You don’t know the first thing about kubbe.”

  “I could—”

  “Water!” someone shouts. “My hands are sticking. Bring water!”

  I can almost smell their kitchen. See the soup bubbling in the pots. “I feel so useless.”

  “Well, hey,” says Lily, “there’s always some way to help.”

  I tuck the phone between my ear and shoulder and pull my backpack from the closet. “Anything.”

  “We’ve got all these strays.”

  “Strays?”

  “Abandoned animals. Poor things. One second they’re being petted, pampered, and fed, and the next, their owners have skipped town.”

  A surge of excitement rushes through me. I’m going. I don’t know the first thing about rolling kubbe, cooking couscous, or catching strays, but I do know that I’ll do anything to help. I stuff my sweatshirt in my bag and throw in an extra pair of sweatpants.

  “The dogs,” says Lily.“They hear the rockets even before our radar system picks them up.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. They start moaning and howling, and before anyone can figure out what’s wrong, the warning sirens are blaring, their owners are running around like the dogs have rabies, and then, splat, a rocket lands in the middle of their dinner dish and it’s raining doggie dinner bites.”

  “Or it lands in the toilet,” I add.

  She doesn’t answer. “Mom says she’s always hated the tiles in the bathroom and it was time to get it renovated. We’re living with my aunt for now.”

  “Crowded?”

  “Think of all us girls in that tent and then add a few rowdy uncles, a bunch of obnoxious cousins, and three meals a day interrupted by air raid sirens.”

  “Insanity,” I say.

  She laughs.

  I toss Hadas’s book in my bag, thinking that maybe Lily or somebody will want it. What else? I’ve never lived in a bomb shelter and am not sure what I’ll need. I throw in a deck of cards and a nail file.

  “What are you doing with the animals?”

  “Petting zoo at the hospital.”

  “And the patients?”

  �
�Oh, they’re there, too. It’s like those sick kids are the only sane people around. They have this kind of ‘whatever’ attitude to life, you know?”

  No, I don’t know. But I’m ready to go and find out. Hairbrush. A few more pairs of underwear and socks. I hadn’t really imagined rounding up stray animals, but it figures that Lily would think of the things that other people overlook: stranded animals, sick kids.

  “Which bomb shelter are you using?”

  “The biggest one.”

  “Where’s that?” And then before she can answer me, I hear a loud, blaring siren. “Lily?”

  “This next batch will have to wait—”

  I hope she means the next batch of kubbe and not the next batch of missiles. “Lily—”

  The phone line goes dead. I press send. Nothing. I hold the phone outside the window. Push send again. Nothing!

  “What’s the good of modern technology,” I holler, “when it doesn’t work when you need it?”

  “What?” Mom yells from the kitchen. “Did you call me?”

  I grab my bag and stomp into the kitchen, where Mom is still cooking and organizing.

  “What’s that?” says Mom. She’s holding a sharp knife and jabbing it in the direction of the bag on my shoulder.

  “I’m going up north to help out.”

  “I don’t think so,” she says. Her voice is strangely calm. She leans against the counter and looks me up and down. “You will stay right here where I know where you are and how you are.” She reaches for a tomato and slices it down the middle with one swift karate chop. “You haven’t even eaten breakfast.

  “Thanks, but I’m not that hungry now.”

  “Have a sandwich,” she says.

  “I said I’m not that hungry. But thanks.”

  “You’re not going.”

  “What do you want me to do here?” I ask her.

  “What are you planning to do there? Unlike Hila, you go green at the sight of blood.”

  “I won’t be patching up any wounded. I’ll be helping the abandoned animals.”

  “Animals? We’ve never even owned a dog. What do you know about animals?”

  “I’ve walked Benz.”

  Mom snorts and wipes her face on her sleeve. “You’re being ridiculous.”

  We both jump as the front door slams shut. Grandma strides into the kitchen, smelling like lilac and ashtray. She’s toting an overnight bag.

  “Hi, Grandma.” I give her a kiss. “You can have my room. I’m going up north.”

  “I said you’re not going anywhere.”

  Grandma looks at each of us. Mom turns back to the stove. The only sound is the soup broth bubbling on the stovetop. Grandma knows she’s entered a war zone. Reinforcements, I think. Just in time.

  “Grandma? Tell her, please.”

  “Let her go, Eve. Aggie’s a smart girl, and while everything’s in a muddle up there, they’ll need some coolheaded help.” She puts down her bag.

  “Stay out of this, Tzillah. The world’s changed since your day.”

  Grandma is overcome by her smoker’s cough. “Oh, please. Where have I heard that before?” She pours a glass of water. “Eve, you know she has to do this.” She takes a sip. “If we aren’t impulsive at her age, if we don’t believe enough to follow our hearts and act on our beliefs when we’re young, then when?”

  Mom turns to me, almost pleading. “Don’t you understand, Aggie? Before you’re drafted, now is the time to live like an ordinary teenager: worried about clothes, your skin, boys, and what movie to watch on the weekend. Soon that will all change. Let us worry about the world for now.” Mom’s eyes brim with tears. “Enjoy this time just to be, without having to prove yourself. There’ll be time for that later.”

  “I need a smoke,” says Grandma, charging for the porch door.

  “Smoking is bad for your health,” I call after her.

  “And rockets kill you faster,” she retorts, “but last time I looked, they didn’t come with a warning label.”

  “You know that’s not the same thing, Grandma.”

  She escapes to the porch and slams the door behind her. My bag rests against my foot.

  “It’s too late, Mom. I’m going anyway. Being a teenager and worried about clothes, my skin, and which guy likes me: way overrated and not all that much fun. I’ve got a friend up north who needs me to be with her. That’s much more important right now.”

  “You aren’t going,” she says. “I forbid it.”

  I pick up my bag and swing it over my shoulder. “I’ll text you a message when I arrive.” Turning my back to her, I try to walk with an easy stride that I hope hides the cement block weighing on my heart. I have never disobeyed her like this. I should feel triumphant. But instead I feel a sense of sadness and loss.

  I pause with my hand on the door. “I know you still want me to be a kid. But being a kid isn’t a luxury I can allow myself now. Maybe if I were living some other life, in some other place. But I am here. And this is now.” I make my way blindly to the front door. “Bye, Grandma.”

  “Aggie!” my mother shouts. “Wait.”

  As the door slams shut behind me, I realize that I haven’t even kissed her good-bye.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I push my way past the crowds by the ticket desk at the train station in Tel Aviv. Everyone is shouting and shoving one another.

  “Nahariya and a return.” I stick my head up against the window so the ticket girl can hear me. She looks at me and stops chewing her gum midchomp. It’s grape. I can see it and smell it.

  “Nahariya, are you sure?”

  “Yes. I know where I’m going.”

  But she’s not convinced. Rolling her gum around with her purple tongue, she says, “No one’s going that way.”

  “I am. And I’m in a hurry.”

  She shrugs and punches out the ticket, takes my money, and then says, “Last train to Nahariya is leaving in five minutes. I gave you a return ticket like you asked, but there may not be any return trains for the next few days.” She chews her gum, wraps it around her tongue, and pops a bubble. “In fact, I’m not even sure this train will go all the way to Nahariya. Depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  She looks at the ceiling and shrugs.

  I dash past the crowds all going in the other direction.They’re pushing toward the elevators to catch trains going south. No one is pushing to get on my train. When the door shuts behind me, I realize that there’s no one else on board this coach but me.

  It’s a ghost train.

  I walk the length of the coach. I have a choice of any seat. I don’t have to take the stained one because it’s the only free place to sit. Don’t have to pretend that the girl sitting next to me chewing her gum and flapping her thighs is not driving me crazy. This has never happened to me before.

  In the next coach there’s a guy with a computer talking on his cell phone. He has a TV badge swinging from his neck. He looks busy and uninterested in me. I walk to the end, hoping to find someone to sit with.

  Empty.

  I peek through the doors to the other coach. There’s a load of soldiers in there, lounging on the seats, talking on their cells, and passing around food. They’re laughing and joking and look like they’re having a great time. I don’t go in because I don’t belong—not yet. But I’m glad to have them close by—just in case.

  Slipping into a seat, I slide over to the window. Put my pack on the empty spot beside me and rest my forehead on the glass. The traffic, like a steady flock of migrating birds, is going south. Traffic going north is about one car every fifteen minutes. I feel like a rebel, and all I’m doing is sitting in one spot. Inside I’m restless, though. Lily hasn’t called me back. She might still be in a bomb shelter somewhere. How am I going to find her if her cell phone won’t receive calls?

  I still haven’t eaten and have a sour taste in my mouth. It’s fear. I don’t know if I have the kind of gumption that Lily has. But then, I’m not sure I’
ll ever really know how I respond to stress or fear until I’m in the thick of it. How do the soldiers do it? I wonder, peeking through the window into their coach. Most of them have dozed off and are slouched in an untroubled slumber.

  They’ve been trained not to think about it.

  I resolve not to think about it. The train speeds through Binyamina and doesn’t even slow down at the station. The platform is empty.

  I check out the soldiers again. There’s one girl. She’s sitting by the window talking on her cell phone. I take a second look at her, trying to imagine myself in her spot.

  I think of Lily in her uniform that was too tight and crawling up all the wrong places. I think of me swimming in mine, and all of us complaining about our blistered feet. It’s not just that the uniforms didn’t fit us—but we didn’t fit the uniforms.

  And then my mind flashes back to the day before: sitting on the bus beside the guy in black jeans. A jolt goes through me. If I had a bag, I’d throw it over my head. What about when I would be surrounded, the only girl or one of the only girls in a combat unit overrun by guys?

  My stomach lurches.

  I take another peek into the other coach. The soldier, her hair tied back in a ponytail, is sharing a bag of chips with one of the guys. She looks calm, comfortable, and unthreatened.

  It’s the uniform.

  Like Superman with his cape, Batman with his ears, and Wonder Woman with her breast busters, the uniforms say “Don’t tangle with me; I’m on a mission.” Yes, that must be it.

  I jump at the rousing chorus of “We Are Family” coming from my backpack. I hope it’s Hila. Caller ID warns me that it’s Dad.

  “Hey, Dad. Where are you?”

  “Never mind where I am, where are you?”

  I look out the window of the train. Sun rays shimmer on the water. Now there are no cars on the street. Peering out the other window, I see the steep rise of a mountain jutting the skyline. “Around Haifa,” I say.

  The line crackles, but Dad’s voice is clear when it comes through. “Listen, Aggie, you get off that train right now and come back home. I don’t know what gave you the foolish idea to go up north but it’s too dangerous.”