Festival of Lights

The Hebrew term for the act of leaving Israel to live abroad – yerida, or “descent” – contains a pointed reproach. Small wonder, then, that Israelis living in America are often reluctant to admit that they are immigrants who have exchanged the Promised Land for the lure of the American dream. In person, Ayelet Ben-Ziv describes the cultural exhaustion arising from having one’s heart in the east, but one’s body in the west, as a kind of “jetlag.” Her collection, Yaefet [Gvanim, 2006], whose title means “jetlag,” aroused passionate debate for its sly and incisive snapshots of the Israeli-American experience. This story, “Festival of Lights,” is drawn from Ben-Ziv’s inaugural collection and reprises themes of alienation and belonging common in 20th century American Hebraist writing. -Adam Rovner, Hebrew Translations Editor

When we got to the mall they were playing those songs that you hear all the time every day before the holiday starts, so even if you really don’t want them to, they end up getting stuck in your head. Maybe I was singing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” out loud, because Uncle Nahum said to Mom, “You see how the boy is singing those Christmas songs?” He shook his head from side to side, to show that there was something wrong with me.

“What can I do, Nahum, they learn those songs at school, together with Hanukah songs. That’s how it is here,” Mom told him.

Uncle Nahum told us that at Shiri’s school in Israel they put on a show and sang Hanukah songs so beautifully that even little Roni has already learned to sing the song, “Banu Choshech L’Garesh.”

“Do you know that song?” he asked, and looked at me as if he was the nicest uncle on the planet.

Of course I had no intention of singing it to him, so I made a face instead. But out of the corner of my eye I saw how Mom’s face told me to behave, so I kept quiet, and then he told me the story of Hanukah for the thousandth time, even though Hanukah ended a week ago. He started to tell me all over again about how the Jews fought the Greeks, the few against the many, and how they found a little oil lamp that illuminated the Holy Temple and why that’s the reason that Hanukah is also called the Festival of Lights.

He was lucky I was with Mom, who says that Uncle Nahum is family and that I have to behave nicely. If Daddy was there I’d have told him off already.

Mom saw that in another minute I’d stop pretending I couldn’t hear and I’d tell Uncle Nahum what I thought of him, so she stopped and said that we couldn’t go on like that, and that she had to rest for a minute and that we should go to the middle of the mall where it’s calmer and maybe we could find a place to sit.

“Hold him tight so the meshuggeners here won’t kidnap him,” said Uncle Nahum to Mom, like I wasn’t there, and he immediately began to push his way through the crowd.

“What’s the matter with you? He’s a big boy. I’m not worried,” Mom called after him, but he didn’t even turn around and so he missed seeing how she and I smiled at each other. Then we quickly followed him, filling the empty space that was left behind him, like when a ship parts the waves.

The mall was full of people. On the side we were on, everyone was walking toward the middle of the mall, and all I saw were backs, all sorts of backs. On the other side, from behind the plants, I saw only faces mixed up with each other. All kinds of strangers pressed up against me, and so that I wouldn’t get pulled away in a different direction, Mom really held on tightly to my hand until her knuckles turned white and it hurt me. I always pay attention to Mom’s hands, even when they don’t squeeze me so hard. For a while now they’ve been bugging me. I like to look at the cracks in her skin that begin where her hand starts, and continue on to her fingers, as if they’re traveling somewhere. The cracks on her hands pass into a net of other lines and if you look closely you can see little squares on her skin. They cover the palm and connect to bigger squares where her fingers begin, and to the straight lines at the red joints around the middle of her fingers. Next come her pink fingernails, clipped squarish like a child’s. Not like the colorful round nails of the other moms.

The train store stopped me in my tracks and I wouldn’t budge. A toy train, just like a real one, only smaller, went around and around the window. A blue locomotive. Five passenger cars. Made out of metal. The train traveled around a million things that filled up the window. I don’t know if it ran on batteries or electricity, but it sped across a bridge right into a tunnel and came out below, then it went around a mountain, between some reindeer and next to a sleigh filled with presents, moving really fast until it disappeared into the next tunnel, and then came out again over the bridge. Richie got a giant train set just like it, and made a layout that covered his whole playroom, and that was before Christmas even started. I grabbed Mom’s hand and asked her to buy it for me.

“I’m only stopping for a minute to look at it with you.” She wouldn’t buy it.

“You should go into the store across the way and get those fleece sweaters, they’re perfect for Sarit and the kids,” she said to Uncle Nahum, her eyes almost begging him to go so she could stay with me by the window. And he really left.

“It’s not fair, I’ll promise you anything you want. I promise, really, just buy me a train like the one Richie has.” I thought about how Richie would come over and then I’d say, look, they bought me one too, and I’d just look at him like it’s no big deal and like I don’t even care about the present anyway.

“I’ll even clean up my room, please, Mom, pretty, pretty please.”

But Mom said that we can’t buy everything everybody else has and that just last week I got lots of presents for Hanukah. “One present for each night of Hanukah, the way the Jews do here,” she said, sighing.

“I’ll be the nicest boy in the world to Uncle Nahum, and I’ll tell him Hanukah stories all week, and I’ll show him that I do know, even though the holiday is already over. Please, please.”

Mom laughed and said that when she was a little girl she had hardly any toys but that it didn’t stop her from playing and having fun, and how come I have tons of toys but I’m never satisfied? I thought about how I’d tell Richie that we could connect our train sets together, and how he’d want to come over all the time.

“Please, Mom, please, please…” I must’ve said “please” ten times. Mom didn’t understand and it didn’t do any good.

“Stop it! Enough already! You’re impossible. Spoiled rotten!” Mom shouted at me even with all the people around. Just then Uncle Nahum came up to us, holding another bag.

“I have to, and I mean I absolutely have to, go to the bathroom right now,” he said, and then he wiped the sweat from his forehead and straightened the part in his hair. If he had told one more story about children in Israel I would have let him have it. Lucky for him he didn’t butt in.

Mom told him that the bathrooms were in the middle of the mall and that we really should go there and rest. Right before he began pushing through the crowds again, I saw how even though he didn’t want to look, his eyes stared at this toy Santa moving its giant belly and butt forward, to the side, back, and to the side, just like a Hula girl. I followed him and Mom but I couldn’t get over that train.

We got to the middle of the mall, where there weren’t any stores. In the center, there’s an open space and you can see the lower floors all the way down to where they stuck a giant Christmas tree. Behind it there are giant windows you can look through and see all the cars parked outside. Uncle Nahum went to the bathroom. Me and Mom waited by the railing.

On the big tree poking up from below they hung all that Christmas stuff like shiny balls and small gold frames with pictures in them of kids I didn’t recognize, and little lights sparkling on the tree in all kinds of colors, from top to bottom and all around. Way down at the very bottom Santa Claus sat wearing his red and white suit and having his picture taken with kids. Next to him there was a short line of people waiting with their kids. From above they looked like ants surrounding a big fat red and white marshmallow. I thought real hard about the blue train and about how I could get it and when I should ask Mom again. That’s when I think I came up with the solution – Santa Claus!

When I was smaller, Daddy told me that Santa Claus doesn’t love me and would never come to my house because we’re Hebrew, or Israelis, or Jews, I always forget what we are exactly, and pretty soon after that they told me it’s not Santa Claus who gives presents anyway; it’s the children’s parents who hide them under the tree at night. All the kids in my class know that by now, except for Kim who still thinks there really is a Santa Claus. But as I stood there looking at Santa from up high, I got stuck on the idea of going and checking him out for myself, and I thought that maybe besides having his picture taken he also gives out presents. Maybe if I asked nicely, even though it’s not Hanukah, a miracle would happen and he’d give me that train I saw in the window.

====

Meanwhile Uncle Nahum came back and found some empty benches, and Mom pulled me down to sit beside her, next to the big windows that let in patches of white sky.

“In a little while we’ll have to get going because I still need presents for some teachers, for our mailman, and for the babysitter.” Mom talked to herself as she looked at her holiday shopping list. “Maybe I’ll just give the mailman cash and be done with it, why not? Just like the garbage men.”

“People gave each other presents during Hanukah last week, but in Israel you don’t have to do it. Christmas is awfully commercialized,” Uncle Nahum said, and looked at me again as if he had just proved something. What “commercialized” means I’m not sure. Uncle Nahum always uses big words just to be annoying.

Mom nodded her head. She also looked at me out of the corner of her eye and flashed a silent smile. Uncle Nahum always talks about Israel and how everything is so much better there than it is in America. But Mom says he’s a good man and we shouldn’t laugh at him because Nahum is family.

Daddy says that the problem with Uncle Nahum’s speeches is that they’re like Christmas carols – eventually they get stuck in your head and there’s nothing you can do about it. Too bad Daddy wasn’t with us.

“I want to go downstairs where the tree is and look at Santa close up,” I whispered in her ear.

“What?!” she said loudly.

“What? What do you mean, what?” asked Uncle Nahum.

“Don’t you dare tell him,” I whispered to Mom.

“I was talking to the boy,” she explained to Uncle Nahum.

“About what?”

Then, even though I pressed her hand, she told him I wanted to have my picture taken with Santa on the ground floor. Her mouth moved nervously because she was trying so hard to smile at Uncle Nahum, to show him how I’m just a dumb little kid and how they’re both so big and smart. I didn’t even say I wanted to have my picture taken, I just told her I wanted to take a look, but Uncle Nahum started off on one of his speeches about how this was too much, that you can’t bring up Israeli children in America, and that we must return home to Israel before the boy starts wearing a baseball cap, joins a team and starts praying to Jesus and the Virgin Mary. I don’t really understand about Jesus and Mary, because my family doesn’t believe in God. I do know what a virgin is, but I don’t want to talk about that now. What’s wrong with wearing a baseball cap and playing baseball? Last summer I played, and then if I get really good I’ll join the local team!

This time he even managed to annoy Mom. They started talking in loud voices and interrupting each other. Suddenly Mom and Uncle Nahum looked exactly the same, both of them with their square jaws and their sparkling eyes, and all those words that you don’t know what to do with. Mom, who I always liked to look at and who I think is really pretty, suddenly looked like Uncle Nahum’s identical twin. I saw that her glasses were dirty like his, and that she had wrinkles on her neck and that soon she would be old and bald just like him, and that her sweater was faded and that she was arguing and waving her hands and didn’t even care that people around us were staring at her.

I looked at her and at Uncle Nahum and all of a sudden I hated both of them so much I wanted to run far away from them, to the end of the world, not just to some place in America, and definitely not to Israel, but to India or Australia, or to that place I saw on the Discovery Channel. I thought that with each passing minute Mom looked less and less like who she is.

On the way down the escalator, people crowded together and stood on both sides. And when I got there, I stood in line for a long time not thinking about anything, and when my turn came Santa motioned for me to come toward him. I got closer and he lifted me up and sat me on his lap, even though I’m kind of big for that. I didn’t even want to sit on his lap, but it didn’t seem like I could tell him no. Santa had a weird smell, like that stuff Richie’s mom uses sometimes to take off her red nail polish. Then I thought about Richie’s mom, with her red hair all the way down to the middle of her back, and her pretty clothes, and her wide smile, and how she never yells and always speaks nicely. Once I asked Mom if there was anything she could do to get straight, neat hair like Richie’s mom.

“Sitting in a salon for hours and hours for my hair and nails isn’t my style.” She laughed, like it was better to look messy

“Ho-ho-ho, what do you want for Christmas?” Santa asked me. I looked up, thinking maybe Mom and Uncle Nahum were waving at me beyond the railing. But I didn’t see them. The lights on the tree bothered my eyes so much I started tearing up. I looked down so he wouldn’t see. It wasn’t comfortable at all. His white beard scratched my neck.

“Ho-ho-ho, what do you want for Christmas?” he asked, but I didn’t say anything. I wanted to tell him I came because of the train, but my voice wouldn’t come out. The lights really bothered me. I closed my eyes tightly and thought about how they always tell those stories about people who really want something, like for instance a kid who’s really, really sick and they don’t want him to die, so they pray to God even if they don’t believe in him, and then when their kid gets better they have to start believing in God. So I thought all I had to do was think hard about the train, and in the end Santa would know, and I’d get the train, and then I would always have to believe in Santa after that, like Kim from my class. Partly so he wouldn’t get mad at me, I told him silently that it’s not my fault that I’m Hebrew and that I didn’t even care about it anyway.

“Open your eyes, boy,” said a voice in front of me. With my eyes shut, I heard the click of a camera.

“Ho-ho-ho, where are your Mommy and Daddy?” asked Santa. I didn’t know what to say.

“Bob,” he said to the man with the camera, “did he pay in advance?” And even with my eyes closed I could still see Bob shake his head “no,” and I remembered that I didn’t have any money. “I think this boy came without his parents. What’ll we do?” Santa asked, stroking my head like I was deaf and didn’t understand what was going on.

“Let’s call security,” Bob said. “His parents must be around here somewhere.” Then I realized everything was going the wrong way. Santa and I would never be friends and I wasn’t going to get a train out of this either. I got up in a flash. But Santa grabbed my arm, “Hey, where’re you going?” he asked. Even though his blue eyes were kind, I yanked my arm away and started walking backwards. Santa, with his big belly and red face, jumped up from his seat and came after me. When he got really close I started running, but he chased me.

During those few seconds everything slowed down, like a movie in slow motion, one frame at a time. Opposite me there were all these kids standing in line waiting to have their pictures taken, looking at me to see what kind of kid runs away from Santa. I guess they never saw anything like it. There was a pretty little girl with braids there, and two blond twins, and three kids who looked like brothers, the oldest one about my age. I ran between them and Santa pushed them to the side. They stared at us in fear, like I was the bad guy, and not a superhero, and then what I wanted more than anything else in the whole world was to just disappear, so no one would ever see me again.

When I stand up my height is almost the same as Mom’s when she’s kneeling. I know because when Mom found me she didn’t yell at me, she just went down on her knees, with her face against mine, and looked deep in my eyes like she was searching for something. Tears shone in her eyes when she hugged me, like she was afraid I’d get lost again. My head pressed against her hair and I smelled her usual smell that doesn’t have a name, kind of like a cup of coffee, but also a little like the smell of fried onion rings.

“My boy, don’t ever do that to me again, we were so frightened,” she said as she hugged me. Her voice cracked and sounded scared. Then I noticed her whole body was shaking and I realized she was crying. I wasn’t crying at all but it was really strange to know Mom was crying. Suddenly it was like I was big, and it actually felt good. Then I patted her shoulder, little strokes to calm her down like the way she used to do for me when I was little.

Eventually I realized that we weren’t the only ones there and that others were around too. I raised my head up and saw that man with the camera hanging around his neck, Bob, and also Santa, Uncle Nahum, and some security men. They all looked at us. So I moved Mom away from me. She got up, took out a tissue and wiped her face, which was red and swollen. The security guard spoke to her.

Behind her Uncle Nahum stood with Bob and Santa Claus, who handed him a small brown envelope. Uncle Nahum looked inside and his eyes practically popped out of his head, like he had just swallowed some disgusting cough medicine. He tried to give the envelope back, but they refused. Uncle Nahum argued with his big hands, and spit sprayed from his mouth like it does when he gets angry. Santa and Bob argued kind of quietly and nicely, like my teacher, Mrs. Prendegest, but you could see they weren’t going to give in. In the end, Uncle Nahum put the envelope in his jacket, pulled out his wallet and handed over some green bills. He almost threw the money at them in this really angry way. Santa just laughed and put his arm around Uncle Nahum’s shoulders — a stupid red dwarf together with an idiot green frog. They must have made him buy the pictures of me with Santa, even though on the way home Nahum said, “No way! What are you talking about!?” He’s such a liar. I haven’t found them yet, even though I really want to take them to school, or at least show them to Richie.

“Look!” Mom said afterward when it was just me and her and Uncle Nahum again. “Look! It’s starting to snow, just like in the stories. We’ll have a white Christmas, how beautiful!” Her voice still cracked a bit. Through the windows you could see how it was really starting to snow. The snow swirled around in the sky like it was looking for the sidewalk but in the meantime wanted to play around in the air. It fell on the cars, and the people in the parking lot opened their umbrellas and started walking quickly in zigzags. When it snows on Christmas it looks just like it does in pictures and it’s really fun.

“Nu? Big deal. It snows in Israel sometimes too. What?! You think it doesn’t snow in Jerusalem? It snows in Jerusalem, and it snows sometimes in the north, and in 1991 I even remember snow on the coastal plain…”