Life, After Read online

  I loved Roberto, and I trusted him. But even though I knew things were hard for his family, too, Dr. Saban wasn’t sitting at home all day being angry and depressed about life. I didn’t want Roberto to know that things had gotten so bad at my house that we’d had omelets every night for dinner the last week, and that sometimes I woke up with drool on my pillow because I’d been dreaming about steak and chocolate and alfajores. But most of all, I didn’t want Roberto to know that my proud papá was begging for food at the church.

  “It’s nothing.”

  I gave Roberto a kiss on the lips to prove it, then took his hand and dragged him back onto the sidewalk, under the shade of a plane tree. He was still looking at me with furrowed brows. Beto knew me too well for me to be able to pretend things were okay the way I could with everyone else.

  “What about New York?” I said, trying to distract him. “I’ve always wanted to go to Broadway. We could see shows and walk in Central Park—oh, but maybe you’ve had enough of walking in parks. We could go to museums and art galleries and maybe a baseball game and…”

  Roberto put his finger on my lips to quiet my frantic chatter.

  “Dani, tell me. What is it? What’s the matter?”

  His warm brown eyes met mine with love and concern. Part of me wanted to tell him. But I just couldn’t. Something stopped me…shame, pride, whatever you want to call it; I just couldn’t let him know how far my family had fallen. It was hard enough to accept it myself.

  I felt my eyes fill, and dropped my gaze to the pavement.

  “I’ve got to go—Papá…Sarita…I…”

  I stood on tiptoe to give him a quick peck on the cheek, then ran away down the street, my book bag thumping against my thigh, ignoring Beto’s calls for me to stop, to come back.

  A block away from our apartment I did stop, but only to catch my breath and use my sleeve to wipe away the tears that streamed down my cheeks and dripped from my chin. I couldn’t let my father see me in such a state, because he would have asked me why, and I would have had to tell him that I saw him begging from the Christians, and then there would have been shouting and who knows, maybe that would have been the time that he raised his hand as well as his voice; maybe that would have been the time that he hit me.

  If you’d told me a few years ago that I might someday be standing a block away from my apartment, afraid to go in because I’d be scared my father might hit me, I would have laughed. Or said you were crazy. I might even have gotten mad at you for thinking something so ridiculously absurd about my kind, gentle, and loving papá, so mad that maybe we might not be friends today.

  But you would have been right and I would have been wrong. Because that was Before, and everything was different then.

  When I let myself into the apartment, Papá was sitting in front of the television, watching the news with the blinds closed, which made the apartment even more gloomy and oppressive.

  “There’s a letter for you,” he grunted. “It’s on the kitchen table, with the rest of the mail.”

  His eyes didn’t leave the TV set, but I was thankful about that, for once.

  The thin blue airmail letter was waiting for me on the table, amidst all the bills, bills, and more bills. It was postmarked Israel, and I recognized Gaby’s sloppy scrawl. There was also a letter from America, from Tío Jacobo. I wondered why Papá hadn’t opened it, but was too anxious to read my own letter to think much about it. It was the first letter I’d had from Gaby since she’d left. I threw my book bag on the floor and carefully slit open Gaby’s letter with a kitchen knife.

  Sometimes, when I thought about the suicide bombers blowing themselves up in Israeli pizzerias and discos, I wondered if Gaby and her family were so lucky to get away from here. I wondered how it must feel to go to a café or the mall and worry if the person next to you was wearing a vest of explosives under their jacket, waiting to kill you—and themselves.

  But then, where was safe? After watching the Twin Towers fall in New York City on September 11 the year before, it was hard to know if anywhere was free from danger: Buenos Aires, Jerusalem, New York, London, Paris, Rome—or any of the other places Beto and I dreamed of visiting someday.

  I slid into one of the kitchen chairs and started to read:

  Dear Dani,

  I’m really sorry I haven’t answered any of your letters before now. Will you forgive me? It’s just been crazy trying to settle in and learn Hebrew and adjust to a new country. It’s so weird living on the opposite hemisphere from you—I can’t believe it’s autumn here and spring there! I miss you SOOOOOOOO much! How are things? We hear such terrible stories about what’s going on in Argentina—businesses closing left and right, Jews living in shantytowns, imagine!

  My Hebrew is finally getting better. Who would have thought all those years of struggling with it at the Jewish day school would pay off? We’re living in an absorption center in Ra’anana, which is about 19 km north of Tel Aviv. Every day I have to attend ulpanim, which are intensive Hebrew classes for immigrants like us. There are quite a few people from Argentina here—also lots of Americans, British, and South Africans. Señora Owen would be pleased that I’m getting a chance to practice my English.

  In a way it’s kind of unreal, like living at a big summer camp except with your parents there, too. There are lots of kids my age—some cute guys, I might add Í —and in the evenings we go down to the lounge and hang out together or walk down to the city center. We’re supposed to practice our Hebrew all the time, but English seems to be the common language for a lot of people. Or we end up speaking “Heblish,” a mixture of Hebrew and English and whatever other languages are spoken by the people in the group.

  It’s going to be strange in a few weeks when we have to move out of here into our own apartment somewhere. You’re only allowed to stay in the absorption center for six months and then you’re considered to be assimilated enough to be let loose into normal Israeli society. That scares me. I like it here at the Ra’anana center because we’re in Israel but in this place we’re all extranjeros; no one is going to laugh at me if I make a stupid mistake when speaking Hebrew or forget how to make change in shekels when buying a coffee. Maybe that’s why “the authorities” kick us out—they don’t want us all sticking together in our little immigrant ghetto—even if it’s a nice ghetto with classes and cultural events and parties.

  I miss you, Dani. How are things with you and Roberto? Is he still your novio? I worry when I hear about how things are back home. I hope things are okay for you and your family. Give Sarita a hug for me. And write back—SOON!!!!!! Gaby

  I could hear Gaby’s voice in my head as I read, and I missed her so much my chest ached and my eyes burned with tears that I would not allow myself to shed. Not there. Not then. Not with my father brooding on the sofa in the next room and my mother and Sarita due home any minute.

  Instead, my stomach rumbling, I opened the refrigerator to see what I could start for dinner. I found some vegetables that Papá must have received from the church. There was a new box of pasta on the shelf, some bags of dried beans, and a big bag of rice that hadn’t been there when I left for school. It would make a pleasant change from omelets.

  But all the time I was wondering, What should I tell Mamá? After Papá said he’d rather let us all starve than take charity from the Jewish organizations, how could I tell her that I saw him taking food from a church?

  My tummy didn’t care whether the food came from a Christian charity or a Jewish one. My tummy only cared that there was enough to stop the constant pangs of hunger.

  Mamá would notice the extra food, though. She fought to stretch every practically worthless peso to make sure we stayed fed and clothed. She would surely notice the extra pasta and rice and vegetables. How would Papá explain it?

  I decided to brave the uncertainty of his mood and ask him myself before Mamá came home.

  “Papá?”

  “Yes, Dani?”

  “I saw there’s some extra food
in the kitchen.”

  Papá slowly pulled his eyes away from the television and muted the sound. His face contorted slightly and then he actually…smiled. A strange, awkward, uncomfortable smile, but still…I hadn’t seen a smile on his face in weeks.

  “You’ll never guess what happened this morning, Dani. I was able to get some day work today…helping to unload trucks at the supermarket. I happened to be walking there and they were shorthanded—and, well, with the money I was able to buy some extra groceries.”

  He’s lying. For the first time in my life, I was consciously aware of my father looking me in the eye and telling me something that I knew to be untrue. I didn’t know how to react. How could he lie to me like that? Why would he tell me such a blatant falsehood? I felt an angry denial welling inside me, No, Papá, I saw you coming out of the church with a bag of groceries, but seeing my father’s uncertain eyes and pained smile, the words caught in my throat.

  I took a deep breath and put an equally fake smile on my own face. How could I blame Papá for lying about taking charity when I couldn’t even tell Roberto the truth? If he had his pride, well, so did I.

  “That’s wonderful, Papá! Mamá will be thrilled. And so will Sarita. I’m going to make pasta tonight, so we won’t have to hear Sari complaining about having omelets again.”

  “That sounds delicious, Dani. I…”

  “What is it, Papá?” I asked.

  “It’s nothing. I only wish we had a nice Malbec to go with it. It’s been a long time since your mother and I shared a bottle of wine over dinner.”

  He had a sad, wistful look on his face and I suddenly got a glimpse of my old papá from underneath the unpredictable , moody mask I’d been seeing, the kind and loving Papá I knew from Before. It filled me with such a longing that even though I was angry with him for lying to me, I couldn’t stop myself from going over and giving him a hug.

  “Things will get better soon, won’t they, Papá?” I asked, my face buried in his shoulder.

  I could hear the slow whoosh of air from his lungs as he let out a deep sigh and wrapped his arms around me, hesitantly, as if he, too, were no longer sure where we stood with each other.

  “Every day I pray it will be so, Dani.”

  He didn’t sound like he expected his prayers to be answered.

  I wanted to tell him that praying wasn’t enough—that he had to pull himself together and go to one of the job centers. But I didn’t want to risk the rare feeling of closeness to my father, even if it was all based on lies.

  I cleaned some vegetables and put water in a pot for the pasta, then sat at the kitchen table to do my homework. But as much as I tried, I couldn’t concentrate on memorizing cell structures. It wasn’t the hunger, although that was there, as always, nagging away at the corner of every thought. It was just that every time I tried to focus on the purpose of the Golgi apparatus, images of my “Before Papá” kept floating into my brain—like the times before Sarita was born when we would walk together, hand in hand, to the end of the long wooden pier by the Club de Pescadores to watch the fishermen trying their luck in the Río de la Plata. Papá was always good at starting conversations back then; inevitably he’d make friends with one of the fishermen, so the man would let me touch the cold scales of the fish in his buckets, or even “help” him fish by putting my little hands on the rod. “Before Papá” had crinkles around his eyes, but from laughter, not anger; that father told funny stories that he made up himself, and made Mamá and me laugh with his constant jokes.

  How could that Papá have turned into the person who now sat in the living room—one who alternated between gloomy silence and raging anger? A man who would lie to his family just to save his pride? It was as if the wonderful shiny perfection of my Before father’s image had cracked to reveal this unpredictable, imperfect stranger.

  Should I tell my mother the truth about the food? Hadn’t my parents always taught me it was wrong to lie?

  The words of the science notes blurred—Golgi apparatus: organelle found near the cell nucleus, processes and packages macromolecules (mainly proteins and lipids) for secretion—as my eyes filled with tears. As much as I missed having a full stomach, I missed having my real father more.

  Chapter Two

  ON MONDAY JULY 18, 1994, I turned seven years old. On that same day, Tía Sara, my father’s sister, was killed, along with eighty-four others, when a truck bomb ripped apart the AMIA building at 633 Pasteur Street. She was eight months pregnant with a baby girl, who would have been my cousin.

  At the time, I didn’t understand how the event would change my life. I was just upset and angry that everyone was crying on my birthday, because to my seven-year-old mind, birthdays were inextricably linked with laughter and fun, with parties, games, presents, and, best of all, cake. To make matters worse, Mamá called all my friends’ mothers to cancel my birthday party, so I didn’t get to wear the beautiful new dress with blue ribbons and shiny patent leather shoes that Papá brought home from his clothing store especially for the occasion.

  Instead, Mamá and I spent the day sitting by the telephone, hoping that Papá would call with news from Pasteur Street, where he and Tío Jacobo were waiting in unendurable agony, praying that by some miracle Tía Sara was alive. Every time I left the room, Mamá would turn on the television, switching it off as soon as I came back in, but sometimes not before I’d caught a glimpse of the gaping wreckage of the building where Tía Sara worked. What had been normal and safe suddenly looked ugly and terrifying, like an open wound on the flesh of the city.

  When they finally pulled Tía Sara’s body from the rubble, all hope was lost—and my papá was a changed man.

  I remember when he got back from Pasteur Street. He sat hunched over in his chair, reeking of smoke, his clothes caked with dust.

  “Papá? Are you okay?” I asked him, worried.

  He lifted his head, and even though I was only seven at the time, I will never forget the agony I saw etched on his dirt-streaked features. Papá picked me up and held me tightly on his lap, so tight it was almost painful. He buried his face in my neck and burst into wracking sobs.

  “She’s gone…Dani…my sister…gone. D-os mío…why?”

  I’d never seen my father cry before, and his despair frightened me so much that I started crying, too. He held me like he would never let go; the stubble on his unshaven chin scratched my cheek.

  I was relieved when Mamá came in and released me from Papá’s grasp. She spoke to him quietly so I couldn’t hear, and then gently suggested he go take a bath and change his clothes. Papá didn’t even seem aware that he was dirty or that the smell of burning building clung to him, but he followed Mamá’s instructions like a child.

  While he was in the bathroom, Mamá covered the mirrors with sheets, the way Jewish people do in a house of mourning. It scared me when I walked into the living room early the following morning in the dim half-light—I thought there was a ghost coming through the wall and ran screaming into my parents’ room.

  I didn’t go to school when it started again the week after the bombing because we were in mourning for Tía Sara. Her funeral was my first ever. The coffin, a simple pine box with a Star of David etched into it, seemed too small to contain someone as bighearted and wonderful as my tía Sara.

  “Do you think Tía Sara is afraid, all alone in that box?” I whispered to Mamá, who sat between Papá and me. Papá was trying to comfort my abuela Debora, whose eyes were red and swollen from crying. My abuelo Oscar stared straight ahead, as still as a museum statue.

  “No, querida. I think G-d is keeping her company.”

  I thought about that for a minute, then whispered again into my mother’s ear, “But it’s only a small box. It must be crowded with both of them in there.”

  My mother smiled and hugged me tight, but I saw myself reflected in her eyes, which glistened with tears.

  The worst part, though, was the cemetery. I hadn’t really understood that they were going to put T
ía Sara in a hole in the ground and then cover her up with dirt. When they finished saying all the prayers, the rabbi handed Tío Jacobo a shovel. With tears streaming down his handsome face, he slid some dirt from the pile next to the hole onto the back of the shovel and then, with visibly shaking hands, tossed the dirt into the grave. It landed on Tía Sara’s coffin with a loud thud, and I felt Mamá shudder. Tío Jacobo handed the shovel to my abuelo, who repeated the action, and then to Papá, who threw some dirt, then handed it on to someone else. I couldn’t understand why everyone would do this to poor Tía Sara and I started crying hysterically, “Mamá, Mamá, stop them…Tía Sara…is…alone…dark…”

  Mamá carried me from the grave site to a bench not far away. She sat me on her lap and held me, stroking my hair until I calmed down.

  “Dani, Tía Sara’s soul is with G-d now. It’s only her body that remains in the coffin, and her body isn’t afraid. The body is just a vessel…”

  “What’s a vessel?” I sniffed.

  “It’s like a container, querida. A container for the part of her that made her the person we knew and loved, loved so very much.”

  “So she’s not afraid of the dark under all that dirt?”

  “No, amorcita,” Mamá said, kissing my damp cheek. “Where Tía Sara is now, there is only light.”

  Three days after the bombing, on Thursday, July 21, my mother took me with her to a protest march from the wreckage on Pasteur Street to the Plaza de los Dos Congresos. We walked in silence, and then stood for hours in the rain under a sea of umbrellas with two hundred thousand others, to show our shock, our sadness, and our anger. I was cold and my feet hurt, but I tried not to complain—at least, not too much—because Tía Sara was dead, so many others were dead, and I didn’t want to give Mamá any more reasons to be sad.