Chains of Sand Read online

  “So…” I venture, with exaggerated inflection. “How’s Pete?”

  Half an hour later we have somehow managed without argument to sit ourselves around the dining table in the places we’ve spent years cultivating. I have visions of Gaby opposite me in her green school uniform. She wore her hair in a ponytail tied with a dark green scrunchie for three years straight before she suddenly cut in a side-parted fringe with the kitchen scissors and brightened it with Sun-In. Despite Mum’s outrage, she persuaded me the same day to bleach just the tips of my own spiky do. In hindsight, I looked like a skunk, but back then I thought it was coolness personified. My school didn’t agree and suspended me until I cut or dyed it, and Mum blamed the whole thing on Gaby who was older and should therefore have known better. But she also booked Gaby in for an appointment at the hairdresser and allowed her to have her hair properly highlighted. This marked the beginning of an obsession with hair colour and opened the door for myriad discussions between the two of them as well as justifying the tandem religious study of Vogue.

  Now Gaby and Mum speak to each other only to ask for the passage of potatoes or other such foodstuffs. That is until Dad begins a clever ‘what’s-going-on-in-Dan’s-life’ diversion tactic and neither of them can resist. Dad kicks off with questions about work but Mum wants updates on my friends, the boys who used to come for play-dates, then sleepovers, then crash three to a couch after a night clubbing; it isn’t apparent but my mother is actually far more relaxed than most, very much of the ‘better at home where we can see than God-knows-where’ variety. “What about that clever one who used to wet the bed?” she says, “And what ever happened to Toby? You know the one, he was very tall, good-looking thing. What happened to him?”

  “Tony, Mum. He’s called Tony.”

  “So who are you dating?” interrupts Gaby.

  “Nobody.”

  “Anyone you fancy?”

  “No.”

  “Geez, Hayley did a real number on you.” Gaby raises her eyebrows. “Are you at least sleeping with somebody?”

  Dad grins.

  “Perhaps he’s waiting to find a good match,” Mum intercedes, taking a mouthful of roast chicken.

  “Well I wondered how long that would take,” smiles Gaby.

  “What?”

  “For you to turn passive aggression into a more honest attack.”

  “I don’t think-” Dad begins.

  “It’s not an attack. It’s nothing to do with you, Gaby. There are other people in this family to think of besides yourself you know.”

  “There you go again. You think just because I won’t do what you want that I’m not thinking about you.”

  “Actually,” I say. “I thought maybe I’d meet a girl in Israel.”

  This isn’t the exact manner in which I’d intended to tell my family about Israel; it doesn’t have the careful, gentle introduction, the preamble of ponderings, my intangible feelings of yearning, and I still haven’t tested the idea on Safia. But for some reason I find myself thinking about the time when I was 17 and got bottled in a club, and Gaby was the one to take me to the hospital and confirm my ridiculous story about a sharp-cornered table and a loose bit of carpet.

  “When are you going to Israel?” asks Gaby, taking a deep breath and with obvious effort turning her attention away from Mum. “Weren’t you just there in the summer?”

  “I’m going again in a few weeks for a friend’s wedding.”

  “So you’re giving yourself the length of a wedding reception to find your wife?”

  “At least he’ll know she’s Jewish,” Mum mumbles.

  Gaby throws her napkin onto the table.

  “Well maybe a bit longer than that. Actually, I wanted to talk to all of you properly, because I’ve been thinking about Israel a lot lately…”

  Gaby places her napkin back onto her lap and reaches for another slice of challah.

  Dad absent-mindedly tops up his wine.

  Mum waits. She has that on-to-me look.

  “Not because of this wedding. More… Well, I’ve been thinking that I might actually try living there for a while, or, actually, maybe even move there, make aliyah.”

  “Are you absolutely mad?” Gaby’s napkin has again landed on her plate, half of it swimming in gravy. “Do you want to get blown up?”

  “Gaby-”

  “Israel is under attack Dan, constantly.”

  “Not in Tel Aviv-”

  “And you’re still army age. You’d have to go to the army for God’s sake. What are you going to do, talk Hamas to death? You’ve got to be joking.”

  “He’s joking,” Dad laughs. “Can you see Mr Banker here giving up his flash career? I don’t think so.”

  They all laugh nervously.

  “Guys, I’m serious.”

  “Oh my God.” Mum gets up and starts collecting the plates from the table, as if by cleaning the scene she will be able to erase the truth of it.

  “Mum-”

  “You’re not moving to Israel, Daniel. Don’t be so stupid.”

  I look around the table but nobody contradicts her. “I get that you’ll miss me, I’ll miss you too, but-”

  “It’s nothing to do with missing you,” says Mum. “It’s where you’re moving to. Is your brain in your arse?”

  “Mum!” I can’t help but laugh. “Seriously? You were there yourself last year. And you know about ten different people who’ve made aliyah. Rachel Fleischman’s daughter. The Wolfsons. Your second, third, whatever he is cousin. Tony’s there, Mum! You know, tall, good-looking thing.”

  “Israel is the ghettoisation of the Jewish people,” Mum explodes. “You’ve been raised in a multicultural world Daniel. Why do you want to cut yourself off from that, for the sake of what?”

  “Exactly,” Gaby tells her.

  “Oh you can shut up,” Mum screams. “What’s wrong with this family? I don’t know what’s worse, my daughter marrying out or my son going frum!”

  “He’s not going frum,” Dad interjects. “You’re not, are you Dan?”

  I shake my head, thinking of my friend Josh who has not moved to Israel but to Hendon where, eight years ago, he shed his old school friends and love of Big Macs in favour of yeshiva, a black hat, and a 19-year-old wife with whom, allegedly, he has sex through a sheet.

  “Then why the hell do you want to move?” says Dad. Lightness and gravitas.

  “Because I like Israel. I like how I feel there.”

  “I like how I feel in New York!”

  “I like how I think there. How I-”

  “Here’s dessert,” Mum declares, slamming the honey cake onto the table. She has removed her heels and storms in stockinged feet out of the room. The stairs thump one by one beneath her. Her bedroom door slams, loudly. It used to be Gaby and me who made such exits.

  Slowly, Gaby stands up and follows her.

  Dad shakes his head, but says nothing. We listen for the bedroom door opening again and then closing.

  After a few minutes we each take a slice of cake.

  It is meant to symbolise a sweet new year.

  ***

  The festivals come too close together and in the wrong order.

  I have never been able to understand why Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement – comes a week after Rosh Hashanah, Jewish new year. Surely it would be better to atone for one’s sins before the fresh zeal of resolution?

  And all three of my annual shul visits landing within the same autumn week? My first year at Warwick this meant me returning home two days into Freshers’. When I was 15, I missed the semi-finals of my local tennis club tournament and Guy Johnson (who I’d beaten every other time we played) got a walk-over. Now, I have to explain to my colleagues why I – a non-yamaka-wearing employee – suddenly need a succession of days off for religious reasons. It marks me as different, and a type of person I’m not sure I am.

  I try nevertheless, sitting in the uncomfortable wooden pew, to concentrate on the sermon the rabbi is givi
ng. It has been 19 hours since anything has passed my lips (except for toothpaste, though strictly that is forbidden too). I know the idea behind the fast is to help me concentrate on praying without the distractions of life’s food-oriented timetable, and also to afflict myself; but I can’t help but feel that if I had just a small bagel I’d be able to furnish my repentance with a far greater level of fervour.

  Or some spring rolls with soy sauce.

  It’s the only time of year we actually walk to shul, the rest of the time cheating by driving the short distance and parking around the corner for shame of being seen. But it’s as though my favourite Chinese restaurant knows I’m going to be passing and intentionally sprays out volumes of spring roll scent.

  Despite the unusually balmy September weather, my hands are cold. I’ve only just come back inside and underestimated the need for a coat at the beginning of my shift. This is the sixth year that I’ve been doing security for the shul. Checking coats, bags, tickets, keeping an eye on passing vehicles, on passing people, on thrown words. I described the organisation of Jewish security once to some uni friends who couldn’t believe such a thing existed. It’s not like you’re in Nazi Germany, they say. It is true that thus far I have seen no violence and only been called a Yid once.

  I blow on my fingers to warm them up and attempt to catch up with the sermon. The rabbi is talking about the responsibility of Jews as citizens of the world, how those of us gathered, we who know what it is both to be attacked and discriminated against, we particularly must stand up and reach out to heal the fractures that divide. It is a time, he says, to reflect, to repent, to make peace with first ourselves and then others. I feel my neck get hot the way it used to if I was told off in school assembly, singled out. I think of Sara, whose last text I still haven’t replied to. Then of Mum and Dad and Gaby. But then I realise that the rabbi has not noticed my late arrival and is not actually talking about the divisions I personally have caused. He mentions Egypt, Syria. There are murmurs of agreement, but then the rabbi switches to Hebrew and only the most learned understand the text he reads. Like most, I push my finger along the page of my prayer book, managing to recall the Hebrew letters I finally mastered for my barmitzvah, and join in at most of the moments in which participation from the congregation is required. Not having a clue what the words actually mean.

  The men in front of me sit down so Dad and I follow suit. Now there is silence, a pause reserved for personal prayer, for inward-looking. I exhale, a little too loudly. I often find myself exhaling when I’m home in Mill Hill, not just now in synagogue. It is only a short drive from West Hampstead but far enough North for urban sprawl to give way to the odd green pasture, to space. I breathe again. Actually, I suppose it’s more a simultaneous exhalation and inhalation, at once swapping the proximity of people for the proximity of memory, and familiarity. My dentist is three rows in front of me. To my left is the father of Ricky Greenblatt’s TV presenter cousin.

  I see my own father closing his eyes and I recognise the posture, the sorting, the measuring, the recharging. I’m not quite sure when I lost the knack for it. It used to feel real, this reflection. It used to buoy me up through the rest of the year’s busyness. Despite the fasting and the things I was missing, this brief moment, this pause, this fleeting second of sincerity – it was something I looked forward to, treasured even. I want it now. But when I close my eyes, my university degree sits on Dad’s highlighter-laden desk, and means nothing.

  My Mercedes sits outside my West Hampstead flat, and means nothing.

  My vote for one party only marginally different than the other, and my opinions about issues other people seem to care about, and my ‘passions’ (do I have any?), are mainly constructed from clever-sounding things Russell Brand or Stephen Fry have said, or occasionally Gaby’s hypotheses, and mean nothing.

  Hayley and I, and Sara and I, and me and every other girl I meet, mean nothing. Safia and I refuse to mean anything.

  And as the rabbi begins another prayer in Hebrew, I still have no idea what the sacred words to God mean.

  “And so we should look to Israel,” the rabbi says.

  Opening my eyes I glance up towards the women’s gallery where Mum is sitting in front of stained glass whispering to some of her girlfriends. They are all meticulously made-up, despite Talmudic instructions to the contrary, and despite today’s show of wearing trainers instead of prohibited leather. To Israel. Thud. Perhaps the rabbi is talking about me after all. Mum doesn’t give away her anxiety, but I see how she repeatedly touches her hand to her face and fidgets with her prayer book. “Fine,” she told me yesterday as we were devouring the pre-Yom Kippur meal she’d prepared and downing a third glass of water. “It’s your life. Go then. Get blown up. I’m just your mother, why should you listen to me?”

  Gaby is not sitting with her. This is not because of my announcement, thankfully, or because of Pete. Gaby left the congregation quite of her own accord five years ago. She goes instead to a Liberal shul that allows men and women to sit together, and where she openly wears leather shoes. Mum has filled the gap with three women she went to school with, the owner of a local boutique who gives Mum a discount, Dad’s partner’s wife, and, awkwardly, Hayley’s mum. She’s okay without Gaby. She’ll be okay without me. She is surrounded. But alone.

  Now the rabbi makes reference to the peace talks in Israel; he expresses hope. It is a controversial topic for a sermon. Too political. Too much to disagree upon. There is some shaking of heads. Mum doesn’t shake hers but she lowers her eyes to the men’s seats below. She locates mine.

  Tucking her stare away, I add it to the list of things for which I must repent.

  ***

  Safia is at a table by the window. It is unusual for her to have texted for a meet-up mid-week. Sundays are our thing, with coffee and croissants and daylight debate. But we haven’t been in touch since I texted her after the disastrous Rosh Hashanah dinner – casually dropping into my message the reason for my mother’s meltdown – so I knew it was coming. As I hesitate outside, it’s possible that she sees me spraying breath freshener. I grin as I enter and plant a kiss in the air to the side of her cheek.

  “Mmm, minty fresh,” she smiles, one eyebrow raised.

  I grin again, settling myself into the wooden chair opposite and noticing that I haven’t seen her in a skirt since a wedding we both went to a year ago. She has come straight from work. “What are we drinking?”

  “Shiraz. How was the fast?”

  “Not bad. I’m so stuffed now.” A waiter is hovering nearby and I signal for a drink to match Safia’s, then on second thought add some olives. You can’t really have wine without nibbles. “I saw Hayley at shul.”

  “Oh?”

  “It was fine, actually.”

  “Progress,” smiles Safia.

  “Saw her mum too. Apparently she and my mother are bosom buddies now. Starting some culture club together. There’s a bunch of them in it. They’re going to go to the theatre together and then discuss what they’ve seen, or something.” I am aware that I am talking about totally irrelevant topics. My wine arrives and I take a long sip. “Sorry I couldn’t talk last night, fast was coming in. Was there anything urgent?”

  “Oh you know, I got given the Tesco account, same old same old.”

  “Saf, that’s incredible.”

  “Thanks.”

  Safia pretends to be nonchalant about most things, but she is totally driven. She completed two different Masters before landing a job at one of the most elite advertising firms in London. In less than a year she worked her way up from researcher to planner. Now she runs workshops, and presents to teams, and strategises, and brings in business. Tesco is a big deal.

  “To Tesco!” I raise my glass and Safia clinks it. We both drink at length. She tells me a little more about the Tesco brief and I enjoy watching the pride dancing at the corner of her mouth, too modest to occupy the foreground. I wish I could be as simultaneously unpretentious and brilliant.
Conversation lulls. We stab a couple of olives with toothpicks.

  “So… Israel?” Safia says eventually.

  “Israel.”

  “Israel?”

  “Israel is a small country located in the Middle East that-”

  “Hilarious, Dan.” Safia takes off her blazer and hangs it on the back of her chair. “You’re really moving there?”

  “Apparently so.”

  “You say that like it’s not your decision.”

  “It’s totally my decision.”

  “Any illumination as to what’s prompted this decision?”

  “Hmm, not really.”

  “Great reason to up your entire life.”

  “Thank you.”

  Safia takes another olive. “Seriously, Dan.”

  “Seriously, I can’t properly explain. But, I don’t know, don’t you ever get, I don’t know… I feel like I’m missing something.”

  “Well we all know you’re missing something,” she smirks, though with not quite her usual lightness.

  “I don’t feel like that when I’m in Israel.”

  “In Israel, or on holiday? Because you know real life is different from sitting on the beach.”

  “Not if you happen to live by the beach.”

  Safia pulls a face. “Is this all so you can take up surfing?”

  I laugh, but she’s right. I sound flippant, whimsical. That’s the whole problem. “Mum hates it,” I tell her. “So does my sister, ’cos of the army.”

  “You’d have to go to the army?”

  “I might have to.”

  “And fight? Against Palestinians?”

  I shrug.

  “Seriously?”

  I shrug again.

  “Dan.”

  I’m not sure what to say. I’m honestly not. I’m not trying to be evasive. Safia sucks on the end of a toothpick, waiting. She has always been able to pry details from me with the minimum of effort.

  “Okay, you know what, I think I can explain,” I say.

  “Okay?”

  “So, basically, I feel old.”

  “You’re 28.”

  “I know. But I feel old, cynical. Like everything here has already been done. Built already. Worked out. Everything in London’s so structured, so planned.”