Walls

Walls

“Akavya ben Mahalalel said: Reflect upon three things, and you will not come to sin. Know from where you came and where you are going and before whom you are destined to give account.” Pirkei Avot chap 3

My first memory of where I came from, of my so called ‘past’ is the middle entrance, third floor apartment out of six, first building out of identical seven. That is where I came from, and that is where he came from too. For so many years I thought I knew where I was going, but then the picture got blurry as if the road ahead lost its clarity. At that time of my life we met again.

I did not know him then, even though we grew up only one entrance away. The age difference and religious background placed us in different circles. But in some subtle way I knew him more than I should have. You see, we shared our bedroom wall, my bed on one side, his on the other.  

Was he aware of that, of me eavesdropping in the quiet of the night?

This question never crossed my mind until we met again in a different country years later.

I learned about him getting married, one day when I change my route back from school and for no apparent reason other than daring myself, decided to go home via the first entrance and across the flat roof. The change required me to pass by the open door to his father’s dark workshop in the basement. For months, I was intrigued but also appalled by the line of dust covered Plush animals displayed on the window seal. There was nothing endearing about them, in their bulging eyes, or in their crooked smiles. Yet every day on my way to school as I passed by the half sunken to the ground windows, against my will, I looked at them going, and again on my way back.

His father, a man in his mid-sixties was sitting on a high swivel chair filling one of these questionable creatures with a gray looking material. When he saw me he waved, smiled, and said something. I did not stand long enough to hear. I ran up the stairs, and bumped right into him, going down the stairs. All flushed and barley breathing I tore into our apartment.

My mother was standing in the middle of the kitchen talking to my father and all I manage to hear were her last words.

“They are getting married this week, I wonder if they will move in with his parents.”

My father just nodded, as always only half listening and walked out of the room. 

Few nights later the wall next to my bed became alive.

I never went home via the first entrance and across the flat roof again. Few months later we moved to another neighborhood and my bedroom’s walls had only open space behind them and the shrieking wind at night, when the winter came. 

When we met again, in a different country I was twenty-three. I came to study for an advanced degree, I came to find the way I felt was lost.

As a new comer to town I was invited to join him and his wife for dinner. At the end of the meal he said as if to no one in particular, “you can only know where you’re going if you know where you came from.”

Until that moment, he did not show any sign that he made the connection, that he remembered who I was. The old neighborhood, sure, he acknowledged the geographical location, but if I remembered, he probably did too and was playing some bizarre hide-and-seek game, toying with me.

Or maybe it was all in my mind.

The man from across the hall, the one who’s bedroom wall, in the apartment building on the outskirts of Jerusalem we shared. During the day, he was the young man I occasionally passed, and nodded my head, not even looking directly at him. He usually ignored me. I was just a kid. But late at night, lying in my bed, I realized from the night sounds that his bed touched mine, also, how thin and porous the wall was.

It was wrong, I knew, to listen to the voices of the night, the most private moments between a man and his woman but I was young and curious, thirsty for any bit of knowledge my religious community did not voluntarily share. 

Did he know all that time?

Still avoiding eye contact, I moved her head and scanned the people around the table. 

I was painfully aware of the fact that between him and me separated more than a cement wall and years. He was a married man and strictly religious, and I; let’s face it, lost my way years ago. That apartment in the old neighborhood was merely a pale memory I did not feel any connection to.

“You can only know where you’re going if you know where you came from,” When he said it using the same tune he used before for the blessing on the food, it went right through me like a knife.

An old saying, I remembered it from home. Against my will, I raised my eyes and looked at him. When our eyes locked, the realization like a galvanized electricity flash, bridged over the years.

 To my horror, he was looking straight at me, and he winked.