Red Tricycle is a painting by Nancy Sisco

Honeymoon

 

 

We flew to Iguazu early in the morning, leaving Buenos Aires behind. We were looking forward to our day tour, seeing these magnificent waterfalls on the border between Argentina and Brazil we heard so much about. 

We bought the flight tickets in Santa-Fe in the last week of our stay in Argentina. Santa-Fe, a medium-sized town on the Parana River's shores, was where my parents resided at the time as part of my father's appointment to run the local Jewish school. 

"You cannot leave without seeing the falls," my mother urged. "They are considered one of the biggest in the world, and the butterflies that sit on your hands, wholly unafraid, are fantastic. As proof, she pointed towards a bright blue butterfly mounted and framed in a small wooden frame she brought from her visit there. 

I did not look forward to the bus ride to Buenos Aires, where the flight originated. The bus ride was eight hours long; it crossed the flat pampas dotted with cows and nothing else to look at.

At that time, four weeks into our visit with my parents, the tension between my mother and husband was culminating. I was tired of being put in the middle, so I said, "Sure, Iguazu, here we come." 

We rechecked the tickets that we bought in the small traveling office in Santa-Fe in Buenos Aires, the home office of Aerolíneas Argentinas, just to make sure. They were round trip tickets to Iguazu and back on the same day.

A romantic day with my husband, strolling between cascading waterfalls, surrounded by shimmering butterflies, away from my parents, it finally felt like the honeymoon we had in mind when we planned our trip.  

When the plane landed, my husband said:

"Let's take a minute and find out the exact time of the flight back."

Newly married or not, I learned to respect Chuck's obsession with details; also, South Americans we learned from other incidents had a nonchalant attitude towards time.

We approached the agent in the small booth at the airport entrance, presented our tickets, and asked for the information. 

He gave us a tired look (stupid tourists with their foolish questions), waved his hand in desperation, and declared in Spanish "no hay vuelo."

Even with our lack of Spanish, we got it. We froze, try to argue using our best hand gestures, but he kept repeating, "No flight, no flight,"

Panic-stricken, we found the one cab that was idling outside the tiny airport and asked the driver to take us to the town and the local airline's office. Inside the office, a small room with one counter and another tired clerk, we got a slightly more elaborate explanation in broken English. Our four o'clock flight to Buenos Aires was canceled a year ago. These stupid, lazy agents in the main office should have updated the schedule, but they did not. Every day, people scream at him for no fault of his own. He had enough. With that, he whispered as if sharing a top-secret, "Try to catch the three o'clock, be early and be ready to run." He slammed the half-broken window leaving us standing there wondering what to do next. 

We had a total of four hours to wander and admire the waterfalls with their big attraction, butterflies that are not afraid of people. 

"Nice," my husband said, apparently unimpressed after the second blue butterfly fluttered in the air in front of us. 

"We should grab something to eat and go back to the airport. I am not spending the night here." He declared and added, "If needed, I will be the first person on the landing strip and get us a seat on the damn plane."

I just nodded, thinking about what I will tell my parents in Santa-Fe, who urged us to see this attraction. 

Half an hour later, we stood amongst a big group of raging tourists in the airport, looking at the single, asphalt cracked, airstrip, inching our way to a set of glass doors, our promised release.

"When you see the plane, you run out," my husband delivered the last minute instructions. 

"Don't look back, don't be your usual nice self, this is a war we need to win."

My husband, I learned, tends to be a bit dramatic. Still, his ability to thrive in intense situations was one of the qualities that drew me to him. A minute later, he was gone, and all I could see was the top of his head moving with determination in an unclear direction. He appeared as a man with a plan though I had no idea what the plan was. 

I just stood there looking out of the big glass doors at the black tarmac, shutting off the frustrated passengers' enraged noises that rose around me like a stormy ocean. 

There was a dot out there, a tiny speck that kept moving in our direction, and I kept my eyes on it mesmerized. Someone was moving slowly towards the doors in a slightly crooked line. As it came closer, I closed my eyes with disbelief and then opened them again. It was a kid on a red tricycle driving around and around in circles on the deserted runway. A movement was forming inside me, and before my mind was fully aware of what I was going to do, I felt my hand touch the door handle. A minute later, I was outside running towards the kid.

I heard people screaming, I heard the roaring sound of an airplane over my head, and someone was grabbing my arm, stopping me from my blind sprint along the tarmac. 

"Hey, slow down," it was my husband. 

"Why do you have to be so literal?" He was smiling. 

"You did save the day, though, no doubt about it, as we're now the first in line for the 3:00pm plane."

I looked back, still breathing hard. Behind me, I could see the faces of the other travelers pressed against the glass doors. Further, away the sun augmented the red tricycle rolling towards a door with the sign – Exit. 

The flight back was uneventful. Like the rest of the crowd that had tickets for the unexciting flight, we had to stand in the plane's aisle, stabilizing ourselves by holding onto whatever we found. I leaned against my husband and thought of this honeymoon story that no one will believe years from now. 

The next day in Buenos Aires, we boarded our planned flight to Santiago, Chile. It left on time. As the plane ascended, I could see from my window seat the one tone green Pampas, dotted with black and white cows. 

Years later when I asked my husband about this flight, he remembered the mad rush to the plane, and standing in the aisle all during the flight but he couldn’t recall a kid on a tricycle.

 

 

 

  Ghost Stories Don’t Lie

 

Sara and her husband Tom arrived in Maine by the end of a cold winter. It was the middle of March and the end, so they were told, to an exceptionally hard winter.  Sara later learned that every winter in Maine is long and hard, but then she took the words at face value. Her first impression of Maine was ‘gray.’ The sky was the color of ash. The snow, still on the ground, was a mixture of mud and slush. The few people  that walked the streets were wrapped in their winter coats, and their heads bent to the ground to watch for hidden obstacles. When the wind blew, it brought a faint scent of salt from the ocean but mostly a bone penetrating chill.

 Everywhere she looked, she saw old houses, some over two hundred years old. They reminded her of the stories she loved as a teenager. In these books, the hero, or heroine, in the first chapter came across a locked trunk, found in a dusty attic with intricate cow-webs hanging from the corners, or a musty basement rancid with undefined smells and the whiff of old stories that might freeze one’s bones if ever told.

The way the rather modest fronts of the houses masked their actual size was fascinating. A house could stretch on and on until it ended with the traditional ell that in the fancier ones hosted the toilets, usually just a wood seat over a hole in the ground, and then followed by the three stories barn. The front doors were another curious phenomenon she couldn’t decipher. It was evident that no one used them to enter the house, that was done via the kitchen door on the side. The front doors, made of dense wood, appeared formidable and were placed in most houses over a massive slab of granite that only giants could climb.

Coming from the west coast where houses and past stories did not stretch as far back, this was all new and made her anxious. Tom convinced her to move to Maine, where he thought he had a better chance to pursue his career as a cartographer, developing  mapping software tools in the growing mapping industry Maine was known for. Sara on the other hand was reluctant. It meant being far from her family in a state that boasted long cold winters. Tom said that it would be her chance to fulfill her longtime dream to open a bridal salon. He convinced her that one of these old houses with the huge barn would be perfect. She will have all the space needed, and the atmosphere as a bonus.

The real-estate agent who showed them the house that they later decided to rent said that it was relatively new. Only a hundred and sixty years old. Its greatest appeal was the low rent due to a ghost story that the locals related to the prior residents.

The folk story was about a woman named Catherine, who grew up in the house. In 1860, the night of her wedding, already dressed in her wedding dress, the carriage taking her from the house to the ceremony overturned going over a steep hill, and Catherine was killed. The mountain was called after her, Catherine Hill, as was the road winding through a dense forest. People said that when the fog rolls up from the ocean, many drivers reported seeing Catherine standing on the side of the road, hitching a ride.

“Does she wear her wedding dress? “ Sara was curious and horrified when she heard the story told over and over again and read it in books documenting Maine ghost stories. For some reason, this question she couldn’t find an answer to kept spinning in her mind. Tom said that she was acting foolishly, ghost stories are just stories people make up. Still, the picture of Catherine, ethery, and fluttering, standing at the side of the road, refused to fade away. She found herself striving to see it better and, as a wedding dresses designer,  was especially curious about her attire. 

The house has been thoroughly renovated since the current owners took possession, ten years prior, the real-estate agent explained when he showed it to them on a bright sunny day. The kitchen was all new, as were the bedrooms on the second floor. A new bathroom was added, as well as a modern heating system to replace the old wood stove.

“What about the attic and the hundred- and- sixty-years-old basement?” Sara inquired, slightly apprehensive.

The agent gave her an inquisitive look, and Sara could swear that he winked at her husband as if sharing a secret.

“Ah, that ancient myth, you do not believe in old ghost stories, do you?”

Sara laughed and shrugged her shoulders as if the idea was ridiculous. Still, she wondered if stories that linger for so long have a grain of truth in them after all.

Sara was hesitant, but Tom was persistent. The price could enable her to fulfill her dream. The massive barn, in good condition, was perfect. The  story might draw clients to come and look at the old house. She could even choose a name that will reflect on it.

The first thing Sara did when they moved in was a thorough search of the attic; it produced two daddy-long-legs that she knew were harmless, and one should leave alone for good luck.

In the basement, only faintly lit by one light bulb, she marveled at the massive rocks that the house sat on. Those looked like they were taken from another time, and for a minute, she was tempted to touch them and test their ability to transfer her to another period, the time when Catherine was still alive and looked forward to her wedding. Perhaps she will be able to have a closer look at the dress and settle that question that haunted her.

What a crazy thought, Sara drew her hand in the last minute and made sure, once back in the kitchen, that the door leading to the basement was locked.

Was Tom right about the barn?

She opened her salon two months later, transforming the barn into a modern, inviting space. During the day, the place was lively, with women searching for that one perfect wedding dress. But at night when the quiet resumed, and she was alone in the salon, tiding, and closing, or in the kitchen by herself waiting for Tom to return home, she often thought that she could hear a strange sound coming from under the house. It sounded like a buzzing, like a swarm of bees trying to escape.

When she told Tom, he laughed,

“I never took you for one who believes in old tales,”

He offered to go with her to the basement to check it again, but in the light of the kitchen with Tom next to her, she felt silly like a little girl who needs adult protection.

The morning she found a couple of white cloth flowers from a bride’s hairpiece attached to the barn door; Tom was already at work. She looked around, but the forest around the house was as impenetrable and obscure as usual.

She did not say anything to Tom, she felt that he would see it as another proof of her recent infatuation with the unnatural.

Two days later, it was a piece of white silk from a wedding gown. It looked as if it was torn rapidly. A delicate fabric with small flowers cross-stitched into the material. When she examined it closely Sara was sure that it was not part of anything she had in the store.

Then a few days later, a soft shiny tulle was tied to the door when she was ready to leave the barn after a busy day of dealing with clients.

That evening when Tom returned home, Sara was all packed and ready to go.

“You might think these are just old ladies’ tales,” she said. “But I am not staying here one minute longer.”

She handed him a small box tied with a silk ribbon. Inside Tom found the three pieces of a wedding ensemble, he attached to the barn door. He thought it would make a good joke, something to laugh at in the years to come, but when he tried to talk to Sara and explain she was long gone.

 

·       An ell is a wing of a building that lies perpendicular to the length of the main portion. It takes its name from the shape of the letter L. Ells are often additions to an existing building which makes it L-shaped in a plan. In connected farm architecture, the ell is often extended to attach the main house to another building, usually a barn. Wikipedia

 

In the end, the mountains of imagination were nothing
but a house.
And this grand life of mine was nothing but an excuse.
You've been hearing my story so patiently for a lifetime
Now hear this: it was nothing but a fairy tale.

Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi

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.