Week 4: voice; childhood memoir

Best friends

In the year of my tenth birthday a new girl joined our class and immediately changed the fragile balance of power. Growing up in a tiny neighborhood we were a small group of kids, together since first grade. We knew each other well and established a fine tuned equilibrium. Our neighborhood on the outskirts of Jerusalem managed to maintain a satellite sort of feeling. Even though the town kept creeping towards us, street by street, we were still separated from the center of town by open fields and only one main road and one bus arriving few times a day.

Every morning I walked to school, a green prefab building at the end of a dirt road. My walking path was always the same. It went by the house where my dentist clinic was, then the shortcut to my kindergarten, down the hill, where my brother later went. It then curved by the house of my classmate Leah who everyone called Litzi and the last house before the road turned into dirt belonged to Negba. Her father worked for the Jerusalem zoo and his biggest love were scorpions. Many years later I came across a book he wrote with big shiny pictures of these deadly creatures. Passing by her house I always peeked over the fence to see if there were any exciting additions to their small collection of animals.

But now there was an inescapable change, a new girl.

From the moment she walked into the classroom I knew there was something different about her. The teacher introduced her as” Chava, who just moved from the U.S” and gave us the usual lecture about being nice and helping someone new and so on.  I was too busy studying her and trying to push down the growing sense of alarm. She was pretty; there was no doubt about it. Shoulder length straight and shiny black hair and pale skin, she looked nothing like us, burned to a dark brown tan cultivated over the long summer. But there was something else about her I couldn’t put my fingers on. Everything from her cloths to the way she carried herself was different and proclaimed a clear message. “Let’s face it, I am not one of you, but for the time being I am stuck here.”  Almost like a princess from a remote country forced to spend time with the natives. From the way everyone else gazed at her I knew they all sensed it but weren’t really sure how to act.

“Ariela…” I heard the teacher calling me with a tinge of impatience in her voice. Becoming conscious that everyone was looking at me I could feel my face turning red. “Can Chava walk home with you today, she lives very close?” embarrassed I just nodded my head in silent agreement.

We barley spoke on the way back and only when she turned and walked into the small yard of her house I realized the new girls’ house was sitting right at the point where the two parts of the neighborhood met. The older part of one story Jerusalem stone houses and our seven long ugly apartment buildings, I could almost see her house from our apartment across the road.

 In the coming morning and every morning hence I wanted to stop at her house and ask her to join me on my morning walk to school. Barely awake, I would tell myself to "just do it" but couldn’t. For a whole week as I passed by her house, pretending nothing changed. I would steal a quick look at the small Iron Gate leading to the yard trying to guess what the house was like. But all I could see was the entrance door and front porch.

 By the middle of the next week the teacher started the day telling us the new girl was sick and her parents upset that no one came to see how she is. Even though she directed her words to the whole class I could sense that most of the blame was aimed at me. And so on the way back from school I stopped, open the gate and walked in.

The distance from the gate to the front porch was shorter than I thought.  As I walked slowly up the stairs leading to the heavy wooden door I felt as if someone was watching me. I looked around but the small yard shaded by big old pine trees was empty. Hesitantly I knocked on the door and it opened immediately making a soft squeak.  There was no one there. I stood for few seconds adjusting my eyes to the light and feeling very confused. When I heard her laugh just beside me I stepped back and almost fell on the front doorstep. She was standing right next to me clearly pleased with herself.

“I thought you were sick” I said sourly, trying to recover my dignity.

 “I was, but I am better now” she said looking serious and sincere.  “Thanks for coming.”

 I could trace a hint of foreign accent in her voice and a vague sense of being toyed with.

“Oh, it’s OK, I brought you some homework” I handed her a bunch of papers sent by the teacher. She sent her hand, held on to the loose tied pack as if it was a dead rat and let it fall to the floor.

The white pages spread all over the floor. She shrugged her shoulders walked backwards into the house and waved at me.

“I am not allowed to be out of bed, but I’ll be fine by the end of the week. Come back on Saturday we will have fun”

I turned around and walked down the stairs. As I walked towards the gate I could hear the door closing behind me and her laughter fading away.

This scene of our first meeting troubles me every once in awhile. I am pretty sure there was more to it then I can recall; there must have been. Somewhere in there was the clue to how in a very short time the new girl became the ultimate queen of our small circle of girls and how we both became best friends. But all I can remember is the constant sense of excitement and adventure I felt every time we were together. How upset I was when she left with her parents, back to the U.S, when we were in the 6^th grade. She left me her address and put a sticker with purple flowers next to it .I never heard from her again.