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She did find the address of the apartment near the Machane Yehuda Market, but her niece Libby wasn’t home. Or didn’t actually live there. It wasn’t clear which. Flora had been in Jerusalem two days and only attempted to find the apartment—that is: her niece—this morning, her last in the city.
The situation was that, approaching the end of her second semester, Libby had gone AWOL from her gap-year program at the pluralistic women’s yeshiva. Flora had never in her life considered those three words—pluralistic,women’s, yeshiva—in a row, till now. The study program apparently put the students up in shared apartments near the school. Because she had only corresponded with Libby by email, occasionally, since her niece’s installment in the foreign city, Flora scavenged the apartment address from Libby’s best friend back home.
Visiting Libby in Jerusalem had not been the plan. Aunt and niece were close, in their fashion; at least once a year, Flora visited Libby in Brooklyn where she lived with her father—Flora’s former brother-in-law—and his second wife. (Flora’s sister Stella, Libby’s mother, died of breast cancer years ago, at thirty-nine.) And Libby took the train up to Hudson every so often to stay the weekend. But these visits happened with decreasing frequency, both ways, in the course of high school—Libby so busy with normal teenaged life. So it was no surprise that Libby had not extended an invitation to her aunt to visit her in Jerusalem; it probably didn’t even occur to her. Flora doubted her niece would mind a visit, even without notice. But still, Flora requested that the best friend not tell Libby, or Libby’s dad and stepmother, for that matter, that she had asked for the address in Jerusalem. “I have an exhibition in Budapest,” is what Flora had told Libby’s friend, by way of explanation.
Which was true. But, in fact, she had no real explanation for coming to Jerusalem. That’s why she hadn’t ventured out to find Libby till this morning. What would she say to her? All Flora had was a feeling that she should try to see Libby, having not seen her for nearly a year. That maybe she could be of some use to her niece in this (presumably) delicate moment of truancy.
Budapest wasn’t terribly far from Jerusalem by plane, compared with the trip from New York—but it wasn’t exactly a jaunt, either. The opening for the group show in Budapest in which she was included was Friday, in three days. Impulsive, yes, to change her itinerary to include Jerusalem, but she was certain in the moment it was the right thing to do. Now she wondered what she had been thinking.
Jaunt—to Flora, this word usually conjured an insouciant, unblemished excursion. But it was, in fact, a hard and concussive mouthful. Like your teeth clacking together as you miss the last step in a set of crumbling stairs in a Jerusalem alley smelling of rotten vegetables. Jaunt, jaunt, jaunt.
*
At the apartment building, whose elegant tile address-plate belied the building itself, squat and frumpy, Flora buzzed and knocked and buzzed again. On her second attempt, she accidentally pressed the buzzer next to the correct one. The man who came down to the vestibule of the building spoke English with comical ineptitude. He repeated her niece’s name, slowly, rubbing his chin. She didn’t say how they were related; let him think she was Libby’s mother, with the greater gravitas of that inference. Then all at once he shook his head decisively: no Libby.
Lined up along the outside of the pocked, mud-splattered stones of the building were a series of what appeared to be repurposed milk jugs. Each was painted in bright greens and pinks and oranges, and to each was affixed a pair of googly stick-on eyeballs. A crazy, extended milk-jug family. Flora walked down the alley past this strange assemblage in a stupor. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but it wasn’t a stubbly, thirty-something man in his undershirt claiming he knew nothing of any Libby.
A pair of young Orthodox boys dressed up for school—the nonpluralistic, non-women’s kind—jumped pogo-style past her on her left. One, the red-head, turned and made a rubbery face at her. Though it happened so quickly she might have imagined it. She was still jet-lagged, obviously. Good thing she had a few days to recover before the exhibition. At home, in her painting studio in Hudson, she reveled in that electric haze of not-knowing-what-comes-next: a state of mind essential to her creative work. Fundamental to her very being, it had always seemed.
But here in Jerusalem, this familiar not-knowing was transmuted into something else, something unwelcome: bewilderment.
*
The other thing, besides Libby’s apartment, Flora found on the final morning of her visit to Jerusalem was St. Cosmas. She had skimmed the entry about the Coptic church in her guidebook, randomly, on the long flight over, when she should have been sleeping, or at least scrolling through her correspondence with the curator at the Ludwig in Budapest. The accompanying photograph warped the perspective to fit the church interior into one shot. Something about the convex contortion of the image made her think, her thumb holding the page, of Alice falling down the rabbit hole.
After failing to find Libby in the one place she knew to look, Flora granted herself the rest of the morning to explore in and near the Old City. You never knew when the muse would strike. She had no intention of marching off to the Western Wall or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre like the throngs that surrounded her at the Jaffa Gate as the last of the morning chill vaporized. She wandered in the opposite direction from the crowds. She wasn’t even looking for the church when she happened upon it. She found herself on a street she couldn’t locate on the map. At the end of the street, a small church. St. Cosmas. She entered.
From the back of the sanctuary, the space was not as brightly lit as in the guidebook photograph, but she grasped at once that this was the same church. Her skin prickled with the coincidence. They certainly hadn’t skimped on the decoration. Every surface was covered with designs: vegetal curlicues on the undersides of arches; painted borders like flattened chain bracelets running above the arcade of columns; and, shielding the altar, wood screens carved of starbursts and crosses in intricate shades of brown and crimson and maroon. And everywhere the color gold, glowing.
She plunked herself down in one of the pews. What to do with the rest of the day? Since no one had asked this visit of her or expected her here, there was no disappointing anyone aside from herself. Disappointed didn’t quite capture her current state, anyway. More like impeded. But by what, by whom? The universe unfolded according to its own logic, she knew this—more than knew this. This was her creed. There was no comfort in it, which was itself a kind of comfort. A dependable, unbendable truth. So it was the universe, or fate, or whatever, putting her here at exactly this moment.
She could let go of the fruitless Libby expedition. The idea was nuts, really. And Libby was probably fine. This casting about on her niece’s part was age-appropriate. The kid deserved to simply be a nineteen-year-old. Stella—Libby’s mother, Flora’s sister—had been dreamy and reckless at this age, so there was genetics to consider too.
Yes, Libby was dreamy, for sure. But in fact, she wasn’t reckless. From a certain angle, recklessness might encompass devoting a year to studying religious texts in Jerusalem and then dropping out of the program and not returning home to New York. Libby’s father and stepmother seemed to think so. But this wasn’t recklessness, in Flora’s estimation.
She felt, suddenly, that the ground was listing, that the air was thinning. She wished she had brought a bottle of water. She wished she had put her sketchbook in her bag this morning. She didn’t want to take photos of the inside of the church now with her phone, like some grasping tourist, but she wished for something discerning to do with her hands. Since she was here in this lovely spot anyway, attempting to distract herself from this miasma of foreboding.
She stood from the pew and decided at that moment that she would go back. Try the buzzer at Libby’s building one more time. If she did return to the address, maybe the undershirt guy was gone, and she could figure out a way to sneak into the building. The apartment building wasn’t that far from Flora’s hotel via the tram, and she could swing by for her sketchbook, too.
Like a dream, the sound of the street burst upon her then—a honking horn, the shouts of children, a car clattering over a pothole. The church’s main door had bumped opened and closed. The momentary flash of brightness turned the church entryway murkier.
“Who’s there?” she said— as if this were her church, as if she, Flora Steynman, artist, Jew, atheist, were guarding the treasure of St. Cosmas, whatever that might be.
“Good morning to you.”
A girl was standing there. A young woman. A few feet away, in the aisle between the pews. Her inky hair shone beneath the lantern-chandelier.
“Welcome. The Church of St. Cosmas is very glad to greet you.” Her smooth eyebrows, perfect as parentheses.
“Hey. Hi.” Flora coughed into her hand, then ruffled her hair, grasping for an appropriate but not-too-convivial response. She didn’t really want to encourage a conversation, in her current state of disorientation. “Beautiful church.”
The girl nodded. She was slight but she held herself with a sturdy authority.
“An Egyptian church,” said the girl.
“Coptic Christian,” offered Flora, despite herself.
“Yes, you are correct,” the girl said. “Coptic. Not many tourists know this. At least, not before I speak to them.” The girl half-smiled. “I have been giving tours since I was only so high.” She held a hand out, palm down, indicating. Then: “I am Samia.”
The girl tucked a strand of black hair behind an ear; she wore two neat braids, the tails dangling behind her all the way to her waist. Who taught Samia to braid her hair? A mother, an aunt, a friend? Flora was fascinated lately by braiding, weaving. She was teaching herself to build baskets from strips of sandpaper. Experimenting with painting incongruous phrases and super-realistic portraits, in gouache, on the exterior; exploring the effects of the rough three-dimensional grid, the resonances of a hand-made receptacle. A new direction in her work.
“I would like to show you the many beautiful items of this church, and share the history. If that is pleasing to you.”
Flora looked at her watch.
“You are in a hurry?”
“I’m meeting up with my daughter,” Flora lied. Then, guiltily: “I guess I have a few minutes, though.” She hoped she had small change for a tip. She ran a hand through her hair again. The plan had been to get a stylish cut in the city, before the trip, before the exhibition, but it didn’t happen.
“For you, I would like to show something very special. The guidebooks do not know of this.” Samia stepped closer, leaned in as if to whisper but spoke in the same plain, firm voice. “There is a room beneath, with paintings. And a crypt where many interesting persons are buried. I can show you.” She clasped her arms behind her back, bouncing on her toes. “If you like.”
“Sure, okay,” said Flora. “As long as it doesn’t take too long. Thank you.”
Flora followed behind, nearly stumbling into the girl and her long, swinging braids, as Samia stopped short at the far corner of the building, to the left of the altar. There was an arched doorway before them.
“I need only for you to leave your shoes. No shoes allowed downstairs.”
Flora leaned against a patch of wall—the stone, a cold bruise against her flank—loosened one sandal, then the other. Samia busied herself fiddling with an earring. The floor was arctic against Flora’s bare feet. Her shins gleamed in the alcove’s tepid lamplight.
“There,” said Samia. She gestured to a low bench along the wall. “You may put them underneath the bench.” Flora lined her sandals up, the heels pressed to the wall like the backs of blank and obedient children.
The downstairs room smelled of wet stone and centuries of extinguished candles. Rough stones made up the floor, their odd and varied shapes like a confounding ancient hopscotch course. The room formed a small hexagon; four of the walls were carved with niches holding candles, flowers, painted icons. The wall across from the stairs bore a wooden door with an enormous Coptic cross. There were several back-less wooden benches in the middle of the room, in rough triangular formation. Samia stood beside one of the benches, smiling distractedly.
“Please,” she said. “Make yourself comfortable.” She patted a bench. Flora sat.
Samia began reciting facts in a lilting voice. Coptic saints: names, dates, the means of their martyrdoms. She explained something of the liturgy, too. The importance of the Book of Hours: devotions to be said throughout the day. “In this way, we prepare our soul to be ready, at any time,” said Samia. For what, Samia didn’t say.
It was deliciously still and cool. Samia murmured from across the distance. Flora closed her eyes and floated alone in the deep purple, rolled gently by waves. Ahead, a mermaid on a crag combed at long tangles of weedy hair with her fingers. The scales of her tail, iridescent and grotesque, just within in reach.
Flora jolted awake on a dark geyser of adrenaline. The room was silent. Where was she? What day was this? She couldn’t remember. Then she did. She shivered, her whole body acknowledging the heedless futility of this excursion—Jerusalem, of all places. The exhibition in Budapest was to open on April Seventeenth, and this was the Fourteenth; she could have stayed home in Hudson longer, resting up, and at least gotten that good haircut.
April the Fourteenth. The day itself. Could it be? Ten years exactly since Stella died. Ten years. How had this not occurred to her till now?
Samia was across the way with her back to Flora, pushing at the wide wooden door, grunting quietly with effort. “The crypt door,” the girl said, apologetic.
“Never mind,” said Flora. “Let’s forget it.” The last thing in the world she wanted to behold in that moment was the inside of a crypt.
At the foot of the stairs, Flora rummaged in her wallet. When Samia’s hand closed around the tip money, their fingers touched.
Upstairs again, Flora found herself before the altar screen. She hooked her fingers in it, the wood pressing its intricate geometry to her palm. Beyond, a painted mural covered the swell of the back wall. Virgin and Child. Flora turned away, heel-toed on numb feet to the back corner.
When she stooped to pull her shoes from beneath the bench, she found nothing. Her sandals gone. Stolen.
The rest of the day passed in a blur: the embarrassment of the shoe episode, lunch at the marble open-air mall just outside the Old City’s walls, a museum, a nap, a stroll, dinner. She didn’t return to the address near the Machane Yehuda Market after all. Somehow the time ran out.
*
In the taxi to Ben-Gurion Airport the next day, it came to her. I just want to hold you and not let go. A line from a song? Or were those words that she had once heard spoken, or had spoken herself? The sentence emerged at once like the ghostly warning letters at Belshazzar’s feast, on Rembrandt’s famous canvas.
It had been a ridiculous plan—not even a plan. But she supposed she did really expect Libby to be there, at the apartment yesterday. Stunned to see Flora but then flushed with happy surprise. That was the expression Flora most associated with Libby in unguarded moments: innocent shock, in all its varieties. The look she wore, pedaling off with no training wheels for the first time, that Thanksgiving they all spent in Key West. The naked, glittering daze with which she contemplated Stella, her mother, in the hospice bed in those final days, ten years ago. The look Flora had seen so many times on Libby’s face as her niece, descending from the train, caught sight of Flora striding toward her on the Hudson platform. As if life were a continual amazement. Which it was.
She wondered how enfolding nineteen-year-old Libby in her arms now would feel. If her niece would take the weight and shape of Stella decades ago: the sister of shared late nights and spitting anger and luxuriant tears. The sister whose future diverged from hers, then vanished. Flora wasn’t sure of the last time she had hugged Libby. Probably at Libby’s high school graduation last spring. But she couldn’t remember.
I just want to hold you and not let go. She could picture the words perfectly now, scrolling across interlaced sandpaper. She knew exactly which of her newly constructed pieces would work for that. It was worth a try, anyway. As soon as the trip was over, as soon as she was back in her tulip-poplar-shaded studio, paintbrush in hand.
The line wove itself, wormed itself, sang itself among the synapses between Flora’s ears as she hurtled toward Budapest, high above the earth.
_________
Emily Alice Katz’s short fiction has appeared in Salamander, Meridian, South Carolina Review, Lilith, and Jewish Fiction, among other publications. She lives in Durham, North Carolina, with her family. You can read more about her at https://emilyalicekatz.com/