I heard through friends that Calev and his wife had a baby. Most people from Yeshiva were either married or engaged but it wasn’t on the cards for me. The woman I was seeing spotted an “adorable” pink cardigan on a website that she insisted I buy for his new daughter. The gift was wrapped in crinkly grey paper with a heart sticker inside a shiny red box. It was all ready to be sent but I couldn’t bring myself to.
The first time we met was on the way to the England game at Keith’s pub, having skipped evening learning. Calev must have been near six feet tall, wore a knitted kippa on his partially shaved head, had dense eyebrows that met above the nose, pronounced cheekbones and an easy-going smile, as if nothing fazed him. A light breeze after the Jerusalem khamsin energised us both and it was hard to keep up with his pace.
“Spectator or supporter?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, I’m England all the way.”
“Good man.”
“I put money on the game.”
“Me too.”
We bet on the same score, two nil. Calev put his money on Johnson followed by McAnter, I went for Johnson, Cranley.
We got talking about the stuff we enjoyed – films, sport, our favourite vocalists and music videos. He told me he was from Portland Oregon.
“The Urban Bandits are from there aren’t they?
“Yeah in the eighties and nineties there was a lot of racism, riots and general breakdown that created a whole load of inspiring music including the Bandits.”
“In England we’ve Top of the Pops, have you heard of it?”
“Yeah sure.”
He seemed to know so much about the things I liked that I felt the need to impress upon him the few facts that I was certain he wasn’t aware of.
“How are you enjoying Yeshiva?” I asked
“Yeah, it’s awesome. I like Rabbi Myserfeld, he’s very inspiring.” I didn’t like Myersfeld, he sniggered at the bochrim whose questions in shiur he considered stupid and belittled his wife, mentioning her mainly for her chocolate brownie making skills and then as if to mitigate against any perception that he was patronising -. “I wouldn’t be the man I am today without her.”
Keith’s pub sat on the corner of Ramban and Achuza, a drinking hole that was favoured by the Shana Bet guys. When we arrived, the place was filling up; a couple of the yeshiva students were at a table, sleeves rolled up, chatting and joking, some soldiers in the corner, and a mixture of Israeli and English tourists. Sky Sports broadcast from a giant screen in the courtyard.
Kick-off was uneventful, and the next twenty minutes was typical England play, raising anxiety levels as shots on goal were narrowly saved. Out of nowhere a long pass across the pitch from a midfielder resulted in Holland scoring. Calev looked at me helplessly, like a child seeking the solace of his father; our hands were on our heads. VAR scrutinised what happened and disallowed the goal. “You want some more beer?” Calev asked.
Early into the second half, England got a penalty, but then bottled it, and a few minutes later a pass from Evans enabled McAnter to scoop in a goal. We raised our fists in the air and put our arms round one another. We were halfway there. Holland nearly equalised but in the second minute of stoppage time there was another England goal and Calev and I jumped off our seats and hugged each other.
“We won, we won!” I shouted in his ear. “We’re rich, bubbele.” I put my arm round Calev. His eyes were glazed, he was euphoric as if the drink had unlocked something in him. He grabbed me by the hands and started to dance as if we were at a wedding. He raised my arm up, down, out and then in. By then we both had had a few pints and out of nowhere I started singing:
Ki Mitziyon tetze torah udvar Hashem mirushalayim. Ki Mitziyon tetze torah udvar Hashem mirushalayim
Calev joined in. This was a religious tune for such moments and most certainly not a pub, a place the rabbis didn’t want us to go, yet the alcohol had freed us from the confines of our yeshiva world. Calev raised his hands in the air, wagging his fingers at me, roaring another tune at the top of his lungs:
“Ay ay ay uwa uwa uwa ay ay ay uwa uwa uwa.”
“Tum tiddiliy dum tum diddily dum,” I replied
He raised his elbows up and down, dancing around me like a clucking chicken, and in that moment, despite my lack of musical talent, I imagined us as part of a Jewish rock duo, belting out tunes to adoring fans.
The next day we arrived at the Beit Hamidrash late for morning Seder. Our bleary eyes and dazed expressions as we entered through the side entrance was all the more noticeable above the sea of burrowed heads and stern gazes as the rest of the yeshiva tucked into the next page of tractate Bava Batra. Our chavrutas had found other people to learn with, so we decided to study the new Perek together, and though Calev and I were tired and distracted by the prospect of collecting our winnings, I was excited by the opportunity to discuss the text more openly than I could with my previous chavruta.
After that we carried on learning together. Ephraim, my original chavruta, didn’t mind, his Torah learning was more advanced than mine and we agreed we weren’t well matched. Calev and I asked each other questions we knew the rabbis didn’t encourage – was the Torah the holy word of God? Were certain laws arrived at out of expedience rather than anything else? We bought books to our discussions, history and philosophy as a way of critiquing and testing the ideas of the Talmud. We loved our learning but for different reasons, I enjoyed the stimulation and following the complex threads of arguments between Rabbis across millennia, for Calev who had not come from a religious background, it was the novelty and excitement of discovering religion.
We stopped calling each other by name, opting for “Chevruta” instead. While the word was frequently used in yeshiva, when one of us said it to refer to the other, we knew immediately. “Hey, Chavruta, what we doing tonight?” “Chavruta, wanna get a drink?” “Chavruuta” we’d drag out those final four letters if we felt disappointed or let down by one another. “Only one Chavruta,” we’d say if we hadn’t seen each other for a while.
About six weeks into Yeshiva Calev met Sharry. They were introduced through friends at the regular Saturday night meet ups between the Har Shalom boys and Beis Rivka girls. When the Sabbath went out we’d hurry back to our dorms and throw on our jeans, t-shirt and jacket and make our way to Minneli’s a bustling ice cream and fro yo bar in the centre of town. The two of them were an item pretty much from the start. I hadn’t expected Calev to meet someone so quickly and I thought it a bit mad to get so serious when we when hadn’t even hit our twenties but it didn’t get in the way of us hanging out and he included me a much as possible.
Our favourite place was Yoshi’s, a nearby pizza joint that did a seventy percent off all remaining margaritas after ten thirty on Wednesday evenings and we’d hop down there after learning, sit on a bench overlooking the old city with it ancient walls illuminated at night, chew on crusty Margharita slices which we balanced on small carboard squares and sing along to our favourite rock songs playing on my stereo. On Friday’s when the Sabbath came in early, I would lure Calev to the bakeries in West Jerusalem where we’d be seduced by scents of recently made challah from the nearby bakeries and grab ourselves a bag full of moist cholate rugelach that we’d share later that evening when no one else was around.
There were five other Brits who arrived at Yeshiva when I did; Dan, Colin, Mike, Yossi and Binyamin. They shared a room in the corridor down from me and beyond the initial introductions we didn’t speak much after. They seemed a close-knit group more interested in their circle of friends at other Yeshivas and following their favourite football teams – Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs. The others were mainly from the East Coast of America , had graduated from Jewish private schools and managed to find a way of popping into their first conversation with you which Ivy League school they’d be heading to after Yeshiva. They had slang names like “Mush” or “SJ”, liked to wear Nikes and baseball caps and act as if they were from the wrong side of the tracks when we knew them to be the sons of lawyers, doctors and real estate moguls. Calev was too down to earth to be part of that group, and I didn’t know whether they viewed his indifference towards them as a source of irritation or respect that he was someone who just did his own thing.
On the day Yeshiva ended for the Summer, when the usually bustling Beit Hamidrah emptied out and the only remaining sounds were the clinks of glass as cleaners came to wash out peoples mugs, Calev and I decided to go camping in the Galilee. Carrying our tents in backpacks, we rode a bus from Jerusalem to the Kinneret. The journey took us through Israel’s many development towns with their corrugated stone apartment blocks, the shimmering turquoise coastline and the steep windy roads into the noticeably more serene north of the country. We pitched up near Lake Kinneret and set up a barbecue. At sunset, Calev went for a dip while I arranged burgers and sausages.
With a can opener I clicked open a bottle of beer and handed it to him after he returned. “That water is so pure.” Calev said.
“Yeah Jesus walked there.”
“Come on. You know what I’m mean it’s holy.”
The glowing embers of the coal as the flame consumed them and the surrounding silence, left me pensive. Calev too was entranced, helping me flip the meat.
“So this is it.” I said.. onto University, the next thing to look forward to.”
“Really? I wanna stay and do Shana Bet.”
“But at NYU you’ll meet new people and have a different kind of experience.”
“I got everything I want here at Yeshiva.”
“You can always come back for Ellul Zman.”
“It’s not the same, a second year would have helped build my learning. On the plus side, Sharry and I will be near each other at college.”
“You think you guys will last the course?”
“What? Why wouldn’t we?” his gaze was almost hostile.
I don’t know why I asked that stupid question. I guess it was because it was the last thing on my mind.
I banged hard on the ketchup to release what was left on to my burger. Calev cut up the pepper, tomato and cucumber into tiny pieces and slid them carefully off the plate into his salad bowl.
“You think the new peace deal will work?”
Calev rubbed his eyes – “Who knows, it’s in Hashem’s hands, I’m not sure if I trust Arafat.”
“I’m feeling hopeful.” I looked around at the shimmering lake and mountains shrouded in darkness. “We had some great times this year.”
He downed some beer, wiped his brow and muffled a burp. “Sure did.”
“We gotta meet back here Chanukah or next Pesach and compare notes on college.”
“Here here.”
“Yeah right on this beach.” I said laughing.
He cracked open a Peroni and handed it to me then knocked his bottle against mine, “I’ll drink a lechayim to that.”
***
The cold air leaves me chilled. My hands are red, and the snow dances its way from the overcast clouds until it rests on the Jerusalem stone. Calev and I are meeting at Tsomet Coffee; we haven’t seen each other since Yeshiva. We kept meaning to meet up when we were at University but it never happened, he sent me the new Pixie Sons album for my birthday and we exchanged the odd email. I’ve been thinking about the few films I’ve seen this year which I think he’ll like. In my pocket is a photo of us raising our beer glasses from that evening at Keith’s.
The newspaper headlines hanging on rusted plastic racks outside the Makolets tell of yet another suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. Going out in public increasingly feels like an act of defiance, or perhaps Russian roulette.
After coming through the café doorway behind me, Calev hugs me. He wears a sleeveless coat over fleece. His face is fuller, the hair thicker, jawbone pronounced, heavier stubble.
I order our coffees and watch him while he settles at a table in the corner. Calev looks around, pressing the rim of his glasses, not anxiously, but as if his mind is preoccupied. He pulls out his phone to check a message.
“Chavruta!” I raise my voice as I hand him his drink. He seems a little taken aback. “Hey, I want to apologise.”
“What for?”
“Two summers ago when I was going to join you here to learn over the holidays but this great job opportunity came up at an auction house.”
“No worries, this happens.”
“Oh, mazel tov.” I put my hand on his shoulder.
“Thanks. Can you come to our wedding?”
“Yeah, why not. You having a big simcha?”
“Sharry’s family wants every relative to be there. She’s the first grandchild to get married, so it’s a big deal. It’s great, but there’s so much to do; the invites, venues and then there’s my law school applications, Sharry starting her Masters. All change at the same time. Also, her dad’s been ill the last few years and they’re worried he might not make it to the wedding, so she’s been a little emotional and wants everything to be perfect.”
“I didn’t realise you were gonna go to law school. I thought you said you wanted to do music journalism?”
He smiled. “We all say those things when we’re younger but now I need to think seriously about my life – I’m getting married, please god have a family. Anyway, we’re psyched about where we want to live. A couple of the guys from yeshiva will be in the same apartment block in Riverdale and I’ve become friends with them.”
“Like who?”
“Yoni Kleinfeld.”
“Really? The obnoxious one?
“That was a bit of a front. Once you get to know him he’s good fun. Sharry’s been really lucky. About three of her closest girlfriends from yeshiva are getting married at the same time and will live nearby.”
He leans back, takes a sip of his drink and turns to me.
“Things good with you?” He said, almost absent mindedly.
“Yeah.” I rub my knee. “My master’s is really interesting. Who knows what I’ll do after. I’d like to work and possibly travel.”
I take out from my bag the photo of us at Keith’s that night. We looked delirious.
“Remember this?” I hand it to him.
He squints his eyes, smiles then looks up and is distracted by people coming into the café. There’s a young woman, her brown hair part tied in a bun, the rest hanging down. She is thin, almost wafer-like, wearing a brown coat. With her is a middle-aged man and a much older woman. The girl waves almost manically at Calev. He raises his hand as they come towards us.
“Calev,” she says, “Mazal Tov, such wonderful news.” Her voice is high pitched, almost shrill.
“Thank you, Rachel. Good to see you.”
“Aba, this is Calev, he’s engaged to Sharry.”
The older woman looks animated. She puts her hand on Calev’s shoulder. “Your fiancée is the most wonderful girl. When I was ill in hospital she came to visit. She bought me food, newspapers, everything. You’re a very lucky guy.”
“Who’s he marrying?” the man asks the girl quietly.
“Sharry Zeideman… you know, from Teaneck.”
“Oh nice, good yichus.”
Calev is beaming. “Thank you.”
“Do you guys know where you’re going to live?” the girl asks.
“Riverdale.”
“Near where we are. We’ll have to have you for Shabbat.”
“Did you get married recently?” Calev asks Rachel.
“Yes about two months ago.”
“Do you mind me asking – can you recommend a photographer for our wedding?”
“I’ve gotta be honest, ours wasn’t so great. His photos of the chuppa were terrible and he was expensive. But we got a few other quotes from photographers we should have probably gone with. I’ll tell you what, I’ll find their details and message Sharry.”
The three of them go to order some coffee. Calev scratches his chin and looks at me, and for the first time I’m not sure what to say, or rather, I have much to but feel ashamed. My life seems more trivial. I want to travel and study; he is getting married, starting his career. Better to say nothing than risk his indifference.
He stares at the photo of the two of us at Keith’s, picks it up and holds it between his hands. “I kinda feel guilty about what we got up to that night.”
“Oh come on, we were young. We were having fun.”
“It feels a bit cringeworthy, if these were my kids, I wouldn’t be happy.”
“Kids do silly things that’s what growing up is all about.”
“Maybe, hang on… “His phone rings. He says it’s Sharry and walks off to speak to her. When he comes back I have to go, as I’d arranged to meet a friend. I hug him and we both promise to try harder to be in touch.
Later that evening he sends me a text.
Hey it was great seeing you. Can you send me your mailing address?”
Sure
I hope you can make the wedding. I’d love to put you on a table with Sharry’s single friends. I have someone in mind for you
I don’t respond. A few days later he messages me with a question mark.
It’s 20 Aberdale Road, London EH9 4TQ. I’ll try and make it. It might clash with a cousin who’s getting married.
____________
Ethan Greenwood is a government social researcher by profession. He has a certificate in Creative Writing from Birkbeck University and his writing has received special mentions in previous competitions. This story is part of an intended collection on the theme of friendships, relationships and how past memories reshape the present.