What Makes Us Read online

  Devorah

  Eran

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  Devorah

  Jade

  V

  VI

  Devorah

  Eran

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  Devorah

  Eran

  X

  XI

  XII

  Devorah

  Jade

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  Devorah

  Eran

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  Devorah

  Acknowledgments

  There are no more words. She has said all the ones she wrote down.

  She touches the space where more would be, as if searching for them, as if willing them to appear. The paper crinkles under fingers chapped from days of dry air. She smooths it against the fake wood of the podium, flat, light, cheap. She does not know why she lingers, when she wanted this to be over before it began.

  She looks up for the first time, at the people standing before her. In those eyes she reads so much: anger, pity, grief, anticipation, disdain. Suspicion.

  Her heart aches. There are so many who will still believe what they believe, she knows. In the new silence, now that she’s able to measure the completeness of her words together, they feel inadequate, useless, impotent. In desperation, she searches for others, something, anything to communicate what she feels unable to get across, and says the next five that come to her mind.

  “This is not our fight.”

  My dad only exists in a memory.

  I’m so young, barely old enough to stand by myself. Can I walk yet? I’d probably make it a couple steps, stumble, fall back on my ass like Declan’s little cousin in the video from New Year’s. Maybe the shock would make me laugh like she did; probably I would’ve cried.

  There’s light everywhere in this memory: pouring through the windows, from the bulbs overhead, from his smile. He’s so much taller than me. I have to crane my head way back to look at him. My neck aches from the strain, but it doesn’t bother me enough to stop. I don’t know what room I’m in — kitchen? living room? — but it’s not the house I live in now or the apartment from when I was little. This is someplace different, a home I only ever see in this memory.

  He swoops down and picks me up, lifts me high, and now I’m taller than him. Over his head I can see my mom, and I feel the grin bursting on my face. He spins me around in one great circle, and I laugh and close my eyes, watching the light change through the inside of my eyelids. He kisses me hard on one cheek, on the other, sets me down. He says goodbye as the warmth of those kisses spreads to the rest of my face.

  I told my mom about this once, when I was younger. Maybe six or seven. We were eating dinner, and she was reading some old magazine. She didn’t look up, just kept picking at her salad. I watched her eyes scanning back and forth across the lines of gray text, and just when I decided she hadn’t heard me, she said, “This did not happen.”

  You ever think about how lonely your oldest memory is? The only one from its time, nothing else to back it up. Those faint images that have been with you the longest at the mercy of your own self-doubt and mistrust.

  This memory is hazy now, corrupted by the time that’s gone by. I can’t tell anymore if it’s something that actually happened or what I imagined that something to be.

  Or even less, the memory of a dream.

  My mom’s hair is all curls. They wiggle when she shakes her head, even a bit. It’s a big, bushy mass, jet black, a bird’s nest. I’d have to get close to see the roots, the tiniest bit of brown, probably not even a quarter inch. Eema will dye it again tonight. She won’t let more than a couple weeks go by.

  “Why do you do that?” I asked her once. I’d watched her as she unwrapped her towel turban, quick but careful, practiced but vigilant, a ritual I’d seen millions of times but never thought about.

  When I finally did, it occurred to me how weird it was. Eema’s not one to care about appearances more than is absolutely necessary. She’s not sloppy, not untidy; she just has no interest in cosmetics. If it’s not practical, it’s not worth doing. I’ve never seen her wear lipstick.

  She paused in the middle of toweling off her hair, as if she had never considered the question. “I prefer black,” she said. That was that.

  I watch her now as she reads the Chronicle, curls shaking in tiny eruptions. The actual print version, so quaint. I look for the steam above her coffee and don’t see it. She almost never finishes her coffee, lets it cool half-full, but still complains about how expensive chicory is.

  “Bye, Eema,” I say.

  “Study hard,” she responds, not looking up. I mouth it with her, something I do every time. She never sees.

  Declan climbs in, clicks his seat belt in place carefully. I stare at him as he does, at the mismatched three-piece suit he’s wearing under a giant overcoat.

  He settles in, smoothing down his coat, then notices the stillness. He looks over, sighs.

  “Okay. I know. But I wanted to wear my new pants for the first Friday of the school year,” he says, pushing his giant overcoat aside so I can see them. “But then my only belt broke, so I needed this vest to cover the waistband, and then I needed a tie if I was wearing a vest, right? But then the back of the vest is kind of messed up, so I thought my jacket could cover it.” Declan twists around, displaying for me all the things wrong with the pieces of his outfit. “And then my jacket sleeves are frayed, since it’s really Don’s old jacket he had in ninth grade, I think? So I needed the overcoat to cover that.”

  I wait for him to stop.

  “It’s ninety-five degrees,” I say.

  “We’ll be inside.”

  I stare.

  And when I have stared long enough, I shift into reverse.

  I drive Eema’s old Ford Fiesta from the nineties. It has an ancient, musty smell and no air-conditioning, but I’m seventeen and without a better choice. Declan still asks for a ride, even though he has other friends with newer, less shitty cars. I don’t mind. Why would I?

  “Deck Lehn?” Eema asked when she first met him, trying out the sound of his Irish name on her Israeli tongue.

  “Yes, Miss Sharon,” Declan said, and I winced.

  Eema frowned and shook her hair. “No, no. Shah-ROHN,” she corrected, as if expecting flawless Hebrew from this kid. “I am not rich Connecticut housewife.”

  This was in eighth grade.

  Declan’s looking at his schedule card now, scanning the misaligned print he memorized a month before school even started. We have three classes and lunch together this year, not bad.

  We’ve turned a corner past sunrise, and it’s golden out for the last stretch of road before school, that fire directly ahead, low against the ground, light pouring into the car. In a few minutes it’ll be blinding, but now it’s a warm, thick light, honey colored, sweet. No one ever talks about sunrise, no one my age, but I don’t know why.

  “Donovan says no one’s gonna come tomorrow,” Declan says out of nowhere, in a tone I know means he’s been thinking about it for a while, has been deciding whether to bring it up. He rubs his schedule card absently between his thumb and forefinger. The ink’s smudging.

  For a moment, I imagine Avery Park bathed in the light I see now, brilliant and rich and intense as the sound of a thousand voices in our protest. My protest.

  “Who cares what Don says? Don is an idiot. Don is maybe the least insightful person on the planet.” I drum my fingers on the gearshift. “Are you having second thoughts?” I ask this because I already know the answe
r.

  “No!” he says, a little too quickly.

  “It’s okay if you are, Declan. Really! That’s normal.” I try to make my voice sound easy, light. “Plus I know this doesn’t sound like the biggest deal to most people, at least at first glance. I mean, we’re just talking about speeding tickets here. But it’s really about more than just that, and people get it. This is going to take off.”

  “Yeah,” Declan says. “Just, Don said there are more important things to worry about.”

  “There are.” I breathe out, fighting a wave of sudden irritation. “But this is ours, and it’s still important.”

  There’s more, much more, that I want to say, now that I’ve gotten myself worked up. But the conversation has taken us to the school grounds without either of us noticing. I drive past the main student parking lot, not even bothering. The overflow lot is unpaved, and we listen to the crunch of gravel under the tires and the pebbles ricocheting off the underside pipes. I think about the time in ninth grade when we set up a row of cans in the woods near Declan’s house and tried to hit them with his BB gun from farther and farther away.

  Then I ease into a space, kill the engine, and sigh into the sudden stillness, stifling now with no wind. The heat pulls a drop of sweat from my forehead before the breath is even out of me.

  “Well,” I say. “Here we fucking go.”

  When Declan isn’t looking, I practice. Drum my fingers on my backpack strap while we walk.

  I don’t know if it ever calms me down. But it’s gotta be worth a try.

  I study Mr. Riskin. He’s short, a little on the heavier side, bald with a light brown beard. He wears small glasses set over piercing eyes. Pale yellow button-down, sleeves rolled up, narrow tie, black pants. He looks like an accountant or computer engineer. He looks more serious than he is.

  Riskin’s still using the roll sheet, reading the names he hasn’t yet learned. Most people mispronounce my name the first time they see it written, making the first and last names rhyme like I’m a cartoon character. But Riskin guessed right the first day, the first teacher ever to do it.

  This year I have World Affairs and Social Issues first period. It’s a pretty cool class, actually, even if Riskin is a little off. Mr. Berkler, a wiry guy who looks like an intern but is my counselor, suggested it last May when I was picking courses.

  “You need an elective.” He looked up, eyebrows raised.

  “I dunno,” I said.

  Berkler looked back at the screen. “Anything in the arts? Choir?”

  I snorted.

  “How about Home Management?” he asked.

  “Is this what you thought you’d be doing with your life?”

  I got a laugh out of him for that, smiled to myself in triumph. He leaned back in his chair. “Well, what are you interested in? Any hobbies or clubs?”

  I hesitated a moment. “I mean . . . there’s Social Justice Club,” I said slowly.

  “Huh,” he said, and I bristled for a second at the surprise. “Which issues in particular are you concerned with?”

  “Homophobia, transphobia, racism, misogyny, reproductive rights,” I said. “Global warming, Big Oil, rich one-percenters, uh . . . police brutality, death penalty . . . gun control.”

  “Well, that’s quite a —”

  “And immigrant rights.”

  Berkler blinked.

  “Also Islamophobia.”

  Berkler waited three beats, clicked around on his ancient computer, turned the monitor around to face me. “This is a new one we’re offering next year for juniors and seniors. Could be your thing.”

  My eyes went straight to the short paragraph in the middle of the page:

  This course will explore current and historical events through the lens of social movements, cultural evolution, and political shifts. Students will learn how issues enter and exit the public consciousness, identify which social changes endure, and discuss the differing roles the media has played in the last sixty years. Semester course. Prerequisites: none.

  Above that: “World Affairs and Social Issues. Fall Only.”

  I glanced back up at Berkler. He was looking at me expectantly, waiting for the answer he already knew was coming.

  “I mean, of course,” I said.

  Riskin’s eyes dart around the room. I watch them dance, never resting, landing on one kid only long enough to bounce to the next. I wonder if this is what it’s like to look at me.

  “What do people mean when they talk about ‘acceptable’ forms of protest?” he asks us.

  He talks to us about violence and nonviolence, and I imagine them as a duality, as one man with two personalities. Like Jekyll and Hyde, like Bruce Banner and the Hulk.

  I raise my hand.

  “Eran?”

  “Why do we —” I stop. Click my tongue. Start over. “Why should people who are fighting for something let other people tell them how to fight for it?” It comes out in a rush, fast but controlled, just the way I like it.

  “In what way?”

  “Well, like . . .” I try to find the words. “Like if I’m holding a protest.” A girl who knows about tomorrow giggles a bit, but I ignore her, already deep in. “Okay, so I’m at a protest, right? And then people on the other side of the issue tell me, you know, my protest is too angry or whatever. Too, uh. Too ‘inciteful.’ Is that a word?” I look away, distracted suddenly. “Inciteful. Inciting? They say my protest incites violence. Why should I listen to them? They’re not against the way I’m protesting, really, they’re against the protest to begin with, so they want to undermine it, so they attack the way it’s being done instead of the actual message. I mean, even when students protest actual violence! The people against them always say they’re protesting the wrong way. What’s the right way, though? There’s not. It’s a distraction. They’re trying to win on a technicality or something, so that they don’t have to have a real debate about the actual issue to begin with. So.” I let out a quick breath. “Shouldn’t I just protest the way I think is right?”

  My knee is bouncing. I wonder when it started.

  “What if they are being genuine?” Riskin asks. “What if they truly want to avoid violence and really do believe your protest will cause it?”

  I think for a second, only a second. “Sure, but isn’t violence okay sometimes? I mean, aren’t we cool with it when it’s for a good reason? Like when peaceful protests don’t work?” Each sentence leads me to another, one thought playing off the next, the words coming more rapidly. “Isn’t that basically how the Revolution happened?”

  “There have been events upon which history looks favorably, yes,” Riskin says slowly. “But who makes that determination in the moment? Is, say, violence by Palestinians toward Israelis justified, if they feel they have no other option?”

  This has happened before, lots of times. Because I’m Israeli. But that doesn’t mean I think it’s cool to murder people who are just trying to survive under a tyrannical, oppressive, imperialist government run by a political party that, by the way, is basically just like the crazies we have here.

  “I think . . . it can be, yeah.” I lean forward in my seat a little, tapping my pen lightly against my notebook. I know right away what he’s trying to do. “I mean, if they’ve tried everything else, but they’re still being killed indiscriminately? What else are they supposed to do? How can they possibly be expected to sit around and try the same thing that hasn’t worked for decades, especially when doing the same thing forever is in Israel’s best interests but not their own? And anyway, there are way more deaths among Palestinians than Israelis, so why don’t we ever ask about whether that violence is justified? Doesn’t that show that it’s not really violence in general we care about, only violence toward certain people?”

  People are usually surprised to hear that I’d be critical of Israel. Then I ask them if they’re never critical of the U.S. government, since they’re American. That’s when they get it.

  It’s funny how everyone unde
rstands and assumes so much nuance with their own country but not with others.

  I watch Riskin closely, trying to gauge his reaction, see if he was expecting this. There are some whispers from other kids in the class, but, disappointingly, he seems unfazed.

  “Let’s take it further.” Riskin’s voice quickens, like he’s getting more into this conversation, and I lean forward a little, folding my arms on my desktop and resting my weight on them. Maybe his discussion style is invigorating; maybe it’s a little intimidating; maybe I don’t care either way. “What about people who bomb abortion clinics? To them, their motivations are morally sound, and their options as they see them are limited. Is that enough to say those actions are acceptable, or do you consider these people terrorists?”

  I blink a couple times.

  “Which brings us back to the original question: Who gets to decide which violence is legitimate and which isn’t? Where’s the line between justified violence and terrorism?”

  For a couple seconds, the only sound is the tap-tap-tap of my pen against my notebook, the nervous soundtrack to a light smile spreading on Riskin’s lips.

  The bell rings, as if out of pity.

  That smile widens abruptly, and I stiffen before realizing there’s no derision behind it.

  “Fascinating discussion, Mr. Sharon, and excellent questions. We’ll take it up again next week. Homework!” He gives a sharp wave at the surprised murmurs of the class. “I want you all to go to the Constant Vigilance protest Eran was unsubtly plugging just now. Tomorrow at noon, Avery Park. We’ll discuss it Monday.”

  My pen stops in mid-tap as the murmurs grow immediately louder. I can pick out the individual tones in them: resentment, incredulity, indignation.

  “Some of us have plans tomorrow, Mr. Riskin,” Marcos says, and those tones shift to agreement, maybe a dash of naive hope.

  “We’ll discuss it Monday,” Riskin says again. He looks tickled by all this. “I’ll know if you skip, so don’t try it.”

  Declan tries to speak urgently through a mouthful of tofu burger.

  “There’s one.” He gestures with his chin.

  I pass a glance over Jade first, then follow Declan’s chin and chance a look. The kid is two or three years younger, lanky and awkward in his oversize backpack. I scan his clothes and movements for the clue that tipped Declan off. My eyes pause at his swoop haircut, but I decide it doesn’t stand out enough.