Rain in July

It would never be how it used to be, me and Daniel, just the two of us. I don’t know if Daniel even registered my presence at the funeral. Though the damp earth had barely settled on Abigail’s body, Aunt Eva, fresh in Israel from America, was already taking her place. Or, more accurately, my place, because Abigail had only ever been in and out of Daniel’s life. Whereas Aunt Eva, who came out of nowhere, was suddenly everywhere. The new surrogate mother of my golden boy.

Well, okay, Eva could be the kid’s mother now that Abigail was gone. As his legal guardian, she had to be. And I never wanted to be anyone’s mother anyway. Perhaps I resist all forms of intense attachment. The relationship which brought me to Israel ten years ago ended when it came to the question of whether or not to have our own children. In the end they left. I stayed.

I love children. My work has always involved children and I’ve always had children in my life, one way or another. But I’m a protector. And I’m a teacher. I’m not some archetypal maternal figure aching to bestow devotion and nourishment, forever. That had never been what I’d wanted from Daniel, or any of the kids. I’d always thought of Daniel as an equal. Frankly, I find it kind of repulsive, that need to have people be dependent on you, to be nothing but a huge breastful of nourishment. There’s something controlling about it. I don’t think I’ll ever have my own children. I’m happy looking after other people’s.

After Abigail’s funeral I didn’t see Daniel for a while until I randomly bumped into him and Eva at an ice-cream parlour a few months later, and I already had a new child to foster. They always give me the English speakers. Daniel told me about the commune up north in the Golan where he and Eva were going to go and live, where they would be self-sufficient and grow their own vegetables. Some friend of Eva’s from back in the States was living there. It was called Bney Haadama, ‘Children of the Earth’. I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes when Daniel told me. There were a number of these sorts of places dotted all over the country; I’d even visited one once. Often they were farms run by young idealistic hippie kids with dreams of sustainability, biodynamic agriculture and communal living. I could hear Eva’s words in Daniel’s mouth: as if he knew what ‘self-sufficient’ meant. But he seemed ecstatic at the thought. For a moment he was his old affectionate self again, hugging me and dancing me around delightedly.

In the middle of June, Daniel and Eva went north and not long afterward Daniel sent me a letter. Dear Ellen, it read.

I just ate my dinner. Me and Eva made it. It was vegetable curry because everyone here is vegetarian. I’m vegetarian now too. We have lots of vegetables here. Especially I like the eggplants. They are shiny and purple. I give them the water. We don’t have a real oven but we have a wood oven. I like the smell of the fire. I told them about how we used to cook together and now I cook dinner almost every day. They help me with the wood oven. They started to call me the little chef. Most of the people here speak English like Eva and me. We don’t have a washing machine or a dryer or a microwave or a fridge which is quite hard sometimes because you have to do everything with your hands. But I like it. Come and visit!

I love you!

Daniel

I was so proud of him when I read that letter, both because of how much his writing in English had improved, and also because of the content. I was glad he hadn’t lost his love of cooking and relieved that he was adapting so well to his new home. He said he still loved me. Maybe I should go and visit? In the past I hadn’t usually kept in contact with the kids I’d fostered, but then I hadn’t ever looked after any other kid for so long. On the other hand, it had been more than half a year since I’d been a part of his life. Would he really be glad to see me, or did he somehow secretly resent me for not being there for him when Abigail died, when he needed me most, or maybe, when I got there, he would act like he couldn’t care less about me anymore? Kids have short memories. Eight months is a long time for a kid.

It was a bright hot morning when I left the day camp, after dropping off the little girl I was caring for. I went north. Eva’s directions were sketchy and I took several wrong turns on the way. As I hesitated at a quiet crossroads somewhere in the Galilee, a guy parked in a pickup truck on the verge got out of his vehicle and came over to give me directions. Small kindnesses like this always surprise me. By the time I arrived at what I understood to be the location of Bney Haadama it was almost lunchtime. The air smelt of dust and dried grass.

I drove slowly down a dirt road bordered on the left by a dark eucalyptus forest and on the right by a bright field. At the sound of my car’s engine, a flock of worm-searching birds rose from the field and flew away. I passed a derelict barn, holey-roofed and crumbling-plastered, grey moss creeping up the walls. Everything had the strange fresh look of a foreign country. I hadn’t been north in a while.

I didn’t know where I was going and my phone lay useless in the passenger seat. No phones at Bney Haadama. Arriving at a set of gateless gate posts, I took a chance and parked my car just beyond them. It had to be some kind of entrance. Dusty weeds and thistles spooled around the bottoms of the wooden poles. I started walking along the path where fields opened out to my right and left. All was quiet except for birdsong. The blue sky stretched overhead and down to the horizon on each side. Further on, a small hill rose to meet the sky.

On reaching the bottom of the hill I entered a scrubby wood of old eucalyptus and pine. Pinecones crunched under my feet. The light breeze sighed in the treetops and the sun cast brown shadows on the dry ground. I hiked on up the hill and passed through the wood into clear light. Behind me the wind groaned through the pine needles.

The hill was taller than it had seemed from a distance and was matted with couch grass. I started to get a view over the countryside. In the valley, the red and blue buildings of an industrial area shouldered in from nowhere, disfiguring the landscape, but on the hill I was wrapped in a throbbing silence, weirdly empty of human life. For a moment I stood frozen, unsure, wondering if I could turn back. Then, ahead, I noticed a figure toiling up the hill as well. The figure veered off the path and pushed its way through a hedge. I started to follow.

Between the stalks and desiccated leaves of the brambles, spiderwebs hung like veils. I elbowed my way through and almost bumped into an old man who was standing on the other side.

“What a clever girl, to come here,” he said.

“Clever? Why do you say that?” I replied.

“What can I tell you?” he said. “I’m almost never wrong.”

He leered at me, then started to walk on up the hill. A field mouse dashed across our path and disappeared under the brambles. The man made me feel uneasy but he seemed to be going in the direction I needed, so I followed him.

“You’ll like this place,” he continued, talking over his shoulder. “There’s everything here. Everything you need.”

“Are you staying in the commune?” I asked. “Bney Haadama?”

He didn’t look like the hardworking type. His bulky body was encased in a greyish button-down shirt and dusty trousers. I noticed that his fingernails were black, but somehow I doubted it was from gardening. He wore a string of brown beads around his neck.

“Just for a little time,” the man replied. “Probably you know about their agricultural project.”

The words ‘agricultural project’ rolled theatrically off his tongue.

“I know they grow their own vegetables.”

“Not just that. They’re using techniques from before two thousand years.” He smirked, “And the parties they have at night!”

“Really. Is it far?”

“Not far, we’ve almost arrived. Look! We’re at the beginning of the bustan.”

From somewhere, an unidentifiable bird whistled and I looked up to see fruit trees adorning a hillside that was dotted with grey rocks. Down behind me the eucalyptus woods murmured. A swift cloud passed over the sun shadowing the landscape. Then the cloud was gone. The sky was still again. I heard the bleat of an animal. A goat wearing a bell around its neck was grazing nearby on a patch of grass which grew lusher as it spread up the hill. A dog bark sounded from up ahead. The sun flashed bright off the green. A woman, accompanied by the dog, was coming down the hill to meet us.

“Shalom!” she called as she got close.

“Hi, I’m Ellen,” I said.

“Hi, Ellen. Welcome, we were expecting you! I’m Nomi.” Her hair was red and wavy. She pushed it back from her forehead with one hand. “We saw you coming up the hill so I decided to come down and meet you.”

“Thanks,” I said. I reached down and stroked the dog’s warm head.

“Look at the clouds in the west,” Nomi said. “I think rain is coming. What do you think?” She addressed the old man, who grinned silently. “Rain in July, ah? It’s not normal! It’s, uh… global warming, right? But for now it’s good. The vegetables need it. And it means less work for us.”

She smiled and talked to the goat in Hebrew, slipping a leash over its head. Above the silver sea the sky had changed; clouds amassed like grey cranes. The valley below looked misty and blurred.

“Come, let’s eat lunch.” Nomi smiled at me again and started up the hill. Like me, she walked fast. I looked at the old man.

“Don’t wait for me,” he said. “I’ll meet you up there.”

I nodded and followed Nomi up the hill.

“How long has he been staying here?” I asked her.

“He came about a week ago. He’s a cool old guy. Very wise. Kind of a… what’s it called? A prophet. Do you know him?”

“No, it’s funny. I’ve never met him before. But he acted kind of like he knew me.”

Nomi laughed. “He knows lots of stuff.”

She looked at me curiously for a second and then turned back to the goat, which had stopped to graze. “Boi!” she said, giving the rope a tug. We continued up the hill, the dog following behind us. Down in the valley, on the Syrian border to the east, a fine mist rose from the fish ponds of the kibbutzim, weaving between the trees of the banana farms.

“Daniel is a special boy,” said Nomi.

“Very special,” I said.

“You’re close to him, right?”

“We were close. I used to foster him. Why, has he said something about me?”

“Yeah, he’s talking about you a lot.”

“What does he say?”

“He’s talking about things you did together… How you took care of him, how you taught him to cook, your hiking trips. You used to take him to the Sataf, right? I used to work there.”

There was a pause. The mist filling the valley was getting thicker and starting to make its way up the mountain. The eucalyptus forest was barely visible. Silence spread over the countryside.

“It’s not hard? To separate from a kid that you looked after?” said Nomi.

A kestrel wheeled slowly out over the valley.

“Here,” Nomi said.

We had come up through the terraces to a great flat area. A large yurt was surrounded by three smaller ones. Against the wall of the hillside stood a smoking clay oven. The dog ran over and lay at the feet of a young man who sat near the oven reading a book. There was no sign of Daniel.

“Gavin,” Nomi said “This is Ellen. Remember, I told you? She’s a friend of Eva and Daniel.”

“How’s it going?” Gavin asked. He had brilliant green eyes and a South African accent.

“The bread’s ready?” asked Nomi.

“Almost.”

“Where’s Suzannah?”

Gavin nodded towards one of the tents.

“Daniel and Eva went with Yoav to pick cherries. They’ll come in a second and then we can have lunch,” said Nomi to me.

She went to the yurt Gavin had indicated and called into the dark interior. A girl wearing a wine-red dress came out.

“You can help me prepare lunch,” Nomi said to her.

The girl nodded. “Hi, I’m Suzannah,” she said. She had an American accent.

“Suze, will you get salad while I show Ellen the dairy?” Nomi asked.

She led me a little way out of the encampment. White rocks were scattered over the terrace like china ornaments. She stopped at a place where, a couple of metres up, a small cave tunnelled into the side of the hill.

“Come up,” she said.

Someone had cut steps into the hillside and lined them with flat rocks. I followed Nomi up and into the cave. It was cold. The floor was smooth packed dirt and the walls were decorated with a pattern of yellow lichen. In the middle there was almost enough room to stand up.

“Here we keep the cheese and milk and yoghurt,” said Nomi. “It’s staying cold here for a few days.”

“Lucky you guys to have this.”

“Better than lucky. Help me to bring cheese and yoghurt.”

She reached into a crate and gave me two cheeses tied in cloth. They were round and felt cold and damp. She picked up a big bell-shaped jar and we went back to the camp. I saw Daniel and Eva and a tall lanky man with dark brown curls, who must have been Yoav, coming up the slope. Daniel was in front; his golden brown head and shoulders came into view as he emerged from the curve of the hillside. I hugged him and Eva and helped them lay a picnic table with plates and glasses. The silhouette of a water tower loomed from the top of the hill. Below us the trees of the bustan disappeared into mist but at the top of our mountain the sun still shone. We were alone in the emptiness. The goat bleated from its enclosure. The dog thumped its tail on the ground. Suzannah placed a basket on the table filled with rocket, spring onions and endive. Daniel set down a plate of shiny red cherries. The blackbird broke into song. A small bowl of marigolds stood in the centre of the table. Down the cave path, tall thistles creaked in a gust of wind.

“How long have you all been living here?” I asked, sitting down next to Daniel.

“Suzannah and Nomi were here first,” said Gavin. “It’s Nomi’s land. When did you come here?”

“Before six years. Yoav arrived quite soon after that, then Gavin before two years and Eva and Daniel this year,” said Nomi. “Yoav helped us a lot with the agriculture, to organise the vegetable patch and the bustan. I learnt a few tricks at the Sataf too.”

A eucalyptus tree shimmered in the turbulent light.

“We’re like one big happy family,” said Suzannah seriously.

A wood pigeon settled heavily in the tree, cooing furrily.

Eva said, “I wanted to tell you, Ellen. I’m pregnant.”

“Wow! Already?” I said. “Just kidding. Congratulations! Who…?”

“Me,” Yoav said. “So you can congratulate me too.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thankyou. Look,” pointing. “Lizard,” Yoav intoned.

The creature scuttled under a white rock.

“You’re all going to be his family,” said Eva, hugging her belly.

“The lizard’s?” said Gavin.

“Can I leave the table?” asked Daniel.

“If you’re finished,” said Eva.

Daniel got up and went and sat down on a rock nearby.

I smiled at the others and went and sat down next to him. Together, we watched a scarab roll a ball of dung along the ground. A bird whistled. The fog closed in from below. The eucalyptus rustled its silver leaves.

“I’ll show you the shed,” said Daniel.

He stood up and led me round to the right, in the opposite direction from the cave. We came to the shed. It was large and wooden, green stained. On the terrace below, green shoots of onions trailed papery golden leaves. Among them fluttered the feathery tops of carrots. Starry chamomile flowers ran between the vegetables.

“This is where I usually work,” said Daniel.

“Using the ancient ways, right?”

He nodded.

Inside the shed it was dark and smelled of damp, soil, dust from a pile of sacking, pine from its walls. A plough, old but clean and gleaming, stood in a corner. Daniel gave me a handful of pistachios. I looked around me and at Daniel, breathed in the sharp smell of sacking and soil. How unexpected Daniel’s life had turned out to be. It was like a reincarnation, so different from his life with Abigail. Or his life with me in my little flat in Herzliya, sweet smelling from the brownies we used to bake.

We sat on upturned buckets, eating pistachios and throwing the shells into another bucket of compost. The nuts were salty and creamy. The ridges on the bucket made my buttocks numb. In another corner stood a rake with dry clods of earth stuck to its teeth. Next to it were some old tires.

“We don’t need money here,” said Daniel, tossing the last of the pistachio shells into the bucket and handing me a sticky handful of cherries.

“Do you have everything you need?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Are they looking after you properly?”

“Yes.”

“What about school?”

“Eva teaches me most things and Suzannah teaches me English and Yoav teaches me about gardening.”

“So, you don’t need me to bring you anything or anything?”

“No, I’m fine.”

I looked at Daniel’s hands. They were stained red with cherry juice.

“I like the shed,” I said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Shall we go back to the others?”

“Okay.”

The others were still sitting around the picnic table. Yoav had his arm around Eva’s bare brown shoulder. He was smoking a joint.

“Don’t blow that in my face! It’s bad for the baby,” laughed Eva.

Gavin was whittling something from a piece of wood. Suzannah had her bare feet in Nomi’s lap. Nomi was massaging them lazily, leaning her head on the back of her chair and looking at the sky. The light shone through her blue eyes. She looked up as we arrived.

“Do you want me to do your feet, Ellen?” she asked. “I’m a reflexologist.”

“Sure,” I said.

Suzannah swung her feet off Nomi’s lap and went to tend to a gas camping stove. Nomi took my feet in her hands. Someone gave me a glass of cool yellow pear juice. Eva and Yoav were singing softly together, harmonising some old Hebrew song. The glass I was drinking from was curved like a chalice. There were pairs here: Eva and Yoav, Nomi and Suzannah. Gavin seemed alone but perhaps he preferred it that way. And who did Daniel belong to now?

I idly admired the wood of the old table, traced with my eyes the dark and light patterns of the grain. Nomi’s hands stroked my arches and my calves tensed a little. Daniel and Suzannah were making tea. I watched Daniel carefully picking peppermint leaves from a plant in a pot near the stove. His hands worked gracefully and I imagined each leaf honoured to be chosen. I noticed goose bumps on my arm.

Gavin was sitting next to me, sanding down the spoon he had whittled. I closed my eyes and listened to the gentle scratching and rubbing. When I opened them I saw a pale blue butterfly resting on a piece of white cheese. It flew away as Daniel placed a mug of boiling hot peppermint tea on the table in front of me and I met his smiling eyes, warm, brown, like mine, like a mirror. Suzannah picked up a guitar and began picking the strings. I took a sip of tea, leaned back and closed my eyes again, listening to the fluid sound. The afternoon sun shone through my closed eyelids and I felt my breathing slow. Nomi’s thumb circled my ankles. After a minute I opened my eyes again and saw that Nomi was looking into my face as her green-oil stained hands began to stroke their way, alternately, down my right foot. I held her gaze for too long and my cheeks grew hot. I looked away down the hill slightly to where Eva and Yoav were sitting on two tree stumps talking together quietly. A third tree stump stood next to them, empty. For a second there was a child sitting there on the stump, curly black haired, naked but for red shorts. Then the stump was empty again. I blinked and turned my attention to Gavin spooning sugar into his tea using his new spoon. I swallowed. The marigolds on the table shone in a halo of faded sunlight. The pigeon took off from the tree, its strong wings flapping through the rustling branches, waking me from a dream.

I suddenly thought of the old man. Where was he? And how did he fit into this bohemian caravan of young shining beautiful people? Did he exchange prophecy for beauty, for the riches of marigolds, for the generous and easygoing love offered here?

The weird wind picked up, blowing from west to east, bringing cooler air. The eucalyptus tree gleamed bright against the bank of black brimming clouds that loomed above. I watched Daniel join Gavin under the flap of another tent where they began to set up a chess board. Eva and Yoav slipped quietly into one of the yurts. Suzannah put down her guitar and stood behind Nomi, massaging her shoulders. Nomi let go of my feet and smiled at me. The wind sighed in the treetops. Clouds crossed the sun, blocking it, shadowing the mountain refuge. The clay oven smoked, burning eucalyptus. I hugged my mug of tea, tasting the fragrant steam that rose from it. Nomi handed me the bottle of oil she’d been using on my feet. It smelled of trees. The sea wind blew against me like a caress.

“Let’s go into the tent,” said Suzannah. “Are you coming, Ellen?”

I thought. Nomi waited. A second passed.

“No,” I said. “I think I’ll go now.” I rose from the bench. “Say goodbye to Eva for me. Come on, Daniel, walk me to the hedge.”

Daniel left his game and came with me. As we walked down the hill I heard the sound of the guitar again and Suzannah’s voice, melodious.

“You’re happy here, aren’t you?” I said to Daniel.

“Yes.”

Grey cranes sailed across the sky.

Daniel was nine years old. He was nobody’s son. He wasn’t Abigail’s son because she was gone. He certainly wasn’t my son. And Eva was getting ready to be somebody else’s mother. We arrived at the bramble hedge.

“You can go by yourself now,” said Daniel slowly. We hugged.

I watched his young back as he mounted the hill, back up to his little Eden, his legs slimmer and brown in blue shorts. He moved sensually, like a prince, looking small in the landscape. He had been here with me just a moment ago but he was no longer mine. I could mourn him but I had no right to mother him. I pictured him arriving back at his sanctuary. I imagined him there sitting back down to a game of chess with black-haired Gavin; maybe creeping into the tent with Nomi of the healing hands and pretty Suzannah. Maybe going off by himself to pick cherries, a bunch of marigolds in his hand, feet suntanned and dirty in sandals.

I stood before the hedge. I had been there for Daniel, every day, for a year of his life, and so he had been in my life, every day. And now I wondered. Had I made any difference to him? Because he had made a difference to me.

I left him and pushed my way back through the dry brambles that scratched at my arms. The wind blew harder and strangely chilly against me and I shivered and felt my nipples grow stiff under my thin t-shirt. On the other side of the hedge I stood still looking down the slope, resisting the urge to look back to where I had come from. As I stood there it started to drizzle, spattering my t-shirt with dark damp spots. Rain in July. What kind of strange magic were they working in this place?

I imagined the inhabitants of Bney Haadama cosy inside their tents, and folded my arms across my chest, but still I stood there. I thought I could smell the smoke from their oven. My arms looked thin and goose-bumped. The drizzle had become a proper shower now and my hair hung lankly on either side of my face. I looked between my dripping locks to either side but all was grey and blurry. Where the hell was I? I felt too small, too closed, unbalanced. I would never wear a long red dress. I pulled the sides of my hair back into a ponytail and felt the rain trickle down my face. Growing vegetables and whittling spoons would never be my thing. I uncrossed my arms.

I started to make my way down the hill, careful of the slippery couch grass. Every hair on my skin was sensitive to the unseasonal weather. The arrowhead leaves of bindweed caught at my ankles. I shook them off violently. A figure rose before me. It was the old man. He had a plastic supermarket bag full of greenery.

“I picked some plants,” he said. “Good medicine, these. Can I walk with you?”

He fell into step beside me. We had arrived at the eucalyptus forest. A sour smell wafted from the old man’s clothes.

“Did you like the goat? Ah, the cheeses they make there!”

He smacked his lips thoughtfully. I noticed that his trousers were held up with a piece of string. His grey hair hung to his shoulders under his wide-brimmed straw hat which dripped rain. He reached into his bag and handed me a brilliant orange marigold.

“Take it,” he said. “A piece of gold for you. You might need it.”

A chill ran through me. “Have we met before?” I asked. “Do I know you?”

“Oh, I know many things.” Despite his half-mocking tone, his voice sounded small, swallowed up by the damp air.

I hesitated. The old man met my eyes and licked his lips. I noticed the grey curls of hair peeking out of the top of his dirty shirt. My feet were cold and wet in my sandals. My legs shivered in their shorts. Somewhere, a jackal howled. The sun was gone. The world swam before my eyes.

“I have to go,” I said.

I ran down the hill. I fell once, slipping on the couch grass. I got up and kept running. I didn’t stop when I got to the bottom. I ran all the way back to the car. I sat in it as the rain streamed down the windows that grew blurred with the steam of my breath.

*

A little over a year had passed when I received an unexpected phone call from Eva. Despite our promises of keeping in touch, neither of us had been reliable correspondents. But her reason for calling was dismaying.

A few days previously Daniel had gone missing from the commune. The police were involved and there was a search but the boy seemed to have vanished into the air. Eva wanted to know: had Daniel contacted me? Had he written anything to me recently that might give some clue as to where he was?

But there had been no letters from Daniel. I had convinced myself that Daniel had been safe and well at Bney Haadama. Seeing him on that visit had discomposed me, but I’d explained it away as the sadness of my own redundancy, embarrassment that he’d meant more to me than I had to him. I’d scolded myself afterwards for being so sentimental. I was only a foster parent to him. One of many adults who would move in and out of his life. Yet, at the same time, hearing of the boy’s disappearance, I felt a perverse fatalism, a sense of deja vu. There had been something almost too perfect about that place.

Explaining over the telephone, Eva’s voice was calm and controlled. With the arrival of the new baby, Daniel had moved, not entirely willingly, or so I intuited, into Gavin’s yurt. Perhaps Daniel and Gavin had got along okay. They probably played games of chess together. Maybe Gavin taught the boy how to whittle spoons out of wood. But Gavin was no kind of parent. I remembered his aura of detachment and independence, and imagined the contrast for Daniel. Moving away from Aunt Eva, Daniel might have felt like he’d lost his mother all over again. And then Gavin’s recently divorced sister and little niece showed up and stayed for a while. Another family that Daniel did not belong to. Turns out, one could feel just as alone in a commune as anywhere else.

Eva told me that they’d been concerned about Daniel in the months before he disappeared. He’d seemed withdrawn, as if lost in his own little world. Eva thought perhaps he’d gone looking for me.

“So we have to be patient,” said Eva. “We’ll find him when he’s ready to be found.”

Part of me felt angry at Eva’s philosophical attitude. I thought she was kidding herself. Perhaps she knew it too. Underneath that even tone, that repeated mantra, she may well have been distraught. She might even have blamed herself. Maybe she was right to. She was meant to have been the one looking after him.

Over the next few weeks we waited for news. I thought about dropping everything and joining in the search but then I didn’t. Something stopped me. In the end I suppose I also felt like it was out of my hands.