Rochelle Mass

 

Rochelle Mass grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, and moved to Israel in 1973 with her husband and two young daughters. Today, Rochelle and her husband live in a small community on the GilboaMountains where they press and cure olives from their own trees.

Rochelle is the author of three collections of poetry, Aftertaste (Ride the Wind Press), Where’s My Home? (Premier Poets Series), and The Startled Land (Wind River Press). Her poetry and prose have appeared in numerous publications. In 2002, she was nominated by The Paumanok Review for the Pushcart Prize. In 1994, one of her radio plays was short-listed for production by the BBC.

The following works are copyright © 2008. All rights reserved. No distribution or reprinting in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  

Going to the Big City

Dozens of banners proclaimed the country and the Golan are one.   That’s when I first saw Shula.  She was at one end of a Golan banner.  She’s short and the banner pole was tall and awkward.  Each time she shouted:  the people won’t relinquish the Golan, her side of the banner trembled. 

It was January.  A scarf wrapped round her neck and shoulders.  Between shouts her free hand slipped into her jacket.  I like energetic women who have something to say.  I watched her for most of the evening. 

“Got your eye on someone?” Erez kept asking.  I didn’t answer.  He certainly wasn’t concentrating on human rights or the return of the Golan.  I openly support the Peace Process, but I’d even forgotten why I was there with my neck pulled into my jacket and my hands in my pockets.  Erez offered to buy coffee. 

“I’ll be over there,” I said, nodding in the direction of Shula’s end of the banner.

 “I’m not surprised,” said Erez and gave me a heavy slap on the shoulder. He went towards the Tumarkin pyramid. 

Erez and I have been buddies since we were born in a small kibbutz in the Upper Galilee.  We went from nursery right through high school graduation together.   Erez had the girls.  I accomplished things.  I planned activities and wrote articles in the kibbutz paper.  Eventually my plays were produced in the kibbutz, then in the region and now the Kibbutz Theater in Tel Aviv has one in the current season.  I was the thinker, Erez had the girls.  We always stayed friends.  He read my writing before I sent it out and I’d hear about the girl he had last night. 

Sometimes he’d find one for me, but she was usually quiet and heavy. Somehow he thought these were the types I wanted or needed.  I wasn’t afraid of personality.  I wasn’t afraid of beauty.  I was just hesitant to go and do it for myself.  Women in the kibbutz liked me: the older ones, the married ones, usually.  Yael was the heart of culture and she was interested in me, or at least my writing.  That’s what she said.  She had three children and a husband who drove a tractor.  From the day I returned from the army, there she was suggesting I attend seminars with her.  She was like my agent, giving my work to directors and producers.  Because of her my play got to the Kibbutz Theatre. Before we both knew it, the director began casting. 

Older women like me. I feel good with them, but I never really know what to do.  When Yael comes too close, her perfume creeps over me, I can hear her bracelets. 

“Doesn’t she excite you?  She’s so sultry!  Give it a chance!” was Erez’s advice. She is sultry, all right.  But each time she brushes my face, I see a profile of her husband.  He’s a big guy, wide shoulders that fix tractors and pull bales of hay.  I can’t get involved with Noam’s wife.  I can’t separate the two of them.  After Friday night’s movie, Yael pulls me into the projection room.  'Don’t tease me,' she murmurs.  I just can’t separate Noam and his tractor from Yael’s hands pulling at my pants.   

“Sleep with her, you jerk,” scolded Erez.  “You a homo?”

I want to sleep with her.  When she puts my hand in her blouse I can hardly wait to bend down and take the nipple in my mouth.  I indulge my beating body for barely a moment, and then I’m terrified.  I force her buttons closed and turn away.  I decided to leave the kibbutz, at least for a year.  Seemed a solution.  I left Yael a note saying I was going to Tel Aviv.  She called to say  - 'when you have a phone and an address, I want it'.  She wants me.  She’s persuasive.  I thought about her in Tel Aviv.  I thought about her breasts far away from her husband, far away from his tractor.  “I’ll call you soon,” I promised, thinking my plan had changed.  I had planned to go to Tel Aviv as a release from her, and now she’s part of it. 

            Erez has an apartment.  Actually, one room.  Two other guys share the other room.  He let me spread out on his floor till I got settled.  He lives on Bloch, works as a driver at the Kibbutz Offices around the corner on Dubnov.  “I meet more girls that way,” he said, explaining why he took the job.  “There’s an opening in the Cultural Department - I’ll put in a good word for you.”  He’d only been there a month and already he was able to pass on my name.  That was Erez.  Seemed to find a place or a girl wherever he went.  Always satisfied, always has plans.  Wants to do the same for me.  He’s a real friend. 

I got the job.  They were impressed with my play.  Some of the staff had been to the casting and said it showed great promise, that I’d brought current problems to the surface.  They said Yael had been asking for me.  Of course everyone knew her and they watched me as I put the note with her number in the bottom drawer of my new desk, hoping I could keep it there. 

I’d been sleeping on Erez’s floor for weeks when I saw Shula.  Although I’d had three years in army tents, and camping all through high school, my back wanted a real bed.  And there I was at the demonstration, hopping from foot to foot to ward off the chill that curled up my neck, then slid down my leg.  That’s when I noticed Shula.  I was amazed when she let out a curdling promise that the country won’t let go of its grip on the Golan.  She shouted about occupation, possession, subjugation and ended with a scream about enslavement.  Her end slipped.  I ran in her direction.  I grabbed the pole as it hit the ground.  My hand landed on hers and that’s when she noticed I was there. 

“Hi!” she answered. 

I didn’t expect her to be friendly.

“Now I can look for kleenex,” she said, laughing, and searched in one pocket after the other.  I liked her laugh.  Then she stretched her arm, making large circles in my direction.  I had to pull back.  “I’ve been holding it for hours.  Thanks for coming!”  She looked right up at me.  “Hard to be slogan-slinging and banner-waving at the same time.”  We both laughed.  Yael laughs a lot also, I thought, then reminded myself that I wasn’t bringing her to Tel Aviv. 

“My name’s Amir.”  “Mine’s Shula.”  There it was, easy enough.  Amir and Shula.  By the time the politicians stepped off the podium, and the crowd began to drift out of the square we’d decided to go for coffee.  “I’m new here,” I said.  

“When did you come?” she asked while she rolled up her end of the banner and passed it to a woman at the other end.  She turned back to me quickly. 

“Been here for about a month, three weeks, that is.”  I had such a compulsion for honesty.  That was another one of the problems between me and Yael. 

“I’m a real old-timer, then. About three years.” She looked proud of that.  I like proud women.  Before I knew it, Shula and I were sleeping together. 

It just seemed right to merge our salaries and share her apartment.  I liked the way she lived.  I’ll have to arrange her pottery stuff; that was the first thing I thought when I saw her kitchen.  She stacked her dishes haphazardly.  Usually pulled out the one in the middle.  Others were on the verge of chipping or falling. Hardly a week went by without an addition to the collection.  I’ll build her a shelf.  I’ll stack her dishes according to size and function.  That’ll be my contribution, I decided.  I put up the shelf and brought my stuff over. 

“You scored,” said Erez, “all on your own!  You made the team!”  He gloated over me like a trainer.  “You’ve just arrived in the big city and you’re already doing it!” 

“It’s not that.”  I walked away shaking my head.  

“Then what is it?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” not wanting to admit that I was more than just enjoying myself with Shula.  We were making a home together.  It was too much to admit over pita and coke.  I wasn’t sure Erez would even understand.  He was so busy scoring.  I wasn’t sure this would rank that way.  Would probably indicate I was naive, that I was living with the first woman I’d dated in Tel Aviv.  Wouldn’t be a good indication of ‘making it’.  Guys weren’t supposed to settle down so quickly.  If Erez was an example, they were supposed to roam, conquer and then continue roaming.  

“The girl I met last night…” he boasted, claiming another trophy. 

“Yah?”  I inquired. 

“Ravishing,” I heard him say. 

I thought about the fun I was having with Shula and yet ‘ravishing’ brought back images of Yael’s open blouse. 

Shula’s mother is with us this week.  Finally I get to meet the woman who really has been living with us. Shula’s overwhelmed by the woman.  She’s had the courage to leave the kibbutz, live on her own, has her own apartment, earn a living and manage to pay her bills but she’s still influenced by her mother.  Burdened is more exact. As though her mother has embezzled her daughter’s life, wasted it, then deserted her.

Shula was out protesting for the rights of the Golan when her personal rights were the ones she should have been representing.  Finally I met The woman, as Shula said.  The most sensual, most womanly, most feminine is what I’ve been hearing since I met Shula.  Actually on the first night after she rolled up her banner and we went for coffee, one of the first things she told me was that her mother had just married for the third time.  “And your father?” I asked.  Seemed too soon to talk in such detail when I really just wanted to look at her, but we were into it immediately.  “Died, during the Six Day War,” she said and before I had the chance to offer condolences she was back to her mother.  That woman had a real hold on her.  She talked of her mother’s men in a narrow, calm way.  I was amazed she wasn’t embarrassed.   She squeezed out one scene after another.  This could be a play, I thought to myself, but as I began to notice her lovely skin, watched how she pulled her hair back, I forgot about scenes and characters. 

She wore no jewelry and told me how decorated her mother was.  With no lipstick, she described her mother’s flamboyant use of makeup.  All this before we’d finished our first coffee.  We ordered cheese cake; we liked the same dessert  - another discovery. 

“What kibbutz are you from?” I asked trying to push her mother aside and give Shula a chance. 

“In the south.  I grew up with winds, sands and flat lands.  You?” 

“The green Gallilee.” 

“Different worlds,” she said, picking up the last crumbs with her finger.  “No desert winds.” 

“No, but as many greens as you can count,” I said, sounding like a campaign.  “I like green,” she said. 

Even before she started to tell me about the different winds I knew that I wanted to be with her.  “Some bring red dust.  We used to call that fire dust when we were kids.  It’s like flour, clogs machinery, rifles.  Like fog.  They say it comes from the Sahara.”  She hesitated. “ Am I boring you?” She folded and unfolded her napkin. 

“Go on,” I said, touching her hand.  The fanned napkin dropped to the floor.  Neither of us looked down. 

“Dust storms come in three shapes.”  At least her mother had dropped out of view.  “The screen, the debkah and the pillar.  The first, you can’t see the horizon.  The second, it flies around you like a circle of dancers and the third, the desert looks like it’s sculpted out of bronze. That’s the one we called fire-dust when we were kids.” 

When I reached for my wallet, she insisted on paying her share. 

“That’s the way I do things.”

I liked that.

Her mother always felt frantic during fire-dust times, she told me as I walked her home.  Her mother continued with us till we got to the corner of Dov Hoz and Frishman.  I kissed her on the cheek.  “Want to go for a pizza and a walk tomorrow night?”  I asked. 

“Sure,” she answered, taking my hand. 

“I’ll be here at 7:00.  Okay?”

 

Her mother is with us this week.  Shula is nervous with her around.  Most of my attention goes to deflecting the mother’s compliments by giving them to Shula.  Everyday I tell her how special her daughter is, how loving, how giving, how wonderful to live with.  Imagine a mother saying things like:  ‘who wouldn’t want a great guy like you to come home to.’  I answer:  ‘wonderful to come home to a lovely woman like Shula” and things like that.  If I was writing a play it would have sounded like farce, but this was Shula’s life and it was pretty sad. 

On Friday Shula went swimming, as she always did.  I began cooking lunch.    Her mother had been giving me a lot of attention.  “What wonderful arms, what strong shoulders.”  Suddenly she was all over me, like a cat, just like Yael.  Her tongue was in my mouth, her hands pulled at my jeans.  I tried so hard not to bring Yael to Tel Aviv and for all my decent efforts here I was with Shula’s mother in our bed.  She purred, scratched and sucked.  I resisted, cowered, then slowly I realized her hips and her breasts were very much like her daughter’s.  Their skin had a certain mellowness to it.  Her hands were larger than Shula’s, but moved over my legs in the same way.  She was taller and more encompassing, but she was very much like her daughter.  Without makeup and jewels, mother and daughter were very much alike.

 “She’s simple, a little ordinary, but she’s very lucky,” she whispered, licking my chest.  "Homespun and a little bland, but she’s netted the prize,” she whispered, breathing heavily.  “Ungarnished,” she said, teasing me with open lips.  “Natural and unaffected.”  Her hands worked up and down my body while she described her daughter.  ‘‘Spartan simplicity’’ was the last I heard as she climbed over me.  “My daughter’s got something her mother’s never had.  She should be proud of it,” she said, lying back. 

“She is… we are...” I said, climbing out of bed. 

“I’m ashamed of myself,” she confessed, “I really am.  But I’m used to taking good things for myself.  My daughter's got something her mother's never had.  She should be proud of it," she said, lying back.
"She is.. we are..." I mumbled.
"I'll be visiting my daughter more often, now."
"God damn!!" I shouted, climbing out of bed so fast I fell over my shoes.
I was so ashamed. I grabbed my pants, left the house, found Erez, told him everything.
"If Shula ever discovers what happened," I said with my head on my chest, "she'll never talk to her mother again and she'll kick me out so fast I won't even have time to apologize."
"This mother will ruin your life," said Erez.  "I know the type. She'll  blackmail you. Make you her slave."
I've never seen him so serious.