Sample Reading
“I know (I can see it in your face; I’m sure of it) you’d like me to tell you a story. An old story, of adventures or enchantments. A fairy tale, full of damsels and knights. Of winged horses, unicorns, and gleaming, singing swords. Deep down you’ve always liked those stories, and you always will. You’re the ideal listener. Eternal. Prepared to remain silent for hours on end, for as long as the tale lasts. Once upon a time. Once there was. Do you want me to tell it again? I might even go so far as to say you’re fed up with modern stories and you long for the other kind, the ones from your childhood, the truly unbelievable ones. Those that transport you and take you away. Isn’t that so? The ones about trials and secrets, rings and treasures. With princes who turn into swans and mermaids who become girls. But the fact is, I can’t tell you those stories. I can’t, because I’m not simple any more, and my stories aren’t simple, either. Things have happened to me, and I’m terribly sad.”
“All right, then, tell me about those things, about that sadness. Just so I can listen to you. If I’m the eternal listener, then you’re the eternal storyteller. You collected all the stories, from the very first ones, remember? Stories about creation and paradise – you told them to me. Stories of towns, rivers and mountains – you told them to me. Shepherds, sailors, merchants – all of them paraded among your words. So why can’t you tell me your own stories now?”
“You didn’t realize it, but I put myself in all those old stories. I inserted myself into the tales, and I took over the names. I gave the heroes and heroines my own thoughts and feelings. Anything I hadn’t done myself I attributed to them. My uniqueness was multiplied. I didn’t want to be a single person, but rather all the people in the universe. Not to live just one life, but all lives. My reluctance to die made me want to embrace past, present, and future, and be all of humanity. To contain all of time: from the beginning to the end. And for that reason I told you stories.”
“For that reason, and for another one. You want me to be your heiress: the guardian: the one who repeats words and events in an endless chain. To my children. And my children to their children. And their children to their own. Isn’t that so? But no matter, I still want you to tell me a story. Even if it’s the last one.”
“No. Don’t say the last one. It will never be the last one. You’ll keep on asking me for another, and another, and another.”
“And you’ll keep on telling, and telling, and telling. Until the day you die. And even after you’re dead, your stories will remain. Tell me, are they just for me?”
“For you and for the other listeners. The fellow travelers, on every ship, remember? The ones who listen to the thousand stories told on the voyage of life.”
“And was I on that ship?”
“Yes, but you were so little you don’t remember.”
“Then tell me all over again. Here, by my side, start telling me the stories. We were running away from war, horror, and death. From torture, injustice, and darkness. Until we reached the sea that washes everything away. And there an enchanted ship was waiting for us, with sailors to carry us away, and provisions, and cots to sleep in. But nothing turned out that way. There was a breach between what we wanted and what happened. Nothing turned out the way it was supposed to.”
And the sea didn’t wash it all away, and the ship wasn’t enchanted.
And we forgot the journey.
Your stories were different.
They were stories a grieving prophetess might have told.
A wild sorceress.
A crazed enchantress.
You mixed up the characters, and sometimes you were me; and sometimes you were yourself: and still other times you were her. I had to learn to swim in the sea of the drowned and among the wreckage of storms and hurricanes.
After listening to your stories, I was no longer the same.
I lost my perspective, as well, and the horizon pointed to you and to me indiscriminately. I could be myself inside or look at myself from the outside, like a stranger. And the same thing happened to me with you. I didn’t know if you were you or me.
Our stories begin here.
My-story-your-story.
The story of the confidantes.
Copyrighted text. Can only be used with written permission from Gaon Books.
Gaon Books
Excellence in Publishing
•Home •Sephardic Traditions •Women's Voices •Jewish Thought & Practice