Yishayahu is the only one of Aaron’s relatives who shares his family name, except for Aaron’s father. A cousin of some complicated and distant degree, he’s simply labeled a “cousin from America”. He’s about ten years older than Aaron. When he used to visit, every couple of years, he stayed in Aaron’s parents’ house and took Aaron to the beach, always patient and kind, advising him on school and girls, swimming around him with movements that were athletic and accurate but not show-offy. Aaron imagined this was what it might be like to have an older brother. 

They agree to meet on the walk by the beach, near the sea Yishayahu loves so much. On the way, Aaron passes the hotels on the streets close to the sea, which have emptied of the Germans and Russians and French that usually fill them to the brim, and instead are filled with refugees from the Otef. The children are running around in the lobby, and parents watch over them with bloodshot eyes.

When he arrives at the beach, Yishayahu is already there, and Aaron takes a moment to look at him. He doesn’t look older, anymore. In fact, he looks younger than Aaron, with his full head of hair and straight back. For a moment, he seems like a confused youth. 

He turns around, notices Aaron, and they hug, greet each other, say how good it is to see each other again and calculate how many years it’s been. They sit down on the large concrete stairs near Gordon Street to look at the few bathers. It’s one of those beaches where the water stays shallow for a surprisingly long way, and people either lie in the water or stand in it, but don’t have to wrestle with the waves. 

“All these years I dreamt of coming back to Israel,” Yishayahu says. “I remembered how good it was for me, here, until we left when I was six. It was a kind of trauma. When we arrived in Tucson, Arizona,” he always says the city’s full name, as if filling out a form, “my dad went to the next house on the street, where two kids were playing in the yard, introduced me to them, and left. He thought it was like in Israel.” Aaron doesn’t stop him to compare the very different impressions they have of what it’s like making friends in Israel. “But the kids didn’t know what he wanted from them,” Yishaiyahu continues, “ just started throwing sand at me. I started crying and ran back home.”

“I remember that story.”

“You do?” Yishaiyahu looks surprised to hear that somebody listened to him, that somebody remembers. “I feel like it really sums things up. All these years I wanted to come back, but I couldn’t. Because of the job, because of the wife. But the wife broke up with me, and work was a nightmare. The American working environment is so cold, and I was always being told I was too emotional, not professional enough.”

“You’re going to love the Israeli working environment, then. People can’t be professional here even if there’s a gun to their head, which there often is.”

He laughs a polite and pleasant laugh. “I’m sure it will be wonderful.”

Aaron hopes he’s right but isn’t as sure.

“So I finally got here, and a war started.”

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, obviously the horrors are horrible, but if you’re here to see if this land’s anxiety and never-ending grief is worth the camaraderie and togetherness, you couldn’t have chosen a better time.”

“What do you think about the situation? If you’re fine with me asking.” He looks at Aaron with a very American cautiousness, which only grows sterner when Aaron makes a cartoonish gesture of looking around him. “Or is it something better not to talk about outside?”

“No no, it’s fine. I just wanted to take a look at the only person close enough to hear and see if I can take him in a fight.” The only person in earshot, a homeless man sitting on the same stairs, doesn’t turn to them as Aaron makes the joke. Either he’s not close enough to hear, or their English is too quick. 

Aaron explains his opinion, which really isn’t all that extreme, speaking more of the philosophy of conflict management than any specific player in this specific conflict. Yishayahu basically agrees with him. One thing Aaron says catches his attention—a comparison to couples therapy, in which, as long as energy and time are directed at proving the other side is at fault, it can’t be directed at finding out what you did wrong, and how to correct that.

“After the breakup,” Yishayahu says, “I realized that in a lot of ways I was the bad guy. That was a shocking realization. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I didn’t know that was what I was doing. It’s not that I thought this is how people should behave, the learning was deeper than that – in situations of conflict, I just acted according to what I’d seen as a child.” 

Aaron agrees. It was the same for him. 

They gossip about their family a little, about how different branches dealt with diagnoses of autism at different times. They go into the water, which reaches Yishayahu’s knees and Aaron’s chin (because he chooses to lie down). Sand-colored fish swim a safe distance from them.

 Aaron talks about a relative he likes very much. “When her diagnosis came, it didn’t really change anything for us. They told us she had a short fuse, which we already knew, and knew how to deal with, and that she had problems with sensory regulation and that she should be left alone to calm herself down when she needed to, something we already had protocols for. I thought it might give her some freedom, make things easier for her, but what the therapists recommended was to have her practice interactions with the world, even the ones that are hard because of her autism. Maybe not to stop getting pissed off so easily, but practice what to do when she does get mad.”

“That’s how I see myself too.”

“As autistic, or someone who needs to practice?”

“A little of both. I don’t know if you know the Simon Baron Cohen test…”

Aaron nods. Sascha Baron Cohen’s cousin, a professor at Cambridge University and esteemed researcher in the field of autism, formulated a simple test of fifty questions that provides a rough but reliable estimate of someone’s location on the autism spectrum. A score of between twenty-six and fifty is considered “exhibiting autistic traits”.

“So I got twenty-five. One more point, and it would have counted.”

“Really?” Aaron’s surprised. “You too?”

They laugh, sharing this weak point in their struggle against a cruel world. They feel a little sorry for themselves—compromised enough to fall behind, but not enough to get crutches. 

“And how do you think that affected you?” Yishayahu asks.

“I think the skill you and I lack is making the essential choice of life—when to cooperate and when to be selfish. That’s the nature of the world, whether we’re talking about bacteria in your gut or nations: always cooperate and you’ll be a sucker; always cheat and no one will cooperate with you—or worse, you’ll bring everyone down with you. Why do we so often call people cancer, if not because – Fuck!” Aaron jumps to his feet, splashes water around.

“What happened?” 

“One of those fish just bit me on the toe,” Aaron says, then laughs. When the surface calms again, he gets his face closer to it, looking for the insurgent. “Try it again, bastard, and see what happens,” he says through clenched teeth. He knows that if he were alone, he wouldn’t have said anything, or tried to catch the fish. There’s drama in it, when he stabs the water with the knife of his palm—as if he were in a training montage in an old kung fu movie, trying to catch the fish that of course move much faster.

Yishaiyahu laughs. “Those Israelis: they can’t help themselves.”

And why is it only then, after Yishayahu’s small and symbolic attack, that Aaron starts to feel they’re really family?

They get out of the water, wash, dry off, and head back to their homes. On the way, someone tries to solicit them to put on tefillin¹. Aaron waves him off, and the solicitor, as they do, responds with nothing but the loveliest of blessings. 

“What did he say?” Yishayahu asks. 

“‘Good news’, as in ‘may you receive good news’.”

“No, I mean before that.”

“Oh, he wanted us to put on tefillin and pray with him. You should take him up on it, next time somebody offers that to you.”

“Do you do that?”

“Fuck no. But maybe do it once, to understand what it’s about. Find out where you live.”

Yishayahu looks back, clearly having no desire to talk to the guy. Maybe he prefers not to find out where he lives, nor let reality contaminate his pleasant memories. Maybe he’s right. 

NEXT: Uncles and Parents

1. Tefillin are a set of small black leather boxes with leather straps containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah. Tefillin are worn by adult Jews during weekday and Sunday morning prayers.”  [Wikipedia] This author adds that yeah, these motherfuckers will await you at street corners and ask “Righouts man, have you put on tefillin today?” And they don’t even laugh if you respond by asking them if they’ve read Dawkins today. ↩︎