Synchronicities on the Avenue of the Saints

© 2020 Deborah Gaal

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permision of the publisher or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of any license permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Editorial and production management by Flying Pig Media with typesetting and cover design by Circecorp Design.

A CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data.

ISBN: 978-1-7325896-8-1

For E, because you kept your promise.

I must keep mine.

To the crazy woman who saved my father.

You are remembered and loved.

THEN WINKS

Everything is clapping today,

Light,

Sound,

Motion,

All movement.

A rabbit I pass pulls a cymbal

From a hidden pocket

Then winks.

This causes a few planets and me

To go nuts

And start grabbing each

Other.

Someone sees this,

Calls a

Shrink,

Tries to get me

Committed

For

Being Too

Happy.

Listen: this world is the

lunatic’s sphere,

Don’t always agree it’s real,

Even with my feet upon it

And the postman knowing

my door

My address is somewhere

else.

By Daniel Ladinsky

Prologue

The Author Receives Divination and an Assignment

The shaman leaned over the runes spread atop the divination cloth, peering at the mess of tiny rocks and carved images from different angles, and hovering a finger over a piece or two while we sat in silence for a good five minutes.

At long last the man broke free from the fabric’s pull and gazed up at me with a look of confusion. Did you complete each task the ancestors assigned during your last divination? When were you here?

Two years ago.

Ah. He nodded. And in that two years?

I fed the birds as the Ancestors required. Both hummingbirds and seed birds. I burbled on, careful to avoid reportage of what I had neglected to accomplish. By the way, that caused a spirited disagreement between me and my husband. We have bird poop everywhere in the yard. I laughed, but got no reaction from him.

You and your husband don’t like messiness, he stated flatly and stared at me with a hint of condescension etched on his otherwise smooth face.

I guess not.

Life is messy. He returned his gaze to the pile of detritus.

Don’t I know it. Another nervous laugh escaped my throat. I also placed a whalebone on the fountain, I said hopefully. And I’m telling you, finding one was no stroll in the park. But I discovered an artist in Nova Scotia who carves figures out of whalebone he scavenges off the beach. Doesn’t look bad if you hide it toward the back of the fountain.

Because you and your husband are concerned with aesthetics. The shaman leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. I see. So, you fed the birds. You placed the whalebone on the fountain as instructed.

Yes.

What else?

I avoided his gaze. That’s it.

"Have you noticed changes?

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, taking stock of events and trying to form a response that would get me off the hook. I smell smoke in one of the guest rooms.

The room where your son stays when he visits?

The very one.

Is he a smoker?

Maybe. Probably. He hides it from me, I guess. But when I enter the room it smells like the rest of the house. Then suddenly, there’s a strong smoke odor.

The shaman shrugged. A smoke spirit is trying to get your attention.

I nodded, even though I had no idea what a smoke spirit was or what it wanted from me.

The shaman leaned toward me and narrowed his eyes. Your story is on fire. Yet, you’re avoiding your assignment. The Ancestors want you to write a myth.

I had hoped the shaman had no memory of my last divination. Was I paying him to remember, or paying him to forget? Or perhaps this reading would show a different result. But the wiseman’s mind was sharp, and the assignment unchanged. You said this last time. And I told you, I don’t write. And I still don’t write.

You want your son to stay in this world? To stay in your life? To be ‘well.’ You want him to ‘find himself’?

My heart ached to hear my deepest need and to know, apparently, of my unwillingness to go to all lengths to save my son. What kind of mother am I? That’s the reason I came to you. But there must be some mistake. The Ancestors got it wrong. I don’t write.

Nonsense. You were born in a mineral year. You carry stories in your bones.

I’ve tried. Nothing happens. I’m a blank.

The shaman shook his head. Just show up and be available. Sit at your computer. Stay with your pad of paper and pen. The Ancestors will commence from there. Take dictation. You said you want to get out of purgatory. That you’ve been miserable for...how long is it now?

His problems showed up at twenty-two. He just turned thirty-five.

You don’t have to be in purgatory for three-hundred-million years. There is a way back into the light.

You’re telling me that if I just show up—

You have a huge team behind you. The Ancestors are filling this room as we speak. They hang from the ceiling, they sit on the floor. You have as much collaboration as you need. Show up. Let everyone else do the work. They are waiting.

Tell them I’m sorry—

They are not angry. There’s no such thing as that. They just need this story to make its way into the present world.

I’m not the right person. All that sitting and thinking. My hips ache. My elbow is sore, maybe bursitis. I came to let the Ancestors know—

Stop boring the Ancestors. They do not make mistakes. Only stubborn people walking the earth. The world is in a dark place. It wants to come into the light. You want to emerge from the deep forest as well. You are feeling a frustration that you’ve cocooned yourself. The cocoon is at times pleasant and perpetually addictive, but your soul wants to be part of the daily conversation.

I’m so tired—

Of being in business. You have told me this. You took a break.

No, I’m tired of life. And I can’t wait in silence and think about the things I should have done differently, the mistakes I’ve made. It hurts—

Stop. Your soul is saying, ‘Enough.’ It is time to birth a new world. Stories and myths will help the world make change in a heartbeat.

A heartbeat? It will take me years of stillness.

What is time? The story will surface on its own schedule.

What kind of story? I have nothing to say.

A story of the indigenous world and modernity coming together to heal the earth. A story of how all people must accept our mutual importance. A story of bad medicine and good medicine.

This is the story the Ancestors want?

This is the story they always want.

They’ve asked before? Has the story already been written?

"Many times written. Many times ignored. The Ancestors know they must teach this lesson one person at a time.

And this is how I save my son?

I do not know if your son needs saving. Perhaps you are the one who needs saving.

I was exhausted from worrying about my hapless son and yet I continued to resist this possible option of help. All that sitting. All those intrusive thoughts and self-analyzation and self-recrimination that show up unbidden. Why is it so painful for me to admit I am the cause of my own sadness? Perhaps, my journey has little to do with my son’s. The pressure felt like a car sitting on my chest. Yes, enough. Tears of fear, inadequacy and frustration broke free, and I sobbed.

The shaman placed his hand on mine. Start the story with your ancestors. It is always a good place to start.

The Ancestors

Chapter One

Hadassah

April 1918

Yompola, Russia

Winter never ended in this godforsaken village. Without her husband, Chaim, Hadassah knew she would starve and rot. First, though, she would go mad.

A blizzard in April. The road lay buried beneath deep drifts that mimicked the mounds of white flour on her baking board. Her crooked fingers ached from the damp cold, and she pulled at them as she watched the relentless snow outside her window.

Driving a horse and wagon in this storm would be impossible; perhaps Chaim would not return. Please, merciful God, make the impossible possible. Dread brought the sting of tears to her eyes and heightened the throbbing in her hands.

Hadassah needed to stop this pointless vigil at the window and make the pastries Chaim loved so much. She’d baked a new batch of rugalach for him every day since the date of his scheduled return. Two weeks ago.

Already the townsfolk whispered of murder. They gossiped that he’d been slaughtered like an old cow.

Such foolishness to make this trip.

Like the czar ever favored a Jew.

Hung or shot.

A groyser tzuleyger, such a big shot...tutor to the czar.

Hadassah clung to the hope he’d just been delayed, but rumors of the execution of Czar Nicholas and imminent revolution raged among the villagers. They clucked like hens and left packages on her front stoop as though she already was sitting shiva.

During the night, she’d abandoned her bed and pried open a can of red paint. Chaim had brought it back from an earlier trip to Saint Petersburg to use in staining an old china cabinet. Just like the czar’s palace.

She’d stirred the paint with two fingers, marking her front door with the word machashaifeh. Witch. Perhaps now the villagers would leave her in peace.

What difference did it make what they thought? She couldn’t bear to hear their talk or to look anyone in the eye. What did they know? She’d stopped going outside, shutting herself away from everyone.

She spent her days keeping watch and circling the one room hut. She’d examined Chaim’s history books, something she’d never dared to do when he was home. Embarrassed by her inability to read, she had shunned Chaim’s lessons rather than let him witness her struggle to interpret the jumble of letters. But now she found herself caressing the yellowed pages of print, seeking a connection to Chaim. A cornered page. A water spot. A sooty fingerprint.

Each day she pounded dough, cut out strips, sprinkled cinnamon, and pressed in little morsels of raisins and nuts she scraped together from her dwindling pantry.

The scent of cinnamon filled the small house. It permeated her skin, her clothing, and her hair. Now, the smell sickened her, because it reminded her of her longing and the futility of her efforts.

Again and again, Hadassah recalled their final exchange.

What do you expect me to do if you don’t come back? she’d screamed at Chaim before his departure for Saint Petersburg.

My Hadassah, my blessing, you already know. Tell me again.

She’d put her hands on her hips and glared. I’m old. I don’t remember.

He’d kissed her forehead, trying to soothe her anger, yet failing to grasp her anxiety. Tell me, my sweet Hadassah.

Hunh. Sweet like an onion. And you—also an onion with your head in the ground.

She’d relented in the end and given him what he’d wanted. I’m to take the eggs to Pincus.

But she would never go to America without Chaim. At nearly sixty, she couldn’t make the trip on her own. Another death sentence he’d imposed upon her. What if he returned to the shtetl to find her gone? There’d be no rugalach or lighted candles. Or his precious jeweled eggs.

She cursed those symbols of the church and power. The gems meant nothing in a village like Yompola. If they’d been chicken eggs, instead of gold and diamond eggs, there’d be something decent to eat. A hen’s egg now cost four times what it had just two months ago. Women haggled in the market over the price, then left with nothing.

Hadassah cursed the czar and her foolish husband for traveling to see his beloved student one more time. Why? Why? For one more conversation? For one more priceless egg?

Why do you cling to your czar? she’d berated him.

Hadassah, there is a special relationship between a tutor and his pupil. He is like the son we never had. Look at what he’s given us.

Hunh, an execution is what he wanted to give you.

Nicholas released me.

You had to convert or flee for your life. Now you go back?

His advisers threatened me, not Nicholas. He would never harm me.

You’re a fool, Chaim. She’d followed him out the door, shouting at him until she lost sight of his wagon as his horse plodded down the thin, muddy lane. You’re a fool. The whole village bore witness to her rant.

Now, she refused to open her door to her neighbors, hating their pitying offerings. A piece of dried-out chicken. A bowl of thin soup. She’d stopped eating. She would rather die than live without Chaim.

Hadassah paced in circles. She finally returned to the kitchen table, tossed flour on the board, and rolled the pin over the dough again and again until her arm muscles burned.

The white sky darkened to gray. The sun began its descent, announcing the Sabbath. Another week of despair at an end. The snow piled up outside the decaying hut as the wind howled around and through it. She pushed loose strands of brittle hair back under her babushka and tightened the frayed shawl around her bent shoulders.

The fire needed more logs, but she lacked the strength to bring them in and arrange them in the stove. She thought about removing a book from Chaim’s shelf and throwing it atop the smoldering embers. Such sacrilege would serve him right. He’d mourn its loss when he returned to her, and she’d give him the tongue-lashing he deserved for bringing this terror upon her. Anger boiled her blood, but it failed to warm her.

What did you expect? she railed. No one answered. The cockroaches and the mice scurried for the corners.

She struck a match, lit two candles, and chanted the prayer over the Sabbath lights. Then, she sank to her knees and placed her folded hands on the flour-dusted table. "Blessed God, Hashem Yisborakh, bring Chaim back to me. She rocked back and forth. Back and forth. Please, Hashem. I will never rest until he’s home. I will never rest."

Snow blew in through cracks around the window. A bitter gust of wind raised a cloud of flour above Hadassah’s head.

The smell of cinnamon wafted through the air.

Chapter Two

Noah Friedman felt even closer to connecting the dots. He sat on the edge of his seat at his favorite blond wood desk in the physics section of the library and braced for a download of knowledge to gush into the top of his head. He could feel how close he was to channeling complete illumination. An infinitesimal degree separated this knowing, and yet key fragments eluded him. The universe toyed and taunted, its answers suspended somewhere in the macrocosm, an attosecond away, waiting for him to pluck them from the ether. At twenty-four, he approached the age when Einstein had written his papers on relativity. Every clock tick marked the advance of Noah’s creative peak.

Surrounded by the hardbound volumes of Galileo, Newton and the rest of the gang, he sucked in a deep breath and exhaled, comingling his zing with the molecules of musty, well-worn inspiration. Spikes of energy vibrated through his nerve endings, kicking his senses up to high alert. Eyes closed, he let his fingers hover above the computer keyboard. The fine hairs on his arms stood at attention, buoyed by electrical current, as his neurons coalesced. Abruptly, the tingling stopped.

He’d lost the thread. Power outage again, damn it. Lately, his meds seemed to be fucking with him. Perhaps his Selexikote dosage needed ramping.

Suddenly, the vision of a man floated into his brain and took shape. Distinct. Tangible. His skin shone like black ocean pearls, and his smile revealed a transparency as startling as an albino bird flushed from the bush—ascending, creating wonder.

This charismatic man laughed with such elegant joy, Noah briefly forgot about the drug, his research, the pending deadline, the importance of it all, and....what had he been doing?

Sinewy hands thumped a drum covered in animal skin. The drumbeat matched the rhythm of Noah’s heart, and he listened, mesmerized by the feral call.

The man ceased his cadence, gazed at Noah, flattened a palm turned skyward and blew across the top of it. A ball of purple flame exploded from the heat of his skin, sending sparks of amethyst upward, spinning, splattering against the star-speckled black of the sky.

The fire is within us, my brother. Come. He motioned Noah to follow.

Oh, how he wished he could.

In this instant of longing, Great-Grandma Sara’s voice popped into his head. Come, Bubala. Trouble’s brewing.

His heart couldn’t ignore Grandma’s message. He must see her.

His brain jangled these two conflicting images, and it occurred to him he might be wrong about the Selexikote. Perhaps his dosage should be lowered rather than increased.

Opening his eyes, Noah reentered the present as defined by accepted space-time parameters. He shut down his laptop, zipped up the carry-case, and closed the leather-bound physics book, caressing it with his fingertips. He sighed.

His cell buzzed his thigh. Fishing it from his pocket, he read Mom’s text. Y no call back? R U Ok? Dinner 2 nite?

Fifth message in two days. She’d keep bugging him until he called. Maybe later. After he visited Grandma and finished further research. Maybe.

Noah shoved the phone deep into his jeans pocket.

Leaving the cool cocoon of the library, he sprinted through the blistering St. Louis heat.

The television blasted Oprah all the way out into the stairwell. Opening the door to Great-Grandma Sara’s apartment, Noah was assaulted by a perfume derived from the essence of chicken soup, cat litter, and bleach. Window shades drawn tight masked the sun and heat of the afternoon, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim light.

His shirt, soaked from his run in the stifling humidity, met an environmentally reckless air conditioning setting, raising goose bumps on his skin. Sara must have had a substitute caregiver for the day.

He marched over to the thermostat and turned the dial to the right, warmer for Great-Grandma’s poor circulation.

Kitsala, Sara’s black cat, pranced over to greet him, brushing back and forth against his leg. He reached down to rub her throat and enjoy the purrs rumbling through his fingertips.

Great-Grandma Sara slouched on the threadbare velvet love seat. Her head slumped on her chest and both rose and fell rhythmically. The cat trailed Noah into the living room, and they plopped down on either side of her.

He lifted one of her weightless hands and studied it. Prominent blue veins visible beneath translucent skin formed a large N. N for Noah, she used to say when he was little. You’re my boy. See, even my body knows this is true. Noah traced the N with his index finger.

Her genetic code had skipped two generations and stamped him as her boy. They both shared the same blue eyes—cobalt, Co, atomic number twenty-seven—and trademark red hair—copper, Cu, twenty-nine, although her mane had long ago gone white and sparse. They both got that prickly feeling, sometimes at the same moment, when otherworldly energy was present.

Sara stirred. Joe, is that you?

No, Grandma. It’s Noah. he shouted over the din of the television. He found the remote control on the end table and hit the mute button. Sara looked up at him through slits beneath drooping eyelids, her chin revealing two long, gray chin hairs.

Who the hell are you?

I’m your great-grandson. Sally’s son.

Sara gazed blankly at Noah, her wrinkled mouth pursed like a cinched bag. Then, her thin lips stretched into a smile. "Oh, my boychick. Tonight, are you taking me dancing?"

Yes, Grandma. You’ll put on your purple dress with the gold buttons, and we’ll go out on the town.

Sara displayed her coffee-stained grin.

How are you, Grandma?

It’s time for the ambulance to come get me. Real excitement that would be.

Don’t say that.

What does it matter? I’ve got a message for you.

Noah placed Sara’s hand on her lap and removed a small green notebook from his back pocket. On the cover he’d written Synchronicities with a thick black marker. He flipped through pages that chronicled dates and conversations in black ink. Yellow highlighter tagged Sara’s quotes. Red stars and underlines emphasized patterns. This came true. or What a coincidence. had been scrawled in selected margins.

He wrote July 10, 4:22 P.M. on a fresh sheet of paper.

Okay, Grandma, I’m ready. What did you want to tell me?

She turned her head to look at him. What?

Her face registered how much effort small movements took at the age of ninety-eight.

You said you had something to tell me?

I did? Her eyes looked vacant. "I’m so tsedreyt. I don’t remember. The wires connected. Oh, I know what it is. You need a suit. You have to go to your mother’s office."

Thanks, but no thanks.

Sara wagged a demanding finger. Your mother has trouble. You have to help.

Don’t guilt me. Why don’t you tell her she’s in trouble?

"Are you meshuga? She’s not going to listen to me."

Sara squeezed Noah’s arm, and he dropped the notebook and pen. Ow, Grandma. His arm smarted where she’d pinched, and he rubbed the spot.

Listen to me. A storm brews. It’s the hay wagon story. Have I told you this?

Noah picked up the notebook and flipped through the pages until he found the correct entry. Fifty-two times, to be exact.

Put that thing down and look at me. She motioned with two fingers pinched together that she would give him another zetz.

Sorry, Grandma. Noah set aside the notebook.

She squinted. Where was I?

Noah waved his index finger. "I see it like it was yesterday. The Cossacks