[as if in dreams] A newsletter from Joseph Zitt #024
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26 February, 2021
This is issue number 24 of the newsletter.
A busy week, again, working on the film project. I’m starting up a website. There isn’t much there yet, but I should be filling in more materials over the weekend, and continuing to build it as we make the movie.
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Onward (rolling like a cog?)!
This Week’s Posts
Friday, February 19th, 2021
I almost miss the clothing shop as I go past. It’s raining. Hard. I was going to wait it out, but it hadn’t let up by noon. I’m not sure when this place closes for the Sabbath. The shop is tiny, and right next door to another store with a similar name. I spot it just in time. I stop. The owner is standing at the doorway, behind a table that blocks customers from coming in. Due to virus restrictions, only two of us could have fit in there. Blocking the door is probably easier. I step up to him. An awning keeps the rain away. I start to tell him what I want, but I forget the word. I unzip my jacket and tug on my belt. He says the word. I recognize it. I nod. “What color?” Black. Black always works. He pulls one off the rack. “Try this. There are larger ones, too.” I try it. It’s too small. “OK, one moment.” He flips through the rack and pulls out another one. He hands it to me. I try it. Perfect, “I have other clothes for you, too. Trousers. Jeans. Sweaters. Hoodies that zip up.” I tell him that I’ll remember this place. I will. I pay him and head off to do other shopping. I’m tempted to stop, take off my current belt, discard it, and put the new one on. I’m carrying other things, though, and I don’t want to put them down on anything in the rain. Odds are good that, if I try to juggle everything, my pants will fall down. I guess I can wait until I get home.
Saturday, February 20th, 2021
I sit on a bench outside the House of a Hundred Grandmothers. Finding my vaccination certificate in my shoulder bag takes a while. It is, of course, where I put things that I can’t misplace. I need to have everything organized. This is the first time in months that family members have been able to visit residents. I make sure my mask is on correctly and head to the guard’s desk. I present my certificate. “Who are you visiting?” I tell him. “And you are?” I tell him. He pulls out a log book and writes the information down. He gets my name wrong, but it’ll be clear who it was. He brandishes another form and asks me something. I don’t understand him. “OK. You may go to the apartment.” The rules are strict. I must go directly there. I can’t pause in the halls. I must avoid residents other than my family. I can’t take an elevator with anyone else in it. I head straight there. I notice a few changes on the way. The big fish tank is gone. They’ve cleared out some clutter in the atrium with the trees. The lights seem brighter. I get up to the apartment and knock with my usual rhythm. They know it’s me anyway, but the pattern is a habit. I go in. My family is there. Normally, I get a glass of water when I get there, but family members are now not allowed to eat and drink while visiting. Our masks must stay on. We sit and talk for a couple of hours. It’s good to be back.
Sunday, February 21st, 2021
The afternoon prayers should start at ten minutes to two. The boss has decreed that. They almost never do. The agent comes through at about that time, proceeding down the corridors and summoning us. He usually sings. On Thursdays, he sings a song to beckon the Sabbath to come to us. On Sundays, he sings a song to Elijah, welcoming the mundane week. When he passes me, I change my glasses and head to the hallway. I’m often the first one there. Others respond less rapidly. The boss is generally among the last, making a grand entrance. When there are ten of us, the prayers start. Sometimes someone has to go back in to round up stragglers. Today, the best singer among us leads the prayers. It’s the anniversary of a relative’s passing, so he recites the Mourner’s Kaddish at the end. The agent has been saying it every day, since one of his relatives passed away a few months ago. He usually speaks the text plainly, in a consistent rhythm. Today, the prayer leader chants it. The agent chants with him, with the same cadence and melody. When we’re done, we head back into the office. A coworker and I stop by the receptionist’s desk and talk about our weekends. As usual, he ran a personal marathon to the beach and back. I got a lot done on the film project. The conversation quickly runs down. His smartwatch rings with an incoming call. He heads to his desk. I make more coffee, then get back to work.
Monday, February 22nd, 2021
A Russian programmer is asking me something I can’t quite follow about volleyball. I eventually realize that he is saying “variable.” It takes me a similar number of repetitions to figure out that the word that the French manager is saying, “Eyarshi,” is “hierarchy.” Later, I overhear someone speaking in English on his phone: “Tell me, in America do they make you sign forms with contracts stating that the work is not being done by slaves?” At work, we get word that the father of a worker passed away last night. Normally, people from the office would go to the funeral. Because of the virus, only family attends the ceremony this afternoon. The worker sends a group text thanking us for our condolences. Because of the virus, we can’t come over for the usual shiva calls. After work, I get a sachlav at the sandwich shop on the city square. As usual, the owner is sitting in the tent outside with other people, each with a coffee cup. Three full ouzo bottles are behind the counter. I see a teenage girl taking photographs with a real camera, not a phone. She is watching a gap in a fence where kittens live. A woman walks over with an open can and scoops food onto the cement. The kittens and one larger cat come over and eat. It looks like they know the woman well. The beagle that wanders around the square without a leash walks over to me and sniffs my shoes. They don’t tell him anything interesting. He walks away.
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2021
Clusters of people sit outside the coffee shop at the entrance to my office building. Some sit on the benches permanently built into the patio walls. Others sit in yellow plastic chairs. The city has placed these chairs around town, including in the city square. Signs on them invite people to sit. As I understand it, we’re officially not supposed to be sitting at a coffee shop, just getting the coffee and leaving. Maybe it’s OK because there aren’t any tables. I’m meeting a relative there. She’s getting her second vaccination today. I come down after the afternoon prayers. We haven’t seen each other in months. We both have new haircuts, from the same barber. She introduced me to him. We talk about what we’ve been up to. I don’t have much new to tell. She reads these posts, so she’s pretty well caught up. She does say that I make the city sound somewhat nicer than it actually looks. I fill her in on some details of the film project and of the crowdfunding campaign I’m planning for it. The weather turns colder as we sit there. I return to work after half an hour. When I come back downstairs a few hours later, it’s raining again.
Wednesday, February 24th, 2021
The boss is wearing a fake nose and mustache and a floppy hat. “I cannot live like this!” he bellows in English. “We have no mirrors!” I’m about to suggest that he use his phone, but he has zoomed away from my cube. We’re celebrating Purim today. It’s actually on Friday, but we don’t work that day, and much of the staff will be fasting tomorrow. Someone asks who my costume is. I don’t have one. I improvise. I put on my sweatshirt and flip the hood up. I’m now Elliot from Mr. Robot. The boss hands me a fake nose, mustache, and eyeglasses. “No one may attend the afternoon prayers without these.” OK. The temples on the eyeglasses barely fit on my big head. With my mask and real glasses, the space around my ears is crowded. Several people take pictures before the prayers. During the service, people coming down the hall do a double-take, seeing us worshiping in goofy costumes. Afterward, the bosses hand out the traditional gift bags of goodies: I get a small bottle of berry liqueur, a couple of hamantaschen, candy bars, cookies, Bamba, and one of those noisemakers that rolls out like Pinocchio’s nose when you blow into it. I hope to attend the online Purim service from my mother’s synagogue on Friday. It will come in handy then.
Thursday, February 25th, 2021
A truck rolls slowly past our office building, blasting holiday music. We’re four stories up, behind closed windows. The music is too loud for me to work. I stop and listen. The melody is something like “Pick a Bale of Cotton.” The lyrics are probably in Hebrew, but may be Yiddish. There’s a good jazz piano solo in the midst of it, which sounds like someone I used to know in Brooklyn thirty years ago. Otherwise, the song rumbles and thumps. I hear the music again as I wait outside the burger joint for my order. The van comes gradually into view. At first, I think it’s a gaudy garbage truck. It’s about that size. The door to the back is open. Inside, I see a wall of black speakers, two meters tall and wide. Someone I can’t see is talking over the music, ignoring its rhythm. He may be in the cab. If he’s also driving, it might be good that the truck is that slow. Many of the other people outside are walking their dogs. An all-night curfew starts in less than an hour. There will be fines for being more than a kilometer from one’s house or for visiting anyone. People usually party en masse on Purim. Not this year, or at least not tonight. The curfew lifts at dawn. There will no doubt be parties during the day in religious enclaves, illegal but too big to shut down. The burger shop owner calls my name. I hear him through the open door. I go in and pick up my supper. He and I wish each other a happy holiday. I wander home, listening to a podcast about the recent storms in Texas. Here, for now, it’s reasonably warm and dry.
Colophon
(Unchanged from last week, except for this line.)
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