The Clay Urn

By Paul Rabinowitz

The Clay Urn​ is a book that carefully and authentically navigates the intricate spaces and places where love thrives during and post wartime. Between carnage and devastation there is humanity, always. This novella reminds us of all the ways we can love despite all the ways that our circumstances try to extinguish us.

At the core of it, ​The Clay Urn​ is a love story – a multilayered, multi character romance even, between two people; between a woman and her passion; between a people and their land. Rabinowitz, through his deeply lyrical prose, reminds us that not all things are destroyed during war time and that some can never be, like love between two people, like the desire to create something beyond our imagination, something more beautiful than our history, than our present.

One of the most intriguing aspects of the book is how deeply steeped the characters' memory and love are in the tradition of war, which their country is born of. ​The Clay Urn​ addresses the difficult question of identity shaped by tragedy – even home is not a given here. Even home is a word layered at once with trauma and love. The land itself, Israel – the ancestral home of so many – is as big a concept in this book and in between its largeness, Rabinowitz masterfully shows the subtle, small loves and tragedies of its individual inhabitants: "That's Tel Beit Shemesh. We found [the clay urn] on the other side of the slope. It's funny. I always think about my dad when I'm on the bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He loved these hills. After the Six Day War he marked off a bunch of antiquity sites and told me we'd go to each one." One of the main characters explains this to his beloved as they travel together, in love, on the same bus that will prove to be yet another tragedy in their lives.

The Clay Urn​ creates a multi-generational tale of trauma that trickles down from the political into the personal. But underneath that, there are generations of human resilience, of faith in one another and the land that has been for them, both a foundation for home and a brutal burial ground. The land itself becomes one of the main characters in this novella, a filter through which the other characters see themselves, a filter through which they love one another and through which they define love. It is a hard land, steeped in turmoil but also in treasures. Like any great love story, it is precisely this complexity that keeps the reader turning that page, nodding in silent agreement.

It is difficult to characterize this book: to say it is a war story is to leave out so much of its heart. To say that it is a realistic romance between two people is to leave out the complicated generational and familial relations that shape its skeletal structure. To say this is a love letter to a country, to a land, to a people is to leave out the subtleties of longing and desire that each character evokes. This book is all of these ideas in one and that is where its truth and beauty lie – in the way it reminds us again and again about the complicated and subtle layers that make up our experience. ​The Clay Urn​ is a testament to all the ways that love survives, endures and thrives, even in the most caustic environment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098331375

Book preview

Copyright © 2020 Paul Rabinowitz Cover art by Sydney Prusso Author photo by Melissa Efrus

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020933119

ISBN: 978-1-59948-787-8

eISBN: 978-1-09833-137-5

Produced in the United States of America

Mint Hill Books

Main Street Rag Publishing Company PO Box 690100

Charlotte, NC 28227

www.MainStreetRag.com

For my mother

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 1

Ilana searches for her glasses on the bedside table. Looking beyond Ari’s sleeping body and through the large open window above his head, her eyes settle on a crescent moon floating high above the Judean Hills. Stars pulsate in the expansive night sky. A deep ravine snakes its way through the arid desert to the lowest point on earth. Ilana exhales and wonders if the attraction will last forever. He doesn’t snore. She’ll have many nights of uninterrupted sleep. Her grandfather snores like thunder, and her grandparents are still together. Her grandfather survived Auschwitz and resettlement, two terrorist attacks and four wars. He deserves to snore. She prefers the window closed at night; the desert air can be cool. Yesterday, she saw a nightshirt in a store on Ben Yehuda Street. She ran her fingers over the heavy material. Jerusalem can be cool at night, the shopkeeper had said. Ilana misses Tel Aviv: the hot, humid air, the beachfront and café. She misses her grandparents. They’re frail and stay close to home. In the afternoon, they will go out to the seaside promenade, find a bench and let the sun graze their skin. Her grandfather will rub her grandmother’s arm. Liquid eyes will look out beyond the horizon.

Dis is good, he’ll say.

A group of children will chase a sandpiper. The little bird will scurry along, jumping over the white foam, shrieks of laughter echoing off the incoming waves. A vendor with thin, tanned legs will haul ice cream in an oversized metal cooler, the worn leather strap cutting his shoulder. Pushing forward, he’ll move quickly along the sand, brandishing a blue popsicle stick. The children will yell with excitement, their mothers’ eyes shifting from intense conversations to check the chaos.

Dis is good, her grandfather will repeat to her grandmother.

The late afternoon sun will dip below the water, a silver glow pushing through the mist. Rising slowly from the bench, her grandmother will angle her grandfather’s beret and look towards the busy street. He’ll extend his hand and recall the day little Ilanachka darted across the street. Ambulance sirens whirled. Mothers screamed.

I’m okay, grandpa, Ilana had said as the medics carefully lifted her onto the stretcher. She squeezed her grandfather’s hand and pressed it to her cheek. His eyes welled up. Don’t worry, grandpa. I’m OK.

Waiting for the light to change he’ll look into his wife’s eyes and let the memory drift away.

Dis way? he’ll say.

Smiling, she’ll squeeze his thick hand. Yes, dis way.

Ilana adjusts her glasses. She stares at the subtle movement of Ari’s chest, his skin stretched tightly around well-defined muscles. Small breaths. She wants to slip her arm under his waist and pull him close, feel the warmth of his excitement, put her hand between his legs, whisper words into his ear, and let him mount her waiting body. She inhales. A bright star streaks across the open window. In the muddled blackness a dog shrieks. She rests her head upon the pillow, inhales, and finishes. Ari does not wake.

Friday will be the first time Ari will meet her grandparents. They’ll walk down Arlozorov Street. Ilana will hold Ari’s hand. They will find her grandparents sitting at a table under a red and white awning. She’ll make the introductions. Dis is like Paris, her grandfather will say to them. You’ve never been to Paris, her grandmother will remind him.

Ilana will smile and rest her head on her grandfather’s shoulder. She’ll pull him close and say, I love you. They’ll drink cappuccinos. He’ll ask Ari about future plans, about his army service—where he was, what he did. Her grandmother will listen. She’ll study Ari’s eyes, the timing of his smile. Ilana will glance at the clock on the wall and signal for the check. Her grandfather will say something in Yiddish, Ilana will answer in Hebrew, her grandmother will respond in Polish. They’ll rise and her grandfather will point towards the seaside promenade. Dis way, he’ll say.

Ilana kicks off the blanket and walks over to the patio door. Ari does not wake. She lifts a frame from the shelf and stares at the black and white photo. She is caught in lively expression. Her head rests on Ari’s shoulder, her eyes wide and bright. She returns the photo to the shelf, placing it next to a clay urn.

She closes her nightgown, slides the door open and steps outside. Somewhere in the night, the dog continues to bark. There is a crack and then silence. On the other side of the stone fence, a bitch crosses the deserted street. The dog sees Ilana and moves towards her. The dog’s hot breath mixes with the cool desert air. Ilana opens the gate.

Come here, sweet girl, she says.

The first ray of morning light enters the small garden, casting a shadow towards the west. The bitch lays near Ilana, licking a wound on her back leg. Her right ear is torn. At a makeshift wooden table, Ilana spreads out colored pencils and a sketchpad. She draws a black dog. Blood trickles from the dog’s teeth, splashing onto the barren earth. Ilana lights a cigarette. In the distance, the sun peaks over the high wall of the distant Jordanian mountains. A blanket of orange and red tumbles across the early morning sky. A curl of smoke wraps around her forehead. In the background of the picture, she draws a sea. The water is still. With a thick, black pencil she outlines Ari’s body, floating high above the water, his face looking up towards a cloudless sky. At the edge of the water, Ilana lies naked. Her back is curved against a large boulder. She draws a rope around Ari’s waist. The end dangles near her hand. With her eyes fixed on the still water, she is casually raising her right hand towards the rope. She does not rise from the boulder and does not reach the rope. The bitch whimpers. Ilana stamps out her cigarette and runs her hand over the dog’s head.

Sweet girl.

Ilana leaves the gate open and climbs back into bed. Ari’s body is warm and familiar. She bends her back and stretches her arm up towards the window. Ari exhales and pushes his face deeper into the pillow.

They first met in a crowded grocery store. Ilana’s friend had organized a party in Jerusalem and asked her to come up from Tel Aviv. She ducked into the small store to buy juice to mix with the vodka. The store smelled of fresh produce and dried Mediterranean herbs. She settled into the slow-moving line. The boy in front of her smelled like mint shaving cream. He was tall and lean. His green uniform hung off his broad shoulders and flared out at the waist. She watched his hands fold his red beret and slide it beneath his left shoulder strap. She moved closer and inhaled. Pinned on his breast pocket were silver paratrooper wings. Around his sunburned neck was a black shoelace that held his dog tag, the silver tag secured inside a hand-sewn patch of black canvas to avoid flashing at night. He placed coffee, a carton of milk, a tin of red shoe polish and two chocolate bars on the rubber belt. She dropped her basket next to his and cleared her throat.

You home for the weekend? she said.

He didn’t