Cicada: Genesis

By Ariel Lilli Cohen

A man, a woman. The fruit of their love.

New York. He is a Muslim Arab boy. She is an Israeli Jewish girl.

This time the dealer mishandled the cards. Their stories and their dreams crash against the bare and raw reality that upsets their lives.

The origins and the genesis and the childhood of one of the characters of the new novel Israel Jihad in Jersulaem.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716868191

Book preview

Dedication

"This is the best of all the possible worlds."

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

Preface

"Cicadas, sisters, in the sun, with you I hide; in the thick of the poplars; and wait for the stars."

A man leaves the house. This morning, New York is beautiful. The sky has swept away all the clouds of the past days. Last week's storm and rain have left their taste in the atmosphere. The wind that is channelled down the streets brings a trace of late summer back to the air. It's the light breeze blowing. The time of year when winter shyly overlooks autumn in the Big Apple. The foliage of Central Park trees begins to turn orange. The first leaves fall silently to the ground. The summer that just ended was more sultry than usual with its unexpected storms. The man is greeting his wife. Then he bends over her and kisses her on the stomach. Only a few weeks are left, then the fruit of their love will give their lives a new meaning.

He will be her father.

Her hero.

In any case, it is because of his wife that they can afford to live within a stone's throw of the center. Thanks to her scholarship, they have rented a two-room apartment overlooking the park. A few meters from the most famous streets, where the lights shine twenty-four hours a day. He is of humble origins. They are located between the rich shop windows in the strategic heart that moves the economy of the world.

On the other hand, the wife’s mind is special. She was always the first to answer during her university classes.

First rank in all aptitude tests - a special gift that she has been able to cultivate. She must have inherited that gift from her parents, thought the man who had just closed the front door behind him.

****

A woman. His wife, a future mother is in the kitchen. She has just prepared breakfast for her husband. Every morning she sets her alarm clock to twenty minutes earlier than his. He is keen, despite the marriage, to not lose those habits that have always made them feel good. He also didn’t want her pregnancy to to be an obstacle neither to her daily routine, nor to their relationship.

Mexican cheese toast and orange juice are already on the table. Back when they were just two students at Yale, they would meet in the large mansion on the campus every morning. That's where their first glances at each other began. Then, he made the first move. I’ve noticed that we attend the same course. Would you lend me your notes? The excuse he had found to take a seat next to her was not that original. It took him a semester to summon up his courage to speak to her, but that bashfulness persistently struck him. He is so dark in skin, but so clear in the soul - with those big black eyes. The fact she was Jewish, and he was a Muslim, certainly couldn’t be an obstacle for two young people who just tried to feel less lonely.

Sometimes, New York seems to engulf you in its mechanisms that regenerate day after day.

****

Sometimes, existence, fate, or merely bad luck, could hand you some difficult cards to play on the table of life. It didn’t all go as perfectly as he had hoped. College, university, highest rank in economics.

Then, he came to a crossroads. The decision that marks the path of life. It's the dealer's next card, but he's not expecting it; he's sure he's holding some winning cards.

Her pregnancy, his career.

A choice. Bring home a salary to take care of his family? Or maybe just tighten the belt and hope that something or someone would change the direction of the match on the green table of fate.

The dealer gives out his cards without considering whether they are good or bad. He simply does his job, so the man collects his cards on the table of life. For him, his career as a lawyer would have never begun. He remembers the small studio in the anonymous basement of Staten Island, where it was too cold in winter and too humid in summer. Sometimes, the croaking of toads in the backyard of the house alternated with the noises that roared inside his belly. Too hungry. He cannot allow his wife, his family