"Be Still"

for F.

In a small toy shop in the very center of the city, there were not many toys, but all were desirable.

Frannie and Jinnie would often stop and stare at them, dreamingly, losing sense of time.

Frannie and Jinnie were cousins.

They lived each in a different part of the city and saw the toy shop mostly when going to visit each other. 

The girls wanted all the toys in that shop, from the bright yellow excavator to the “Little Seamstress” kit in a box, but they admired one doll the most, the one that was unoriginally called “Gypsy doll”. 

She had a beautiful finely chiseled porcelain face with dark mesmerizing eyes, and red lips, and black hair, and was wearing what seemed to be a dazzling outfit, a shawl and golden earrings. She sat on the top shelf, right in the middle, clearly owning the store, and all the kids who dared to pass by and stare at her. 

One day Jinnie went to Frannie’s, and Frannie told her: “Look! Look, who lives at our place now!”-and Jinnie saw Gypsy doll sitting now on a shelf next to Frannie’s books, obviously feeling comfortable. 

At a close distance, she was even more beguiling.

Jinnie touched the wave of black hair, traced fingers over the porcelain face, and tried to hold her, but there was something maybe too adult about that doll, too adult to be wanting to be held. 

Indeed, she seemed older than Jinnie herself, and Frannie, and maybe older than their age put together.

Jinnie carefully placed her back on a shelf. 

-I called her Ruta, -Frannie said, and lowered her voice mysteriously. -Do you want me to tell you a secret about her?

Jinnie, of course, wanted to hear a secret about Ruta. Lucky, lucky Frannie! To finally have a special doll like Ruta! Who wouldn’t wish it!

-She is alive, whispered Frannie.

-Wut? -Jinnie said. She loved a good secret, but she was more skeptical of the two girls. Frannie’s head was always full of stories and fairy tales, Jinnie loved them, but this new one seemed a tad too much.

“Wut”, Frannie mocked Jinnie, she IS alive. I swear. I also couldn’t believe it at first. Now I know. Move further away. Yes, like this. See, how she is watching you? See? 

Jinnie indeed saw, or thought she did, for a moment.

-She just was made this way, -Jinnie said, less sure. -Her eyes have this quality or something.

-No, said Frannie. It’s a magic doll. See, how she’s turning her head? Just a little bit.

Did Jinnie dream it, or there was a slight movement of Ruta’s head?

And at night, listen, - Frannie continued whispering excitedly, -she walks around the house. Very quietly. Like that:  Tip. Toe. Tip. Toe. And then she climbs back on the shelf. So, in the morning nobody would suspect a thing. 

Jinnie blinked. Then again, faster.

-Can’t be.

-Can be too. Aren’t you staying for a sleepover? See for yourself. 

Jinnie loved sleepovers at Frannie’s. They shared Frannie’s folding bed and were surrounded by bookshelves -just like at Jinnie’s.

But here there was also a window through which they climbed outside when feeling like climbing-Frannie lived on the ground floor. And one could find himself immediately in the big world, following Frannie on her adventures. Or climb back into Frannie’s room, after many hours of playing outside, and adventures would happen anyway. Such was Frannie. 

-Yes, Jinnie confirmed. I’m staying.

-Ruta only starts walking, when it becomes very quiet, -Frannie warned. Try not to fall asleep and be  still-and you’ll see for yourself. 

Jinnie couldn’t fall asleep even if she tried. She was still. She stared at the shelf where the doll was sitting. 

Her features partially disappeared into the night shadows, yet Jinnie could discern her pale face and especially dark haunting eyes.  They seemed to be following Jinnie. 

Then she saw -or did she imagine it? – Ruta’s slowly turning her head. Raising her arms.

Jinnie shut her eyes in horror.

-I dreamt it, -She said to herself. 

And then she heard very quiet sounds. 

Tip. Toe. Tip. Toe.





-What are your plans for today, Mom? 

-Don’t know yet, dear, - answered Ruta, continuing to write. Maybe I should call Aunt Frannie. We didn’t talk for a while, and I miss her a lot. 




 



*************
My dear subscribers,
(it's unbelievable you're here)

I almost want to go into Yom-Kippur- like "here I stand before you" thing, because I do feel there is something I should give you, which I am mostly not giving. It's not because I don't want to-and it's not like I know what "it" means either.

And I've no idea whether it'll appear, when, and in what form.

Today, as usual, I wanted a) not to write at all  b) actually worked on something else  c) went to look at some art  d) suddenly realized that two things are interconnected,  and that's what I should work on;  and e(is it e?) got an email with the link to the Zoom conversation with Etgar Keret, so I started listening to it.

(I hesitate to tag Etgar Keret, even though he's a lovely kind person, who wouldn't eat me up or something,  but you can see his newsletter "AlphaBet Soup" in my recommendations.
 By the way, it's only now I learn that he directed one of the movies I liked a lot, Jellyfish. I recommend the newsletter, and the movie, and his stories, of course-there is a lot of them I myself haven't read yet, and am looking forward to)

So I want to share with you the link to this conversation (it's the second one of this Zoom  format I participated in)-it's an hour long, and I'm really bad with long videos on my laptop, just because I'm not an audio person, it's physically harder-so if I've  watched an hour long video, I feel like "okay, Chen, tell others, because it's a great one"

I won't lie, it'll also give me a good, so wanted-by-me feeling of sharing with you something worthy. 
And indeed..full of light. 
I know that the headline says "dark"-and yet. 

 The Dark and the Surreal World of Etgar Keret


I hope whoever decides to watch, likes it. "In these times of uncertainty" (c, my neighbor Birelboim), or actually, in any other times. 


Maybe I will still write the post I thought I was working on-it does have couple things in common with this one, and interestingly, all these things start with a letter "F". As in "Frannie". 

Thank you so much for your patience, for being with me, for reading (you are probably reading, if you got that far), and, most of all, for inspiring me endlessly-whether you can see the fruits of this inspiration, or not, or not yet.

Yours, 

Chen/April