הסיפור, חלק א׳

The truck is coming at nine, and it is already half past eight. Our whole life is in boxes: forty-two of them, each one marked in my mother's careful handwriting. KITCHEN. BOOKS. ORI – WINTER CLOTHES. I carry the last box to the gate and then, without really deciding to, I walk to the back of the garden.

The lemon tree is taller than the fence now. When I was small, it was taller than me, and I thought that was the most important fact in the world.

My grandfather planted it the week I was born. He told me the story so many times that I can see it as if I had been there: Saba Moshe in his old blue hat, digging in the hard Be'er Sheva earth, sweating, laughing at my father, who said nothing would grow there. "A tree is a promise," Saba said. "You plant it for someone you have not met yet."

Every Friday afternoon, from the time I could walk, he and I watered it together. He let me hold the hose, and he never complained when I watered his shoes instead of the roots. He did not talk much. He showed me things: how to find the thorns before they found me, how to tell a ripe lemon by its smell, how to cut a branch so that two would grow in its place.

"Why do you always water it on Fridays?" I asked him once.

"So it has something to drink on Shabbat," he said, and winked. I was nine before I understood that he was joking.

I did not know then that people, like trees, can stop giving fruit. I did not know that one winter would change everything. If I had known, I would have asked him more questions. I would have written down the answers.

Behind me, the truck is honking. My mother calls my name, twice, and her voice breaks a little the second time. I put my hand on the trunk. It is warm from the morning sun, rough and familiar, like the back of his hand.

The truck is coming at nine, and it is already half past eight. Our whole life is in boxes: forty-two of them, each one marked in my mother's careful handwriting. KITCHEN. BOOKS. ORI – WINTER CLOTHES. I carry the last box to the gate and then, without really deciding to, I walk to the back of the garden.

The lemon tree is taller than the fence now. When I was small, it was taller than me, and I thought that was the most important fact in the world.

My grandfather planted it the week I was born. He told me the story so many times that I can see it as if I had been there: Saba Moshe in his old blue hat, digging in the hard Be'er Sheva earth, sweating, laughing at my father, who said nothing would grow there. "A tree is a promise," Saba said. "You plant it for someone you have not met yet."

Every Friday afternoon, from the time I could walk, he and I watered it together. He let me hold the hose, and he never complained when I watered his shoes instead of the roots. He did not talk much. He showed me things: how to find the thorns before they found me, how to tell a ripe lemon by its smell, how to cut a branch so that two would grow in its place.

"Why do you always water it on Fridays?" I asked him once.

"So it has something to drink on Shabbat," he said, and winked. I was nine before I understood that he was joking.

I did not know then that people, like trees, can stop giving fruit. I did not know that one winter would change everything. If I had known, I would have asked him more questions. I would have written down the answers.

Behind me, the truck is honking. My mother calls my name, twice, and her voice breaks a little the second time. I put my hand on the trunk. It is warm from the morning sun, rough and familiar, like the back of his hand.

The truck is coming at nine, and it is already half past eight. Our whole life is in boxes: forty-two of them, each one marked in my mother's careful handwriting. KITCHEN. BOOKS. ORI – WINTER CLOTHES. I carry the last box to the gate and then, without really deciding to, I walk to the back of the garden.

The lemon tree is taller than the fence now. When I was small, it was taller than me, and I thought that was the most important fact in the world.

My grandfather planted it the week I was born. He told me the story so many times that I can see it as if I had been there: Saba Moshe in his old blue hat, digging in the hard Be'er Sheva earth, sweating, laughing at my father, who said nothing would grow there. "A tree is a promise," Saba said. "You plant it for someone you have not met yet."

Every Friday afternoon, from the time I could walk, he and I watered it together. He let me hold the hose, and he never complained when I watered his shoes instead of the roots. He did not talk much. He showed me things: how to find the thorns before they found me, how to tell a ripe lemon by its smell, how to cut a branch so that two would grow in its place.

"Why do you always water it on Fridays?" I asked him once.

"So it has something to drink on Shabbat," he said, and winked. I was nine before I understood that he was joking.

I did not know then that people, like trees, can stop giving fruit. I did not know that one winter would change everything. If I had known, I would have asked him more questions. I would have written down the answers.

Behind me, the truck is honking. My mother calls my name, twice, and her voice breaks a little the second time. I put my hand on the trunk. It is warm from the morning sun, rough and familiar, like the back of his hand.