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The Mistake

Lisa Gray

    “God! Let her in!”
    The pounding of fists on the bus door had stopped and a woman’s face, frantic with fear, appeared framed in the coach window.
    I saw her mouth the words.
    “Please help me!”
    But the bus was already attempting to move off in the congested road.
    Its door firmly closed.
    “Stop! Didn’t you hear me?”
    The driver shrugged his shoulders as if he’d washed his hands of her.
    “I don’t know her. She’s not one of us!” he said.
    “What the hell does that matter!” I screamed. “She’s lost. She needs help!”
    “I cannot help her,” he muttered, looking in his rear view mirror.
    As if she’d heard him the woman ran forward to the bus in front and began pounding on its doors. But it had already managed to wedge itself into the slow-moving stream of others that choked the approach road to the Dung Gate, the most direct entry to Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall. Shunning her skilfully. Her face appeared again in my window, her hands waving wildly in desperation.
    “For God’s sake! Stop the bus!”
    But the driver nailed his eyes to the rear-view mirror.
    The woman’s face was fast fading as my bus swung sheepishly into the concourse of confusion. I ran to the rear of the bus. In the direction of the driver’s eyes. The woman struck at the door of the bus behind like Christian in the Slough of Despond. But its doors remained stonily sealed.
    “Someone help her!” I screamed. Abraham, Jesus and Mohammed must have heard me. For as the third bus withdrew from her and struck out into the street, the message had got through to someone. A hand appeared on her arm.
    Someone had got her.

—————————————————————

    “Are you all right?”
    The girl’s face peered down anxiously as her arm lifted me from my face-down position on the crowded street.
    I had the distinct feeling I shouldn’t like her.
    I nodded.
    “I had a bad dream,” I said.
    “You passed out. It’s probably the heat – and nerves,” she said. “And that damn bus! Making us sit in the back. Segregated. Like second-hand citizens.”
    The words were spat out.
    I felt her arm protectively under my elbow as she propelled me forward in the crowd of people.
    The crowd split and formed two queues.
    “There’s been a mistake,” I said.
    I’d said it before.
    Somewhere.
    If only I could remember.
    “I shouldn’t say that here,” she whispered, giving up her bag to a surly faced soldier, who proceeded to ransack its interior.
    He looked at me and waved me through the metal detector.
    I had no bag.
    We started walking, propelled forward by the crowd. The sweat broke out on my brow.
    And then I saw it.
    The Ha- Kotel – the Western Wailing Wall.
    I was back. Back home.
    “What day is it?” I asked.
    “Tuesday,” she said. Bar Mitzvah Day. Don’t you remember?” she fretted.
    Bar Mitzvah! I’d see Ami’s Bar Mitzvah after all. Ami. My thirteen years and one day old nephew.
    Thank you, God, I prayed silently.
    I’d always been religious. You could say religion was my life.
    But I’d been away. Now I was back home. In God’s presence. Again. On Earth.
    We surged forward towards the crowded plaza, the 488 metres high wall of Herod’s Second Temple beckoning me.
    Ami. I’d see Ami. And Moshe, my brother. And Zedekiah. And the others.
    I couldn’t wait.
    “Not that way. This way,” said my companion.
    Something was wrong.
    Ami wasn’t here. Nor Moshe. Nor Zedekiah.
    There were only women. Nothing but women. Some, their lips moving silently, pushing pieces of paper with prayers into the over full fissures in the small part of the wall I had never seen before.
    “There’s been a mistake,” I said.
    But my companion had already left my side and was joining a line of others who had climbed on the row of chairs that seemed to form a barricade of some sort.
    Their backs were turned towards me.
    What were they looking at? And where was Ami? And Moshe and Zedekiah?
    My companion turned and beckoned me over, pointing to a chair to climb on.
    I climbed up and looked over.
    “Are you ready?” she said.
    I looked over the wall.
    Ami. Moshe. Zedekiah. They were there. They were all there.
    “Yes,” I said.
    I was ready to join them.
    “Are you all ready?” my companion repeated loudly.
    The women lining the barricade began singing.
    My companion began singing.
    “Ami!” I shouted. “Moshe! Zedekiah! I’m back!”
    But my voice was drowned by a surge in the singing.
    “Now!” yelled my companion.
    The women pressed forward. And the wall tumbled down.
    The women jumped off the chairs and surged forward like Joshua and his army at Jericho.
    “Ami! Moshe! Zedekiah!” I shouted rushing forward.
    Zedekiah opened his mouth. He was shouting. Shouting. Zedekiah was shouting at me. Zedekiah, with his long beard, his black hat and coat.
     Zedekiah, my friend.
    “Roast in hell, you cows!” he shouted.
    And then I remembered. My hand flew to my face. No beard. And my head. No black hat. And I looked down. No black coat.
    I wasn’t an ultra orthodox Jew. I was dressed as a woman.
    I was a woman!
    And the words! They were my words. The words I had shouted at the women singing at the wall before the pain in my chest and my fall to the ground.
    “There’s been a mistake!” I’d said when I got there. “I can’t die now! I need to be at my nephew’s Bar Mitzvah!”
    And there’d come a voice.
    “Are you sure?”
    “Yes, yes, I’m sure! I’ll do anything you want. Only let me go back. Back to the wall. Back to Ami’s Bar Mitzvah!”
    “You’re sure!”
    “Surer than I’ve ever been about anything!” I’d said.
    And He’d granted my wish. I was back.
    But not as a man. Not as an Ultra Orthodox Jew.
    As a woman.
    “Run!” screamed my companion, grabbing me by the arm. “Run!”
    And I was running. Running. Running away from Ami. And Moshe, my brother. And Zedekiah, my old friend. Up the hill.
    Towards the buses.
    “There’s been a mistake!” I shouted as I reached the bus. Please help me!”
    I pounded with my fists on the bus door. But the bus was already moving off in the congested road. Its doors firmly closed.
    I tried not to think about what I knew happened to women who protested at segregation at the Wall. What I’d previously welcomed.
    Restrained. Fettered. Strip-searched. Jailed. For protesting.
    But for the removal of the barricade?
    I tried not to think about it.
    I pounded at the door of the second bus.
    It remained stonily sealed as it slunk off up the slope.
    I saw my companion disappear into the bus behind. I ran for it but the bus had already closed its doors.
    I saw her mouth the words.
    “Someone help her!”
    And I knew. I knew what would come. The hand. The hand on my arm.
    The message had got through to someone.
    Someone had got me.
    “There’s been a mistake!” I said.

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