Eliezer was my first and my last boyfriend. In our strictly orthodox community, girls and boys were segregated from an early age. We became friends because he was the only child my age for miles around in the deserted country side, where we spent every summer.
We rented a small cabin on his parents’ property, and we first met as innocent three year olds. Barely bigger than me, he used to try to push me on the swing, his tiny hand hitting against the wooden swing, with only the momentum of gravity enabling me to move anywhere.
Free from the stone and concrete jungle in which we lived all year, we reveled in the freedom of the wide open spaces around us. We ran through the tall prickly grass, heedless of the nettles stinging our bare legs and scream in a mixture of fear and delight as the tiny ants crawled up our feet, tickling us.
Our days flowed by unstructured by anything but the passing of time. We meandered lazily through the day, exploring, eating, swimming and just being.
The property was a haphazard sprawl of giant bales of hay, fluffy white sheep, squawking chickens and lumbering cows sounding their plaintive moo. Low hanging bushes of raspberries, blueberries and blackberries grew wild. Grabbing our tin buckets, Eliezer and I hurried to pick the ripest and plumpest berries before our many siblings could get to them. “Watch out, that one’s poisonous,” he cried out as I prepared to drop a particularly luscious blackberry into my pail. “Oh no,” I dropped the berry in alarm. “Just kidding” he laughed as he popped the berry into his mouth. “It looked too good to resist.” I swung my bucket at him in mock revenge and before we knew it our mouth, hands faces and hair were stained a deep red-blue with the smashed berries in our hair slowly leaking their juice down our forehead.
The remaining berries were made into little pies, which we brought into the little fort we had built from bales of hay. Bees buzzed around us as we wove our dreams for life.
“Where do you think we should live? he asked.
“Here of course!” I responded. “We’ll have ten kids and they’ll each have their own tent to sleep in under the stars.”
On Saturday I would share Eliezer with my family. My father was home after a long week of work and my parents and six siblings took a slow amble down the rustic country road. We always had the same ritual when we passed an abandoned market shed. The musty smell of rotting wood intermingled with dank, dark air, creating a secretive atmosphere.
“Who wants to be sold first?” My father called out.
“Me, me,” I said and scrambled to be the first in line. My father lifted me up into the rotting produce bin.
“Who wants to buy Nechamie?” He called out in his best sellers pitch.
I always held my breath at this point. But he never disappointed me. “I do!” Eliezer called out. “I’ll take a dozen of her.”
We almost didn’t need a flashlight at night. Thousands of stars glittering above competed with the rapid flashing of the fireflies. We reached out our hands, and tried to grab them, trying to keep some of their light for ourselves but we were almost never successful. Lying side by side in stubby grass, I was hypnotized by the stars above.
“Wonder why there are no stars in
“Too many people make wishes on them.” Eliezer declared with certainty. “So then they disappear.”
One summer everything changed. We were both nine years old and had spent practically every moment of every summer together for the past 6 years. One day when I went to his house, he had a friend over. I looked at his friend uncertainly.
”Hey, Eliezer.” I said. “Do you want to come over to my house? You could bring your friend with you.”
Before he had a chance to respond, his friend surveyed me with disgust.
”You play with GIRLS?” he said. “Don’t you know that girls have COOTIES?”
Eliezer regarded me for moment and hesitated. “I don’t play with girls,” he said emphatically. “She’s not my friend at all.”
I reeled as if I had been physically slapped in the face. I turned and ran the short distance to my cabin, tears blinding my eyes. I tripped and fell and heard their mocking voices chasing me. “Cooties. You have cooties.” I spent the day in my room alternately vowing that I would never talk to Eliezer again, and hoping he would come and apologize so I could reject him. I watched wistfully as I saw Eliezer bringing his friend to all our special places. Our hay fort, the pond in which we swam, the patch of land where we stargazed and the berry bushes where we had spent so many happy hours.
It was only boredom that induced me to forgive him enough to spend time with him the remainder of that summer. But the places that had once been so extraordinary to me had been shared with a stranger. They would never be special again.
This summer, I surrendered to nostalgia and revisited the country home of my childhood with my husband Pinchas. We walked slowly through the property. Although weeds had almost choked the life out of the berry bushes, several luscious blueberries and raspberries hung low on the branches, and we spent several minutes cramming the juicy tidbits into our mouth. Our old cabin had fallen in disrepair, but I showed him the tiny bedroom with the two rusting iron bunk beds I had shared with my four sisters.
Directly across from our cabin was Eliezer’s house. I tried steering Pinchas into the direction of the bales of hay, but my husband tugged me in that direction. “Hey, that must be your old friend Eliezer’s house! Let’s go look.”
Eliezer’s family was long gone, but I half expected him to come running out, long peyos swinging, a tin bucket clutched in his hand. The incident that I had never shared with anyone, even my husband, flashed my mind. “She’s not my friend. I don’t play with girls. Cooties, she has cooties.” I clenched my hands tightly, as a sinking feeling of rejection slammed through me at the memory. I hadn’t thought of the story in years, but I recognized that feeling. I had felt that sinking feeling, clammy fists, and inexplicable anger, every time my husband forgot to wash the dishes when he promised, was more than five minutes late, didn’t compliment me on dinner, or was too busy to talk.
Pinchas didn’t notice the emotions playing through me. He had caught sight of the pond covered with a light film of green algae and overrun with hundreds of croaking slimy frogs. “Want to come with me to the pond? Let’s try to catch some frogs for your brother.”
“I’m not going with you.” I said playfully, as I turned in the opposite direction. “Don’t you know that men have cooties?”
Pinchas laughed, his boisterous chuckles echoing off the stillness of the country day. I laughed too. Then together we raced to the pond. “Dare you to jump in!” I teased him.
“No problem—as long as we jump in together!”
