Mocha
Mocha literally came out of the blue and chose me. I was a
new immigrant to Israel, my boyfriend Victor whom I’d known since high school,
and who had immigrated to Israel a few years before me, was driving, showing me
around my new home country. Returning from a trip on a hot Israeli day (one of
the three hundred hot days a year in the area), we parked in the parking lot of
his apartment building, close to the street. As soon as I opened the passenger
door, a small black dog looking like a fluffy toy poodle mix came straight to
me, stood on her hind legs, placed her front paws on my thigh, and looked me in
the eye with a smiling face, wagging her tail.
“Can we keep her?” We and not “I” as Victor and I were
talking marriage. After a few initial ‘no’ answers and a few practicality
questions about where she was going to live and who would care for her, Victor
agreed and Mocha came upstairs with us.
Victor’s mother greeted us with contagious enthusiasm,
jumping of joy: “Yes! A dog! How happy I am!” Okay, this was the fairy tale
version. In reality, for some reason that escapes me, the enthusiasm declines
with age, and the reasonable adult response is, and was: “No! I don’t want a
dog in my house!” And Mocha went to live with me.
I lived in a Merkaz Klita, a centre for new immigrants, in a
room shared with Iudith Fleissig, a Romanian doctor from Transylvania who had
arrived to Israel on the same plane as I did. The immigrant centre had rooms
which led to an atrium inside the building, and Hebrew lessons classrooms at
the ground floor. My next door neighbours to the left were an adult son and his
elder mother from Russia, and to the right, a family from Morocco. Iudith was
not a dog enthusiast, but she did not protest my bringing one to our room. Her
personality was calm and easygoing, much unlike mine – I was anxious and
reactive – and after she moved to another, dog-free room, we became close
friends, and remained so to this day.
Mocha was gentle and easy, a sweet tempered pleasant dog
with very few demands of her own. She travelled well and kept me company in
bed. Like all poodles, she didn’t shed – she had wool, not fur, and her coat
needed grooming, which I did with a pair of household scissors and some common
sense.
One sunny September day, Victor, Mocha and I drove to
Jerusalem for the weekend. Jerusalem is inland, on a mountain, and a few
degrees cooler than the Mediterranean coast where we lived. When we arrived,
Mocha emerged happily from the car, bouncing up and down with delight at the
cooler weather. I didn’t join her: I had anaemia, likely as a result of having
starved myself for months in order to become thin and, I was hoping, to feel
lovable. I didn’t know about the anaemia at the time, and the lowered red blood
cells were correlated with a deep-seated fatigue and a gloomy mood. Victor and
I had arguments; I was unhappy and impossible to please, and Victor tried his
best, and failed. We eventually broke up.
I was 24 years old, alone, penniless, and looking for
freedom to travel, date, dance and devour life with no commitments or
responsibilities. I gave Mocha away to Michelle, a young Moroccan neighbour who
liked the dog, but didn’t hesitate leaving her alone in the room for hours and
days at a time. There were nights when I could hear Mocha howl a heartbreaking
lament from Michelle’s room, and one time a teen cousin of mine and his friend
broke into Michelle’s room to rescue the dog. We found her alone, an uneaten,
dry piece of meat lying around in her food bowl. The next day, in the morning,
when she returned home, Michelle apologized profusely for leaving Mocha behind,
and took her back, promising that from now on she would take good care of her.
I did not believe her, but lied to myself and acted like I did. I let Michelle
have Mocha again, and soon after that, Mocha died.
A wave of regrets and remorse came over me as I saw the
small body lying down near the building’s entrance, and then I did what I knew
best to do at that time: I tensed up my body, switched my mind to something
else, and numbed myself down from feeling any sadness, guilt or remorse at all.
I also made sure to not adopt any animals for a few good
years.
Of course, the day Dubi and Pupi crossed my threshold and
came to live with me was not at all planned. And that’s another story.
(To be continued)
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