Inventory

There is no moonlight.

Of course. The First of Elul, cooler evenings, shorter days, and now this “Rachamim, Rachamim,” the neighbor’s friend calling to him at four in the morning, each syllable rising by a half note, creating a plaintive cry slitting the night, piercing her sleep like an oud, strumming on the din of normalcy. She lies in bed, eyes slit-opened, dozing in the liminal space between darkness and dawn. The three syllables, Ra-cha-mim, ascend from the earth three stories below, enter the dark bedroom through the open porch doors, and hover over Nimrod’s armored body.

Rachamim, not only the name of the wobbly Moroccan man who lives downstairs but also the Hebrew word for “compassion.” And a synonym for her name: Nechama. She lies still on her back, lips and larynx juggling the three syllables. An ambivalent haze hovers over the bed. During the past weeks she has been so preoccupied with her own inner timing that she forgot that the holidays are only a month away. The holidays—food, family togetherness, food, new clothes, stress, food. She has hardly given them any thought, so focused has she been on after the holidays, after the holiday vacation, when Rafael and Aya will return to school, and she will move to an apartment across the street.

How will she survive the holidays? She prefers not to think about it, not now. Now she is playing with the Ra-cha-mim, repeating its lilt to herself until it almost brings tears. In previous years these middle-of-the-night wake-up calls angered her. Why couldn’t the friend knock on Rachamim’s door? Why did he have to wake up the neighborhood, like a town crier? But this year, Nechama is not angry. Now, surveying her silent room (save for Nimrod’s light snoring and the occasional buzz of the mosquito zapper from the hallway), this year the word lands in an unexplored region of her psyche, a locale as dense and unfathomable as the moon. “Beyond anger,” she names it.

Nechama draws the lightweight cotton blanket up to her neck, opens her eyes fully, and sits up against the headboard. She pulls her...