Chapter 1
Leaving

I looked out my window, trying to soak up the view. If I craned my neck, I could just about see the grassy tip of Mount Hermon, where my sisters and I go sledding every winter. I just couldn’t believe that tomorrow I would be waking up in a completely new bedroom. In an apartment building. In the city. With a view that I could not even begin to imagine. So, on that morning, when everybody else got up as usual, I stayed in bed.

“Meskerem, get up! You know what a big day it is today!” My mother’s anxious voice reached me from the living room, or what was left of it. The house was already almost empty. All of our belongings were neatly packed away in dozens of cardboard boxes lining the walls and piled up in the hallway. Even my room looked unfriendly. The bare white walls looked so shabby without all my cute animal posters.

I knew that other people were coming to live in our house, people I would never meet. Another kid would sleep in my room, and I would be far away, living a different life a long way from all of my friends.

“Macy, you need to get up, sweetie.” My dad gently patted my shoulder. Only my dad and my American cousins called me Macy. In Katzrin everybody knew me as Meskerem.

“Please get dressed quickly. I need you to look after your sisters while Ima and I finish up the packing,” he said, sitting down heavily beside me on the narrow bed. His face was red and sweaty, his thick blond hair dusty and disheveled. I could hear my sisters, Abeva and Lemlem, shrieking as they chased each other through the boxes.

“I know this must be hard for you . . .” Abba started rubbing my back, but I quickly yanked the sheet over my head and muttered angrily, “If you know it’s hard for me, then why don’t you just leave me alone!”

My dad said nothing more. I felt the bed move as he got up and heard him walk quietly toward the living room.

“Adise, come and talk to your daughter,” he said.

I waited for my mother, thinking about all the things I wanted to say to her. Not that it would help. It’s not as if I hadn’t told her a million times already how totally unfair it was to make us all move because of some stupid job she got and how it was ridiculous that I couldn’t just stay in Katzrin with my grandmother. But then I felt her hand gently stroking my braided hair, pulling the sheet off my face. I saw that, like me, she was crying.

“Meskerem, honey, I understand how you feel. It’s hard for me to leave our home too.” Her voice was soft and gentle, her beautiful dark eyes shiny with tears. “Sometimes people have to choose between two things that they really want because they can’t have both.”

“I chose to stay here with Grandma,” I pouted, “but you won’t let me!”

My mother sighed heavily. “We’ve been through this already. You’re our daughter. We love you. We want you with us. You’re only eleven, too young not to be with your parents.”

I’ll always be only-something, I thought resentfully, but I said, “You grew up with your grandmother in Ethiopia, so why can’t I grow up with my grandmother here in Katzrin?”

“Yes, I grew up with my grandmother in Ethiopia, but not because I had a choice! You know my mother’s story, how she walked with her friends to Sudan to reach Israel. She couldn’t take me with her. I was only a baby. She was afraid I would not survive the long and dangerous journey. It was seven years before we saw each other again, and it was so hard to make up for lost time. I could never be separated from you like that.” Ima hugged me tightly.

I could see it was painful for my mom to remember, and I sensed that somehow the empty white walls and the boxes piled up in the corner made it even harder.

The silence that followed was full of her sadness and mine. Eventually, instead of continuing to resist, I got up and got dressed.

After I washed my face, I lingered in the bathroom, studying my reflection in the mirror. My almond-colored eyes, just like my mom’s, stared back at me as I wondered, How would it be, living somewhere else? Would it change me? I shook my head violently. “No!” I said aloud as my long braids, threaded with colored beads by my grandma, clicked and danced on my shoulders.

My mom is an educational counselor. She works for Israel’s Ministry of Education and manages the placement of the new immigrant Ethiopian kids in all of the public schools in the Golan Heights and the surrounding areas. People from different schools all over the country come to Katzrin to meet with her. Ima created this successful educational project, putting Ethiopian kids into regular classrooms even though they don’t speak Hebrew that well and their parents are unfamiliar with what the schools expect of them. Her program helps these kids fit in and be successful.

I helped Ima design the flyer for the project. My sister Lemlem’s photo was even on the front page with the caption, “Young people should know about their roots and be proud. Their culture of origin is a source of strength, not a weakness.” I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but now I’m really sorry I helped. Turns out the Ministry of Education decided to adopt my mother’s project and use her ideas all over the country. She got a big promotion, and now we have to move to Herzliya.

“Good! You’re up!” My dad opened the door and peeked over my shoulder. “Ima’s waiting for you in the living room.”

My mom was standing in the living room wearing a faded T-shirt and old jeans for the move. Her tall body was bent over trying to separate my baby sister from the small potted plant she was holding. Ima did everything so patiently, but I could see the stress lines fanning out from her eyes across her temples to her short, tightly curled hair.

“I could take them to say goodbye to Grandma,” I offered. Ima smiled.

I bent to distract Abeva, and she immediately let go of the potted plant and turned to grab my beads instead. Abeva had just started walking last month. Her tiny hand grabbed mine as her chubby feet made awkward, hesitant steps, and she smiled at me, revealing two endearing dimples.

“Take me with you! Me too!” shouted Lemlem. Running toward me, she grabbed my other hand. She was wearing the new red-and-white-striped overalls Grandpa Dave had sent her from America for her fourth birthday. With her tight curls and skinny legs, she looked like a boy. Lemlem was tall for her age and very mischievous. Everybody said that she was just like me.

“Are you sure you want both of them?” Ima asked.

“Yes. We should go visit Grandma together.” I insisted, marching them toward the door. I knew Grandma would be pleased to see us.

“All right.” Ima smiled. “Lemlem, make sure you give Meskerem your hand when you cross the street, and come back quickly. The movers will be here soon.” I balanced Abeva on my hip, took Lemlem’s hand, and we set off to Grandma’s house.

When we reached the park, I let Abeva slip to the ground and walk beside me. With my free hand, I ran my fingers along the wall, the hedge, and the flowers.

“What are you doing?” asked Lemlem.

“I’m memorizing how beautiful everything is here.” I took a deep breath. “I want Katzrin to be inside me, no matter where I go.”

Lemlem looked around us and then closed her eyes and took a deep breath, copying me. She ran her little fingers gently over the flower petals. “Now Katzrin is inside me too,” she declared earnestly.

I patted her hair and smiled. “Let’s go,” I said.

• • •

“Grandma!” Lemlem called, running along the path into Grandma’s garden. Grandma got up slowly from her garden rocking chair, stretching out both arms to hug Lemlem. I paused at the gate, Abeva straddling my hip, and looked at Grandma from a distance trying to get used to the idea of saying goodbye.

“Why are you standing there? Come in!” Grandma called, reaching out to take Abeva from me. Grandma looks a lot like my mom, except with more wrinkles and silver hair. Age has rounded her shoulders, so she’s closer in height to me than my mom. Her smile made me burst into tears. I couldn’t help it. The tears just kept coming, despite the fact that I never cry, not even when I split my knee open on the playground at school and needed six stitches.

“Meskerem, darling, don’t cry. You’re scaring the baby! You’re only moving to Herzliya!” Grandma, flustered, tried to comfort me. “Wait and see, you’ll be back soon for the holidays, and we’ll have plenty of time together!”

I couldn’t answer. All my words had melted into tears.

“But we have Katzrin inside us, remember?” Lemlem pulled my hands away from my face.

“Enough.” Grandma ordered, taking us into the house. “Look. I have some presents for you.” There on the table were three small packages wrapped neatly in floral paper.

“Which one is mine? I want to open it!” Lemlem jumped up and down excitedly.

“First, say thank you to Mitaeh,” I said, using the Amharic word for grandma in my family’s part of Ethiopia. Grandma’s name was Belynesh, but dad always called her Emevete, which means “my queen” and was her respect name. In Ethiopia you call people older than you by a respect name.

“Thank you, Grandma!” Lemlem took one of the presents.

“I wrote your names on them.” Grandma sat down, placing Abeva on her lap. “Let’s open Abeva’s first,” she said.

Abeva’s gift was a pretty blue backpack. Grandma had embroidered Abeva’s name in white thread on the pocket.

“That’s a nice backpack,” said Lemlem, impatient to open her own present.

Abeva was busy trying to eat the wrapping paper, and Grandma gently took the pieces out of her mouth and gave her the new backpack to hold, saying, with tears in her eyes, “This is for you to take to your new babysitter.” Grandma looked after Abeva while our parents were at work. I suddenly wondered what she would do during the day now that we were leaving, and I wondered if Abeva would like her new babysitter.

So many changes.

“I got a backpack too!” announced Lemlem, pulling out a red bag with her name embroidered in bright yellow.

“My turn,” I said and opened my present. Inside was a big white pencil case. Grandma had embroidered my name in red, yellow, and green—the colors of the Ethiopian flag.

“Oh. It’s beautiful, Mitaeh. Thank you.” I smiled. I couldn’t wait to show it to all my friends. I had never seen such a unique pencil case. It was so colorful and pretty.

Last year, the day before school started, Ima took me to the stationery store with two of my friends, Naama and Adi. We picked out matching pencil cases with orange elephants on the front. Of course, we kept getting them mixed up since we always sat together, and this year we all promised that we would each buy different ones. I felt a pang of sadness remembering that I wouldn’t be at school with them anymore.

I hugged Grandma and tried to be cheerful. “We’ll come to visit all the time!” I promised. Lemlem joined in, climbing onto Grandma’s lap and asking her to make braids in her hair, just like mine.

“When your hair has grown a little, sweetness. You’d better go now. Your parents will be waiting.” She passed Abeva back to me, and I put her new backpack on and settled her on my hip.

“Why don’t you come with us to Herzliya, Grandma?” Lemlem asked.

Grandma sighed heavily, “I have had enough changes in my life,” she said. “Now, I’m not going to walk with you. My legs hurt. And anyway, I hate goodbyes.” She hugged each of us again tightly and stood in her doorway, waving as we walked down the path to the road.

• • •

When we got back home, the moving van was almost packed. Abba locked the front door, and as we were getting into our car, he gave Ima a hug. “Don’t worry,” he told her, “Everything will be all right. This is a small move, compared to the moves we made before.”

He was talking about when they had both immigrated to Israel, Ima from Ethiopia and Abba from America. Ima smiled at him and rested her head briefly on his shoulder.

“I know we’ll be all right, Mike,” she said, “but it’s still hard to leave, especially with my mother all on her own, I wish she would agree to come with us.”

“The fact that your mother is so well settled in Katzrin is a good thing. We’ll visit her, and she’ll visit us,” Abba reassured her. Ima realized that we were listening, and she turned and said, “I know it’s hard to leave Katzrin, but think of the children who came to Israel from Ethiopia on Operation Solomon and how hard it was for them to adjust to a new country and a new language. You can come back and visit Katzrin. It’s not goodbye forever.”

On the way to Herzliya, I pressed my forehead against the car window remembering the day a few months ago when we found out about Operation Solomon.

• • •

“Ima, come quick!” I ran to the kitchen impatiently and pulled Ima into the living room.

“What’s the matter?”

I pointed at the screen as the television newscaster announced, “In an operation unprecedented in Israel’s history, the remainder of Beta Israel and the Ethiopian Jewry has been brought to Israel—15,000 men, women, and children.” Ima was overjoyed. She kissed me and took my hands, and we danced together around the living room.

“They did it! They really did it!” she kept saying in complete disbelief. I saw the tears in her eyes, but she was smiling from ear to ear.

Just then, Abeva woke up. “I’ll get her,” I told Ima. I ran to get Abeva from her crib, and by the time I came back downstairs our house was full of happy, excited neighbors, some of them immigrants eager to see their friends and relatives.

• • •

The sound of a car horn brought me back to reality. I looked at my little sisters. Abeva, in her car seat next to me, was fast asleep. Lemlem was dozing too. It made so little difference to them, us moving. Lemlem would go to a new preschool—big deal—and Abeva was still just a baby.

When we reached the coastal road, Abba asked me to close the window because of the strong wind from the sea. I think we’d been driving for about two hours when I noticed that the car had slowed down a lot because of traffic. There were more and more buildings around us, and for the first time, I was sorry that I had refused to go with Abba to see our new home when he had offered weeks ago. At the time, it seemed unthinkable that we would really leave Katzrin, and I was sure they would change their minds. Now I had no idea where we were going or what our new street looked like. Eventually, we stopped next to a very tall building, and Ima turned around and announced, “This is it; we’re here.”

“Where?” I asked uneasily.

“Herzliya. Our new home.”

“This is the new house?” Lemlem was excited. Ima nodded and unbuckled my sisters from their car seats.

“This is our new home, on the sixth floor,” said Abba. I looked up the side of the building. I guessed there were about 20 floors, but later I counted 10. Around the building was a very nice garden with grass and flowers and some swings, separated from the road by a row of carefully cropped bushes.

“That’s nice,” Lemlem said, pointing at the garden, “but how will we get up, Abba?”

“Don’t worry, there’s an elevator,” said Abba, popping the trunk.

• • •

I had to admit, my room was really nice, with a big window looking out over the garden behind the house. Abba asked the movers to set up my furniture right after they did Abeva’s crib. Ima left all her sorting to help me find my posters. In the end, even though I was the one who wanted to be there least, my room was ready before all the others. My furniture looked strange in this new place.

I sat on my bed and looked at the special album that all my friends had autographed for my goodbye party. It had a red-and-blue cover, and on the first page it said, “To our dear Meskerem from all of us, Year 4, Class 2, Katzrin.”

It must have been Naama’s idea, I thought, and I imagined how she and Adi must have taken the book from house to house after school getting the kids to write in it. Or did they do it during recess while somebody distracted me?

On the second page it said,

To Meskerem, my best friend of all

Please remember to call

I will not say goodbye

That would only make me cry

I will miss you so much

Make sure to stay in touch!

Love, Naama

That probably proved that it was Naama’s idea, since she was first to sign. She drew puppies across the bottom of the page. She loves animals. The next page was decorated with a border of red, green, and yellow flowers. I could have recited it by heart by now, but I read it again anyway:

To Meskerem my friend

The fun we’ve had will never end

You may be in another place

But I will not forget your face

So write to me, you won’t be lonely

I’ll always be your one and only

True friend,

Love, Adi

Naama and Adi were my best friends in Katzrin. We’d known each other since we were born. We were always in each other’s houses and planned everything together. When Naama’s parents were sent to Brazil for the Foreign Ministry, she stayed with us for three whole months. And last year when Adi’s dad told his family he was on army reserve duty and didn’t come home for months, Adi confided in me about how hard it was with him away. When he came back and told her that he helped to bring the airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel, we were all so proud. Whenever they talked about Operation Solomon at school, we made sure everybody knew Adi’s dad had a big part in it.

I missed them both so much already.