Micro Book Group Guide No. 8

The compact sedan is braked at kissing distance from the monstrous rear of a bus, awaiting a light change, the motorist demonstrating her signature driving style. The passenger in front is a woman of advanced middle age tracking closely the precision steerage, Inbal.

Managing also the glance over her shoulder and the question she has been saving for a conversational pause. Where did Rami’s family live in Palestine.

Rami, an elderly man sitting behind the driver, his long legs tented in a miniature vehicle circumnavigating a North American city’s preeminent parklands, the Boston Common, the Public Garden. He says his father came from Ma'alul.

Westward of Nazareth, he says. From my mother’s side I am Egyptian. My father is dead of course. 

Aspiring westward through Boston, a carload of people including Rami, surname unknown, one of three passengers including the asker who have accepted a ride from an organizer of the vigil for a permanent ceasefire, convening weekly at the foot of the Massachusetts State House.

Notable to Inbal that an elderly man finds it necessary to articulate that his father is dead, a fact he flags as self-evident. Presumably his mother is dead too. Were she alive that would be remarkable. His wife at his side, elderly too. Astrid, a name Inbal relearned while the passengers were still orbiting the car prior to entering, the doors unlocked, the seating order indeterminate.

To Inbal it had seemed natural that Rami should sit aside the driver where the extra legroom would accommodate a tall man more comfortably. The same idea was voiced by the driver while she cleared the rear bench of a considerable freight. A priority to Rami to include in the deliberation another logistical element: Who is getting off first?

You are, the driver said, referring to Rami and Astrid.

The freight relocated to the trunk, Rami chose the seat beside his wife.

#

While the vigil organizer tidies her vehicle and establishes with Rami a consensus regarding the seating, Inbal and Astrid undertake introductions.

You must be Israeli, Astrid says to the vigil partner whose name she did not know until now.

A surge of affection in the voice and mien of the elder woman who attaches to her junior a particular history. In the aftermath of a sabotaged vigil, a dose of solace. Astrid loves an Israeli.

Or the warmth is unrelated to any history but Astrid’s, a genial stranger. Possible too that the companionable spirit must be seen to correspond with their shared survival of a tense chapter. They are vigil partners who emerge from a disrupted ritual.

#

Do we know this person? Astrid’s question during the vigil’s final rite, asked of the nearest participant, Inbal.

No. To me he appears drunk.

What’s that.

I believe he is drunk.

(From Outpatient, a novel-in-the-works by Naama Goldstein)

Resolve the following problem:

This reading leaves me…

1) Eager to immerse in the experience of fictional participants in an urban vigil, curious about the details of a disruption to their weekly routine.

2) Sensing the parallels between my outlook and that of individuals emerging from histories seemingly unlike mine.

3) All of the above.

4) None of the above. I could not get past the humanization of a so-called peoplehood whose claims I reject. This is not the sort of fiction you will ever find me reading.