Fixing a Hole

I’ve been meaning to fix my jumper for weeks.

A small hole in the shoulder. You know how they spool out. I really like this jumper. Better to patch it preemptively.

When I go by Galia, the seamstress, she tells me to come back later. Her alley shop is tiny, cramped. Just Galia, a low desk, a sewing machine, and piles of clothes.

When I return she’s happy to see me. She picks up the jumper immediately and starts stitching. Upbeat old-fashioned Hebrew songs play from her cassette player.

The fifties? I ask. Sixties?

Yes. Fifties and sixties. They used to play this music before Yom Haatzmaut.

Dancing?

Yes. On Shabbat mornings.

Isn’t that time for synagogue?

Not for everyone.

The point of Shabbat is to enjoy. Together with friends. Singing, dancing. Not like those Orthodox who go to synagogue and afterwards throw stones. That’s not Shabbat.

She’s eighty-six. Iranian.

You’re the same age as the Ayatollah, I say. Maybe you went to the same kindergarten?

No, she was in the north. Some other town near the Russian border. She had a good life there. A normal childhood.

Everyone has problems, says Galia. I can fix jumpers, but I can’t sing. You can sing, but you can’t fix jumpers.

She hands me the mended jumper. I spot another hole in the back collar. Back to the machine. Head down, stitching, she tells me no one wants war. There won’t be more war. Not yet. We just need to be good to each other. Treat each other well. Hashem will take care of the rest.

I tell her, Galia, you do tikunim. You patch people’s clothes and their hearts.

It feels almost rude to offer to pay. So familial, standing there while she sews my jumper.

Still I ask: what do I owe?

Fifteen.

I give her a hundred. She finds eighty in change.

It’s ok, I tell her.

Nice talking to you, she says.