THE GIRL
WHO STOLE
MY
HOLOCAUST
Noam Chayut
Translated by Tal Haran
In sacred memory of Abir Aramin and Smadar Elhanan
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
PART TWO
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
PART THREE
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
COPYRIGHT
This book was born of an accident. Let me explain. I traveled to India for my vacation. One of those post-graduation trips. That is the Israeli code name. A good definition for what you do in life helps you place yourself in society. As I sat in a dhaba—a cheap Indian restaurant—in the town of Rishikesh, an Israeli girl approached me and posed a question.
“Student?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “Actually, I’ve just graduated.”
“Oh,” she said. “Then you’re on a post-graduation trip. Me and my girlfriend are on the last leg of our post-army trip. It’ll soon be a year. How long can we keep going? We’ve had enough. We’re heading home, that’s it. How long are you planning to travel? Wow, cool.”
And that’s how I came upon the definition for this period of my life. From Rishikesh I headed north to Leh, in the Ladakh desert. First of all because I like deserts, and second because of the monsoon season in the south. This is also the ideal time to explore the Ladakhian plain, which is frozen over the rest of the year.
Leh is a charming town in the heart of a breathtaking landscape: a green oasis surrounded by an expansive desert. The ground is colorful, with bright yellow, brown, green and red stretching out all the way to the horizon, in fascinating contrast with the distant snowy peaks ornamenting the barren plain.
Leh is beautiful indeed, but it did not welcome me.
At first I suffered altitude sickness—I simply had no air. Three or four days later, as I began to recuperate, some nasty virus attacked my partner and kept her in bed for a whole week, during which time I came down with violent food poisoning that kept me in the guesthouse and on the toilet bowl, tormented with nausea and horrendous belly aches. When we began to recover, we wanted to liven up our convalescence, so we traveled to one of the neighboring villages. There—perhaps because of the bedbugs or for some other reason—my partner developed a rash on her hands and neck that soon spread to her whole body. Still pale from her sick days, she resembled a white sheet with red spots all over it. Another two or three days went by and I, too, developed a rash on my hands, belly and forehead, while my nausea and dizzy spells continued.
When we finally felt better, we decided to try an experience favored by many travelers in that region: descending a mountain road on a bicycle. A Jeep took us up 5,200 meters above sea level, the highest point in the world accessible by road. From there we coasted back down on our bicycles to Leh, about fifty kilometers as the crow flies, and an altitude difference of about 1,700 meters. In the sheer adrenalin rush I lost all sense of responsibility or fear. I left the group far behind and glided among the mountaintops.
I felt the tremendous smile spreading over my face, hurting my cheeks, a smile reserved for skiing or galloping on horseback along the beach. I took one of the curves too fast. There was sand in the middle of the road and my tires skidded. I almost managed to stabilize myself on one side of the road but hit a protruding metal rod. My bicycle toppled over. I was hurled forward and crashed on some rocks. After rolling over once or twice, I found myself sitting on my ass, stunned and barely breathing. I cursed myself for my irresponsible speed, but was also proud of my “parachute landing,” which prevented worse injury. Except for some cuts on my knees, left hip and one hand, I found no other injuries. Thinking that the shock of falling had helped sustain my breathing, I returned to the bicycle and continued my ride, even enjoying it, although my breathing difficulties were replaced by a growing pain in my chest. Then it even hurt to sit down and stand up, to bend over and swallow, and especially to cough and yawn. Even the slightest sneeze resulted in pain lasting for minutes. I could only fall asleep on my back or curled up on my right side, but changing positions was torture and the pain woke me up.
A visit to the Ladakh hospital is a depressing experience, but at least my visit was cheap.
I was very glad to have included high-risk sports in my insurance policy. However, since registering for a doctor’s appointment cost only two rupees (or twenty agorot—Israeli cents) and the x-ray cost another forty-five, and the medication which I didn’t use cost another thirty rupees, all my medical expenses amounted to only seven Israeli shekels and seventy agorot. Even including the taxi fare to and from the hospital, the insurance charges cost less than the stamp for mailing the forms home.
In the x-ray room at the hospital was a woman sprawled in a wheelchair, her whole body badly injured. She had apparently been in a traffic