“You know how it is with Yemeni people. Singing is in our
blood,” says one of the characters in the book. “We sing when we clean, we sing
when we cook. We sing when we’re happy. We sing when we’re sad. In
celebrations. Even in death.”
It is a death that brings Zohara, a 31-year-old PhD
candidate, back to Israel. Zohara’s mother, Saida, has died. The two hadn’t
always gotten along. ‘Only after I moved to New York had we reached a quiet,
dignified truce,’ Zohara tells herself. ‘I finally made it home again. and she
wasn’t here.’
Along with her sister Lizzie, Zohara sets out to purchase a
gravestone and pack up their mother’s home in the Sha’ariya Yemini neighborhood
of Petach Tikva. At the grocery store down the street, Zohara meets Nir, with
whom she went to elementary school. Nir’s mother, Yael, introduces her to the
sisterhood of women who gather at the community center to sing. As women traditionally
play secondary roles in Yemeni households, Zohara ‘started thinking of the
women’s songs, that insistence to be heard, as subversive, audacious, feminist
even. I liked the idea of the women using their creative expression as a form
of protest.’
When she discovers a set of old cassette tapes, the music 'brings
Zohara closer to her mother, to understand her more after she died than she did
when she was alive.' ‘It made me see my mother in a whole new light.’ Zohara is
shocked to learn that her mother not only sang but was also a talented poetess.
A woman capable of writing explicit lyrics.
‘If I were grapes strung on a vine, I’d squeeze the flesh
of my fruit and pour juice into your mouth’.
At its heart of Songs for the Brokenhearted is
a love story. It is the tale of Saida and Yaqub, who first met in an immigrant
camp in 1950, shortly after their arrival in Israel. “My heart is full of
rain. If it bursts, it might flood the whole time,” Saida sings, and the
young girl's beautiful voice captivates Yaqub. “Singing is the one thing that
keeps me sane in this place,” she tells him. “I miss the way we sang in Yemen,
all the women together.”
Zohara’s discovery of her mother’s musical talents makes her
reconsider the subject of her dissertation. She also reexamines her connection
with Iggy, a former lover and her current best friend. Or maybe her friendship
with Nir can advance to the next level, she wonders.
Tsabari, author of the award-winning The Best Place on
Earth short story collection, populates her pages with true to life
characters. Zohara’s nephew, Yoni, struggles to find meaning during the
politically charged weeks leading up to November 1995. Lizzie’s frustrations
with her sister are easily understood, and readers will readily connect with
Zohara, as she is drawn closer to her mother and learns more about herself in
the process.
You can almost hear Saida singing her original lyrics to
traditional Yemenite songs as you read this moving, highly recommended novel.
Ayelet Tsabari’s debut collection of short
stories, The Best Place on Earth, won the Sami Rohr Prize for
Jewish Literature and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award. Her memoir The Art of
Leaving was a finalist for the Writer’s Trust Hilary Weston Prize, and the winner
of the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for memoir. She’s the co-editor of the
anthology Tongues: On Longing and Belonging Through Language and has taught
creative writing at Guelph MFA in Creative Writing and The University of King’s
College MFA.
Originally posted on The Times of Israel.
Related articles:
Review of
'The Art of Leaving' by Ayelet Tsabari
Review of 'The Best Place on Earth' by Ayelet Tsabari
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