A Room of Their Own by Rakefet Yarden (best summer reads of all time .TXT) 📕

I looked at everything as though from the side and felt like I was in a movie. On the one hand, elation, relief, and a sense of having prevailed; on the other, feeling as though none of this is mine. That perhaps it’s not really me here, but rather someone else. And perhaps this really is all mine, and it is me here, but it felt so fragile that I found it hard to grab hold of.

After so many years of hardship and suffering, of crying, self-hatred, and masochism, I was finally where I’d chosen to be, where I wanted to be, with people who appreciated and loved me, and I was even managing to give back and help others. So I was pretty pleased by the whole thing, despite the intense embarrassment gnawing at me from within. I didn’t know whether to cry from excitement or to laugh at the fact that everyone was there, like a kind of school graduation party that I’d never before gotten to experience.

Tal spoke beautifully, as usual, and Ronnie did, too. When she mentioned the word “incest,” I felt myself drifting far away. Wandering to other places, to Billy’s stall in the stables, to Evelyn’s shiny fur, to my Miko’s one blue eye. Anywhere, as long as I didn’t have to hear and recognize the fact that I was one of them − a survivor, as Ronnie put it. I hated that term, but I loved the idea that out of disaster and sickness there grew such a clean and healthy place: the horses in my life as well as this lovely project.

Re’ut continued talking, and my eyes shifted to the window. I could see the blind girl who comes for weekly riding sessions, and she always makes me think about how it must feel to be near such a powerful animal and not be able to see it. I guess the other senses become a lot sharper and stronger. I watched her from afar, and I could feel the serenity that this horse was bestowing upon her. She leaned over to stroke it, and she smiled tranquilly, as did I.

“Dani? Would you like to say something?” Ronnie suddenly appeared in my bubble of thoughts.

I was embarrassed, but it was important for me to thank them. So I gathered up all of the confidence I had within me. “Just a huge thank-you to all of you, to everyone who’s enabled this whole thing to happen.”

Rotem

Ronnie gave the stage to Re’ut. “A lot of cases of incest remain unreported for fear of breaking up the family, because there’s no rehabilitation for the offending side either. We will provide a comprehensive healing treatment in accordance with the law, and help people grow out of their post-trauma . . .” She kept talking, but I could no longer hear her.

Dani was walking around among her family members, almost gliding, and this time not because she was about to faint, but rather as though she finally had wind beneath her wings. I thought to myself that perhaps this is what justice looks like − everything’s all right, and everything is in its own place. What’s clear is that this is what happiness smells like. The scent of coffee, bread and horse stables.

I saw her becoming part of a group of people who have good intentions and do good deeds. And they, too, have a room of their own from which to emerge to the great pastures outdoors.

Acknowledgments

“A Room of Their Own” was born in a time of crisis. A time when the pains of the past took painful hold of me. We wrote the book together during our therapy sessions, and it helped us to take a step back and look at things from a new perspective.

We found ourselves writing each in our own homes for many hours until Dani and Rotem were born, two characters whose special bond helped them both to heal and grow.

Slowly, the book began to form, and we realized that we had a story that begged to be told.

Many women have accompanied us on this journey:

Ronit Ohana helped us in weaving the beginning of Dani and Rotem’s bond and creating the base for both their joint story and their separate ones.

Shira Carmi of Eshkol Nevo’s workshops, and Orit Gidli, who read the manuscript when it was halfway done and pushed it forward.

Orna Landau - The Megera of Kinneret Zmora Bitan Dvir’s workshop ‘Turning Ideas into Novels’ - for her unrelenting professionalism in helping us complete this book.

To Maya Thomas, for an attentive and accurate translation.

To Yael Rozen, the first and last to read this.

And to all the Danis and Rotems out there, building rooms of their own each and every day.

The book is filled with love for people and animals’ a love that has the power to heal.

Rakefet & Hila, December 2020

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