Olive Days: A Novel

by Jessica Elisheva Emerson

The air in his home tasted the way alchemists’ studies look in old oil paintings: linseed oil, loam, the carbonated richness of something fermenting, motes of dust gone stale in the large dome, wood and rust on the tongue, as if Will was molding his surroundings until he manifested one day in the impasto of an old master, all carob paint and spotlights shining down from those clerestory windows.

Baller sentence. Top notch. Excellent work.

There was no justice in her labor, no authority other than the entrenched patriarchy in the way the lunar calendar bent her body into servitude of the never-ending holidays, crippled the inertia of her selfhood in the cycle of baking, cooking, cleaning, making, burying errant forks in soil. There was no redemption in the gray and stale meticulousness of keeping a kosher home, a kosher marriage, a string of kosher children, the frantic weekly rush of preparing Shabbos just so she could have a few hours to recover from the madness that was preparing for Shabbos. Women were for ushering in the joy of others and were judged harshly if they didn’t experience the proper amounts of joy themselves, humming along with the men singing at the table, their hands immersed in the jaundiced sink water where they stood washing cholent out of china dishes week after week after week. There was a certain irony in the ache of her fingers as she struck matches to bring in Shabbos, invite the queen of peace into her immaculate home.

Truth.