ct A 1,04 K'tonton Goes Up To Jerusalem By SADIE ROSIE WEILERSTEIN K'tonton was in Israel. He had just arrived and was standing outside the airport. "Abraham may have once stood on this very spot," K'tonton thought. "Or King David, or Rabbi Akiba." K'tonton wanted to see the whole country. He looked for a car to take him around. Then he saw the perfect one. It was a very old car. The fender, bent and battered, almost reached the ground, so that K'tonton could reach it and hoist himself up. The dents in the metal gave him a foothold. The upholstery inside had torn places for his fingers to dig into. Up the back of the rear seat, K'tonton climbed. At the top, quite close to the window, was a perfect hole. "I can hide in here and get a good view at the same time," K'tonton thought, as he fitted himself inside. Mind you, K'tonton didn't need to hide. Every Jew is welcome in the State of Israel. But it seemed easier to K'tonton to hide than to explain how he had come to Israel. The driver came up, threw a to Tk et SIA we/ tenc number of packages into the trunk of the car, then got in. The engine coughed and chugged. Zoom, rattle bang! The car sped down the road, then lurched around a corner. They were climbing into the hills, in and out along a corkscrew road. A signpost caught K'tonton's eye. K'tonton's heart leaped. "We're going up to Jerusalem," it sang, "to Jerusalem, where the Holy Temple stood. "Only I'm not saying it ... I'm doing it!" The song in K'tonton's heart rose up and up. He couldn't hold it back. It burst from his lips, thin, and sweet, and clear. L 6 - FRIDAY, MAY 10, 1991 4611iligh. 4 , 4fari;* .;e4," temPlarf,pfeal The driver heard it and turned. There on top of the rear seat, his feet fitted snugly in a hole in the upholstery, stood a tiny, thumb-sized boy. "Shalom!" said the driver, looking interested but not surprised. He was used to seeing all kinds of Jews in Israel — blond Jews, black Jews, giant Jews from Caucasus, brown lean Yemenite Jews with side curls, cave-dwelling Jews. This was a thumb-sized Jew. "Shalom!" he said again. "Why do you sit there by yourself?" He grinned down at K'tonton. "The front seat upholstery also has good holes." Without slowing down, he stretched out an arm to make a bridge for K'tonton to cross over. From the top of the front seat, K'tonton looked into the man's face. It was a pleasant face, browned by the sun and weather, with a nice big nose and blue eyes with wrinkles under them. "For the smiles to run down," K'tonton thought. The man's shirt was open at the neck. A beret was tipped back from his forehead. "And where do you come from?" he asked, one eye on K'tonton, the other on the road, which at that moment was making a hairpin turn. "I'm going up to Jerusalem," K'tonton said. He knew that this wasn't an answer to the question, but at the moment where he was going seemed more important than where he had come from. The hills grew steeper and more barren. Stones and boulders covered them. Suddenly K'tonton pointed excitedly. Men with pickaxes were splitting huge rocks. "The stones! Are they iron?" K'tonton asked. "Iron?" K'tonton answered with a Bible verse: A land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you may dig brass. "I see you know your Bible," said the driver. "That makes you half an Israeli already. The stones you are talking about are down in the Negev near King Solomon's mines." "Do you mean King Solomon who built the Holy Temple?" K'tonton's voice was filled with awe. "The very one! They're digging copper out of those old mines right now." He was going to tell about the discovery of the ancient mines, but K'tonton's eyes were again on the hills. The dead, gray stones were gone. Grapevines rose in terraces. Pine trees covered the hill tops. Barns and neat red-roofed houses hid among green orchards. "Trees!" K'tonton said in wonder. "Hills covered with trees! Maybe those are the ones the coins from my blue-and-white box paid for. "What did you say your name was?" he asked. "I didn't say," K'tonton answered. "It's Isaac Samuel ben Baruch Reuben, for short K'tonton." Then in the same breath "Are those Jewish National Fund trees? Are there any almond trees up there? Do you think there might be one my age, because ..." The man's eyes were laughing. "So your name is K'tonton. You ask so many questions. I thought your name was Question Mark." He pointed to a grove of olive trees ahead. Through the silvery tops rose the towers of Jerusalem. The car turned a corner. "We're here, K'tonton," the driver said. "Where do you want to get off?" "I'll get off at ... at ..." he hesitated. "Because," the driver went on, "if you haven't any special place to go, you could come home with me." He brought the car to a stop. "My wife would enjoy a guest for Passover. You are so good at asking questions, you could ask the Mah nishtanah." He meant the Four Questions the youngest child of the family asks on Passover eve. "Don't you have a son to ask?" K'tonton's eyes were filled with sympathy. "Oh, I have a son all right, a fine, smart child," the driver assured him. "But he can't manage the Mah nishtanah by himself. He's only a year and a half old." "My father has one son, too." K'tonton said gravely. "Me. I don't know who will ask him the Mah nishtanah this year." Suddenly a tear slid down K'tonton's cheek and caught in a corner of his mouth. He sucked it in quickly. That night K'tonton wrote to his parents. He wrote about his flight and everything that had happened to him since he arrived in the Holy Land. Their answer came before Passover. "We are glad you have found friends in Israel," the letter said. "You may stay until we save enough money for tickets. Then we will come and join you." Reprinted from The Best of K'tonton by Sadie Rosie Weilerstein. Illustrated by Marilyn Hirsch 1980.