Something Good Will Happen Tomorrow

Much has been written about the Jewish mother`s suffocating love for her son, but few have dared take the subject as far as as Esty G. Hayim does in this courageous book. Batia`s invasion of her son Uri`s life is pathological, and obsession becomes madness when the personal drama plays out against a wider drama – pursuit of a terrorist about to carry out a catastrophic attack.

Batia, at 41, has not succeeded in realizing even one of her dreams. The daily struggle to make a living has cooled, if not extinguished, the fire of her earlier married life to a man who in his youth longed to be a rock star but failed. Batia`s casual extra-marital affairs leave her dissatisfied and unhappy, but she is a complex woman, sensitive and creative, as shown in her imaginative cooking and her love for books. A trip to a resort near the Sea of Galilee is planned, both to add interest to her life and as a bar mitzvah present for her talented and rather strange son. But right in this picturesque locale, the red lines cross over into the dark side of motherhood. The introverted Uri becomes interested in a local girl, Batia loses control, and her relationship with her son reaches the brink of incest. First, she shuts herself up with him in their cabin, and then the two flee to Safed, where they are pursued as in a Hollywood movie. At the same time and place, the police are trying to catch an armed terrorist on the prowl. It is Batia who encounters the terrorist, the son of a Palestinian mother, and shoots him with an old gun she took from the resort. She becomes a heroine for a day but her own son distances himself from her. “I had it coming: I killed another mother`s son,” Batia summarizes her situation.