Then the man placed both hands on top of the desk and, again resting his whole weight on the muscles of his forearms, advanced slowly along the edge of the desk, with a mighty effort, like a large octopus thrown up on dry land and struggling to crawl down the seashore to the water. So the man moved, dragging himself with the strength of his arms from his chair along the whole length of his desk until he reached an upholstered wicker couch, a sort of chaise longue that awaited him beside the desk, beneath the window. Here, outside the ring of light cast by his reading lamp, he began to execute a series of bends and twists, shifting his weight from hand to hand, until he managed to lay his large body down on this cradle of his. And at once he declared in the same derisive voice:
“Aha! The notice! So there is a notice! And I said in my haste—well, but in fact, all that is between you and her. I have nothing to do with her mysteries. And meanwhile, please feel free to sit there and wait to your heart’s content. And what hidden treasure are you concealing there? Under your beard? No. I was only joking. Forgive me now if, with your permission, I take a little nap. As you can see, I have a degenerative disease. I am degenerating. And you, young man, please sit, sit, fear not, no ill will befall you here in my home, you may even select a book or two to read until she returns, unless you, too, prefer to take a nap. Sit. Sit.”
Then he fell silent. And perhaps he really did close his eyes, stretched out on his couch, wrapped like a huge silkworm cocooned in another tartan blanket, identical to the first and waiting for him in his new place. And at once he was transformed into a vague, silent range of hills.
Shmuel was surprised by Mr. Wald’s repeated exhortations to sit, because he had only to glance at his visitor to realize that he had remained sitting all the time and had not gotten up or stirred even once. A valley, hills, olive trees, a ruin, and a winding mountain path appeared in a drawing by the artist Rubin on a calendar that hung, slightly askew, on the wall facing the desk, between the bookcases. Shmuel was gripped by an irresistible urge to get up and straighten the picture. Then he returned to his place and sat down again. Gershom Wald said nothing: perhaps he had dozed off and not seen. Or perhaps his eyes were not yet entirely closed under the thick white brows and he saw the adjustment, but accepted it in silence.
6
* * *
SHE APPEARED THROUGH another door, one that Shmuel had not noticed. It was actually not a door but a concealed entrance, hiding behind a bead curtain in a corner of the room. As soon as she entered, she reached out and switched on the ceiling lamp. At once the whole library was flooded with bright light. The shadows were banished behind the rows of books.
A woman of around forty-five, she held herself erect and moved around the room as if well aware of her feminine power. She was wearing a plain, light-colored dress that reached her ankles and a simple red sweater. Her long, dark hair flowed softly down on one side of her neck to land on the mound of her left breast. Beneath the hair nodded a pair of large wooden earrings. Her clothes hugged her body. Her high heels enhanced the lightness of her step as she glided from the entrance toward Mr. Wald’s wicker cradle. There she stood, with one hand on her hip, waiting. When she raised her elongated brown eyes to Shmuel, she was not smiling, but her face wore an expression of curious sympathy with a faint hint of challenge. As if to ask: So? How about you? What can I do for you? What little surprise have you brought us today? And also as if trying to tell him that even though she was not smiling, a smile was definitely possible and should not be ruled out.
She brought with her into the room a faint scent of violets, but also a whiff of the pleasant smell of laundry and starch and ironing that his nostrils had caught as he was advancing between the closed doors along the passage.
“Have I come at an inconvenient time?” Shmuel asked.
And he hastened to add:
“I’ve come about the notice?”
She turned those eyes on him again, so sure of their power, and scanned his appearance with interest and possibly pleasure. She did not turn her gaze away until he was compelled to lower his eyes. She contemplated his unkempt beard as one takes an unhurried look at a crouching animal. And she nodded, not to him but to Mr. Wald, as if confirming her initial conclusion. Shmuel Ash, meanwhile, peeped at her once or twice, then hastily looked down again, though he managed to notice the well-defined furrow that descended firmly from her nose to the middle of her upper lip. It seemed unusually deep, yet fetching and delicate. Removing a pile of books from a chair, she sat down, crossed her legs, and straightened the hem of her dress.
She seemed in no hurry to reply to his question as to whether he had come at an inconvenient time, appearing to consider it from every angle until she was in a position to deliver a responsible and authoritative answer. Finally she said:
“You’ve been waiting a long time. You must have been talking, the two of you.”
Shmuel was surprised by her voice. It was resonant and languorous, yet practical at the same time. Self-confident. She did not seem to be asking a question so much as summing up the results of various calculations.
“Your husband told me to wait for you,” Shmuel said. “I gathered from the notice that —”
Mr. Wald opened his eyes and interrupted. He addressed the woman:
“He says his name is Ash. Without an initial H, we must hope.”
And turning to Shmuel he corrected him, a patient teacher correcting a pupil:
“But I am not the lady’s husband. I do not have that honor and pleasure. Atalia is, in fact, my mistress.”
He allowed a little time for Shmuel to wallow in his astonishment before deigning to explain:
“I am not using the word in the vulgar sense, of course, but rather as in the famous saying of the first Queen Elizabeth of England: ‘I will have here but one mistress and no master.’”
Atalia said:
“Well, just you carry on with this as long as you like, the two of you. You seem to be enjoying it.”
She uttered this without a smile, but in a voice that seemed to promise Shmuel that all options were open so long as he did not overdo it or make a fool of himself. She put four or five short questions to him, repeating one with emphasis and in simpler language because she was not satisfied with his answer. She paused for a moment, then added that she still had a few questions left.
Mr. Wald intervened cheerily:
“Our guest must surely be feeling pangs of hunger and thirst! He has come straight from the heights of the Carmel! A couple of oranges, a slice of cake, a glass of tea might work wonders!”
“I’ll leave the two of you to work wonders. I’ll go and put the kettle on.”
The smile that had had difficulty reaching her lips now rose from her voice.
She turned and left the way she had come in. But this time, as she went out, her hips stirred the bead curtain. Even after she disappeared, it did not settle at once, but continued to make waves and produced a trickling, rustling sound that Shmuel hoped would not die away too soon.
7
* * *
THERE ARE TIMES when the pace of life slows down, stuttering like water running from a rain gutter, cutting itself a narrow channel in the earth of the garden. The stream encounters a heap of soil, is checked, forms a small puddle, hesitates, and reaches out to nibble at the mound blocking its way, or tries to tunnel underneath. Because of the obstacle, the water sometimes shudderingly splits, groping its way along three or four fine threads. Or it gives up and soaks away into the dust. Shmuel Ash, whose parents had lost their entire life savings in an instant, whose own research had stalled, who had dropped out of university, and whose girlfriend had suddenly married her former boyfriend, decided to accept the position he had been offered in the house on Rabbi Elbaz Lane. Including the conditions of “board and lodging,” and including the monthly salary, which was modest: for a few hours each day he would keep the invalid company, and the rest of his time would be his own. And there was also the presence of Atalia
, who was nearly twice his age, yet he felt a pang of disappointment every time she left the room. Shmuel fancied he noticed a certain distance, or disparity, between her words and her voice. Her words were few and sometimes sarcastic, her voice was warm.
A couple of days later he moved out of his room in Tel Arza and into the house surrounded by a paved yard shaded by fig and vine, the house that had attracted him from the first glance. In a couple of cardboard boxes and an old kit bag he transported his clothes, his books, his typewriter, and two rolled-up posters, one showing the Pietà and the other the heroes of the People’s Revolution in Cuba. He carried his small record player under one arm, his collection of records under the other. This time he did not stumble over the loose plank inside the front door, but carefully stepped across it.
Atalia Abravanel explained to him the scope of his duties and the rules of the house. She showed him the spiral iron staircase that led up from the kitchen to the attic. Standing at the foot of the staircase, she instructed Shmuel in the details of his work and the routine of the kitchen and the laundry, one hand resting on her hip with fingers outspread while the other fluttered for a moment on his sweater, pulling from his sleeve a wisp of straw or a dead leaf caught in the wool. She spoke precisely, practically, yet in a voice that conjured up a warm, dark room:
“Look. It’s like this. Wald is a nocturnal creature. He sleeps till midday because he stays awake every night until the early hours of the morning. Every evening from five until ten or eleven you will sit and talk to him in the library. And that, more or less, is the entire job. Every afternoon at half past four you will fill and light the paraffin heater. You will feed the fish in the aquarium. You don’t need to make a special effort to prepare subjects for conversation—he will have already equipped himself with an abundance of topics, and it won’t take you long to discover that he’s one of those people who talk mainly because they can’t stand a moment’s silence. Don’t be afraid to argue with him. In fact, he really comes to life when people disagree with him. Like an old dog who still needs a stranger to appear now and then to give him a reason to bark, and occasionally to give a little nip. Though only a playful one. On the other hand, you can both drink as much tea as you wish: here’s the kettle, and here’s the essence and the sugar, and over there is a box of biscuits. Every evening at seven o’clock you will warm the porridge that will be waiting for you, covered in tinfoil, on the electric hotplate, and you will place it in front of him. He generally devours his food with gusto, but if he only eats a mouthful or two, or refuses to eat altogether, don’t force him. Just ask him if you can take the tray, and put it just as it is on the kitchen table. He can get to the toilet by himself, on his crutches. At ten o’clock you must always remind him to take his pills. And at eleven, or a little earlier, you must leave him a thermos full of hot tea for the night, then you’re free to go. After you’ve left him, come out to the kitchen and wash his plate and cup, and leave them to dry on the drainer above the sink. At night he usually reads and writes, but in the morning he tears up everything he’s written. When he’s alone he sometimes talks to himself or even argues with himself out loud. He talks for hours on the telephone with one of his three or four old enemies. Occasionally he sobs in the night. Don’t go to him. Leave him alone. As for me”—for an instant a crack of hesitancy opened in her voice, but was immediately closed—“never mind. Come here. Look: here is the gas. Here is the dustbin. The hotplate. The sugar and coffee are here. Biscuits. Cakes. Dried fruit. There’s milk and cheese and some fruit and vegetables in the refrigerator. Up here there are tins of preserves, beef, sardines, peas, and corn. We’ve had some of them since the siege of Jerusalem. This is the crockery cupboard. Here are the electric fuses. The bread is here. There’s an elderly neighbor living across the street, Sarah de Toledo, who brings Mr. Wald a vegetarian lunch every day, and every evening she leaves a saucepan of porridge on our hotplate. It’s a paid arrangement. There should be enough porridge for you too. You can take care of your own lunch: there’s a little vegetarian restaurant nearby, on Ussishkin Street. Here’s the laundry basket. The cleaner, Bella, comes every Tuesday. If you like, Bella can do your laundry and clean your room at no cost to you. For some reason, one of your predecessors was terrified of Bella. I have no idea why. Your predecessors were trying to find themselves, apparently. What they found I don’t know, but none of them stayed more than a few months. At first they were enchanted by the prospect of all that free time in the attic, but later it became a burden. I expect you’ve also come here for solitude and to find yourself. Or perhaps to write a new poem. You may think that bloodshed and atrocities have come to an end, you may think the world has been purged and cleansed of suffering and is just waiting impatiently for a new poem. There are always clean towels here. That is my door there. Don’t even think of coming to look for me. Ever. If you need something, if some problem crops up, just leave me a note here on the kitchen table and in due time I’ll supply you with whatever you need. Only don’t come running to me out of loneliness or whatever, like your predecessors. This house apparently makes people lonely, but that’s not my department. I have nothing to offer. And one other thing: when he is alone, he not only talks to himself but he sometimes cries out. He calls for me in the night. He calls out to people who no longer exist. He begs and pleads with them. He may even call out to you. It mostly happens at night. Pay no attention. Just turn over and try to get back to sleep. Your task in this house is well defined: it lasts from five to eleven. Wald’s crying out at night is not part of your job. The same goes for some other things that may happen here sometimes. That is none of your business—steer well clear of it. Oh, I almost forgot: take these keys. Don’t lose them. This one is the front-door key, and this is the key to your attic room. Naturally you are free to come and go outside your working hours, but on no account are you to bring any visitors here. Male or female. This is definitely not an open house. And how about you, Ash? Do you ever cry out at night? Do you sleepwalk? No? Never mind. Pretend I never asked. And another thing: you will sign here for me, to agree that you hereby undertake not to talk about us. Not to pass on any information. Not even to your nearest and dearest. You are simply not to tell anyone what work you do here. If you have no alternative, you can always say you’re looking after the house, and that is why you’re living here rent-free. Have I forgotten anything? Have you? Is there anything you’d like to ask? I haven’t alarmed you, have I?”
A couple of times while she was talking, Shmuel tried to look into her eyes, but each time he had encountered a glimmer of wry warning, and he had been compelled to avert his gaze quickly. This time he decided not to give up. He knew how to smile at women with a charming, childlike innocence, and he also knew how to imbue his voice with a certain shy, helpless quality, which contrasted strikingly with his overgrown body and his unruly, Neanderthal beard. This shy approach, combined with boundless enthusiasm and a kind of perpetual melancholy, often worked for him.
“May I ask just one question? A personal question? What is the relationship, or the connection, between you and Mr. Wald?”
“He has already given you the answer. I am in charge of him.”
“And another question? You really don’t have to answer.”
“Ask. But that will be the last question for today.”
“Abravanel? Such an aristocratic name. I don’t like to pry, but is there any connection with Shealtiel Abravanel? I seem to recall there was someone called Shealtiel Abravanel here in Jerusalem in the forties? A member of the Executive of the Jewish Agency? Or a member of the National Council? If I remember rightly he was the only one to oppose the creation of the state? Or else he was only opposed to Ben-Gurion’s approach? I remember vaguely: He was a lawyer? An Arabist? A ninth-generation Jerusalemite? Or was it seventh-generation? I have an idea he was a kind of one-man opposition. And afterward Ben-Gurion ousted him from the leadership, so he wouldn’t get in his way. Or maybe I’m muddling up two different people.” r />
Atalia did not reply immediately. Instead, she gestured to him to climb the spiral staircase, and followed him up to the door of his attic, where she stood leaning against the railing, her left hip raised and curved into a little hillock, her outstretched arm holding the other railing, her body blocking his escape. And, as if breaking through low clouds, an inward-looking, pained smile spread from the corners of her eyes, but—it seemed to Shmuel at that moment—there might have been in her smile a hint of surprise and even gratitude. But at once the smile was shut off and her face went blank, like a door being slammed.
She seemed beautiful and attractive to him, and yet there was something strange, something hurt, in her face, something that reminded him of a pale theatrical mask or the whitened face of a mime. For some reason, tears welled up in Shmuel’s eyes and he hurriedly looked away, because he was ashamed.
With her back to him, as she started to descend the iron stairs, she said:
“He was my father.”
Several days passed before he saw her again.
8
* * *
AND SO A NEW CHAPTER opened in Shmuel Ash’s life. There were times when he felt a sharp urge to run and find Yardena, to snatch her for an hour or two from her rainwater-collecting husband Nesher Sharshevsky and lecture her passionately about his present monastic existence, so different from his previous life, as if he had been reincarnated here. He was keen to prove to her that he had now succeeded in overcoming all his defects—his feverishness, his garrulousness, his unmanly tendency to weep, and his impatience—and that he was turning into a calm, solid man like that husband of hers.
Or not just to tell her about it but to take her by the arm and show her the wintry stone courtyard with its polished flagstones, and this dark, inward-looking house, shaded by cypresses, fig tree, and vines, to bring her up to the little attic room where he now lived a solitary, meditative life beneath the bearded faces of the leaders of the Cuban Revolution, and to Mr. Wald’s library . . . where we sit and chat for several hours a day and where I am gradually learning to be a patient listener. It would be good, too, to present to Yardena his didactic invalid, tall and stooping, with the Einstein-like mane of white hair and the snowy mustache; and the beautiful, distant woman whose piercing eyes mock you but whose voice, which is far from mockery, wells up slowly from deep in her chest.