35
SIMCHA BROUGHT Yair home from kindergarten. His fingers were blue with cold. In the street they had met the postman, who had handed them a military postcard from Sinai: My brother Emanuel says that he is well and that he is doing and seeing great wonders. He will send us another card from Cairo, capital of Egypt. He hopes that all is well with us in Jerusalem. He has not met Michael: the desert is vast; by comparison our Negev seems like a tiny sand-pit. Do I remember the trip we made to Jericho with Father when we were little? Next time we'll push down to the Jordan, and then we'll be able to go down to Jericho to buy rush mats again. "Kiss Yair from me," he concluded. "I hope one day he'll grow, to fight against the foe. With love and fond farewell—Yours, Emanuel."
From Michael there was not a word.
An image:
By the light of the field radio his carved features suggest weary responsibility. His shoulders are hunched. His lips pressed tightly together. He is bent over the radio. Huddled. His back turned, no doubt, to the crescent moon which rises pale and thin behind him.
Two visitors came to see how I was that evening.
In the afternoon Mr. Kadishman and Mr. Glick had met in Haturim Street. It was from Mr. Glick that Mr. Kadishman had learned that Mrs. Gonen was ill and that Mr. Gonen had been called up. At once they had both determined to look in that evening and offer their assistance. So they had both come to visit me together: if one man had come alone it might have given rise to untoward gossip.
Mr. Glick said:
"It must be very hard for you, Mrs. Gonen. These are tense times, the weather is cold, and you are all alone."
Mr. Kadishman, in the meantime, had been feeling the cup of tea by my bedside with his large, fleshy fingers.
"Cold," he announced mournfully, "ice cold. Will you permit me, dear lady, to invade your kitchen, invade in quotation marks, of course, and make you a fresh cup of tea?"
"Certainly not," I said. "I'm allowed to get out of bed. I'll just slip my dressing gown on and make you both a cup of coffee or cocoa."
"Heaven forbid, Mrs. Gonen, Heaven forbid!" Mr. Glick was startled, and blinked as though I had outraged his sense of decency. His mouth twitched nervously. Like a hare twitching at an unfamiliar sound.
Mr. Kadishman registered interest:
"What does our friend write from the front?"
"I haven't had a letter from him yet," I said, smiling.
"The fighting is over," Mr. Kadishman interposed hastily, beaming with happiness. "The fighting is over and there is not a foe left in the Wilderness of Horeb."
"May I trouble you to turn on the light?" I asked. "There, to your left. Why should we sit here in the dark?"
Mr. Glick rolled his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger. His eyes seemed to follow the path of the electric current from the switch to the light bulb on the ceiling. Perhaps he felt he was superfluous. He asked:
"Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Thank you very much, my dear Mr. Glick, but I don't need any help."
It suddenly occurred to me to add:
"It must be hard for you, too, Mr. Glick, without your wife and ... all alone."
Mr. Kadishman stood standing by the light switch for a moment, as if he had doubted the outcome of his action and could not believe in his complete success. Then he came back and sat down. As he did so he seemed rather ponderous, like those prehistoric creatures with gigantic bodies and tiny skulls. I suddenly noticed something Mongolian in Mr. Kadishman's face: broad, flat cheekbones, his features at the same time coarse and the opposite, amazingly refined. A Tartar face. Michael Strogoff's cunning interrogator. I smiled at him.
"Mrs. Gonen," Mr. Kadishman began after sitting down ponderously, "Mrs. Gonen, in these historic days I have been pondering at great length the fact that whereas Vladimir Jabotinsky's disciples have been swept into the corner, yet his doctrines are enjoying a great success. A very great success indeed."
He seemed to be speaking with secret inner relief. I loved what he said: There are setbacks and tribulations, but after prolonged tribulations due recompense will come. Thus I translated it in my mind from his Tartar tongue into my own language. So as not to offend him by my silence, I said:
"Time will tell."
"It already is telling," Mr. Kadishman said, with a triumphant expression on his outlandish face. "The message of these historic days is clear and unambiguous."
Meanwhile Mr. Glick had succeeded in formulating the answer to a question which I, who had asked it, had by now quite forgotten:
"My poor dear Duba, they are giving her electric shock treatment. They say there is still hope. One mustn't despair, they say. IfGod wills..."
His great hands crushed and kneaded a battered hat. His thin mustache quivered like a tiny living animal. His voice was anxious, pleading for a clemency he did not deserve: despair is a mortal sin.
"It will turn out all right," I said.
Mr. Glick:
"Amen. Amen selah. Oh, what a calamity. And all for what?"
Mr. Kadishman:
"From now on the State of Israel will change. This time the hand which wields the axe, in Bialik's phrase, is ours. Now it is the turn of the Gentile world to howl aloud and ask if there is justice in the world, and if so, when it will appear. Israel is no longer 'a scattered sheep'; we are no longer a ewe among seventy wolves, or a lamb being led to the slaughter. We have had enough. 'Among wolves, be a wolf.' It has all happened as Jabotinsky foretold in his prophetic novel, Prelude to Delilah. Have you read Jabotinsky's Prelude to Delilah, Mrs. Gonen? It is well worth reading. And especially now that our army is pursuing the routed forces of Pharaoh and the sea is not divided for the fleeing Egyptians."
"But why are you both sitting in your overcoats? I'll get up and put the heat on. I'll make something to drink. Please take off your coats."
As if reprimanded, Mr. Glick hurriedly rose to his feet:
"No, please, Mrs. Gonen, don't get out of bed. There's absolutely no need. We simply ... looked in to see how you were. We must be off directly. Please don't get up. There's no need to put the heat on."
Mr. Kadishman:
"I, too, must take my leave. I merely called in on my way to a committee meeting, to see if there was anything I could do to help."
"To help, Mr. Kadishman?"
"In case you needed anything. To deal with any business matters, perhaps, or..."
"Thank you for your good intentions, Mr. Kadishman. You belong to the dying race of true gentlemen."
His saurian features lit up. "I shall call again tomorrow or the day after to find out what our dear friend has to say in his letter," he promised.
"Pray do call, Mr. Kadishman," I said mockingly. My Michael's choice of friends amazed me.
Mr. Kadishman nodded emphatically. "Now that you have been kind enough to offer me an explicit invitation, I shall most certainly call."
"I wish you a speedy and complete recovery," said Mr. Glick. "And if there is anything I can do by way of shopping or any other kind of errand ... Is there anything you might require?"
"So kind of you, Mr. Glick," I replied. He stared intently at his battered hat. Silence fell. The two elderly men were standing now at the other end of the room, edging towards the door, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and my bed. Mr. Glick spotted a white thread on the back of Mr. Kadishman's overcoat, and removed it. Outside a breeze blew up and died away. From the kitchen came the sound of the refrigerator motor, which seemed suddenly to have taken a new lease on life. Once again I was flooded by that same calm, lucid feeling that I should soon be dead. What a bleak thought. A well-balanced woman is not indifferent to the thought of death. Death and I are indifferent to one another. Close and yet remote. Distant acquaintances who are barely on nodding terms. I felt I ought to say something at once. I felt that I should not say good-bye to my friends and let them go now. Perhaps tonight the first rain would fall. Surely I was not an old woman yet. I could still
be attractive. I must get up at once. Put on my dressing gown. I must make coffee and cocoa, serve some cakes, make conversation, be interested, be interesting; I too am educated, I too have views and ideas; there is something clutching at my throat.
"Are you in a very great hurry?" I asked.
"Regretfully I must take my leave," said Mr. Kadishman. "Mr. Glick is at liberty to stay if he wishes."
Mr. Glick wrapped a thick scarf round his neck.
Don't go yet, old friends. She mustn't be left alone. Sit down in the armchairs. Take off your overcoats. Relax. We will discuss politics and philosophy. We will exchange views about religious faith and righteousness. We shall be fluent and friendly. We shall drink together. Don't go. She is afraid to be left alone in the house. Stay. Don't go.
"I wish you a speedy recovery, Mrs. Gonen, and a very good night."
"You're leaving, so soon. You must find me boring."
"Heaven forbid. Perish the thought." Their anxious voices converged.
Both these men had feeble gestures, being lonely and no longer young, and neither of them used to visiting the sick.
"The street is deserted," I said.
"I wish you better," replied Mr. Kadishman. He pressed his hat down onto his forehead as if suddenly shutting a skylight.
Mr. Glick said, as he left:
"Please do not be anxious, Mrs. Gonen. There is no sense in worrying. It will all be all right. Everything, absolutely everything will turn out for the best, as they say. Yes. You are smiling; how pleasant to see you smiling."
The visitors left.
Immediately I turned on the radio. Straightened the bedclothes. Have I got a contagious disease? Why did the two old friends forget to shake hands with me when they arrived and again when they left?
The radio announced that the conquest of the peninsula was now complete. The Minister of Defense proclaimed that the Island of Jotbath, commonly known as Tiran, had returned to the possession of the Third Kingdom of Israel. Hannah Gonen will return to Yvonne Azulai. But our aim was peace, proclaimed the Minister, in his unique rhetorical style. If only the rational elements in the Arab camp would overcome their grim desire for vengeance, the long-awaited peace would come.
My twins, for instance.
In the suburb of Sanhedriya the cypresses bent and straightened, straightened and bent in the breeze. It is my humble opinion that all flexibility is witchcraft. It flows, yet it is cold and restful all at the same time. A few years ago, on a winter's day in Terra Sancta College, I copied down some remarks of the professor of Hebrew literature which were filled with sadness: From Abraham Mapu to Peretz Smolenskin the Hebrew Enlightenment underwent a painful transformation. A crisis of disappointment and disillusionment. When dreams are shattered, sensitive men are not bent but broken. "Thy destroyers and they that lay thee waste shall go forth of thee." The implications of this verse of Isaiah are twofold, said the professor: First of all, the Hebrew Enlightenment nurtured in its own bosom the ideas which subsequently led to its destruction. Later on, many good men "went forth" to graze in alien pastures. The critic Abraham Uri Kovner was a tragic figure. He was like the scorpion, which when it is hemmed in by flames plants its sting in its own back. In the seventies and eighties of the last century there was an oppressive feeling of a vicious circle. Had it not been for a few dreamers and fighters, realists who rebelled against reality, we would have had no revival and would have been virtually doomed. But it is always the dreamers who achieve great things, the professor concluded. I have not forgotten. What an immense labor of translation awaits me! This too I have to translate into my own language. I do not want to die. Mrs. Hannah Greenbaum-Gonen: The initials HG spell the Hebrew for "festival"; if only the whole of her life could be one long festival. My friend the kind librarian from Terra Sancta, who used to wear a skullcap and exchange greetings and witticisms with me, has long been dead. What is left is words. I am tired of words. What a cheap lure.
36
NEXT MORNING the radio announced that the Ninth Brigade had captured the shore batteries at Sharm el Sheikh. The prolonged blockade of our shipping had been shattered. From now on, new horizons were opened up to us.
Dr. Urbach, too, had an announcement to make that morning. He smiled his sad, sympathetic smile and shook his diminutive shoulders as if in contempt of the words he spoke:
"It is permissible now for us to walk a little and work a little. Provided we avoid all mental effort and also avoid straining the throat. And provided we come to terms with objective reality. I wish you a speedy recovery."
For the first time since Michael's departure I got up and went outside. It made a change. As if some shrill, piercing sound had suddenly stopped. As if a motor which had been trilling outside all day had suddenly been switched off towards evening. The sound had passed unnoticed all day; only when it stopped did it make itself felt. A sudden stillness. It had existed and now it had stopped. It had stopped, therefore it had existed.
I dismissed the maid. I wrote a reassuring letter to my mother and sister-in-law at Nof Harim. I baked a cheesecake. At noon I telephoned the military information office of Jerusalem. I asked where Michael's battalion was currently stationed. The reply was politely apologetic: Most of the army was still on the move. The field post was unreliable. There was no cause for alarm. The name "Michael Gonen" did not appear on any of their lists.
It was a wasted effort. When I got back from the drugstore I found a letter from Michael in the mailbox. The postmark showed that the letter had been delayed. Michael began by inquiring anxiously after my health and about the child and the house. Next he informed me that he was in good health, apart from the heartburn which was aggravated by the poor food, and apart from having broken his reading glasses on the first day out. Michael complied with military censorship regulations and did not reveal the whereabouts of his battalion, but he managed to hint indirectly that his unit had not been in action at all, but had been engaged in security duties inside the country. Finally, he reminded me that Yair was due to go for dental treatment that Thursday.
Thursday, that was tomorrow.
Next day I took Yair to the Strauss Medical Center, where the local dental clinic was. Yoram Kamnitzer, our neighbors' son, went with us part of the way because his youth club was near the clinic. Yoram explained awkwardly that he had been sorry to hear of my illness and was delighted to see me well again.
We stopped at a stall selling hot corn on the cob, and I offered to buy some for Yair and Yoram. Yoram thought it right to refuse. His refusal was faint and almost inaudible. I was unkind to him. I asked him why he seemed so dreamy and vacant today. Had he fallen in love with one of the girls in his class?
My question brought out large beads of perspiration on Yoram's brow. He wanted to wipe his face but could not because his hands were dirty and sticky from the corn I had bought him. I looked at him fixedly so as to increase his embarrassment. Humiliation and despair inspired a wave of nervous audacity in the youth. He turned a gloomy, tormented face on me and muttered:
"I'm not involved with any girl in my class, Mrs. Gonen, or with any girl at all. I'm sorry, I don't want to be rude, but you really shouldn't have asked me that question. I don't ask. Love and things like that are ... private."
A late autumn was reigning in Jerusalem. The sky was not cloudy, but neither was it bright. Its color was autumnal: blue-gray, like the road and like the old stone buildings. It was a fitting hue. Once again I felt that this was by no means the first time. I had been here and now before.
I said:
"I'm sorry, Yoram. I forgot for a moment that you go to an Orthodox school. I was curious. There's no reason why you should share your secrets with me. You are seventeen and I am twenty-seven. Naturally I seem like an old hag to you."
I was now causing the boy worse torment than he had undergone before. And deliberately. He looked away. In his nervous state he bumped into Yair and almost sent him flying. He started to speak, failed to find the right words
, and eventually gave up the attempt.
"Old—you? On the contrary, Mrs. Gonen, on the contrary ... What I was trying to say was ... You take an interest in my problem, and ... with you I can sometimes ... No. When I try to put it into words, it comes out all back to front. All I meant was..."
"Relax, Yoram. You don't have to say it."
He was mine. All mine. He was at my mercy. I could paint any expression I liked on his face. Like on a sheet of paper. It was years since I had last enjoyed this grim game. I turned the screw further, relishing with cautious sips the laughter welling inside me.
"No, Yoram, you don't have to say it. You can write me a letter. In any case, you've already said nearly everything. By the way, has anyone ever told you you've got beautiful eyes? If you had more self-confidence, you'd be a real heart-throb. If I were your age instead of an old hag, I don't know how I could resist falling for you. You're a lovely boy."
I did not take my cold eyes off his face for a moment. I absorbed the astonishment, the longing, the suffering, the mad hope. I was intoxicated.
Yoram stammered:
"Please, Mrs. Gonen..."
"Hannah. You can all me Hannah."
"I ... I feel respect for you, and ... no, respect isn't the right word ... regard, and ... interest."
"Why apologize, Yoram? I like you. It's not a sin to be liked."
"You make me regret, Mrs. Gonen, Hannah ... I won't say anything else, or I'll regret it later. I'm sorry, Mrs. Gonen."
"Keep talking, Yoram. I'm not so sure you'll regret it."
At that moment Yair intervened. With his mouth crammed full of corn he exclaimed: