My Michael

  I loved my husband when he spread a white napkin over his gray jacket, washed his hands, and carefully lifted his son.

  "You're very hard-working, Michael," I laughed faintly.

  "There's no need for you to make fun of me," Michael said in an even voice.

  When I was a child my mother often used to sing me the pretty song about a good boy called David:

  Little David was so sweet,

  Always tidy, always neat.

  I do not recall how it goes on. If I had not been unwell I should have gone into town and bought Michael a present. A new pipe. A brightly colored toiletry set. I am dreaming.

  At five in the morning Michael would get up, boil some water, and wash the baby's diapers. Later I would open my eyes to see him standing over me, silent and submissive. He would hand me a cup of warm milk and honey. I was drowsy. Sometimes I did not even reach out to take the cup from him because I thought that I was simply dreaming Michael, that he was unreal.

  There were nights when Michael did not even get undressed. He sat at his desk till morning reading his books. He chewed on the mouthpiece of his empty pipe. I have not forgotten that tapping sound. He might doze off for half an hour or an hour, sitting with his arm stretched out on the table and his head resting on his arm.

  If the baby cried in the night Michael would pick him up and carry him backwards and forwards across the room, from the window to the door and back again, whispering in his ear facts which he had to learn by heart. Poised between waking and sleeping I would hear at night the dim watchwords "Devonian," "Permian," "Triassic," "lithosphere," "siderosphere." In one of my dreams the professor of Hebrew literature was admiring the linguistic synthesis of the writer Mendele and happened to utter some of these words. "Miss Greenbaum," he said to me, "would you be so kind as to describe briefly the inherent ambiguity of the situation?" How that ancient professor smiled at me in my dream. His smile was tender and kind, like a caress.

  Michael wrote a long essay during those nights about an ancient conflict between neptunist and plutonist theories of the origin of the earth. This dispute preceded the Kant–La Place nebular theory. I found a certain fascination in the expression "nebular theory."

  "How did the earth really originate, Michael?" I asked my husband.

  Michael merely smiled, as if that were the only answer I had expected of him. And, indeed, I had not expected any answer. I was withdrawn. I was ill.

  During those summer days of 1951 Michael told me that he cherished a dream of expanding his essay and publishing it in a few years' time as a short piece of original research. Could I imagine, he asked, how glad his old father would be? I could not find a single word of encouragement to offer him. I was contracted, withdrawn into myself as though I had lost a tiny jewel on the sea bed. I was lost for hours on end in sea-green twilight. Pains, depression, and frightening dreams by day and by night. I hardly noticed the dark bags which appeared under Michael's eyes. He was desperately tired. He had to stand for hours in the line for free food for nursing mothers with my ration book in his hand. He never uttered a word of complaint. He simply joked in his usual dry way, and said that it was he who deserved the allowance, since he was feeding the baby.

  17

  LITTLE YAIR BEGAN to resemble my brother Emanuel, with a broad, healthy face, a fleshy nose, and high cheekbones. I was not pleased by this resemblance. Yair was a greedy and lusty baby. He grunted as he drank and in his sleep he produced a contented gurgling. His skin was pink. The islands of pure blue turned into small, inquisitive gray eyes. He was prone to mysterious fits of violent rage, in which he would beat the air around him with his clenched fists. It occurred to me that had his fists not been so tiny it would have been dangerous to go near him. At such times I called my son "The Mouse That Roared," after the well-known film. Michael preferred the nickname "Bearcub." At the age of three months our son had more hair than most babies.

  Sometimes, when the baby cried and Michael was out, I would get up barefoot and violently rock the cradle, calling my baby in an ecstasy of pain "Zalman-Yair," "Yair-Zalman." As if my son had wronged me. I was an indifferent mother during the early months of my son's life. I remembered Aunt Jenia's distasteful visit at the beginning of my pregnancy, and at times I imagined perversely that it was I who had wanted to get rid of the baby and Aunt Jenia who had forced me not to. I also felt that I should soon be dead and so I owed nothing to anyone, not even to this pink, healthy, wicked child. Yes, Yair was wicked. Often he would scream in my arms and his face would turn as red as that of a furious drunken peasant in a Russian film. Only when Michael took him from my arms and sang to him softly would Yair consent to be quiet. I resented this; it was as if a stranger had shamed me with base ingratitude.

  I remember. I have not forgotten. As Michael walked backwards and forwards across the room from the window to the door and back again, carrying the child in his arms and whispering sinister words in his ear, I would suddenly observe in both of them, in all three of us, a quality which I can only call melancholy, because I do not know what other term to use.

  I was ill. Even when Dr. Urbach announced that he was satisfied that the complication was cleared up, and that I was free to resume a normal life in every way, even then I was still ill. However, I resolved to move Michael's camp-bed out of the room where the cradle was. From now on I took the care of the baby on myself. My husband was to sleep in the living room so that we should no longer distract him from his studies. He would have an opportunity to catch up on the work he had been prevented from doing the previous months.

  At eight o'clock in the evening I would feed the child, put him to sleep, lock the door from the inside, and then stretch out by myself on the broad double bed. Sometimes at half past nine or ten o'clock Michael would tap gently on the door. If I opened it he would say:

  "I saw a light under the door and I knew you weren't asleep. That's why I knocked."

  As he spoke he looked at me with his gray eyes like a thoughtful elder son. Distant and cold, I would answer:

  "I'm ill, Michael. You know I'm not well."

  He clenched his hand on his empty pipe till the knuckles showed red. "I only wanted to ask if ... if I'm not disturbing you ... If there's anything I can do to help, or—do you need me? Not now? Well, you know, Hannah, I'm just in the next room if you want anything ... I'm not doing anything important, just reading through Goldschmidt for the third time, and..."

  A long time before, Michael Gonen had told me that cats are never wrong about people. A cat would never make friends with anyone who was not disposed to like him. Well, then.

  I would wake before dawn. Jerusalem is a remote city, even if you live there, even if you were born there. I wake and hear the wind in the narrow streets of Mekor Baruch. There are corrugated-iron huts in backyards and on ancient balconies. The wind plays on them. Washing rustles on washlines strung across the road. Garbage men drag cans along the pavement. One of them always curses hoarsely. In some backyard a cock crows angrily. Distant voices clamor on all sides. There is a still, tense fever all around. The howling of cats mad with desire. A single shot in the distant darkness to the north. A motor roaring in the distance. A woman moaning in another flat. Bells singing far off in the east, perhaps from the churches of the Old City. A fresh wind plows the tree-tops. Jerusalem is a city of pine trees. A taut sympathy reigns between the pine trees and the wind. Ancient pines in Talpiot, in Katamon, in Beit Hakerem and behind the dark Schneller Woods. Now in the low village of Ein Kerem white mists at dawn are envoys of a realm of different colors. The convents are ringed with high walls in the low village of Ein Kerem. Even within the walls are whispering pines. Sinister things are plotting by the blind light of dawn. Plotting as if I were not here to hear them. As if I were not here. The swish of tires. The milkman's bicycle. His light footfall on the landing. His muffled coughing. Dogs barking in the yards. There is a frightening sight out there in the yard and the dogs can see it and I cannot. A shutter wails. They kno
w that I am here awake and trembling. They are conspiring as if I were not here. Their target is me.

  ***

  Every morning, after doing the shopping and tidying the house, I take Yair for a walk in his carriage. It is summer in Jerusalem. A calm blue sky. We make for Mahane Yehuda market to buy a cheap frying pan or strainer. When I was a child I used to like watching the bare brown backs of the porters in the market. I enjoyed the odor of their sweat. Even now the eddying smells in Mahane Yehuda market give me a feeling of repose. Sometimes I would sit on a bench opposite the railings of the Tachkemoni Orthodox Boys' School, the baby carriage by my side, and follow with my eyes the boys wrestling in the playground in the break between lessons.

  Often we went as far as the Schneller Woods. For such an expedition I would prepare a flask of lemon tea, cookies, my knitting, a gray rug, and some toys. We would spend an hour or so in the woods. The wood was small, set on a steep hill and carpeted with dead pine needles. Ever since I was a child I have called this wood "the forest."

  I spread out the rug, and put Yair down to play with his blocks. I sit on a cold rock with three or four other housewives. These women are kindly; they are happy to talk to me about themselves and their families without so much as hinting that I should reveal my own secrets in return. So as not to appear superior or condescending, I discuss with them the advantages of various kinds of knitting needles. I tell them about pretty blouses in lightweight materials on sale at Maayan Stub or at Schwartz's Store. One of the women taught me how to cure a baby's cold by means of inhalations. Sometimes I try to amuse them by telling them a political joke brought home by Michael, about Dov Yosef, the "Minister of Rationing," or about a new immigrant who said such and such to Ben Gurion. But when I turn my head I catch sight of the Arab village of Shaafat dozing beyond the border, bathed in blue light. Red are its rooftiles in the distance and in the nearby treetops birds in the morning sing songs in a language I cannot understand.

  ***

  I soon grow tired. I return home, feed my child, put him to sleep in his cradle and sink panting onto my bed. Ants have appeared in the kitchen. Perhaps they had suddenly discovered how very weak I am.

  In the middle of May I gave Michael my permission to smoke his pipe in the house, except in the room where the baby and I slept. What would happen to us if Michael fell ill, even slightly? He had never had a day's illness since he was fourteen. Couldn't he take a few days' holiday? In another year and a half or so, when he had got his second degree, he would be able to adopt a less rigorous routine, and then we could all have a pleasant holiday together. Was there anything he would like? Could I buy him something to wear? As a matter of fact, he was still saving to buy the parts of the big Encyclopaedia Hebraica as they appeared; to this end he walked home from the university four times a week instead of taking the bus, and in this way he had already saved about twenty-five pounds.

  At the beginning of June the baby showed the first signs of recognizing his father. Michael approached him from the direction of the door and the child gurgled with delight. Then Michael tried approaching him from the other side, and again Yair cried out with joy. I did not like the way the child looked when he was so bursting with joy. I told Michael that I was afraid our son would not turn out to be particularly bright. Michael's jaw dropped in amazement. He started to say something, hesitated, then changed his mind and fell silent. Later he wrote a postcard to his father and his aunts informing them that his son recognized him. My husband was convinced that he and his son were destined to become bosom friends.

  "You must have been pampered as a child," I said.

  18

  IN JULY the academic year came to an end. Michael was awarded a modest scholarship, as a token of approval and encouragement. In a private conversation his professor spoke to him of his prospects: A sound, hard-working young man would not be overlooked; he would certainly end up as an assistant lecturer. One evening Michael invited a few of his fellow students around to drink to his success. He planned a small surprise party.

  We received visitors very infrequently. Every three months one or other of the aunts called and spent half a day with us. Old Sarah Zeldin from the kindergarten would pop in for ten minutes towards evening to give us the benefit of her expert advice about the baby. Michael's friend Liora's husband came from Kibbutz Tirat Yaar with a crate of apples. Once my brother Emanuel burst in at midnight. "Here, take this filthy chicken. Quick. Are you still alive? Here, I've brought you a bird—it's still alive, too. Well, all the best. Have you heard the one about the three airmen? Well, love to the baby. I've got our truck waiting outside, and they'll start tooting at me any moment."

  On Saturdays my best friend Hadassah sometimes came over, with or without her husband. She kept trying to persuade me to go back to the university. Aunt Leah's friend, old Mr. Kadishman, was in the habit of dropping in from time to time to keep an eye on us and to play a game of chess with Michael.

  On the night of the surprise party eight students came. One of them was a blonde girl who looked dazzling at first glance but later seemed coarse-featured. Apparently she was the girl who had danced the lively Spanish dance at our wedding party. She called me "sweetie," and Michael she called "genius."

  My husband poured the wine and handed round cookies. Then he got up on the table and started mimicking his lecturers. His friends laughed politely. Only the blonde girl, Yardena, was really enthusiastic. "Micha," she cheered, "Micha, you're the greatest."

  I was ashamed of my husband because he was not amusing. His gaiety was strained and forced. Even when he told a funny story I could not laugh, because he told it as if he were dictating lecture notes.

  After a couple of hours the guests left.

  My husband collected the glasses and took them out to the kitchen. Then he emptied the ashtrays. He swept the room. He put on an apron and went back to the sink. As he went down the passage he stopped and looked at me like a scolded schoolboy. He suggested I go to bed and promised not to make any noise. He supposed I was worn out after all the excitement. He had been wrong, he could see now how wrong he had been. He shouldn't have invited strangers in; my nerves were still on edge and I was easily tired. He was surprised at himself for not having thought of that beforehand. By the way, he found that girl Yardena utterly vulgar. Would I forgive him for what had happened?

  While Michael was asking me to forgive him for the small party he had arranged I recalled how lost I had felt that night when we came back from our first expedition to Tirat Yaar, and how we had stood between the two rows of dark cypresses, how the cold rain had lashed my face and how Michael had suddenly unbuttoned his rough overcoat and gathered me into his embrace.

  Now he stood bent over the sink as if his neck were broken, his gestures very weary. He washed the glasses in hot water, then rinsed them in cold. I crept up behind him on bare feet. I kissed his close-cropped head, threw both my arms round his shoulders, and took hold of his firm, downy hand. I was glad that he could feel my breast against his back, because since the beginning of my pregnancy my husband and I had been distant. Michael's hand was wet from washing the glasses. He had a dirty bandage on one of his fingers. Perhaps he had cut himself and not bothered to tell me. The bandage, too, was wet. He turned his long, thin face towards me, and it seemed more emaciated than it had been on the day we first met in Terra Sancta. I noticed that his whole body was emaciated. His cheekbones stood out. A fine line had begun to show by his right nostril. I touched his cheek. He showed no sign of surprise. As if this was what he had been waiting for all these days. As if he had known in advance that it was this evening that the change would come.

  Once upon a time there was a little girl called Hannah, and she was given a new dress, white as snow, to greet the Sabbath. She had a pretty pair of shoes, too, of real suede, and her curls were tied up with a pretty silk scarf, because little Hannah had lovely curly hair. Now Hannah went out, and she saw an old charcoal-seller bowed down under the weight of his black sack.
The Sabbath was approaching. Hannah hurried to help the charcoal-seller carry his sack of charcoal, because little Hannele had a kind heart. But then her white dress was covered with charcoal and her suede shoes were filthy. Hannah burst out crying bitterly because little Hannele was a good girl, always tidy, always neat. The kindly moon in the sky heard her crying and sent his beams down to play on her gently and to turn every smudge into a golden flower and every spot into a silvery star. For there is no sadness in the world that cannot be turned into great joy.

  I lulled the baby to sleep and went into my husband's room wearing a long, transparent nightdress which came down to my ankles. Michael put a marker in his book, closed it, put down his pipe, and switched off the table lamp. Then he stood up and put his arms around my waist. He did not speak.

  Afterwards, I spoke the deepest words that I could find in my heart: Tell me something, Michael—why did you say once that you liked the word "ankle"? I like you for liking the word "ankle." Maybe it's not too late to tell you that you're a gentle and sensitive person. You're rare, Michael. You will write your paper, Michael, and I shall make the fair copy. Your paper will be very thorough, and Yair and I will be very proud of you. It will make your father happy, too. Everything will change. We shall be released. I love you. I loved you when we met in Terra Sancta. Maybe it isn't too late to tell you that your fingers fascinate me. I don't know what words I can use to tell you how much I want to be your wife. How very, very much.

  Michael was asleep. Could I blame him? I had spoken to him in my gentlest voice and he had been so desperately tired. Night after night he had sat at his desk till two or three in the morning, bent over his work, chewing on his empty pipe. For my sake he had taken on the job of marking first-year essays and even translating technical articles from English. With the money he earned he had bought me an electric fire, and an expensive baby carriage for Yair with springs and a colored canopy. He was so tired. My voice was so soft. He had fallen asleep.