Soumchi

  "And just where has his lordship been all this time? And just where is his bicycle?"

  "My bicycle?" I said, dismayed. And the blood rushed from my face.

  "The bicycle," repeated Father patiently, stressing each syllable precisely. "The bicycle."

  "My bicycle," I muttered after him, stressing each syllable exactly as he did. "My bicycle. Yes, It's at my friend's house. I left it with one of my friends." And my lips went on whispering of their own accord, "Until tomorrow."

  "Is that so?" returned Father sympathetically, as if he shared my suffering wholeheartedly and was about to offer me some plain but sound advice. "Perhaps I might be permitted to know the name and title of this honored friend?"

  "That," I said, "that, I am unable to reveal."

  "No?"

  "No."

  "Under no circumstance?"

  "Under no circumstance."

  It was now, I knew, he'd let fly with the first slap, I shrank right back, as if I was trying to bury my head between my shoulders, my whole body inside my shoes, shut my eyes and gripped my pencil sharpener with all my might, I took three or four breaths and waited. But no slap came. I opened my eyes and blinked. Father stood there, looking sorrowful, as if he was waiting for the performance to be over. At last he said,

  "Just one more question. If his lordship will kindly permit."

  "What?" my lips whispered by themselves.

  "Perhaps I might be allowed to see what his excellency is concealing in his right hand?"

  "Not possible," I whispered. But suddenly even the soles of my feet felt cold.

  "Even this is not possible?"

  "I can't, Daddy."

  "His highness is showing us no favor today," Father summed up, sadly. Yet, despite everything, condescended to keep on pressing me: "For my benefit. And yours. For both our benefits."

  "I can't."

  "You will show me, you stupid child," roared Father. At that moment, my stomach began to hurt me dreadfully.

  "I've got a tummy-ache," I said.

  "First you're going to show me what you've got in your hand."

  "Afterwards," I begged.

  "All right," said Father, in a different tone of voice. And repeated suddenly, "All right. That's enough." And moved out of the doorway. I looked up at him, hoping above hope that he was going to forgive me after all. And in that very moment came the first of the slaps.

  And the second. And afterwards the third. But, by then, I'd ducked out of the way of his hand and run outside into the street, running as hard as I could, bent low from sheer fright, just like Goel's dog when he ran away from me. I was in tears almost; in the process of making the dreadful decision: that I would shake the dust of that house from my feet for ever. And not just of the house; of the whole neighborhood, of Jerusalem. Now, at this moment, I'd set out on a journey from which I'd never return. Not for ever and ever.

  So my journey began; but, instead of heading directly for Africa, as I'd planned earlier, I turned east, towards Geula Street, in the direction of Mea Shearim; from there I'd cross the Kidron Valley and follow the Mount of Olives road into the Judean Desert and thence to the Jordan crossing and thence to the Mountains of Moab, and on and on and on.

  Ever since I was in Class Three or Four, my imagination had been captured by the Himalayan mountains, those sublime ranges at the heart of Asia. "There," I'd once read in an encyclopedia, "there, among them, rears the highest mountain in the world, its peak as yet unsullied by the foot of man." And there too, among those remote mountains, roamed that mysterious creature, the Abominable Snowman, scouring godforsaken ravines for his prey. The very words filled me with dread and enchantment:

  ranges

  roams

  ravines

  remote

  sublime, unsullied,

  eternal snows

  and distant peaks.

  And, above all, that marvellous word: Himalaya. On cold nights, lying beneath my warm winter blanket, I would repeat it over and over, in the deepest, most reverberant voice I could drag from the depths of my lungs. Hi—ma—la—ya.

  If I could only climb to the heights of the Moab Mountains, I would look east and see far away the snow-capped peaks that were the Himalayas, And then, I would leave the land of Moab and travel south through the Arabian Desert, across the Gate of Tears to the coast of the Horn of Africa. And I would penetrate the heart of the jungle to the source of the River Zambezi, in the land of Obangi-Shari. And there, all alone, I'd live a life that was wild and free.

  So, desperate, and burning with eagerness, I made my way east up Geula Street to the comer of Chancellor Street. But, when I reached Mr, Bialig's grocery, one thought overcame the rest; persistent, merciless, it repeated over and over. Crazy boy, crazy boy, crazy boy. Really you are crazy, stark raving mad, bad as Uncle Wetmark, maybe even worse; for all you know you'll grow up a spekulant, just like him. And what exactly did the word spekulant mean? I still did not know.

  And suddenly all the pain and humiliation seemed to well up inside me, until I could scarcely bear it. The darkness was complete now in Geula Street. Not the darkness of early evening, full of children's cries and mothers' scoldings; this was the chill and silent darkness of the night, better seen from indoors, from your bed, through a crack in the shutters. You did not want to be caught out in it alone. Very occasionally someone else came hurrying by. Mrs. Soskin recognised me and asked what was the matter. But I did not answer her a word. From time to time a British armoured car from the Schneller Barracks charged past at a mad gallop. I would seek out Sergeant Dunlop, walking his poodle in Haturim Street or Tahkemoni Street, I thought, and this rime I would give him information after all; I'd tell him it was Goel Germanski who painted that slogan against the High Commissioner. And then I would go to London and turn double agent. I'd kidnap the King of England and say to the English Government straight out; "Give us back the land of Israel and I'll give you back your King. Don't give, don't get." (And even this idea came from my Uncle Zemach.) There, sitting on the steps on Mr. Bialig's grocery, I rehearsed all the details of my plan. It was late now; the hour the heroes of the Underground emerged from their hiding places, while, around them, detectives and informers and tracker dogs lay in wait.

  I was on my own. Aldo had taken my bicycle away and made me sign a contract to say so. Goel had expropriated my marvellous railway and the tame wolf roamed the woods and forests without me. And I was never to set foot in my parents' house again, not for ever and for ever. Esthie hated me. The despicable Aldo had stolen my notebook full of poems and sold it to that hoodlum Goel.

  Then what was left? just the pencil sharpener, nothing else. And what could I get from a pencil sharpener; what good could it do me? None. All the same, I'd keep it for ever and ever. I swore an oath that I would keep it, that no power on earth would take it from my hand.

  So I sat at nine o'clock at night—or even at a quarter past nine—on the steps of Mr, Bialig's shuttered grocery shop and wept, almost. And so too I was found by a tall and taciturn man who came walking along the deserted street, smoking, peacefully, a pipe with a silver lid; Esthie's father, Mr. Engineer Inbar.

  "Oh," he said, after he had leaned down and seen me. "Oh. It is you. Well, well. Is there anything I can do to help?"

  It seemed beautiful to me, miraculous even, that Engineer Inbar should speak to me like that, as one adult to another, without a trace of that special kind of language and tone of voice that people use to children.

  "Can I help you in any way?" I might have been a driver whose car had broken down, struggling to change a tire in the dark.

  "Thanks," I said.

  "What's the problem?" asked Engineer Inbar.

  "Nothing," I said. "Everything's fine."

  "But you're crying. Almost."

  "No. No, not at all. I'm not crying. Almost. I'm just a bit cold. Honestly."

  "All right. We're not going the same way by any chance? Are you on your way home too?"

  "Well
... I haven't got a home."

  "How do you mean?"

  "I mean ... my parents are away in Tel Aviv. They're coming back tomorrow. They left me some food in the icebox. I mean ... I had a key on a piece of white string."

  "Well, well. I see. You've lost your key. And you've got nowhere to go. That's it in a nutshell. Exactly the same thing happened to me when I was still a student in Berlin, Come on then. Let's go. There's no point in sitting here all night, weeping. Almost."

  "But ... where are we going?"

  "Home, Of course. To our place. You can stay the night with us. There's a sofa in the living room, also a camp bed somewhere. And I'm sure Esthie will be glad. Come on. Let's go."

  And how my foolish heart ran wild; it beat inside my T-shirt, inside my vest, inside my skin and bone. Esthie will be glad—oh, Esthie will be glad.

  Pomegranate scents waft to and fro

  From the Dead Sea to Jericho.

  Esthie will be glad.

  I must never lose it; my pencil sharpener, my perfect, lucky pencil sharpener that I held in my hand that I held inside my pocket.

  One Night of Love

  How only he who has lost everything may sue for happiness. "If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house And how we were not ashamed.

  So there we sat at supper together, Engineer Inbar and I, discussing the state of the country. Esthie's elder brother was away building a new kibbutz at Beit she an, while her mother must have eaten before we came. Now she set before us on a wooden dish slices of some peculiar bread, very black and strong-tasting, together with Arab cheese, very salty, and scattered with little cubes of garlic. I was hungry. Afterwards we ate whole radishes, red outside, white and juicy inside. We chewed big lettuce leaves. We drank warm goat's milk, (At our house, that is to say the house that used to be mine, I'd get a poached egg in the evening, with tomato and cucumber, or else boiled fish, and afterwards yoghourt and cocoa. My father and mother ate the same, except they finished up with tea instead of cocoa.)

  Mrs. Inbar gathered up the plates and cups and went back to the kitchen to prepare lunch for the next day. "Now we'll leave the men to talk men's talk," she said. Mr. Engineer Inbar pulled off his shoes and put his feet up on a small stool. He lit his pipe carefully, and said, "Yes. Very good."

  And I tightened my fingers round the pencil sharpener in my pocket and said, "Thank you very much."

  And afterwards we exchanged opinions on matters of politics. Him in his armchair; me on the sofa.

  The light came from a lamp the shape of a street lamp on a copper column, which stood in one comer beside the desk and between one wall covered in books and maps and another hung with pipes and mementoes. A huge globe stood in the room too, on a pedestal. At the slightest touch of a finger I thought it could be made to spin round and round. I could hardly take my eyes off it.

  All this time Esthie remained in the bathroom. She did not come out. There was only the sound of running water sometimes from behind the locked door at the end of the corridor, and sometimes, also, Esthie's voice singing one of the popular songs of Shoshana Damari.

  "The Bible," said Engineer Inbar amid his cloud of smoke, "the Bible, quite right, no doubt, of course. The Bible promises us the whole land. But the Bible was written at one period, whereas we live in quite another."

  "So what?" I cried, politely furious. "It makes no difference. Perhaps the Arabs called themselves Jebusites or Canaanites in those days, and the British were called Philistines. But so what? Our enemies may keep changing their masks, but they keep persecuting us just the same. All our festivals prove it. The same enemies. The same wars. On and on, almost without a break."

  Engineer Inbar was in no hurry to reply. He grasped his pipe and scratched the back of his neck with the stem. And afterwards, as if he found an answer difficult, he began gathering up from the table every stray crumb of tobacco and impounding them carefully in the ash tray. When the operation was complete, he raised his voice and called:

  "Esther! Perhaps it's time you made harbour and came to see who's waiting for you here. Yes. A visitor. A surprise. No, I'm not going to tell you who it is. Come to dry land quickly and you'll see for yourself. Yes. The Arabs and British. Certainly. Canaanites and Philistines, from the day that they were bom. A very intriguing idea. Only you'll have to try to persuade them to see matters in the same light. The days of the Bible, alas, are over and done with. Ours are a different matter altogether. Who on earth nowadays can turn walking sticks into crocodiles and beat rocks to make water come out? Look, I brought these sweets back last week, straight from Beirut, by train. Try one. Go on. Enjoy it. Don't be afraid. It's called Rakhat Lokoom.* Eat up. Isn't it sweet and tasty? And you—I assume you belong to some political party already?"

  "Me? Yes," I stammered. "But not like Father ... the opposite..."

  "Then you support the activities of the Underground absolutely and resist any suggestion of compromise," stated Engineer Inbar, without a question mark. "Very good. Then we are of different minds. By the way, your school satchel, with all your books and exercise books must be locked up at home in your flat. That's a pity. You'll have to go to school tomorrow with Esthie, but without your satchel. Esther! Have you drowned in there? Perhaps we'd better throw you a life-belt or something."

  "Please could I have another piece?" I asked politely; and boldly, not waiting for a reply, pulled nearer to me the jar of Rakhat Lokoom. It really was delicious, even if it did come straight from the city of Beirut.

  It was so good to sit here in this room, behind closed shutters, and between the walls covered in books and maps and the wall hung with pipes and mementoes, immersed in frank men's talk with Engineer Inbar. It seemed miraculous that Engineer Inbar did not snub or ridicule me, did not talk down, merely remarked, "Then we are of different minds"-—-how I loved that expression, "We are of different minds." And I loved Esthie's father almost as much as I loved Esthie, only in a different way; perhaps I loved him more. It began to seem possible to open my heart and confess just how badly I'd lied to him; to make a clean breast of today's shame and disgrace, not even keeping from him where I was journeying to and the roads I intended to take. But, just then, at last, Esthie emerged from the bathroom. I almost regretted it—this interruption to our frank men's talk. Her hair was not in its plaits now—instead, there fell to her shoulders a newly-washed blonde mane, still warm and damp, still almost steaming. And she wore pyjamas with elephants all over them, large and small ones in different colors; on her feet her mother's slippers, much too big for her. She threw a quick glance at me as she came in, then went straight over to where her father, Engineer Inbar, was sitting. I might have been yesterday's newspapers left lying on the sofa; or else I stopped there every evening on my way to the land of Obangi-Shari; there was nothing whatever in it.

  "Did you go to Jericho today?" Esthie asked her father.

  "I did."

  "Did you buy me what I asked?"

  "I didn't."

  "It was too expensive?"

  "That's right."

  "Will you look again for me when you're in Bethlehem next?"

  "Yes."

  "And was it you brought him here?"

  "Yes."

  "What's it all about then? What's up with him?"

  (I still didn't merit one word, one glance from Esthie. So I kept silent.)

  "His parents are away and he lost his key. Exactly the same thing happened to me when I was a student in Berlin. We bumped into each other on Geula Street and I suggested he come to us. Mama has already given him something to eat. He can spend the night on the sofa in the living room, or else on the camp bed, in your room. It's up to you."

  Now, all at once, suddenly, Esthie turned towards me. But still without looking at me directly.

  "Do you want to sleep in my room? Will you promise to tell me crazy stories before we go to sleep?"

  "Don't mind," muttered my lips, quite of their own volition because I was still too stunned.

/>   "What did he say?" Esthie asked her father a little anxiously. "Perhaps you heard what he said?"

  "It seemed to me," answered Engineer Inbar, "it seemed to me that he was still weighing up the possibilities."

  "Weighing-schneighing." Esthie laughed. "O.K., that's it, let him sleep in here, in the living room and be done with it. Good night."

  "But Esthie," I succeeded in saying at last, if still in a whisper only. "But Esthie..."

  "Good night," said Esthie, and went out past me in her cotton elephant pyjamas, the smell of her damp hair lingering behind her. "Good night, Daddy."

  And from outside, in the passage, she said, "Good. My room then. I don't mind."

  Who ever, before, saw a girl's room, late, towards bedtime, when the only light burns beside her bed? Oh yes, even a girl's room has walls and windows, a floor and a ceiling, furniture and a door. That's a fact. And yet, for all that, it feels like a foreign country, utterly other and strange, its inhabitants not like us in any way. For instance: there are no cartridge cases on the windowsill, no muddy gym shoes buried under the bed. No piles of rope, metal, horseshoes, dusty books, pistol caps, padlocks and India rubber bands; no spinning tops, no strips of film. Nor are there subversive pamphlets from the Underground hidden between the cupboard and the wall and, presumably, no dirty pictures concealed among the pages of her geography book. And there aren't, wouldn't ever be, in a girl's room, any empty beer cans, cats' skulls, screwdrivers, nails, springs and cogs and hands from dismantled watches, penknife blades, or drawings of blazing battleships pinned up along the wall.

  On the contrary.

  In Esthie's room, the light was almost a color in itself; warm, russet-colored light, from the bedside lamp under its red raffia lampshade. Drawn across its two windows were the blue curtains that I'd seen a thousand times from the other side, and never dreamed I'd see from this, all the days of my life. On the floor was a small mat made of plaited straw. There was a white cupboard with two brown drawers in it, and, in the shadowy gap between wall and cupboard, a small, very tidy desk on which I could see Esthie's school books, pencils and paint-box. A low bed, already turned down for sleep, stood between the two windows; a folded counterpane, the color of red wine, at its head. Another camp bed had been placed ready for me, as close as possible to the door.