A Tale of Love and Darkness

  A Russian immigrant is standing on the corner of the square in the center of Arad. His violin case lies open on the pavement in front of him, for coins. The tune is quiet, poignant, reminiscent of fir forests with cottages, streams, and meadows, which bring back to me my mother's stories when she and I used to sit together sorting lentils or shelling peas in our soot-blackened little kitchen.

  But here in the square at the center of Arad the desert light banishes ghosts and dispels any memory of fir forests and misty autumns. The musician, with his shock of gray hair and his thick white mustache, reminds me a little of Albert Einstein, and a little too of Professor Samuel Hugo Bergman, who taught my mother philosophy on Mount Scopus; in fact I attended some unforgettable lectures of his myself at the Givat Ram Campus in 1961, on the history of dialogical philosophy from Kierkegaard to Martin Buber.

  There are two young women, possibly of North African extraction, one of them very thin and wearing a semitransparent top and a red skirt, the other in a trouser suit replete with belts and buckles. They stop in front of the musician and listen to his playing for a minute or two. He is playing with his eyes closed and doesn't open them. The women exchange whispers, open their handbags, and each puts a shekel in the case.

  The thin woman, whose upper lip is slightly drawn up toward her nose, says:

  "But how can you tell they're real Jews? Half the Russians who come here, I've heard they're simply goyim who just take advantage of us to get the hell out of Russia and come here for the free handouts."

  Her friend says:

  "What do we care, let them all come, let him play in the street, Jew, Russian, Druze, Georgian, what difference is it to you? Their children will be Israelis, they'll go in the army, eat meatballs in pita with pickles, take out a mortgage, and moan all day long."

  The red skirt remarks:

  "What's the matter with you, Sarit? If they let in anyone who wants to come for free, including foreign workers and Arabs from Gaza and the territories, who's going to—"

  But the rest of the discussion drifts away from me toward the parking lot of the shopping mall. I remind myself that I have not made any progress yet today and the morning is no longer young. Back in my study. The heat is beginning to be too much, and a dusty wind brings the desert indoors. I close the windows and shutters and draw the curtain, block every crack, just as Greta Gat, my child sitter, who was also a piano teacher, always used to seal her apartment and turn it into a submarine.

  This study was built by Arab workers not many years ago. They laid the floor and checked it with a spirit level. They erected the door and window frames. They concealed the plumbing and electrical wiring in the walls and put in an outlet for the telephone. A large-bodied carpenter, an opera lover, made the cupboards and put up the bookshelves. A contractor who emigrated from Romania in the late 1950s sent for a truckload of rich topsoil from somewhere for the garden and laid it over the lime, chalk, flint, and salt that have always lain on these hills, like putting a plaster on a wound. In this good topsoil the previous occupant planted shrubs and trees and a lawn, which I do my best to look after but without overdoing the love, so that this garden doesn't suffer the same fate as the one my father and I planted with such good intentions.

  A few dozen pioneers, including loners who loved the desert or were searching for solitude and also a few young couples, came and settled here in the early 1960s: miners, quarry workers, regular army officers, and industrial workers. Lova Eliav, with a handful of other town planners seized by Zionist enthusiasm, planned, sketched out, and immediately constructed this town, with its streets, squares, avenues, and gardens, not far from the Dead Sea, in an out-of-the-way place that at that time, in the early 1960s, was not served by any main road, water pipeline, or power supply, where there were no trees, no paths, no buildings, no tents, no signs of life. Even the local Bedouin settlements mostly came into being after the town was built. The pioneers who founded Arad were passionate, impatient, talkative, and busy. Without a second thought, they vowed to "conquer the wilderness and tame the desert."

  Somebody is passing the house now in a little red van; he stops at the mailbox on the corner and extracts the letters I posted yesterday. Somebody else has come to replace the broken curbstone of the pavement opposite. I must find some way to thank them all, the way a bar mitzvah boy publicly thanks everyone who has helped him come this far: Aunt Sonia, Grandpa Alexander, Greta Gat, Teacher Zelda, the Arab man with bags under his eyes who rescued me from the dark cell where I was trapped in that clothes shop, my parents, Mr. Zarchi, the Lembergs next door, the Italian prisoners of war, Grandma Shlomit with her war on germs, Teacher Isabella and her cats, Mr. Agnon, the Rudnickis, Grandpa Papa the carter from Kiriat Motskin, Saul Tchernikhowsky, Auntie Lilenka Bar Samkha, my wife, my children, my grandchildren, the builders and electricians who made this house, the carpenter, the newspaper boy, the man in the red mail van, the musician playing his violin on the corner of the square who reminded me of Einstein and Bergman, the Bedouin woman and the three goats I saw this morning before dawn, or did I just imagine them, Uncle Joseph who wrote Judaism and Humanity, my neighbor Shmuelevich who is afraid of another Holocaust, his granddaughter Daniella who played the Moonlight Sonata yesterday, Minister Shimon Peres who went to talk to Arafat again yesterday in the hope of finding some compromise formula despite everything, and the turquoise bird that sometimes visits my lemon tree. And the lemon tree itself. And especially the silence of the desert just before sunrise, that has more and more silences wrapped up inside it. That was my third coffee this morning. That's enough. I put the empty mug down at the edge of the table, taking particular care not to make the slightest noise that would injure the silence that has not vanished yet. Now I will sit down and write.

  40

  I HAD NEVER seen a house like it in my life before that morning.

  It was surrounded by a thick stone wall that concealed an orchard shady with vines and fruit trees. My astonished eyes looked instinctively for the tree of life and the tree of knowledge. There was a well in front of the house set in a wide terrace paved with blocks of smooth pinkish stone with delicate pale-blue veins. An arbor of thick vines shaded a corner of this terrace. Some stone seats and a low, wide stone table tempted you to linger in this arbor, to take your ease, to rest in the shade of the vines and listen to the buzzing of the summer bees, the singing of the birds in the orchard, and the trickle of the fountain—because at one end of the arbor there was a little pool in the form of a five-pointed star made of stone and lined with blue tiles decorated with Arabic writing. In the middle of the pool a fountain bubbled quietly. Groups of goldfish swam slowly to and fro among the clumps of water lilies.

  From the terrace the three of us, excited, polite, and humble, walked up the stone steps to a wide veranda with a view of the northern walls of the Old City with the minarets and domes beyond. Wooden chairs with cushions and footstools and some mosaic-covered tables were scattered around the veranda. Here too, as in the arbor, one felt an urge to sprawl facing the view of the city walls, to doze in the shade of the foliage or calmly drink in the silence of the hills and the stone.

  We did not linger in the orchard or in the arbor or on the veranda but pulled the bell pull next to the double iron doors, which were painted the color of mahogany and skillfully carved in relief with all sorts of pomegranates, grapes, winding tendrils, and symmetrical flowers. While we waited for the door to open, Uncle Staszek turned his head to us again and put his finger to his lips one more time, as though to signal a final warning to Auntie Mala and me: manners! composure! diplomacy!

  Along all four walls of the spacious reception room stood soft sofas, their carved wooden backs adjacent and touching one another. The furniture was carved with leaves, buds, and flowers, as though to represent inside the house the garden and orchard that surrounded it on the outside. The sofas were upholstered in a variety of striped fabrics in shades of red and sky blue. On each sofa there was a mass of colorful em
broidered cushions. There were rich carpets on the floor, one of them woven with a scene of birds of paradise. In front of each sofa there was a low table, the top of which was formed by a wide round metal tray, and each tray was richly engraved with abstract designs of interwoven forms that recalled Arabic writing; in fact, they may well have been stylized Arabic inscriptions.

  On each side of the room six or eight doors opened. The walls were draped with rugs, and between the rugs the plaster was visible; it too was patterned with flowers, and colored pink, lilac, and pale green. Here and there, beneath the high ceiling, ancient weapons were hung as decorations: Damascus swords, a scimitar, daggers and spears, pistols, longbarreled muskets and double-barreled rifles. Facing the entrance, and flanked by a burgundy-covered sofa on one side and a lemon-colored one on the other, stood a huge, heavily ornamented brown sideboard in baroque style looking like a small palace, with many glass-fronted compartments containing porcelain cups, crystal goblets, silver and brass goblets, and numerous ornaments of Hebron or Sidon glass.

  In a deep recess in the wall between two windows nestled a green vase inlaid with mother-of-pearl from which rose several peacocks' feathers. Other recesses housed large brass pitchers and glass or earthenware beakers. Four fans hung from the ceiling, constantly making a wasplike buzz and stirring the smoke-laden air. In between the fans a huge, splendid brass chandelier sprouted from the ceiling, resembling a great tree with a profusion of branches, boughs, twigs, and tendrils all blooming with shining stalactites of crystal and quantities of pear-shaped lightbulbs that were all lit despite the summer morning light streaming through the open windows. The arches of the windows were fitted with stained glass representing wreaths of trefoils, each of which colored the daylight a different color: red, green, gold, and purple.

  Two cages hung from brackets on facing walls, each containing a pair of solemn parrots whose feathers were a riot of orange, turquoise, yellow, green, and blue. Every now and again one of them would exclaim in a hoarse voice like that of a heavy smoker: " Tfaddal! S'il vous plaît! Enjoy!" And from the other cage, at the other end of the room, a wheedling soprano voice replied at once in English: "Oh, how very, very sweet! How lovely!"

  Above the lintels of the doors and windows and on the flowery plaster Quranic verses or lines of poetry were inscribed in curling green Arabic writing, and between the rugs on the wall there were family portraits. Some were of portly, plump-faced, clean-shaven effendis, wearing red fezzes with black tassels, and squeezed into heavy blue suits, with gold chains suspended across their bellies and disappearing into their vest pockets. Their predecessors were mustachioed men with an authoritative air and a sullen mien, robed in responsibility, awe-inspiring, with a commanding presence, wearing embroidered robes and gleaming white keffiyehs held in place by black rings. There were also two or three mounted figures, ferocious-looking bearded men riding on magnificent horses, galloping at such speed that their keffiyehs trailed behind and their horses' manes streamed; they had long daggers thrust through their belts and curved scimitars tied at the side or brandished aloft.

  The deep-set windows of this reception hall faced north and east toward Mount Scopus and the Mount of Olives, a pine copse, rocky slopes, the Ophel, and the Augusta victoria hospice, its tower crowned like an imperial helmet with a sloping gray Prussian roof. A little to the left of Augusta Victoria stood a fortified building with narrow loopholes topped with a dome: this was the National Library, where my father worked, and around it were ranged the other buildings of Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital. Below the skyline could be seen some small stone houses scattered over the hillside, small flocks among the boulders and fields of thorns, and the occasional old olive tree that seemed to have long since abandoned the living world and joined the realm of the inanimate.

  In the summer of 1947 my parents went to stay with some acquaintances in Netanya, leaving me with Uncle Staszek, Auntie Mala, and Chopin and Schopenhauer Rudnicki for the weekend. ("Just you behave yourself there! Impeccably, do you hear! And give Auntie Mala a hand in the kitchen and don't disturb Uncle Staszek, and keep yourself occupied, take a book to read and keep out of their way, and let them sleep late on Saturday morning! Be as good as gold! You can do it when you really want to!")

  The writer Hayyim Hazaz once decreed that Uncle Staszek should get rid of his Polish name, "that smelt of the pogroms," and persuaded him to take the first name of Stav, meaning "autumn" in Hebrew, because it sounded a little like Staszek but had a certain flavor of the Song of Songs. And that is how they appeared in Auntie Mala's handwriting on the card that was attached to the door of their apartment:

  Malka and Stav Rudnicki

  Please do not knock

  during the usual rest times.

  Uncle Staszek was a thickset, compact man with powerful shoulders, dark, hairy nostrils like caverns, and bushy eyebrows, one of which was always raised quizzically. He had lost one of his incisors, which sometimes gave him a villainous look, particularly when he smiled. He worked for a living in the registered mail department of the main post office in Jerusalem, and in his spare time he was collecting material on little cards for an original piece of research on the medieval Hebrew poet Immanuel of Rome.

  Ustaz Najib Mamduh al-Silwani, a resident of Sheikh Jarrah in the northeast of the city, was a wealthy businessman and the local agent of a number of large French firms whose business extended as far as Alexandria and Beirut and from there branched off to Haifa, Nablus, and Jerusalem. It so happened that at the beginning of the summer a considerable money order or bank draft, or it may have been some share certificates, went missing. Suspicion fell on Edward Silwani, Ustaz Najib's eldest son and his partner in the firm of Silwani and Sons. The young man was questioned, so we were told, by the assistant head of the CID in person, and he was subsequently taken to the remand center in Haifa for further questioning. Ustaz Najib, after attempting to rescue his son in various ways, eventually turned in desperation to Mr. Kenneth Orwell Knox-Guildford, the postmaster general, and begged him to renew the search for a lost envelope that he had, he swore, sent in person, the previous winter, by registered post.

  Unfortunately he had mislaid the receipt. It had vanished as though the Devil himself had swallowed it.

  Mr. Kenneth Orwell Knox-Guildford, for his part, after assuring Ustaz Najib of his sympathy but informing him candidly and sadly that there was not much hope of the search resulting in a positive outcome, nevertheless entrusted Staszek Rudnicki with the task of investigating the matter and discovering whatever there was to learn about the possible fate of a registered letter sent several months previously, a letter that might or might not have existed, that might or might not have been mislaid, a letter of which there was no trace either in the possession of the sender or in the post office ledger.

  Uncle Staszek lost no time in investigating, and discovered that not only was there no entry for the letter in question, but that the whole page had been carefully torn out of the ledger. There was no sign of it. Staszek's suspicions were immediately aroused. He made inquiries, found out which clerk was on duty at the registered counter at the time, and questioned the other clerks too until he discovered when the page had last been seen in the ledger. Once he had done this, it was not long before he identified the culprit (the youngster had held the envelope up to the light and seen the draft, and the temptation had been too much for him).

  So the lost property was restored to its owner, young Edward al-Silwani was released from custody, the honor of the respectable firm of Silwani and Sons once more shone forth from the company's letterhead without blot or stain, while dear Mr. Stav was invited together with his wife to partake of coffee at Silwani Villa in Sheikh Jarrah on Saturday morning. As for the dear child, their friends' son who would be staying with them, whom they had no one to leave with on Saturday morning, of course, what a question, he must come with them, the whole Silwani family was impatient to express their gratitude to Mr. Stav for his efficiency and integrity
.

  After breakfast on Saturday therefore, just before we set out, I put on my best clothes, which my parents had left with Auntie Mala especially for the visit ("The Arab attaches great importance to outward appearances!" Father insisted): a gleaming white shirt, freshly ironed, its sleeves rolled up with splendid precision; navy blue trousers with cuffs and a neat crease down the front; and a serious-looking black leather belt with a shiny metal buckle that, for some reason, bore the image of the two-headed imperial Russian eagle. On my feet I wore a pair of sandals that Uncle Staszek had polished for me with the same brush and black polish that he had used for his own best shoes and Auntie Mala's.

  Despite the heat of the August day, Uncle Staszek insisted on wearing his dark woolen suit (it was his only one), his snow-white silk shirt, which had made the journey with him fifteen years ago from his parents' home in Lodz, and the unobtrusive blue silk tie he had worn on his wedding day. As for Auntie Mala, she agonized for three quarters of an hour in front of the mirror, tried out her evening dress, changed her mind, tried a dark pleated skirt with a light cotton blouse, changed her mind again, and looked at herself in the girlish summer frock she had bought recently, with a brooch and a silk scarf, or with a necklace and without the brooch and the scarf, or with the necklace and a different brooch but without the scarf, with or without drop earrings?

  Suddenly she decided that the airy summer frock with the embroidery around the neck was too frivolous, too folksy for the occasion, and she went back to the evening dress she had started with. In her predicament Auntie Mala turned to Uncle Staszek and even to me, and made us swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, however painful: wasn't this outfit too dressy, too theatrical for an informal visit on a hot day? Wasn't it wrong for her hairdo? And while we were looking at her hair, what did we think, really and truly, should she tie her plaits up around her head, or should she undo them and let her hair fall loose over her shoulder, and if so which one?