Daniel shouted, “Rafail!” Out came a decrepit old grasshopper with a big bony head, wearing an Arab galabiyya smock and a Central Asian tubeteyka on his head which had faded until it was quite colorless. Daniel said, “This is my assistant.” Rafail nodded and did not once glance at me. Daniel gave him the sack of flour and he took it, muttering what sounded like “Good” rather than “Thank you.” “I have no tea or coffee,” he said, as if apologizing. “That’s okay, I wasn’t expecting any,” Daniel murmured.
Within ten minutes, a flock of Arab children of varying ages had come running. They squatted among the rocks and stared avidly. “Go away now. I’m busy today. I’ve got guests. Tomorrow morning,” the grasshopper said, and the children moved away. They stood a little way off and listened to a language they couldn’t understand.
“There’s only one girl here speaks Hebrew. She lived in Haifa and learned it there. She’s very proud of it. The others speak Arabic, but can’t write. I am teaching them. There is no school in the village, and 13 kilometers is too far for them to walk.” We drank some water from a jug. “Do they annoy you?” Daniel asked, pointing to the children. “I chase them away sometimes, and sometimes I just go away myself. I have a cave I can hide in in the mountains. Well, not a whole cave, I only rent half. The other half is occupied by bats,” he said as if he’d made a good joke. I felt sick. I am scared of ordinary mice, and can’t bear even to think about bats. We spent less than an hour in his courtyard and left.
On the way back, Daniel told me Rafail was born in Jerusalem, in the old Bukhara Jewish quarter which still exists. He was the fifteenth son in his family and ran away to the Jesuits. They brought him up in a Catholic school, he became a monk, and has only recently come to live in the Golan Heights. Before that he lived 15 years or so with the Bedouins.
“Was he trying to convert them?” I asked, but Daniel laughed. “He tried when he was young. Now he says that he just lives with them. He says he doesn’t believe he can teach anybody anything.”
“Is he as fatalistic as that?” I couldn’t refrain from asking, although I always curse myself for asking too many questions. But Daniel laughed again and replied, “No, he’s just very intelligent. He is really one of the most brilliant people I have ever met. It’s just that all his teeth have fallen out, he goes around barefoot and in rags, and washes only when it rains and a lot of water gathers in his trough. That’s why nobody wants to see how clever and educated he is. If you were to put a jacket on him and boots and make him give lectures, he would do it better than anyone. Better than many, anyway. I made a point of bringing you with me so you could take a look at him. He is a great rarity is Rafail.”
I had a strange feeling. It’s as if Christianity in Europe and here in the East are completely different things. With us everything is terribly decent, rational, and genteel, but here it has something extreme about it. A stone hovel with an earthen floor, ancient asceticism, a complete break with civilization. What do the two things have in common? Nothing. So why are they both called Christianity?
Is it only Christ? Which one? The Christ of the Crucifixion or the Christ of the Transfiguration? The Christ performing miracles or the Christ preaching sermons? Lord, help me to love everybody.
33. 1972, Dubravlag-Moscow
C
ORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN
G
ERSHON
S
HIMES AND HIS MOTHER,
Z
INAIDA
S
HIMES
I got my latest instalment of mail on Wednesday, four postcards and two letters. The men in neighboring bunks are amazed and wonder who writes to me so much. Today is the Sabbath. We don’t go to work on Saturdays. We managed to negotiate that. Instead we have a roster, but that is our choice so it’s cool. I have had no time all week to finish writing my reply. I will hand the letter in tomorrow morning and may add a bit more. Yesterday morning we went to work early and saw an aircraft in the sky. It looked so beautiful, leaving a thin trail behind it. A long, long tail.
I have finished Joseph and His Brothers. Many, many thanks to Kirill for getting it and sending it. How amazing the book did not disappear on the way, which happens sometimes. It is both incredibly interesting and tedious but there is so much information about history and all sorts of thoughts. Personally I prefer Feuchtwanger as a writer, although as a child he was too keen on big moustaches.
It seems to me that Kirill exaggerates Thomas Mann’s significance, but I love Kirill so much and I’m so grateful for everything that I am prepared to agree with him about anything. Let Thomas Mann be the greatest genius of all times and peoples, a coryphaeus of the sciences, and even the best basketball player in the Uruguay national team. Unfortunately the little book written for our grandmother in spidery lettering got lost in the post, but here I have met an old shoemaker from Grodno who speaks the language of the people to me.
The inmates are very interesting. There are Lithuanian and Ukrainian nationalists, all sorts of religious types. One young guy is a Baptist and refused to serve in the army on religious grounds. There is one amazing geezer serving out his time. He is a writer. There were a couple of them, really famous. I see him when I have free time, which isn’t often, but it’s like being at the university.
Thank Kostya and Masha. Their letters are fun. Ask them to tell me when the heir arrives. I am not losing hope we will live on the same street one day. I even dream of it sometimes, although in my dreams it looks more like Koktebel than anywhere else.
Svetlana’s postcard is so funny. I liked the picture. It doesn’t say who the artist is, but I think it must be Chagal. My wish to get a real education gets stronger and stronger. When everything finally comes to an end, I shall study, study, and study, as Lenin said we should.
Medvedev will probably be interested to know there is a library here with prewar magazines, not complete series just odd issues. I sometimes find very interesting articles in them. The older the magazine the more interesting it is likely to be.
Last month I fulfilled my work norm for the first time and for some reason felt very proud.
Dubravlag, Lagpunkt No. 11
1976, Flight from Vienna to Lod Airport, Israel
L
ETTER FROM
G
ERSHON TO
Z
INAIDA
S
HIMES
Dear Mama,
You always said I had a hellish character. I thought so myself, but apparently it is not so. The proof is this letter I am writing to you directly from the plane. I thought it would be a long time before I wrote to you, and perhaps even … I was very disappointed with your choice but will try nevertheless to understand why you have decided to stay in that cesspit. The plane has been flying toward Eretz for two hours. I feel a greater happiness than I have ever felt before. No joy can compare with that of someone flying back to a home he has never seen. Our group consists of twelve people and we spent several days together in Vienna: a Jewish family from Riga, religious, with an old man in a skullcap leading them. They speak Yiddish among themselves! How on earth did they survive the war? Then there’s another couple on the plane who are very famous, a China specialist and his wife who have been campaigning to emigrate for a long time. He gave an interview to an American radio station and there were protest meetings in support of him at Columbia University which caused a big stir. He also signed a letter to our defense just after we were arrested and there was hope we might be released without a trial, so it did us no good at all. I want to go over to him but he looks very important and I am just “‘an ordinary Soviet prisoner.”