If you want me to reply to your letters, please do not write nonsense, and give me less advice. That’s what your daughter Svetlana is there for.
Your son
Gershon
13. 1989, Moscow
L
ETTER FROM
Z
INAIDA TO
G
ERSHON
S
HIMES
Dear Grisha,
I do not know whether my news will gladden or distress you. Svetlana is getting married again. On the one hand I am very glad for her, on the other I realize that this will again change all our plans. You will, I am sure, remember her fiancé. He is her classmate Slava Kazakov. He was in love with her from Grade 6 but she paid no attention to him at all. Imagine, they had a school reunion party, met again, and this new relationship flared up. He has already moved in with us. Svetlana is simply blooming. He is exceptionally caring and attentive. Incidentally, he is very nice to Anya. You must know how difficult it is to get by at present. I have to stand in queues from morning till dinner-time if I want to buy any food at all. After dinner there is nothing in the shops. It is just as well that where Svetlana works they occasionally give them food as payment in kind. Also, Slava’s sister works as a manager in a department store and has good links with the food shops, so Slava, too, brings bags home once a week with meat, cheese, and buckwheat. To a large extent that frees me from having to run around in the mornings.
Anya has been admitted to ballet school and since September I have been taking her to the classes. She is very enthusiastic, dances all the time and likes listening to music. She has turned out very musical. You wrote that Shoshanah is also studying music. Quite certainly she has got that from her grandfather. Misha was very gifted and could quickly learn to play any musical instrument. He even learned to play the accordion. I am sending you a photograph of Anya, so that your children should know what their cousin in Moscow looks like.
Your Aunt Rimma, about whom you never ask, has been found to have breast cancer. She was taken to the hospital, operated on, and is now undergoing a course of chemotherapy. They say the medical services in Israel are very good and perform real miracles. If only we could send her there for treatment. You wrote that you have a friend in the settlement who is a surgeon. Perhaps you could ask him if he could help her in some way. She is ten years younger than me and was always such a healthy woman.
All my love, dear son,
Your Mama
PS Did Deborah receive the toys I mailed two months ago?
14. 1990, Hebron
L
ETTER FROM
G
ERSHON TO
Z
INAIDA
S
HIMES
What is this stuff you are writing to me about, Mama? To tell the truth, I don’t even want to hear! I remember that goat, Slava. He is highly suitable for my sister in that they are equally stupid. Ballet, accordions, special food deliveries, poor Rimma, who all her life was a complete bitch, and who when I was in prison was afraid even to telephone you. What kind of drivel is this? You are living on a different planet which is of no interest to me whatsoever. Live your life how ever you like.
Everything here is fine. Deborah will send you photographs of our second daughter, who was born two weeks ago.
Look after yourself,
Gershon
15. December 1987, Haifa
F
ROM
H
ILDA’S DIARY
After the service Musa arrived. He wanted to talk to Daniel. Pale, gloomy. I have never seen him like that before. I suddenly realized it was just that he has grown old. His hair has become lighter as it went gray and his face has darkened, not from the sun but from age. Even his mouth, which was always so striking, has faded and sagged. My heart suddenly sank. We have both grown older and have strangled our poor love. When the people had gone, Musa and Daniel sat down in our little room. I made tea. Musa declined. I wanted to leave, but Daniel told me to stay. I did not know why. It seemed to me that Musa wanted to talk to him alone. Anyway, I sat down. Musa took an Arab newspaper out of his pocket and pushed it over to Daniel. He looked at it and said, “You read it. I don’t read Arabic fluently.”
Musa read excerpts from Arafat’s speech: “Oh, heroic sons of Gaza! Oh, proud sons of the West Bank! Oh, courageous sons of Galilee! Oh, stoical sons of the Negev! The flame of revolution raised against the occupying Zionists will not be extinguished until our land has been liberated from the ravenous occupying forces. If anybody takes it into his mind to stop the Intifada before it achieves its ultimate aim, I shall fire a dozen bullets into his chest.”
He put the newspaper down and said things could not be worse. Daniel’s face had also fallen. Musa shook his head and covered his eyes with his hand. “We need to leave. My uncle is in California now. Perhaps he can find me a job or give me one,” Musa said. “You are an Israeli.” “I am an Arab. There’s no getting around that.” “You are a Christian.” “I am a bag of flesh and bones, and I have four children.”
“Pray and work,” Daniel said quietly. “My Muslim brothers pray five times a day,” Musa shouted. “They perform namaz five times a day! There’s no way I can out-pray them! And we are praying to the same One God!” “Don’t yell, Musa, try rather to see it from His point of view: the Jews are praying to Him to destroy the Arabs, the Arabs are asking Him to destroy the Jews. What is He supposed to do?”
Musa laughed. “Yes, He should never have got involved with such a bunch of idiots!” “He has no other peoples, only such as these. I cannot tell you to stay here, Musa. Over the past years half my parishioners have left Israel. I am thinking myself that although God never suffers defeats, what is happening today is a real victory for mutual hatred.”
Musa left. I saw him to the door. He stroked my head and said, “I wish we could have a second life.”
Daniel’s car was being repaired and he asked me to drive him to brother Roman, the abbot of the Arab church where he was allowed to conduct services in the early 1960s. I was amazed. He and Roman had quarrelled and since Roman changed the lock on the cemetery gates, Daniel had not wanted to talk to him. I took him to Roman’s apartment. I saw them embrace in the doorway. I saw how pleased Roman was. Daniel knew that when the patriarchate tried to take away the Church of Elijah by the Spring, Roman had gone to the Patriarch himself and told him that not one of the Arab Christian communities in Haifa would agree to occupy it. The Patriarch just shrugged and said, “Come now, come now, it is a misunderstanding. Let us leave everything as it is.” Daniel did not go to thank Roman for his intervention, but I know he was very pleased. Now they were meeting again for the first time after all these years.
I drove home thinking that if there was to be another bloodbath, like in 1929, I would go back to Germany. I would not choose to live in the midst of bloodshed. Admittedly Daniel says that people can get used to all manner of vile things: captivity, camps, prison, but ought we to? Probably Musa is right. He needs to go away so that his children do not have to learn to live like that.