In literature (which is to say, fabrication), the incident of the open taxi door would have occurred just once, as the author wanted only to refresh the readers’ faith in the realism of the narrative. But in life? Life is full of great wonders, and things like this happen two or three times, much to the consternation and dismay of writers of a realist bent.
And another thing. A realist wouldn’t have brought in my stepmother Francesca, since she wasn’t really involved in these events. But in life? In life she sat beside the driver (whose name was Abramov) the entire trip, and the front doors of the taxi were fine. Details like these aren’t mentioned in stories.
[106]
And another thing. We’ve heard about scholars of literature, but we haven’t heard of scholars of life. Which is to say, people study one thing or another (like tissue or behavior). But life?
Scholars of literature, for instance, walk around within life. Maybe one needs to examine life from the perspective of those scholars. Once we knew a scholar who took medicine for various illnesses. We need to get to the root of all illnesses in order to understand life, and not to examine them one by one. Maybe there’s a crack within them opening between the living soul and the crust that surrounds it.
Sometimes scholars of literature convene committees and there you can see flashes (like the flickering of the Northern Lights) of very sad things. A tie. Lipstick. Or the papers of the committee’s agenda left behind in the hall after everyone has left.
[107]
To this day we don’t understand why over the butcher shop in a Welsh village it says FAMILY BUTCHER. Maybe it refers to an ordinary store (that sells meat to housewives). In any event, we read the sign as though it was run by someone who slaughters families.
And apropos butchers. In Arab Nazareth we saw a sign in the window of a butcher shop on which it said WE SPEAK NORWEGIAN.
Signs like these lift our spirits. Like the names of banks in Portugal and Spain: BANCO ESPIRITO SANTO (which is to say, Bank of the Holy Spirit) or even the sign YOSEF AZRIEL ATTORNEY AT LAW AND NOTARY PUBLIC. Once we saw, in Herzliya, beside the highway a big sign that said FUNN & CO. — REAL ESTATE BROKERS.
Generally speaking. The government should put signs on everything. They should put the sign HOUSE on every house and TREE on every tree and so on. This way we’d be better oriented. Maybe it should send a plane up into the sky to write out, in white smoke, the word WORLD.
[108]
We’d like to recommend Undencil. This is an excellent antifungal cream (for irritated skin). You can apply it between your toes or in the genital area and the itching vanishes instantly.
If readers have any advice to offer us about how to treat bladder irritation, we’d be grateful to them for that. They can write to us c/o the publisher or the township of Ma’alot, and the letters will be forwarded. We can also advise the readers how to lower their blood pressure by means of (the human) spirit (not the one that hovers over the face of the earth).
Generally speaking. Authors should display greater generosity toward their readers. But real generosity. Not like in certain places, where computers are stuffed with the dates of birthdays and spit out greetings on the right day.
We’d like to embrace all our readers. Men, women, the elderly, and children.
[109]
For what is man if not Uncle Shamu. Don’t we all, in one way or another, wear a wide-brimmed hat and jump into the sea?
We should call all things by their first names. All dogs. All frogs. All trees. Once upon a time we took pity on a gourd that the gardener wanted to uproot, and so we called it Simcha.
How can it be that we walk around under the sky and nonetheless have an unconscious? Don’t believe these lies. The world is large and wide and has no measure. And all is revealed.
[110]
One is greatly tempted to end the book with these words, but we need to be wary of too much truth.
We don’t want to write (like the mystics) things that give off a whiff of sanctimony. We’re trying to write a kind of train schedule.
Or an owner’s manual. The sort of thing they distribute with appliances (like cell phones or pressure cookers), with instructions about how to operate them. Or something like the Kama Sutra.
True, all is revealed. But how is it revealed? It’s revealed in the form of a certain woman, or another woman, and in all sorts of colors and all kinds of clothes and types of closets, and the whole thing is endless.
Once, at a country inn, in Ireland, we were waiting for breakfast to be brought out and no one came. After an hour or so we went to the kitchen and found the owner fast asleep on a chair with a bottle of whiskey before him on the table.
[111]
Elsewhere, on the east coast of England (in the town of Great Yarmouth), the owner of the bed and breakfast was overly attentive. She called her vacuum cleaner by its first name (“Henry”) and put out seven kinds of cereal for breakfast.
We also remember the Hyatt Hotel in the Philippine city of Bangui. We were tended to there by women with names like Charity, Faith, and Honesty.
As for the rats at Hotel Long Spring, in Mekong (Taiwan), we’ve already written about them in another book (it’s hard to believe that, in the entire history of world literature, the same rats have been mentioned in two different books).
This is the great diversity one finds in the world of hotels. Like a paint company’s catalogue of colors.
[112]
We can’t quite remember if we’ve already spoken about how Mr. Cohen from the Austrian old age home would raise a toast to the Emperor, Franz Josef.
Mr. Cohen was already a hundred, give or take, and was still sending letters of encouragement to the Emperor’s son (or grandson). Every year on the Emperor’s birthday he’d buy a bottle of champagne and go to my father’s room and there they’d drink to him (that is, to the Emperor) or, more accurately, to his memory. My father wasn’t a royalist, but he did like his liquor.
We, on the other hand, are of the opinion, like Mr. Cohen, that the monarchy should be restored. Not only in Austria. Everywhere.
And that the words of the prayer Avinu Malkeinu (Our Father Our King) should be offered up in both directions. And though the prayer is cast in the masculine form, we’d rather see women reign in both places (in heaven, that is, and on earth).
[113]
My father Andreas liked to play tricks on people. Mostly on his sister, my Aunt Edith.
Every year, on April 1, he’d come up with another prank. Once he started muttering strange syllables and wrote a note to my aunt saying that he had vowed from that day on to speak only Mandarin. Another time he borrowed a tallis and prayer book from the gardener at the old age home, and when my Aunt Edith came to his room he wrapped himself in the tallis and called out in a loud voice and mimicked the chanting of the cantor and the prayers. My Aunt Edith was as innocent as a flock of lambs and it never occurred to her that her brother was playing a trick on her.
Sometimes we too (which is to say, I) thought that he’d lost his mind, like the time that he tossed a thin book into the air, as though he were throwing a boomerang, and shouted “Balthazar.” We had no idea who Balthazar was but since my father repeated this act some twenty times or more we remember the name to this day.
When he was serious, he was too serious. But that’s already another story.