— No, I just told you, it’s not on the Mount of Olives, it’s below it. It’s much farther down, a huge expanse of old graves on this bare, pinkish hill. There’s a fantastic view from there. You can see the whole Old City with its big mosques in their huge squares, and the church spires, and David’s City, and the white towers of Jewish Jerusalem in the background. It was such a clear, clear day, Mother, and we had the sun at our backs. It’s this terribly old cemetery, without paths, without flowers, without a single tree, perfectly bare and full of broken tombstones. It’s a really captivating place…
— No, you were never there.
— You couldn’t have been. You’re wrong. I can’t believe you ever were there…
— No. It’s not a place tourists get to. There’s something unworldly about it. I’ll take you there some day and you’ll realize you’ve never been there. It’s awfully captivating…
— Captivating… you’ll understand when you see it. Even that young lawyer, who was born in Jerusalem and knows the whole city, was so excited to be there that he couldn’t thank Mr. Mani enough for drafting him into his prayer group. We began moving forward in this slow little line with the stone carver leading the way, because there are no signs there or anything. The rabbi ran up the hill to look for some more men, and the lawyer and Mr. Mani and me lent the old ladies a hand and helped them past the broken tombstones, some of which still had a little snow on them, because we didn’t want them to slip and break their necks…
— It was an experience, Mother. If only those cramps in the pit of my stomach hadn’t kept getting worse…
— Just a minute, wait… that’s part of the story…
— No… yes, like the cramps when you have your period, but not exactly. Listen, though. In the end we came to this new tombstone, and the old women stood around it all agog to read the inscription, one of them even started sobbing a little to herself, and we waited for the rabbi to find two more men while the stone carver tidied up around this grave where there were bits of cement and gravel — not Efi’s grandmother’s grave but the one next to it, an old headstone half-buried in the ground that Mr. Mani had asked him to uncover. He even cleaned it and made a mound of dirt to prop it up on and started explaining something to Mr. Mani and the lawyer, who bent down to get a better look. I went over to look too, but I could hardly read what was written there. I couldn’t even figure out the dates. All I could make out was the name Yosef Mani in big letters. Meanwhile, Mr. Mani was explaining to the lawyer, who was so fascinated that he was practically face-down on the headstone, how he had found it and intended to restore it, and so I asked him if the grave was his father’s. He gave this startled laugh and said, “Good lord! Can’t you see how old it is? Look carefully, it’s from the nineteenth century. It may even be my grandfather’s grandfather’s…” When he said that, I actually felt for a moment that that stone was his grandfather’s grandfather, who had turned into a pink slab that was rounded at one end…
— No. I don’t remember any other graves there belonging to his family. He would have showed them to me if there were any, so that must have been the only one. Still, Mother, standing there off to one side, because I didn’t feel like mingling, I had this feeling of taking part in a ceremony like you see in one of those family graveyards in the movies. These little old ladies in black were all around, and Mr. Mani started reading from some book in his natty black suit and hat, and I thought, I must be crazy to have imagined he wanted to kill himself, why, just look at all these people who are here in his honor! You could see they thought a great deal of him, even the two workers I first mistook for Arabs that the rabbi had come back with, who already had skullcaps on their heads and were holding these little prayerbooks he had given them and rocking back and forth in prayer. And even if I was keeping my distance, by now I felt like one of the family, although it wasn’t exactly a family yet but only a formula for one… at which exact moment, Mother, without turning around, I knew that they were back, that author or director or cameraman or whoever. I had thought they had left me for good, but they had been following me from a distance, or from high up, and now they took charge of me again. The rabbi sang the prayer for the dead real rhapsodically, in this oriental scale, and Mr. Mani finally got to say his mourner’s prayer, his voice catching and then breaking without warning into these sobs that made all the old ladies burst into tears too. One of them began calling out some name — it must have been the grandmother’s — and screaming something. But she seemed more moved by duty than by grief, as if she were only trying to get us into the spirit of things, and meanwhile the rabbi was crooning away again — and I, Mother, I stood there entranced by it all, intrigued by all those ancient Sephardim, although it was really that little thing inside me that felt that way, because by now I was dizzy and had a headache, and I felt that not only was I getting my period but that something more serious was going on. Something down there was squirming to get out, I was sure of it now. All the exertion of running after Mr. Mani to keep him from killing himself was making Mani Junior flop around like a fish on dry land — and, Mother, I was so afraid that I was going to lose him right there and then in front of everyone that I sat myself down on a grave to hold him in or at least to keep everyone from seeing…
— No, just a minute… please… please…
— No, listen… please…
— Later… later…
— No, it wasn’t blood. It wasn’t that sticky feeling. It wasn’t a liquid feeling at all. It was more like these light little legs running up and down, over my crotch and my thighs…
— Yes, like someone’s legs. I called it a spider before, which made you wince, but that’s what I was thinking of. Is it really so disgusting or upsetting to you, Mother, if I call it a spider? But who can I tell my feelings to if not you?
— All right… never mind…
— No, not at all. It wasn’t strange or disgusting. It was this feeling of being about to lose something oh-so-lovely that I was attached to, of… oh, I don’t know…
— A fantasy… maybe… but how can you know if you never miscarried yourself?
— I was scared to death, Mother. I just froze and decided not to move… And so when the ceremony was over, and everyone got ready to go, and they all put these little stones on the grave, and Mr. Mani remembered me and came over, all contented-looking and full of his mourner’s prayer, I told him that I wanted to stay and look at the view. It was such a beautiful day, I said, and I would find my way back to the bus station by myself. He seemed to have no idea how frightened I was, and he wasn’t afraid to leave me there because the stone carver was staying behind to do some things too, and so he said good-bye in this casual manner, as if it were the most natural thing, maybe because he felt sure that in any case I’d come bouncing back to him like a yo-yo, and started to lead his little band of old ladies back to the taxis…
— Wait… wait…
— Yes, all by myself… But it was the middle of the morning, and everything seemed so quiet and safe there, and up on top of the hill, in the cemetery on Mount Zion, right below that big hotel, there were lots of Jews and tourists — and anyway, I had to wait for the contractions to stop, I had to do what I could to save a life…
— Of course I’m not in control of all that happens down there, but I had to do what I could, Mother… and after half an hour or so it really did let up and I was just left with this terrible heaviness in my arms and legs. I looked around and saw I was alone, because the stone carver had taken off somewhere down the hill, and so I decided to take the contrary route again, and rather than head back down toward that crazily steep, narrow lane by the walls of the church, I started up toward the hotel and all those people… and anyway, going up was better and less bouncy for him.