— Each time it was something else. If he did not say Jelleny-Czad, he said Jelleny-Szak. In any event, before we knew it, the blond matron — who came to Jerusalem several years ago on a pilgrimage and proceeded to lose her faith there — was conducting us to the delivery room. At first I was astonished to see such a huge hall in a house that size — but soon enough I realized that I was looking at an illusion, for the walls were covered with mirrors cut and swiveled to face each other, while more mirrors surrounded the beds, so that the room — which was lit only by candles — resembled some resplendent grotto. As I stood wondering how we had ever fallen into the clutches of this most mysterious man, who had enticed us from so far away, the midwife brought us a basin of water to wash the dust from our hands and dressed us in hospital smocks. Wherever we looked we saw reflections — ghostly apparitions — images within images…
— Linka was invited to join us. Although she was glowing with wonderment and quite delighted that I had not taken her to some inn, she kept looking anxiously at a woman in childbirth who lay covered by a sheet, a swarthy female who called to mind a lithe wildcat. Her abdomen was soft. Her long, bare legs protruded from the sheet…
— You see, she was remarkably relaxed, Father, and at once I asked myself, what was the cause of her atonicity? I smelled no hypnogenetic agent; her face was alert; yet she lay there utterly tranquil, following us with her coal-black eyes, which seemed unperturbed at the sight of visitors. I could see at once that she had perfect faith in the Swedish midwife, who presided without losing her composure for a moment. Mani did nothing but smile at her quickly through his little beard and signal the midwife with a nod of his head to proceed with the delivery: And yet — are you listening, Father? — he managed to give the impression that had he not come back from Europe in the nick of time, everything would have come to a halt…
— Yes. I can still picture every detail of that screamless birth, which took place on the night of our arrival in a Jerusalem that we had not even seen yet. For the moment we could only scent the city through an open window that let in a most wonderful breeze, on which was wafted a precise compound of cool, dry air and an almost imperceptibly sweet, herbiferous essence — a most carefully concocted extract whereof consists, I submit, the true grandeur of the place. Linka clutched my hand, all but digging her fingernails into it. She was actually shaking. For the first time in her life she was seeing a womb in action — in all those mirrors surrounding her she had more than a glimpse of what would one day be her own fate. The amazing Swede, having felt the next contraction coming even before the woman in labor, whose concentration was broken by our appearance, now leaned low over the bed and forced apart the long, brown legs, lowering her own body between them and thrusting her head toward the womb as if to lap up the blood that was dripping from it. She did not, however, do so; rather, she began to pant with short breaths like a faithful dog that has just run a course; whereupon the woman, slightly lifting her head to look in the mirror in front of her, which reflected the mirror behind her, began to pant too; and kept it up until the Swede stopped, at which exact second she stopped also The Swede threw her a big, happy smile, which turned at once into a suffering grimace; she brought her clenched hands up to her shoulders as if fending off an evil spirit; and at once the woman arched herself like a bow and mimicked her, grimacing and expelling what was in her. The cervix opened a bit more; a thin trickle of blood ran off into the white sheet; you could not have said whose ordeal was greater, the midwife’s or the woman in childbirth’s, for before the woman could groan the midwife had done it before her, panting again like a thirsty yellow dog that was joined at once by its faithful black mate. And mind you, Papa dear, this was doubled and redoubled all around us — behind us, before us, overhead, and underneath — yes, even the tears that glittered in the eyes of Linka, who was enraptured by the mystery of birth, were increased exponentially — if only you and Mama had been there to see how ravishing she looked in her white smock, by the flicker of the candles! She was never more beautiful — she never will be. She held my hand and leaned on Mani, who put an arm around each of us. “There, do you see?” he whispered to us in Hebrew. “It is without pain. Without pain.” We nodded. At that moment we both could have sworn that that Swedish Brunhild took all the pain upon herself…
— So far he had done nothing — nothing, that is, but glance in the mirrors, in which multiple births were taking place, one more curious than the next — and in which you now could see a curly lock of coal-black hair that belonged to a little man-cub — a somber, wizened little thing that had chosen to be born at the very tail end of this old century — that had not wanted to wait for the next one, the unknown twentieth. It slid quickly out of the vagina, which made me think of a mouth that could not stop yawning, silently cheered on by us all. Mani went to a corner; deftly seized a curved, dripping knife from a boiling pot with his forceps; gripped the newborn infant with one hand; held it up; slapped its back to get it to cry; and then — with the most amazing dexterity — cut the umbilical cord, stanched the bleeding, bandaged the wound with a large pad, and plunked the infant sweepingly down into the arms of Linka, who stood there in a daze. You would have thought her the mother and him the father — and I, dearest Papa, felt a shudder go through me, for he had, as it were, by that act, taken her captive…
— No, they were Mohammedans, Father. A tiny, yellowish little Muslim, one of those premature babies you don’t expect to last a week — yet by some miracle it hung on, and on Yom Kippur it was still alive, measuring me with a friendly glance of its little, coal-black eyes…
— No, why? He has Jewesses too. Did you think they are childless there? The very next day a Jewess gave birth to twins — a boy and a girl — and screamed so hard that even the Swede could not calm her.
— But why? You have nothing to worry about. We Jews have our fair share of babies in the Land of Israel too…
— It is an open clinic. That was his way, Father. A multiethnic, syncretistic, ecumenical clinic, which it has to be to survive…
— A human laboratory, ha ha…
— That is one way of looking at it. As for our Linka —
— Now, now, that is putting it a bit strongly. As for our Linka — just imagine her standing there in a penitential-looking white gown, reverently holding the little baby, which meanwhile had stopped crying, and rocking him ecstatically — it just had been born and here she was already trying to put it to sleep! Mani was bent over the afterbirth, rummaging about in it as if searching for another infant, while the mother lay quietly, apparently feeling no need for words. For my own part, I was still groggy from the journey and delighted to be on solid ground, away from tossing waves, clattering trains, and lurching carriages. Our voyage was over; we were in Jerusalem, which could be breathed, if not seen, from the dark window! Dr. Mani called me over to have a look at the afterbirth and explained something in a Hebrew that was no more equal to the task than my own. I nodded somnambulistically, staring at that portly, energetic man who must indeed have been a pied piper to bring us to such a place. The line leading from Jelleny-Szad to Jerusalem was mysterious — inspiring — perhaps impossible — but oddly delicious all the same…