— Perfectly delicious.
— So I felt.
— Delicious.
— Pardon me…
— His children? How strange that you should ask about them, because suddenly there they were: they had stolen unnoticed into the unguarded delivery room, because news had reached them in the synagogue of their father’s return and they had run all the way home. For a moment it seemed that the room was full of children. And yet there were but two of them, a brother and sister, multiplied many times over by the phantasmagorical mirrors. The girl was about ten, a squat, graceless child with two short, sad-looking braids and lazy, cowlike eyes; her brother was slightly older, every bit a little Mani, although not at all like his father — a thin, somber boy in a black suit and little fez with the face of an old man. He studied us strangers carefully, impatient to be alone with his father, who was deftly stitching up the patient while joking with Linka, in whose arms the baby was already fast asleep. The midwife made a move to drive the children out; only the girl, however, let herself be driven; at once the boy slipped back in like a little snake, a hurt, querulous look on his face. Soon his mother appeared too. It was easy to see whom the children had gotten their cheerlessness from and why the doctor was given to travel and having guests in his house. She was a docile woman with a chronic eye condition who spoke only Spanish — and at once I was alert to the danger, because this was not a strong family that could override an outside love but quite the opposite, one that could only inflame it. No matter how suspiciously the boy stood guard, he was too young to be an obstacle, while I–I was powerless — I was still sleepwalking from the journey and balmy with the air of Jerusalem, which I sipped like fine wine — let alone scared to death of sailing back over the waves. Yes, there was a danger, Papa dear, of being engulfed in that city, which — rather than cure us once and for all of our romantic notions — threatened to suck us down into it until you and Mama would be forced to come after us — to sell the mill, lease the forests, find someone for the house, and let go all the help…
— You do?
— Papa, you are wonderful! You honestly would sell everything? You are a man of ideals — a true Zionist — and a most innocent soul…
— Because you are, Papa. Half shrewd businessman and half dreamer. Here, let me give you a kiss…
— No, please! I have not given you a real kiss since coming home…
— Wait — I’m sorry — I did not mean to be rough…
— I will not break your glasses… here… one minute, old man…
— But I did not mean to hurt you. All of a sudden you began to pull away…
— I’m sorry, I truly am. It’s all right…
— It was not insanely. It was lovingly!
— I am sorry…
— You are right, I have changed… What time is it?
— No — wait — do not leave me — look, the birth is already over. The bloody pads have been collected and the Swedish midwife has weighed the baby, handed it to its mother, and ushered in the father to see the new soul he has brought into the world — which, if it takes good care of itself, may live to see the tail end of the next century… This Arab was a man of few words. He looked at his wife, patted her cheek, went back out to untie his donkey, and rode off in the night to his village to get more wives with child.
— Four, I am told.
— No more than four.
— That is the maximum.
— The devil knows. I suppose they fine him — or confiscate the fifth — how should I know? A man who has not even one wife is not the right person to ask.
— No, he lived upstairs. And unlike the clinic, which was quite elaborate and spotlessly clean, the apartment was small and dingy, with an air of poverty about it. The place was poorly lit and full of shadows, and had a central dining room surrounded by little bedrooms piled high with odds and ends and linens. In it was a dinner getting cold because of the prolonged birth — indeed, I could tell by the number of settings on the table that Mani was unexpected too, to say nothing of his guests. By now I regretted not having listened to Linka and gone off to some inn. “I was wrong,” I confessed in a whisper, “terribly wrong — why don’t we leave right this minute?” But she hushed me at once, still burning with excitement over the birth that had possessed her whole being. “We mustn’t embarrass him,” she said. “He’s a sensitive man.” And so we stayed, hesitantly but hungrily led to the table to partake of a meal that was never intended for us. At the table’s far end a personage was waiting to meet us. She was Mani’s mother, a stately but almost blind woman dressed in black like the Greek peasants I had seen on Crete, who are already in mourning even before anyone has died. Mani hugged her with great fervor, kissed her hand, and introduced her to Linka and me in a Spanish mixed with Arabic. Once more I could see that I was being made out to be a specialist of worldwide repute — and once more he did not neglect to mispronounce Jelleny-Szad. The candles threw flickering shapes on the walls of the dark apartment, and once more I modestly inclined my head to acknowledge the honor accorded me in Jerusalem, taking the stately senora’s shriveled hand in my own while she lavishly welcomed me with a radiance that shone through her blindness. This made Linka so jealous that she stepped forward and seized the soft hand too, kissing it devoutly and presenting herself. Sensing the passionateness of the soul that was seeking to take her by storm, the old woman rose and laid a hand on Linka’s head to bless her. Nor, so it seemed, would she have released her had not little Mani, having removed his fez and jacket and become a small boy again, elbowed his way between them…
— Only a mother. Dr. Mani never knew his father. He did not even possess a photograph of him. The man died before his son was born, killed in a brawl in an alleyway in the old city. It was Mani’s grandfather, his father’s father, who — having come especially from Salonika to be with the young couple for the birth — took care of the widow in the first months. And yet instead of taking his grandson and daughter-in-law back to Greece with him, Grandfather Mani chose to leave them in Jerusalem and to return home by himself. Mani never knew him, nor anyone else in his family. He was raised entirely by his mother, a pampered and much-loved only son. These were all things I had already heard at sea, when he and Linka had sat up nights by my bed, ministering to my seasick soul while telling each other stories of their childhoods.
— Ones I had never heard before. Maybe she got them from Mama, or from Grandmother… or else she simply made them up…
— For example… for example… no, Father, this is not the time for it. You still do not grasp that this story is not about us; it is about him — that Sephardic gynecologist — that soft, cunningly naive man who for years was possessed by a passion for self-murder that he concealed so as to scare no one away — whose consummation he put off to heighten the pleasure of choosing the pretext he would use…
— Wait… First comes the dinner that we crashed, which was by no means a large one but rather an assortment of side dishes — apples, cooked vegetables, pomegranates, bits of fried brain — each little more than a symbol — each a wish — a buffer against fear — a warning to enemies — a desire — a fantasy. None were capable of satisfying — all only made you hungrier. And thus we sat, hardly speaking, Linka and I, listening to the unfamiliar holiday melodies that warbled on and on while saying an occasional “amen” and swallowing symbols — and all this, of course, in five different languages, which the darkness and our own weariness seemed to combine into one.