Effi goes over to the window and draws the curtains. Grandpa Lolek’s face fills with a dark sleepiness. “Go home, I’ll sit here for a while,” she says.
I agree. She comments to Grandpa Yosef, “You can take a break too. I’ll be fine here.”
Grandpa Yosef refuses. “No, no,” he replies, somewhat hurt, “maybe later.” Alex had said he would come, and Atalia too. She would come alone. Hainek had to go back to Beersheba for some urgent business.
We sit there and try to imagine Grandpa Hainek having urgent business.
Grandpa Lolek was in no hurry. The critical condition of the first few hours had been exchanged for the comforts of a sleepy empire where the king held court in bed. The doctors concluded that a benign tumor had developed in his head, which could be removed with one or two operations as soon as his body gained some strength. This diagnosis gave rise to a general sigh of relief, but the object of the diagnosis remained indifferent to the turn of events. Resting on his bed, he was quiet and free of worries. Only his fluttering wink reminded us of the life currently trapped inside a stroke.
Word of Grandpa Lolek’s hospitalization spread through the family by the usual means — phone calls and the fluctuation of the stars — and they came, teeming with urgency, soaked in sweat, three-busses-from-Netanya, local trains, aging cars, all come to peruse Grandpa Lolek and let out a murmur. A massive force collected them piecemeal from the troubles of life. The secret wings of the family that were scattered around the country, their connections normally hidden and disguised, were suddenly exposed and there they all were, summoned by the urgent alarm call of true trouble. The white room groaned, chairs were dragged in from the hallway, from the waiting room, and surreptitiously from the room next-door. The IV stand was wheeled against the wall. The empty bed next to Grandpa Lolek’s became populated with visitors who settled themselves down close to one another, four or five in a row like heavy parrots.
And there were guests too. Unlike the family, they were notable for the temporary sense of their visits — they came for just a short while, didn’t want to tire anyone out. What distinguished them from the family was also the absence of calculating looks at the other inhabitants of the room. Neighbors came. Friends came. Old creditors came. As they looked at Grandpa Lolek, they saw the silent debts within him, pondered their money and sighed. The elderly court clerk came, the one who delayed cases in return for stories of Anders’ Army. He looked at his sleeping hero and sighed. There were visitors whose business with Grandpa Lolek was not apparent even by the end of their visits. They sighed and left. Green the Mechanic came. Why hadn’t he been told anything, he asked angrily. He had begun to grow suspicious when the Vauxhall hadn’t shown up, so he had made enquires and here he was. He stood with his hands spread wide and announced to the room: the Vauxhall, he would handle.
From the moment Grandpa Lolek began to command all horizontal attention as he lay in bed, Grandpa Yosef took the vertical attention, dashing this way and that, welcoming visitors and doctors, handling all the necessities. A great deal of motion circulated through Grandpa Lolek’s room, and in the center of it all was Grandpa Yosef. He hardly left the hospital, devoting himself completely to care-giving. His shirts were clean but a faint odor wafted up from them, and from his body too. His eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks damp with glistening perspiration. He chopped up the endless time into shifts and handed them out to anyone who asked. Uncle Lunkish turned up with two umbrellas — so what if it wasn’t raining — and got one shift, just one. Aunt Frieda came from Netanya, declaring, “Nu, you know I never got along with Lolek, but family is family,” and demanded a shift. Uncle Menashe left the butcher shop and demanded a shift. Uncle Mendel came, inspected the mezuzah with his fingernail and sat down. Another shift.
Even at the end of the distribution, plenty of shifts were left over. Most of them were taken by us, Grandpa Lolek’s like-grandchildren. We were recruited in different permutations, usually linking up with Grandpa Yosef, the lead caregiver. The real family — Grandpa Hainek — was represented by Atalia. She demanded and received one shift every day. In the hospital Grandpa Hainek wandered restlessly. Haifa. The north of the country. It might snow. And he rushed back to his southern city of Beersheba before his Polish destiny could awaken and strike, taking Atalia away from him. Every day he brought Atalia at the beginning of her shift, drove back to Beersheba in a taxi with the windows rolled up, and showed up again when her shift was over. He was consistent in the way he gave the obligatory ten minutes which Atalia forced him to allot to his oldest brother. He sat there polished, heavy, boots sticking out, sternly scanning the place.
In light of the grueling job he had taken upon himself (twice-a-day-Beersheba-Haifa-and-back) for Atalia’s sake, and to ward off his fears, we hoped to discover something new in Grandpa Hainek. We looked at him and tried to comprehend. It was a good season for a little compassion. We thought about the beginning of the war. We tried to envision an eleven-year-old boy taken to a village he had never seen before, his father telling him this would be his new family, that he could not see his mother and father for a while. You mustn’t ever say you are a Jew. He had to memorize prayers. Here, this is your father, only him. Here, this is your mother, you cannot say she is not. Here are your brothers. An eleven-year-old boy, left alone despite his tears. The farmer takes him to the barn and silently shows him how to work. From that boy our thoughts returned to the man sitting here in heavy boots, and we tried to envelope him with understanding, with tenderness. The thoughts lasted a second or two but then fell apart with a clatter and we had to think again about the eleven-year-old boy — if we wanted to.
The obligatory ten minutes passed and Grandpa Hainek escaped to his taxi. He spent a few minutes looking for passengers to take to Beersheba, but either way he was soon headed south, before the flakes could begin to whiten Haifa and clog everything up with mud and snow.
In the world, meanwhile, it was a dry winter. No rain. Freezing at night time, sometimes warm during the days. People said, “It’s already November and no sign of winter.” They gazed at the sky with astonishment, even some pride, practically hinting at a secret partnership in this decision of nature to flood the days with what had not ended in summer — light, heat, and strange winds. A violent and sterile winter, trying with all its might, but forgetting the main point. It glanced at the deeds of the previous winter and reproduced the freezing winds, doing its best, but there was no rain. Every night leaves fluttered through the darkness. The sea opposite Grandpa Lolek’s room was full of great waves. Grandpa Yosef liked to stand at the window. At night you could hear the waves, and the wind sweeping paper from notice boards along the street.
In between visits, shifts, doctor’s examinations and nuisances, Grandpa Yosef’s journey continues. I try to time my shifts so I can continue on the voyage with him. My shifts are punctuated with essentially normal life. I come and go while the voyage waits. But gravity pulls the chapters together and the times between shifts are forgotten, dismissed from memory, leaving a continuity, an energetic and impatient journey.