But this is not the case. Often Herbst shoves away his books, photographs, index cards, and notes, rests his left arm on the desk, and leans his head on his arm. This pose, if I am not mistaken, is hardly the one in which painters portray learned men. When he sits in this position, he resembles a man trying to dismiss his worries. Which of them did he succeed in dismissing, and which did he fail to dismiss? He succeeded in dismissing Lisbet Neu from his mind, but he failed to dismiss Shira.
Shira displays herself in an array of guises, and every one of her guises compels his eyes and heart. But he does not move from his spot or run to her, and he is surprised at himself for not running to her. A single verse he read by chance remains fixed in his mouth, and he mumbles, “Flesh such as yours / Will not soon be forgotten.” He determines to go to her. When night comes, he finds an excuse and doesn’t go. He looks for Henrietta and insists on helping her in the kitchen, even though she has told him he doesn’t belong among the pots. This sometimes becomes a quarrel. And when she hears his footsteps, she locks the door. What does he do? He takes Sarah out of her crib, carries her in his arms, knocks on the door, and says, “I think the baby needs you.” Henrietta comes out, takes the baby, and walks Manfred to his room and to his desk, saying, “This is where you belong, Fred. Sit down and do your work.” What does he do? He remembers there is no butter in the house. Since there is no dairy in Baka, he goes to Talpiot to buy butter. In Talpiot, he meets up with some of his students, who are protecting the neighborhood from Arab snipers. Herbst does another thing: he writes letters to friends abroad, as well as to his two daughters who are in the same country, for a father is required to educate his daughters. If he didn’t educate them when they were at home, he is educating them now, from a distance. He also occupies himself with a matter that occupies few of his Jerusalem colleagues: he is engaged in clarifying and establishing just who deserves to be considered a Church Father. As Vincent of Lerins has already noted, not all the early Church writers should be considered Church Fathers, since God was testing the Christians through these great teachers, et cetera.
This is how Herbst spent those of his nights that seemed to be seeking Shira. When a night passed and he hadn’t gone to Shira, he felt he was in control.
A contradiction: If it was Shira he was seeking, why didn’t he go to her? But Herbst had a wife; he was the husband of an intelligent, attractive woman. He was the father of three daughters and a lecturer at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Whether or not the Hebrew University is required to uphold the teachings of the prophets and the Jewish moral code, whether or not it is a university like all others, university faculty should not behave frivolously. And, needless to say, they should not waste time indulging the body at the expense of the soul. There was a further reason: Herbst was a reticent man, attached to his wife. She was his first love, and it was with her that his love matured, which is to say that, until he knew Henrietta, he didn’t know a woman’s love.
So, if the night passed and he hadn’t gone to Shira, he considered himself in control. Even more so on a night when he knew she was at home. There were nights when he knew she wasn’t working and would be at home; when she told him this, it was quite deliberate, so he would know when he could find her in.
Herbst stayed away from Shira’s house. Shira didn’t stay away from Herbst’s house. She showed herself in seventy forms: her little feet escaping to the forest on a snowy night, the wolf pelt her husband flung over her on their wedding night when he took her to the house in the woods, the blanket wrapped around her in her husband’s room, the feet the old servant woman wanted to kiss, the slippers he slid off her feet and she replaced. When she appeared to him, her voice sounded as it did that night when they walked as one in the new neighborhood. And he was engulfed in the same stillness, not finding the courage to reach out and caress her. When, after a few weeks, the same face continued to impel him to run to her, he began summoning up her other face, the one he had seen the day the entire city was mourning a young Jerusalem boy who was killed and Shira appeared with that defiant cigarette in her mouth. When that face began to blur, he pictured her sitting with the women in the waiting room of the maternity section, her limbs expanding, encircling the blind Turk and reaching to embrace him. These things are certainly ugly, so reason would cause him to pluck her from his heart and avert his eyes from her. He did just this, pressing his eyes into their sockets so he wouldn’t see her. What did that Turk do? Believe it or not, he sneered from his blind eyes into Herbst’s tightly clenched eyes, chirping, “Flesh such as yours / Will not soon be forgotten.”
Chapter fifteen
Manfred was having a hard morning. His head was heavy, and his shoulders were as inert as rocks. He was utterly debilitated. His bed annoyed him so, he couldn’t lie in it. He got up, settled his feet in his slippers, and began shuffling back and forth from one end of the room to the other.
Henrietta bathed and oiled Sarah, and put her on the scale to check her weight. The baby wriggled her round feet and raised them high, upsetting the scale, so no one could tell how much she had gained. Henrietta laughed and spoke as if to an adult, “I don’t have time for your mischief, Sarah. Father is awake, and I haven’t made his coffee yet.” Even if the child had understood Henrietta, it would have been impossible to find out her weight, as the scale wasn’t working because of a missing screw. When Henrietta realized this, she began searching the house. She remembered that a neighbor had come to weigh her son, and all his brothers had come along; they had played with the scale and, undoubtedly, broken it. Henrietta was irritated with herself. Why did I have to teach the Arab women what they and all their sisters never knew? Now that I need to weigh my daughter, the scale is broken.
Henrietta heard Manfred’s footsteps. They didn’t sound right to her. She handed the baby to Sarini and went to Manfred. His face looked strange. She assumed he had been awake all night with his books. She looked at the lamp and noted that it was still full of kerosene. It occurred to her that his stomach might be upset. Since she knew there were no spoiled ingredients in her cooking, she attributed this to some vegetarian dish, such as a radish he might have pulled up and eaten. Manfred tended to fill up on fruits and vegetables, on the misguided premise that live vegetation gives life. She looked at him again and saw that his eyes were red, his face somber. His shoulders drooped, and his entire body was dejected. Feeling sorry for him, she said, “Fred, I’m taking a chair out to the garden for you. I’ll bring out your coffee. Waste one day in the garden rather than several days in bed. If we were in Germany, wouldn’t we spend two or three months in a summer house? It’s about four years since you took a vacation. You surely deserve a day off.” Henrietta had forgotten that he once went abroad to a conference of Byzantine scholars and spent a few days at the seashore.