Zahara served herself and ate slowly, hoping to figure out just what was in the dish. As she ate, she abandoned her research, began eating for pleasure, and took another helping. Again she tried to analyze the dish. She stared at the plate, then at her mother, and stopped trying to guess the ingredients. With her mother’s cooking, it wasn’t the ingredients that determined the taste. Even when her mother told her how to prepare a particular dish and she passed on the recipe to her friends in Ahinoam, it never turned out like her mother’s.
Herbst ate with pleasure too, but he was troubled. He picked up a spoon instead of a fork and assured himself that, if what was on his mind was important, it would make itself known; if not, it would slip away. But it didn’t make itself known, nor did it slip away. What could be troubling me so? Manfred wondered. Is it that I didn’t praise Henrietta’s cooking? If so, I’ll say something, and, even if she sees I’m not sincere, I’ll be in the clear. He put down the spoon and looked up. His eyes met Zahara’s. Affectionate joy flashed from his eyes to hers; identical joy flashed from Zahara’s eyes to those of her father. Herbst forgot his troubles and began talking to Zahara.
Manfred said to his daughter, “Now, Zahara, we should ask what’s new back in Ahinoam. You ought to tell us without being asked, since we’re so citified that we’re total boors when it comes to kvutza affairs and our questions won’t be meaningful. Aren’t you pleased, my child, that your father knows himself so well?” Zahara said, “Wrong, Father. You ask and I’ll answer, since I don’t know what you would like to know.” Herbst said, “All your news is important to me.” Zahara said, “There are several sorts of news, and I don’t know which you have in mind.” Henrietta said to Manfred, “You start, Fred.”
Father Manfred sat asking questions, and Zahara answered at length, as if it were vital for him to have thorough knowledge of all the things he asked about. She didn’t realize that this urban man, this bookworm, probably forgot his question before he finished asking it, that he hadn’t noticed she wasn’t finished answering and was already asking Henrietta what she had accomplished with regard to the certificates. Before Henrietta could answer, he asked Zahara questions he had already asked and she had already answered. Even things he knew and had no need to ask about, he asked. Zahara and Henrietta didn’t notice at first; when they noticed, they laughed about the absentminded professor whose great ideas left no room in his head for their trivial concerns.
Zahara’s mind was somewhat like her father’s. Her brow was narrow and unwrinkled, but many ideas were spinning around in her brain. Some were the outcome of conversations with Avraham and Heinz; some were inspired by lecturers. She stored some of these ideas in her heart and imparted some of them to her parents. Herbst looked at his daughter fondly and said to his wife, “What do you think of our scholar, Henrietta?” Henrietta answered, “She’s your daughter; like father, like child.” Herbst was pleased with his wife’s words and wanted to say something about his daughter, such as “No need to be sorry that she left school.” But his own sorrow suppressed these words, for it was Berl Katznelson, his close friend, who had designed her workshops, bypassing him, neglecting to ask him to give even one lecture. Herbst had one consolation: his great work on burial customs of the poor in Byzantium. It was still a heap of notes, the skeleton of a book, but it would surely become a real book. When it appeared in print, those who ignored him now would be the first to seek him out. Herbst wasn’t thinking in terms of revenge: You underestimate me now; tomorrow, when I’m famous, you’ll be the first to honor me. But, remembering his book, he was comforted. The book was important, not only because of the sources he uncovered, but because of his ideas, which, at several points, approached the level of a study in religion. The burial customs of the poor in Byzantium, which at first glance, appear entirely opposed to Christian doctrine, were in fact derived from a philosophy that found itself a niche within that very religion. Now that Herbst was thinking about his book, he was determined to do whatever was in his power to complete it. Having reached this decision, his sorrow vanished. Although it vanished, he was not relieved. On the contrary, as he thought about his book he grew more and more angry that, with such a work in progress, he could be treated as if he didn’t exist. Actually, it was not because he wasn’t invited to the workshops that he was angry, but because of himself, because his mind was not on his work because of Shira.
Chapter twenty-five
When they had finished eating, Zahara led her mother to the upholstered chair near the window and went to clear the table. As long as Zahara was clearing the dishes, Henrietta sat quietly. When Zahara didn’t come back, Henrietta understood that she must be washing them. But she had come for the workshops, not to do dishes, and she ought to rest before going to the lectures. Henrietta pulled herself together, got up, and went to the kitchen to relieve Zahara. Zahara refused to listen to her; she wouldn’t let her do household chores after being up most of the night and spending most of the day cooking, with no one to help. When Sarini came to nurse Sarah, she had asked if she could take the day off, as she was being offered the chance to assist at an important ritual — the ransoming of a firstborn donkey — to pour drinks for the guests and serve all sorts of sweets, since the wife of the celebrant, a kind and rich Bukharan, was all thumbs and so inept she couldn’t even manage the sugar cubes she sucked on, let alone the guests. And it was going to be a great ceremony, like the one with Balfour and Herbert Samuel when the Ashkenazim established a university. Manfred, when he heard Zahara and Henrietta arguing, leaped into the fray and declared, “I’ll wash the dishes.” Henrietta scolded him, saying, “You, go back to your room. Climb into bed. And after you’ve slept, you can get back to work.”