Back to Herbst. It was about to happen. Manfred Herbst was going to be appointed a professor, like Bachlam and Ernst Weltfremdt and Lemner and Wechsler and all the other professors at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem who achieved this high position because of their books or social connections. Were we to judge by the polished brass nameplates gleaming on their doors, this was a good thing; if we look to the heart, what’s so good about it?
There is a simple creature in this world, named Shira. Just when fortune begins to smile on Herbst, this creature, Shira, puts him off. On the face of it, she shows warmth; actually, she shows only the freckles on her face, which is to say that, when he comes to her, she shows only her face, that’s all. Unlike that night when he first knew her, when she was so affectionate that there could be no other woman as affectionate; unlike the three or four nights that followed, when she was not as affectionate as on the first night, but she did respond to him, though not as he wished, yet we can say she responded, and he was in another world because of her. Herbst sits wondering why that night was different. When he saw her for the first time, expecting nothing, she was very affectionate, whereas, now that he is obsessed by her, she doesn’t notice him. Has she found more adequate companions, lovers? Herbst isn’t jealous, nor does he wish to know who they are. Herbst’s mind is on Shira, who is above all women, whom none can match. Whether he sees or imagines her, that phrase “Flesh such as yours…” is fixed on his lips.
Herbst tries to extricate himself from this chaos of Shira thoughts, which are boundless and infinite, whose sole effect is to suspend all other enterprises. Herbst turns his mind back to his work, to his book, to the material he has compiled, collected, selected, copied, and invented. He begins to relate to his book as if it is already there, as if it exists, as if all the notes were gathered together in a single volume. What does Shira do? Surfacing from the dimness of his thoughts, she appears before him.
When it comes to self-deception, Herbst is cautious, and he examines his actions with total objectivity. He is aware that, even when his book is completed, his ultimate goal will not be realized. He regards the actions of others with the same objectivity. Even those who have published several books will not affect the heavenly bodies, nor will they change the course of our world. Though learning is a dominion in itself, it holds no golden scepter in its hand.
I’ll get back to Shira now. Shira is not the same Shira we knew two years ago. Her upper lip is wrinkled, and her hair is beginning to turn gray. She is still in her prime, but she’s becoming slovenly. Though her clothes are old, she doesn’t replace them. The walls of her room are peeling, but she doesn’t arrange to get them repainted. The print of the skull has yellowed frightfully, and it looks as if a real skull is staring at you. What Böcklin’s brush didn’t accomplish has been accomplished by Shira’s slovenliness; she has stopped dusting the picture. Only the bed has changed its place. It used to be in the southeast corner; it is now in the northwest. Was it Shira’s idea to move the bed or someone else’s? It doesn’t really matter, except that all these thoughts of Shira bring on other thoughts that relate to Shira. He tires of them — they never tire. They give him wings, and he takes off and flies to Shira. When he comes, she welcomes him, offers cigarettes, fruit, and tea. Herbst lights a cigarette, takes some fruit, drinks a glass of tea, and thinks to himself: The things she gives me are presents from lovers; just as she gives me the gifts her lovers give her, she gives her lovers the gifts I give her. None of this disturbs him. It does disturb him that, though her hair is graying, she doesn’t dye it; though her clothes are worn, she doesn’t replace them; though she has lost a tooth, she doesn’t get a false one. Is Shira so sure of herself, confident that she is still attractive? Herbst studies Shira and can only wonder: Why am I so drawn to her. If it’s habit, Henrietta is more of a habit. Also handsomer, and of superior character. If Henrietta were in trouble, I would be very upset; if this one were in trouble, I would be glad to be rid of her. Herbst studies Shira repeatedly, through investigation and visitation. Before he has a chance to observe very much, his heart begins to flutter longingly.
Shira continues to behave in her usual fashion. On the face of it, she is warm, allowing him not a hairbreadth closer. She is frank with him, concealing none of her activities. That woman’s activities are bizarre, and it is hard to come to terms with them. Doesn’t she realize how misguided they are? Her talk is not loose, but it is certainly stimulating. Does she even have to stimulate his desire? Is there any reality to her stories? She once told him about an English soldier who came to her one night. When did he come? He came after midnight. True, she threw him out. In any case, the question stands: What was an English soldier doing in the room of a Jewish nurse in the Land of Israel? What business did Shira have with soldiers anyway? I say “soldiers,” in the plural, because once she went to Netanya, and, since she had to leave early and didn’t know how she would get to the train station with her heavy luggage, the proprietress told her there was an Englishman there who would take her luggage to the station. That night, when she was in bed, the soldier came to her room. She said to him, “I’m old enough to be your mother; you want to make love to a woman your mother’s age.”
What will the future bring? Herbst asks himself. This question pertains not to the events of the world, nor to the murder of six hundred Jews in a single year by the Arabs and the country’s continued policy of self-restraint, nor to the university or the concerns of his wife and daughters, but to Shira, whom he has begun to call Nadia again. He goes to her two or three times a month, and, whenever he happens to be in town, he tries to make time for Shira. When he comes in, she welcomes him, says, “Sit down,” and offers him cigarettes, fruit, a sweet, and tea. She discusses the news and whatever is going on at the hospital. Sometimes, to accommodate him, she tells about herself, about the past, which she prefers not to recall, on the theory that it no longer affects her; only for his sake, because he wants to hear, does she talk about it. When he tries to approach her, she makes a screen with her hands and says, “Please, don’t be childish.” Herbst sits there feeling scolded, praying to himself: If only she would reproach me, if only she would say, “Don’t come here.” He himself doesn’t want to stop, can’t stop, doesn’t stop; he continues to come. And she continues to welcome him, without allowing him a hairbreadth closer.
Just to please him, Shira returns to a subject she was in the middle of, something she doesn’t like to talk about but he likes to hear. She tells him about the past, before she was married; about the young man who saw himself as her protector, whom she rejected because, from early childhood, she disliked anyone who tried to dominate her. What was predicted for him in his youth was fulfilled. He had become prominent as an orator, a politician, first in whatever he undertook. He was featured in all the newspapers and praised, for, when someone becomes the head of an institution, many people depend on him, and the writers hired to provide publicity for the institution weave the name of its head into their text, sometimes even making him the subject of the entire article. If some of these writers, seeing their words in print, cursed whatever had moved them and cursed themselves for being moved, he was becoming famous anyhow, and already there was a body of literature about him. As soon as the Diaspora began to shrink, so that he couldn’t find anything to do there, he came here. He does the same things here that he did there. He is involved in everything, everywhere. He orates, speechifies, takes charge.