When Shira comes to mind, she doesn’t soon leave. Now that she was in his mind, she slipped away because of something trivial, because of two bits of wood he remembered leaving in the stove that morning when he took a warm bath. They were being wasted. While he was regretting the wasted firewood, he remembered his little daughter, whose digestion was upset by those grapes. These two causes — the wood and the grapes — were suddenly linked, and he recalled that he had deliberately left the wood burning in the stove, intending to prepare a warm bath for Henrietta. But, since she was so tired, having been up all night with the little one whose stomach was upset by grapes, she chose to do without the bath. The wood was burning, the smoke was trailing upward with no one to enjoy it. Meanwhile he, who would have enjoyed a cigarette, was deprived of this pleasure because those who live in this neighborhood regard Shabbat as the primary day of the week and view its rituals as a source of special sanctity, the core of life’s holiness, believing life should be sanctified, rather than wasted.
Like most Jerusalem neighborhoods on a summer afternoon after lunch, this little neighborhood was quiet. The shutters on its small houses were closed, and no creature stirred in the street, except for a dog or cat silently picking at the garbage. Were it not for the fact that dogs and cats are considered ritually unclean, I would suggest that they imposed this silence on themselves, for, when Jews observe the Shabbat, even animals and birds don’t disrupt them. Only the sun showed its force. Its intense heat was boundless. The air was filled with the scent of watermelons left to cool on windowsills, so they would be ready to eat when the afternoon rest was over. Herbst kept taking off his sunglasses and wiping them. He stood between the little houses, which were surrounded by bramble. It was the seventh year, so the gardens in the area had been left fallow and were taken over by bramble. The dry bramble would bake in the sun and split open, sending out a sharp, invigorating smell that was quite pleasant. Between the bramble and the houses, a dog and cat stood amicably picking at the same heap of garbage.
Herbst was approaching Lisbet Neu’s house. He consulted his watch and saw it wasn’t quite three o’clock. Three in the afternoon was not the time to visit, certainly not for the first time, and certainly not in the case of a well-bred young woman who lives with her mother. So all he could do was wait. He turned toward the valley, sat down in the shade of a rock, and lit a cigarette. Though there were no shade trees, bushes and rocks warded off the sun and sent up a fine, dust-free scent. When he finished the cigarette, he looked at his watch and saw he would have to be patient.
He took out Neu’s book and read snatches of it. He put it back in his pocket, took out a small notebook, and wrote: “Aristotle’s Poetics, Sophocles’ Antigone, Lessing, Herder, Wilhelm Meister, Goethe’s Profiles, Schiller’s Horen, Schlegel’s Descriptions of Character, Jean Paul, Hume.” Herbst meant to help himself remember some of the books he ought to read for the tragedy he was going to write. Actually, he had read all those books and remembered what was in them. He even knew some of them by heart, but, because he was so exacting, he decided to reread them. I will now leap ahead: Herbst followed through on this list, reading all those books, as well as many others, but the drama he intended to write was never written. Still, nothing was wasted. In taking stock of the characters he had invented and ordering their lives, he considered the events of his own life — how they fit together, as well as their implications. After writing what he wrote, he walked among the parched bushes and the sun-struck bramble splitting open with a sound like that of nuts being cracked, reflecting on the characters he had created.
Meanwhile, the sun began to warm him, shrubs and rock giving back to the sun what they took so easily. Herbst closed his eyes, hoping to doze. Mosquitoes came and stung him. He lit another cigarette to keep the mosquitoes away. The cigarette in his mouth dozed off, and so did he. The mosquitoes, however, instead of dozing, came back and stung him again. He got up, yielded his spot to them, began pacing back and forth, and, as he paced, looked around and began to make archeological speculations. Leaping from rock to rock, he was no longer in the valley but had come to a bald spot between the bushes, adorned with thorns and thistles. It glistened in the sun with countless paths and trails nearby that vanished among the bushes and rocks. There were other paths, one of which wound as far as the eye could see, more than likely extending into town, perhaps even all the way to where Shira lived. He felt the point of a scalpel cutting into his heart. It was not a scalpel; it was the anguish of pain. He closed his eyes tight because of the pain and, with closed eyes, followed his feet. He moved on, his legs striking each other. Had he looked at his watch, he would have seen that he could now call on the Neu ladies. But rather than look at his watch, he looked at the path, retreating and bringing him closer to where he was going. When he realized he was close to Shira’s house, he indulged in the prayer we are familiar with: Let me find a locked door, let me find that Shira’s out. The gods, who mock each other and don’t give human beings a chance to mock them, did what they did. While he was praying that Shira would be out, the gods took charge, brought Shira home, and brought Herbst to Shira’s door.
Chapter twelve
Herbst was at Shira’s house again. He had been at Shira’s many times in the evening, but never by day. Now he was there in the daytime. On which day? On Shabbat, a day when neighbors are free to note nonessentials and their curious eyes scrutinize the very air. Herbst stood at the door, wondering how many times to ring. When their love was new, they had agreed on two long rings and one short one to announce his arrival. Now he hesitated; if she knew who it was, she might pretend not to be in. He decided to be devious and gave an ordinary ring. She didn’t answer. He waited and rang again. She didn’t answer. He left, came back, and gave two long rings and a short one. He soon heard her footsteps and could tell she was coming. After a while she opened the door. Before he had a chance to look at her, she was gone.
He went inside and found her in bed, wrapped and swaddled to her neck in a blanket that rose and fell over her stomach, which pushed the blanket aside and reared out from under it. A gurgling sound bubbled forth from underneath the blanket, the sound of an inverted water bottle. There was, in fact, a hot-water bottle resting on her stomach and bubbling loudly. He took a chair and sat beside her bed, as if he had come to see how she was, as if his only interest were in knowing what she was doing. She welcomed him as she hadn’t done in a long while. Her face was flushed, her cheekbones ashen, and her nose partly red, partly white. The hot-water bottle on her belly continued to rumble. The light was dim, because the curtains were drawn over the window. The entire room had become more like a dingy hallway in which a stranger wouldn’t be able to find the door. When he had collected himself, Herbst asked Shira, “Are you sick?” Rather than sympathy, there was a note of irritation in his voice, because she had chosen to be sick at the very time he had taken the trouble to visit. Shira answered, “I was on the night shift at the hospital, and I put myself to bed to make up the sleep I missed.” Herbst said, “I’m sorry I woke you.” Shira said, “You didn’t wake me. Someone rang earlier and woke me, but I couldn’t open the door because I was sleeping naked, without a nightgown.” Herbst said, “When you came to open the door for me, you put on your nightgown.” Shira said, “How do you know that?” Herbst said, “From what you said, I know you were wearing a nightgown. Also, I can see you are wearing it now.” Shira laughed and said, “You see everything, my dear Sherlock. Close the window, please, and lower the blinds. The sunlight is in my eyes. Many thanks, darling. Just that blind, the one across from the bed. Thanks, darling. You’re not smoking? Would you hand me my bag; it’s on the table. Thanks, darling. Now, darling, the little mirror, please. Thanks, darling. Now sit down, darling. You can sit down. I won’t bother you anymore. You’re probably tired. I assume you had to walk here, since it’s Shabbat. Shabbat…the God of the Jews knows how to torture His followers even more than the Gentiles torture them. No, that’s not the bag I meant. I meant the blue one. Would you please look and see if it fell on the floor. No? Then I left it somewhere, and I don’t know where. I’ll look for it later. Don’t bother. See, when you’re used to doing everything yourself and you ask someone else to do something for you, it’s useless. No, no. Actually, that is the bag I wanted. My mistake. That’s it. I’m surprised at myself. I should have recognized it immediately. I probably didn’t recognize it because of the light.”