Herbst, who was perhaps even more sensitive to smells than Shira, didn’t notice. But the smell transported him to a desert with snakes, scorpions, caves, tombs, and old men buried alive to the waist in graves they dug for themselves, singing and praising their gods. Other old men, tied to wooden posts or to boulders, stood on one leg, reaching one arm upward, their bodies inert, only their lips moving. They never changed clothes or washed; their tattered garments were covered with vermin, worms, and maggots as they, too, sang and praised their gods.
Herbst was transported to still another place, an emperor’s palace, where there was a party for a holy man the emperor had heard about, who had been brought to the palace so the emperor could bask in his holiness. The emperor presided over an extravagant feast prepared for the holy man and for all his courtiers. The holy man sat at the head of the table, within sight of the emperor and his courtiers, neither eating nor drinking, delighting in his sores, which swarmed with worms and maggots. Before their very eyes, a new worm stirred, born in the holy man’s flesh, unmindful of the emperor, the feast on his table, his courtiers — unaware, perhaps, that it inhabited a holy body and was feeding on holy flesh. Such lowly creatures lack the capacity to recognize greatness. “Where are you?” Shira said to Herbst. “If you’re not in outer space, I don’t know where you are. As I said earlier, you seem to be in some other world today. Come on, let’s go in.” Shira took his hand and went up the dark, dilapidated steps with him.
Chapter thirteen
On a battered bed in a dingy room lay the body of an emaciated young girl. Her head barely touched the pillow, it was so light. Her eyes were weary and filled with longing. Herbst followed Shira to the sick bed, then turned back, looking at Shira as if to explain that he hadn’t approached the girl’s bed on his own but was simply following her. When he looked at Shira, he saw she was holding flowers. How could that be? When did Shira get flowers, and what sort of flowers were in her hand? In any case, they had no scent; if they had, she wouldn’t have had to close her nose against the garbage in the yard. As for where she got them, wasn’t I with her at the King David Hotel? And, when we got there, didn’t she go to the little hut near the hotel and come out with someone who led her to the hotel garden, from which she returned with an armful of flowers? I didn’t pay attention to the flowers, because I was preoccupied.
The sick woman dilated her nostrils to take in the scent. She offered Shira a small, frail hand, gazing at the flowers as if they were some lovely object she yearned for but knew she could never have. She said in a clear voice, unimpaired by sickness, “Please, Shira, let me smell your flowers.” I see, Herbst thought to himself, that they do have a smell. He breathed in the scent. Shira handed her the flowers and asked, “Where can I find something to put these in?” Hearing Shira’s words, Herbst noted to himself: She said “to put these in,” but she didn’t say their name. These city girls who have never made anything grow! He turned away from his thoughts to concentrate on the sick woman’s voice, which was familiar. While he was trying to remember where and when he had heard it, she offered her hand and asked how he was. Herbst said, “You didn’t come to visit us, so I came to visit you. How are you, my dear?” She answered, “I’m fine,” laughing wanly. Herbst looked at her, thinking: Why does she say I’m fine, when everything about her belies her words? In the midst of this thought, he answered the question himself: What should she have said to me? She continued, “And how is Mrs. Herbst? And your daughter?” Herbst answered, “Fine, fine,” laughing inwardly at himself and at the world, in which everything moves in circles, while the world itself moves in its own circle. A man goes into a restaurant, sees a young woman, and strikes up a conversation. He goes to the Dead Sea with his wife and daughter, and sees the same young woman. She says, “I’m fine”; he says, “I’m fine”; but neither one is fine. Shira glanced at her patient, then at Herbst, and asked, “Do you two know each other?” Herbst said, “My wife knows this young lady too. Isn’t that so, my dear?”
Shira found an empty jam jar, filled it with water, and put the flowers in it. “Too bad,” Shira said. “Too bad that I had to cut the stems. But they’re lovely this way too.” “They’re beautiful,” the girl said, leaning toward the flowers. She smoothed her disheveled hair, took the jar of flowers, and put it to her mouth, as if she meant to eat the smell. Then she extended her hand to hold the flowers at a slight distance. Each gesture seemed to have a message: the flowers that once strewed our path are now far away…. Even the hand that smoothed her hair suggested a message: although our paths are scattered, like these stray strands, we can put them in order.
Shira arranged the pillow under the patient’s head, took her left hand to check the pulse, then asked her, “What have you eaten today? What would you like me to prepare?” The girl said, “Many thanks, Nurse Shira, but I don’t need anything. Really, I don’t. I have a girlfriend who takes care of me. She went to the pharmacy to get my medicine.”