And I went out to empty the rubbish and it was already dark in the street, and I walked along with the empty can to have a look at the street, to see what there was, who the neighbours were, what the shops were like.
When I got back she was sitting in her chair, everything was clean and tidy, she looked at me angrily.
“Where have you been?”
“I was just walking in the street.”
“You must always tell me where you’re going. I’m responsible for you.”
I felt like shouting, What do you mean you’re responsible? but I didn’t say anything.
And she picked up Ma’ariv and I picked up Yediot Aharonot because that was all there was, she didn’t have a TV or a radio for listening to music, and we sat there opposite each other like a pair of old people, quietly reading. It was really boring. And every five minutes she asked me what the time was. In the end she got tired of reading, took off her glasses and said, “Read me what Rosenblum says on page one.”
And I read it to her, I can’t remember all of it, the main thing was that all the Arabs want to destroy all the Jews.
She groaned, nodding her head.
Then I couldn’t stop myself and I asked, “Do you think I want to destroy you?”
She smiled and muttered, “We’ll see, we’ll see. What’s the time?”
“Seven o’clock,” I said.
She said, “Off you go to bed, he may be coming to fetch you tonight, we don’t want him to find you tired out.” I wasn’t a bit tired but I didn’t want to argue with her on the first evening so I stood up to go to bed. And I looked at her, she really scared me, with her pale face and red eyes she looked like a witch. Staring at me so hard. I started trembling inside. She was really scary. And then she said something weird, crazy, whatever could have put the idea in her head?
“Come here, give me a kiss.”
I thought I was going to faint. What was the big idea? Why? I cursed myself and her but I didn’t want to quarrel with her the first evening so I went up to her and quickly brushed my lips against her cheek that was as dry as a tobacco leaf. I made a kissing noise in the air and ran off to my room, wishing I was dead. But then I cheered up a bit because through the window I could see the lights of the harbour coming on, really beautiful. I undressed slowly, put on my pyjamas and got into bed, thinking maybe tonight I’d see the girl I love in a dream and I really did see her but not in a dream.
VEDUCHA
At the time of the siege of Old Jerusalem, just two years after the cursed World War, I realized that God had lost consciousness. I didn’t dare say he no longer existed, because it’s hard for an old woman of sixty-seven whose father was a great Jerusalem rabbi to start fighting against God and those who believe in Him, but when my daughter Hemdah, Gabriel’s mother, was killed by a bullet and I went with the child and his strange father to the New City and they put us up in a monastery in Rehavia, I used to say to all the people around me, whether they wanted to hear or not, “He is unconscious,” and they thought I meant the child, or his father, but I said, “No, up there,” and they would look up, searching and not understanding, and I said, “Don’t seek Him, He isn’t there.” And the people cursed me, for to lose Him at such a time was the last thing they wanted. It was then that my love for Jerusalem died. It was a city of madness, and when they offered me a deserted Arab house in Haifa I accepted it at once and moved there with the child Gabriel, whom I had to bring up. And his strange father didn’t want to go to Haifa, but he didn’t care in the least that I was taking the child, he wasn’t much interested in him, he spent all his time wandering about trying to remarry and not succeeding. And the child loved his father greatly, pined for him all the time. And when at last his father went to Paris to try his luck there, because his prospects in Israel were very bleak, Gabriel never stopped thinking about Paris, collecting pictures of it, reading books about it, and the more I tried to make him forget his father, the more he remembered. I bought an old car and after taking the test seven times I learned to drive. I used to take the boy with me on little trips, to Galilee and other parts of the country, but he had only one idea in his head, how to get to Paris to be with his father, he wrote letters, made plans. As soon as he finished his army service he went to Paris. And so for the last ten years I have been alone, no family around me, they’re all in Paris, dying off one by one, I can’t even get to the funerals. And the world has become strange, but it’s still here and it’s not so bad, it could be much worse. I said to myself, perhaps it’s a good thing that He is still lying there unconscious, if He wakes up then the troubles will begin. Please, good people, speak softly, don’t wake Him. But I began to yearn and my yearning was so great that in the end I lost my wits, I don’t even remember how it happened. It was in the middle of lunch, because Mrs. Goldberg came in that evening and found me still holding the fork. And I lay unconscious for maybe a year and if I met Him I do not know, for every meeting was unconscious. But in the end I woke up, and still I don’t know why. For now I feel no yearning for anyone. Perhaps Gabriel’s return did touch me after all. And I go home, an old woman of ninety-three, that’s the truth, and this loneliness again. What will become of me? But mercy and grace are still with me. On the first night that I’m alone in the house, a thunderstorm outside, that bearded man breaks into the house — Gabriel’s friend, kindred souls they are, he will search for him on my behalf. A wonderful man. He reconnects my telephone, takes care of everything, and one afternoon he even brings along a little Arab boy to stay with me. It’s a little sad that it should end like this. The second generation of a great Jerusalem family, every other Sephardi who walked the streets of the Old City at the turn of the century was somehow related, and now at the end of my days I have nobody in my house but an Arab. Better if he had brought me a Jewish orphan and I could have performed a mitzvah before my death, but what can you do, there are no more Jewish orphans on the market, only Arabs, at least they do not flee the country. God is having a joke at my expense, that at the age of ninety-three I must look after a little Arab, send him to the bathroom to wash himself, give him food, I know, he’ll grow up an ass like all the rest of them, you can’t trust them an inch, but for the time being it’s a pretty boy that I see, a typical Arab face but intelligent, sitting on the chair beside me, like the little grandson that I once had years ago, and there’s light in the house again, I can hardly conceal my joy. He brought vegetables and eggs from his village in a suitcase, like the good Arabs, the Turks. He really makes me happy, I can give him little jobs to do. I held his hand and led him to his room, gave him a good meal. He cleaned his plate. Thank God he has an appetite, now I shall have to cook proper meals. A little man. He may be an Arab, but he’s somebody at least. A quiet boy, knows what he wants, looking at me suspiciously but without fear, on his guard, knows how to defend himself, even though he doesn’t respond to my teasing, I talk to him in Arabic to make him feel at home, but he answers in Hebrew, that’s how far they’ve infiltrated us.
He cleared the table by himself, without being told, went out with the rubbish and suddenly disappeared, I was afraid he might have run away but he came back. He offered to do some work in the house, I asked him to change a light bulb and I watched him as he worked, quietly, without giving himself a shock, without a lot of noise. If he stays with me till Passover he can help me remove the hametz and we shall make the place very kosher. He can read newspapers too. Adam has brought me a real treasure.