I went back to the car and set off.
To Jerusalem.
Yes, to Jerusalem. Why Jerusalem? But did I have an alternative? Where else could I go? Where could I hide till the storm blew over? The ginger-haired girl had all my personal details recorded in her files. The one-handed major would be searching for the car. Could I have gone back to grandmother’s house, a fugitive from the war, a deserter, a wanted man?
Or perhaps you think I could have returned to you. To live with you, to be more than a lover, to be one of the family. Was that possible?
But why not carry on with the destiny chosen for me. The first step had been taken, I’d escaped from the desert, crossed the border into Israel. I was wearing black clothes, tassels and a hat. I’d grown accustomed to the smell of the sweat of the holy man. My beard was flourishing, I didn’t object to the idea of growing a side curl or two. The Morris had turned black, was well disguised. Why not carry on with the adventure?
Also the money that you’d given me, Adam, was running out. I had somehow to get through a difficult period, until the war was won or died down. Why shouldn’t the religious Jews take me in? They seemed quite good at that sort of thing, at least to judge by their emissaries in the desert. It seemed that somebody looked after them.
Such were my thoughts on the night journey, in the pale light of the waning moon. Passing through the settlements of the south, reaching the coastal plain, driving slowly to conserve fuel. I didn’t even know the date, much less what was going on in the world.
And so, cautiously, in a dark land, at three o’clock in the morning, I began climbing the road to Jerusalem. From time to time I left the main highway and took to the side roads, to throw any pursuers off the scent. Looking out at the dark, rocky landscape, hearing the crickets. Since returning home I hadn’t visited Jerusalem, I’d been so busy with my grandmother, with the legacy, with the lawyers, and with your love. So that when with the first light of dawn I entered the city, dirty and deserted though it was, with sandbags piled up around the houses and shabby civil defence personnel patrolling the streets, I was startled, overwhelmed, by the stark beauty. And in the approaches to the city, like an omen, my last drop of fuel was used up. I left the car in a side street and set out to look for them.
They weren’t hard to find. Their quarter was in the suburbs. They were already out in the streets for their early morning shopping, baskets in their hands. Men and women. A light rain falling and a smell of autumn. Another world. Shops open, business as usual, a smell of fresh-baked bread. Here and there a huddled group, talking excitedly about something. Strange signs on the walls, some of them torn.
I followed them, followed the black drops that became, as I watched, a black stream of pious Jews, hurrying inside, into the heart of the religious quarter. When I saw the big Sabbath hats of tawny fox fur I knew I’d reached the end of my journey, nobody would find me here. There was a group of them standing on a street corner. I went to meet them, to make contact.
They knew immediately that I wasn’t one of them. Perhaps it was the shape of my beard, the style of my hair, perhaps some more intimate sign. There was no deceiving them. At first they were shocked at the idea of somebody appearing among them in time of war, disguised in their clothing and their likeness. Quietly I asked, “Is it possible to be with you for a while?” I didn’t tell them that I’d come from the desert, I said that I’d just arrived from Paris. They looked at the dust and sand on my clothes and at my boots and said nothing. In silence they listened to my confused words. Clearly they thought me a madman or a dreamer. But to their credit they didn’t turn me away, they took me lightly by the arm and led me slowly and tenderly, while I was still talking and explaining myself, through alleyways and courtyards to a big stone house, a yeshiva or a school, teeming like an ant’s nest. They took me into a room and said:
“Now, start from the beginning.”
I began by bending the facts, changing dates, jumping from topic to topic, telling them about my grandmother lying in a coma and about the car that I was willing to hand over to them. My head was spinning from weariness but slowly a story began to take shape, a story from which I was never again to deviate. But, just as in that night interrogation by the officer, I made no reference to you. Again I saw how easily I could wipe you from my past.
They brought in a blond, heavily bearded Jew, with the clear features of a goy hidden beneath beard and side curls. He spoke to me in French, questioned me with a perfect Parisian accent about the French details of my story. He asked me about streets in Paris, about cafés, varieties of cheese and wine, names of newspapers. I gave detailed replies in fluent French. I felt inspired.
When they saw that I really did know Paris, they asked me to undress. For a moment they were in doubt as to whether I was Jewish at all. I could see that they were quite baffled, not knowing why I’d come to them or what I really wanted. They repeated their earlier questions from a different angle, but I kept to my story.
Finally they held a brief, whispered conversation among themselves. They were afraid to come to a decision of their own. They sent a messenger to make some inquiry and he returned, nodding his head. They led me to their rabbi. In a little room I stood before a very old man, wreathed in cigarette smoke, reading a newspaper. They told him the story that I’d told and he listened, all the while his eyes fixed on me, studying me with a kindly, good-natured expression. When he heard about the car that I wanted to make over to them, he turned to face me directly and, in Hebrew, began asking me detailed questions about it. The date of manufacture, the capacity of the engine, the number of seats, its colour, finally he asked where it was parked. He was delighted at the idea that I was bringing the car with me as a kind of dowry. Suddenly he began scolding his men. “He must be given a bed … can’t you see he’s tired? He’s come a long way … from Paris” — he winked at me — “first of all find him a place to sleep … you are hard-hearted Jews.”
And he gave me a playful smile.
At last they were satisfied. They led me through the courtyard, before the curious gaze of hundreds of inquisitive students who felt instinctively that I was putting on an act. They took me to a room that served as the yeshiva guest room. A humble room, with old furniture, but pleasant enough and clean. I was already growing accustomed to the light, religious smell of the objects around me. A blend of old books, fried onions and sewers.
They made up one of the beds and went their way, true to the rabbi’s instructions. It was eleven o’clock in the morning. A faint grey light in the world outside. Through the embroidered lace curtain, a curtain fit for a king, there appeared at my fingertips the Old City, which I’d never seen before.
A startling, breath-taking view of the lovely old wall, the towers of churches and mosques, little stone courtyards, olive groves on the mountain slopes. For a long time I stood beside the window. Then I took off my boots and lay down fully clothed on the bed. There was something in the air of Jerusalem that kept me awake, though I was exhausted and almost feverish.
At first I had difficulty sleeping, I was dirty as well, my hands stained with black paint, my hair and beard full of sand. An eternity had passed since I last slept in a bed. I began to doze. The murmuring voices of the yeshiva students, their intermittent shouts blended with the sighing of the waves, the roar of tank engines, the crackle of radios.
Soon after, while I was still dozing, my roommate came in. A little old man, elegantly dressed, with a red silk skullcap on his head. He stood at my bedside and looked down at me. When he saw I was only dozing, he began chattering at me gaily in Yiddish, trying hard to communicate with me. He couldn’t believe that I didn’t understand Yiddish. He began telling me about himself, things that I couldn’t understand precisely. I only grasped that he’d come here for a matchmaking, that he was going to take some girl abroad with him, and meanwhile he was undergoing a series of tests — physical or spiritual, I wondered.