Песах Амнуэль - Zion's Fiction - A Treasury of Israeli Speculative Literature

Gila also began to prepare the Pole with hints, with movements he was quick to grasp, with a quick, conspiratorial smile he understood well, and inflamed by the fire burning in her, the passion that had already begun to wane in him ignited into a surprising blaze. One night, as if by chance, after she had quieted the child and the sick man with a fruit extract that would keep them asleep for half a day, she and the man went out to the wrought iron bench at the far end of the garden.

The distant slam of a door came first, and they fell silent, stunned, the way it sometimes happens when events are expected. The man withdrew into himself and dropped his chin down to his chest, a sign that she was familiar with. Then they both tried unsuccessfully to shut out the sounds that assailed their ears, sounds that seemed to be shattering bone and penetrating veins and poisoning the body from within; spreading over house, the back garden, the garden of monsters, and the pestilent area to beyond the row of trees in the east and beyond the low mountain ridges in the west; echoing to the edges of the horizon: first the shrill, surprised cries of fear, and then the determined attempts to regain composure, the wild, courageous but futile rebellion; then the horrifying, despairing comprehension and the beginning of the body’s surrender, the shift to a stream of explaining, scolding, pleading words; and suddenly the sobbing, the screaming that shook the blood vessels, the persistent pounding that sought to break through the imprisoning wall, the continual weeping like a siren, the harsh sounds of scraping like iron combs plowing the walls, the animal groans coming not from her throat but from the depths of her loins, the desperate sobs and then the wailing, slashing shrieks, the choking roars that make the throat swell; then the sudden silence of choked breathing and the submissive, sinking whimpering, feeble grunting, the squeaking of the door to the Pole’s room as it opened and closed when he went to his bed.

And then silence prevailed: deep, dark, full of fear and guilt. They did not go up to their room that night. From the moment they heard the sounds blaring from the house and restrained themselves for the sake of the future, they sat in silence, cut off from one another, looking inward, trying to formulate for themselves their individual stories about what had taken place. Even after the long, mournful sobbing subsided, they did not go to their bed but continued to sit silently until the sun, surprising in its splendor, rose over the heavy treetops and so generously illuminated the wide sky and the fields—made them gleam in the first light—and she suddenly remembered a school trip and the breathtaking sunrise that had turned the Judean Hills pink.

In the morning, wrapped in the sweetness of slumber, silent and sleepy, the child slipped between them, and they made room for him. “I dreamed that the nun was screaming,” the child said.

“In dreams, everyone is always screaming,” the man said and wrapped the child’s small, bare feet in the edge of his shirt.

Gila stroked his disheveled hair and said, “Look, sweetie. Look at what a beautiful sunrise we have today.”

The crowd is sprinkled with Arabs in galabieh, Orthodox Jews in dusty black coats, and young girls with navel rings. People jostle and push against each other. But Mor walks freely through the crush of bodies, buoyed by the roundness of her stomach, her gaily colored maternity dress glued to it by perspiration. People respect fertility in Jerusalem.

She is relieved when she reaches the old residential area of Rehavia. The ghostly echo of prewar Europe lingers in the narrow alleyways lined with unkempt gardens. She opens the gate into the small courtyard where a rusted bicycle rests in the meager shadow of an ancient wisteria. The heat is killing her. Leaning against the wall to catch her breath, she closes her eyes and tries to cool off with a memory of blue steel and frozen candlelight.

The evening is almost bearable. This is the blessing of hilly Jerusalem as opposed to humid Tel Aviv, where summer heat lies on the land like a rotting corpse. As the sunset fades to lilac, Mor takes a shower and gingerly lowers herself into the beanbag in front of the TV. Channels flicker in a litany of war, famine, and disease.

She goes to bed early. Stretching on her back, she holds her breath, waiting for the baby’s kick, and falls asleep, still waiting.

The scrape of a chair and a man’s voice saying: “May I?”

The morning was hot, cloudless and blue, as all mornings would be for the next three months. But the man who sat by her in the campus cafeteria smelled of rain and fog. He smiled: his teeth were white and impossibly even.

They talked until she was close to being late for her class. The language of their conversation was English, as it immediately transpired that “May I?” was the full extent of David’s knowledge of Hebrew. He was from Toledo.

“I’ve been to Toledo,” she said. “They make wonderful swords.”

“Toledo, Ohio,” he corrected. “I don’t like cutting weapons.”

Was he some sort of pacifist? A pilgrim? Just a tourist? Mor did not care. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Just a millisecond before she absolutely had to rush to the classroom, he asked her whether she was free in the evening.

They met at Dizengoff Square, which is not actually a square but the wide pedestrian overpass above a perpetual traffic jam. Its revolving fountain wobbled in the grayish twilight, occasionally coughing up a thin jet of water. Pigeons and pedestrians thronged the overpass, but there seemed to be a magic circle of quietude around David.

After a couple of drinks in a bar, they walked along the beach promenade, the black, oily sea heaving beyond the fluorescent strip of sand. Moonlight dribbled from the tarry sky.

“I like your name,” he said. “Mor. Does it mean something?”

“It’s a kind of spice or incense mentioned in the Bible,” she said, searching for the English word. “Oh, yeah. Myrrh.”

“Really?” he sounded interested. “I thought it had something to do with death. You know, like mortality .”

“Mortality, morbid, moribund.” She shook her head. “You are right; it does sound like it belongs with these. Funny. I never thought about this. But it’s a different word. Mort , death in French. Just a coincidence.”

Her mother wanted to name her Hanna, but Daddy objected. She insisted, and so there were two names listed on Mor’s birth certificate, even though she never used the other one. Another item to add to the list of grudges against her mother; another drop of sweetness to flavor her hazy recollections of the big, burly man who had brought her to the kindergarten one fine morning and was dead of a heart attack in the afternoon.

The silence between them seemed filled with unspoken promises. Mor tried to think what to ask him next and could not. Job, family, politics? What difference did it make? She would be happy to walk with him in this velvety dark for an eternity, just listening to the roll of waves on the bone-white beach. But did he feel the same? He asked for her phone number but made no definite promise to call. When she drove him back to his hotel (which turned out to be the expensive Sea Crest), he politely thanked her for the perfect evening and left without as much as a peck on the cheek. She fought tears on the way back home and counted the crow’s-feet around her eyes as she brushed her teeth. Next day, just as she resigned herself to another dating failure, he called.