S. Agnon - A Book that Was Lost

He longed for it to be winter. A cold wind would blow, the sea would pound, and he would rise cheerful and fit from a delicious sleep beneath warm blankets. Then would come days in which he would write his great novel. The kettle would boil and hot coffee would froth in his cup. In the garden the citron would flower beneath a brilliant moon, its branches dripping fragrance. The starry sky would sweeten the soft silence and Hemdat would pour the dew of his soul into the sea-blue night.

A caravan of camels plodded by, four-legged porters carrying twice their weight. Behind them came their driver, a two-legged camel crooning to Allah for strength. People passed, among them Mrs. Ilonit. A dentist drove by in a carriage and the coachman cried, “Cheap! Cheap! Cheap! Twelve bishliks a tooth, teeth pulled for twelve bishliks!” Men and women crowded around, and the dentist pulled their teeth.

The souk was teeming. Arabs stood selling cold drinks on crates filled with bottles and glasses. Here and there a white Panama hat gleamed amid the forest of red fezes. Shopkeepers sat in front of their shops, hawking bolts of fabric and colorful clothes in loud voices. Greek vendors hunched over their coals and spits of meat. A big beefsteak draped with gold tinsel hung before a butcher shop, glittering brightly despite the bugs and flies swarming over it. An old Arab straddled a basket of bananas, peeling them unhurriedly for customers who stood spitting out the seeds. Sailors from all over strutted with outthrust chests as if to embrace every female that their hungry eyes devoured. A semicircle of squatting women sold cut flowers and wild lilies.

Everyone was busy but Hemdat, alone in his own hapless world. I can’t simply do nothing, he told himself. I had better go see Pikchin. Perhaps he’ll give me some work or have news of Yael. There were two bishliks left in his pocket. He bought a bunch of roses with one and looked around for a shoeshine man. Two ran for Hemdat’s shoes and started to fight over them. One took his shoeshine stand and hurled it at the other’s head. While the blood was running down the second man’s face, a third came along and grabbed Hemdat’s feet. Hemdat threw him his last coin, and the man let out a whistle and scampered off with it.

Everyone, everyone, thought Hemdat self-improvingly, is doing something. How could he remain idle, faced with such a spirit of enterprise? He wanted to work, to accomplish. He would make lots of money before Yael returned to Jaffa. He had been a fool to throwaway a good job.

Hemdat entered Pikchin’s office just as an armless man was carried in and laid on the couch in the waiting room, like a broken wagon wheel waiting to be fixed. Hemdat sat without moving, embarrassed to have the full use of his limbs. He crossed his legs and looked out to sea. A southbound ship was making for the harbor. Soon it would anchor with another group of immigrants, new faces with new hopes and the same old problems.

Dr. Pikchin attended to the amputee and then sat down with Hemdat and dictated a few letters. Hemdat reached home exhausted. His head ached and he could barely move his legs. Yet even when he flopped down weakly on his bed and fell asleep, his nerves kept crawling like worms. Something was the matter with his brain. Perhaps it needed to be pulled by a dentist. He sat upright in bed, terrified of going mad. What would become of him? One morning he would awake to find that he was out of his mind.

Although Hemdat came on his father’s side from a distinguished old family, its vital force had run down in him, its last hope. Of course, he was young and had hardly lived yet. But did not Rabbi Nahman say that some people had lived more by the age of eighteen than others at seventy?

Hemdat thought of a pretty cousin of his who also had rebelled and left home. She had had a lovely voice and wanted to be a singer, and when her parents objected she ran away to Vienna and got along there on nothing, studying as much and eating as little as she could while waiting for the day she could support herself. Yet her dreams proved greater than her strength, which soon gave out, so that on the night of her debut before a large audience blood spurted from her mouth with the first note. Her parents came to take her home and plied her with doctors and drugs, and now, her lovely voice stilled, she never left her bed. Her brain had been affected too, and she lay wrapped in white in a white room with white walls and white rugs. All this whiteness was reflected in a large mirror, and if a doctor happened to bring her red roses, she sprinkled them with white powder while gazing off into dim space.

Once, as darkness was falling, Hemdat came to visit her. At first, although her eyes clung to him, she did not know who he was. Then she rose from her bed, spread her long, cold fingers, and ran them over his face. “Hemdat,” she said.

Hemdat jumped to his feet. He was certain that Yael Hayyut had called him. In this he was greatly mistaken, for he had imagined it. Grieving, he lay down again.

Hemdat lay in bed, his heart wide awake. Pikchin has nothing for you? Then sit down at your desk and get to work. You wanted to translate Jacobsen’s Niels Lyhne ? Then do. He rose to get some paper and a new pen nib. The old nib was rusty. That was as far as he got. Still, it was a start.

Every morning Hemdat stepped out onto his terrace and gazed down at the railroad tracks in Emek Refaim. They gleamed as though polished. The train passed twice a day. Yael Hayyut would be on it and look out the window at him. “Hello, hello!” she would call. He secretly dreamed of a warm kiss. Yael would come and find him hard at work, and his chaste lips would linger on her pretty face. Though he was no longer the Don Juan he once had been, her calm mien stirred a longing for the pure elixir of a kiss. Someday, when he was already an old man, such pleasures would be his by right. He knew that Yael had been kissed before, but each kiss was holy to her and no man had profaned her face.

Hemdat got nowhere with his work. The sun beat down, its flat rays stinging like gnats and sapping his will. It was too hot, his heart was too inflamed, to get anything done. He remembered the days when his soul dripped its leafy dew on the tender buds of his poems while coffee sputtered on the alcohol stove. He wanted them back again and went to light the stove. Hemdat drank coffee like water. Black coffee must be running in his veins.

For hours, his eyes open and his mind blank, he lay on the divan without boredom. Weary was what he was, with a harsh, prolonged weariness. Oh, Lord, he said aloud, annoyed by the languor of his voice. Oh, Lord, where can I find rest. He lay without moving hand or foot, like a man about to be flogged. He heard the rumble of a train. It whistled as it approached.

A frightening shriek tore the silence. The train rushed by and was gone, leaving behind a slanting corkscrew of dark blue smoke.

“Yael!” cried Hemdat, jumping to his feet. Quickly he tidied up, did the dishes, spread the table with new wax paper, washed, put on fresh clothes, and sat down. His body came to life, his fingers sapient. The pen began to move, distributing letters over the page that joined into words, lines, sentences. I do believe the translation went well.

The hours went by and Yael did not come. Hemdat feared he had been wrong. Perhaps she had not been on the train after all. He had not seen her face, only a green coat. Could she already be wearing winter clothes? What would his landlord’s daughters say? The dowdy guests our tenant has! He had made a mistake. It was not Yael. Her face had been turned away from him. Surely she would not have ridden by in the train without a glance at his room.

Yael was back. She had not been seen looking so well since she arrived from Russia. Hemdat wondered if her hair had grown. You’ll find out when you see her tomorrow or the day after, he told himself, having heard from Pnina that she would come then. She had first gone to visit her mother in Rehovot. Yael’s mother was going back to Russia. An old woman like her was not meant for Palestine, nor was the country meant for her. Once, when Jews were more stalwart, coming to live out one’s last years in the Land of Israel had been the thing to do, but nowadays no punishment was harder. The sky dripped sweat, the earth brimmed dust, and a person did not last long. Even the food was not fit to eat. Whatever Yael’s mother ate went straight to her kidneys.