S. Agnon - A Book that Was Lost

Hemdat, however, did not spend his time thinking about old people in the Land of Israel. He was twenty-two years old, Hemdat was, and not overly concerned with his digestion. If he had a bishlik he bought some bread, and if he had another, some figs, dates, or olives to go with it. “A land wherein you will eat bread without scarcity,” the Bible called it, and it had everything anyone could want. If you have any doubts about that, just count the treats that Hemdat bought for Yael.

Every morning after rising he cleaned his room — in fact, sometimes every minute. He changed his clothes each day and glanced often at the glass frame of the picture — that is, in case you have forgotten, at Rembrandt’s Bride and Groom . His room was spic-and-span, the table was freshly covered, and everything smelled good. He even scrubbed the floor all by himself. There was reason to suspect that he did it with eucalyptus water.

Having accomplished all this, Hemdat sat down at the table, picked up his pen, and guided it across the paper. How fine the tiny letters looked on the white page! Besides the page in front of him, two or three blank ones were laid on the edge of the table. Every few minutes he rose to open or close the window. Although he liked the breeze blowing through it, he also liked the quiet when it was shut, and since it was hard to decide, he kept changing his mind. Meanwhile, he heard Yael’s voice. Hemdat ran to the window. Yael was standing below. She had only a minute.

“Why don’t you come up,” he called down.

“Why won’t you come down,” she called up.

“Come,” said Hemdat.

“I can’t,” said Yael. “I have no time.”

Hemdat glanced back at his room as he started down the stairs. Bright and shiny though it was, it looked in mourning.

6

She came that evening. Hemdat met her in the yard. He held out his hand to her and said, “Come. Let’s go to my room.”

“Why?” asked Yael. “We could take a walk.”

They walked awhile, and Hemdat asked, “Why didn’t you write me from Jerusalem?”

“I didn’t think you would answer,” Yael said. And when he looked at her in silence, she added, “Pizmoni’s gone.”

“Where is he?”

“At some university.”

“What is he studying?”

“Zoology,” said Yael. “He should have chosen botany.” She would write him a long letter if she knew his address. Though, of course, he might not answer.

Hemdat broke his silence and began to talk. He hadn’t talked so much since the day he swore off women. It was unwise of him to let Yael know how he had longed for such a conversation. The more things he told her, the more trivial, even illogical, she became. At first, she said, she had found him insufferable. There had been something ridiculous about him. A woman passing in the street could make him blush. She would be a happy person if she knew Hebrew. That was her one desire.

Hemdat knew it was just chitchat, but he listened and was sorry when they parted. Before that, they came to a dune called the Hill of Love. Yael’s tall figure reached it first. Hemdat trailed behind her. He hadn’t kept a thing from her. He swung his arms limply, nothing left to say.

The dune was a lovely place on which to sit at night. The sand was dry and fragrant. Hemdat bent and scooped up a handful of it and they sat together on a little hillock. The words trickled a while longer from the wellspring of his heart and stopped. His right hand played with the sand, squeezing the gritty grains between his fingers and letting them run out. His hands felt cold. A breeze blew from the sea. Hemdat made a half-fist and placed it over his mouth like an empty clam shell. Yael glanced at him and said, “Why are you growing a beard? You look better without it. Something is digging into me. Oh, it’s the key.” She took the key to her room and handed it to Hemdat. Hemdat stuck it in his pocket.

All at once Yael rose. “Home!” she said. Hemdat walked her back and handed her the key. Yael opened the door and shut it from within. Hemdat’s pocket was empty. For a while he stood on the front stoop. He had thought she would turn around to say goodnight. Her firm footsteps rang in his ears. Hemdat smiled mockingly at himself and at his hopes, and went home.

* * *

Once she had come all the time, every evening of the week and twice on Saturdays, and now she had vanished.

“Why don’t you come anymore?” Hemdat asked Yael when he met her in the souk.

“I don’t want to keep you from your work,” Yael said. He had to work. The Mushalams had asked her what he lived off.

Yael Hayyut found an easy job overseeing the woman workers in a small fabrics factory. Hemdat talked to the manager, who agreed to hire her. Yael would make twenty-five francs a month, perhaps even thirty. “To tell you the truth,” said the manager, “I’m overpaying her at fifteen, but who can say no to a poet waxing eloquent?” Yael Hayyut had to pinch herself. She could rent a better room and buy a stove to cook on. She had already ruined her digestion. She thanked Hemdat for his efforts.

Hemdat went to get his hair cut. On the faded sign outside the barbershop was a man with a towel around his neck sitting in front of a barber. A small girl walked by, spat naughtily at the man, and ran off. Hemdat asked for a shave and a haircut. He was happy to have done Yael a good turn. The barber noticed his good mood and delivered a poetic speech about authors, who would sooner style their hair than their prose and cut their long locks than a word from their books. The scissors clicked and the barber’s eyes peered shrewdly out from a sea of hair to see what impression he was making. Hemdat was looking at his own hair, which lay scattered on the floor. “Right you are, old man,” said the barber. “The crown of your head’s on the ground to be tread.” When the barber was done, Hemdat looked in the mirror and saw his smooth, naked skull instead of his rich chestnut hair. He nodded and said, “There’s nothing like a change.”

That evening he went to see Yael Hayyut. The sight of what Hemdat had done to his beautiful hair nearly drove Yael crazy. His head came to a funny point. It was like a stand without a use. Hemdat took Yael’s hand. Back in Europe he had taken his little sister’s hand after shaving and run it over his cheek. “Ouch!” she had cried.

What more shall we tell you about Hemdat? All would have gone well with him had only it gone well with Yael Hayyut. Yael had a new worry. She had barely recovered before her arm got worse again. It wasn’t the future that troubled her, it was the past that wouldn’t go away. Yael had poor circulation and lived in fear of blood poisoning, and the slightest pain made her afraid that the arm would have to be amputated. Hemdat prayed for her health as though for a king’s. He brought her milk and medicines, and sat by her bed all day. “Yael’s brother,” he was called by the children in the neighborhood, and he bore the name with pride. An angelic soul, said the neighbors, which made him blush and bow his head. His alcohol stove had been thoroughly ruined by Yael, but she was getting better and soon was out of bed again.

Hemdat tidied up his room and went to see Yael. On the way he met an elder colleague. It was kind of the elder colleague to walk Hemdat to Yael, since it was Hemdat’s friendship with her that had caused him to stop seeing Hemdat — for Hemdat, thought his colleague, was spending too much time with Yael and not enough on his work. How pleased Yael would be to be visited by a famous author. She would tell all her friends that a famous author had been to see her.

The more was the pity, then, that Yael was not home. Tomorrow, thought Hemdat, she’ll come to see me. But she did not.