Yoram Kaniuk - The Last Jew

The young people said: An anarchist poet entered the kennel and will bark! And they laughed when Rebecca came back to the room, one of the men looked at her who laughed at Joseph brashly and said: Look, a wild man is tamed! She took out a demon who was with her from the river and waved it at him. He stood still, and the glass of brandy in his hand was emptied without him drinking from it. The fellow looked at the emptied glass and was terrified. Rebecca turned away from him and once again her look was drawn to the taut back of the bridegroom. Rachel's kiss and weeping were additional proof that maybe the river didn't stop for the disaster. The stone came back and lay on her chest. With her kiss, Rachel stuck Joseph to Rebecca's lips. Joseph, who felt the sudden silence, turned around and saw the glass that was emptied and then saw a woman's back slipping out but when he wanted to understand what happened, new guests entered and started hugging him with clumsy wildness. Nehemiah came to him and congratulated him. You're very polite, Mr. Schneerson, said Joseph. Once, Joseph added, I saw a wedding in your Judea, the bride was covered with dust. In your holy books didn't you read about dust? Will love of Zion wipe out the dust? A destruction isn't only demolished palaces, a destruction is also endless misery. Then came a rabbi riding on a donkey. In his modest coat a radish somebody gave him. He smelled of garlic. The bride curtsied in the dust and her eyes were yellow. They threw rice at them. The donkey brayed instead of the musical instruments they didn't have, the canopy was put up in the field. The bridegroom smashed a glass but was afraid to break it for real. I wrote them a song and they still sing it to this day.

Rebecca went to Rachel in the next room. In the mirror, Rachel's mother was seen putting a pin in her hair. Rachel fell into Rebecca's arms and wept again. Rachel said: This is your son, Rebecca! Not mine, we've had a disaster! Rebecca shook her head angrily and said: This is your coffin, Rachel, not mine. He's got fifty-two sons and daughters, said Rachel. He's a pedigreed little god who spawns and begets all over, and Rebecca said: You're a fool, Rachel Brin, you're a foolish and contemptible little girl. Love your husband! What else is left for you to do? And Rachel who was offended, said with a wicked smile taught her by recent months: See what a disaster the emissary from the Land of Israel your Nehemiah has brought on us!

Mine?

Not yours?

Rebecca was amazed at the new strange phrase, but she cherished it in her heart and didn't say a thing.

She mingled with the crowd. Nehemiah tried to fish out her profile. The musicians played with fake gaiety. Rebecca saw a back hugged savagely by uncles and cousins and relatives. Violins ripping. Outside, it started snowing. In the big room there was a sour smell of human beings, and wine and pots of delicacies and flowers. On the wall hung a charity box of Rabbi Meir Ba'al ha-Nes and underneath it was a flowerpot with a bush in it. Rebecca was pushed to the wall and stood with her head next to the box and her legs touching the bush. Now Joseph and Rachel stood close to one another and four men held the wedding canopy over them. One of the men was Nehemiah. When she looked at Joseph, she knew him from her dreams, that was the black man sliced by dogs. As her lover was pledged to Rachel, Rebecca saw the tears Rachel tried constantly to wipe away, and then Joseph noticed Rebecca. He noticed her when the rabbi talked and he put the ring on his bride's finger and said: Behold, you are consecrated to me, and then for the first time in his life, Joseph Rayna fell in love with his grandmother's mother's mother who stood and looked at him now with a gleaming smile on her lips. Because he turned pale, Rachel held him up, she looked here and there, and saw Rebecca. As soon as the ceremony was over, Joseph was cut off from his bride.

Rebecca left the room a few minutes before the end of the ceremony. She passed through various rooms, crossed the kitchen, and went outside. Beyond the paved square stood the old house where she had sat years ago with Rachel and talked about bewitched trees. Outside there was an intense chill and all she wore was a thin dress. She climbed the stairs of the old house and everything was empty except for some old pieces of furni ture and objects tossed here and there. She went into the frozen sewing room and sat at the window. She picked up a few old bags and cloths basted coarsely, reeking of an old summer, and wrapped herself in them. She was warmed a little, but the stone didn't melt in her chest. She put her face against the windowpane and looked outside. Snow fell and a rooster came out, pecked in the snow, and pranced back to his shelter. Clouds touched the chimney of the new house and from the windows you could see the festivity through the mists coming together and parting again, when she looked at the rooster, she recalled how she held Joseph's hand before she was born. When the rooster came out again, Joseph was standing in the door of the room and she didn't even turn her face to him; in advance, she knew every movement he'd make. At that time, Rachel said: Apparently he's scared, he'll come back soon, he's not used to getting married, veteran libertines don't get married every day and everybody laughed and drank and she left the room. Joseph dragged a broken chair and sat down behind her. He took a bottle of vodka out of his pocket and started drinking. Downstairs in the yard Rachel appeared in her bridal gown. Her eyes looked around until she raised them and her look met Rebecca's eyes in the window. Trembling with cold, she hugged her shivering body. For a moment, her look froze, then a painful smile crept over her face, her hair scattered in the wind, her gown was covered with sticky snow, and she turned back to the house.

Joseph Rayna's lips were seared, he couldn't think. All he had left in the world was painted on the amulet around his neck and on the back turned to him. Rachel went into the house, asked the musicians to stop a moment and announced with a choked and giggling laugh that her bridegroom had apparently drunk too much and with all due respect to the guests was already in bed and snoring like a slaughtered bird and please excuse him, and the musicians started playing again and Nehemiah looked into Rachel's eyes and was silent and pale and Rachel went up to her room, shut the door, locked it, lay in her bed and instead of crying, she burst out in a laughter that was quite different from the laughter that choked her before; she laughed so wildly she had to bury her head in the blanket.

In the attic of the old house sat Rebecca Sorka. For one moment she turned her face and looked at the handsome man sitting there. She found a sooty old lantern, Joseph gave her matches, and she lit it. He held out the amulet to her. She looked at it a long time and said: That's me? And he said: Yes. She touched his hand and said: You've got a wife in bed, Joseph, and we're brother and sister. Because she knew Joseph's face so well and he knew her face so well, there was no point talking. When they held hands, they felt the guile of the loving couples who had toiled for generations to permeate the two of them with that longing, destruction, and disgrace, the profound and sublime loathing they felt for themselves. The lamplight moved in the wind winding in the frozen room. Outside the snow went on falling. Rebecca said: Now go to Rachel, tomorrow night I'll wait for you at the bridge.

The next day she waited for him wrapped in a coat. The cold was intense. Rebecca told Joseph about the river. Holding hands and walking along the path covered with blackened snow, they felt that their distress didn't humiliate them enough. I don't want any child from you, Joseph, said Rebecca, why did you come and kill the river for me?