S. Agnon - Shira

Mother is second only to Father. Like her neighbors, Mother works all day. At night, another mood takes over. She gets up from her mat and paces back and forth, her eyes closed tight, her spirit lamenting, wailing, mourning the father of these tender orphans, a blameless man whose innocent blood was spilled while God in heaven remained silent. He remained silent as an evil nation had the temerity to murder a righteous man in this land ruled by violence.

Third in the thoughts of Firadeus are her brothers and sisters, who have never known any kindness. She alone has found kindness, in the Herbst household.

Many people come to the Herbst home. Almost all of them are doctors, which is how it is with the Ashkenazim. They smoke a lot and talk a lot. The most peculiar one is the raving doctor whose name she has given up trying to pronounce. She calls him Dr. Felfrem. He is tall, broad shouldered, constantly swearing and cursing. As he rants, he holds the tip of his nose between his thumb and index finger, scowling at everything in sight. When he comes into the house, Firadeus feels as if he were placing his heavy arms on her shoulders, pushing her down to the floor, scowling at her. She is still surprised that he has never once done this. Mrs. Herbst says he’s not a bad person, that it’s just his way to be angry, which one should never say to his face, or he will become all the more angry.

Dr. Taglicht, the skinny man whose name means “daylight” in the language of the Ashkenazim, but whom Tamara calls Talglicht, meaning “tallow candle” in the language of the Ashkenazim, is the reverse of Dr. Felfrem. He is a fine man, and his manner is pleasant. Whenever he comes, he asks how she is; if he hasn’t seen her for a while, he asks about her mother, as well as her sisters and brothers. One Shabbat afternoon, walking with a girlfriend, she said hello to him, but he didn’t recognize her. When she told him her name, he reached out his hand and said, “Please introduce me to your friend.” This was before she knew about “introducing.” What did he do? He said to her friend, “Taglicht is my name, Dr. Taglicht.” She will never forget how he said “Taglicht is my name” — how he added “Dr. Taglicht,” so her friend knew that the gentleman who said hello to her was a doctor.

Apart from the doctors who come to the Herbst home, many young people come who aren’t doctors yet, but who will become doctors. They go to the room with all of Mr. Herbst’s books, the room Mr. Herbst works in. Some of the young men wear flamboyant clothes, but her perceptive eye discerns that they are worn. Often, there are no buttons on their coats. Were it not for fear of her mother, she would sign up at the youth center and sit in the corner examining coats and mending them as she had done for one of Herbst’s frequent visitors, a young man who forgot his coat. When Firadeus noticed that its buttons were missing, she took it in order to sew on buttons and saw it was torn as well. She sewed on new buttons, found similar material from which she made a patch, and brushed off the dust. Days later, the young man came to ask about his coat. Firadeus assumed he wouldn’t recognize the coat — that, if he recognized it, he would wonder about the transformation — but he took the coat and put it on without even noticing that it had new buttons and was no longer torn.

Along with the young men who come to Mr. Herbst is a young woman, also a student on Mount Scopus. Firadeus assumed she was like all the other young women studying at Mount Scopus, until she learned she was married, the mother of a baby. She leaves her little girl in Tel Aviv with her husband’s mother and comes to Jerusalem to study with the young men. We all know of women who abandon their children to go off with some scoundrel who steals other men’s wives. But never had she heard of a woman leaving her child to pursue academic studies. The one they call Dr. Krautmeir must have behaved in this fashion, which is how she became a doctor. Not merely a doctor, but a medical doctor — a real doctor, who is paid to see patients, whether they are brought to her or she goes to them. Her lips are always clenched. The whites of her eyes are bright. Her hand is large and plump, her face round and smooth. Her every hair stays in place out of fear of this mistress. Some of the women who call on Mrs. Herbst intimidate Firadeus, though she knows they have nothing against her. There are others she is fond of: the wife of the raving doctor, for example, whose name is Mimi, although Mrs. Herbst calls her Mi. Her blue-gray hair is like the soft feathers under a bird’s throat; her entire being suggests that she has no real substance. She is extremely thin; her face is transparent, her eyes bewildered. Everyone enjoys looking at her and listening to her voice, except for her husband, Dr. Felfrem. As soon as she opens her mouth, his attention wanders. Whenever Firadeus sees Mimi, she has an urge to smooth her sleeves, to touch her. Once, Firadeus heard her play the piano, and the sounds that came out of the instrument still vibrate in her ears, like the piano keys themselves when Mimi’s fingers darted across them. The same fingers do all the housework; she has no household help, because her husband can’t afford to pay the price.

It is not only Persians who are poor. Some Germans are poor too, because a villain named Hitler came and took their money. Some of the Germans came to the Land of Israel before Hitler came to power in Germany, and they have everything — oil and margarine and butter — unlike the recent arrivals, who spice their loaves with spit.

Having mentioned Mrs. Herbst, a few of the Herbsts’ callers, and a few of Firadeus’s thoughts about them, I will mention Zahara and Tamara, two of Manfred and Henrietta’s daughters. In fact, I will mention only Tamara, since Zahara lives in some kvutza far from Jerusalem, and, on those rare occasions when she visits, Firadeus isn’t always at the Herbsts’. As soon as her work is done, Mrs. Herbst dismisses her so she can go home. Mrs. Herbst knows that Firadeus’s mother is a hard woman, and sometimes, out of grief, she beats her children for sins they haven’t committed. It is better when Firadeus is there, as she knows how to placate her mother. The only one left for me to tell about is Tamara.

You are already acquainted with Tamara. She looks at you without acknowledging your existence. She probably treats Firadeus the same way. It wouldn’t be like Tamara to change her style for the household help. But two things she did for Firadeus ought to be noted: she gave her a fragrant lotion for the bruised skin on her hands, and she explained the workings of a particular object hanging on the wall — how the strip of red glass inside changes its position, jumping sometimes upward and sometimes downward, indicating shifts in temperature. Firadeus was thoroughly delighted to learn the function of that object. She doesn’t miss an opportunity to astonish her girlfriends by saying, “Do you know how hot it is today? It’s this many degrees.” More amazing, her mother was once very sick, so they called the doctor. Firadeus found a thermometer, took the patient’s temperature, and told the doctor how much fever her mother had. The doctor looked at her benignly and said, “If you’re not a doctor, you are surely a nurse.” If she were Ashkenazic, she would be in school. But she isn’t Ashkenazic, and she can’t be in school because she has to work. Since childhood, she has been working to support herself and her family. She has no great ambitions, although she would like to know about the fat letters in the newspaper from which one can tell in an instant just what is happening in the world. If Tamara would teach her, she would learn and know. But Tamara is busy and doesn’t have time to teach Firadeus. Many girls have come from the lands of exile without any knowledge of Hebrew, and they have to be taught. Because they are confined in a sanitarium for tuberculosis victims, in Mekor Hayim, Tamara goes there to teach them. These girls roamed from city to city, from country to country, pursued by border patrols because they didn’t have visas. Eluding the border patrols, they arrived at a port in the Land of Israel. But the Mandate police didn’t allow them to land, because they didn’t have certificates, and, once again, they roamed the seas in battered boats, without food or drink, until our young men took charge and arranged for them to land in secret places. Having been at sea so long, they were vulnerable to many diseases. Tamara volunteered to work with them, to teach them to speak and read the language. She goes there every day and stays into the night. It would be good for Tamara to find a paying job, so she could help her mother with household expenses. But this is good too. These are troubled times for our people, and anyone who can, should help. The Herbsts ought to be pleased with Tamara, with the fact that she has given up her earlier mode, turning away from café life and from dancing to devote herself to the advancement of young Jewish girls. What would they do if she joined one of those suspect organizations that endanger their members, like Herut, the Irgun, or the Stern Gang. It would be good if Tamara would find a job, earn a salary, and help her mother with household expenses. In any case, it’s good that she keeps busy, and her mind is no longer on cafés and on dancing with British soldiers.