S. Agnon - Shira

He suddenly remembered the time he went into his daughter Zahara’s room and she covered her bosom in shame. This may have been the first time the girl herself was conscious of being a woman. What about Tamara? When was she first conscious of being a woman? How would it be with Sarah? Sarah is still a baby. Her mother still bathes her in his presence; she is naked and unashamed. As a matter of fact, she often calls to him, “Father, see Sarah, he’s washing.” She means, “See Sarah, she’s washing.” And Firadeus: in all the time he’s known her, it never occurred to him that she was a woman. He regards her as a vessel filled with sorrow and anguish, waiting to serve him, reticent, submissive, compliant. Still, when she was upset by the nurse who came to visit Henrietta, she neglected to clear away the dish, which is what caused him to throw the pits. He threw two at the wilted rosebush and one at a starling that took flight, without seeing any sign about Shira in this game. When he finally went to Shira, he didn’t find her. But he found someone else, whose eyes tracked his every footstep. Were their circumstances similar? Was he also on intimate terms with Shira? Only the devil knows her ways. That woman is capable of actions and relationships that would be bizarre for any other woman, but not for Shira. Even if there was nothing between that man and Shira, it was good that he didn’t speak with him. They would surely have hidden the truth from each other, so what was there to gain from such a conversation?

Herbst was not fanatical about the truth, but he avoided lies, and he had never lied until the night he visited Shira for the first time. What was there for him to do after that night? He had no choice but to superimpose one lie on another, to camouflage his lies with lies, because, in his mind, he was bound to that woman, compelled to seek her out again and again. Marriage is a respected and fine institution which humanity has, no doubt, arrived at as a result of many difficult experiments, but not all marriages promote truth. In the interest of peace and tranquility, one sometimes finds it necessary to heap lie upon lie. What happened to that pious young man who was found in bed with Dr. Krautmeir? What was Henrietta referring to when she called it a Balzacian tale? She was referring to those young people who came to their elders before the wedding ceremony to learn the secrets of sex and were taught on their own bodies. Try to picture that frosty, deliberate woman, without an erotic line on her face, without a tremor of desire, about whose intimate life nothing is known. Picture her in the arms of a young Hasid, half her age, a poor fellow who pays for his love by soiling his black hat, his elegant caftan, and his good name. It’s very odd. As Henrietta heard it from the nurse, the fellow’s wife is a freshly blooming rose. As for Krautmeir, we all know about her. She isn’t ugly, but she certainly isn’t attractive. She’s quite tall. Her body isn’t gross, but it certainly isn’t delicate. Her conversation is always deliberate. She probably has some spiritual needs; she might read a nonprofessional text on occasion. What we know about her is very limited. What can we know about a woman we aren’t close to? And, even if we were close, we wouldn’t know very much. If we were to put together all our information about Shira, it would not be very enlightening. Rika Weltfremdt’s life seems accessible to us, but what we see may be the surface. It is possible that even that woman, whose way of life is simple and obvious, is concealing a monumental secret, the secret of someone who craves poetry and pursues it, only to turn out insipid verse. Though he would have liked to laugh at her verse, he felt melancholy and was depressed by the suspicion that he was remembering her and her verse only because he had once dared to regard himself as the author of a tragedy.

Once again, life’s routines are orderly, without any exceptional events. Gabi keeps growing. Gabi, like his sister Sarah, isn’t very much trouble to his mother, not to mention his father. It’s good that he doesn’t trouble his father, because he is busy preparing lectures for the winter semester, and it wouldn’t do to confound his mind with irrelevant concerns. Sarah had one advantage: Sarini, who was already mentioned, was her only wetnurse, whereas Gabi has already had to adjust to four sets of nipples, and no one knows how many changes are ahead before he is weaned, because of diminished milk, because of childbirth, because of Arab terror. If Herbst doesn’t move, I don’t know what’s in store for him and his family. The Arabs are insolent. They are a menace to any Jew who shows his face in Baka. By day, they are menacing; by night, they shoot. Sacharson is already planning to move out of Baka, so as not to cause an Arab to kill a Christian when he really means to kill a Jew. The shohet who used to come from Mekor Hayim every week to slaughter chickens no longer appears at the Herbsts’ home. Unless Henrietta follows the example of other ladies, who wring the chicken’s neck themselves, she will have to deal with the Arab butcher. She doesn’t want to get meat from the Arabs, because, as her father used to say, if we give up the slaughterer and the butcher, what aspects of Judaism will we be left with? It’s enough that she gets other food from the Arabs. If she orders from a Jewish storekeeper, he won’t deliver to her home, because he is afraid. She begins to see herself as someone whose support comes from Jews, without a penny of it reverting to them. How is this? They live in an Arab house. They buy bread from a German bakery; meat from an Arab butcher; fruit, vegetables, and eggs from Arab women; staples from the English. Their books and newspapers are foreign, and, when they want a rest, they go to Father Miller’s pension. Whatever Jews earn through their efforts, they hand over to Gentiles, retaining no benefit for themselves. Tamara is not pleased to be living in Baka either. At least once, she didn’t come home at night. Not because she was out of Jerusalem, but because she was afraid. If this is how it is for Tamara, who is usually accompanied by two dozen young men, what is an ordinary person to do?

Back to Gabi. He keeps growing. And, when you pick him up, you feel his weight. So far, his magnitude derives from weight, not might or valor. For this reason, he needs to be protected from Sarah’s doll and from Sarah. One tries to get her hands on him; the other attacks him with a slipper. Luckily, the doll’s slipper is made of silk. Envy is characteristic of all living things, including this child of old age, who was indulged by everyone until a new creature appeared and appropriated some of the attention. A few days earlier, she had cried because some woman said Sarini would put Gabi back in her belly, and today she incited her doll to throw a slipper at him.

Henrietta was occupied with the son of her old age. He occupied her twenty-four hours a day. This is not an exaggeration nor is it hyperbole, for even in her dreams she was occupied with him. Henrietta had so many dreams, and they were so strange. They had no end, no limits, no boundary. A dreaming soul can flit from Jerusalem to Berlin, then reverse its direction, so that the Land of Israel and Germany blend with each other, along with their populations, mountains, rivers, local produce. Sometimes a vegetable that couldn’t exist in Germany is offered to her in a Berlin hotel, served up in a Shabbat hat soiled by Dr. Krautmeir’s medicines. On what occasion was that vegetable served to her? At her son Gabi’s bar mitzvah. You are aware that Henrietta and her family have no commitment to faith and religion. I doubt that she ever saw a pair of tefillin , except in drawings and pictures. Henrietta knows that, when a boy reaches the age of thirteen, his father hires a teacher, who is half from the old community and half from who knows where, to teach the boy a chapter from the prophets, sung with monotonous vocal trills no ear would tolerate if it were not for the sweetness of the boy’s voice. On Shabbat, the boy comes to the synagogue with his father and his relatives, wearing a strip of silk around his neck, a tallit. He is called to the Torah to read the chapter he learned from his teacher. Then friends of the family come, bringing presents — a book, a picture, a penknife, a camera, and whatever other objects a boy covets. The guests all eat cake and drink an assortment of beverages. Knowing all this, it is strange to us that Henrietta saw her son with tefillin on his head. Though I try to avoid the bizarre, I will recount the plot of the dream.