Yitzhak Goren - Alexandrian Summer

Luckily, no devil came bearing baked goods, and his desire waned, and only a vague and indescribable yearning remained.

Nevertheless, when he weighed himself an hour later, the scales showed he’d gained half a kilo.

“Half a kilo!” David couldn’t believe his eyes. He’d been so careful with that damn diet.

His father approached and David quickly jumped off the scales before he could catch him in this moment of weakness.

“How much?” Joseph asked routinely.

David lied, cutting a few grams off from the previous weigh-in. Joseph was pleased and David felt guilty. He was afraid his father would ask him to get back on the scale again, but he needn’t have worried. Not a shadow of a doubt clouded Joseph’s sunny face, and he patted his son on the shoulder and said in English, “Good boy, good boy!”

David felt even more ashamed. He swore not to eat a thing until the next weigh-in.

The fast was hard and nerve-wracking, especially following a sleepless night. He counted the hours and the minutes before his next weigh-in. His body rebelled: Why did he set the next weigh-in for so late? Who said he couldn’t do it half an hour, or even an hour earlier? Perhaps he should wait only until the first star appears or until the shofar is blown, like on Yom Kippur? But David didn’t give in to these delusions, and bravely maintained the fast he’d punished himself with. He wouldn’t cheat, even by one minute. He’d even wait a few minutes longer, just to be sure. He tried to sleep, but the hunger wouldn’t leave him alone. He lay in bed, in a state of tortured serenity, and saw himself as a sort of fakir or dervish. Or perhaps a prophet or a monk.

His mother came in and wanted to know if he was ill, God forbid. She wasn’t used to seeing him lying in bed in the middle of the day, a strange smile on his face.

“No! I’m not ill. I feel great!” And to prove it, he jumped out of bed. For a moment he felt like his head would fall off, as if his dizziness created such a strong centrifugal force that it would spin off his neck, but he grabbed the round brass ornament on the bed frame and the coolness of the metal felt good, and before his mother became truly alarmed, he managed a smile.

“You haven’t eaten a thing all day.” Her tone was concerned and accusatory at once. Not eating was a sin as far as she was concerned.

“Yes I have.”

“No you haven’t. Come, I’ll make you two eggs, just the way you like them, fried in butter. Salem just brought fresh baguettes.”

“No!” he said, alarmed. The two eggs appeared in his mind, two gaping sickly-yellow eyes. “No!” That half a kilo weighed down like a burden on his heart.

“You’re sick, I’ll call a doctor.”

“Don’t call a doctor, Mama. Do me a favor, Mama, and don’t call a doctor. All I need is to be left alone for a while!” He tried to tame his anger, raising his voice only a bit, but it was enough to break her dam of tears.

“Do you have a hand … hand … handkerchief?”

Why is she doing this to me? His handsome face, under the delicate makeup of suffering, wandered the room and caught its own reflection in the mirror over the vanity table. A close-up sprinkled with the sun’s golden powder. Without taking his eyes off his reflection, he handed his mother his spotless white handkerchief and muttered some weak words of solace, watching his lips move as if on their own, detached from the words they were uttering. Deep in his heart he resented having to comfort his mother while he was himself sunk in desperation. Suddenly he saw her face in the mirror, the face of an old lady. David was shocked. It was the first time his mother had become diminished to him, as if thrown off her throne as her chosen son stood to the side, never lending a hand. The throne appeared empty and he almost felt desolate, but then he saw Robby’s sister, dressed in the see-through chiffon of stardust, rising to sit upon the throne. His selfpity grew, and with it his rage and helplessness. Distress suffocated him and he didn’t know where to turn. Luckily, his younger brother, Victor, walked into the room, playing a harmonica: it felt like a saw slicing into his flesh.

“Cut out that noise!!!” David screamed, grabbing his brother and pummeling him.

The storm helped clear his soul, and brought a sort of relief to David, who could breathe again. Victor gagged and wept like a wounded animal.

“David, David, what’s wrong with you?” his mother asked, scared.

“Mama,” he said, elated, “I’ll eat your fried eggs!”

Emilie raised her eyes to the sky and thanked the good Lord. As long as people are eating … “Come, Victorico, I’ll make you two fried eggs as well.”

After eating and praising his mother, David snuck into the bathroom, shoved two fingers up his throat and returned the meal to the sewers. Now he was pleased: he’d appeased his mother without damaging his diet. Knowingly and maliciously he’d betrayed his mother’s trust, but his heart was light and he was relieved, happy and proud. His asceticism made his limbs feel lighter, as if he was stepping out of his body. His head floated among the clouds, and he was assured his body was as weightless as a cloud in a summer sky.

Esperance will even be surprised at how light I am, he thought, and hopped onto the scale.

One-hundred-and-seventy grams more than the previous weigh-in! It was maddening! Maddening! What was causing this?

The main thing was to keep his secret. Things would work out in the end. David was a natural optimist and believed that God loved him. Robby’s sister might not love him, but who was she compared to God?

The sun invaded the house, sweeping up its dark corners and almost reaching the depths of the hall with its frantic, curious rummaging. The rattle of copper sounded from the street. An old Arab man, wearing a skullcap, dragging loose britches between his legs like a sort of forgotten placenta, carried a plump sack on his shoulder that rang like the bells of ten churches. He called at the top of his lungs, “ Nahàss! Nahàss! ”

All the housewives sent down their servants with pots and pans, and the old man put them in his sack. For a small fee, this patina-stricken crockery would be returned to its owners glowing a bright gold. From the balcony, Robby could see all the cauldrons flowing into the sack, and yet the sack was never full, and the old man did not collapse under the burden.

“Nahàss! Nahàss!”

A piece of copper flashed through a hole in the sack, winking at the sun. The sack was full of cheerful suns.

“God loves me,” said David, indulging himself once more in his reflection in the hall mirror. In it, he saw the reflection of a painting that hung on the opposite wall. A cloudy, pastoral landscape. Green-brown trees, a herd of sheep grazing in the meadow, a pointy-eared dog, alert and prepared to give his life for any of the sheep, never imagining that the bone he receives as his reward at the end of each day came from the body of one of these woolly beasts, living for a moment in the dewy green, knowing nothing of slaughterhouses. A strange, nostalgic European landscape that David had only ever seen in movies or in textbooks in French class. The paravent also reflected in the mirror, a screen not intended to hide anything— a decoration meant merely to please the eye. Across the black fabric, an embroidered peacock spread its gorgeous feathers. Until that moment, David had never given any thought to this peacock. Now it seemed to have been born from darkness just for him, to expand his mind, a sign of grace, a sign of good things to come. They say Robby’s grandmother embroidered that peacock when she was a young girl, perhaps even back in Turkey. Strange to think that the old lady was able to produce such a masterpiece. She can barely read or write, but she has a sense of humor, that old bag, and she … she wants me so badly to marry her granddaughter. Perhaps I should just explain to her … frankly, without excuses, why I finally decided not to marry her …