Kaplansy was brought to ‘Beilinson Hospital’, near Tel Aviv. The doctors’ diagnosis was, that he had had a heart attack. He should lie there till his condition becomes better. Kaplansky himself- after having recovered, declared that he had received an electric shock there, and that has caused his quick recovery. Nobody knew if that was true. . .Five hours after he had arrived there – the Paramedic-nurse Tsipy and her friends Rose and Ramona came to visit him. Sure enough - Nahumik was passing on the rumor about Kaplansky’s illness. He had heard about it from his friend Mike’s mother, the Brown House dweller.
When Ramona came to his room, Kaplansky had already been awake. She looked at his suffering body on the white sheets, and his eyes were telling everything.
“Why have you bothered yourself to come?” he mumbled. He didn’t wait for an answer as he had known that the ladies have arrived, because of his son. But Elkano is lost, deep in the ground, even not floating on the sea of death.
Ramona told the other women she would remain there, and they left. Kaplansky told himself that she was thanking him for causing that Elkano exist in that cruel world. His son has given her some moments of bliss and pleasure – so rare in these hard times.
‘She also deserves pity, like myself,’ he thought.
Ramona wished Solomon a quick recovery and the physician who entered the room announced that the visit has ended. His voice seemed known to Ramona, but she hadn’t recognized him till she turned her face to him. It was doctor Marcus Flumenbaum. Before the Holocaust he had married her sister in Chechoslovakia, and managed to survive. Once he had come to visit her at home, and Nahumik heard him saying the he would like to have close friendship with her; but she rejected the idea of further connections. She had been afraid of that man, who had been egotistic enough to rescue himself, leaving his wife behind, to be taken by the Nazies and be sent to Auschwitz…
The doc has followed Ramona to the corridor at the Heart Unit.
“Ramona,” he said, “ I didn’t know that you are a relative or friendly – with that man lying there. His name did not tell me anything.”
“He is a photographer in my town,” she answered, “He is a good acquaintance.”
“Just that?” he asked shortly. “See you again,” he added and walked in quick steps before her. Then he returned and said he would escort her to the bus station, though he hadn’t yet finished his whole task for that day. He added he had been sorry not to arrive in her house again in those days. He would be very busy. “Injured soldiers are arriving almost every day. Yes, I’m very satisfied working here. O’key, I know you would return to visit that man, whose heart is quite not quite in a very good condition..
Come again within two-three days, and we’ll know better about his health condition,” he added.
She undersood that he could know exactrly what the relationship between her and Kaplansky are. But what has he with all that? No, she has not two candidates-courtiers. It’s clear to her, that Solomon himself doesn’t know yet what she thinks about the future of her relationship with him. But to her it’s suddenly clear. Though she knows very little about him and his observance of life. His late son was sometimes talking very sympathetically about him… Yes, thst’s enough for her to wish him all the best and try to help and continue visiting him. Maybe she will meet Marcus
again, to her dissatisfaction. Here he parts with her, by shaking hands, apologyzing again.
‘You know’- he said quite sarcastically – ‘A Heart attacks’ professional never lacks work’.
Having returned home, Ramona was sitting in the kitchen and translating for herself a poem- from Chech to the Hebrew language. That would bring her soul some tranquility. It was from a small poetry book that she had brought here from her homeland. During her work of taking care of the hens, she had already chosen in her mind what and how she would translate some images into Hebrew. At last it has taken on a form of a poem:
“A human being- in his childhood
is as hard as a lamb, but wise and good
to know that his innocence will pass soon.
That after many years, under sun or moon
the butcher, holding a long knife
will end his life - by hunger, or by strife”.
Ramona re-read what she had written and became enraged with herself, for spending time on such a pessimistic poem. And I have a flash of hope now, she said. I know Solomon was gazing on me as a woman, whose pretiness means something for him. Not to mention what I know- that suspect there is now a blood mixture of his son’s with the life commencing in my womb… So, let me recall the street song I’ve once read at the University of Prague. Some dirty sentence inside:
’She was walking in my street/ her dog’s chain in her hand.
She smiled, like I’m her heat/ she wished I would understand:
To roll her. I over her, she beneath/ belly on belly, teeth on teeth.
CHAPTER 22
To America and Back Page 21