To America and Back

by Mordechai Landsberg

Ramona and Solomon knew – each in his own way- that their love would prosper. It is reasonable, you may say, because we are dealing with a written novel. But it was coming from heart and soul and physical attraction and from the riddle of wish to wrap the wounds with some marvellous ointment.

  The idea of ‘re-loving’ process seized Ramona by the roots of her hairs. Solomon just told her, boldly and directly:

  ”You are tremendously marvellous, Ramona. Had I been younger – I would have courted you, and … you don’t have to tell me how your feeling is… but I feel that your feeling is not far from mine. Otherwise you would have known to get away.”

  Ramona knew that her first son would be a problem. Nahumik has become a grown up boy. His mind is older in some years than his actual physical body’s age, so she thinks.

  ‘He had seen the Ghost of Death walking here with his curved scythe, declaring that the one who wants to survive should struggle against him. So, Nahumik has already an obscure knowledge, that the ideals of God’s justice and human honesty and searching for knowledge of an ultimate truth – would not be enough for living, without smart and cunning maneuvres… But I fear- not from Nahumik’s losing his past’s plenty of innocence, but from his behavior to me; when he will know clearly about my relationship with Solomon. He has already felt it. I’ll tell him today, that his suspicion is justified.

  “But Mom, you know he is a lier. He had made a joke from the bereaved parents.” Nahumik told her.

  “Even if he manipulated something about the photos,” she answered, “which I don’t believe… It had been because he wanted to save those families some more weeks of deep pain.”

  “You repeat what you’ve already said, trying to defend him.” Nahumik showed her his impatience, almost shouting.

  “But Maybe,” she answered, ”Solomon hoped, that somehow a few of the misssing fellows would be found… And he had not thought about a boy like you, who would pursue his unconventional way of trying to decrease the horrible blow… and then even blame him for mere wickedness.”

  “I only want to warn you, Mom,” Nahumik said, becoming nice again, trying to rationalize, “He is a sick man, in body and in mind; and may ruin you and me. Take that into account … ”

  “You know, that Elkano was your friend,” she said suddenly, “ and don’t you think – that maybe he had also acted sometimes as he should not have?”… She stopped all of a sudden, grabbing her mouth with her palm. Maybe the boy himself was thinking about the ethical qualities of his young friend. He doesn’t need the interferance of his mother in that.

  ‘I know that Mom is right saying that’- thought Nahumuk after he had left Ramona and entered his bed. ‘I’ll never worship anyone. As I am aware now- maybe my friendship with Elkano was like a blind worship. .. But he was wonderful, anyway…’

  The days passed quickly, and Solomon was not any more being chained to his house. He returned to the photography store and customers began to re-appear and request his artistic camera. Ramona continued to visit him in the evenings, and he would tell her who were his clients and what some people were saying. Some of the visitors were bereaved people like him. They continued their grief every moment and were wandering, so they mentioned, how he could work with seemingly ‘relative tranqulity and calm mind.”

  He was even trying to condole and cheer up other bereaved people, who would come to his store, telling: “I don’t see a reason to continue living,” and weep before him.

  Nahumik was with Ramona in the shop, while Kaplansky told them that. Ramona wanted the boy to say hello to the man, whose work was revived and his business had become better than ever; though deeply in his heart – Solomon did not like that, as we will see later. But for the tima being- the boy heard him already calling his mother in a nickname: Ramonka.

  The ‘KA’ suffix to her private name – was ‘a proof of liking the person,’ at these days. (As the ’IK’ was fonding suffix to the name Nahum).

  Ramona seemed even happy for her nickname; and after a while Kaplansky began to discuss with her the matter of selling the hens’ coop. She didn’t show that she would oppose the idea. The number of hens has decreased recently to half than it had been before, and she wasn’t buying new little ones. She doesn’t see any sacred elemnt in holding them, she said. If she had another working place, that her earning could be increased- she would be satisfied.

  “But talking with me about all that,” Ramona told Solomon, after longly kissing him, ten or more times, “Let’s talk about a more serious matter.” She laughed, trying to let him be impressed that she is not so serious, but even frivolous.

  “O’key,” said Solomon, “let me hear what it is.”

  “I am pregnant from your son, Elkano, God’ll revenge his death.”

  “Well, I could have imagined that,” said the man, who has become pale, and she didn’t know if he was joking or serious.

  “We have lied a few times.”

  “I thought so. It does not matter to me how many times.”

  “Is it not… important for you to know more?” asked Ramona and he felt her embarrassment.

  “I would have been happy for him. Woe to us, having arrived to all that.”

  “What can y o u tell me… now, about all that?” she asked.

  “I understand… Well. What I want to tell you now is… that I propose to you. If you agree to marry me, then… how…where? Can we fix the wedding date? You know, that I’m not thirty years old, Ramonka. Maybe you have to get just a younger man than myself. I don’t recommend myself… as young, You know. I will give you some more time to think about my proposal!”

  “No, I don’t need time. I want you, my darling.”

  They kissed again and again, “I will take care for the baby, boy or girl, that you’ll bear,” He whispered. “I’ll be a wonderful father and grnadfather! What do you say about that, my dear sweetheart? And in the future we will have real joint children, maybe I’ll be a real father again. Sorry for this complicated situation. No one can bring Elkano back to life. So I must, and willingly, replace him…”

  “This is a strange discussion”, she said, ”I mean: your saying that this is a complicated situation. I think it can be – reasonably handed.”

  ‘I appreciate Solomon’s generosity and his sincerity’, she told herself again. ‘Hopefully I’ll feel his true love for long. No, no need of other sentimental words this time…’

  “The matter is really serious,” he cut her thoughts, “So, well, let’s. do what is needed.”

  “You certainly understand,” she said, “that I strongly believe in you, dear Solomon. That is due to the qualities that I have seen in Elkano… And you have raised him, educated him, and made him a man like he was… would I have doubted your character, I would not have presented myself every day at you door, and bother you so much, my dear. I hope you weren’t irritated.”

  They kissed shortly, and the photographer’s fingers were suddenly grabbing his shirt by the chest. She asked if he’s all right, and he answered that he had been feeling a little pressure there, in his chest’s center. Not straight in the heart at the left…But the doctors said, that his heart almost hadn’t been hurt. And that if a man in his age is not too obese or having a high blood pressure, the heart will be remedied.

  “Doc Priver told me: You will be soon be like a new man”- said Solomon. “He wrote for me a medical Receipt for a very new pill for the heart. You put it under the tongue, and that improves your feeling immediately. Wonderful ‘Glitzeryl pills’ for the weak heart!” he smiled, telling Ramona that his pain had disappeared.

  CHAPTER 25