Shira

by Agnon, S. Y.

  Another nurse came in and whispered something in the new mother’s ear. Henrietta glanced at her husband and said, “You must leave now, Fred. It’s really too bad. I want so much to talk to you, but I can’t delay the nurse, who is here to take care of me. So, for now, Fred, let’s say goodbye. Come back this afternoon, if you can. In about four hours, or four and a half. Did you have breakfast? Did you eat any of the eggs Zahara sent us from her kvutza? Please, be sure to have an egg in the morning and another in the evening. If you have two at a time, all the better. The natives say seven olives are the equivalent of one egg. If you ask me, an egg is an egg. As for olives, if you happen to like them, they spice up a meal. But not for a main dish – even eggs themselves don’t have such pretensions. According to Dr. Taglicht, the Talmud states that whatever is like an egg – that’s right, whatever is like it – doesn’t match it in quality. Now, my dearest, tell me where you plan to have lunch. I insist, my dearest, that you go to a good restaurant and have a solid meal. Meat, not vegetables. When you eat out, be sure to avoid salads, since you can’t be sure the greens were properly washed. I’m told restaurants buy their greens from Arab women, and you know they water their gardens with sewage, which is the source of most of the disease in Jerusalem. Now then, my love, are you listening? Say goodbye to Sarah.” “Sarah? Who’s Sarah?” Henrietta smiled and said, “My little Sarah, you chose a forgetful father. He hears your name is Sarah and forgets.” “Ah,” said Manfred, rummaging in his pockets. It seemed to him that it was the anniversary of his mother’s death, and he wanted to consult the calendar. “Now you know who Sarah is,” Henrietta continued. “Sarah, your daddy is saying goodbye to you, and I’m saying goodbye to your daddy in your name. I’ll say bye to you too. Goodbye, Fred. Don’t forget to write the girls. I would ask you to phone them if I didn’t know how hard that is to do.” “I’ll phone.” “You will? Bless you, my love. When they let me out of bed, I’ll go to the phone and call each of them. See you at four. If you promise to rest after lunch, I won’t expect you until five. Right away, nurse. Bye, Fred. At five.”

  Chapter seven

  Herbst left the hospital and stood near the fence, trying to recall the precise date of his mother’s death. By his calculation, it was not the previous evening, but he wanted to consult the calendar to be certain. He looked in his pocket, but the calendar wasn’t there. He had changed his clothes in the morning, and the calendar was still in yesterday’s jacket.

  He had left the calendar in his old jacket. He was haunted by the thought that what had happened to him the night before could have occurred on the eve of the anniversary of his mother’s death. It was good that it did not occur on the actual anniversary. Still, the event was bad in itself. Even if I was after something of that sort, now that it has come to pass, I see it wasn’t what I was after. In seven days, Henrietta will be home again. May the intervening days be straightforward and uncompromised. If a man sins once, only once, the sin is not erased; still, one offense is less than two. What did Henrietta ask of me? Henrietta asked me to inform the girls that they have a sister. And something further. When he remembered what else she had asked, he looked at his watch to see how many hours remained until lunch. He noticed that his watch strap was worn. He took off the watch, put it in his jacket, and straightened his tie.

  Julian Weltfremdt, a relative of Ernst Weltfremdt’s, appeared. They were related in family but not in fortune, for one was a full professor and the other was not even a lecturer. He deserved to be a lecturer, even in one of the great European universities, and if Professor Weltfremdt had supported him, he would have secured an appointment. But Ernst Weltfremdt was afraid he might be charged with nepotism, that is to say, with bestowing favors on relatives. Ernst used to say to Julian, “Would you have me behave like that administrator who made his brother secretary, found jobs for his mother and father, and then changed their names, so no one would know they were related?” Since Julian Weltfremdt considered himself a victim, he allied himself with other would-be victims and, like them, engaged in challenging the establishment. Unlike most of them, a thwarted lot that indulged in gossip and slander, Julian Weltfremdt was devoted to truth. Since scholarship has many branches and truth has many violators, he became more and more outspoken against those who mock the truth.

  At that time, the entire country was astir with Professor Wechsler’s discovery. He had found a manuscript attributed to Saint Justin the Martyr on the subject of the profane aspects of life and the love of purity. I am not an expert on the writings of the Church Fathers, nor do I know whether he uncovered an ancient source or was misled by one of the counterfeits common in Jerusalem for three generations now. Between eagerness to innovate and the proliferation of counterfeiters, the world has been inundated with parchments, jugs, burial chests, figurines, idols, and gods from Enoch’s time and earlier. Moreover, most of the scholars from Germany came to this country intent on discovering antiquities, and they found what they were after. Actually, Professor Wechsler was legitimate, as was his enterprise. But he was also extremely eager to publicize his discoveries. To this end, he invited a host of journalists, as administrators often do in the interests of their institution, attracting attention to themselves as if they were the institution. Wechsler presented his discoveries to the journalists, glorifying himself at every opportunity. The journalists listened, sent telegrams to their newspapers, and provided Wechsler with a public. Scholars of other nations began to view this country’s scholars and academics with suspicion, which gave Julian Weltfremdt an opportunity to deplore the university’s scholars, especially Wechsler, whose behavior he considered scandalous. However Herbst viewed Wechsler’s activities, he dismissed them with a casual gesture and proceeded to enumerate some of Wechsler’s accomplishments. Weltfremdt was enraged and shrieked, “What I am telling you is deplorable, and that’s how you respond! Go and tell your father you need to be born again. Maybe this time you’ll turn out to be a man. By the way, did your wife give birth yet? Boy or girl?” “What if it was a girl?” Weltfremdt said, “Don’t tease me, Herbstlein. I believe you have two girls already.” Herbst said, “Now I have three.” “Three daughters? So now you have one more daughter. Don’t be disheartened. The world needs girls too. I see you’ve bought a new tie. Come, let’s wet our palates in honor of both these events. There’s a new café nearby. They try to serve real coffee. Let’s go there.” Herbst said, “You sound as if you’re their agent.” Weltfremdt said, “Not yet. If you prefer, we’ll go to another café.”

  They tried one place, but it was crowded. Here, there were young men with pipes in their mouths; there, old men with canes in their hands. Here, there were young women waiting for young men; there, young men waited for young women. Here and there, young men and women sat together, engulfing each other in clouds of smoke. “Look,” Weltfremdt said to Herbst. “Look – every face is clean-shaven, every mouth holds a pipe. They all talk out of the corner of their mouth, like native Englishmen. If France had the mandate, our boys would grow beards and start whistling like birds. Get moving, man. Let’s go to the place I mentioned before.”

  The café owner recognized Herbst, brought their order, bowed, and then retreated, so as not to give the gentleman who had been there the previous evening the idea that he intended to bother him. The two friends sat. They sat, and Weltfremdt talked about the university, about its professors, about other matters, talking, as the saying goes, about everyone and his wife, while Herbst stared straight ahead, wondering: Where was that space, the space he had seen here the night before? Weltfremdt sensed that Herbst was preoccupied. He assumed that he was worried. He certainly had cause for worry, with another daughter in addition to the first two. Feeling sorry for his friend, he insisted on paying the check.

  After they took leave of each other, Herbst went to the jeweler to buy a new strap for his watch. While the worn strap was being removed, he looked at the watches, designed for a single purpose yet made in many forms. Time is constant,
yet manifest in varied forms. All things are like time, even rumors, even words. A single lesson can be learned from many texts. Herbst had once said to Lisbet Neu, “I’m old enough to be your father.” She had said, “I don’t know your age, but I see your face and you look young.” At the time, he had thought she was being generous. Now he viewed her words differently.

  So much for the parable of the clocks. After fastening the new strap around his wrist, he stuck in his finger to stretch it. All of a sudden he felt bewildered. Where was the pure spirit that used to be invoked by the mere mention of Lisbet? One thought led to another, as thoughts do, and he had another thought: What if I had a son and this son was drawn to Lisbet? One thought led to still another: Henrietta will, undoubtedly, be unable to nurse the baby, so we’ll have to hire a wetnurse, which will mean extra expense and put us even more in debt. Moreover, while the baby is young, wherever we put her to sleep, I will hear her and be distracted from my work, which requires concentration. My paper will remain a mess of notes, and I will remain a lecturer, with a lecturer’s salary, rather than that of a professor or even an associate professor.

  I will now convey some of what was implicit in Herbst’s thoughts. The author of a thorough and comprehensive work on Leo iii, the Byzantine ruler, a work that established his academic reputation, so that, when our university was opened in Jerusalem, he was recommended by Professor Neu and appointed lecturer – such a man should have produced another book. But days and years had passed, and he had produced nothing. When he was a student, still single, and the university was full of German women, Russian women, Jewish women – among them, some who sought his company – he turned away, out of devotion to his studies. Now that he was married, all the more reason to avoid distractions. Yet, in the end, it was he who pursued them. Who was to blame? Certainly not Henrietta. I doubt there are many like her. In terms of intelligence, beauty, and competence, Henrietta has no peer. Without regular help, without her husband’s assistance, she did all the household chores. She cooked, baked, sewed, ironed, even made her own clothes. And when the girls were young, she chose to take care of them herself, without a nursemaid. As for their house – when the Herbsts came up to Jerusalem, they couldn’t find a place to live. Talpiot and Beit Hakerem were new neighborhoods, and there were no apartments to be had there. Rehavia was in the planning stages. This left the Bukharan Quarter, which in those days was as important and as lovely as Rehavia is now. And there were areas that were free of flies and mosquitoes, but every space was occupied, taken over by intellectuals from abroad. In Baka, however, Henrietta found a hovel filled with garbage, considered unfit to live in. She rented this hovel, got rid of the garbage, and fixed it up. We were astonished; the hovel was transformed into a delightful, even glorious house. Henrietta made herself a garden, too. She made it with her own hands. Without the help of a gardener, without the help of her daughters. Tamara, as you know, loves flowers that come from the store rather than from trash and dung. Her sister Zahara has many tasks to perform for her teachers – she collects money for the Jewish National Fund’s land-reclamation projects, sells ribbons for charitable causes, et cetera – and, because of all these tasks, she has no time for homework and never eats at mealtimes. Henrietta’s only helper is Manfred, who waters the garden. Not that Henrietta needs him to do this, but it gets him out of his room and gives him a chance to exercise, rather than acquire a belly, like Professor Weltfremdt and Professor Lemner, who are all belly, below their middle and above it – a mound of neck topped by a tiny head.

  Having referred to Herbst’s study, let me say a word about the room. It was the largest and most spacious room in the house, but its dimensions were not apparent because of the books lining its four walls. The wall opposite the door had a square window in it that looked onto the street, bringing the outdoors in. There was no end to what went on outside or to the shifts of scene from day to day, from hour to hour. There was another window in the south wall, and, if not for the tall piles of books on the floor, it would be possible to get to the window and see the earth’s marvels: rocks rising from the ground, looking like shepherds with their flocks. Or are those shepherds with their flocks that look so like rock? Either way, there are rocks in Jerusalem that look like sheep, as well as sheep that look like rocks, and the shepherds look equally ambiguous.

  The desk, the chair next to Herbst’s chair, the guest chair opposite the desk – all these, like the walls, were filled with books. When a guest came, he would clear a place for him, either with a single gesture or book by book, lingering over each one. In some fields, new replaces old. Not so with Herbst. He was fond of every book that passed through his hands, even if it was outdated, even if its conclusions were outdated when it first appeared. A scholar ought to consult those naive works, Herbst would say, for we learn from them that knowledge has arrived at its current positions by way of false hypotheses, invalid conclusions, groundless evidence. In truth, it was not for this reason alone that Herbst filled his room with books. He began collecting books as a child, and what he was accustomed to do as a boy he continued to do as he grew older. In the past, before his house was filled with books, the walls of the room were decorated with antique maps of Byzantium, shaped like ships in the heart of the sea, like mountains floating in pale blue air, like many-colored towers. But, in time, these maps gave way to bookshelves.

  Many other things could be found in Herbst’s room, on his desk, on the windowsills. Such as pipes and ashtrays, some of which he bought in Jerusalem’s markets and some of which were gifts, like the pebbles he had collected in Ashkelon, on which one can discern symbols of a language not yet decoded. Next to the pebbles were thorns, the ones that seem to have a human face. Since they are not relevant to Dr. Herbst’s field of study, I will not deal with them, though I will mention the polished brass inkstand he bought from the crippled scribe who sits at the entrance to the courthouse, who was rescued by Herbst from under the hooves of a wild horse on Ramadan – its drunken rider was a judge in that very courthouse at the time.

  Herbst’s study is his domain, and he works with few distractions. Henrietta has a discerning eye, and whoever calls on her husband is closely scrutinized to determine whether or not he is one of those who lead to idleness. There are many idlers in Jerusalem, those employed by national institutions as well as people who know the value of work but, not having found anything to do themselves, keep others from their work.

  Just as Henrietta protects her husband from idlers, she protects him from excessive burdens. She even spares him the burden of the girls’ education. You, of course, know how hard it is to raise a daughter in this country. Not only a daughter like Tamara, who is as full of thorns as a cactus, but even one like Zahara, who is softer than butter. What’s more, she – that is, Henrietta – manages her household without complaints or bitterness on thirty-five lirot a month, her husband’s salary from the university. Were the entire sum available for household expenses, it would be simple. But it isn’t simple, as some of it is earmarked for the National Fund, some for the Foundation Fund and various other funds not yet founded, which, when they are founded, will be superfluous. But who can withstand such an appeal, the word-filled drone that drowns everyone and everything? Despite all this, Henrietta carries on and maintains her home with dignity. Everyone who sees Henrietta Herbst is moved to remark, “That woman has sprung out of a painting. She’s a Rubens in the flesh.”

  But Henrietta is flawed in one respect: she began to age prematurely. Though Manfred is still in his prime, she is aging rapidly. Another flaw: she works too hard and doesn’t look after herself – all so Manfred can devote himself to his work, prepare lectures that will not bore his audience, produce a new book on a par with the first, which made his reputation. After giving him a second child, Henrietta began to behave as if she were not wife to her husband. If not for his birthday nine months ago, Sarah would not have come into being.

  Manfred was faithful to his wife, even if his fantasies were som
etimes illicit. From several of Henrietta’s remarks, one learns about Manfred’s fantasies. She has said to him many times, “Are there no attractive girls in this country? Is that why you’re always after me? Go find yourself a young girl. If you look, you’ll find one.” I don’t know how long a man’s wife would tolerate another woman. Even if she did put up with it, in the name of domestic peace, one would do well to beware. Manfred Herbst neither looked nor found, either out of respect for Henrietta or because it was not his style. A man who marries his wife out of love at first sight isn’t likely to have eyes for other women. He was once on an ocean voyage, and, finding himself on the high seas for several days with nothing to do, he considered: If an attractive woman were to appear, would you keep your distance? But nothing came of this. Herbst assumed he was the cause. He was in the habit of telling his wife everything; should he take up with another woman, he would tell his wife and cause her sorrow. Which is not to say that, in the time he was abroad, no woman was warm to him, but only a fool would assume that every attractive woman who behaves warmly is open to love. The episode ended as it began. Dr. Manfred Herbst came home bringing new books, nothing more. When would he read them? As book collectors know, not every book has to be read. All a book needs is a buyer, and all a buyer needs is a bookcase that can take one book more. It is to their credit that books contract to make room for others.