8 Great Hebrew Short Novels

by Неизвестный

  Eventually they opened the door and the doctor patted my shoulder and said good-bye. I asked, “When are you going to check my eyes?” and he smiled inscrutably as my parents led me away.

  Outside, Mother scolded me for being rude to the doctor and shaming her in front of him. I couldn’t figure out what she meant.

  “When the doctor asked if you bite your nails, you said, Are you crazy!?’ ”

  “I did not! I said ‘Am I crazy!?’ ”

  “No, you did not,” said Mother, “You said ‘Are you crazy!?’ ”

  My protests were in vain. Father put his hand on the back of my neck as we walked along the Haifa streets. It was late afternoon. Not even the touch of Father’s hand could assuage the howling injustice of it all.

  “But why is it so important to you?” asked Father.

  Mother stood her ground and I hated her for it. It wasn’t fair. She had wronged me. Her pain versus my pain, her failure versus mine. Two angry individuals full of mistrust, thinking only of themselves. She accused me of forgetting my manners, and worse yet, of succumbing to the mysterious defect that had been brought on by a weakness of the mind or will. And where would it end? But I knew that justice was on my side. I held on to it for dear life. In desperation I looked to Father, and he smiled back at me, sympathetic, confident. Nothing could have been more important to me just then. We had formed an alliance, we two. It was us against her now. Sadly, she wouldn’t change her mind. She looked so glum I was sure it was because of her mistaken idea that I had been rude to the doctor. We wandered into a German café downtown. We sat there and they ordered cocoa for me and coffee for themselves.

  Suddenly Mother forgot she was sad about my little lapse and she smiled at me, though her gaiety was a little forced. “I’m afraid we’ll have to stop your violin lessons for a while,” she said. I thought this was a punishment for my so-called rudeness. I don’t think I cared so much about the lessons. It was the injustice of it, and all because of a mistake, all because we didn’t trust each other, that’s what bothered me. And now Father’s face confirmed it and I knew.

  “The doctor said to stop for a while, because it’s hard on your eyes,” Father explained.

  I failed to see what the connection was but I let it go.

  “I did not say ‘Are you crazy’ ” I repeated, “I said ‘am I crazy’!”

  “It isn’t important,” said Mother, much to my surprise. “Never mind.”

  But if this wasn’t important, what was? The entire hierarchy of importance came toppling down. I gazed at this man and woman I loved so much. How much were they mine, I wondered, and how much were they their own. Twilight pervaded the café and a pleasant breeze wafted through. Outside, laborers in blue uniforms were hurrying home, carrying their lunch boxes. At the table next to ours sat an old woman, her face behind a German newspaper clipped to a wooden frame with reading handles. An air of suspicion hung in the air.

  “For how long?” I asked.

  “Until the blinking goes away,” Father replied. “Let’s hope it won’t be long.”

  “You can stop after the recital,” said Mother.

  The end of the year recital was two weeks away.

  They could not hide their disappointment. It soon infected me, though they were as nice as they could be about it. There was something futile about their niceness, though, unrelated to anything I did or didn’t do. Still, it felt good to be bound together by our common destiny. I kept silent. I was not about to beg for a reprieve.

  When the day of the final lesson came, my teacher Mrs. Chanina cheered me up and wished me good luck in the recital. According to her, a little break in our lessons wouldn’t do any harm, and I would come back with more energy and even better results than before. I stood before her with downcast eyes, and she caressed my neck. I refused to look at her. As we left I couldn’t bring myself to turn around for one last look at the house to imprint it on my memory. It just didn’t feel like goodbye. It was so meaningless, a dull and trifling technicality. But I never went back to that house, and I was to see my teacher Mrs. Chanina only one more time, the night of the recital.

  She was seated in the front row with the other teachers who had come to hear their students, and we were somewhere in the middle. I remember how I sat between my parents, bursting to hear Uri’s performance, as though finally I would be able to pay myself a debt, a debt of inexplicable longing. As the prize student of the Conservatory, he was last on the program, the crowning performance. During the recital I kept glancing at him, sitting with his family, dressed in a white shirt and long navy blue trousers, his hair slicked back with water and neatly parted on the side. There was no apparent sign of nervousness about him. He was probably twelve or thirteen at the time, but to me he seemed like a grown-up. The memory of listening to him from my hiding place and the way his music poured out into the gloomy corridor had turned him into an idol of perfection. It was the way he played that made him so handsome, so masterful and self-assured; everything about him was touched with grace, with something unattainably sublime. His demeanor, for instance, as he sat between his elderly parents, with his older brother and sister at his side, and their earnest faces, the clothes they wore, the way they nodded to the music and applauded at the end of each piece, how perfectly brilliant, how outstanding in every way. Sometimes when the piece was over, one of them would lean over to Uri and whisper a question or comment—just what, it was impossible to guess.

  Toward the end of the recital, Uri stood up and the walked out of the hall ringed round with the well wishing of his family. Soon it would be his turn. Mrs. Duniah-Weizman, principal of the Haifa Conservatory, introduced each performer and the piece they were about to play with a personal anecdote sure to please friends and family in the audience. When it was time for Uri to play, the atmosphere turned festive and solemn. The accompanist with the curly hair and glasses entered first, followed by Uri, violin in hand. Mrs. Duniah-Weizman looked up, waiting for the last whispers to die away, and then, without further ado, announced Uri’s name, the name of his accompanist, and the name of the piece they were about to play, the “La Follia” variations by Corelli.

  Uri folded a handkerchief on his chin rest. His violin sparkled in the stage lights. He positioned his head on the instrument, raised his bow, closed his eyes in concentration, opened them, and with a nod from his accompanist, began to play.

  Doleful music filled the hall, heightened by the melodic embellishments at the end of every phrase. In some strange way, the frenzied dance of joy was transmuted into a noble lament. Uri’s touch was firm and sure, full of restrained emotion and inner strength. This was likely the most beautiful performance I have ever heard. There was something almost frighteningly pure about it, demanding, impersonal, cool yet ecstatic. As the tempo quickened, the tall youth in the white shirt, navy trousers and low leather shoes, appeared at times to be wrestling with unseen forces. Now and then his face evinced what seemed like pain, but it was only the effort that went into such a flawless performance, the deftness of his fingering, the chords he played in rapid succession. He was so immersed in his playing that it swept him away, away from the stage, away from the many eyes that watched him, away from the music itself, the wild, dark, menacing heart of it. Something is happening, I feel it, the music is ravishing my heart. I cannot give myself over to it, not completely; it’s too beautiful, unbearably beautiful. I watch the audience, watch their eyes, survey the hall, and then glance nervously over at the two closed doors. I know it, any minute now somebody is going to run in screaming: “Stop the music!” And I know who that somebody is. I often see him on Kings Way, that crazy beggar, the weird apparition I can’t get out of my mind just now, lurking behind the doors. A murmur will spread through the audience, Uri will be stunned, the violin will tremble in his hands, the pianist will faint, Uri will look up and stop playing, pale with indignation and alarm.

  I studied the faces of his parents and his older brother and sister as they sat listen
ing to him, a little numbly, I thought, as though what was going on had no more to do with them than with anybody else.

  How will they react, though, when it actually happens and the wild man bursts in and pounces on the platform shouting: “Stop the music!” Mrs. Duniah-Weizman is sitting with the teachers in the middle of the front row. I can see the back of her head nodding to the rhythm. Little does she know what lurks behind those doors. But I see him, his fists poised in mid-air, ready to strike the door when the moment comes. He’s an old man, dressed in rags, with bloodshot eyes and a fearsome, violent look.

  One variation followed another as I listened, feeling puny and insignificant. I thought I sensed Father’s eyes upon me, and imagined the look of reproach in them for the anxiety that was probably discernible in my face or my demeanor. A hush fell over the audience; they sat like the dead. The violin and piano hewed away. Rows of friends and family seemed to await some sort of judgment in a state of calm despair.

  I look to my right. Mother wipes a tear from the corner of her eye. Though she often shows her emotions, especially when listening to music, this time I think she’s crying over me. I look down at my clothes, at my best white shirt and my nicely ironed short pants, and my shined-up shoes, and I hate them, I hate them for their intimate association with me, their stuffy, ceremonial absurdity. I look over at the glossy brown doors, behind which someone is waiting to make a perfect entrance. A sweet foreboding takes my breath away, and I try hard to turn my attention back to the wonderful music, to forget all else and capture these moments as they flit by forever. But it’s impossible to break into their circle of light; everything is thrust back into the recital hall and the danger behind the doors. And the danger lingers. The man is preparing to make his entrance. He is rehearsing his lines, practicing his bitter outcry to the audience—those unwitting accomplices in a terrible injustice: “Stop the music! Stop it now! I demand justice! Start the concert again, start from the beginning!”

  But that is not what he meant to say at all. Something’s missing, it’s not quite right, and while he lurks behind the doors, the music is drawing to an end and my heart is pounding for fear that he may still break in, and I pray it will soon be over before he has a chance to do the deed. Yet another variation begins, and his fist is still poised in mid-air instead of pounding on the sealed door. His eyes are bloodshot like a murderer’s eyes, and he is paralyzed by the enormity of what he is about to do, and his heavy breathing flutters the lapels of the filthy jacket around his shoulders and his chest heaves, and tufts of hair grizzled with age or toil, show through the tears in his shirt. I know this man; I have seen him countless times at his usual corner downtown. Whenever we walked by I felt compelled to endure the sight of him, but I never dreamed he would one day be connected to this recital at the Conservatory.

  A thunderous noise threatened to bring down the house. The final notes of the violin and piano died away and people in the audience rose to their feet and began to applaud. The suddenness of this was cataclysmic. My parents, too, applauded at my side, their faces radiant. The pianist with the curly hair and glasses gave a little bow, and Uri standing next to her, violin and bow in hand, stared directly at the audience. There was a trace of a smile on his face and a look of exhaustion from concentrating so hard and being swept away, and he squinted in the glare of the stage lights, like someone waking up and still disoriented, and with his free hand he gestured as if to say, “What am I doing here with all these people?”

  The doors opened, but no one was there. The audience went on applauding. Mrs. Duniah-Weizman helped Uri down from the stage and gave him a hug. Mother beamed at me and Father took my hand and led me to the exit. Mother said, “Corelli is undoubtedly one of the greatest composers who ever lived.” Teachers, pupils and their families huddled in the recital hall, chatting, laughing and shaking hands. At the door we ran into Mrs. Chanina. She stroked my head affectionately and took me aside. The touch of her hand felt wonderful. She seemed a little flustered, though I couldn’t tell why. Then she leaned over and whispered in my ear, “You will always have music as a consolation.” I don’t know why she said this or what she saw in her mind’s eye. Maybe it was the sort of thing she said to all her former pupils. The moment of goodbye had come, the goodbye I had missed the day of our last lesson, was here with all its emotion. I knew I would never again set eyes on this impassioned queen who was so dear to me. I felt like crying but didn’t know where to go, so I closed my eyes and pretended I could make everything come to a standstill until it was safe to open them again. When I did open them at last, my teacher Mrs. Chanina was gone, and my parents pulled me out into the evening air. We walked to the stop for the bus that would take us up the hill.

  It was a warm summer night, and a pleasant sea breeze caressed our faces. We strolled along in silence, savoring our private impressions of the recital. I was glad nobody talked because the night air felt soothing to me. It pervaded my limbs, as if someone else had cried those tears for me and so that now I was absolved and purified. I looked at my parents and imagined that the three of us had narrowly escaped from some perilous war zone or some dangerously seductive dream. My hand felt safe in Father’s hand. And then I realized that deep inside I was actually glad the lessons were over. I wonder whether I knew then that this happiness was more like resignation, a sigh of relief after the verdict, the joy of fortuitous freedom. At the time, though, I experienced it differently: we were together at last, me and this man and woman who walked beside me to the bus stop, united in our destiny after all the recent tribulations.

  Some months later we left Haifa and moved back to our settlement, the moshava. That Sabbath afternoon in autumn as we set out from my Great-Aunt Frieda’s house, I remembered the smell of colophony and all the hopes and longings it portended. I asked my parents if I could start taking violin lessons again, and the memory of colophony had a mysteriously beneficial effect on me. Even as I write these words I feel a surge of wistfulness, almost as if I were anticipating the return of a long lost love, nearer and dearer to me now than ever before, or some redemptive twist of fate that would bring a promise of adventure.

  A few days went by and then the first rain of the season came. I stood in my room, watching it fall outside my window. I opened my eyes as wide as I could, stared into the gray sky and tried to count to twenty without blinking. My hands started trembling with excitement, as though the outcome of this ordeal would be utterly momentous. And then as I counted nine, ten, my eyes began to tear and everything went blurry. I felt dizzy in the head as though there were wheels turning inside to the rhythm of my heartbeats. When Mother walked in she saw me from behind.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “What about your homework?”

  I didn’t turn to face her. “I’m thinking,” I said.

  “And just what are you thinking about so hard?” she asked, not crossly. Approaching the window she looked at my face.

  “I was just trying to think if I remember anything about playing the violin. But I don’t. Zero. Nothing. I was trying to remember Schubert’s “Musical Moment,” the last piece I played in Haifa, but I don’t remember the notes, what the left hand does, or the fingering, or anything. I’ll have to start from the beginning.”

  She didn’t answer me. She looked at my face with a certain skepticism, but she was clearly perplexed as well. Tears were flowing down my cheeks, and I said, “If I start playing again, I think the blinking will go away. I really think it will.”

  “In any case it will go away in a few years,” said Mother.

  “How do you know?”

  “The doctor said so.”

  And then I remembered the doctor, and the quarrel we had over my so-called rudeness to him, and I felt hurt again.

  “Then why did we have to stop my lessons?”

  Mother made inquiries and found out that the best violin teacher on the moshava was a Mr. Alfredi. That evening when Father ca
me home from work, it was decided that Mother would take me to Mr. Alfredi’s the following day and sign me up for lessons. The rain continued all night long, but the next day, as I was coming home from school, it stopped raining and I was all excited. Then in the afternoon it started raining again, and Mother, who had thought to postpone our walk till a sunnier day, pitied me in my unhappiness and I put on my poncho and Mother fastened the hood, tied a kerchief around her head, and opened the umbrella and out we stepped into the mud and the pouring rain.

  “If anyone knew where we were going in this flood, they’d think we were crazy!” said Mother. But there was no reproach in her voice, only a kind of mischief, as though we were partners in some silly antic. Hardly anyone else was out in the deluge. Mr. Alfredi’s house was all the way across at the western edge of the moshava, and our house was in the east. East to west, we trudged against the wind that splattered rain in our faces and soaked our clothes. We were holding hands in a struggle against the forces of nature and Mother laughed and shouted aloud so I would hear her voice over the mantle of wind and rain and the hood of my poncho, “We’re crazy! You know that, we’re crazy!”

  When we came to the door of the first-floor apartment that was Mr. Alfredi’s music academy, there was no one there. We went around through the side porch but the door was locked. There was a note tacked on it: “Today’s lessons cancelled due to aunt’s funeral. Alfredi.” Mother smiled and said, “We’re out of luck, aren’t we.” Either she was referring to our futile walk through the pouring rain, or else she thought it was a bad omen that the aunt’s funeral should be the very day we had come to sign up for lessons. We waited on the porch a while, sheltered from the wind and rain, and I tried to peep through the shutters and see what the room looked like, but it was too dark. Suddenly we heard strange noises coming from the stairwell near the porch, thrashing, thumping, and groaning sounds. We hurried to the hall, and there in semidarkness, we stumbled over cases and music books and buffeting bodies all tangled in a heap. Mother switched the light on, and we watched as three boys lay still on the floor like some multi-limbed animal holding its breath. They were piled on top of each other, all wearing blue ponchos. Mother yanked the top one’s arm, and as he scrambled to his feet, the boy who was under him got up too, and they gasped for breath and slapped the dust off their ponchos. The third boy remained on the floor with his head tucked between his knees, trembling with terror or pain. Mother tried to help him up, but he stubbornly refused her hand, shifting his shoulders on the floor, and shielding the nape of his neck with his still trembling fists. Mother leaned over him and tried to find his face. For a long time she coaxed him and finally he stood up. He was a skinny little boy, much younger than the other two, who were panting as they stood there, waiting to hear what sort of trouble they were in.