by Неизвестный
I was too mortified to tell my parents what I’d seen and heard at Yoram’s house. I was old enough by now to keep my own counsel, yet I remember how I watched them out of the corner of my eye. They were preoccupied with their own affairs and in my heart I sent out a warning cry. I made them swear to do my bidding, but they ignored me. I could watch them like this, watch their every move, but I was suddenly faced with the limits of my power over them. I was suddenly terrified of the unknown, of the ambiguity of things and the shocks that were in store for me. I went to my room and stared out the window. The light was beginning to fade. For some reason, I thought of Father’s old grandmother who had died long ago. I remembered the way she used to sit in her armchair in the corner, so remote from everyone’s concerns. Father’s uncle, her own son, claimed that all she ever thought about was the Messiah, and maybe he was guessing this, or maybe she had told him something. She had never blended into the surroundings in which she appeared to us even then, but seemed like a phantom sitting there, an optical illusion. Maybe she had already felt the caress of grace that was preparing her for the fabulous journey ahead. As I stood in my room facing the twilight, I realized, maybe for the first time, that it was death I had seen there in the painting over my great-grandmother’s armchair, the painting of the pampered bird languishing in its blood. Now I understood why I associated it with the old woman in the chair. It was a mysterious covenant that purified and redeemed her. Till then, I had envisaged death only in the guise of the disaster that would some day take away the man and woman I loved so much, as it had taken my grandfather away from me. Sometimes at night I would wake up in terror at the fleeting vision I had seen and strain my ears to hear them breathing in the next room, afraid they might be taken from me in their sleep. But the evening I came home from Yoram’s house I made a stunning new discovery—that I knew even less about my parents than they knew about me and my secrets. And I could watch and threaten them in my heart all I liked but I would never be able to turn back the clock to the days when their whole life centered around me. They had their secrets, and their secrets would trail behind them from now on like shadows, beyond my control. I felt a little crushed and nostalgic about this parting of the ways, but also excited at the thought of all the things in store for me, me alone, as soon as I grew up to be me, me alone. I sat there staring out the window in the darkening room and suddenly Mother walked in.
“Why are you sitting in the dark doing nothing?”
I swung around as if she’d caught me red-handed, and didn’t know what to answer. She switched on the light and gazed at me with a concerned yet chastening expression. My anger flared up at her for demanding an account of my actions. I set my mind to picturing her as some familiar woman who was a stranger nonetheless.
“Because I feel like it,” I said.
“I never heard of such a thing, sitting in the dark, staring out the window, doing nothing,” said Mother. “Idleness is the worst of all evils. Idleness leads to decadence.”
“Well I want some decadence,” I said.
My initial indignation gave way to bitterness and I decided that from now on, I would follow the art-of-living-together policy, and then I stopped resenting her so much. In fact, I felt an urgent need to do something, anything. She stood there a while, wondering about me. Perhaps she, too, realized that the old rules no longer applied and was feeling lost and helpless.
“You aren’t practicing nearly enough,” said Mother. “The recital is only a week away and you are playing with Yoram. Have you no sense of responsibility? Surely you don’t want him to show you up in front of everyone?”
“It’ll be okay, don’t worry.”
“Well, someone has to worry. And it will not be okay, because you couldn’t care less. I don’t know what you’re thinking.”
Was my declining interest in the violin already so apparent? Those thoughts she had interrupted by coming into my room were more precious to me than anything now. Listening to my own thoughts when they were sparked off by something new, questioning myself in relation to others, this seemed to present me with a vast field of discovery, and I was impatient to get there. The need to do something was becoming urgent but I didn’t know where to turn. I only knew I had to find the underlying cause of things and not allow myself to be distracted by anyone. And then something incredible happened, something that made me believe that my footsteps were guided by a force from beyond, an invisible hand that led me through a kind of shortcut from the outcome of events to their significance.
Next door, where my uncle lived, there was a big Hebrew library. I had often leafed through his books and even borrowed some of them. Having nothing better to do just then, my feet took me to my uncle’s house. I browsed through his library, and picked up one of the books there totally at random. The author’s name was G. Schoffman, and I had never read a single line of the book before. I opened it in the middle and my eyes fell on the title: The Violin.
“I do not care for this instrument and hereby challenge its sovereignty. The fact that its sound is produced by the rubbing of two bodies together is enough to send shivers of revulsion up the spine. Certain low notes and transitional tones are particularly disagreeable to the ear. The strings, incidentally, are made of living tissue! This too is distasteful to say the least.
“Perhaps one should distinguish the high merit of such famous instruments as the Stradivarius in the hands of a virtuoso (though I suggest we might be critical even here!), but as for the cheap variety in the hands of pupils—better a mouth organ! In the latter case, we have to bear with a whiny caterwaul, a sniveling plea for mercy which is enough to bring on hopeless depression and melancholia.
“Yes, melancholia. The nightmare of the ghetto screams out of these wooden fiddles. The Diaspora Jew had a kind of cult of the violin. The two were inextricably bound—Yidl mitn fidel. Every Jewish mother’s son, whether musically gifted or a complete dolt in this sphere, had to “saw away” on his violin, to the delight of his mother, who found her ultimate fulfillment in this. Come what may, the violin was there, through trials and tribulations, woes of every kind, debts and promissory notes, bill collectors—and always, the violin!”
I read these words by G. Schoffman, and my heart began to pound, either because of the strange coincidence or because of the actual content of the words. I thought about the shameful rubbing of bodies together, and the Diaspora Jew in the ghetto, sniveling and begging for mercy. I read the paragraph once, twice, three times, and my questing heart had found itself a worthy aim at last: to stop my lessons and say goodbye to the violin.
For the time being I kept this to myself, and didn’t tell my parents. Not yet. I was afraid it would make them very sad. I knew what sacrifices they had made for the expenses in those times of austerity, and I knew what pleasure my progress had brought them. Still, it had to be done. I didn’t know when yet; first I had to get through the recital.
A few days before the recital we were rehearsing at Mr. Alfredi’s with our accompanist. My heart wasn’t in it. Since reading G. Schoffman’s article I could barely suppress my revulsion for the instrument. Yet much to my amazement, I found that I was playing with fluency and precision, as if I were somebody else. I wondered whether anyone else had noticed, and when I finished playing the slow, tender second movement, Mr. Alfredi clapped his hands and called out “Bravo! Bravo!”
He praised me warmly and said it was obvious that I been practicing a lot. When we went on to the third movement, I was amazed at how excited I was about the compliment, and here I had believed I didn’t care at all anymore.
After the rehearsal, Mr. Alfredi said he hoped I would play as well at the recital. I knew the recital would be the grand finale of my musical career.
When we were leaving the room where the piano was, Eitan, the dark-haired boy with the shifty eyes, followed us out. He had waited around to hear us play the Double after his own rehearsal. He was a little younger than I, but taller, and he looked as though he knew the
secrets of life. We hardly ever ran into each other at Mr. Alfredi’s, he and I, and when we did, we rarely spoke. I suspected that he felt unfriendly toward me, if not downright hostile, and I tried not to have anything to do with him.
But as I was walking home from Mr. Alfredi’s, Eitan caught up with me. We walked along in silence. Then Eitan said, “I can’t stand the way Yoram plays. He thinks he’s the greatest violinist in the world. In my opinion, you played the Bach Double better than he did.”
He seemed to be trying to flatter me, but I wasn’t sure what he was driving at.
“Oh, he’s got the technique,” said Eitan, “I’ll give him that. But his playing is phoney. And Mr. Alfredi thinks he’s a world-class violinist. What does Mr. Alfredi know? He didn’t even make it into the orchestra.”
I felt a strong urge to tell Eitan about my decision to stop taking lessons, but I was afraid Mr. Alfredi would find out, and I didn’t want to arouse his displeasure until the last possible moment.
“Ugh, the violin,” I said, “You call that an instrument? Two bodies rubbing together, producing a whiney caterwaul.”
Eitan gaped at me as if he hadn’t heard right or had ascribed some fantastic meaning to my words. Still, he seemed to accept my statement as confirmation of his own.
We had walked almost as far as my house when Eitan suddenly stopped and said, “I walked you to your house, now you walk me to my house.” Eitan lived in the neighborhood near the railroad tracks, clear on the other side of the moshava. I didn’t understand what he wanted from me. I thought he was joking. I looked at his face and he seemed perfectly serious, and the sly gleam in his eyes had also vanished.
“But I have to go home now. They’re waiting for me, they’ll worry,” I lied.
“Never mind,” said Eitan, “it’ll only take fifteen minutes, come on, it’ll be all right.”
“No, I can’t,” I said.
We stood there in the road with our violin cases, and neither of us would budge. It wasn’t so late, and I didn’t really mind walking him home, but a certain spiteful stubbornness came over me, maybe because he seemed so eager, or maybe because I had always been suspicious of him. Eitan looked this way and that. He suddenly crouched down and dropped his violin case in the middle of the road. Then he stared straight at me. There was an enigmatic look in his eyes. It took me years to figure out the significance of that look. He took a few steps backward and said, “I don’t care, I’m leaving it here, and if any thing happens, you’re responsible, because you’re supposed to walk me home, and you refused, so just remember, if anything happens to my violin, it’s all your fault!”
This was utterly astonishing. He actually left his violin case in the middle of the road, turned his back on me, and walked away. I didn’t know what to do. If I touched it, then it was my responsibility, as he said. But unless I moved it over to the curb where it wouldn’t get run over, something terrible might happen. This was so disturbing that I bent over to pick it up, but Eitan who veered around with amazing alacrity, saw me and ran up to move his violin back to the middle of the road.
“Don’t you dare touch it, you hear? It isn’t yours; you have no right to touch it. It isn’t yours! If anything happens to my violin, it’ll be all your fault, because you broke your promise!”
“I never promised you anything,” I protested.
His face was twisted with rage or pain. I was afraid he would strike me, but he only said, “Come on, walk me home, what do you care? I’m asking you, please. I’ll tell you all kinds of things.”
With sudden foresight, I realized that my only way out of this predicament was to make a run for it, and leave him standing in the middle of the road with his violin. Then it would be his responsibility. And as I ran home, I could hear him calling after me. “Just remember, it’ll stay here all night long, and if anything happens it’s all your fault, damn you!”
I got home panting for breath, hoping he hadn’t followed me to prolong this absurd argument. A few minutes later, though, I started worrying that maybe he really had left his violin in the middle of the road. His behavior had certainly been unusual for such a smart aleck. No one else I knew had ever behaved like that. I sneaked out to look for him. It wasn’t dark yet, and I could see far into the distance, but there was no sign of him or his violin. I was afraid he might be laying in ambush for me, so I edged along our fence, waiting for him to spring out at me from the neighbor’s yard. But time passed and nothing happened. I took courage and advanced into the open, but still there was no sign of him. I stopped in front of Yoram’s house, under the row of tall Casuarina trees, and strained my eyes to see to the end of the road. There were people walking there, but Eitan wasn’t among them. I figured that as soon as I left, he had picked up his violin case and gone straight home. But instead of being relieved at the thought, I was shocked at it. True, I was only a boy, but I was old enough to understand what I had done, and I was overcome with guilt and remorse.
I remember the pain that went through me then, and the shame of my betrayal. I didn’t know what to do with it. Where did these evil impulses come from? It hurt so bad I turned my face away so no one would see me if I started crying. I was frightened, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do now; I just knew that whatever it was must be done immediately. This kid I had seen only a few times in my life and to whom I had never given a second thought loomed so fatefully now, I felt utterly paralyzed. “Remember, you’re responsible!” his voice rang in my ears. I had never felt so responsible before. I stood with my back to the road, facing the bushes in front of Yoram’s house.
I tried out various excuses to justify myself and prove that he was crazy—lame excuses that paled in comparison to my shame and misery. Whatever I put forth in self-defense was countered by the enigmatic look on his face as he lay his violin down in the middle of the road. It was a look that scourged me, lash after lash. In my self-absorbed state, I hadn’t heard his cry for friendship. If I had been more sensitive, he would never have gone to such lengths. I despised myself then as I always do when I realize, too late, that someone is asking for my help and friendship. Maybe I’m deficient in the intuitive ability to sense the secrets, the obliquely hinted implications of another heart.
During those painful and humiliating moments, as I leaned against the trunk of one of the tall old trees, not knowing where to turn or what to do, I wondered how I would ever make amends. I wanted nothing better than to stand before him with downcast eyes and say I was sorry, so very sorry for the wrong I’d done him. And the more I groveled, the more humiliated I would be and the pain of this self-lashing would diminish my shame. At the time it would have been impossible to show emotions of this sort. They were too private, they could not be shared. He had to forgive me, it was the only way. Even if he forgot the whole incident, I would remain in this state of misery until he forgave me. I had to see him. I had to see him now. I had to see what he was doing.
This growing need to see him was my only hope to escape from under the tall trees where I had been standing for heaven knows how long. I finally tore myself away and set off in the direction of the neighborhood by railroad tracks.
I hoped to reconnoiter his neighborhood till I spotted him in the window or maybe outside in his yard. I would see what he was up to, but he wouldn’t see me. It was growing dark as I carried my burden of guilt up the road, and I vividly remember the fresh smell of dust on that dismal summer evening. I felt a sudden dread as I arrived at the railroad tracks and the unpaved road with little houses on either side, and black wooden sheds, and giant eucalyptus trees. I hoped I might hear a violin somewhere. Maybe he was drowning his sorrows in music, and that way, I would be able to find his house. Looking up at the dimly lit windows, I searched the neighborhood, but could not find him. Didn’t he go home? Where was he? My guilt had grown unbearable as I wandered up and down. Finally I decided to call it quits, overwhelmed with compassion for my own sufferings.
I walked home slowly. The more I piti
ed myself, the less I suffered the agonies of remorse. To distract myself from the looming specter of Eitan I pictured myself as a tortured penitent. It was a contest, and the advantage shifted back and forth.
I dreaded meeting Eitan at the recital. In a small room that usually served as the office of the Histadrut Cultural Auditorium, we unpacked our cases. Mr. Alfredi was nervously giving out last-minute instructions. A few pale pupils tuned their instruments and rosined their bows. In the corner of the room, his back resting against a desk, stood Eitan, looking much the same as he always did. The shifty smile was back and his eyes were agleam with it. I wasn’t sure I ought to speak to him. Would he look my way? What would he say to me? But the discovery that, outwardly at least, he hadn’t changed in any way was a big surprise. I didn’t know whether this made me happy or sad. Had he only been testing me? Maybe it was just one of his pranks and he’d forgotten all about it by now. Or was he inwardly seething but trying to save face? As I stood in the doorway, he smiled his usual blank, conniving smile. I didn’t have the nerve to approach him. I put my violin down and hurried out to sit with my parents in the auditorium.
“You aren’t even nervous,” said Mother. “That isn’t a good sign. You don’t care. You don’t care about anything anymore.”
Yoram’s mother walked into the auditorium and Mother followed her with her eyes. When the gray-headed lady had seated herself, Mother whispered something inaudible to Father. I knew it had to do with Yoram’s mother. Father nodded in reply and stared at the woman’s back. What did they know about what went on at Yoram’s house that I didn’t know? I could only scratch the surface of things, but their roots lay hidden from me.
After the recital, on our way home, I cautiously mentioned to my parents that I was thinking of quitting my violin lessons, temporarily, of course, so that I could devote more time to my studies at the Gymnasia. I thought I saw Father smiling to himself in the dark as if he’d foreseen all this. Mother pretended to be shocked but I could tell they didn’t really object.