by Неизвестный
I shall apparently leave these regions in complete anonymity.
The garden, however, makes a bad impression on the buyers. Weeds and mires. The boy refuses to touch a spade. I therefore take up the gardening tools myself and every day I weed out some of the boldest specimens and cover the puddles with them.
A farewell party at the office in my honor. All the office employees were assembled an hour before closing time. Cakes served, glasses raised. I was eulogized at great length. I even saw tears in some eyes.
No one mentioned my poetry, as though to avoid hurting my feelings. Finally, a parting gift: an oil painting, a murky sea.
I start packing my bags. Much vacillation in front of the bookcase. What shall I take, what leave? I send off urgent letters to my sons-in-law regarding the boy’s fate. I engage them in telephone conversations, prevail upon them to act. Finally they make an appointment to meet me at a café in town. Beside a small table they unfold their plans. They have looked around and made inquiries and finally found an old artisan in a Jerusalem suburb, a bookbinder who has consented to take on the boy as apprentice. He will be provided with his meals and sleeping quarters. The man used to have just a child himself, and it died of an illness. He has, however, laid down one condition: should the boy fall ill, he will be returned at once. Like a seizure or something of that kind.… On this point they were inexorable: they will not care for him in sickness.
The sons-in-law have therefore made further investigations and found a lone old woman, a few houses away from the bookbinder, who will be prepared to accept him when ill. Against a remuneration, of course. Well, and that is all. I must put my signature to both.
And they come out with papers.
I sign at once. Yet a rage flares up in me while I do.
“As far as seizures and sickness are concerned, your trouble was unnecessary. You know he isn’t one of those. He’s a borderline child… . I’ve said as much countless times… . But you just don’t want to hear it… . Oh well, let it go.”
My sons-in-law collect the documents, except for one copy, which they leave with me. They gulp the last of their coffee, give me a kindly smile.
“See, and you thought we weren’t looking after you… . ”
The day after I sign again, this time to transfer the house to a buyer found at last. When all is said and done, I have received a reasonable sum for it, and that just for the lot, since the house itself is going to be demolished.
The furniture has been sold as one lot. Three workmen appeared one day at dusk and began clearing the house of its furniture. Everything was taken except two mattresses. They even pulled the desk from under him while he sat writing at it. He was outraged. He prowled about the house, his papers fluttering white in his arms. A few slipped to the floor, and by the time he noticed, one of the workmen was already picking them up to wrap the lampshades in. He threw himself at the man with all the strength of his heavy bulk. Tried to get his teeth into him.
It has struck me that dusk is a time when his senses are overcome by a heavy stupor.
Bank notes are filling my drawer. I obtain no more than a quarter of the things’ value, but even so the money piles up. I’d like to sell everything, and what I can’t sell I give away. I have been forcing loads of books on my friends. Were the boy a little less occupied he would sell to his hawkers what I throw out.
We have even been making incursions into the cellar of late and dredged up old clothes, brooms, more books, manuscripts—my own and others’—trivia, simulacrums and crumbs and fables. A cloud of dust hovered on the cellar steps for three whole days.
I told my cafe friends: here, this is how a man cuts his bonds.
In addition to all this, I still pay regular visits to the tiny harbor of this big town in order to whip up a wanderlust. Wrapped in my overcoat, umbrella in hand, I wander among the cranes, sniffing salt and rust, trying to strike up a conversation with the sailors. I am still deliberating where to go. At first I had considered Europe as my destination, then thought of the Greek islands. I had already entered into negotiations with a Turkish ship captain regarding the Bosphorus when I went and bought, for a ridiculous price, a round-trip ticket on a freighter sailing the sea between this country and Cyprus. I went on board the ship myself and rapped my stick against the door of my prospective cabin.
This journey will be something of a prelude. Afterward we shall sail away again, farther away.
My son writes on throughout, writes standing as though in prayer. His papers are scattered on the windowsill, which serves him as a desk. Beside them lies a small dictionary, which he has rescued from the debacle. When I look at him, the thought strikes me: why thus, just as he is, he may go and sleep with a woman. And who knows? Perhaps he already has—
He has not yet taken in the fact of my retirement, my impending departure. He is intent on his own. It was difficult enough to tear him away, one afternoon, and make him accompany me to Jerusalem to see the old bookbinder.
It was a gentle winter day, cloudy but no real rain. In Jerusalem we found the old bookbinder waiting for us at the bus station with a rundown commercial van, unbound books slithering about in the back. He took us to a suburb of the town, to the slope of a narrow, tree-tangled valley very close to the border. He motioned us into the house in silence, and in silence his wife received us. Tea and cakes were served and we were made to sit by the table forthwith.
I was very pleased with them—
They scrutinized the boy carefully. Hard to say that he pleased them, but they were visibly relieved, having expected worse. Slowly, hesitantly, conversation began to flow between us. I learned to my surprise that the bookbinder had heard of my name and was, moreover, certain that he had read something by me (for some reason he thought I wrote prose). But that had been so long ago, nearly twenty years.
Truth to tell, I was gratified—
Wind rustled without. A samovar murmured on the table (such quaint habits). There is a large tree in the bookbinder’s garden too, older even than ours, its trunk gnarled. Winter twilight was fading beyond the window, gray tinged by a flaming sunset. Intimations of borderland. He was sitting frozen by my side, an oversized adolescent, the cup of tea full in front of him, the cake beside it untouched. Sitting there hunched, his eyes on the darkening window. Not listening to our talk. Suddenly he pulls a sheet of paper, black with lines of lettering, out of his pocket, smoothes it out in front of him, slowly writes a single word, and folds it up again.
Our conversation breaks off. The bookbinder and his wife look at him in amazement.
With a half-smile I said, “He writes…”
They did not understand.
“He is a poet.”
“A poet…” they whispered.
Just then it began to rain and the sunset kindled the room. He was sitting near the window, his hair aflame.
They stared at me with growing disbelief. And he, pen dropping between his fingers, passes his eyes over us in a pensive glance.
I said to the bookbinder: “He’ll publish a book of poetry. You can bind it for him.”
The bookbinder is completely at a loss. Am I making fun of him? At last a doubtful smile appears on his face.
“Sure. He’ll publish a book. We’ll bind it here, together we will.”
“For nothing?” I continue the joke.
“For nothing.”
I stood up from my chair.
“All right, it’s a bargain. D’you hear?”
But he hasn’t.
(On our way out the bookbinder and his wife pulled me into a corner of the hall and reminded me in a whisper of that part about sickness, or seizures…reminded me that they would not be responsible in such event. I put their minds at rest.)
We went out. The bookbinder could not take us back to the station because the headlights of his old car did not function. We therefore took our leave of him and of his wife and started walking along the road under a soundlessly dripping sky. He was in a state of complet
e torpor, almost insensible. Dragging his feet over the asphalt. We arrived at the bus stop, stood between the iron railings, the iron roof over us. Housing projects all about, bare rocks, russet soil. A hybrid of town and wasteland. Jerusalem at its saddest, forever destroyed. However much it is built, Jerusalem will always be marked by the memory of its destruction.
I turned to him and the words came out of my mouth pure and clear.
“The bookbinder and his wife are very good people. But you will have to behave yourself.”
He kept silent. Someone rode past on a bicycle, caught sight of the boy’s face and turned his head back at once.
Full darkness now. Lights went on in the building projects. We were standing under the awning, the two of us utterly alone. Suddenly I said:
“I had a glimpse of that page and saw—there’s a poem there. See, you were able to write by yourself. You did not need me.”
He raised his eyes to me, and remained silent.
I drew nearer to him, very near.
“Show me the poem.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“You’ll tear it up…”
“No, no, of course I won’t… .
And I stretched out my hand to take the page. But he shrank back. I meant to use force but he raised his arms to defend himself. This time he would have hit me.
Again someone passed on a bicycle. From the distance came the rumble of the bus.
It had been the last word of his poem.
I did not know.
That was three days ago—
So terrible this season. The windows are covered with mist or frost. I cannot recall such a hard winter before. This lasting leaden gray, day and night, deepening yet toward dawn. Who’s that in the mirror? It’s still me. A furrowed stone. Only the eyes stand out, glittering, amazingly alive.
I am about to leave. I have missed one boat, another is awaiting me. I have only to stuff the last things into the cases, fold the towels, pick up the money and be off. We have been living here on mattresses a full fortnight by now; and the new owner comes and looks at us every day. The man is reaching the end of his patience. He hovers about me in despair, waiting for me to be gone. Yesterday he even threatened me with a lawsuit. He has bought the house with his last pennies. He has his dreams.
Indeed, I must linger no more. I must send the boy to Jerusalem, to the old bookbinder waiting for him by the border. There must be no more lingering. For the boy is forever roaming about these nights. He has stopped writing. Yesterday I waited up for him till after midnight and still he had not come. He returned but shortly before the break of dawn. His steps woke me.
The balcony door creaks under my fingers. The floor is wet, strewn with broken leaves and branches, aftermath of the storm. A cold hopeless sky. A silent drizzle and the first light. This large and so familiar universe silently dripping here before me. The leaves in the tree rustling.
Was there no desire in me to write? Did I not long to write? But what is there left to write about? What more is there to say? I tell you: it is all a fraud. Look, even our poplar is crumbling. Its bark is coming off in strips. The colors of the garden have faded, the stones are gathering moss.
To be driven like a slow arrow to the sky. To sprawl on the cotton clouds, supine, back to earth, face turned to the unchanging blue.
Pensioned-off poet that I am—
It is pouring now. Drops splash over me. I dislodge myself and retrace my steps, A bleak silence over the house, the faint wheeze of a snore drifts through it. I go up to his room, night clothes trailing behind me. My shadow heavy on shut doors.
He is sleeping on a mattress too. His nightlight is on the floor by his head. He still cannot fall asleep without his eternal light. The slats of his shutter are slicing constant wafers of dawn light.
I look down silently upon the sleeper at my feet. When I turn to leave the room I suddenly notice some newspaper sheets strewn on the floor by his mattress. Terror grips me. I bend down at once, gather them up. The pages are still damp, the fresh ink smudges my fingers. I go over to the window, to the faint first light.
A supplement of one of the light, impudent tabloids. And the date—today’s, this day about to break. I turn the pages with dead hands. Near the margin of one I discover the poem: crazy, without meter, twisted, lines needlessly cut off, baffling repetitions, arbitrary punctuation.
Suddenly the silence deepens. The sound of breathing has died. He opens his eyes, heavy and red with sleep. His hand fumbles for the spectacles by his mattress. He puts them on, looks at me—me by the window. And a soft, appealing smile, a little sad, lights up his face.
Only now I notice. It is my name plastered across the top of the poem, in battered print.
About the Editors
Gershon Shaked was Professor of Modern Hebrew Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and taught at Harvard, the University of California, The Hebrew Union College, Jewish Theological Seminary, and the University of Johannesburg. He was born in Vienna in 1929 and emigrated to Israel in 1939. A leading scholar and critic, Professor Shaked wrote the standard History of the Modern Hebrew Novel (2 vols.) as well as numerous articles on Hebrew drama, poetry, and fiction. Among his dozen or more books are The Narrative Art of S.Y. Agnon and Dead End: Studies in Brenner, Berdichevsky, Shoffman and Gnessin. He died in 2006.
Alan Lelchuk was on the faculty of Brandeis University for fifteen years and, in 1982–83, Visiting Writer at Amherst College. Born in Brooklyn in 1938, he was educated at Brooklyn College, Stanford University, and the University of London, and received his Ph.D. in literature from Stanford in 1965. He is the author of three widely-translated novels, American Mischief, Miriam at Thirty-Four, and Shrinking. His short stories and literary criticism have appeared in leading magazines and periodicals (e.g., The Atlantic, New American Review, Sewanee Review, New York Review of Books, and The New York Times Book Review). In 1971–72 he was associate editor of Philip Rahv’s quarterly, Modern Occasions. In 1976–77 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction and, while a Guest Resident at Mishkenot Sha’ananim in Jerusalem, met Gershon Shaked and began this anthology.
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