Hold on to the Sun

by Michal Govrin

  Back in Paris: The clear sky, department-store advertising instead of propaganda slogans. Quiet. The silence of the room. And that drawn orbit of where you two are so close at hand. “Flesh of my flesh.”

  Beloved father and mother, I press you to my heart, and once again am gathered in your arms.

  LA PROMENADE, TRIPTYCH

  PART I

  “For the time being we can rest here,” said Monyek Heller when they reached the bench at the edge of the beach. “It’s nice here, opposite the ocean.” And the soft sound of the Polish words in his mouth was accompanied by an interrogative lilt.

  “Fine, fine.” Lusia Taft nodded, the same little smile on the face of her short body expressing part submission, part uncertainty, and part effort to convey thanks.

  “We can wait here for the others to arrive,” said Monyek, hastily pulling a large handkerchief from the pocket of his light-colored suit and sweeping it over the bench before indicating to Lusia, with a ceremonious flourish, that she should sit down.

  He smoothed his pants and sat, straightened his slender back, crossed his legs, and placed his hands one on top of the other on his right knee. Then he raised his chin and surveyed the broad beach, which was covered with mist and bedecked with a string of little flags at the water’s edge, dancing in the breeze in the distance.

  Lusia carefully straightened the skirt of the suit she had had specially made for the voyage and sat down on the light green bench. A woman has to try to look her best, and she set her bulky purse down neatly, next to the knees peeping out of her skirt.

  “A beautiful day,” said Monyek, and he went on looking at the ocean lying motionless at the bottom of the slope, as if it had been put to sleep by the mist that had shrouded the oceanside resort all day long.

  “Yes, a beautiful day,” confirmed Lusia.

  And they sat for a moment without talking, gazing in front of them at the ocean.The white sand came all the way up to the bench, penetrating the little holes in the weave of Monyek’s leather loafers and sticking to the heels of Lusia’s broad shoes. Monyek straightened his hands neatly on top of his right knee and Lusia held her full body a little more erect than necessary.

  “Really, everything is beautiful here,” she suddenly announced shifting in her place. “I don’t know how to thank . . . ”

  “No need, really, no need.” Monyek Heller drummed with the fingers of his right hand, and the signet ring on his finger glittered.

  “The beach is so big,” continued Lusia, a shade dramatically, turning her head from the glitter of the ring to the glint of the water at the edge of the beach. “After so many years a person forgets.”

  “Yes, yes,” replied Monyek, and after a while he added, “I’m a regular here every weekend from April to June, twelve years already. It’s good for my lungs. In the summer I go for the cure to Montecatini, and last winter I tried the baths at the Dead Sea. It was good. No question about it.” He shook his head slightly from side to side and then added, “And we met there too. That was also good.”

  They both smiled, as was only fitting at such a moment. Monyek patted Lusia’s right hand lightly with his left hand, after which he replaced it on his knee.

  “Very nice what they’ve built there. Every convenience.” Monyek recommenced.

  “Yes, yes, very grand,” replied Lusia in an animated tone, taking care to keep her purse upright.

  “No question about it, they’ve done great things there in Israel!” summed up Monyek.

  “No question about it,” replied Lusia.

  And neither of them had anything to add, especially since the country in question appeared no more real at that moment than the tiny figures of the bathers moving like dots at the edge of the water.

  “I didn’t ask yet how things are at the shop,” said Monyek, and his fingers resumed their drumming.

  “June isn’t the best time of the year for wool,” replied Lusia, “But as long as the shop stays open I’m not complaining.”

  “That’s right,” agreed Monyek.

  “A person needs a break every now and then. After a while you get tired—you know how that is. It isn’t easy with all that tension all the time,” said Lusia, and her heavy voice hovered in the air for a moment around the light green bench at the edge of the shore.

  Behind them rose the cliffs with the grand summer houses, preserving a nostalgic fin-de-siècle royalty in their ornate façades. And on the beach the white planks of the walkway led right down to the changing booths at the edge of the ocean.

  “No, it isn’t easy . . . ” repeated Lusia after a moment.

  “It isn’t easy,” said Monyek too, and after a while he asked, “It’s not too hot for you . . . ” He almost said “Mrs. Taft,” but thought the better of it and concluded on a more familiar note, “Lusia?”

  “No, it’s very pleasant here,” replied Lusia, and she went on to ask the question that was expected of her. “And how are things at the workshop?”

  “Could be worse. We did quite well this season.” said Monyek. “We’re busy with the new autumn models already. Plenty of worries, as usual, but for the time being, not bad at all.”

  He raised the hand adorned with the signet ring, tugged at the knot in his fine woolen tie, and straightened his crossed knee. Then he replaced his hand, and finally he let his knee fall back into its former position.

  “And why shouldn’t it go well?” he went on. “The children are fixed up. And ever since Rouzia died I try to do whatever the doctors say.”

  And after a short pause, during which he made a number of little pecking motions with his sharp chin, he said, “And now we can begin again together, no?”

  And the drumming of the fingers of his right hand on his left kept on moving the signet ring up and down.

  “Yes. There’s quite a lot in common,” said Lusia.

  “Nu,20 like we already agreed, wool and ladies’ wear go together quite well,” said Monyek with a laugh, uncrossing and recrossing his thin legs.

  Lusia laughed too, and then there was another silence which was not even oppressive, so peaceful was the expanse of sand receding into the water. For a moment Lusia lifted her orthopedic shoes out of the sand, and then she placed them back again.

  “Good afternoon to Mr. Heller and Mrs.—”

  “Taft!” cried out Monyek, making haste to rise to his feet and turning to face the roly-poly person approaching them along the esplanade at a pattering run. His full face, almost completely hidden behind his sunglasses, beamed all the way up to the crown of his bald head, and his whole appearance proclaimed he was on vacation: from the perforated white shoes hopping back and forth to the open mesh of the shirt flapping around his thighs and the white hairs peeping out from the broadness of his sunburnt chest.

  “Sitting on the beach, eh?” he called as he approached. “Just the two of you!” And a burst of heavy laughter rocked his body.

  “The lady is from Israel. From Tel Aviv,” said Monyek when the laughter of the holiday-maker had somewhat subsided.

  And Lusia turned herself around with the erectness appropriate to the occasion and held out her hand: “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Hirshel Feingold!” Monyek hurriedly announced.

  The latter skipped from his place and lowered himself rapidly over his round belly to Lusia’s hand. “The pleasure is mine entirely, mine entirely,” he said, and he went on, smacking his lips admiringly, “So, she’s from Israel? Very nice, very nice!”

  “This is Hirshel Feingold, who I already told you about,” said Monyek, as if for Lusia’s ears but loudly enough to let him know that his name had already been mentioned between them.

  “Oh ho! What did you tell her already?” cried Hirshel in mock alarm, and although he made a sign with his hand as if there were no need for them to tell, it was evident from his smile that he was waiting eagerly to hear.

  “Nu,” Monyek shrugged his shoulders in mock resignation. “I told Mrs. Taft a little about your business
interests on the international scale, your branches in Hamburg, New York, London, South Africa—nu, the whole list, more or less. Also how right after the war, while we were still in the DP camp, you already began making money in real estate and steel.”

  “Let’s not talk about it!” mumbled Hirshel Feingold, already shifting himself to the other side of the bench. And before Monyek had time to finish saying politely “Sit down with us, Hirshel,” Hirshel was already sitting and wiping the sweat from his brow with a pudgy hand. And leaning forward stiffly over his paunch he went on in the same breath, “They didn’t open La Promenade yet? It’s already after five! Everybody should be here in a minute. Henrietta’s arriving in a minute too. I left first. I couldn’t stand it any more shut up in those four walls. When we come here I always say: ‘You have to get the most out of the ocean air, and not stay shut up in your room!’”

  And after breathing in a noseful of the air, he turned to Lusia Taft and said, “So, the lady has come to us for a little rest?”

  Lusia was embarrassed, and Monyek began to mutter, “No, the lady . . . ”

  But Hirshel Feingold went on talking without waiting for a reply, “Nice, nice, very nice. And I’m just leaving next week for my hotel in Natanya! You know the Hotel Repose there? Not bad, eh? I put it up in 62. Nu, I’ve got some in Eilat and Nahariya too. We have to support the state, no? Not a bad living. But plenty of problems, as usual in Israel. Nu, so how can you do business with Jews already?” And he burst into laughter, which wobbled his shoulders, convulsed his belly and legs, and in the end set his hands shaking too, at first opposite each other and then clapping against each other. Monyek too hurried, if a little late, to join in the laughter and Lusia nodded her head after them.

  “Henrietta! So you came out at last!”

  Hirshel reared his head and waved his chubby hand at a tall woman in a narrow-skirted suit, who was limping toward them along the esplanade. Even from a distance it was evident that it was an effort for her to put one foot in front of the next, and it was clear that in spite of Hirshel’s explanations they had set out from the hotel together.

  “Come on, come on, meet some new people!” Hirshel went on calling out toward her, without rising from his seat.

  Lusia watched with pursed lips as the woman approached, and then she stood up and held out her hand. “Lusia Taft. Maiden name Mandelstein.”

  “Pleased to meet you. Henrietta Feingold,” replied the woman, and her handshake fell away.

  Monyek rose and bowed. “Hello, Mrs. Feingold.”

  And the haggard woman limped around the bench, passing close to her husband’s back in order to sit down in the empty place beside him. But before she got there Hirshel mentioned, “I saw Arlette riding on the beach!”

  And turning quickly back to Lusia and Monyek as if he were addressing an audience, he said, “Our daughter’s fantastic! She knows how to live!”

  “Arlette’s riding?!” cried Henrietta, and sat up in alarm.

  Hirshel dismissed her cry with a downward flap of his hand and was about to turn back to his audience when the sound of opening parasols was heard, and immediately afterward iron chairs being banged down on a terrace: At last La Promenade café had opened its doors for the afternoon service which, more than anything else in this oceanside town, was taken as supreme proof of the fineness of the weather.

  Hirshel Feingold leaped to his feet and said, “Over to La Promenade, everyone!”

  And he hopped off to make sure to get their regular corner on the terrace. Right behind him, Henrietta lifted her body from the bench and stumbled after with anxious concentration.

  Lusia Taft and Monyek Heller remained sitting where they were a moment longer, but Hirshel Feingold was already urging them on from the café terrace: “Monyek, Mrs. Taft. What’s the matter? What are you waiting for?”

  He himself was busy dragging the round iron tables together and waving chairs about in his short arms.

  “Coming! Coming!” called Monyek Heller in reply, and he went on sitting on the bench with Lusia Taft, facing the white sand and the little fleet of sailing boats whose solid bellies were cut out like blue silhouettes in the mist. In the end he bent over Lusia and offered her his arm.

  In the meantime Hirshel Feingold had completed his corner arrangements. The chairs stood untidily around the tables, as if at the end of a party. In the corner, next to the canvas partition that marked the boundary of the café premises, Henrietta sat erect, preoccupied, and silent. And as if to fill the vacuum left by her silence, Hirshel sent cries of encouragement toward Monyek and Lusia, who were coming up from the beach with heavy steps, and waved both hands at two couples who were approaching along the esplanade. “Over here! Over here!”

  Among the other people strolling up and down the esplanade, bordered on one side by the café façades and on the other side by the expanse of sand stretching into the mist and the ocean, there could be no mistaking the destination of the two couples who were making for the corner of the weekend regulars at the La Promenade café: The deliberate tread, the way in which the ladies gripped their purses as if they were travelling bags, the embarrassment with which the man at the right buried his hand in the pocket of his loose-fitting suit, or the determined air of well-being surrounding the checkered cap set jauntily upon the head of the man at the left.The latter approached arm in arm with his yellow-haired wife, the bright pink of whose outfit matched her husband’s vacation air. Next to them, the couple at the right appeared somewhat ill at ease.

  “I see we have new visitors today!” Hirshel Feingold declared happily.

  And the owner of the checkered cap hastily dropped his wife’s arm and pushed the new couple forward as he announced: “Mr. and Mrs. Harari from Ramat-Gan.”

  “Mrs. Taft from Tel Aviv.” Hirshel promptly took his turn as sponsor.

  And in the hubbub of greetings and handshakes filling the café terrace with Polish sounds, Monyek bent over to explain to Lusia, indicating the man in the checkered cap and the woman in the pink suit, “The Honigers, from Paris. In synthetic underwear. A first-class business.”

  Hirshel Feingold made impatient gestures with his hands. “Sit down, sit down!” he cried. “Why are you standing?” And he pointed at the circle of chairs placed chaotically around the tables.

  Mr. Honiger gallantly pushed the chair closest to him toward Mrs. Harari, whose gray hair was gathered into a bun behind her head. Mr. Harari drew in his legs and folded himself into the chair next to his wife. Mrs. Honiger sat down beside him like a genial pink chaperone. Last to be seated were Monyek Heller and Lusia Taft, and Lusia turned her chair carefully around so that she could see the shore from where she sat. Only Henrietta did not get up while all this was going on; she remained in her place next to the canvas partition in the corner. Mr. Honiger jumped quickly to his feet again and held out his hand to Henrietta over the tables. And Hirshel Feingold called out to the assembled company, “Nu, what’s everybody drinking?” He beckoned the waiter with a proprietary air.

  The waiter, who was apparently well acquainted with the weekend regulars, folded his hands across the white napkin over his arm and waited while Hirshel counted off the orders one by one:

  “Tea, coffee, lemonade,” and in the end he turned to Henrietta, who said, “I’ll have tea with lemon,” as if she were committing herself to a fateful decision.

  Hirshel sent the waiter off, and all agog at the new audience he turned toward them and made a number of unclear, agitated motions with his hands. In the end he burst into a long laugh of contentment.When he’d finally calmed down, and all the others too had finished signaling their participation in the mirth, Hirshel wiped the moisture from his forehead and said, “Nu, not bad here in Europe, eh?”

  Marek Harari nodded his dark, pointed head and lowered it with a smile. “For sure.”

  “Good, good,” continued Hirshel, without paying any attention. “Good, all this reminds me of the joke . . . ”

  But Gusta Harari
, who felt the need to add something to her husband’s words, leaned over to Henrietta and said full-throatedly, while Hirshel was still telling his joke, “We only came because of the Honigers. They insisted we come here on the way back to take a rest at their ocean resort.”

  And when Henrietta made no response, Gusta continued, turning to Lusia and smiling at her confidingly, “Otherwise how could we possibly have afforded it?”

  Hirshel burst out laughing, and his laughter was echoed automatically by Mr. Honiger and Monyek Heller. Marek too stretched his face in a grin, but his eyes remained sunken. And Henrietta, who had almost disappeared behind her husband’s gleefully agitated limbs, dismissed the joke with a pursing of her lips and shifted slightly in her chair.

  The waiter arrived with a nickel-plated tray loaded with jugs of tea and coffee and tall glasses of lemonade. He put the order down according to their instructions in front of the people seated around the table. Hirshel placed his thick hand on the tab and closed his fist around it.

  “It’s on me!” he cried.

  Mr. Honiger and Monyek Heller attempted to protest. Hirshel Feingold waved both his hands in the air and proclaimed again and again, “No arguments! It’s on me!”

  They all smiled in enjoyment and stirred their drinks. The mist on the beach thickened and brightened, almost hiding the glitter of the ocean from the eyes of the people sitting on the café terrace. A number of vacationers strolling along the esplanade turned their heads curiously at the sound of the hubbub.