The Loves of Judith

by Meir Shalev

  57

  ALL THAT TIME Judith kept on milking Rachel’s empty udders, and one day Bloch’s miracle happened and milk appeared. At first in a thin dripping and then in jets that grew stronger from day to day.

  “Like a real milk cow she’ll never give,” said Moshe.

  “The main thing is she’ll pay for the food you give her,” said Judith. “That’s what’s so important to you, isn’t it?”

  “Calves she won’t ever give, either,” Moshe persisted.

  When the rumor of Rachel’s milk reached Globerman’s ears, he wrote it down in his notebook, but he didn’t give up hope. He knew that Moshe couldn’t bear the weird cow, and he guessed correctly that he was a bit afraid of it, and he never passed up an opportunity to mention to him his wish to buy her.

  He was a wise man, and years of trading had endowed him with a subtle understanding of the human soul. He deciphered the minuscule signs of distress in a person’s neck, discerned the hidden spasms of the diaphragm, and read the cloud maps of the forehead.

  Those were hard times, and whenever he came to buy a cow, the livestock dealer also looked at the owner’s children. He saw the patches in their clothes and noticed the toes of their worn-out shoes cut out with a knife so that the growing child could wear them another season. He pulled a cookie out of his pocket and assessed the eagerness in their held-out hand.

  “Look,” he’d say, “all kinds of things they say about Globerman in the village, but what after all does Globerman do? Hocus-pocus I do. You look and see, here’s a cow, hocus-pocus, what comes from the cow? Three ten-pound notes.”

  Now, as winter approached, Globerman started commenting about the weather and about the heavy mud of the Valley and oy-oy-oy what rain and cold are in store for us this year, Rabinovitch, oy-oy-oy how much coats and boots for the kids cost.

  He talked about his own children, children no one had ever seen and no one knew if they really did exist, but all he had to say was the phrase “coats for the kids” and worry appeared on the farmer’s brow. Globerman saw it before the farmer felt it, and knew this was the time to pull out the knippl, hold it out, and riffle the bills.

  But Moshe feared Judith’s anger and she kept on milking Rachel’s parched udders and trying to get her in heat. On Uncle Menahem’s advice she brought her carobs to sweeten her food, and on Samson Bloch’s advice she even caressed her immodestly with a warm damp rag, on her rump and under her tail—in vain.

  “Bring her to Gordon for a few days,” Bloch finally suggested. “Let her look a little bit at my Krasovitch and maybe she’ll feel like it.”

  WHEN THE TWO of them arrived in his yard, Bloch came out of the shed in his rubber boots, smiling happily.

  “To me or to the bull?” he asked ingenuously.

  Mother couldn’t help smiling. “Is Shoshana at home?” she asked.

  “She’s in the hatchery.”

  “I’ll go to the kitchen and put on the kettle.”

  By the time Shoshana returned from the hatchery, Judith had already poured two cups of tea.

  “Did you ever see such beautiful chicks?” asked Shoshana. “We bought Sheinfeld’s incubators. All of a sudden he up and sold them.”

  Judith didn’t answer.

  “It’s very hard for him now, ever since his wife left.”

  Judith stirred the tea. Her eye was caught by the black leaves spinning in the cup.

  “And what’s with you, Judith?” asked Shoshana Bloch.

  “Everything’s fine,” said Judith.

  “Still in the cowshed?”

  “I feel good there.”

  “It’s not good for you,” said Shoshana. “And it’s not good for Rabinovitch, and it’s not good for the whole village.” She put her hand on my mother’s. “It’s not good, Judith. You’re not a young girl anymore. How much longer will you live alone in the cowshed?”

  “I feel good there,” repeated Judith.

  “Now you’re still strong and healthy. But what about in ten or twenty years from now? And the heart, Judith? And the womb? What about them?”

  “A nafka mina,” said Judith. “The heart is empty now, and the womb is used to it.”

  She drank another cup of tea, hugged Rachel’s neck in parting, told her she’d come back to get her in a week, and went to pay a brief courtesy call at Uncle Menahem’s.

  From there she returned home, her feet treading fast, to keep her from thinking.

  58

  FOR A WEEK Rachel stayed with Gordon, and didn’t get in heat. Once she wanted to break through to his fence, and Bloch, who was sure his plot had worked, quickly let her in there. But Rachel’s heart wasn’t set on love. She just wanted to spar with Gordon and almost brought him down. Only with jets of cold water did Bloch manage to get her out of there.

  “A waste of work and money,” he told Judith. “Boys don’t interest that girl. Take her back home and try milking a little more.”

  It was a winter day. There was no rain, but a flat gray rind covered the sky. Strong smells of crushed grass rose from the treading of the boots and the trampling of the hooves. Angry pairs of lapwings flew above them, rising and falling, splendid and violent at the sight of their black-and-white passing, with their hidden stilettos and their horrible, shrill shrieks.

  They crossed the wadi. The cow gulped the water, gasped with all her big, male body, and her nostrils exhaled steam into the cold air. Now and then she gently butted Judith’s thighs and back, as if prodding her to play, and Judith responded to her, tapped her on the neck, laughed, and ran beside her, but a stone lay in her chest and tears of cold and worry gathered in the corners of her eyes.

  Panting, they came to Sheinfeld’s row of walnut trees. The naked branches painted a delicate picture on the sheet of the sky, and the dark blocks of the crows’ nests were visible in them like brush drippings on the canvas. Beyond them appeared the tall figure of Globerman, striding along and singing in a loud, confident voice.

  The dealer noticed them, stopping singing, waved his baston, lopping off the purple head of a brier. He smiled because he knew that nothing would prevent the encounter.

  Judith, who was furious for the very same reason, stood still. All her old loathing stirred in her. Outside the framework of the weekly drinking in the cowshed, Globerman was still as dangerous and as filthy to her as always.

  The dealer approached until a dozen steps separated them, and then he stopped, peeled the filthy beret off his head, pasted it onto his chest, and bowed.

  “Lady Judith … the calf Rachel … what a surprise … what an honor for a poor dealer.”

  “Were you following me, Globerman? Who told you I was here?”

  “A little bird told me.” Globerman smiled. “When Lady Judith leaves the village, the wind stops blowing, the birds stop singing, men stop breathing.…”

  He pulled a little package out of his pocket and held it out to her: “A little something for you. For two lovely ears. Oyringlakh of pure gold.”

  “I never asked you for anything and I don’t like your gifts,” said Judith. “I’m willing only to drink with you, Globerman, once a week, and that’s all.”

  Rachel swayed her thick neck, snorted, and dug her hoof in.

  “Never does any lady have to ask Globerman for anything. Globerman always knows himself, all by himself, and from the start, what suits every lady, period.”

  He bent over, and with his outstretched hand, held the earrings to her, but Judith didn’t stretch out her hand to take them and Globerman smiled to himself. “Where is Lady Judith going? Did you take the calf for a walk?”

  “She’s in heat.”

  “She’s in heat?” sneered the dealer. “She’s in heat? That cow isn’t in heat and won’t be in heat. Just look at her, Lady Judith. She’s got the body of a male calf and the punim of a male calf and the feeslakh of a male calf. In the end, they’ll still have to call Globerman, God forbid, eh? And then you’ll see, after we slaughter her and take her apart, that in
side her she’s also got two balls of a male calf.”

  He approached Rachel, who bent her thick neck menacingly, but retreated.

  “She smells Globerman like an old man smells the Angel of Death,” said the dealer. “Did you ever see an old man a few days before he dies, Lady Judith? How restless he gets, walking around the house like a mouse, sniffing in corners, doesn’t sleep? Look at her. She’s now smelling something we can’t feel. Signs we can’t understand. That’s how an old man is before death, when he’s like an animal that wants to be alone, and that’s also how a woman is two or three days before giving birth, when she suddenly starts cleaning up the whole house, and that’s also how it is when they smell the Angel of Death.”

  And suddenly the dealer took a step forward, flung out his hand, and ran it over Rachel’s back, with his hynotic “tappen” movement, examining how thick the flesh was between the vertebrae and the skin.

  The touch of his hand set off a cold chill in the backs of both of them.

  “Oy-oy-oy, that’s the best meat in the world,” the dealer chanted a chant of longing. “There’s no better meat in the world than the meat of a barren cow. Even the best chefs in Paris don’t know that. Only we, who were born on the butcher block, know that. What they don’t, all those dummies in restaurants with their white hats. They season, straighten, soften, feed the cow with all kinds of spices, I heard that in Japan they even give the kelbelakh beer to drink, and in France they give them a bath with cognac. And there’s only one thing they don’t know. That that’s the meat fit for a king, period. A barren heifer, a tsvilling of a calf, with the body of a male and the smell of a baby that will never be in heat, and they’ll never jump on her, and she’ll never give birth.”

  From the east, the big flock of starlings appeared, returning from the fields to their night’s lodging in the big trees next to the water tower.

  “Here they are,” said Judith. “It’s quarter to five now. I’ve got to go.”

  Like a mighty disk that measured a quarter of the sky, the flock flew and whirled, became a gigantic cloth, and turned over. A string branched out of it and pulled it into a broad ribbon that wrapped around itself and became a gigantic sail. Myriads of wings and beaks set up a wave of noise. The air shook and turned dark.

  “That cow you’ll never get, Globerman,” said Judith.

  “All cows come to the dealer in the end,” said Globerman.

  “Not this cow,” said Judith. “This cow is mine.”

  “We’re all yours, Lady Judith.” Globerman put on his hat and started bowing and stepping backward. “We’re all yours and we’ll all come in the end. Everyone to his dealer and everyone to his slaughterer.”

  59

  SO HOW COME I fell in love with her, you ask? Come on, ask, Zayde, and I’ll answer you. ’Cause in a village like this, where the work is always the same work, and the mud is the same mud and the same sweat and the same milk and rain, where everything is always the same thing, so not to fall in love with her? Every year the same thing. Again the sprout sprouts and the flower flowers, and again crops and slops, and lopping and chopping, and summer and winter, and to a place like this a woman comes all of a sudden, so if you ask me how come I fell in love with her, I’ll ask you a question back: is this a life for a Jew? They took us out of the synagogue where the prayers and commandments are all the time the same thing, and they took us to the Land of Israel and to this Kfar David and here, too, it’s all the same thing, and very fast I understood the principle here, that today and yesterday and tomorrow are as alike as brothers, and like a bird I fell into the trap. Eat, Zayde, eat, you don’t have to stop eating to listen, that’s what’s good about a meal, that you can eat and also listen. It’s not the hard work that bothered me, and waiting didn’t bother me, either. I, bless God, from a very young age have been working, and patience I’ve got enough for ten men, to work for love all Jacobs know. Years are like a few days in our eyes. And somebody who waited for love like I did, he’s also got enough patience for horses and geese and trees and rain and mainly for time. ’Cause patience for time, that’s what’s important, not patience for each other and not for love and not for work and not for nothing else, just patience for time. Both for time that goes in a circle, like the seasons of the year, and for time that goes in a straight line, like a person’s age. But there will never be oranges in summer here and no rooster will ever lay eggs and no hen will ever give pears. At most, sometimes it will be a little hotter, or sometimes there’ll be a little more rain. And the Village Papish, who I never agreed with about anything, and he thinks I’m an idiot and I think he’s a sage and both of us are quite wrong, so the Village Papish, two years after we came here, he said: What’s going on here, comrades? What kind of life is this? How long can you see every year at the same season on the same tree the same yellow lemons? Like a joke he said that, but in fact it’s a very sad thing. Once Globerman told me how he saw in Nahalal two women guests from the city standing at a pen of big calves. Standing and looking, excuse me, where in a grown calf there’s something to see. They stood there and looked and finally one of them opens her mouth and asks: And what do they do with the milk from the calves? What do you say about such a thing, Zayde? Well, after all the villagers finished laughing, the second city woman wanted to show how much she did understand, so she says to her: What a dummy you are, they don’t have milk yet because they’re still small. Funny, eh? I see you’re laughing, so I’m gonna tell you something, Zayde—you laugh, but that story is really sad and not so funny. ’Cause you can stand on your head all day long, the calf ain’t gonna give milk. And sometimes some calf is born with two heads or a chicken with four legs, and right away there’s a fuss, people come, take pictures, ask who-what-why, and the four eyes are already closed, and the two heads have already fallen, and the poor little kelbel is already dead, and his two little souls, poof, gone, each one from its little head, and all the visitors, too, poof, gone, and everything in its place, poof, came back safe, and what was under the sun, like what I told you, poof, it is also what it’s gonna be. So you ask me how come I fell in love with her?”