Two She-Bears

by Meir Shalev

  Because that is the voice of the Angel of Death—

  Like the whisper of a snake.

  “A little closer, don’t be afraid,

  Closer…closer…

  Enough, now stop.

  And explain—what’s going on here?”

  “It’s just a game,” Neta said.

  “I’m just playing now,

  It’s great that you came,

  We can play together.”

  9

  “Play together?” whispered the Angel of Death. “You and me? You’re dying to play, I can see.”

  “For sure,” said Neta, “we’ll play, we’ll dress up, it’s really fun.”

  “I don’t play games,” said the Angel of Death, “not together and not alone.”

  And he got angry: “And now, because of you, people don’t take me seriously.”

  And he complained: “They think I’m only a boy who masqueraded as me without permission.

  “And now excuse me, Neta, I have a lot of work to do.”

  10

  “Hey,” said Neta,

  “You know my name?”

  “Of course,” said the Angel of Death.

  “I know names,

  And I know dates,

  And I know addresses,

  This address too.”

  “How come?” asked Neta.

  “I have been here before and I am a very organized angel.

  So don’t do anything else foolish, and till next time, goodbye and see you again.”

  And he disappeared,

  As if he were never there,

  And would never be again.

  And only the words remained:

  “Next time,”

  And “been here before,”

  And “Neta,”

  And “see you again.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  THE BIRTH

  1

  A few days before the birth two women came to the moshava, got down from the wagon that had slowly made its way through the swamps, and continued on foot through the fields.

  At first they looked like a large dot and a small dot, and then like two human figures, an adult and a child, to judge from their size, or two adults, to judge from their pace, and finally turned out to be two middle-aged women, one tall and skinny and broad-shouldered and the other small and chubby, and despite their very different clothes, skin tone, walk, and bodies—the bigger one was the mother of the woman giving birth, and the smaller was a Bedouin midwife from Wadi al-Tamasih—they resembled each other: both were jolly and talkative, both had thick hands and eyes spaced widely apart. Clearly the trip and its purpose had drawn the two women close, and they exchanged looks and gestures and burst into shared laughter that an outside observer would find inexplicable and secretive.

  Neither of them, as it turned out, was needed. For although this was a first child, the birth went easily and quickly, as if the mother had known that the real suffering would come only later. She didn’t even scream. She only moaned from the labor, and sweat poured from her forehead. Perhaps she wanted no one to hear her and realize what was happening. And perhaps she didn’t feel pain because she, like her husband, knew the child wasn’t his, and she was filled with a deathly fear that suppressed all other feeling.

  She didn’t think about the sex of the newborn, because she was sure it would be female, or about its health and weight or about becoming a mother but only about him, her husband, and what he would do now.

  With a final moan the baby slid into the hands of the midwife, and the new grandmother smiled and said, “Mazal tov, Ruth. You were right, it’s a girl. You have to pick a name for her.” And Ruth, the mother, said, “I haven’t thought about a name yet, Mama,” and suddenly whispered, “No, not yet, the name can wait,” and called out, “She shouldn’t cry yet, Mama, she shouldn’t scream! The midwife shouldn’t slap her!”

  But the midwife’s experienced hand had already landed, automatically, on the tiny buttocks, and the baby girl burst into the first cry of a newborn, which nothing can stop or weaken, and a moment after her voice was heard came a mighty blow, and the door was nearly knocked off its hinges from the weight and force of the woman’s husband, who broke into the room.

  The light of day broke in as well, outlining his dark body in the bright rectangle of the doorway, shining between his sturdy legs. His long shadow quivered on the wall above the bed.

  “You don’t have to barge in like that,” said Ruth’s alarmed mother. “In a few minutes we’d have invited you in.”

  And even as her heart told her it wasn’t so, her mouth spoke the words that are always spoken: “Mazal tov, Ze’ev, you have a new daughter.”

  Ze’ev—that was the name of Ruth’s husband—strode forward, and Ruth let out a terrible cry: “Give her to me! Give her to me!” and despite her pain sat on the bed and extended her arms. The midwife, who had already prepared a bowl of hot water and a wet diaper and a dry diaper, intending to clean and wipe and wrap, was frightened and handed her the baby as she was, dripping blood and birth fluids. But Ze’ev strode onward, grabbed the baby’s tiny thigh and snatched her away. And the little one, dangling upside down from his hand, fell silent at once, and a moment later burst out crying.

  With the baby in his hand, Ze’ev turned and went out into the yard. His mother-in-law, who knew nothing and did not understand what was happening, hurried after him, calling out: “What are you doing? You don’t hold a baby that way.” She raised her voice to a shout: “The baby has to nurse, give her back to her mother!”

  She was big and quick. In three paces she caught up with him and grabbed the edge of his coat, but Ze’ev whirled backward and shoved her to the ground and screamed one terrible scream: “No!”

  He went to the shed at the edge of the yard, the shed where for months he had slept alone, and placed the shrieking baby on his bed. He didn’t throw or drop her, but set her down softly and gently, the way a father sets down his baby. But he didn’t set her down that way out of fatherly love, but so she would not be harmed or injured, for he had designed a different fate for her during the long nights when he lay on that same bed, awake and hateful and planning revenge.

  2

  The baby shrieked. Ze’ev covered her and opened a tin box he had prepared before the birth, taking out bread and olives, a tomato and hard salty cheese, the long-lasting kind that is soaked in water, and set them on a wooden board.

  He also had two jugs filled with drinking water, some pita bread, vegetables, cans of sardines and meat, a jar of tahini, and a bottle of olive oil. All these he had prepared in advance, so he would not have to leave that place, and would have enough to eat.

  He picked up his rifle and wooden club, came out of the shed, locked the door, and sat down on a large wooden chest he had put there a few days earlier. No one at the time had understood its significance and no one knew what was inside, but now Ze’ev took out a big embroidered pillow and placed it on the chest, a pillow festooned with embroidered birds and flowers. Colorful and eye-catching, a pillow prepared for long and comfortable sitting.

  It was a day in spring. Ze’ev leaned the rifle and the club beside him, placed the wooden board on his lap, sat and ate and drank. The sun warmed his face, the air was aromatic with seasonal blooming, and the baby, inside the shed, shrieked and cried. The wooden walls of the shed did not muffle her voice, because the sound of a shrieking baby, hungry for food and human touch, is a piercing sound that can be heard even from afar.

  Ruth’s mother, back on her feet, paced around in the yard, helplessly wringing her hands, accosting him again: “What are you doing, Ze’ev? What’s going on? These are your baby and your wife, what’s going on?” She fell silent for a moment, and then went on: “The baby needs to nurse. She needs her mother…” And suddenly she grabbed his hand and pulled it and shouted: “Get up! Open up that shed now! I want to take her to her mother, this is my granddaughter. Do you hear me?!”

  Ze’ev took the wooden board fr
om his lap, put it aside, stood up, again threw his mother-in-law to the ground, and sat down on the embroidered pillow.

  “That’s right! This is your granddaughter!” he shouted. “But she’s not my daughter! She’s the daughter of another man! The child of adultery! A bastard!”

  “She’s only a baby, she’s not to blame. What did a newborn baby do to you? First let her nurse and eat, and then we’ll work out all the problems.”

  “She’s the child of a whore. She will scream and cry here. And you, and your daughter, and the whole moshava, will all know why and wherefore.”

  He filled his mouth with bread and cheese, took bites of olive and hot pepper, and chewed, and the mother got up, rushed out into the street, ran up and down, and shouted, “Help! Help me! He kidnapped the baby!”

  She was answered by Ruth’s screaming from inside the house, and several people hurried over and came with her into the yard. But when they saw Ze’ev Tavori sitting in front of the shed with his rifle, they went back to their homes. She again went into the street, ran shouting all the way down and back, and no one came to her aid. Here and there a face could be seen peeking from drawn curtains, here and there a door was shut, a back was turned. She hurried to the neighbor and found him in the cowshed, feeding and stroking a lovely Dutch calf born to a cow he had purchased at a bargain price, so he said, a few months earlier, arousing the envy of the entire moshava.

  “Come quick!” she cried, “Ruth gave birth to a girl and Ze’ev took her. He went crazy. He locked her in the shed and won’t let her nurse from her mother.”

  But the neighbor said to her, “Mazal tov. But we don’t stick the nose of one family into the affairs of another family.”

  “I beg of you! He hit me and he is killing his daughter,” she shouted. “She has to nurse. This way she’ll die.”

  “Are you so sure it’s his daughter?” asked the neighbor.

  Her mouth went mute. Her knees buckled. With difficulty she managed to retrace her steps, and Ze’ev grabbed her by the arm, led her to the house, pushed her inside at her daughter, dragged the midwife outside, and banished her in Arabic: “Fly home!” And she fled.

  Ze’ev locked the two doors of the house and all the windows and returned to the shed. He sat on the chest, his rifle in his hand and his club beside him, he sat by the door and waited.

  3

  That crying, which no one imagined would last a full week, was heard by the whole moshava. It heard, and hushed. People thought she would cry for a day or two until Ze’ev came to his senses and returned her to her mother. But the baby cried and cried, day after day, one day and two days and four and five, and the moshava heard and hushed, kept quiet and did not forget.

  And also saw: the man sitting on the big chest, the embroidered pillow, the rifle and the club, the locked door. Saw, heard, kept quiet, and did not forget. From inside the shed came the screams of the hungry baby, in desperate need of its mother’s milk and arms and warmth, and from the house came the crying and shouting of the young mother. At one point she burst out of the house, ran to her husband to attack him, and hit him, but he stood up and grabbed her by the back of the neck and dragged her to the house, weakened and pained by the birth and the fear and the guilt. No one from the moshava came to help her. She went into the house and sank into a deep sleep.

  The baby—she was unnamed—screamed and screamed. The moshava—which had a name and has one to this day—heard and hushed. But the cries of hunger and dying attracted the attention of the jaybirds living there.

  These birds, denizens of the nearby woods, had long since discovered the benefits of proximity to humans and, being bold and impudent, began visiting the new moshava, on the lookout for leftover food and fruit to steal, and as the trees planted by people’s homes grew taller, the birds built nests in them and raised a new generation. In no time they stopped fearing anyone and behaved like they owned the place: they shrieked, stole, bothered dogs and people, and learned as jaybirds do to imitate human screams, the wailing of cats, barking and whistling, and enjoyed the tumult they wrought.

  Now several of them arrived, perched in a nearby tree, listened to the screams of the baby, and after about half an hour began mimicking her voice. First, as if testing their strength, and then with complete accuracy. A few children threw stones at them, but they flitted from tree to tree, dodging every throw, shrieking the shrieks of the baby, so there was no escaping them. It seemed like she was screaming from every rooftop and treetop—and the moshava heard and hushed.

  On the third day, when the jaybirds came back and shrieked, Ze’ev shouldered his rifle and picked off two of them with two quick, precise shots. All their comrades flew off in a panic, and when they calmed down and returned he shot two more, and the rest of the jaybirds went away and did not return. From then on, all that could be heard were the screams of the dying baby in the shed, becoming ever weaker. On Shabbat afternoon, five days after the birth, they were replaced by a constant, feeble wailing, and when this too was heard no longer, the people of the moshava gathered near the fence and waited for new developments. Until that moment they had avoided the house and the street, and only one person had been there all along, that same neighbor, owner of the superb Dutch milk cow and the tender calf, who brought Ze’ev pots of hot tea and even pieces of cake, sat beside him like a dog beside his master, and kept watch while he dozed off for a few minutes or answered nature’s call.

  4

  The screams came to an end very slowly, and the moshava gradually fell silent. Ze’ev, his rifle on his lap, sat on his embroidered pillow with his eyes closed, the neighbor by his side, surveying the scene, the people in the street, some of them slowing their pace and some stopping and looking and waiting. A week had gone by, and it was clear to them that the horror would be over at any moment.

  The sun came up, shortening the shadow of the house on the wall of the shed, and when its rays struck his eyelids Ze’ev rose, went to the animals’ trough, and washed his face. He sat back down, and after half an hour had passed with no sound from the baby, he stood, took out the key, and unlocked the door and opened it. Before he could enter, one big final scream was heard. The jaybirds answered it from the woods in a terrible chorus of infant voices, screams came too from among the crowd, people shifted in place, but no one stepped forward and no one said a word.

  For a moment Ze’ev lurched backward as if he had been struck, but then recovered and walked in. After a few minutes he came out, carrying a sack in his right hand and in his left a shovel. He got on his horse and disappeared. After an hour he returned, went into his house while ignoring the crowd, seized Ruth’s mother by the arm and removed her from the house.

  “Go home,” he told her. “And you’d best keep quiet, so they won’t know back there too what kind of daughter you raised.”

  Ruth sat on the bed, didn’t budge and didn’t speak. After eating, Ze’ev went out to work and that night moved his bed from the shed to the house, set it in the kitchen, lay down, and waited.

  For a whole year the two lived in the same house, slept there night after night, and didn’t say a word to each other. Twelve months, day after day, Ze’ev rose before Ruth, prepared her breakfast of sliced vegetables, a piece of bread, olives and cheese, a hard-boiled egg, sometimes he even opened a can of sardines, left it on the table, and went to work. And every evening, when he finished his work, he came home, cleaned the kitchen, tidied the house, and once a week washed the floor. And every day Ruth left the house, and wherever someone was plowing or digging or boring a hole, she stopped and looked. Perhaps this was where her husband had buried her daughter.

  A year went by, until one night Ze’ev got out of his bed, entered Ruth’s room and her bed, took off his nightshirt and hers. She did not move a muscle or say a word. That same night she became pregnant with their elder son, and two years later with another, two boys who grew up and hurried to leave home as soon as they were old enough to do so. One of them was my father, who died yo
ung, when I was a little girl.

  To those who wonder how I could write such a horrible story, let me say this: If I had made it all up you could ask me that question. If this horrible story had been the product of my imagination, it would have been easier to write it. But this horrible story is a true story; Ze’ev is my grandfather and Ruth my grandmother; that’s the answer.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  On Neta’s fifth birthday we invited children from his kindergarten and their parents, and even managed to persuade Grandpa Ze’ev to wear, one time only, an eye patch on which I had embroidered Mickey Mouse. The present that Neta requested was a long black robe with a cowl that hid his face; that was his specification. I didn’t understand how a five-year-old knew the word “cowl,” but in any case we didn’t get him what he asked for but a toolbox like his father’s and grandfather’s, with real tools inside. Not children’s plastic toys, but actual work tools, as befit the grandson of Grandpa Ze’ev and the son of Eitan: small pliers, small vise, real hammer—also small—and Allen wrenches of various sizes and lots of nuts and bolts. Nothing that could cut or stab, of course, because Eitan said—how ironic and tragic it now sounds—“You have to be careful with kids because anything near them could be dangerous.”

  I remember how happy Neta was to get this present. For a moment he even forgot the black costume he wanted, and he built and assembled and bolted and connected and dismantled and filled up with joy. I could see how patient and serious he was, and how he trusted the way the world worked. It wasn’t trust that derived from innocence but rather from confidence. He had confidence that he got from the two of us, but in every child there’s also something completely new, not inherited from his father and mother, and Neta’s confidence was quieter and more serious than ours.