by Meir Shalev
“You remember, Iraleh, when you were kids, how every summer Gershon went to camp at the Weizmann Institute and she would come to the office with me? You know what a big-time contractor she is now? You know she’s in charge of every one of Meshulam Fried’s projects?”
“I knew she worked with you, but I didn’t know she’d already tossed you off the board of directors.”
Meshulam beamed. “Not me. Her husband. She threw that Yossi out and came to work with me.”
He laughed. “Meshulam Fried and Daughter, Incorporated.” Then he sighed. “Even if my Gershon was alive I wouldn’t bring him into the business. Only her.” He smiled. “Him, I’d let him go to the university She should bring honor from money and he should bring honor from knowledge and together they’re the revenge on dear Goldie’s brothers and sisters and mine too, how they always looked down at me, especially when they came asking for a loan.”
When he saw the look on my face, he continued talking. “You think Meshulam wasn’t thinking about you and her all these years? You think Meshulam didn’t know you and her is a couple made in heaven? I saw it way back when, on that day I brought my Gershon to your father. There’s me, running with my half-dead kid in my arms to the door of the clinic, and Professor Mendelsohn comes out and says, ‘This way Mr. Fried, come in from here,’ and he brings me in from his own private entrance, and from the corner of my eye I see you two, as identical as two drops of water and you’re eyeing one another.”
He fixed me with his gaze. “A woman like my Tiraleh needs a man like her, and a man like my Tiraleh needs a woman like him. And that’s that. She threw her husband out and you’re leaving home. Now’s the time. You’ve got to strike while the iron’s churning!”
“That’s enough, Meshulam. I’m not leaving any home,” I said.
“You’re not? Excuse me, Iraleh, ‘I found myself a house,’ you said. A place of my own,’ you said. What does that mean if not that you’re leaving home?”
“Anyway I’m not Tirzah; I only look like her from the outside. On the inside she’s a mensch and I’m not.”
“Well, now you’re talking. But how many mensches you need in one house?”
“We dated in high school,” I said. “We had our chance. But it didn’t work. And it’s not as bad with Liora as you think. That’s what married life is like. Sometimes it’s not great, but all in all it isn’t bad.”
Meshulam regarded me scornfully “What, you been reading Ladies’ Home Journalism or something? You never even said you love her. Something so simple as love, and that’s what’s supposed to hold people together. But you didn’t even say you love her.”
“Meshulam,” I said, “since when did you become an expert on love?”
“Since when does it take an expert to say what I just said? It only takes someone who’s not a complete fool.”
“Apart from love there are a few other things that keep people together.”
“So why don’t you explain it to me? What are those few other things keeping you two together?” When I did not answer, he answered himself. “It’s either her money or your fear, or both. That’s what’s keeping you together.”
“Why are you so preoccupied with this?” I asked. “And what business is it of yours, anyway?”
“It’s my business because I want to see you and Tiraleh together again.”
I fell silent for several minutes. Suddenly, Meshulam chuckled. “You remember my dear late wife? My Goldie, the woman I loved?”
“Sure,” I said. “I remember her very well.”
“What do you remember about her?” The scorn had fallen from his eyes; they were pleading now
“Her pickles,” I said, swallowing the saliva that the memory of them secreted in my mouth. “And the nice smell from her hands, and her calm. My mother said she was sure that when you were at work with all those workers and trucks and machines, you must be missing your wife’s calm.”
“Your mother was a very smart woman,” Meshulam said. “And she had a wound on her heart. But you already know about that. Otherwise, why would she pick up and leave home like that all of a sudden? But me, not only my Goldie’s calm I miss, also that smell from her hands—like lemons she smelled. Other ladies have to spend a fortune on perfume but her—it came from her flesh. But all that’s in heaven now Just for that I’m going to hell, because if I get up there I’ll just ruin heaven for her.”
The handkerchief reappeared. Meshulam cleared his throat. “Two I got up there.” He folded the handkerchief and returned it to his pocket. “Now you listen. Me and Goldie, we didn’t like Tirzah’s Yossi as a person and not as a husband for her. You can tell on a man right away if he’s an idiot. It’s the smart guys you can’t always figure out right away But with idiots, it’s smeared all over their faces. Now, you know Tiraleh—just because we told her that, she went and married the guy To spite us. But sometimes, when I’d ask my Goldie, ‘What do you think, Goldie? What keeps those two together?’ Listen to what she’d say that calm, gentle woman, like you said: ‘In those matters, Meshulam, it all has to do with what happens in bed.’ Would you believe my calm, gentle Goldie could say such a thing?”
“I can believe anything about anyone, Meshulam.”
“She had all kinds of smart things she used to say Here’s another one: ‘A woman has to look good, but a man—a little bit nicer looking than a monkey is enough.’”
We swapped smiles. “It’s the luck of people like us that there are women who think like that. Otherwise, what would be with us guys? We’d only get the girls from the bottom of the barrel. Believe me, Iraleh, Meshulam can tell from one look how a couple is in bed.”
I chose not to react to these last observations, and Meshulam continued. “What’s more, Tiraleh decides and acts. Not like you. She got up and got herself divorced. I told you that before, but you didn’t even ask how or what.”
“I didn’t ask,” I told him, “because I don’t stick my nose into other people’s business.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? That I do?”
I said nothing.
“You know what? You’re right. Yeah, I stick my nose in, sure I do. If you sit on the sidelines and wait for things to happen, well, nothing’s going to happen. Sometimes you have to stick your nose in. And not just your nose. Your hand, and then your other hand, and then, if the door opens just a little, you poke your shoe in, and your shoulder, and even your dick you have to stick in sometimes, and stick it proper! What the thigh doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over.”
Meshulam checked to see that I was smiling, then carried on. “So just know this, Iraleh. Tiraleh, she’s free. And she isn’t Tirzah Weiss anymore, she’s back to being Tirzah Fried. I paid a lot of money for that fat, stupid piece of shit to give her a divorce, but now she’s earning it all back for me with interest.”
“So now why don’t you tell me,” I dared to say “If you know how every woman is in bed, then what about your Tirzah?”
A small cloud passed over Meshulam’s brow, fluttered in his jaw muscles, then was pushed away and expelled. “Tiraleh in bed is like her papa in bed. She knows what needs to be done, she’s warm, she’s good. You know what? Give it a try See how she is and show her how you are.”
His lips drooped suddenly and trembled. The blue handkerchief was produced once again. “Try Iraleh … try …” He pressed my thigh with his hand. “You won’t be sorry I promise you.” His voice cracked and broke. “Try both of you. Try And make me a grandson. I want my Gershon back.”
Meshulam, like other men among whom I do not count myself, is both tough and soft, decisive and emotional, and when such a rod strikes such a rock—all his waters go gushing forth.
“Stop the car,” he moaned. “I need a good cry”
I braked. Meshulam got out of the car and leaned against the back door. I could feel his aged body—not large, but compact and strong—shaking Behemoth. Then the shaking abated and Meshulam moved away from the car a bit to stom
p his feet at the side of the road in the manner of sturdy, thick people trying to calm themselves.
He folded the handkerchief and climbed back into the car. “We’re lucky,” he said, “that we lose some of our memory when we get old. Otherwise, we’d have an even heavier load to carry just when we don’t have the strength. Enough talk now Let’s go.”
4
WE ENTERED the village and turned right at the center of town. Five hundred feet. Three houses, two pleasant gardens and one that was dry and neglected, and here are the cypress trees that would gladden your heart, here is the single giant pine, here is the house. Thorns surrounding it. Windows boarded. Meshulam eyed it through the car window and said nothing.
“So. What do you say? How does it look to you?”
“Fine.”
“You don’t want to see it up close?”
“First let’s eat. The smell of the samwiches is making me hungry and I need to calm down.”
I removed the food and the beer from the cooler and we sat on the stairs leading up from the sidewalk, weeds poking through the cracks just as you said there should be, and Meshulam ate and drank with great appetite, his chewing clearly that of a man deep in thought. At last he said, “What’s there to check here, Iraleh? It’s all clear at first glance. Look for yourself: the location is great. But the house? It doesn’t have a chicken leg to stand on! You’ve got to knock it down and build a new one.”
“I like this house. I don’t want to knock it down.”
“Look what it’s built on: the support beams are too thin, there’s rusted iron poking through the cement walls.”
“How much do you think I should pay for it?”
“Are you buying it as an investment? Are you buying it because you don’t have a roof over your head? It’s a gift to yourself, so what does it matter how much it costs? Bargain them down a little, just to make your soul feel good, but definitely take it.”
“My funds are limited.”
“For this dump you’ve got enough. And if you need a little more, you got someone to borrow it from, thank God. Just remember, what’s important in a house is what you can’t change. By that I mean the location and the view Even Rothschild, with all his money, can’t arrange to have a view of the sea from a window in Jerusalem. So this house, it’s got a great view, but the house itself needs to be knocked down, and if you don’t believe me, get Tiraleh out here. Look, I’m calling her right now to get her to see it.”
“If this place is so great,” I asked him, “then why hasn’t anyone bought it?”
“Because they’re all stupid, like you. They come and they see the mold on the walls and the cracks and the rust and they get scared. They think about the house and the money and not the time and the place. Here, the location is good and the timing is right. Buy it—Tiraleh will knock it down and build you a new one. That’s small change for her.”
“No, Meshulam, I like this house. I only want to renovate it.”
“I can talk to you until the cows come jumping over the moon, but you won’t listen. All right, let’s go inside and see what can be done.”
5
ONCE INSIDE, Meshulam began pounding on the walls and the beams. Sometimes with his fist, sometimes open-palmed, sometimes with his fingertips.
“You hear that? Those are not good sounds. You see these cracks? They’ve split into littler ones and they’re running up and down the walls. This house is a goner, may it rest in peace. One side’s sunk further in the ground than the other.”
He removed a small screwdriver from his shirt pocket, stuck it into a wall socket, and yanked it from the wall.
“Take a look at this guy,” he said. “The wires are insulated with black cloth, back from the days of our forefathers. It’s all going to have to be changed. Look,” he said, taking hold of a faucet in the kitchen. “Watch carefully” He tugged at it and it came free of the wall, leaving behind a rusted, crumbling stump and dripping brown water.
“You see? It’s not because I’m so strong, it’s because everything around here is rotted. Look at the ceiling, how it’s flaking, look at the walls down near the floor, how they’re peeling. Over here, too, see the dampness at the bottom of the doorpost? The leak can be somewhere else and the water creeps under the tiles like sieves in the night. Evil people lived in this house. The way they took care of it, that’s how much they hated each other.”
“How much will it cost to replace all this?”
“As much as building a new place, and an even bigger headache.”
“Still. How much?”
“Why are you always asking about money? Tomorrow morning I’ll bring Tiraleh. You can talk money with her. Come on, let’s head back.” On our way back to Behemoth he said, “Look what’s happening with this little lady over here.”
Around the fig tree, small unripe fruit lay strewn about, and near the trunk there were mounds of yellowish sawdust. I glanced up into the tree and found that it was falling from holes in the bark.
“This has to be uprooted,” Meshulam said. “The trunk’s infested and the tree isn’t giving fruit. Get it out of here before it falls on someone’s head.”
“I’ll try and save it,” I said.
“What’s with you?! The house is falling down, the fig tree is disintegrating, and both of them you want to keep? Build a new place! Plant a new tree!”
After bringing Meshulam back to his office in Jerusalem, I left a message for Liora about some trip I was making up north with an Austrian television crew and returned to the house I had found for myself I drove in silence at a constant high speed. Nothing slowed me down or stopped me; nothing diverted me from my path. All the other cars made way for me. All the intersections I passed through shone green faces at me. After getting off the main road I drove in a straight line through the fields, all the way to the house I had found for myself
Once again I removed the planks from the boarded-up windows and climbed in through the same window Once again I said, “Hello, house,” and once again the house answered. I took off my clothes and bathed myself in the pleasant April night, the month you loved so well. It’s when the first khamsin mixes with the final days of winter “like trilled keys on a piano,” that’s what you said: “hot and cold.” I lay naked on my camping mattress, the sleeping bag rolled up for a pillow I felt the house surround my body The man inside it was me.
And one other feeling was inside me as well, a feeling I did not understand at its inception but now I know was the anticipation of Tirzah’s arrival, the knowledge that she would come, the realization that a new chapter was opening, different and similar and old and new
Chapter Seven
1
ON THE WALL of the loft, Miriam the pigeon handler hung two placards. The title of the first read:
TEN CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD PIGEON HANDLER
And below this it was written:
The pigeon handler is moderate in his disposition. A reckless pigeon handler frightens the pigeons.
The pigeon handler is loyal and responsible and carries out his tasks in an orderly and punctual fashion.
The pigeon handler is kindhearted and cares for each and every pigeon.
The pigeon handler is patient and devoted.
The pigeon handler is tidy and attentive to cleanliness.
The pigeon handler is strong-willed and maintains discipline over the pigeons.
The pigeon handler is sensitive in observing and discerning the character and condition of each and every pigeon.
The pigeon handler is industrious. There is always work to be done in the pigeon loft.
The pigeon handler is considerate of others.
10. The pigeon handler is adept at learning and knows all there is to know with regard to the traits, eating habits, flying exercises, and care of the pigeon. Further, it is incumbent upon him to know how to compose short, clear pigeongrams.
On the second placard that Miriam hung the title read:
WORK SCHEDULE IN T
HE PIGEON LOFT
And below this it was written:
Upon entering in the morning: a general overview of the pigeons and the loft.
First flight exercise.
Scraping and sifting of the floor. Addition of clean sand. Burial of waste in the pit.
Cleaning of troughs and drinking vessels and changing of drinking and bathing water.
Pigeons return— serving of a light meal.
Updating of loft logs.
Examination of each pigeon in turn.
Special missions: banding, crossbreeding, food testing, long-distance dispatching.
Late afternoon flight exercise.
Evening meal.
General overview
Lights out.
“These two placards you need to learn by heart,” Miriam instructed the Baby, and told him what Dr. Laufer had told her when she worked for him as a child: that the first nine characteristics of a good pigeon handler are important for all human beings, even those who do not raise pigeons, but the tenth characteristic is important only for pigeon handlers.
“I don’t know how to whistle to them like you do,” the Baby said. “I want you to teach me how to whistle with my fingers.”
“That’s not urgent,” Miriam said. “There’s time for that.”
Several days later he watched as she tied colored ribbons to the legs of three pigeons. She summoned one of the guys from the Palmach, gave him a notepad and a pencil, and explained to him what she wanted him to do. Then she placed the pigeons in a wicker basket, shut the lid, secured the basket to her bicycle, and rode past the cowshed and the fields. The Baby ran after her for a way but Miriam left the grounds of the kibbutz without looking back.