“No,” Honi says firmly, “she absolutely must not go back to Jerusalem, not even for three days. The experiment must maintain its integrity. Every day in the assisted living facility is important. Returning to Jerusalem might set her back. Don’t worry about the apartment, but rather about yourself, and I will arrange the job at the opera, and you’ll enjoy the job as well as the hotel and the desert. And we, Sarai and I, will buy tickets and come and see you. And even if Shaya’s little haredim sneak into the empty apartment, it’s not the end of the world, you know. Sure, let them watch as much TV as they want, forbidden shows, let them see sex and violence, maybe that way they can break free of their father’s Hasidism.”
“Listen to yourself,” Noga scolds him, half seriously.
The next day, in the early evening, Abadi arrives with a large tool chest. First he takes care of the front door. He removes it from its hinges, planes and straightens it, so the new bolt can do its job properly. And lo, the job she had thought would be simple is not so simple. She stands beside him throughout, to hand him tools and to be amazed by his manual dexterity. “I thought you were just an engineer, but I see you’re also a carpenter,” she says fondly.
Once the big bolt is in place, she offers him something to eat, though not at the level of the meals his wife had brought during the shiva—just a simple sandwich she had prepared beforehand.
Abadi wonders whether she had really eaten any of the food his wife had brought, for he doesn’t recall seeing her when the gravestone was unveiled at the end of the thirty days. Or perhaps his memory fails him.
No, his memory is fine. It’s true, she didn’t stay for the full mourning period; after a few days she had to return to Europe. The sudden death came while her orchestra was touring, and because the program included two works with important parts for the harp, and no substitute could be found, she was forced to leave her mother and brother during the thirty days.
But something is bothering Abadi.
“Excuse me, in which works of music is the harp so vital? I usually don’t hear its sound.”
“You apparently don’t really know how to listen,” she chides the engineer. “But if you were to remove the sounds of the harp from a symphony by Mahler or Tchaikovsky, it would totally flatten the tone and resonance.”
He absorbs the correction graciously and seeks to express interest:
“How many strings did you say in a harp?”
“Forty-seven, and they create a hundred and forty-one tones.”
“So many? How is that possible?”
“Because a harp also has seven pedals.”
“So that’s the thing . . . the secret . . .”
He keeps chewing politely and gathers sandwich crumbs with the tips of his fingers. He is her age, and has already inherited her father’s post. He’s a nice-looking man with smooth black hair, in contrast with the baldness or shaven heads of many of his peers, and his chin sports a tiny bohemian beard, not typical of a municipal engineer. He looks at his watch and wants to continue the job, but Noga stops him:
“Just a minute. Tell me, did my father ever mention me?”
“When?”
“Whenever, the way people talk about their families.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t detect a certain tone of criticism or disappointment?”
“Disappointment? Why?” The word disturbs him. “Disappointment over what?”
“That I didn’t want children.”
He seems taken aback. He stands up and carefully drops the remains of the sandwich in the trash and says, “Now we’ll attach the hook to the little window.”
But the small window in the bathroom refuses to comply. The frame is swollen and rotted from years of steam and moisture, and refuses the grip of any screw. Moreover, the light in the room is too dim. Abadi goes to the parents’ bedroom, takes the reading lamp from beside the electric bed, connects it to an extension cord and hands it to Noga, so she can assist him in the battle against the rebellious window. He ingeniously nails two pieces of wood to the window and screws in the hook, which he admits will function more symbolically than practically to protect her from the little invaders from the upper floor.
“This will do until you go back to Europe, but the new tenant will have to replace the whole thing.”
“There will be no new tenant,” Noga says quietly, lighting Abadi’s face with the lamp. “Ima will return, and nothing will come of the experiment.”
And she turns off the light.
Nineteen
SHE WATCHES HIM CLOSELY as he gathers his tools, detaches and winds up the extension cord and returns it to his tool chest. Then she follows him into her parents’ bedroom, where he puts the reading lamp back in place. And before he takes his leave, she says:
“How can I repay you?”
“Don’t be silly.”
But she insists:
“I’m not being silly. You barely ate my sandwich, and the carpenter is entitled to some sort of gift.”
Even as he waves his hands in refusal, she opens her parents’ emptied clothes closet and shows him her father’s new suit, and the shoes and socks below.
“Ima gave away tons of clothes, my father’s and hers, to the neighborhood charities, but she felt sorry for this suit, and rightly so, because he hardly wore it. Honi is unwilling to wear his father’s clothes, so before this good suit also flies away to some religious creature, you take it. Knowing that it’s you wearing the suit would please him.”
“Please who?” He is shocked.
“Abba.” She laughs. “If he’s still interested in his suits wherever he is now.” She removes the jacket from its hanger with a flourish. “Try it on, don’t be shy. What can happen?”
She expects him to resist, but Abadi, as if hypnotized in the gathering dusk, slips his arms into the sleeves of the jacket, which is too wide for his shoulders, and studies his reflection in the mirror with a mixture of concern and satisfaction. She then grips him by the shoulders and pulls the jacket tighter from behind, to demonstrate how it might be altered to fit his narrower frame.
And though Abadi is embarrassed by the demonstration, he is not averse to the surprising offer. “Yes, maybe, if no one else wants it.”
“There’s no one else.”
“If that’s really so, then rather than have the jacket go to a total stranger, I’ll take it to the tailor and wear it to remember him by.”
“Yes, to remember him by,” she happily exclaims. “But also the pants, because it’s a suit.”
“The pants?” He laughs uneasily. “No, the pants are undoubtedly too short.”
“Says who? At least try. It’s not right to separate the two.”
Now he is upset. This he didn’t expect. Aware of her power, she firmly insists. “Why not? We won’t know if you don’t try them on.” Now he smiles slightly, his embarrassment giving way to comprehension, even excitement, and, still wearing the jacket, he bends over and sheds his shoes, undoes his belt, removes his pants and puts them on a chair, and takes from her the trousers of a man of seventy-five, who a year or two before his death indulged a desire to own a tailor-made black suit of the finest wool gabardine, perhaps to blend in with the black-suited Orthodox of the neighborhood. Although it’s clear that the trousers will be short on him and too big in the waist, Noga persists, and as if she were an artist of needle and thread as well as the harp, she gets down on her knees and shows him how the surplus fabric in the cuffs can be used to lengthen the legs, and then pinches the extra cloth at each of his hips. And deliberately or otherwise, she can feel that her fingers, the strong, precise fingers of a harpist, also know how to arouse desire.
“Here, it can be made narrower. It would be a shame to separate them . . . a shame to give it away . . .”
Unnerved by his erection, Abadi seeks a quick getaway. “No, it won’t work,” he mumbles, and wriggles free of her hands, climbs out of the trousers of his beloved late mentor, tries to conceal his
tumescence as he hurriedly puts on his own pants and tosses the suit jacket on the electric bed. “No, not this either,” he says, blushing, and picks up his toolbox and says goodbye without a look. And she knows he won’t be back, even if the bolt and hook fall off and the electric bed falls silent.
Twenty
IN THE MORNING SHE WENT to buy food at the corner grocery and inquired, for the first time since her arrival in Jerusalem, about her monthly account. “You don’t owe us anything, Nogaleh,” said the owners, an elderly couple who have known her since childhood. “Your brother left his credit card information, and what you buy is immediately paid for. Rest easy, sweetheart, and in the future, don’t hesitate to buy things you didn’t dare buy till now, because your credit here is unlimited.”
This unlimited credit makes her angry, but since she doesn’t want to annoy her brother, who for good reason has begun to fear for the outcome of his experiment, she simply decides that from now on she will purchase with her unlimited credit only basic necessities, and anything else, despite the distance, she will bring home from Mahane Yehuda in her mother’s old shopping cart.
After lunching on a few delicacies from the shuk, she prepares for the television temptation of the little boys. She lowers blinds and draws curtains to darken the apartment, takes off her clothes and puts on a light robe, alert to the clatter of the shoes that now begin to scamper up and down the stairs, accompanied by the wild chortling of the dizzy little tzaddik. Soon, she knows, the boys will silently approach the front door and listen closely to determine whether or not the tenant is home, or perhaps asleep.
After the last invasion she wanted to go upstairs to the Pomerantzes and protest the shenanigans of their grandchildren. But then came a plea from the assisted living facility: “No, Noga, don’t go up there. Mrs. Pomerantz is very ill, barely knows who she is, and Mr. Pomerantz can’t control the situation. Most days he comes home only at night. Let’s give Abadi’s bolt a chance to prove itself.”
Indeed, the bolt installed by Abadi passes the test. Snug in her childhood bed, she hears the key enter the squeaky lock and turn the tongue, but when the handle is pulled, the door won’t open. The young intruder rattles the door in confusion, but the bolt steadfastly bars his way as the tiny tzaddik, lusting for television, wails desperately.
Noga wraps herself in her blanket and silently curses Shaya, who is presumably swaying over his useless books while he neglects the children, who now have no choice but to resume their crazy clambering on the stairs, their footsteps finally muted by the delicious onset of sleep.
And yet, for all its sweetness, the sleep is not long, and when Noga wakes up she first confirms the silence of the television, then removes the robe and walks naked into the bathroom, whose window is locked shut by its hook. She fills the bathtub, its iron feet like talons of a bird of prey, and pours blue bath salts into the water. And as she sinks with pleasure into the foam, she thinks she can see, beyond the steamed-up windowpane, the sad eyes of children whose path has been blocked.
In early evening Honi phones from Jerusalem. A dinner that was supposed to follow a meeting has been canceled, and he would very much like to share his hearty appetite with his sister. “So come to the house,” she suggests, “and you can also see Abadi’s bolt and hook.” “No,” he insists, “the bolt and hook you’re in love with don’t interest me, and our parents’ home just gets me angry. No, you’re entitled to compensation and consolation for the concerto that was stolen from you because of me. Hurry up, I’m at the table looking at the menu, and the chef is waiting just for you.”
In the heart of downtown Jerusalem, in a truly superb restaurant, he tries to win his sister over with delicious food. Between courses he updates her about the job at the opera that will be staged at the foot of Masada. Members of the chorus are supposed to serve as extras, but additional women are needed for background. There are many eager applicants, but he has fought for his sister, so that during her stay in Israel—a stay he imposed on her—she will be involved in live music, if not as a performer, at least as an extra. Yes, he sighs, the loss of the Mozart concerto still tugs at his conscience, but what can you do? He is a good son who is not prepared to have his mother live out her life in the midst of the barren fanaticism of their childhood neighborhood. But recently he has noticed a hesitancy on his mother’s part, and he therefore pleads with his sister to desist from romantic European notions of ancient cities and to stand with him in support of the move from a blackening Jerusalem to the White City, where she will be near her son, daughter-in-law and beloved grandchildren, and be able to find, at the assisted living facility, interesting friends and, just maybe, a new companion.
“Companion?”
“Anything is possible, Noga, and everything is permitted. Abba’s death didn’t weaken her or age her, and her loyalty to him for all those years surely makes her entitled. Don’t you agree?”
“If you say so.”
After dinner he takes her back to Rashi Street, but he has no time or desire to go up to his childhood home. “I saw enough of it in my life,” he says, “and I miss it not at all. The time has come for a final break.”
As she climbs the stairs, she wishes he’d have come up with her, because outside the front door he would have heard strange voices and the sounds of war, and as they entered he would have seen who was sitting in their father’s chair: a bare-headed boy in a white shirt, remote control in hand, tzitzit fringes scattered about, long black sidelocks framing his face like a billy goat; and his charge asleep at his feet, his angelic face glowing, his sidelocks golden.
Abadi’s bolt doesn’t secure the door when she’s out of the apartment, she recalls. Now she is shaken not only with anger but despair. She thinks about her small, orderly apartment in Arnhem, feels sorry for herself. And before she can speak a syllable, the older one launches into his refrain:
“Really, Noga, believe me, your mother used to let us watch war movies on TV.”
“‘Your mother,’” she says acidly. “Listen, boy, I am not my mother, and I’m sick of these games. So get out right now and go back to your grandparents and take this tzaddik with you, and I’ll come up later to tell them what’s going on here.”
“It won’t do you any good,” he answers softly, sadly. “Grandma upstairs doesn’t know anymore that she’s a grandma.”
“So I’ll tell your grandfather. He’ll know what to do with you.”
“How will he do that?” he wonders, his voice still calm. “Grandpa comes home at night with no strength left and goes straight to sleep. But listen, Noga, I swear on a stack of Bibles, your mother would invite us in so the television would calm us down. She took pity on a poor child.”
And as he speaks, he switches stations, from the History Channel to the Fashion Channel, and she again angrily attacks the television and disconnects it from the electric socket, and with a powerful hand grabs the boy’s white collar and yanks him from the armchair.
“Listen, what did you say your name was?”
“Yuda-Zvi.”
“Listen, Yuda-Zvi, you will not sneak in here anymore, because the next time I’ll whip you, you hear me? You and your tzaddik, watch out.”
But Shaya’s son coolly picks up the yarmulke tossed on the chair and puts it on his head, straightens out his rumpled shirt and asks, with a little smile:
“You have a whip?”
“I have one. I always had one.” And with the tip of her shoe she nudges the gold-sidelocked boy, who struggles to wake up, and says, “I’m a harpist, and I have a mighty hand, so beware of me.”
Twenty-One
THAT NIGHT, IN BED, she wonders with a smile where on earth that whip came from. Was it the sound of the word that enchanted her, or the whip itself? In any case, why not? If the grandma upstairs doesn’t know who she is, and grandpa drums Torah into students at night, and Shaya, that beautiful guy, has been abducted by an extremist cult, why not a whip to impose order? An actual whip that can be waved in the
air and snapped to induce fear from afar. Because clearly this smart-ass kid won’t give up his TV, and so in the remaining weeks of the trial period she will protect her privacy not merely with a bolt, but with a whip, not symbolic but real.
She falls asleep with this bizarre notion, and wakes up with it too, and after breakfast she goes for a walk among the stalls of Mahane Yehuda, where she might not find a whip but can at least inquire about one. But so that an elegant, cultured woman won’t arouse laughter or suspicion by asking the vendors about a whip, she approaches an Arab porter who waits next to a fruit and vegetable stand with a big wicker basket on his back. The Arab is not shocked by either the question or the questioner, but cannot imagine that any of the Jews in the market still own a horse or donkey requiring a whip, and recommends that she look for one in the Old City.
“How do you say ‘whip’ in Arabic?”
“Why Arabic? Speak Hebrew—everyone in the Old City will understand you.”
“Still, how do you say it?”
“Say kurbash, madam. Just kurbash.”
“Kurbash,” she pronounces with satisfaction. “Lovely word.”
She is excited to have found a practical reason to go to the Old City, which she hasn’t visited for many years, even before the job with the Dutch orchestra that took her far from Israel. To enhance the experience, she chooses to ride on the elegant light rail line, which deposits her near the Damascus Gate, and she is soon swallowed up in the shadowy marketplace. She doesn’t rush to find what she seeks, but wanders through the narrow alleys, buffeted by shoppers and tourists, pausing by various shops, examining beads and copperware, even purchasing an unusual pipe for the administrative director of the orchestra, who allows himself a smoke backstage during concerts, the aroma of his tobacco sometimes complementing the music.
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