Mr. Mani

by A. B. Yehoshua

  —No, you were never there.

  —You couldn’t have been. You’re wrong. I can’t believe you ever were there...

  —No. It’s not a place tourists get to. There’s something unworldly about it. I’ll take you there some day and you’ll realize you’ve never been there. It’s awfully captivating...

  —Captivating ... you’ll understand when you see it. Even that young lawyer, who was born in Jerusalem and knows the whole city, was so excited to be there that he couldn’t thank Mr. Mani enough for drafting him into his prayer group. We began moving forward in this slow little line with the stone carver leading the way, because there are no signs there or anything. The rabbi ran up the hill to look for some more men, and the lawyer and Mr. Mani and me lent the old ladies a hand and helped them past the broken tombstones, some of which still had a little snow on them, because we didn’t want them to slip and break their necks...

  —It was an experience, Mother. If only those cramps in the pit of my stomach hadn’t kept getting worse...

  —Just a minute, wait ... that’s part of the story...

  —No ... yes, like the cramps when you have your period, but not exactly. Listen, though. In the end we came to this new tombstone, and the old women stood around it all agog to read the inscription, one of them even started sobbing a little to herself, and we waited for the rabbi to find two more men while the stone carver tidied up around this grave where there were bits of cement and gravel—not Efi’s grandmother’s grave but the one next to it, an old headstone half-buried in the ground that Mr. Mani had asked him to uncover. He even cleaned it and made a mound of dirt to prop it up on and started explaining something to Mr. Mani and the lawyer, who bent down to get a better look. I went over to look too, but I could hardly read what was written there. I couldn’t even figure out the dates. All I could make out was the name Yosef Mani in big letters. Meanwhile, Mr. Mani was explaining to the lawyer, who was so fascinated that he was practically face-down on the headstone, how he had found it and intended to restore it, and so I asked him if the grave was his father’s. He gave this startled laugh and said, “Good lord! Can’t you see how old it is? Look carefully, it’s from the nineteenth century. It may even be my grandfather’s grandfather’s...” When he said that, I actually felt for a moment that that stone was his grandfather’s grandfather, who had turned into a pink slab that was rounded at one end...

  —No. I don’t remember any other graves there belonging to his family. He would have showed them to me if there were any, so that must have been the only one. Still, Mother, standing there off to one side, because I didn’t feel like mingling, I had this feeling of taking part in a ceremony like you see in one of those family graveyards in the movies. These little old ladies in black were all around, and Mr. Mani started reading from some book in his natty black suit and hat, and I thought, I must be crazy to have imagined he wanted to kill himself, why, just look at all these people who are here in his honor! You could see they thought a great deal of him, even the two workers I first mistook for Arabs that the rabbi had come back with, who already had skullcaps on their heads and were holding these little prayerbooks he had given them and rocking back and forth in prayer. And even if I was keeping my distance, by now I felt like one of the family, although it wasn’t exactly a family yet but only a formula for one ... at which exact moment, Mother, without turning around, I knew that they were back, that author or director or cameraman or whoever. I had thought they had left me for good, but they had been following me from a distance, or from high up, and now they took charge of me again. The rabbi sang the prayer for the dead real rhapsodically, in this oriental scale, and Mr. Mani finally got to say his mourner’s prayer, his voice catching and then breaking without warning into these sobs that made all the old ladies burst into tears too. One of them began calling out some name—it must have been the grandmother’s—and screaming something. But she seemed more moved by duty than by grief, as if she were only trying to get us into the spirit of things, and meanwhile the rabbi was crooning away again—and I, Mother, I stood there entranced by it all, intrigued by all those ancient Sephardim, although it was really that little thing inside me that felt that way, because by now I was dizzy and had a headache, and I felt that not only was I getting my period but that something more serious was going on. Something down there was squirming to get out, I was sure of it now. All the exertion of running after Mr. Mani to keep him from killing himself was making Mani Junior flop around like a fish on dry land—and, Mother, I was so afraid that I was going to lose him right there and then in front of everyone that I sat myself down on a grave to hold him in or at least to keep everyone from seeing...

  —No, just a minute ... please ... please...

  —No, listen ... please...

  —Later ... later...

  —No, it wasn’t blood. It wasn’t that sticky feeling. It wasn’t a liquid feeling at all. It was more like these light little legs running up and down, over my crotch and my thighs...

  —Yes, like someone’s legs. I called it a spider before, which made you wince, but that’s what I was thinking of. Is it really so disgusting or upsetting to you, Mother, if I call it a spider? But who can I tell my feelings to if not you?

  —All right ... never mind...

  —No, not at all. It wasn’t strange or disgusting. It was this feeling of being about to lose something oh-so-lovely that I was attached to, of ... oh, I don’t know...

  —A fantasy ... maybe ... but how can you know if you never miscarried yourself?

  —I was scared to death, Mother. I just froze and decided not to move ... And so when the ceremony was over, and everyone got ready to go, and they all put these little stones on the grave, and Mr. Mani remembered me and came over, all contented-looking and full of his mourner’s prayer, I told him that I wanted to stay and look at the view. It was such a beautiful day, I said, and I would find my way back to the bus station by myself. He seemed to have no idea how frightened I was, and he wasn’t afraid to leave me there because the stone carver was staying behind to do some things too, and so he said good-bye in this casual manner, as if it were the most natural thing, maybe because he felt sure that in any case I’d come bouncing back to him like a yo-yo, and started to lead his little band of old ladies back to the taxis...

  —Wait ... wait...

  —Yes, all by myself ... But it was the middle of the morning, and everything seemed so quiet and safe there, and up on top of the hill, in the cemetery on Mount Zion, right below that big hotel, there were lots of Jews and tourists—and anyway, I had to wait for the contractions to stop, I had to do what I could to save a life...

  —Of course I’m not in control of all that happens down there, but I had to do what I could, Mother ... and after half an hour or so it really did let up and I was just left with this terrible heaviness in my arms and legs. I looked around and saw I was alone, because the stone carver had taken off somewhere down the hill, and so I decided to take the contrary route again, and rather than head back down toward that crazily steep, narrow lane by the walls of the church, I started up toward the hotel and all those people ... and anyway, going up was better and less bouncy for him.

  —Right, right, exactly, the Intercontinental, the one with all those nice arches. It looked so close from below with the sun shining down on these slabs of white graves, much closer than it really was. It was only after I had started up the path from the old Sephardic cemetery to the Ashkenazic one above it, past all those tombstones whose inscriptions kept getting jumbled in my head, that I realized that it was a steeper, longer climb than I had thought, especially since I had to keep stopping, because the cramps kept coming back. There were still little patches of snow here and there, and I felt I might start bleeding any minute—this whole miscarriage was beginning to seem more dangerous to me than to him. I was getting good and frightened, Mother, and so I walked faster, using every ounce of strength to reach the road in front of the hotel where there were a
ll these German tourists standing around a camel and a little horse decked out in bells and bright saddlebags and some children selling souvenirs. I can’t tell you how exhausted I was. I must have looked a wreck too to judge from how people were looking at me, because before I had even reached his taxi, a driver jumped up to open the door for me. He stepped on the gas while I was still getting into my seat, so that by the time I saw he was an Arab we were already driving off and it would have been awkward to stop him and get out...

  —No. I thought it might have to do with my being alone, but I only had to say one word to him, which was “hospital” in English, for him to nod right away, as if that were the very word he had been waiting for, and start saying “Okay, okay” to calm me down, although he drove like such a madman that I thought I would miscarry right there in the back seat of his taxi. It was just a two-minute drive, though, and before I knew it he was pulling into this inner courtyard of a church, that big, massive building the other way from Mount Scopus, I had never known it was—

  —Yes, exactly, Augusta Victoria, how did you know? I can see you know your way around there ... but it’s not a church like everyone thinks it is, it’s a hospital...

  —Right, right. The lower tower, the squat one, with those dark walls, not the tall, thin one...

  —Yes, that’s it. Did you know it wasn’t a church but a hospital?

  —Yes, a hospital. You enter this huge inner courtyard with trees and stone benches and gardens and fountains and the wings of the building all around them, just like in those TV series about the British Empire in India or Egypt, with these immense, silent corridors and these big rooms with high ceilings. Every movement that you make has this somber echo, and the taxi driver, who was falling all over himself to help, kept saying “Hospital, hospital” to prove that he had brought me to the right place despite the ride’s being so short. He even helped me out of the taxi and began walking me carefully to the emergency room...

  —What should I have told him? “Leave me alone, get me out of here, I don’t want your Arab hospital”?

  —No, tell me! What should I have told him? You want me to have told him right to his face, “Take your dirty hands off me”?

  —Then what are you trying to say?

  —No, I know that’s not what you said, but it’s what it’s beginning to sound like. You always give me the feeling that if I tell you anything the least bit strange about myself, you right away think there’s something wrong with me...

  —Wait ... wait...

  —Yes, Mother, I was admitted as a patient...

  —Wait ... just a minute...

  —No. Just until the evening.

  —I wasn’t out of my mind at all. I still had these cramps, I felt weak, and something down there was still moving and walking around. I was afraid I might start to bleed any minute. You have no idea how exhausted I was, I had gotten up exhausted that morning, and so the minute I saw some beds in this room the man brought me to, which wasn’t the emergency room at all but just an empty room belonging to some ward that he took me to by mistake, all I wanted to do was to flop down on them. It was so quiet under those high ceilings and those big, arched stone windows that I felt not only back in my story, in that movie or book that went wherever I did, but that the story had ended and I was now being shown or read, which fit perfectly with all that had happened since the minute I arrived in Jerusalem. And so I took off my shoes and lay down on a bed, and the taxi driver, who was wearing this bright cap and seemed to like taking care of me, put a pillow beneath me and covered me with a blanket and went to look for a nurse...

  —What’s the matter?

  —What was crazy about it? It was actually rather nice to be lying there quietly under that warm blanket, facing this huge stone window that looked out on the Wilderness of Judea. It was like being outside the world. The driver took a while to find a nurse, who realized as soon as she came that I was an Israeli and not just some tourist and gave me this disapproving look. I began to stammer something in English, but that taxi driver was driving me crazy, he wouldn’t leave and just went on standing there—I tell you, it was like out of some comedy, the way he listened without the least embarrassment ... and the worst part was that after all those years of studying English I couldn’t get out the simplest word like “pregnant” or “miscarriage” or “bleeding,” so that soon the driver began butting in and explaining things in Arabic, which made the nurse even madder at him for bringing me uninvited instead of taking me to Hadassah...

  —Yes, exactly. I could see that she didn’t even want to examine me. She wanted me out of that bed and back into that taxi and out of that hospital. But since her English was no better than mine she had to use sign language, saying “Hadassah” over and over while pointing to the driver, who began making these big, desperate gestures himself, because by now he was frightened of what he had done and kept urging me in this excited voice, “Hadassah, Jewish hospital.” Except that, suddenly, Mother, I had this need to stay put and absolutely not to move, because not only was I exhausted by that whole adventure in the cemetery, I felt that I might start bleeding any minute and musn’t get up if I wanted to keep my baby. And so I just shook my head and curled up like a fetus myself beneath that blanket, holding onto it for dear life...

  —Yes, they would have had to tear me away from it, why not? And besides, my feelings were hurt too. Why not? If I had landed up in their hospital, the least they could do was examine me and see what was wrong. What were they so afraid of? That they might have to take care of a Jew for once in return for all the Arabs we take care of in our hospitals...?

  —But what kind of complications, Mother?

  —But how? That’s ridiculous...

  —That isn’t so. There was nothing disturbed-looking about me. Don’t try defending them, they just didn’t want to ... Anyway, when that nurse saw I wasn’t budging, she stalked out of the room with the driver, who had this hangdog look. She must have gone to get someone else, but in the meantime an hour went by and there still was no bleeding. I felt cold and fell into this really delicious sleep, opening half an eye now and then to look out the window at the desert, off which this dry eastern light was glinting, while thinking that the worst was over with. I even decided to go to the bathroom to see what had happened down there, maybe there was some sign, and out in the corridor I saw the driver looking depressed. God knows what he was waiting for, maybe to take me to Hadassah or for his fare—and so I went back to the room and brought him some money to cheer him up, after all, it wasn’t his fault, “It’s not your fault,” I said to him with a friendly pat on that bright cap, and he understood what I said and even gave a wave of his hand. From there I went to the bathroom, which was very old and big and full of light. It was incredibly spic-and-span, with these gleaming copper faucets and giant sinks, and I went into a toilet to check my underpants, and there wasn’t any blood but there was this scary stain, Mother—it was black with something smeary in it, maybe some part of him, and I felt so desperate that I began to cry inside of me. I wrapped the underpants in an old newspaper that I found there, and then I put the dress back on and returned to the room. The driver was gone. There was just the echo of his footsteps down the corridor, and so I got back into bed and lay there in despair, dozing on and off, until the nurse shook me a little to wake me. She had a dark young doctor with her who spoke a little Hebrew, and he began asking me questions in this dry manner, and I answered everything and took out the newspaper and showed him the stained underpants, and he glanced at them without a word and took them to the window to get a better look while I went on telling what I felt. All the time he didn’t touch me or write anything down, he just interrupted me once or twice to ask—I couldn’t tell if he was angry or laughing—“But what makes you so sure you’re pregnant? Who told you?” No matter how much I explained it to him, the dates, and missing my period, and everything, he wouldn’t believe me. Not that he was an extremist like you, Mother. He never said it was only my
imagination. But he kept aloof and didn’t even take my pulse, although I would have been happy for him to examine me, I knew he was thinking, these Israelis, they only come to our hospitals to make trouble, even if he wasn’t sure yet what kind of trouble I was making. Whatever it was, he was going to avoid it like the plague—and so when I asked him again about the stain and did he think it was dangerous, I saw he wasn’t taking it seriously, “It’s nothing,” he said, “it’s just—“ and I knew he wanted to say “dirt,” but he didn’t, he caught himself and said “mud,” he was so pleased he could say it in Hebrew that he said it over and over...

  —Yes, that was all. He wrapped the underpants back up in the newspaper to take them for a lab test and pointed to the west and snapped rudely, “Why don’t you go back there? Go back to your mother, go back to your father, go back to your health fund, you people have health funds,” he pronounced the word, Mother, with this really weird hatred, you would have thought that the whole trouble with us was our health funds, and not even them but the word for them. Afterward, though, he became a little kinder. He said I could stay and rest a while if I wanted, and then he said something to the nurse in Arabic and they left, and a while later she came back with some lunch...

  —I don’t know. I wasn’t in any rush. I wanted to rest some more, and I had already warmed up the bed so nicely, and outside that arched window was the desert with this lovely blue patch of the Dead Sea, and I knew that I’d never again in my life have such a private view of it...