by Nava Semel
Anna ignored it all, kept to her daily routine as if nothing had happened. She agreed to work in the hen house as usual and spent even more time with the chickens than she always did, probably because they didn’t gossip like people.
I was curious to know what kind of present Imri had brought for Anna. I didn’t notice that she had anything new, except for an old pair of khaki pants Aunt Miriam gave her. And maybe the Torah doesn’t allow men to give presents to their divorced wives, so they can each start their new lives without any reminders of the past. They probably just erased Anna’s name from Imri’s passport and that was that.
Later, I found out that Imri had brought her letters from Lutsk. He went especially to her parents’ house and came back with a bundle of letters tied with a string. Anna read, and tears flooded her cheeks. She learned that the letters she sent from Ezra Yacobi’s post office had never reached their destination. Her mother’s letters were also damp with tears. They had thought Anna was lost somewhere at the end of the earth, and they were even angrier at her for being carried away into such a mad escapade.
Even I had started to think she had made a mistake. What would she do here alone? Relatives in Tel Aviv that she had never seen couldn’t be considered family, and what kind of life would she have without a father and mother? At least I had Aunt Miriam, and I had Mohammed and a dog.
They sat on the porch. I was looking for Johnny Weissmuller, who had disappeared as usual. The bones I’d left him at lunchtime were still untouched in his bowl.
Anna was darning socks, taking them from a large wicker basket standing in front of her, near a ceramic pitcher filled with water. Imri’s socks were in the basket too, and she patiently darned the holes in them. Aunt Miriam said, “That’s enough, Anna. You’ll ruin your eyes.”
Anna replied, “I must finish.”
I whistled for Johnny Weissmuller, and I even climbed onto Zionka’s fence to look for the ducks, because lately, he had developed a special relationship with the Zionist duck.
Aunt Miriam said, “We’ve grown used to you, Anna, haven’t we, troublemaker? Who will I talk to?”
Recently, she’d stopped bothering my mother and reporting every little thing to her, like how I was doing with my reading, although maybe Aunt Miriam had decided to keep quiet so as not to worry my mother about Imri’s trips back and forth to Europe.
“We made a mistake,” Anna said, and I didn’t know whether she meant the marriage or the divorce.
I thought Imri was at his wit’s end too. He got up and paced nervously around the porch. We heard the thunder of a far-off explosion. I thought they were shooting at the English base, and Imri said, “They never stop training, even at night.” A picture of the Radom pistols flashed through my mind, and I couldn’t decide whether to tell Imri that I’d discovered the hidden guns.
Aunt Miriam said to Imri, “Anna is a part of our household, “ and she told him how the chickens clucked with joy when Anna arrived in the morning and didn’t peck at her in anger when she gathered the eggs, and how devotedly she had tended to the bees through all the months of autumn, and how, since Anna had come to us, even I had calmed down, and my teacher said that I was improving and there were signs that I might start reading soon.
Imri said, “You’re here, Anna, and that’s what’s important. I’ll find a way, I promise.” And I didn’t understand what was bothering them. After all, it was already very clear how easy it was to get married and divorced.
Anna did not raise her head, and her precise movements hid her embarrassment. Between stitches, she sipped water from the ceramic pitcher. The hole in Imri’s sock was especially large. I didn’t think there was any point in darning it. It would be better to throw it away. Even Aunt Miriam was convinced that pair of socks was a lost cause. My Aunt was not generous with compliments. I didn’t remember her ever being as gentle to anyone else as she was with Anna that night. Maybe it was something in the air. Imri’s hand moved towards Anna and then stopped. At exactly that moment, her fingers were trying to thread a needle, without success.
I waited for Anna to say that she had to go back to Poland. After that bundle of letters she got, Anna was even more worried about her parents and her little sister. I was working on a prank that would sneak them into the English quota for new immigrants. I had to see “Tarzan” again, so I could steal a good idea from it.
Imri muttered, “What a mess.” They didn’t tell me what they were so worried about. They didn’t even care that Johnny Weissmuller had disappeared, and it was late already, even for a snoopy dog like him. I was so mad that I chewed him out in my mind: “You irresponsible show-off,” “You miserable beast,” and “You devil,” but then I was sorry.
“So get divorced already!” I yelled at Imri. All we needed was for Tonka Greenbaum to suddenly show up here, that famous beauty whose name was stuck in his passport.
Imri gently took the needle and thread from Anna’s hands and tried to thread it for her. He looked so helpless and ridiculous. I tried to imagine him drawing a Radom and aiming it at a target, the way Herzl Fleischer’s father did, and I started laughing.
“Tonya Greenbaum refuses to give me a divorce,” Imri said to me, and dropped the sock with the big hole onto the floor. Then he cried out, because he’d stuck himself with the needle.
Chapter 15
Whistling was no use. I had to give a full-throated roar for Johnny Weissmuller. Anna and Imri smiled and Aunt Miriam moaned, “The situation’s getting worse from day to day”.
I was beginning to worry about the dog. He had never come home so late before. Maybe he had been kidnapped by a tribe of cruel pygmies who were about to toss him into a pit where at this very moment a huge gorilla was opening its big black maw. That scene in the movie was so scary that I kept my eyes closed all through it.
Imri licked the finger he had pricked with Anna’s needle.
“How does your own blood taste?” I asked.
“You’re movie-struck,” Imri smiled. “Too bad I took you to Tel Aviv, Uzik. Tarzan doesn’t really exist.”
“But Johnny Weissmuller does!” I protested. “Swimming champion of the world. You saw for yourself how he crossed that dangerous river with those crocodiles breathing down his neck.”
Nothing ever runs off the movie screen. The pictures are clear, they don’t hurt my eyes and I feel as if I’m right up there, part of them. When I asked Anna whether she had seen the movie, she replied that she had read the book about Tarzan.
“A book is not the same thing as a movie,” I told her, and I wanted to promise her that one day I would take her to the Beit Ha’am Cinema in Tel Aviv, but I kept quiet. Maybe Imri wanted to invite her, although now he couldn’t go out with anyone but his second wife.
The flame of the kerosene lamp drove away the mosquitoes. I was suddenly filled with a sense of well-being. They weren’t a married couple, but they were together in some other way. I stopped worrying about Johnny Weissmuller. Dogs always come home, that’s what Mohammed says. Aunt Miriam went inside to make tea for us. She had baked a cake to celebrate Imri’s return, and the delicious smell drifted outside from the kitchen. Imri breathed deeply and said it was the smell of home. I thought he was exaggerating—the smell of cake is nothing more than the smell of cake.
There was a kind of peacefulness on the porch. Even Zionka’s ducks had stopped quacking. Poland was far away now, and Palestine seemed to be the safest place in the world. I thought that we could easily get rid of Tonka Greenbaum, Imri’s second wife. We just had to cross out her name on the passport, and that would be that. You didn’t have to know how to read and write to draw a line. I wanted to tell them that, but I kept quiet, because Anna was busy rolling pairs of socks and putting them into the wicker basket. Imri pocketed the sock with the hole in it and got up to help her carry the basket inside. His hand brushed against her as if by accident.
We didn’t hear any steps because the crickets had gotten carried away with the sound of their ow
n voices. The flame flickered, but not because of the wind. I saw him as if he had stepped out of a movie, half in light and half in shadow. My heart began to race, pounding like a horse’s hooves.
Major Charles Timothy Parker stood in our yard right beside the tool shed. I almost yelled. An English pilot at our house? We were caught. All was lost. The thoughts were exploding in my mind. The Englishman’s hands rose. I knew he had to be holding a rifle, and I whispered, “They’re not guilty. I’m the one.” But no one was listening. He stepped into the light. In his arms lay a quivering, furry body, whimpering faintly.
“I’ve brought the dog. He’s injured. He crossed the fence into the base and the sentry shot him.”
“Johnny!” The cry rose from within me, but no sound emerged. Deep inside me everything froze, the way it had that day my father’s heart stopped beating. The leaves had been still then, the bees weren’t flying, and I’d felt nothing.
I remember that I spoke to him. He was still alive, quivering. I didn’t know if he could hear me. Zusia the wagoner and Zionka’s mother pushed me away from him. Zionka wasn’t there. I don’t remember her being anywhere. After that day, I swore I would never, ever speak to the dead.
The English pilot looked me straight in the eye and said, “He’s still alive!” We laid him down on the table between the ceramic pitcher and Anna’s sewing box. Johnny Weissmuller was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling. Every so often, his body jerked strangely.
I said to the dog, “I’ll be your Tarzan, you’ll see.”
Aunt Miriam hurried inside and brought back some sheets. The Englishman rolled up his sleeves, the symbols of his rank disappearing, and announced that we had to remove the bullet. The vet who treated the animals in our village lived in a kibbutz five kilometers away, but if we went there, it might be too late. We couldn’t go to get Mohammed either, because it wasn’t safe to wander around at night near his village.
Imri burst into the toolshed, leaving the door wide open. He kicked grandfather’s old clay pots aside, I heard them shattering, and he began grabbing up whatever he came across, knives, scissors, a basin, until he found the pliers we used to separate the slabs of beeswax from the hives.
“Hold him tight!” said Major Charles Timothy Parker.
Imri and Anna stood on either side of Johnny Weissmuller. I wanted to hold him too. He was my dog. Mine, mine. Aunt Miriam pulled me aside. “This is not for children,” she said, trying to cover my eyes.
I told her that after what I saw the day my father died, I could see anything.
The wound was ugly. Scarier than the one on Tarzan’s forehead. Johnny Weissmuller’s red blood was pouring out of him, and I covered the hole with my hand to stop the flow. My father had not bled even one drop.
Imri hung the kerosene lamp on the hook over the toolshed door. You could see everything inside. Pictures of the old beehives and the rows of pistols passed through my mind like the frames of a movie running backwards.
Anna poured alcohol on the torn sheet to sterilize it. The Englishman said, “Now.” He inserted the pliers. I closed my eyes and when I opened them, the bullet had been removed. A shriek burst forth from Johnny Weissmuller’s throat, and maybe from my own. Something was tearing me apart inside.
“Please don’t look, Uzik,” Aunt Miriam said, and because her voice was so different, so imploring, I shifted my gaze to Anna. What I saw astonished me.
I thought she would’ve fainted or screamed at the sight of blood, but Anna was working deftly, holding Johnny Weissmuller firmly by the legs, following the Englishman’s instructions to the letter, dipping sheets in water, cleansing the wound again and again.
How lucky that you’re Anna and not Tonka Greenbaum.
Anna bandaged the wound, winding the strips of material around Johnny Weissmuller’s body. She had a talent for doctoring. Major Charles Timothy Parker examined the bullet under the light. I have no idea what kind of bullet it was or why that was even important. He threw it as far as he could, past the castor tree. We heard the metal hit something, maybe the side of the toolshed. Had the Englishman seen what was inside?
He bent over my dog, petted his heaving back. “You’ll live to play in a great many more movies, Johnny Weissmuller.”
Major Parker took a deep breath. My dog was wrapped in white and his trembling was subsiding. His quivering body lay between Anna and the Englishman.
“Is this your husband?”
Anna nodded. She was getting to be a better liar. Maybe she was learning from the rabbi.
Imri extended his hand over Johnny Weissmuller’s body.
The Englishman raised his own hands helplessly. They were covered with blood. His beautiful, pressed uniform was stained too, and the brass buttons were no longer shiny.
Imri put his hand back into his pocket and they didn’t shake hands after all.
Major Parker asked, “You’ve returned?” Imri nodded.
The Englishman said, “Women should not be left alone. Someone might suddenly appear and steal their hearts.”
Aunt Miriam filled the basin with water and pushed it toward him. The Englishman immersed his hands, washing them again and again. The water turned red. Then she handed him a towel and he dried them slowly and thoroughly. You could tell right away that he was a commander who never lost control.
Aunt Miriam asked in Yiddish if he wanted a cup of tea. The Major understood the word “tea,” and we could see him hesitating. I remembered that he missed the daily ritual, the delicate china cups and civilized conversation about the weather. And the way he looked at Anna ... I prayed he wouldn’t call her “Annie.” Finally, the Englishman politely declined the offer. He had to return to base, he explained, he was scheduled for a night flight.
Aunt Miriam didn’t insist. She removed the basin and I hugged Johnny Weissmuller, asking him to please stay alive. I didn’t blame him. Dead people aren’t to blame for dying. I know that my father didn’t choose to die. Maybe even Aunt Miriam would understand that some day. She spilled out the water behind the toolshed. Imri doused the lamp and locked the door of the shed. We stood in the darkness. The Englishman had been swallowed up by the trees and I listened to the blood and water being absorbed into the earth.
Chapter 16
I whispered soft words into his ear all night. I had to find new words, because Mohammed’s were not enough. I described the whole movie from the minute the curtain opened like a giant veil hiding Africa behind it, waiting patiently for us to enter. I described picture after picture, and when I’d finished with the real movie, I made up a new one. Johnny Weissmuller did the impossible. In my movie, he did amazing things that left the audience with their mouths open. He carried Anna’s mother and father and her little sister on his broad shoulders, and the English fell on their knees begging for mercy. In the last picture, they took off in their Hawkers and left our homeland. I whispered to my dog that he was stronger than the Johnny Weissmuller in movies. I was willing to lie. Not for the sake of the homeland, Johnny, but for an even more noble purpose. Because I couldn’t lose someone I loved for the third time. No one, even the Almighty, may His name be blessed, will steal your heart from me. If that’s called love, then I love you, Johnny Weissmuller.
The window was open. A cold wind blew inside. Johnny Weissmuller was trembling, and I wrapped him in my blanket. An airplane was circling in the sky above the village water tower, making sharp turns. I wanted to know what our country looked like to a hawk. Was it different at night than during the day? Maybe the Hawker could land on the banks of the river near Lutsk and pick up Anna’s family, and tomorrow morning, when we woke up, they would be here.
I’m hugging you very, very tight, Johnny. Your mother also died giving birth. Do you remember how I fed you with an eyedropper every two hours? Mohammed told me how to drop the milk into your little mouth. You still hadn’t opened your eyes. And I thought you were afraid to find out you had no mother, so I explained to you that now, I was your whole fami
ly. On the sixth day, I started feeding you with a bottle that had a rubber nipple, and when you were three weeks old, you started to walk, Johnny. Even then, you slept in my bed, because Mohammed said that the warmth of my body would keep you alive. Do you remember how Aunt Miriam carried on? She screamed, “Dogs and children do not sleep together.”
The snowy crystal ball glowed in the dark. I hated it more every day. Nothing moved inside it, except for the snow, and only the wolf reminded me of Johnny Weissmuller, who was breathing heavily at my side, and I immediately pushed the thought out of my mind, because he was absolutely not allowed to be in such a cold place, or his roar would freeze.
I ask you, Johnny, how did the Englishman know where we lived? I’m not mad at you for showing him the way. I know you didn’t mean for anything bad to happen to us. You only wanted to come home. I don’t know what he saw in the toolshed, and even if he did see something, he did all he could to save you.
I dozed off beside him, still wearing my clothes stained with his blood, and the frozen silence kept waking me up. I checked his breathing, the way the elephant did when he was taking care of Tarzan, who was injured, shaking him with its trunk so he would wake up. I cannot bark into the air, Johnny. Please stay alive!
Imri and Anna were walking around downstairs. They were awake. I swear I’ll return the stolen candlestick by the weekend, Anna, so you can finally light two candles for the Sabbath. I want Imri to watch you say the blessing over both of them.
Johnny Weissmuller was lying against me. When Mohammed had brought him to me—a two-day-old puppy—he said that from then on, I would be responsible for him. Responsibility is not a word for animals, Mohammed said. It was meant for people only. In the movie I made up, Tarzan even learned to cry, but not from me. The pictures got all mixed together in my mind, climbing over each other like the letters on the blackboard, and I couldn’t tell the difference between what happened in the movies and what really happened.