A Pigeon and a Boy (7 page)

Indeed, at two years of age the Y-Team was taller and broader than any children their age, presenting round and solid potbellies at the front of their bodies. Like me and like their father, they learned the skill of reading before they entered the first grade, not from the tombstones of poets but from the cereal boxes their mother placed in front of their constantly emptying bowls.

At every family gathering they asked whether their kibbutz uncles had been invited, then hurried to find them, shouting joyfully “Save us a place!” and “We want to sit with you,” taking pleasure in the hearty backslaps their uncles planted on them from behind. The uncles always showed up in a band of pressed blue trousers, their sturdy potbellies ensconced in white, tentlike shirts, each one with a large spoon gleaming from a pocket. “We brought our own utensils — that way we manage to eat more.”

They paid no heed to the waitresses passing through the crowd and serving tiny hors d’oeuvres. “ ‘Those are just trivial distractions,’” Zohar quoted from one of her fat novels. They took plates from the tower of dishes at the head of the table and, while the nuptials were still under way, they stood, silent and patient, by the closed pots and serving dishes, only the tiny movements of the flaps of their nostrils and the particular angle of their cocked heads indicative of their efforts to ascertain what was under each lid.

“Have some salad,” Liora suggested to one of Zohar’s nephews, astonished by the mountain of goulash he had amassed on his plate.

The boy smiled. “Salad? You mean lettuce and stuff?”

“Why not? Vegetables are good for you.”

“What are you talking about, Aunt Liora? Don’t you know how the world works? Cows eat vegetables, and we eat cows.”

“It would help you move the food into your stomach.”

“Do I look like someone who needs help moving food into his stomach?”

“You see,” Liora whispered to Benjamin, “it was on account of these relatives of yours that I named the Chevy I gave Yair ‘Behemoth,’” to which Benjamin complained, “I don’t like for the children to sit with them. Why don’t they sit at our table?” But their mother had already smiled her slow, serene smile and said, “Because these are their type. With them they feel at home, they’re accepted as they are. They aren’t scolded or corrected, and nobody tries to make them into what they are not.”

“One day they’ll wind up looking like them, too. No girl will be interested in them.”

“They already do look like them,” Zohar said, reveling in the fact. “A little small yet, but coming along nicely Don’t worry And as for girls,” she added, “let’s wait and see, Benjamin. I know quite a few girls—in fact, I’m one of them—who like boys just like these. Large and kind-
hearted, boys you can lean on and be carried off in their arms, boys you can slug when you need to and call on for help when you need to.”

“If that’s what you like, why didn’t you pick a big brute like that?” Liora inquired.

“I chose a brute like you.”

So you see, our family is small but full of affection. My wife is fond of Yordad and my brother, my brother is fond of Liora and himself, and I am fond of his wife and her sons, and I am jealous of him.

A
LL THE FURNISHINGS
in the apartment and the clinic were removed, and replaced with echoes. The movers pulled the last knots tight. With concentration and effort, the tip of his tongue moving in rhythm with the screwdriver, Yordad removed the
DR. YAACOV

MENDELSOHN, PEDIATRICIAN
and
Y. MENDELSOHN, PRIVATE
name-

plates from the doors. He put them, along with the screws, into his pocket and said, “Let’s go.”

My mother’s face turned red. She had two kinds of blushes: one that descended from her forehead and signified embarrassment and another that climbed from her chest and indicated anger. This time the blush came from below She turned and walked briskly up the stairs and into the empty house. We waited until she returned and announced that she wished to ride in the back of the truck, sitting on the clinic’s waiting room sofa. Benjamin rushed to say that he, too, wanted to ride in the back, but Yordad said it was dangerous. There would be sudden stops and winding roads and “If I know you two,” he said, “you’ll be leaning out over the side of the truck.”

She did not argue. We drove ahead of the trucks in our small Ford Anglia. “Watch behind us, boys,” Yordad joked. “Make sure that the movers don’t run off with the stethoscope and the otoscope and the color lamp.”

On the way, I suppose in Ramla, we stopped. Yordad bought a drink called
barad
and Arab ice cream, sticky and delicious, for us and the drivers and the movers. My mother did not want to join us. Yordad told a story about Napoleon, who shot a poor muezzin to death for disturbing his sleep right over there, next to that white tower, and farther on, between yellowing knolls and hills that came into view shimmering to
the east, he lectured us on Samson from the Bible as we drove past the village of his birth.

We began our ascent into the hills. Yordad told us about the War of Independence, pointing out the remnants of armed vehicles and recounting stories of convoys and battles, some on the way to Jerusalem and some inside the city itself. My mother shut her eyes, and I did as she did, though I opened mine every few seconds to make sure hers were still closed.

We finished our ascent. The air had cooled; the weather was dry and pleasant. The engine had ceased its groaning and Yordad said, “She handled it like a Mercedes-Benz, our little Ford Anglia.”

My mother woke up. Young pine trees emitted a refreshing scent. Yordad praised the Jewish National Fund for its reforestation program and prophesied that there would be “many pretty places with shade here too in the hills of Jerusalem.” The road dipped and snaked through an Arab village and Yordad said, “This is Abu Ghosh, and over there is Kiryat Anavim, and now,” he announced gaily, “we’ll ascend Mount Castel.”

My mother said nothing. Our little car climbed to the peak of the hill and descended steeply on the other side. Yordad said, “Khuseini” and “the murderers of Colonia” and “Soreq Creek,” and then he pointed: “This is the border, so very close, and over there is Nebi Samuel, our very own Samuel the Prophet from the Bible, and why is it that those Moslems couldn’t make themselves a new religion with new prophets instead of taking Moses and Jesus and David and Samuel from other people and calling them Moussa and Issa and Daoud and Samuel?”

He talked and he lectured while you remained silent, and after one more ascent we found ourselves at the Gateway of Jerusalem—that’s what he called it. There was no gateway, but the city began there suddenly, around a bend in the road that did not herald its existence. “Jerusalem is like a house, boys. It has a doorway and all at once you are inside. Not like Tel Aviv, which starts a little here and a little there and has a thousand ways to enter and leave, wherever you wish.”

He fell silent and smiled, expecting a response, but Benjamin showed no interest and I was waiting for some utterance from you that did not come.

“Do you feel how wonderful the air is here? That’s Jerusalem air. Breathe it in, children; you too, Raya, breathe it in. Think about the terrible heat and humidity we left behind in Tel Aviv …”

Our small Ford Anglia turned right onto a long street, on the bald and rocky left side of which was a bus terminal and garage and on the right side of which stood a housing project. We passed a small stone house surrounded by grapevines. For a moment I had hopes that this would be our new home, but we turned left onto a short street that was narrow and verdant.

“This is our new neighborhood,” Yordad said. “Beit Hakerem. Up here on the right is your new school. Here we’ll turn left again—this is our new street, Bialik, and our new house, directly in front of us.”

We stopped in front of a building that had one entrance and three stories, two small apartments on the ground floor and four more spacious flats on the upper floors. I asked you, “Is that the Bialik from the cemetery in Tel Aviv?” and you answered, “Yes.”

We got out of the car and walked up the stairs to the second floor. Yordad opened the door on the left side of the hallway We stood in the entrance to a large and empty apartment flooded with bright light and good Jerusalem air. I waited for you to say, “Hello, house …” so that we could enter, but you did not. Benjamin and Yordad marched into the flat; your hand lingered, hovering on my neck and shoulder. For one precious moment we remained, the two of us, outside; then your hand signaled me to step inside with you.

Yordad said, “Here, each one of you children will have a room of his own. This one is yours, Yairi, and this one is Benjamin’s.”

We did not argue. We rushed outside because the trucks had arrived, stopping with a great sigh of sound, and the movers were rolling up the tarp flaps. Residents of the neighborhood started to gather, for all our furniture was on display outside. The adults paid careful attention, wishing to ascertain the means and the taste of the new family, while the children watched the movers, who had already unfurled the straps they would use to carry the furniture and were binding them to their shoulders and foreheads. After all, it was not every day that one could watch a man load a refrigerator or sofa onto his back, reddening like a beet and climbing the stairs.

And when the unloading was finished and the trucks had departed and the curious neighbors had scattered, Yordad removed the brass nameplates and the tiny screws from his pocket—the tip of his tongue sticking out here, too, moving with exertion—and affixed them to the new doors: first, the
Y.
M
ENDELSOHN, PRIVATE
on the door of the
apartment and then the
DR. YAACOV
M
ENDELSOHN, PEDIATRICIAN
on the small ground-floor flat.

“There we go, Raya,” he said, taking a small step backward to review his handiwork. “You see? Just like in Tel Aviv. Exactly. The clinic is downstairs and we are on the second floor.”

He gave each of the screws a final tightening. “Now,” he said, “you children go find some friends. And we, Raya, shall drink our first cup of coffee in our new home. The kettle has not yet been unpacked, but I remembered to bring an immersion heater and two cups, and there are some cookies, and perhaps we will chat a bit. There is even a cypress tree growing here, which you love so well, and here is a surprise!”

A boy rode up on a bicycle, winded and sweating, then sprinted up the stairs clutching a bouquet of gladioluses. “These are for Mrs. Mendelsohn,” he said. “Sign here, please.” Yordad smiled broadly tensely, and signed, saying, “To celebrate our new home.”

My mother filled the kitchen sink with water and plunged the stems of the gladioluses into it. “Thank you, Yaacov,” she said. “They are very beautiful, and this was very nice of you. Later, when we open the boxes, I’ll move them to a vase.”

Benjamin and I went outside. Waiting for us on the street were a band of children and the Jerusalem summer, which did not cease demanding to be compared to its Tel Aviv brother, and praised. I said to Benjamin, “Let’s go back home and help set things up,” to which he responded, “You go back. I want to play”

It took very little time for my brother to learn the Jerusalem names and rules of children’s games. He continued to steal from the kiosk, which here was known as Dov’s kiosk, and when summer vacation was over he started first grade and did not have to join a class that had been formed several years earlier and fight for his status. He was swift and cunning, charming and golden, and with ease he captured a place for himself. I was sent to the third grade and, as expected, came up against a closed and suspicious pack of children. At first they poked fun at me, for a slow, thick, new child with bristly hair and a low forehead is always made fun of, but shortly they began to invite me to their homes as well, because the rumor was spreading among the parents that not only Benjamin but I, too, was the son of Dr. Mendelsohn, the famous pediatrician who had come from Tel Aviv

A
T THAT TIME,
the Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hakerem was bordered by open land. The shallow valley that descends from the entrance to the city—the very one we would ascend several years later to the pogrom my mother inflicted on the buses—continues southward and spills into the Refaim Creek. This was where my mother took what she called “our big trek,” the place from which she plundered the bulbs of cyclamen and anemones and brought them to her garden. Another valley known for the oversized rock called the “elephant boulder” that lay in its course, descended to the Soreq Creek. “Our little trek” was carried out there, on the back of the ridge that ran above this valley, and its sole purpose was to be able to gaze in a straight line all the way home, westward, to the distant Mediterranean. From this ridge, you commanded us to believe, we could see Tel Aviv

“Come, let’s take our little trek,” you would say, and we knew that once again we would take in the pale and distant strip of shoreline, the great expanse of blue-gray beyond, the ever-present mists inside which you repeatedly claimed lay Tel Aviv. I could not see Tel Aviv, but I believed you that it was there: Tel Aviv and the sea and the house with the balcony and the morning glory that climbed and turned blue there and the royal poinciana tree growing redder in the garden, a tree that loves heat and provides shade and that has never managed to take up residency in cold Jerusalem.

“A tree with brains,” my mother proclaimed at the end of every song of longing or praise that waxed poetic about the royal poinciana and its flowers. “It is a fact that there is not one single royal poinciana tree in all of Jerusalem. And anyone who plants one is condemning it to death, because trees can’t run away when they’re unhappy They stay put until the end.”

She and my brother, light as gazelles, skipped from boulder to boulder—in Jerusalem, terrible and evil things happen if you step on the ground, not on cracks —while I lagged behind them, my head bent, my eyes scouting the earth. At the place where the incline steepened, we stopped. The view to the far distance opened up before us. “That is where we come from, Tel Aviv,” my mother said, just as she had said in that very spot many times before.