A Tale of Love and Darkness (51 page)

For instance, Uncle Staszek insisted, in such gatherings children and even teenagers were not expected on any account to join in the grownups' conversation. If, and only if, they were spoken to, they should reply politely and as briefly as possible. If refreshments were being served, the child should choose only things that would not spill or make crumbs. If he was offered a second helping, he should refuse very politely, even if he was dying to help himself. And throughout the visit the child should kindly sit up straight and not stare, and above all he must on no account make faces. Any inappropriate behavior, particularly in Arab society, which was, he assured us, well known to be extremely sensitive, easily hurt, and inclined to take offense (and even, he was inclined to believe, vengeance), would not only be impolite and a breach of trust but might also impair future mutual understanding between the two neighboring peoples; thus—he warmed to his theme—exacerbating hostility during a period of anxiety about the danger of bloody warfare between the two nations.

In brief, Uncle Staszek said, a great deal, maybe far more than an eight-year-old child can carry on his shoulders, depends on you too this morning, on your intelligence and good behavior. By the way, you too, Malenka my dear, had better not say anything there, just say nothing beyond the necessary courtesies: as is well known, in the tradition of our Arab neighbors, as it was for our forefathers too, it is not considered acceptable for a woman suddenly to open her mouth in male company. Consequently you would do well, my darling, to let your innate good breeding and feminine charm speak for you on this occasion.

And so this little diplomatic mission set forth at ten o'clock in the morning, resplendent and fully briefed, from the Rudnickis' one-and-a-half-room apartment on the corner of the Street of the Prophets and Chancellor Street, just above Blooms Galore, the florist, leaving Chopin and Schopenhauer, the lame bird Alma-Mirabelle and the painted pine-cone bird behind, and began to wend its way eastward toward Silwani
Villa on the northern side of Sheikh Jarrah, up the road that leads to Mount Scopus.

The first thing we passed on our way was the wall of the house named Thabor, which was once the home of an eccentric German architect named Conrad Schick, a devout Christian who was in love with Jerusalem. Above his gate Schick had built a small turret around which I used to weave all sorts of tales peopled by knights and princesses. From there we walked down the Street of the Prophets to the Italian Hospital, which, to judge by its castellated tower and its tiled domes, was modeled on a Florentine palace.

At the Italian Hospital, without saying a word, we turned north toward St. George's Street, skirting the ultra-Orthodox Jewish quarter of Mea Shearim, pressing on into the world of cypresses, grilles, cornices, and stone walls. This was the opposite Jerusalem, the Jerusalem I hardly knew, the Abyssinian, Arab, pilgrim, Ottoman, missionary, German, Greek, brooding, Armenian, American, monastic, Italian, Russian Jerusalem, thick with pine trees, menacing yet fascinating, with its bells and winged enchantments that were forbidden to you because they were alien and hostile, a veiled city, concealing dangerous secrets, heavy with crosses, turrets, mosques, and mysteries, a dignified and silent city, through whose streets ministers of alien cults shrouded in black cloaks and priestly garb flitted like dark shadows, monks and nuns, kadis and muezzins, notables, worshippers, pilgrims, veiled women, and cowled priests.

It was a Saturday morning in the summer of 1947, a few months before the bloody clashes broke out in Jerusalem, less than a year before the British left, before the siege, the shelling, the water stoppage, and the partition of the city. The Saturday that we walked to the Silwani family's house in Sheikh Jarrah a pregnant calm still lay on all these northeastern suburbs. But already within the calm you could sense a faint hint of impatience, a whiff of suppressed hostility. What were three Jews, a man, a woman, and a child, doing here, where had they suddenly sprung from? And now that you're here, on this side of the city, you'd better not linger longer than necessary. Slip swiftly through these streets. While there is still—

***

There were already some fifteen or twenty guests and members of the family in the hall when we arrived, as though hovering on a cloud of cigarette smoke, most of them seated on the rows of sofas along the four walls, a few standing in little clusters in the corners. Among them was Mr. Cardigan, and also Mr. Kenneth Orwell Knox-Guildford, the postmaster general and Uncle Staszek's boss, who was standing with some other gentlemen and greeted Uncle Staszek by raising his glass slightly. Most of the doors leading into inner rooms were closed, but through one that was ajar I could see three girls of my own age, wearing long dresses, huddled together on a little bench, eyeing the guests and whispering among themselves.

Ustaz Najib Mamduh al-Silwani, our host, introduced a few members of the family and some of the other guests, men and women, including a pair of middle-aged English ladies in gray suits, an elderly French scholar, and a Greek priest in a robe and a curly square beard. To all alike our host praised his guest, in English and sometimes in French, and explained in a couple of sentences how dear Mr. Stav had dispelled the great trouble that had hung over the heads of the Silwani family for several dark weeks.

We, in turn, shook hands, chatted, smiled, made little bows, and murmured "How nice!," "
Enchanté
," and "Good to meet you." We even presented a modest symbolic gift to the al-Silwani family: a book of photographs of life in the kibbutz, with pictures of everyday scenes in the communal dining room, pioneers in the fields and the dairy, naked children happily splashing around under the sprinklers, and an old Arab peasant, holding fast to his donkey's halter as he stared at a gigantic tractor on tracks going past in a cloud of dust. Each photograph was accompanied by a few words of explanation in Hebrew and English.

Ustaz al-Silwani leafed through the book of photographs, smiling pleasantly, and nodding a few times as though he had finally understood what the photographers had meant to say in the pictures. He thanked his guests for the present and put it down in one of the recesses in the wall, or was it a windowsill. The parrot with the high voice suddenly chanted in English from its cage: "Who will be my destiny? Who will be my prince?" and from the other end of the room the hoarse parrot replied: "
Kalamat, ya sheikh! Kalamat, ya sheikh! Kalamat!
"

Two crossed swords hung on the wall above our heads in the corner where we sat. I tried unsuccessfully to guess who were the guests and who were family. Most of the men were in their fifties or sixties, and one was a very old man in a threadbare brown suit that was a little frayed at the cuffs. He was a wrinkled old man, his cheeks were hollow, his silvery mustache was yellowed from tobacco smoke, as were his lined plasterer's hands. He closely resembled some of the portraits hanging on the wall in their gilt frames. Was he the grandfather? Or even the greatgrandfather? Because to the left of Ustaz al-Silwani there appeared another old man, veined, tall, and stooped, looking like a broken tree trunk, his brown head covered with prickly bristles. He was sloppily dressed, in a striped shirt that was buttoned up only halfway and trousers that seemed too big for him. I was reminded of the old man Alleluyev in my mother's story, who looked after an even older man in his cottage.

There were a few young people in white tennis clothes, and a pair of pot-bellied men in their mid-forties who looked like twins; they sat sleepily side by side, with their eyes half closed, and one of them fingered a string of amber worry beads while his brother chain-smoked, making his contribution to the gray pall of smoke that hung in the air. Apart from the two English ladies there were some other women sitting on the sofas, or circulating around the room, taking care not to collide with the servants in bow ties carrying trays laden with cold drinks, sweetmeats, glasses of tea, and tiny cups of coffee. Which of the women was the mistress of the house was hard to say: several of them seemed to be at home here. A large woman in a flowery silk dress the same color as the vase containing the peacock feathers, whose fleshy arms were so festooned with silver bracelets and bangles that they jangled with every movement, stood talking eagerly to some young men in tennis shorts. Another lady, in a cotton dress printed with a profusion of fruit that seemed to accentuate the roundness of her bust and thighs, extended her hand for her host to kiss and immediately repaid him with three kisses on the cheek, right, left, and right again. There was also an older matron with a gray mustache and flared hairy nostrils, as well as some charming young girls, slim-hipped, red-nailed, ceaselessly whispering-pspispering, with elegant hairdos and sporty skirts. Staszek Rudnicki in his ministerial dark suit that had emigrated with him from Lodz some fifteen years previously and his wife Mala in her brown skirt, long-sleeved blouse, and drop earrings seemed to be the most formally dressed people in the room (apart from the waiters). Even the postmaster general, Mr. Knox-Guildford, was wearing a plain blue shirt with no
jacket or tie. Suddenly the parrot who sounded like an inveterate smoker called out from his cage at one end of the hall: "
Mais oui, mais oui, chere mademoiselle, mais oui, absolument, naturellement.
" From the other end of the room the pampered soprano immediately answered: "
Bas! Bas, ya 'eini! Bas min fadlak! Usqut! Bas wahalas!
"

Every now and then the servants in their black, white, and red materialized out of the cloud of smoke and tried to tempt us with bowl after bowl of almonds, walnuts, peanuts, pumpkin and melon seeds, and trays laden with warm pastries, fruit, slices of watermelon, more little cups of coffee, glasses of tea and tall frost-ringed glasses containing fruit juices and pomegranate juice with lumps of ice, and little bowls of blancmange smelling deliciously of cinnamon and decorated with chopped almonds. But I made do with two biscuits and a single glass of fruit juice, and politely but firmly refused all subsequent delicacies, mindful of the obligations that stemmed from my status as a junior diplomat accepting the hospitality of an important power that was scrutinizing my behavior with suspicion.

Mr. Silwani stopped next to us and chatted in English for a few minutes with Auntie Mala and Uncle Staszek, joking, smiling, perhaps complimenting Auntie on her drop earrings. Then, as he was excusing himself and about to move on to his other guests, he hesitated, suddenly turned to me, and said with a pleasant smile in stumbling Hebrew:

"If the young sir would like to go out in the garden. There are some children in the garden."

Apart from Father, who liked to call me Your Highness, nobody had ever called me sir before. For one glorious moment I really did see myself as a young Hebrew gentleman whose status was not one whit less exalted than that of the young foreign gentlemen who were outside in the garden. When the free Hebrew state was finally established, Father used to quote enthusiastically from Vladimir Jabotinsky, our nation would be able to join the comity of nations, "like a lion confronting other lions."

Like a lion confronting other lions I therefore left the smoke-filled room. From the spacious veranda I took in the view of the walls of the Old City, the towers and domes. Then slowly, imperiously, with a strong sense of national awareness, I descended the flight of stone steps and walked toward the arbor of vines and beyond, into the orchard.

OUT IN THE
arbor there was a group of five or six girls in their mid-teens. I gave them a wide berth. Then some rowdy boys sauntered past me. A young couple were strolling under the trees, deep in whispered conversation but not touching each other. At the other end of the orchard, near the corner of the wall, around the rough trunk of a leafy mulberry tree, someone had erected a kind of bench without legs, and here a pale-faced girl was sitting with her knees together. Her hair and eyelashes were black, her neck was slim, her shoulders were frail, and her bobbed hair fell over a brow that seemed to me to be illuminated from within by a light of curiosity and joy. She was dressed in a cream blouse under a long navy blue dress with broad straps. on the lapel of her blouse she wore an ivory brooch that reminded me of one that belonged to my Grandma Shlomit.

At first sight this girl seemed to be my age, but from the slight curve of her blouse and the unchildlike look of curiosity and also of warning in her eyes as they met mine (for an instant, before my eyes looked away), she must have been two or three years older, perhaps eleven or twelve. Still, I managed to see that her eyebrows were rather thick and joined in the middle, in contrast with the delicacy of her other features. There was a little child at her feet, a curly-haired boy of about three who may have been her brother; he was kneeling on the ground and was absorbed in picking up fallen leaves and arranging them in a circle.

Boldly and all in one breath I offered the girl a quarter of my entire vocabulary of foreign words, perhaps less like a lion confronting other lions and more like the parrots in the room upstairs. Unconsciously I even bowed a little bow, eager to make contact and thus to dispel any prejudices and to advance the reconciliation between our two peoples:

"
Sabah al-heir
, Miss.
Ana ismi
Amos.
Wa-inti, ya bint? Votre nom's'il vous plait, Mademoiselle?
Please your name kindly?"

She eyed me without smiling. Her joined eyebrows gave her a severe look beyond her years. She nodded a few times, as though making a decision, agreeing with herself, ending the deliberation, and confirming the findings. Her navy blue dress came down below her knees, but in the gap between the dress and her shoes with the butterfly buckles I
caught sight of the skin of her calves, brown and smooth, feminine, already grown up; my face reddened, and my eyes fled again, to her little brother, who looked back at me quietly, unsuspectingly, but also un-smilingly. Suddenly he looked very much like her with his dark, calm face.