My Michael (7 page)

At that time there worked in the basement of Terra Sancta a short, elderly librarian who wore a skullcap, and who knew me by my maiden as well as my married name. He is certainly no longer alive. I felt glad when he said to me: "Mrs. Hannah Greenbaum-Gonen: Your initials spell the Hebrew for 'festival'; I pray that all your days may be festive."

March ended. Half of April passed. The winter was long and hard in Jerusalem in 1950. At dusk I would stand at the window and wait for my husband's return. I would breathe on the glass and draw a heart pierced by an arrow, clasped hands, the letters HG and MG and HM. Sometimes other shapes, too. As Michael's form appeared at the end of the street I hurriedly wiped them all off with my hand. From the distance Michael thought I was waving to him, and he waved back. When he came in my hand would be wet and frozen from wiping the windowpane. Michael liked to say: "Cold hands, warm heart."

From Kibbutz Nof Harim a parcel arrived containing two sweaters knitted by my mother. A white one for Michael, and one for me in blue-gray wool like the color of his calm eyes.

O
NE BLUE
S
ATURDAY
, a sudden spring struck the hills, and we set out to walk from Jerusalem to Tirat Yaar. We left the house at seven o'clock and walked down the road to Kfar Lifta. Our fingers were intertwined. It was a blue-steeped morning. The outline of the hills against the blue sky was painted with a fine brush. In the clefts of the rocks wild cyclamens nestled. Anemones blazed on the hillside. The earth was moist. Rainwater still lay in the hollows of the rocks, and the pines were washed clean. A solitary cypress stood breathing ecstatically below the ruins of the abandoned Arab village of Colonia.

Several times Michael paused to point out geological features and to mention their names. Did I know that the sea had once covered these hills, hundreds of thousands of years ago?

"At the end of time the sea will cover Jerusalem again," I stated with conviction.

Michael laughed.

"Is Hannah also among the prophets?"

He was lively and cheerful. From time to time he picked up a stone and addressed it sternly, reprovingly. As we climbed up to Castel a large bird, an eagle or a vulture, came and circled high above our heads.

"We're not dead yet," I exclaimed happily.

The rocks were still slippery. I slipped deliberately, in memory of the stairs at Terra Sancta. I told Michael, too, what Mrs. Tarnopoler had said to me the day before the wedding, that people like us get married like the idolators in the Bible, like in a Purim game. A maiden fixes her eye on some man she has met by chance, when she might have happened to meet someone entirely different.

Then I picked a cyclamen and laced it through Michael's buttonhole. He took my hand. My hand was cold between his warm fingers.

"I'm thinking of a trite saying," Michael said with a laugh. I have not forgotten a thing. To forget means to die. I do not want to die.

Liora, my husband's friend, had Saturday duties and could not be free to entertain us. She merely asked if we were well and returned to the kitchen. We had lunch in the dining hall. Afterwards we sprawled on the lawn, my husband's head in my lap. I was on the verge of telling Michael about my pain, about the twins. A gnawing fear restrained me. I kept quiet.

Later we walked to the spring of Aqua Bella. Near us, at the edge of the small wood, sat a party of boys and girls who had bicycled from Jerusalem. One of them was mending a puncture. Snatches of conversation reached us.

"Honesty is the best policy," the boy with the puncture said. "Yesterday I told my father I was going to the club, and instead I went to see
Samson and Delilah
at the Zion Cinema. Who do you think was sitting behind me? My father in person!"

A few moments later we overheard a conversation between two girls.

"My sister Esther married for money. I shall only marry for love. Life isn't a game."

"As a matter of fact, I don't mind telling you I'm not entirely opposed to a little free love. Otherwise how can you know at twenty whether your love will last till you're thirty? I heard one of the youth leaders giving a talk once, and he said that love between modern people ought to be something completely simple and natural, like drinking a glass of water. Still, I don't think one should wallow in it. Moderation in all things. Not like Rivkele, who changes boys every week. But then not like Dalia, either. If a man so much as goes up to her to ask her the time, she blushes and runs away as if they all wanted to rape her. In life one ought to follow the middle path, and avoid both extremes. Anyone who lives without restraint will die young—that's what Stefan Zweig says in one of his books."

We went back to Jerusalem on the first bus after the end of the Sabbath. That evening a strong northwesterly wind arose. The sky clouded over. The morning's spring had been a false alarm. It was still winter in Jerusalem. We abandoned our plan of going into town to see
Samson and Delilah
at the Zion Cinema. We went to bed early, instead. Michael read the weekend supplement of the newspaper. I read Peretz Smolenskin's
A Donkey's Burial
for the next day's seminar. Our house was very quiet. The shutters were closed. The bedside lamp cast shadows that I did not like to look at. I could hear water dripping from the tap into the kitchen sink. I absorbed the rhythm.

Later on, a group of youngsters went past, on their way home from a religious youth club. As they passed our house, the boys sang

Girls are all the brood of Satan;
Apart from one I swear I hate 'em,

and the girls let out shrill shrieks.

Michael put down his paper. He asked whether he could interrupt me for a moment. He wanted to ask me something. "If we had the money we could buy a radio, and then we could listen to a concert at home. But we owe a small fortune in debts, and so we won't be able to afford a radio this year. Perhaps stingy old Sarah Zeldin will give you a raise next month. By the way, the plumber who mended the hot-water system was very pleasant and charming, but it's broken down again."

Michael put out the light. His hand groped for mine in the dark. But his eyes had not yet adjusted to the meager light which filtered through the shutters, and his arm collided violently with my chin so that I let out a groan of pain. He begged my pardon. He stroked my hair. I felt tired and vacant. He put his cheek against mine. We'd had such a nice, long walk today, and that was why he hadn't managed to find time to shave. The bristles scratched my skin. There was a bad moment, I recall, when I suddenly reminded myself of a bride in a vulgar joke, an old-fashioned bride who completely misunderstood her husband's advances. Wasn't the double bed easily big enough for the two of us? It was a humiliating moment.

That night I dreamed of Mrs. Tarnopoler. We were in a town on the plain, perhaps Holon, perhaps in my father-in-law's flat. Mrs. Tarnopoler made me a glass of mint tea. It tasted bitter and revolting. I was sick, and spoiled my white wedding dress. Mrs. Tarnopoler laughed coarsely. "I warned you," she boasted. "I warned you beforehand, but you
would
insist on ignoring all the hints." An evil bird pounced with sharp, hooked claws. Claws scratched at my eyelids. I woke in a panic and flung off Michael's arm. He stirred irritably, mumbling, "You're out of your mind. Leave me alone. I need to sleep. I've got a hard day ahead of me." I took a pill. An hour later I took another. Eventually I fell into a stunned sleep. Next morning I had a slight temperature. I did not go to work. At lunchtime I quarreled with Michael, and hurled abuse at him. Michael stifled his feelings and kept quiet. In the evening we made peace. Each of us blamed himself for starting the row. My friend Hadassah and her husband called. Hadassah's husband was an economist. The conversation turned to the austerity policy. According to Hadassah's husband, the government's action was based on ridiculous assumptions—as if the whole of Israel were one great youth movement. Hadassah said that the officials' only concern was for their own families, and she cited an appalling case of corruption which was going the rounds in Jerusalem. Michael thought for a while, then gave it as his opinion that it was a mistake to demand too much from life. I was not sure whether he was defending the government or agreeing with our guests. I asked him what he meant. Michael smiled at me as though the only reply I had expected of him was his smile. I went out to the kitchen to make tea and coffee and to put out some cakes. Through the open doors I could hear my friend Hadassah talking. She was praising me to my husband. She told him I was the best pupil in my class. Then the discussion turned to the Hebrew University. Such a young university, yet being guided along such conservative lines.

I
N
J
UNE
, three months after the wedding, I found I was pregnant.

Michael was not at all pleased when I told him. Twice he asked me if I was certain. Once, before we were married, he had read in a medical handbook that it is very easy to make a mistake, especially the first time. Perhaps I had misinterpreted the symptoms.

At that I got up and left the room. He stayed where he was, in front of the mirror, passing his razor over the sensitive skin between his lower lip and his chin. Perhaps I had chosen the wrong moment to talk to him, just when he was shaving.

Next day Aunt Jenia, the pediatrician, arrived from Tel Aviv. Michael had telephoned her in the morning and she had dropped everything and come running.

Aunt Jenia spoke sternly to me. She accused me of irresponsibility. I would ruin all Michael's efforts at getting on and achieving something in life. Didn't I realize that Michael's progress was my own destiny? And right before his final examinations, too!

"Like a child," she said. "Just like a child."

She refused to stay the night. She had dropped everything and come rushing to Jerusalem like a fool. She regretted having come. She regretted a lot of things. "The whole thing is just a simple matter of a twenty-minute operation, no worse than having your tonsils out. But there are some complicated women who won't understand the simplest things. As for you, Micha, you sit there like a dummy as if it's none of your business. Sometimes I think there's no point in the older generation sacrificing itself for the sake of the young. I'd better shut up now and not say everything I've got on my mind. Good day to you both."

Aunt Jenia snatched up her brown hat and stormed out. Michael sat speechless with his mouth half-open, like a child who has just been told a frightening story. I went into the kitchen, locked the door, and cried. I stood by the dresser, grated a carrot, sprinkled sugar on it, added some lemon juice and cried. If my husband knocked on the door, I did not answer. But I am almost certain now that he did not knock.

Our son Yair was born at the end of the first year of our marriage, in March 1951, after a difficult pregnancy.

In the summer, early on in my pregnancy, I lost two ration books in the street. Michael's and my own. Without them it was impossible to buy essential foodstuffs. For weeks I showed signs of vitamin deficiency. Michael refused to buy so much as a grain of salt on the black market. He had inherited this principle from his father, a fierce, proud loyalty to the laws of our state.

Even when we got new ration books I continued to suffer from various troubles. Once I had a dizzy spell and collapsed in the playground of Sarah Zeldin's kindergarten. The doctor forbade me to go on working. This was a difficult decision for us because our financial position was critical. The doctor also prescribed injections of liver extract and calcium tablets. I had a permanent headache. I felt as if I were being stabbed in the right temple with a splinter of ice-cold metal. My dreams became tormented. I would wake up screaming. Michael wrote to his family telling them that I had had to stop working and also mentioning my mental condition. Thanks to the help of my best friend Hadassah's husband, Michael succeeded in getting a modest loan from the Students' Assistance Fund.

At the end of August a registered letter arrived from Aunt Jenia. She had not seen fit to write us a single line, but in the envelope we found a folded check for three hundred pounds.

Michael said that if my pride compelled me to return the money he was willing to give up studying and look for a job, and that I was free to send back Aunt Jenia's money. I said I didn't like the word "pride," and that I accepted the money gratefully. In that case, Michael asked me always to remember that he had been willing to give up his studies and look for a job.

"I shall remember, Michael. You know me. I don't know how to forget."

I stopped attending lectures at the university. I would never study Hebrew literature again. I recorded in my exercise book that a quality of desolation pervades the works of the poets of the Hebrew renaissance. Where this quality of desolation came from, what it consists in, I would never know.

The housework, too, was neglected. I would sit for most of the morning alone on our little balcony, which overlooked a deserted backyard. I would rest on the deck-chair, throwing crumbs of bread to the cats. I enjoyed watching the neighbors' children playing in the yard. My father occasionally used to use the phrase "silently stand and stare." I stand and stare silently, but far from the silence, far from the staring to which my father probably referred. What point do the children in the yard see in their eager, panting competition? The game is tiring and the victory is hollow. What does victory hold in store? Night will fall. Winter will return. Rains will fall and eradicate all. Strong winds will blow again in Jerusalem. There may be a war. The game of hide-and-seek is absurdly futile. From my balcony I can see them all. Can anyone really hide? Who tries? What a strange thing excitement is. Relax, tired children. Winter is still far off, but already he is gathering his forces. And the distance is deceptive.

After lunch I would collapse onto my bed, exhausted. I could not even read the newspaper.

Michael left at eight o'clock in the morning and came home at six in the evening. It was summer. I could not breathe on the window and draw shapes on the glass. To make things easier for me, Michael resumed his old routine and lunched with his student friends in the student canteen at the end of Mamillah Road.