Only Yesterday (27 page)
Jerusalem sits there like an eagle bearing its young on its wings. There are separate neighborhoods for Ashkenazim and separate neighborhoods for Sephardim, and there are some where Ashkenazim and Sephardim dwell together. There are some whose residents are Yemenites or Georgians or Mughrabites or Persians, and there are some where several commuities dwell together. There are some which have unfortunately gone out of the hands of the Jews, and there are some whose name is forgotten because they were so small. And you don’t have one single neighborhood that doesn’t have a synagogue, and there are some that put up several synagogues and study houses and religious schools and Yeshivas and everything a son
of Israel needs for his body and his soul. When Jerusalem expanded, the importance of the right of possession disappeared and all the money invested in it went for nought. But the houses that were built still exist and they too are expanding, some add a room and some build an attic, some add two rooms and some add two stories, and no longer does a man say, The place is too strait for me to stay in Jerusalem.
Let’s go back to Isaac. As he sat, his weariness left. He walked down to Nahalat Shiv’ah. He saw a big house, taller than all the other houses. He said to himself, This house is full of apartments, maybe there’s a room here for me. I’ll go and ask. He went in and found a vacant room. So he stayed there and paid his rent.
Isaac Buys Himself a Bed
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I
That house where Isaac found himself an apartment was called the house of the convert, after the owner who changed his religion. That convert had a lot of houses, and this was one of them. Every single house he had inherited from his English wife, who immigrated with her daughter from London to dwell in Jerusalem in the city of their Messiah. He was a tall and corpulent man and was something of a writer. Even though he claimed that he himself believed in poly-theism, he didn’t believe that there was even one person in Israel who would believe that. And if a Jew came to him to convert, he would ask him why he wanted to change his religion. If the Jew told him he was poor and had no means of support, he would give him money and add travel expenses for him to go to London and convert again and get double the money. But if the Jew told him that he wanted to change his religion out of conviction, he gave him a good scolding and told him to get out and tell it to the Gentiles, I don’t believe you. That’s what he used to tell us to endear himself to us, and he told the Gentiles something else to endear himself to them. Since he had despaired of finding favor in the eyes of God, he wanted to find favor in the eyes of man. But anyone from whom the Omnipotent does not take pleasure, people do not take pleasure. The Children of Israel because he denied his people and his God, and the Christians because they didn’t believe in his loyalty. Since pious people refrain from dwelling in the house of a convert, he had to rent apartments cheaply and could not insist that his tenants pay him a year’s rent when they moved in, as was the custom in Jerusalem.
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I
The whole house is settled and inhabited. Below are shops and warehouses and cellars, and above them are apartments opening onto the courtyard, with metal balconies surrounding them in the shape of a closed square. Families and single men and women lived there. Some of them are professionals and some of them have no particular craft, but are willing to do anything. Some of them are artists and writers and some of them are close to art and literature. And among them live hatmakers and seamstresses whose hands work and whose hearts turn to that je-ne-sais-quoi. Isaac got a room in the apartment of a teacher who lived with his wife and sons and daughters, as well as his wife’s sister’s daughter, but we’re not concerned with her because he guards her and keeps everyone away from her but himself. And Isaac’s room has its own private entrance. A private entrance has advantages and disadvantages. It’s an advantage that the tenant isn’t dependent on the opinions of others, he comes in when he comes in and goes out when he goes out, and doesn’t have anything to do with his neighbors. It’s a disadvantage that, since he doesn’t have anything to do with his neighbors, he grows lonely, especially if he’s not an artist or a writer. Isaac was a simple housepainter and the neighbors showed no inclination to get to know him, especially since he was a Galician and they were Russians. And he wasn’t eager to get close to them either. That room, like all rented rooms in Jerusalem, was empty, there was nothing in it but four walls, a ceiling, a floor, a door, and a window. Since Isaac hadn’t brought anything with him from Jaffa except for his bedclothes and his small utensils, he had to buy himself a bed, the first necessity of a room. And so he went to the city to buy himself a bed.
The day burned like an oven and the sun inflamed the whole world and the whole world was yellow and dry like the air that stands still between heaven and earth, and like the dust that sticks to a person’s body and covers his eyes and fills his ears so much that he doesn’t see and doesn’t hear anything but a kind of mute humming that parches the soul and drowns him in boredom. With every sin-gle step, his strength wanes and his bones dry out and his tongue is dry as dust. Only his feet still trudge on. And so he trudged along be-hind his feet, until they brought him to Meah Shearim.
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As a city within a city, Meah Shearim dwells within Jerusalem. It has no palaces or castles, no gardens or citrus groves, and none of the other things that expand the mind. But, let it be remembered to Meah Shearim’s favor that if not for Meah Shearim, we would be pressed and oppressed between the Old City walls and wouldn’t find a house to live in for ourselves and our children. When Jerusalem saw that the Israelites were coming from all lands and that the Ishmaelites were raising rents from year to year, a hundred distinguished citizens of Jerusalem got together and made an organization to build themselves houses outside the walls. They bought a big, broad valley of thirty thousand cubits, and dug cisterns and built themselves houses, and erected synagogues and study houses, Heders and Yeshivas, a bathhouse and shops, everything a Jew needs for his body and his soul. In the beginning they wanted to sow wheat and plant citrons for an Esrog there so a person could harvest wheat from his own field for Matzo and take his own Esrog, but the holiness of Jerusalem is too holy and you don’t plant gardens and citrus groves in it, and you don’t sow or plant because of the stench, for sowed land is loaded with dung, and dung stinks. So they changed their mind and didn’t sow and didn’t plant.
Forlorn and solitary stood Meah Shearim at first within the desert of Jerusalem. Between Jaffa Gate and Meah Shearim, there wasn’t a single house, except for the seven houses in Nahalat Shiv’ah and the houses in the Russian Compound. Ten houses were built there in Meah Shearim at first, a room and a corridor for every fam-ily. And every night a candle was lit in every house for fear of robbers and thieves, and one of the men of the house gets up every night and studies Torah, for Torah defends and saves. It wasn’t many years be-fore the rest of the members came and built themselves houses. Meah Shearim filled up. And the area around it was also built, and the neighborhood seemed to be swallowed up within Jerusalem, but it stood by itself and didn’t blend with the city’s neighborhoods. And it still stands as a city within a city.
A yellow sadness settled over the neighborhood that day, and even the sound of the Torah, which hums every day, was weak and
weary that day. And no wind blew in the narrow streets, the width of one loaded camel, and every house huddled against its neighbor, for when they built Meah Shearim, they didn’t know what measure to allocate to the streets, they remembered the Mishnah Baba Qamma, A camel which was carrying flax and passed by in the public way, and they went and hired a camel and loaded it with flax and measured how much room it took. And the houses they built row upon row, each house attached to the next, to gain two half walls, on the right and on the left. And anyone who was enriched by the Omnipotent added an attic years later, or a balcony for the holiday of Sukkoth.
I
Isaac entered the gate across from Nathan’s Houses. Iron pylons were fixed in the gate to prevent carts from coming in and enclosed the yard in a kind of cage. Two rows of shops are set there within the wall, one row across from the other, and the shopkeepers sit there in front of their shutters, some sit with legs folded beneath them as the Sephardim sit, some sit bent over like the Ashkenazim. And in front of every shop, below on the ground, in the shade of the shutter, sits a lame man or a blind man, an invalid with missing limbs or a man covered with sores, and in front of him sits a Charity box, and flies and mosquitoes dance between their eyes and the sun fries their wounds and makes the Charity box glow. Isaac, who hadn’t seen a pauper stretch out his hand all the days he was in Jaffa, looked upon them in amazement. When he realized what they wanted, he quickly gave this one a penny and that one a penny, until he gave something to all of them.
Isaac drags his feet between the houses and the shops. The shops are wide open and the eyes of the shopkeepers are closed shut as if they want a bit of sleep. If not for the flies and mosquitoes, they would have laid their heads on their hands and dozed off. Across from the houses and shops old women peddlers sit in front of their delap-idated shutters and their drooping lips move as if they are praying or chewing. As Isaac walks, he comes upon a dog. The dog looked at the human creature who had bumped into him and who didn’t kick him, and Isaac looked at the dog he came upon and who didn’t bark
at him. After a while, Isaac soon came to a shop of old furniture and stood still.
The shopkeeper glanced at him and asked him something. Isaac was silent and didn’t reply. Said the shopkeeper, I thought you were a Sephardi and I addressed you in the Spanish tongue. You want to buy something? He immediately offered him various wares, a samovar for tea and a narghila for smoking and Bukharan garments and a music box and a wedding ring. When he heard that he wanted a bed, he jumped up and said, An iron bed I bought today from a German teacher, a Gentile, and here it is right in front of you. The shopkeeper started praising the bed for its springs and for its mattress and for the gilded knob at the head shaped like a bird. And that bird, my friend, has the advantage that you don’t need to feed it. When the shopkeeper saw that he still hesitated, he told him, I’ll tell you something that will go to your heart. You see that bed, no matter how much you rummage around in it you won’t find a bedbug in it, because it belonged to a Gentile, and the heathens are meticulous about cleanliness, as it says in the Talmud.
Isaac asked the shopkeeper, How much are you selling it for? The shopkeeper wanted to tell him, but he decided not to rush and started praising the bed and praising the Germans, for whatever comes from their hands is made well, unlike our brothers the Children of Israel, quite to the contrary, for if they make a piece of furniture—tomorrow you can throw it in the garbage, because every day we are waiting for the coming of the Messiah so why should we worry about tomorrow. But just as the products of the Germans are strong, so they themselves are firm and impudent. If you heard, my friend, how much that German asked for that bed, you’d have spat in his face. But I’m not asking you for even half. After all, you’re a Jew, even though your sidelocks are cut and your beard is shaved, probably with some salve, for as the Talmud says, a man will not abandon what is permitted and do what is forbidden. I say in truth, a beard is fitting for a son of Israel and even, quite the contrary, for a Gentile. With my own eyes, I saw an image of the King of Prussia, may I live to see the King Messiah, and his beard is full. So, my friend, how much will you give me for that bed? Pay two Bishliks and it’s yours. If you don’t
pay two, pay a Bishlik and a half. If not a Bishlik and a half—one Bishlik. Or to be reasonable in every regard, half a Bishlik. By your life, I’m ashamed of your words. You look like a modern person and you haggle like a charity case. Isaac understood his words and added more money. He called a porter to take his bed. The porter untied his ropes, loaded the bed on his shoulders, and tied it. And even though he had been fasting for two days, yesterday a voluntary fast and today a fast on account of a bad dream, nevertheless he walked quickly and not carelessly, for by now his external limbs were accustomed not to be dependent on the internal organs, for the ones in-side were created for eating and drinking, while the ones outside were created for work and carrying. And furthermore, he was glad, for that night, he had been shown a bed in a dream and he had worried lest the time had come for him to die, and now that he had chanced upon this bed, he interpreted his dream favorably, for this was the bed Heaven meant. He walked behind Isaac until they came to his room and they put up the bed between the door and the win-dow. Isaac paid him his fee and stretched out on his bed.
I
The silence of a heat wave lay upon the house and the courtyard. The warehouses and the shops, the merchandise and its owners were dozing as they do on the day of a heat wave. Isaac felt good that he had rented himself a room of his own without roommates and had bought himself a big bed. He was so tired that he went without eating, even though he hadn’t eaten since morning and was hungry. It wasn’t long before he jumped out of bed as if he were stung by a scorpion. A scorpion hadn’t stung him, as we learn in the Talmud, a snake and a scorpion never bit anybody in Jerusalem, but a host of bedbugs came out of the walls of the house to greet their brothers in the bed, and on their way, they came upon Isaac. Even before that and during that came mosquitoes and little flies, the kind that were called little flies before the war, and after the war people started calling them sand flies. As he was busy with them, he heard the sound of a mouse. The cakes Sonya had given Isaac called forth a mouse.
In the meantime, the courtyard woke up, as courtyards do in Jerusalem on hot days when they wake up in the evening. Isaac lit a candle and examined his bed. While the candle was in his hand, a mosquito stung him. He threw the candle down and licked his hand. A mosquito came and stung his face. And between this and that, the sand flies stung him. He went back to his bed, fortified a place for himself, and fought his foes. But they were many and he was one. He clasped his hands and curled up to reduce their domain.
In the meantime, the neighbors finished eating their dinner, and from every apartment and every room they came out to their balconies for a breath of wind and told one another about the heat wave and the dust, until the first watch of the night ended. Two or three times, Isaac jumped out of his bed and went out to the balcony and stood there, for he hadn’t yet bought himself a chair. Finally his legs collapsed and he returned to his bed, sleep fell upon him and he dozed off.
I
As he lay sleeping, a north wind blew and brought a good change to the air. And when he woke up, a clear and fine day was sparkling. The air was steeped with a fragrant moisture, and a wind wafted in the air like the smell of dew on flowers in the morning. Isaac forgot everything that had been done to him yesterday. It is a good quality they have in the Land of Israel that a good day makes you forget a bad day. Since he had gone to sleep without eating, he got up hun-gry. He stretched his bones and jumped out of bed, washed his face and hands and got dressed, and went down to the street to buy himself some food. The shops were already open and the day’s work had begun with happy faces and grumpy faces, depending on a person’s lot and the desire of his Creator. As he wanted to enter a shop, he saw a group of Georgians selling biscuits and cakes and wafers. As soon as he wanted to go to them, he saw a cook shop and went in.
Half of that cook shop is above ground and half is sunk in the ground, and a chimney rises above the door and smoke climbs from the chimney. You bend and go down and stand in the room whose length is equal to its width and its height is as tall as an aver—
age man. People sit there drinking tea and eating wafers. And any-one who has an extra penny orders himself a cup of cocoa or an egg or a piece of herring or a vegetable meal, all depending on his pocket and his belly.
Isaac ordered himself a cup of tea and two twin cakes, that have more puff than dough and more absence than presence. Since he ate and wasn’t full, he ordered those things that fill a person’s grat-ification, bread and eggs and cucumbers and sundry things. When he ate his fill, his mouth became light and he started talking with his neighbors. Since they were people of Jerusalem, and on that day the air of Jerusalem was fine, Isaac began with respect for the city and praise of its air, which refreshes the soul and strengthens the body, not like Jaffa that makes you sweat a lot and melts the bones in your body. And since the people of Jerusalem are amiable and hospitable people and their interlocutor was from Jaffa, they agreed with him a bit and differed with him a bit, and even when they differed with him, they deferred to his city. They said, Even though a person should hear praise of his city, especially praise of Jerusalem, which is a Commandment, you can’t dismiss Jaffa, for the sea is there and a person washes off his sweat, not like Jerusalem where you drink cistern water. And there are drought years when the cistern doesn’t fill up with water and you need to buy it from the water carriers and from the water hoarders who make themseles a lot of cisterns and raise the price of water according to how thirsty a person is, and sometimes a poor man doesn’t have a drop of water to wet his mouth. And sometimes the whole city is in that trouble, rich as well as poor, for there are years when the skies are shut and the cisterns are emptied. And once upon a time, no rain fell that year and on the night of the Seder, they had to wash their hands in wine, and a miracle happened and that night so much rain fell that some houses melted. One story led to another and another story led to another, and everyone told something he had seen with his own eyes or heard from his father who heard it from the elders of Jerusalem, and his comrade testified that he had heard the very same thing.
Who knows how long Isaac would have sat there, except that at that moment a tall, thin fellow came in, his head was leaning on
one shoulder and a small cap was on his head and an artist’s palette was hanging on his arm and a sheet of a picture was in his hand. The smell of paint spread and Isaac remembered his craft. He went and sat down across from him and said, I see that you deal with paints, perhaps you know some of my fellow artisans, the housepainters in Jerusalem. The artist leaned his head from this side to the other and looked at him with one eye, like a person who looks at something that isn’t worth wasting two eyes on, and said, I don’t paint with paints, I draw with the Holy Spirit. And he ordered the owner to bring him two cups of tea, one for breakfast and one to pay the body that had stood with him on the Old City wall to draw a picture that our forefathers never pictured. Isaac bowed his head and left in shame.
What that painter didn’t do, another painter did, for at that time Jerusalem was full of painters, who came from many places to study the art of painting with Professor Boris Schatz in Jerusalem, and as is the way of human beings, some are friendly to folks and oth-ers are not. The one Isaac first came upon was not friendly to folks, the one he found afterward was friendly to folks and Isaac was helped by him as we shall soon see.
