Only Yesterday (36 page)
Sleep at night is good, especially for one who is hounded by day. Especially when the pursuers are silent and don’t interrupt your sleep. And a cool wind blows and weakens the stings of the fleas and mosquitoes. And so the dog lay in the dirt of his hole and felt in his flesh a bit of that sweet oozing when a sore heals, and you indulge in pleasure, as if someone is petting you fondly. And all the events that had happened to the dog when he was awake seemed like a dream to him now. He wagged his tail at intervals as he wags it in a dream and whined vague whines. But when the second watch of the night came, the time of shouting for dogs, and he wanted to stand up and shout, a heaviness came over his body and he couldn’t stand up. But Meah Shearim rose and stoned him with its shadows, until he was all covered by shadows, and from the shadows leaped the skeleton of a wolf, who then turned himself into a jackal and a fox and a kind of dog un-like any dog in this world. The dog’s hairs stood on end, even those hairs that were stippled by the painter with two words that mustn’t be mentioned. The skeleton’s bones began rattling and saying, Don’t be scared, for we are your father and you are our son. May you not dream such bad dreams. Even the heathen, who worship the stars and the planets don’t see their afterworld so harsh.
One dream came and another dream passed, and with them passed the night. The dog emerged from his hole, looking here and there. His soul was not happy and his spirit was not easy. He lowered his head toward his tail. His tail was still in its place, but something was slightly out of order. When he looked again, he saw heaps of meat and fish and fruit and vegetables and loaves of bread and cakes and cookies baked in oil and pretzels and challahs lying in the garbage. All kinds of food the shopkeepers threw away because of the danger that the mad dog had touched them during the night and deposited venom on them, when they had left their shops open and ran away. If the Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He hadn’t left his food in his guts, he would have come back and eaten and no one would have prevented him. He strolled among the heaps like a smug merchant and didn’t know what to do. He considered taking from everything here and bringing it to his hole and digging himself some other holes and hid-ing all that food, as the fruit vendors do. Before he could consider what to do, all Meah Shearim came out with wooden instruments and stone instruments and ceramic instruments and glass instruments, and with pots and pans, with jugs and jars, with tins of
kerosene and stoves of earthenware, with broken lamp shafts, with glass beads and rings made like a pot below and like a lens above, and they started stoning him. And everyone who wasn’t hoarse from yes-terday shouted at the top of his lungs. The dog raised his voice and shouted Arf Arf, What is my sin and what is my crime, what do you want from me and what evil did I do you? And he shouted until they ran away and hid. Before the dog could take account of everything his eyes had seen and his ears had heard, a stone was thrown at him. Before he could observe where it came from, a second one and a third one hit him. He picked himself up with a wail and began running. Where did he run and where didn’t he run. From Meah Shearim to Nathan’s Houses, and from Nathan’s Houses to the Hungarian Houses, and from the Hungarian Houses to the Srebenbirgen Houses, and from the Srebenbirgen Houses to Sha’ar Shekhem, and from Sha’ar Shekhem he returned to all the neighborhoods he was used to. And thus he ran from neighborhood to neighborhood and from dead end to dead end and from courtyard to courtyard until he came to the houses of the convert in Nahalat Shiv’ah. He made water and ran on. Since he was in several places and didn’t find a place for himself, we imagine he went to Jaffa Gate and entered the Old City inside the Wall, but we don’t know if he went in through the gate or through the breach cut by the government in honor of Kaiser Wilhelm, for when Kaiser Wilhelm ascended to Jerusalem, the government cut a breach in the wall of Jerusalem in his honor.
Changing Places
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And so he went inside the Wall and stood between Jaffa Gate and the Austrian Post Office. At that time, everyone was eager for letters com-ing from Outside the Land and didn’t notice the dog. And he didn’t notice them either because he was eager to find his way. After he looked this way and that way he took himself off to the upper mar-ket, and from there to the vegetable market in front of the street of the Jews, where there was a cool wind, because it is roofed with stones. How many things did he see, and what didn’t he see! The things that dog saw in passing writers of travel books never see. From the vegetable market he went to the Aladdin market and from there he sneaked into the serpentine street. And he passed through and over obstacles and hurdles, and jumped and leaped through a multitude of paths, bent and blocked, curving and contorted, pocked and putrid, perpendicular and precipitate. And he marched proudly among garbage and manure, among houses of the Ishmaelites, mournful and gloomy, like their owners who came from Morocco the land of Mughreb, and in their lairs they lodged like animals in ambush. He sniffed a bit here and a bit there, and went to the Hamidan Market and from Hamidan Market to the homeless shelters. And when he came to the shelters, he wanted shelter for his bones, and not only did he not find shelter, but whatever bones of his that had emerged intact from Meah Shearim were about to be broken. For in those days, the city was full of Heders and Yeshivas, that produced mighty geniuses, who still live amongst us here to this day, and even in their early childhood they could read and write. And when they saw the dog and everything that was written on him, they surrounded
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him with stones like a viper. And if he hadn’t run away in time, who knows if he would have lived out the day.
And so he fled for his life and ran away and came to wherever it was he came and sat down wherever it was he sat down. And it looked as if he sat down among the Gentiles. It’s not known where he sat down first, whether among the Greek Orthodox or the Greek Catholics, the Gregorian Armenians or the Catholic Armenians, the Syrians or the Marronites, the Copts or the Ethiopians. Among the Franciscans or in the other monasteries, the Presbyterians or the Lutherans. But it is known that he didn’t leave a single place that he wasn’t in, like those Jewish apostates who trudge along behind any-one who gives them more. The nations of the world who do not know the Holy Tongue were not scared by what was written on his skin and treated him as they treat dogs and he didn’t want for anything with them.
And so he settled down among the Gentiles and ate and drank and played with his comrades. Sometimes he would bite them and sometimes they would bite him, sometimes playfully and sometimes for something else. Especially since in those days, the Syrian
Putirta
was revealed to them, which was like the challah of their feast days. But satisfaction he didn’t find because of the confusion in his heart, for he was flabbergasted, could it be that the Children of Israel, merciful sons of merciful souls, suddenly became cruel, and Ishmael became merciful. So he would scrounge around in his mind, but the dog mind wasn’t capable of grasping the truths of things.
Meanwhile, food he had in abundance. But his pleasure wasn’t complete, for all those days his thought was bound to Meah Shearim and to Sha’arei Pina and the neighborhoods near them, like that tail that was bound to his behind. And so he kept on wondering, Could it be that the Children of Israel are cruel and the Ishmaelites are merciful, otherwise, how can you explain that incident, that the Jews throw you out and the Gentiles bring you in. In the end, he came to the conclusion that there must be some trace of a defect in him that made folks hate him, for he didn’t yet ascribe the rupture to others, as do those human creatures who see themselves pure as angels and others they see as devils and demons. In truth, no creature is free of flaws, but the flaw in him is different from theirs. If so, why is it that the Children of Israel see his flaw and the Gentiles don’t see his flaw? Or perhaps the flaw in him is a flaw in the eyes of the Children of Israel, but for the others it isn’t a flaw.
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That question pierced his brain and confused his mind and sapped his strength and didn’t let him rest either by day or by night. And even though he sapped his strength with his thoughts, he didn’t lie down on his belly and didn’t wait for salvation to come by itself, but started chasing after remedies. Some remedies helped him for a little while and hurt him in the long run, and some helped him in one limb and damaged his other limbs, like remedies that cure one limb and en-danger the entire body. He started getting angry at the remedies that cheated him and laughed at himself for believing in them. Meanwhile, his body grew rusty and he wanted to wash. But everyone who knows the problem of water in Jerusalem knows how exhausting it is to find a little bit of water for washing. In his mind’s eye, he passed all the bathhouses in the Old City and outside it. The bathhouses of the Turks at Lions Gate and at the Western Wall and across from Hezekiah’s Pool, and the bathhouses of the Jews in the synagogue of Nishi, facing the houses of the Karaites, who are called inverted Jews, and the bath of the Mughrabites which is always cool, and even finicky men who don’t attend any bath all year come there on Yom Kippur eve, and the ChaBaD bath and the bath in the courtyard of the abandoned woman. From the bathhouses inside the Old City walls, his dog’s mind came to those outside the wall, to the one on Jaffa Road of the sect of the Christian Sabbath Keepers, and—not to mention it in the same breath—to the Jewish bathhouses in every neighborhood. But in every bathhouse he found a flaw. In the baths of the Turks because of the jokers who are liable to pour a bucket of boiling water on him, and because of those seminarians who have no place to sleep and spend the whole night there, for if they saw him they would spread the word of his disgrace. In the courtyard of the abandoned woman, because everyone who bathes there emerges as dirty as a broom on Passover eve. And it’s doubtful if the water there
is water. And once upon a time, those who had to dip in water came in to dip and had to bring a knife to remove their crust. So, in every bathhouse he found a dull side. And as for those outside the Old City walls, sometimes a dispute erupts in one of them and those who get the upper hand lock the bathhouse and take the key away and your trouble is in vain. And the one belonging to the sect of the Sabbath Keepers? If we weren’t afraid of far-fetched hypotheses, we would say that his spirit did not approve of its owners. And we won’t be too far from the truth if we say that the dog said, Make up your minds, if you recognize the Sabbath, why do you neglect the rest of God’s Commandments. And why didn’t he think of the pool of Mamila? Because on all the days of sunshine it is a wasteland, and it differs from a valley of dung only by name. And Baedeker was wrong when he wrote that it is full of water, for he saw it in the rainy period, but in the rainy period most of the houses in Jerusalem are filled with water. To make a long story short, one day passed and another day came. His limbs grew rusty and his whole body stank. And even his hair got sick, aside from those two words the artisan had written on him, which stood firm and shining in their blaze of colors, for Isaac was a master painter and his colors don’t get erased. Meanwhile, all kinds of rashes and fleas attached themselves to him and made themselves the owners of his head and his tail and on his whole body. Not to mention the lice. These modest creatures wherever they cast their eyes, there are rashes or boils, and even in sleep, he had no rest from them. The dog wagged his tail and shouted, in turn, sometimes in torment and sometimes because it seemed to him that he was told in a dream what to do. When he woke with a start he saw himself as that German that the German poet wrote a poem about, Here I stand, a miserable fool, and I am as wise as I was. And when at last he reached the conclusion that he had to take action, every bathhouse took on nine measures of humility, and said, I’m not worthy, I’m not worthy. But he sacrificed his honor. And which bathhouse did he decide to go to? The bathhouse of the Oren Stein Houses. We don’t know why he chose a bathhouse in the new city, but we do know why he chose the one in the Oren Stein Houses, since every neighborhood has its own pack of dogs who don’t let any outsider dog into their turf. But
that isn’t the case with the Oren Stein Houses, which stand between two neighborhoods, between Zikhron Moshe and the Warsaw Houses, and the dogs divided the neighborhoods between themselves, one pack took one neighborhood and the other pack took the other neighborhood, and they left the Oren Stein Houses to their own devices.
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The dog lay on his guts to examine his steps, what road would he take. Finally he picked himself up and walked to wherever it was he walked. Meanwhile, the day grew dark and the Muezzin ascended to the top of the turret and called out whatever it was he called out. The Arabs heard and left their work and cleared out a pure place for themselves. They washed their hands and their feet and rinsed their mouth and dabbed water on their forehead and their hair and turned their face to the south. And they raised their hands and said whatever it was they said and picked themselves up and sat on their knees and straightened up and raised their hands. The sun declined and the stars began coming out and filled the sky, and every star gleamed like a raindrop. The dog looked at the sky and said, Sky sky, if only you were a river and the stars in you dripped water, this wretch wouldn’t have to move his wornout bones around seeking water. After he looked at the sky, he brought his face back to the earth and found himself a niche to sleep in. He circled it a few times and checked to see if there wasn’t a snake there and went in. Sleep descended on him and he dozed off. He was shown a big river with all kinds of water coming out of it. He folded his tongue into the shape of the palm of a hand. But when he was about to drink, the water took off and ran away. He spurred on his legs to rush and to scurry, Oh, you apostates, why won’t you hurry! Don’t you know, I am rushing, can’t you see? Add your road to my road and your strength to mine, why will you whisper together against me. May your mouth be covered with dust for a spell, may your fathers’ forefathers go straight to Hell. His legs flew out like an arrow from a bow, he ran in panic, like a deer and like a doe, like a bird who flees a net of cunning, he sped off, leaping, running. And so he ran at the speed of light, turning neither left
nor right, didn’t delay, he lowered his tongue like a jar to a trough, his lips were dry and his throat was rough, and the water makes a sound and there is no water to be found. It went away as it came up to the rim, and his legs collapsed and his eyes grew dim.
He fell down and closed his eyes. But he saw that the water was fruitful and multiplying and everything around him was filling up, and there was nothing between him and the water except two or three leaps. He gathered all his strength and went toward it. But his legs failed him and brought him down. His heart filled with wrath and he bit his legs and screamed at them to get up, or not even a piece thin as a cow pat would he leave of them. They were wounded and couldn’t stand. He started jumping like a chicken and leaping like a frog and coiling like a snake and hurling himself like an arrow and tumbling down like the scapegoat. Suddenly he realized there was no water here, but only hallucinations, like the springs and streams that appear to travelers in the deserts. He threw himself on the ground and said, A fool it was who followed his eyes. Now even if they showed us four mouths of the rivers of the world we wouldn’t budge. He examined his legs and licked their wounds and soothed them and promised them to bring them to a valley below Bezalel where healing grass grew. As he was tending to his legs, he was shown a brook full of water. He straightened his back and leaped into it. But that brook was a looking-glass, like the ones barbers hang in their shops. And when he leaped into it, he was hurt and wounded and his ribs were broken. In the morning, Balak wondered, What is that? All night long we lay still, and how did our bones get broken? He stretched his bones but they wouldn’t stretch. He spread out his legs but they wouldn’t spread out. Meanwhile, his eyes closed and he dozed off. He saw that he was running, as he had run all night long. But at night he ran for water and now he was running and didn’t know why he was running. It seems that he saw a reflection of his dream, or a kind of secondary dream. He shook himself and barked, barked and shook himself. He hung out his tongue and looked around. Then he got up and went to the place where he had decided to go, that is to the Oren Stein Houses, where there is a bathhouse and there are no dogs. And he had the good luck that no Jew encountered him and
they didn’t see his writing. Then he came on a group of Hasids. And he had the good luck that they didn’t notice him, for at that time they were coming from a blessed celebration and were too drunk and were busy finding a proper place for their feet, so they wouldn’t slip and fall into the cisterns and ditches. Then he came upon an old man. And it was his good fortune that that old man was blind. Then he came upon a young fellow. And it was his good fortune that that fel-low had trained his eyes not to look upon This World. Then he came upon a Jewish lady. And it was his good fortune that she couldn’t read without vowel signs. When he saw that they didn’t say anything to him, he imagined that his flaw was repaired and that he no longer had anything to fear. And he assumed a measure of arrogance, as if the whole world was reconciled with him.
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