Only Yesterday (55 page)

2
I

The door of the hut was open, and Sweet Foot was lying on his bunk, wearing his clothes and holding an American journal. Who’s here? he asked and scowled at the visitor. Said Isaac, I don’t mean to dis—

turb you. So, said Sweet Foot, as a person saying, So, why did you come? Sweet Foot’s dog jumped on him and started barking at him. Sweet Foot got out of bed and said to the dog,
Gey in dayn ru areyn
(Go rest). The dog shrank off to his bed under the bench. Sweet Foot smiled and said, Such a clever dog, understands every word and is obedient. If only human beings would understand and obey like he does. That Rabbi’s wife, you tell her one thing and she understands the opposite. Last night she came back. To consult about matchmaking she came. Some Hungarian is clinging to her and wants to marry her. I told her, Well that’s good. Said she, Why do I need him? I told her, If you don’t want him, don’t marry him. Said she, My love, let’s go to Cairo and have a good time. I told her, I don’t want to go to Cairo or to have a good time. She said to me, Well then, what do you want? I told her, What I want I know. She said to me, Tell me what it is. I told her, At any rate, it isn’t what you want. Said she, Why don’t you want what I want? I didn’t answer her at all. She wept all night and kept the dog from sleeping, so he’s irritated. But maybe you haven’t eaten today? Sit down and eat. I read a great story in this journal. A Duke went to war. A sword hit his nose and cut it off. The duke remained without a nose. He said to his doctor, Take as much gold as you want from my treasury and make me a nose. The doctor went out and found a pauper. He told him, Give me your nose for the duke and I’ll give you so-many gold Dinars. The pauper thought it over, here he was, a pauper without even a grain of snuff, and here the duke was giving him a lot of money for his nose. He consented and agreed to give him his nose. The doctor took out his scalpel and cut off the nose and stuck it on the duke’s face. And because the poor man loved the duke, the nose stuck to him and they became one flesh. Eventu-ally, the pauper died. That nose started rotting and dropped off. Why? Because the pauper’s love for the duke ceased with the pauper’s death. As long as he was alive and his sympathy for the duke was alive, the nose was also alive, when he died the sympathy ceased and the nose dropped off. Look how the dog is upset. He wants to come out but doesn’t dare. Sweetiepie, if you have to come out, come out.

Sweet Foot said to Isaac, There is a lot of food here that the Rabbi’s wife brought, sit down and eat. What do you think about the

Hungarians, Isaac? I don’t know many of them, aside from that upholsterer who is wooing the Rabbi’s wife. That man comes to me and tells me, That woman, I want to marry her. I told him, If so, that’s good. He said to me, What’s good here, she doesn’t want to. I told him, If so, that’s no good. He said to me, If she gave in to my pleas that would be good. I told him, If so, that’s good. He said to me, How can you say that’s good, after all, I’ve got a wife. I said to him, If so, that’s no good. Said he, I could get rid of her with a divorce. I said to him, If so, that’s good. He said to me, Her marriage terms cost a lot. I said to him, If so, that’s no good. He said to me, If I marry the Rabbi’s wife, she can pay my wife for her marriage terms. I said to him, If so, that’s good. He said to me, What’s good here, the Rabbi’s wife won’t listen to me. I said to him, If so, that’s no good. He said to me, If you plead with her, she’ll listen to you. I said to him, Why should I plead with her? Said he, To do a favor for a Jew. I said to him, If she’s good for you, I don’t know, but it’s clear as day that that woman you’re divorcing will get a good deal. He said to me, How come my wife is closer to you than I am? I said to him, Because she’s your wife. Said he, If I’m so important to you, plead with the Rabbi’s wife for me. I said to him, She doesn’t listen to me. He said to me, You’re telling me, all this time she doesn’t stop praising you. I said to him, Many times I told her, Sister, don’t bother coming to my house, and she doesn’t listen and she comes. His face turned yellow and he started shouting, That’s strictly forbidden, she’s your ex-wife and you’re forbidden to be alone with her. I said to him, Don’t get mad, Reb Mendel, anger is idolatry. He said to me, Boor, you’re teaching me, I was one of the outstanding Yeshiva students. I said to him, Too bad for that man who didn’t remain a Yeshiva student. He said to me, What’s too bad here? I said to him, If you had remained a Yeshiva student, your wife wouldn’t have had to take care of husbands. He said to me, Husbands you say, why? She has only one husband. I said to him, And even he is too much. He said to me, How do you dare tell me to my face I’m too much. I said to him, Why, if you want to get rid of her, it means that you see yourself as superfluous for her. He said to me, And you, why did you divorce the Rabbi’s wife? I told him, Better she’s freed by a divorce and not by the death of the husband, for if it’s by the death of the husband, she’s called a fatal fe-male, and it is dangerous to marry a fatal female. As we talk, the Rabbi’s wife comes. The Hungarian said to her, What are you doing here? Said she, And you, Mister Mendel, what are you doing here? Said he, To consult about us I came. She said to him, I too came only for that. Said he, And what does he say about that? Said she, Here he is right in front of you, ask him. He said to me, So? I said to him, I don’t think that whole matter is nice. Why? You’ve got a wife, why do you need another one? Said he, What does it mean, why do I need another one? I’m divorcing the first one, aren’t I? I said to him, And she agrees? Said he, Whether she agrees or not. Never in my life have I paid any attention to what women want. The Rabbi’s wife shook a finger at him and said, Watch out, mister.

3
I

Isaac had a headache and wanted to go back to his hotel and close his weary eyes. But he didn’t have the strength to go. He wrinkled his brow and put his hand over his eyes, thinking, What am I doing here and why didn’t I go back to Jerusalem?

Jerusalem shrank to the size of a human eyeball and looked to him as it looks on the Sabbath morning. All the neighborhoods in Jerusalem go to the Western Wall. Some come from the south-west, and some come from the west of the city, some come from the north, and some come from the east, and some climb up to the top of the city from the south. All are wrapped in prayer shawls and dressed in Sabbath clothing. When they get to the Western Wall, they find several Minyans. One Minyan is reciting the morning prayers and one Minyan is reciting the Musaf prayers, one Minyan is reading the Torah and one Minyan is reading the excerpts from the Prophets, and the Priests are blessing the people in the morning prayer and the Musaf prayers. Some with the Volyn chants and some with the Lithuanian chants, some with ChaBaD chants and some with Karlin chants, some with Sadigura chants and others with all kinds of peasant chants, and between them all, some old men and young men who have already prayed are sitting on the benches and reciting Psalms.

Isaac has now forgotten that he is standing in Sweet Foot’s hut in the sand of Jaffa, and it seems to him that he too is in Jerusalem. He gets up and goes to Nablus Gate, and from there, outside the Old City wall, and from there to the Hungarian Houses. And on his way he sees Shifra standing in the window, wearing her Sabbath dress. Isaac asks in a whisper, Shifra, why are you so sad? Shifra replies, You ask me, ask yourself. And even though she is sad, her voice is sweet. Isaac wants to stand still and listen. Suddenly the dog jumped on him and stopped him. Sweet Foot growled at him, Go rest, Sweetiepie. The dog didn’t obey him and jumped up and went outside. Sweet Foot laughed and said, The world has stopped obeying me.

Said Sweet Foot, Abu Hassan sent for me. He wants to paint his house. But I can’t go to him, for I already promised Shakhnai the surveyor to help him survey the roads to Gaza. But I can’t go with him, because I already promised Goldman to go with him to Nablus, for the Pasha has appointed him engineer of all Nablus. But I don’t want to go with him, because I don’t like the Arabs who are idle as women and give their work to you like women, and after you do their job, they think they’ve done you a favor. Skin yourself alive, my love, and make me a nice fur. And since you flayed the skin off your flesh, the woman has turned her eyes to somebody else’s skin. And so, that Effendi sent for me. If you want, go to him, but not today, for he hates a Jew who violates the Sabbath. What portion of the Bible are they reading today? You don’t know either. It seems to me that we are at the chapter that starts, And Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites. Sweetiepie, what do you want? Isn’t this our friend Isaac? Once, on the seventh day of Passover, in the morning, I was sitting on the ledge in front of the government office in Segera. I heard strange sounds like voices of Russians. How can there be Russians here? I pricked up my ears and I heard
Bokh ata elogey Abragam elogey Isaak and elogey Yakov.
I went in and saw a congregation of Russkies wrapped in prayer shawls and I knew they were converts. Some of them came to Saul Cohen, that ardent Zionist Saul Cohen, who later went to Australia, and asked him to go up to the stage to read the Torah. He shrugged his shoulders and didn’t want to go up. He said, Am I religious that I should go up to the stage.

Hemdat was there. He grabbed Saul Cohen and didn’t let go of him until he went up to the stage and blessed them with the Priests’ Blessing and the Russkies answered Amen at the top of their voices. If they hadn’t been converts, I would have been scared they would make a pogrom there. The Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He watches over His world. If Jews don’t want to pray he puts a spirit in Russkies and they convert and they form a Minyan and they pray and they force a heretic to go up to the stage. What was I talking about? That Arab. If we don’t distinguish between Sabbath and weekday, the Gentile says, To me, you are contemptible. You see, Isaac, when I was in Jerusalem, I didn’t profane the Sabbath. And when I saw a man committing a transgression in Jerusalem, I was amazed, can a person commit a transgression in Jerusalem. In truth, I don’t know what a transgression is. But when I want to do something and my heart tells me don’t do that, I know there is a transgression here. I ask myself, if this is a transgression, why do I desire to do it? Since I ponder, I don’t do it, and since I don’t do it, my heart is at peace, as if I did something good. And I still don’t know what is good here, but I do know that peace of heart is a good thing. And so I refrain from everything that looks to me like a transgression. And if so, the Commandments may be the same, for a Commandment is doing, and doing drives out peace. If I have a chance to do a Commandment, and I do it, nevertheless peace doesn’t leave me, on the contrary it increases, not the peace of Sit still and don’t do anything, but peace that stirs the soul. And here is the amazing thing, if it’s peace, it’s not stirring, and if it’s stirring it’s not peace. And even though there is something and its opposite here, I reach a state of equanimity. If so, why don’t we do Commandments and why do we transgress? This is a question and I don’t know how to answer it. And I’m sure, I shall leave the world full of transgressions. You see, Isaac, when a man is dead, his nose, worth all the gold in the duke’s coffers, will rot and drop off. And here, Sweet Foot grabbed his nose and started laughing, Ha ha ha. And he immediately changed his voice and said sadly, What good is sympathy if the strength of will is dead?

The hut began to heat up and the junk in the hut glowed and a hum of boredom hummed in the hut. The food in the hut

smelled and a coarse fly came to the hut and pestered Isaac. Isaac hit his own face and his nose. Sweet Foot looked and said, He heard a rumor and came. For Mr. Kumer doesn’t love the prince and isn’t ready to give him his nose. And you, Isaac, you want to return to Jerusalem. Sweetiepie, a fly is pestering Isaac and you’re silent? The dog heard and jumped on Isaac. Sweet Foot shook his finger at him and said, You, dog’s brain, I tell him, Hit the fly who’s hitting Isaac, and he hits Isaac who was hit by the fly.

Miracles

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   Ever since the day Isaac went down to Jaffa, Shifra hadn’t heard a thing from him. Shifra could have known everything about him, but she had already forbade him to write her because of slander. But the slander didn’t stop anyway. When folks get their teeth into a Jewish girl, they don’t let go of her.
   

   Mystifying and mysterious are the ways of the neighbor women. Some turn angry faces to her, and some twist their faces at her, and some pretend to be friendly and tell her stories to make her tell them stories. Oh, God, what is there to tell here? Once upon a time, a fellow sailed in the same ship with her grandfather to the Land of Israel. Later he came to visit him. Her grandmother welcomed him warmly. The fellow started coming and going as a mem-ber of the family. Once on a dark night she met him outside and he took her hand in his and told her things, and whenever she thinks about them, she feels good, but she is sad. And that’s impossible to fit together, if she feels good why is she sad, and if she is sad, why does she feel good?
   

2. I
   

   Rebecca recognized that something had happened here. Sometimes Shifra is sad and sometimes she is hasty. Rebecca knows it is all because of that painter, for ever since the day he started coming and going in her house, Shifra’s nature changed. But now that he went away, why should she be sad? Perhaps she did set her sights on that fellow as the neighbor women say? In truth, he is a decent fellow and a lot of favors he did for them, and if not for him whom the Holy-
   

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   One-Blessed-Be-He sent, they would have perished. At any rate, things are hard to fit together. And if Fayesh is sick, is the whole world lawless? If he were healthy, he would tear out her hair and yank her out of that fellow’s hands. When Rebecca recalls everything Fayesh was liable to do to her daughter she was filled with pity for her.
   

   A neighbor woman says to Rebecca, That Russian is a heretic. Says Rebecca, I won’t be in his hell. Says the neighbor woman, He has set his sights on your daughter. Says Rebecca, Oh, God, aren’t there Russian girls, that he has to woo Shifra? Says the neighbor woman, I ask the same thing, at any rate, you have to do something. Says Rebecca, What shall I do? Fayesh is sick and I am only a woman. Says the neighbor woman, If you’re a woman, you’re a mother, too, and if you want your daughter’s good, you have to do something. Says Rebecca, What shall I do? Says the neighbor woman, There’s a lot to do, and I am saying only a little. There’s a herb in Jerusalem, if you put it in a glass of tea, you can cancel love. Once upon a time, there was a man from Istanbul whose daughter was offered a match, a fellow from Bukhara. Once the fellow came to his aunt and said to her, This girl, who is she? She told him, She’s the daughter of Hakham Nissim. He told her, I like her. The aunt came to Hakham Nissim’s house. He said to her, Sit down, and she sat. Many things she told. Afterward, she said, I got a fellow at my house and he wants your daughter. And he’s a good match. Said Hakham Nissim, If it came from the Lord, it will be good; but we have to ask the girl. Hakham Nissim asked the girl, Such-and-such a fellow, you want him? She said yes. The aunt and uncle came and fixed the time to set the conditions. And they prepared a few things for five Bishliks. When the matter became known, the neighbors be-came jealous. There was one Mugrahban woman there. She had a relative she wanted to marry to that fellow. On the morning of the betrothal, she invited the fellow to her house and gave him a glass of tea. He drank it, returned home and said, I don’t want Hakham Nis-sim’s girl. The uncle was sorry because he had invited a few people and because of the shame of the girl. There was another neighbor there, a good woman. She asked the bridegroom, Where were you
   

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   today? He told her, I was at So-and-So’s. She understood that that woman had practiced sorcery on him. She invited him to her house and made him come in and fixed tea for him and gave it to him to drink. And she knew what to put in the tea. When he drank it he wanted to vomit. He excused himself and went out and vomited a lot. The sorcery departed. When he returned home, he washed his face and said to his uncle, Where is Hakham Nissim’s girl, why doesn’t she come? And he didn’t remember anything. A messenger went to Hakham Nissim’s and told him. Said the daughter, Now that he wants me, I don’t want him. They explained the whole matter to her and she agreed to take him.
   

   Rebecca asked Shifra, What’s wrong with you, Shifra? When she asked she was scared that Shifra would answer her and re-veal to her what was in her heart. Suddenly, a voice was heard, and she thought it was Fayesh’s voice. Rebbeca jumped up and spread out her hands and made them a kind of barrier between him and Shifra.
   

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