Only Yesterday (76 page)
Evil Encounter
1
I
As soon as Balak entered Meah Shearim, he sniffed the smell of the painter. And even though Isaac’s form had changed, as a bridegroom in the week of his wedding, and even though his clothes were different, Balak noticed him and wanted to go to him. That panic came and he delayed. When all the voices died down, he remembered him. Balak’s heart began trembling and both his eyes got bloodshot. His leg tottered and his ears shook and his mouth was filled with foam. He looked at Isaac malevolently and asked himself, Why doesn’t he run away from me, the way everybody else does? Am I so contemptible in his eyes that he despises my power? His heart was filled with wrath. He looked at him again. He saw his face was serene without a trace of fear. It occurred to Balak that the lack of fear was the consequence of the truth, that is, because that human creature knows the truth, therefore he isn’t afraid.
Once again a desire for truth stirred in Balak’s heart. And when the desire for truth stirred in him, his heart started pound-ing. What can we tell and why should we go on? Because of Balak’s yearnings for the truth, his heart pounded like a pestle in a mortar. And in his innocence, he imagined he would grasp the truth, and wondered, Now I should rejoice but in the end, I don’t. His insides shriveled and his kidneys grew cold and he couldn’t bear the cold-ness of his spleen. Black bile overcame him and he saw himself leaving the world and not grasping the truth. Oh, how many weeks and how many months had he been pursuing the truth, and when he is about to grasp it, they are about to remove him from the world.
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I
Balak picked up his weary eyes and looked at the feet of the man with the brush. He saw that the feet were standing in their place. Balak groaned from his heart and thought, He who knows the truth isn’t scared of anything in the world, but the truth is heavy and those who bear it are few. I shall bend my shoulders and I shall bear the truth with them. At that moment, Isaac was filled with shame and disgrace and grief and torments, like a person who has erred and is waiting to receive his punishment. When Isaac noticed the dog, he tapped him with his fingers and said to him, Did you hear what they say about you, crazy dog they call you. Needless to say, Isaac didn’t mean to provoke the dog, but because he was ashamed to talk with a human, he talked with Balak. But Balak was of another mind. He raised his head in panic and looked at Isaac, the wrinkle in Balak’s eyes grew dark and the white disappeared from them. His mouth was filled with foam and his teeth began rattling. And he was rattling too. He wanted to leap on Isaac. In the end, he turned his face away from him and buried his mouth in the ground.
All the events that had occurred to him ever since the day the painter had encountered him in the neighborhood of the Bukharim revolved in his mind’s eye. How many troubles and how many torments and how many insults and how many injuries had come upon him since that day and how many were in store for him in the future. Why and what for? The smell of the painter rose be-fore him and his heart screamed inside him, Here he is standing right close by, ask him. His spirit drooped much lower than it was, for he knew that if he asked the man wouldn’t answer him. Once again he put his mouth down into the ground so his instinct wouldn’t make him raise his voice, for if he raised his voice, the painter would kick him, and he didn’t have the strength to accept new torments. But the desire for truth overcame his fear. He shook his ears, like someone who shakes off a malevolent whisper and he lay on his guts to consider his affairs. Said Balak, What shall I do? If I ask him, he won’t answer me. And if I raise my voice, he’ll kick me. His mouth began shuddering and his teeth began chattering. He shook his ears here and there, not as he had shaken them at first the way you shake a flea off your clothes, but like someone who nods his ears in agreement.
Said Balak, I won’t approach him calmly and I won’t raise my voice, but I’ll bite him and the truth will leak out of his body. And Balak already saw the truth leaking from the blood of the painter like the bountiful rains, as when the Great Dog bit the firmament. But he immediately lowered his eyes from Isaac, and took his mind off him. He banged his head on the ground, and all those visions that he saw at first grew blurry. He was at a loss and he forgot everything he wanted to do. He lowered his tail between his legs, as if that was all that was left for him. At last, he lowered his muzzle down over his mouth in total sadness like someone who realizes that all his acts have come to naught. If he could fall asleep at will, he would have laid down and lulled all his apprehensions.
His sleep didn’t come. Either because of the black bile that attacked him or because of the smell of the painter that swirled in his nose. Whatever it was, his guts began grinding inside him like the grinding stones of a windmill, and even his spleen caused him grief and torments. He wanted to put his tail on them, like a bandage you put on a sore. But his tail didn’t budge from between his legs. Your guts dwell inside you and they do whatever they want, and you stand there and can’t do a thing to them. He raised his head and looked a bit here and a bit there, as if he were searching for somewhere to bury his wrath. He saw the man with the brush standing. The wrinkle in Balak’s eyes turned dark again and his teeth rattled. He began to fear he would bite himself and blood would come out of him as on the day the painter kicked him in the mouth. His lips started foaming and his tongue started bubbling up bitter foam, as if his gall had dis-solved and flooded his mouth. He raised himself up and looked straight ahead in panic. He saw Isaac standing and it seemed to him that he was smiling. Balak shook his head and thought, What does he have to smile about, and who is he smiling at, at such a wretched and despised and persecuted and downtrodden creature that even the dogs of the Goyim stay away from me. He lowered his eyes from him and got up to go.
But his bones were weak and his thighs were exhausted and his legs stumbled and his paws were dull and his soul was heavy, and he didn’t have strength to move his body and go. He turned here and
there, searching for a place to disappear. He started scrabbling in the ground to dig himself a hole and bury himself like a fieldmouse in the earth. His legs slid and he fell on his belly. He raised his eyes to see if the man with the brush saw him and if he was smiling at him. When he looked at him again, he didn’t take his eyes off him.
I
Isaac was about to return home to his wife, whom he yearned for like a bridegroom after his wedding. At that moment, Shifra was sitting all by herself and was amazed, for from the wedding ceremony until now, she hadn’t stopped thinking about Isaac. Shifra raised her eyes to see if anyone noticed that. Her eyes encountered the mirror on the wall and was surprised. Aside from the kerchief on her head, no change was apparent in her. Yet she thought she had become a new creature. She straightened the kerchief and shifted her eyes away from the mirror, but she looked between the mirror and the wall, where her wedding contract was placed. She recalled the moment when she had stood with Isaac under the wedding canopy and thought she would never have a greater moment than the moment of her wedding, and now she sees that every moment is great. She went to the stove and checked the food her mother was preparing for the day’s meal and was stunned that the food had already cooked and Isaac hadn’t yet come. She turned to the window and her fingers began trembling, like a young wife who wants to beckon to her husband to hurry home. And you, Isaac, you stood in the street and talked nonsense about a dog on whose skin you wrote things you shouldn’t have written. But it must be said that even when Isaac stood in the street, he didn’t take his mind off Shifra. And Isaac already saw himself returning to Shifra and she greeting him in joy and embarrassment, like a woman who rejoices to see her husband and is embarrassed about her joy. And he was also joyous and embarrassed, joy-ous about his wife and embarrassed at his early deeds. In the end, he picked up his feet to go home to his wife. And when he took two or three steps, he forgot all his early deeds, not to mention the dog.
Balak shook his head, thinking to himself, He goes on his way, and I—I stay here despised and downtrodden and forsaken. He
stuck out his tongue until it was about to drop out. He tried to put it back in its place, but couldn’t. A sweet bubble began bubbling between his teeth. All his heartaches were drowned and a kind of longing gushed in him like a spring, up to his teeth. His teeth stood erect and his whole body was taut. Before Isaac could start walking, the dog leaped on him and sank his teeth in him and bit him. And when he bit him, the dog picked up his feet and ran off.
Those standing near Isaac screamed and ran away, and those who heard their scream leaped up and came to him. They looked at him in panic and asked him, How did that happen? Isaac tried to tell but his throat was dry and he fell silent. He put his hand on the place where the dog had bitten him. Fire came from the bite and entered into his fingers, and fire came out of his fingers and entered into his wound. He took a few steps. At last, he returned to where he had been standing at first. Someone pointed to someplace and asked Isaac, Here he bit you? Isaac gazed and replied in a whisper, Here. And a kind of smile spread over his lips, like a sick man who has a hard time talking and soothes you with his eyes. Somebody said, If so, there’s no danger here, for the venom of a mad dog is in his saliva, and since he bit you through your clothes, his saliva didn’t reach your flesh. Isaac shook his head at him and rubbed his wound, and the fire of his wound and the fire of his fingers held onto one another and both burned together, for after the dog bit him, he sank his teeth once again in his fingers. Someone else added, And even in the opinion of those who say that a worm lies in the tongue of a mad dog and that’s what is dangerous, even so there’s no need to worry, for the clothing stopped the worm and it didn’t injure the flesh. Now we’ll take you home and you’ll rest from the scene. While some accom-panied Isaac, others spread out over the whole city to search for the dog, to kill him and feed his liver to the bitten man. They searched for him, but they didn’t find him.
The dog ran away wherever he ran and was lying in the dust of his hole and peeping out, looking straight ahead as if he were wondering why the truth he had sought all the days still eluded him. And after he dug himself a hole in the flesh of the painter and dripped the truth from it, the truth should have filled all his being, but in the end
there is no truth and no nothing. And he is still as at the beginning, as if he hadn’t done a thing. Could it be that all his trouble was for nothing? Balak became sad and angry. But his teeth that had tasted human flesh began longing and wanting more. Those teeth that Balak had made into emissaries made themselves into tools for their own pleasure. Meanwhile, Balak called out about himself, He ate a human. And even though he had tasted only enough human flesh to wet his mouth, he began to boast as if he had filled his belly with it. And once again he was amazed, for man is made of special material, yet in the end, his flesh is no different from most animals. Now let’s go back to Isaac.
They brought Isaac to his house and lay him on his bed. The specialist heard and came. He made Isaac a compress of salted olive oil and pressed his wound and squeezed the blood and slaughtered a pigeon on it and placed the pigeon on the wound. Another compress he made him of pigeon droppings mixed with mustard and nuts and yeast and salt and honey and onions. And as he left, he looked benevolently at Isaac, as a specialist who did what had to be done and knows that from now on there’s no need to worry.
I
All night long, Isaac strove to remember the name of a man he and his comrades had gone to visit in Eyn Rogel. That man’s dwelling, and the mat he lay on and the books he read, as well as all kinds of stuffed animals he saw there stood all that while before Isaac’s eyes, and even the voices of his comrades calling him by name did Isaac hear, but the name he couldn’t remember. At last, when Isaac did succeed in remembering Arzef’s name, he found him standing in Sweet Foot’s hut, stroking Sweetiepie’s teeth and calling him as a fe-male, Come, girlie, come, and Sweetiepie enjoys and is pampered by him like a female. At last Sweetiepie leaps up and runs to the old Baron who held a pot of paints in his hand. Sweetiepie grabbed the pot in his teeth and ran away with it. Once again, Isaac saw Arzef, lying on his mat and reading
The Fables of Foxes
. And the book was strange for it wasn’t made of letters but of voices. Even stranger was that all those voices were composed of two syllables. Isaac looked atthe book to see what those syllables were and saw that his own hand strolls over to the book and writes Arf arf. And even stranger was that he stood apart from the owner of the writing hand, and even though there was no doubt that both of them, that is he and the one with the writing hand, were one, nevertheless the former stood apart from the latter. All those things Isaac saw clearly, but it seemed to be a dream. And he wondered why he thought it was a dream for everything was clear and explicit.
That’s how I’ll know it isn’t a dream, said Isaac in his dream. Before he could explain to himself how he knew that, the black man guarding the German colony stopped him. Isaac squeezed through a closed gate and entered the quarter and went to Rabinovitch. Rabinovitch said to him, Aren’t you amazed? Said Isaac, In truth, I am amazed. Said Rabinovitch, But you don’t know why you’re amazed. You’re amazed that you found me dressed like a woman. Isaac nod-ded and said, It seems I should be stunned at that. Said Rabinovitch, Then know, it’s not I who is dressed like that, but a peacock. And if you don’t believe me, here’s his voice. Said Isaac, How can I tell, for I’ve never seen a live peacock in my life. Said Rabinovitch, A little brother you have and he learns the alphabet, take his ABCs and read E and O, and you’ve got the voice of a peacock. Said Isaac, I can do that. Said Rabinovitch, You see, my friend, we can do anything, and everything a person wants to do he does. And you in your naïveté thought the peacock speaks Russian or Hungarian. Tell me, Isaac, isn’t that what you were thinking? Vove came with the engraver’s child and they surrounded Isaac, dancing and singing,
kedar
is a Tar-tar,
kadosh
is a martyr. Hilda Rabinovitch made herself into a kind of ball and said, Hush, children, hush. Isaac glanced at her and saw that her shoes were Sonya’s shoes, and were made of gold colored leather, or maybe from an orange rind. And since shoes aren’t usu-ally made of orange rinds, Isaac understood that he himself had painted the shoes with his paints, but he didn’t remember when he had painted them. He was sorry that his power of memory had weak-ened when he was about to get married, and worried that he would forget when his wedding day was. He woke up in pain and his dream stopped.I
When he woke up because of the pain, Isaac didn’t know what limb he was worried about. But he immediately felt as if his throat were wounded with searing slivers of glass. And when he stretched out his hand and stroked his neck, the pain stuck to his fingers. He tossed and turned from side to side. Then his bedclothes began stabbing him like thorns. He stretched out his hand to clear the thorns away and his fingers pounced as if a thorn had struck them. He squinted his eyes and rubbed his body, and wherever he touched, the pain sprouted from there. Harder than that was another pain he couldn’t locate. Meanwhile, the walls of the house were filled with shadows, and from the shadows loomed a strange shape and started pursuing him. No good, no good, whispered Isaac, trying to lie comfortably, not to wake up Shifra. But he was amazed at Shifra that she was sleeping and didn’t notice his torments. Good mother, good mother, Isaac called in his heart and looked at the shadows on the walls growing thicker. One shape stood out from the shadows and started sticking its tongue out at him. Isaac pulled the blanket up and covered his head. The pain he had felt at first in his throat stopped, but a malevolent pain capered in all his other limbs.
Won’t I sleep at all tonight? grumbled Isaac. But he didn’t close his eyes because he wanted to see the shadows on the wall who were running urgently and panicky, and because he wanted to see if that shape was still sticking its tongue out at him. Finally his eyes closed, and when his eyes closed and he began to doze off, he was suddenly jolted awake by the voice of the one whose name he couldn’t remember, calling: Come here, girlie, come.
I
