Soumchi (5 page)

C. I could return to Goel Germanski. And announce in a very cold and ominous voice that he was to return the railway immediately, our contract being cancelled. That he'd better give it back or I'd finish him for good. Yes, but how?

D. I could still return to Goel Germanski. But apparently friendly. "Hello, how are you, how's things?" And then ask casually if Keeper has come back to him by any chance? Yes. Of course. And tomorrow the joke will be all round the neighborhood. Total disgrace.

E. Who needs the wretched dog in any case? Who needs anything? I don't. So there. Anyway, who says Keeper fled straight back to Goel Germanski's? More likely he had run in the darkness to the Tel Arza wood and then on to the barren hills and then on to the forests of Galilee to join the rest of the pack in the wild and so to lead the life of a real free wolf at last, tearing out throats with his fangs.

Perhaps, right now, at this moment, I too could get to my feet and go to the Tel Arza wood; and from there to the hills and the caves and the winds to live as a bandit all the rest of my life and spread the fear of my name through the land forever.

Or, I could go home, tell, humbly, the whole truth, get my face slapped a few times and promise faithfully that from now on I would be a well-behaved and sensible boy instead of a crazy one. Then, straightaway, I would be dispatched with polite and apologetic notes from my father to Mrs. Castelnuovo and Mr. Germanski. I would apologize in my turn; assure everyone I hadn't really meant it; would smile a stupid smile and beg everyone's pardon; tell everyone how sorry I was for everything that had happened. Quite out of the question.

F?G?H? Never mind. But a further possibility was simply to fall asleep among the ruins just like Huckleberry Finn in
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
I'd spend the night under the steps of the Inbars' house; in the very dead of night I'd climb the drainpipe to Esthie's room and we'd elope together to the land of Obangi-Shari before the crack of dawn.

But Esthie hates me. Perhaps worse than hates, she never thinks of me at all.

One last possibility. At Passover, I'd gone in Sergeant Dunlop's Jeep to an Arab village and never told my parents anything. Well now, I could go to Aunt Edna's in the Yegia Capiim neighborhood, look unhappy, tell her Father and Mother had gone to Beit Hakerem this morning to visit friends and wouldn't be back till late, so they'd left me a key, and, well, I didn't quite know how to put this, only, well, I seem to have lost it, and ... But, oh, that Aunt Edna, who wore imitation fruit in her hair and had a house full of paper flowers and ornaments and never stopped kissing me and fussing over me ... and ... Never mind. It would have to do. At least it solved the problem for tonight. And by tomorrow Mother and Father would be so out of their minds with worry and so thankful to see me safe and well, they would quite forget to ask what had happened to my bicycle.

Right. Let's go. I got to my feet, having made up my mind at last to beg shelter at my Aunt Edna's in the Yegia Capiim neighborhood. Only there was something glittering in the dark among the pine needles. I bent to the ground, straightened up again, and there it was, a pencil sharpener.

Not a large pencil sharpener. And not exactly new. Yet made of metal, painted silver, and heavy for its size, cool-feeling and pleasant to my hand. A pencil sharpener. That I could sharpen pencils with, but also make serve as a tank in the battles that I fought out with buttons on the carpet.

And so, I tightened my fingers round my pencil sharpener, turned and ran straight for home, because I wasn't empty-handed any more.

 

"
We'll never set foot..." In which I resolve to climb the Mountains of Moab and gaze upon the Himalayas, receive a surprising invitation (and determine not to open my hand, not as long as I shall live):

 

Father asked softly:

"Do you know what time it is?"

"Late," I said sadly. And gripped my pencil sharpener harder.

"The time is now seven thirty-six," Father pointed out. He stood, blocking the doorway, and nodded his head many times, as if he had reached that sad but inevitable conclusion there and then. He added: "We have already eaten."

"I'm sorry," I muttered, in a very small voice.

"We have not only eaten. We have washed up the dishes," revealed Father, quietly. There was another silence. I knew very well what was to follow. My heart beat and beat.

"And just where has his lordship been all this time? And just where is his bicycle?"

"My bicycle?" I said, dismayed. And the blood rushed from my face.

"The bicycle," repeated Father patiently, stressing each syllable precisely. "The bicycle."

"My bicycle," I muttered after him, stressing each syllable exactly as he did. "My bicycle. Yes, It's at my friend's house. I left it with one of my friends." And my lips went on whispering of their own accord, "Until tomorrow."

"Is that so?" returned Father sympathetically, as if he shared my suffering wholeheartedly and was about to offer me some plain but sound advice. "Perhaps I might be permitted to know the name and title of this honored friend?"

"That," I said, "that, I am unable to reveal."

"No?"

"No."

"Under no circumstance?"

"Under no circumstance."

It was now, I knew, he'd let fly with the first slap, I shrank right back, as if I was trying to bury my head between my shoulders, my whole body inside my shoes, shut my eyes and gripped my pencil sharpener with all my might, I took three or four breaths and waited. But no slap came. I opened my eyes and blinked. Father stood there, looking sorrowful, as if he was waiting for the performance to be over. At last he said,

"Just one more question. If his lordship will kindly permit."

"What?" my lips whispered by themselves.

"Perhaps I might be allowed to see what his excellency is concealing in his right hand?"

"Not possible," I whispered. But suddenly even the soles of my feet felt cold.

"Even this is not possible?"

"I can't, Daddy."

"His highness is showing us no favor today," Father summed up, sadly. Yet, despite everything, condescended to keep on pressing me: "For my benefit. And yours. For both our benefits."

"I can't."

"You will show me, you stupid child," roared Father. At that moment, my stomach began to hurt me dreadfully.

"I've got a tummy-ache," I said.

"First you're going to show me what you've got in your hand."

"Afterwards," I begged.

"All right," said Father, in a different tone of voice. And repeated suddenly, "All right. That's enough." And moved out of the doorway. I looked up at him, hoping above hope that he was going to forgive me after all. And in that very moment came the first of the slaps.

And the second. And afterwards the third. But, by then, I'd ducked out of the way of his hand and run outside into the street, running as hard as I could, bent low from sheer fright, just like Goel's dog when he ran away from me. I was in tears almost; in the process of making the dreadful decision: that I would shake the dust of that house from my feet for ever. And not just of the house; of the whole neighborhood, of Jerusalem. Now, at this moment, I'd set out on a journey from which I'd never return. Not for ever and ever.

So my journey began; but, instead of heading directly for Africa, as I'd planned earlier, I turned east, towards Geula Street, in the direction of Mea Shearim; from there I'd cross the Kidron Valley and follow the Mount of Olives road into the Judean Desert and thence to the Jordan crossing and thence to the Mountains of Moab, and on and on and on.

Ever since I was in Class Three or Four, my imagination had been captured by the Himalayan mountains, those sublime ranges at the heart of Asia. "There," I'd once read in an encyclopedia, "there, among them, rears the highest mountain in the world, its peak as yet unsullied by the foot of man." And there too, among those remote mountains, roamed that mysterious creature, the Abominable Snowman, scouring godforsaken ravines for his prey. The very words filled me with dread and enchantment:

 

ranges
roams
ravines
remote
sublime, unsullied,
eternal snows
and distant peaks.

 

And, above all, that marvellous word: Himalaya. On cold nights, lying beneath my warm winter blanket, I would repeat it over and over, in the deepest, most reverberant voice I could drag from the depths of my lungs. Hi—ma—la—ya.

If I could only climb to the heights of the Moab Mountains, I would look east and see far away the snow-capped peaks that were the Himalayas, And then, I would leave the land of Moab and travel south through the Arabian Desert, across the Gate of Tears to the coast of the Horn of Africa. And I would penetrate the heart of the jungle to the source of the River Zambezi, in the land of Obangi-Shari. And there, all alone, I'd live a life that was wild and free.

So, desperate, and burning with eagerness, I made my way east up Geula Street to the comer of Chancellor Street. But, when I reached Mr, Bialig's grocery, one thought overcame the rest; persistent, merciless, it repeated over and over. Crazy boy, crazy boy, crazy boy. Really you are crazy, stark raving mad, bad as Uncle Wetmark, maybe even worse; for all you know you'll grow up a
spekulant,
just like him. And what exactly did the word
spekulant
mean? I still did not know.

And suddenly all the pain and humiliation seemed to well up inside me, until I could scarcely bear it. The darkness was complete now in Geula Street. Not the darkness of early evening, full of children's cries and mothers' scoldings; this was the chill and silent darkness of the night, better seen from indoors, from your bed, through a crack in the shutters. You did not want to be caught out in it alone. Very occasionally someone else came hurrying by. Mrs. Soskin recognised me and asked what was the matter. But I did not answer her a word. From time to time a British armoured car from the Schneller Barracks charged past at a mad gallop. I would seek out Sergeant Dunlop, walking his poodle in Haturim Street or Tahkemoni Street, I thought, and this rime I would give him information after all; I'd tell him it was Goel Germanski who painted that slogan against the High Commissioner. And then I would go to London and turn double agent. I'd kidnap the King of England and say to the English Government straight out; "Give us back the land of Israel and I'll give you back your King. Don't give, don't get." (And even this idea came from my Uncle Zemach.) There, sitting on the steps on Mr. Bialig's grocery, I rehearsed all the details of my plan. It was late now; the hour the heroes of the Underground emerged from their hiding places, while, around them, detectives and informers and tracker dogs lay in wait.

I was on my own. Aldo had taken my bicycle away and made me sign a contract to say so. Goel had expropriated my marvellous railway and the tame wolf roamed the woods and forests without me. And I was never to set foot in my parents' house again, not for ever and for ever. Esthie hated me. The despicable Aldo had stolen my notebook full of poems and sold it to that hoodlum Goel.

Then what was left? just the pencil sharpener, nothing else. And what could I get from a pencil sharpener; what good could it do me? None. All the same, I'd keep it for ever and ever. I swore an oath that I would keep it, that no power on earth would take it from my hand.

So I sat at nine o'clock at night—or even at a quarter past nine—on the steps of Mr, Bialig's shuttered grocery shop and wept, almost. And so too I was found by a tall and taciturn man who came walking along the deserted street, smoking, peacefully, a pipe with a silver lid; Esthie's father, Mr. Engineer Inbar.

"Oh," he said, after he had leaned down and seen me. "Oh. It is you. Well, well. Is there anything I can do to help?"

It seemed beautiful to me, miraculous even, that Engineer Inbar should speak to me like that, as one adult to another, without a trace of that special kind of language and tone of voice that people use to children.

"Can I help you in any way?" I might have been a driver whose car had broken down, struggling to change a tire in the dark.

"Thanks," I said.

"What's the problem?" asked Engineer Inbar.

"Nothing," I said. "Everything's fine."

"But you're crying. Almost."

"No. No, not at all. I'm not crying. Almost. I'm just a bit cold. Honestly."

"All right. We're not going the same way by any chance? Are you on your way home too?"

"Well ... I haven't got a home."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean ... my parents are away in Tel Aviv. They're coming back tomorrow. They left me some food in the icebox. I mean ... I had a key on a piece of white string."

"Well, well. I see. You've lost your key. And you've got nowhere to go. That's it in a nutshell. Exactly the same thing happened to me when I was still a student in Berlin, Come on then. Let's go. There's no point in sitting here all night, weeping. Almost."

"But ... where are we going?"

"Home, Of course. To our place. You can stay the night with us. There's a sofa in the living room, also a camp bed somewhere. And I'm sure Esthie will be glad. Come on. Let's go."