A Tale of Love and Darkness (2 page)

I secretly dreamed that one day they would take me with them. And make me into a fighting nation too. That my life too would become a new song, a life as pure and straightforward and simple as a glass of water on a hot day.

Over the hills and far away, the city of Tel Aviv was also an exciting place, from which came the newspapers, rumors of theater, opera, ballet, and cabaret, as well as modern art, party politics, echoes of stormy debates, and indistinct snatches of gossip. There were great sportsmen in Tel Aviv. And there was the sea, full of bronzed Jews who could swim. Who in Jerusalem could swim? Who had ever heard of swimming Jews? These were different genes. A mutation. "Like the wondrous birth of a butterfly out of a worm."

There was a special magic in the very name of Tel Aviv. As soon as I heard the word "Telaviv," I conjured up in my mind's eye a picture of a
tough guy in a dark blue T-shirt, bronzed and broad-shouldered, a poet-worker-revolutionary, a man made without fear, the type they called a
Hevreman,
with a cap worn at a careless yet provocative angle on his curly hair, smoking Matusians, someone who was at home in the world: all day long he worked hard on the land, or with sand and mortar, in the evening he played the violin, at night he danced with girls or sang them soulful songs amid the sand dunes by the light of the full moon, and in the early hours he took a handgun or a sten out of its hiding place and stole away into the darkness to guard the houses and fields.

How far away Tel Aviv was! In the whole of my childhood I visited it five or six times at most: we used to go occasionally to spend festivals with the aunts, my mother's sisters. It's not just that the light in Tel Aviv was different from the light in Jerusalem, more than it is today, even the laws of gravity were different. People didn't walk in Tel Aviv: they leaped and floated, like Neil Armstrong on the moon.

In Jerusalem people always walked rather like mourners at a funeral, or latecomers at a concert. First they put down the tip of their shoe and tested the ground. Then, once they had lowered their foot, they were in no hurry to move it: we had waited two thousand years to gain a foothold in Jerusalem and were unwilling to give it up. If we picked up our foot, someone else might come along and snatch our little strip of land. On the other hand, once you have lifted your foot, do not be in a hurry to put it down again: who can tell what coil of vipers you might step on. For thousands of years we have paid with our blood for our impetuousness, time and time again we have fallen into the hands of our enemies because we put our feet down without looking where we were putting them. That, more or less, was the way people walked in Jerusalem. But Tel Aviv! The whole city was one big grasshopper. The people leaped by, and so did the houses, the streets, the squares, the sea breeze, the sand, the avenues, and even the clouds in the sky.

Once we went to Tel Aviv for Passover, and the morning after we arrived I got up early, while everyone was still asleep, got dressed, went out, and played on my own in a little square with a bench or two, a swing, a sandpit, and three or four young trees where the birds were already singing. A few months later, at New Year, we went back to Tel Aviv, and the square wasn't there anymore. It had been moved, complete with its little trees, benches, sandpit, birds, and swing, to the other end of the
road. I was astonished: I couldn't understand how Ben Gurion and the duly constituted authorities could allow such a thing. How could somebody suddenly pick up a square and move it? What next—would they move the Mount of Olives, or the Tower of David? Would they shift the Wailing Wall?

People in Jerusalem talked about Tel Aviv with envy and pride, with admiration, but almost confidentially: as though the city were some kind of crucial secret project of the Jewish people that it was best not to discuss too much—after all, walls have ears, and spies and enemy agents could be lurking around every corner.

Telaviv. Sea. Light. Sand, scaffolding, kiosks on the avenues, a brand-new white Hebrew city, with simple lines, growing up among the citrus groves and the dunes. Not just a place that you buy a ticket for and travel to on an Egged bus, but a different continent altogether.

For years we had a regular arrangement for a telephone link with the family in Tel Aviv. We used to phone them every three or four months, even though we didn't have a phone and neither did they. First we would write to Auntie Hayya and Uncle Tsvi to let them know that on, say, the nineteenth of the month—which was a Wednesday, and on Wednesdays Tsvi left his work at the Health Clinic at three—we would phone from our pharmacy to their pharmacy at five. The letter was sent well in advance, and then we waited for a reply. In their letter, Auntie Hayya and Uncle Tsvi assured us that Wednesday the nineteenth suited them perfectly, and they would be waiting at the pharmacy a little before five, and not to worry if we didn't manage to phone at five on the dot, they wouldn't run away.

I don't remember whether we put on our best clothes for the expedition to the pharmacy, for the phone call to Tel Aviv, but it wouldn't surprise me if we did. It was a solemn undertaking. As early as the Sunday before, my father would say to my mother, Fania, you haven't forgotten that this is the week that we're phoning Tel Aviv? On Monday my mother would say, Arieh, don't be late home the day after tomorrow, don't mess things up. And on Tuesday they would both say to me, Amos, just don't make any surprises for us, you hear, just don't be ill, you hear, don't catch cold or fall over until after tomorrow afternoon. And that evening they would say to me, Go to sleep early, so you'll be in good
shape for the phone call, we don't want you to sound as though you haven't been eating properly.

So they would build up the excitement. We lived in Amos Street, and the pharmacy was a five-minute walk away, in Zephaniah Street, but by three o'clock my father would say to my mother:

"Don't start anything new now, so you won't be in a rush."

"I'm perfectly OK, but what about you with your books, you might forget all about it."

"Me? Forget? I'm looking at the clock every few minutes. And Amos will remind me."

Here I am, just five or six years old, and already I have to assume a historic responsibility. I didn't have a watch—how could I?—and so every few moments I ran to the kitchen to see what the clock said, and then I would announce, like the countdown to a spaceship launch: twenty-five minutes to go, twenty minutes to go, fifteen to go, ten and a half to go—and at that point we would get up, lock the front door carefully, and set off, the three of us, turn left as far as Mr. Auster's grocery shop, then right into Zechariah Street, left into Malachi Street, right into Zephaniah Street, and straight into the pharmacy to announce:

"Good afternoon to you, Mr. Heinemann, how are you? We've come to phone."

He knew perfectly well, of course, that on Wednesday we would be coming to phone our relatives in Tel Aviv, and he knew that Tsvi worked at the Health Clinic, and that Hayya had an important job in the Working Women's League, and that Yigal was going to grow up to be a sportsman, and that they were good friends of Golda Meyerson (who later became Golda Meir) and of Misha Kolodny, who was known as Moshe Kol over here, but still we reminded him: "We've come to phone our relatives in Tel Aviv." Mr. Heinemann would say: "Yes, of course, please take a seat." Then he would tell us his usual telephone joke. "Once, at the Zionist Congress in Zurich, terrible roaring sounds were suddenly heard from a side room. Berl Locker asked Harzfeld what was going on, and Harzfeld explained that it was Comrade Rubashov speaking to Ben Gurion in Jerusalem. 'Speaking to Jerusalem,' exclaimed Berl Locker, 'so why doesn't he use the telephone?' "

Father would say: "I'll dial now." And Mother said: "It's too soon, Arieh. There's still a few minutes to go." He would reply: "Yes, but they have to be put through" (there was no direct dialing at that time).
Mother: "Yes, but what if for once we are put through right away, and they're not there yet?" Father replied: "In that case we shall simply try again later." Mother: "No, they'll worry, they'll think they've missed us."

While they were still arguing, suddenly it was almost five o'clock. Father picked up the receiver, standing up to do so, and said to the operator: "Good afternoon, Madam. Would you please give me Tel Aviv 648." (Or something like that: we were still living in a three-digit world). Sometimes the operator would answer: "Would you please wait a few minutes, Sir, the Postmaster is on the line." Or Mr. Sitton. Or Mr. Nashashibi. And we felt quite nervous: whatever would they think of us?

I could visualize this single line that connected Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and via Tel Aviv the rest of the world. If this one line was engaged, we were cut off from the world. The line wound its way over wastelands and rocks, over hills and valleys, and I thought it was a great miracle. I trembled: what if wild animals came in the night and bit through the line? Or if wicked Arabs cut it? Or if the rain got into it? Or if there was a fire? Who could tell? There was this line winding along, so vulnerable, unguarded, baking in the sun, who could tell? I felt full of gratitude to the men who had put up this line, so brave-hearted, so dexterous, it's not easy to put up a line from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. I knew from experience: once we ran a wire from my room to Eliyahu Friedmann's room, only two houses and a garden away, and what a business it was, with the trees in the way, the neighbors, the shed, the wall, the steps, the bushes.

After waiting a while, Father decided that the Postmaster or Mr. Nashashibi must have finished talking, and so he picked up the receiver again and said to the operator: "Excuse me, Madam, I believe I asked to be put through to Tel Aviv 648" She would say: "I've got it written down, Sir. Please wait" (or "Please be patient"). Father would say: "I am waiting, Madam, naturally I am waiting, but there are people waiting at the other end too" This was his way of hinting to her politely that although we were indeed cultured people, there was a limit to our endurance. We were well brought up, but we weren't suckers. We were not to be led like sheep to the slaughter. That idea—that you could treat Jews any way you felt like—was over, once and for all.

Then all of a sudden the phone would ring in the pharmacy, and it
was always such an exciting sound, such a magical moment, and the conversation went something like this:

"Hallo, Tsvi?"

"Speaking."

"It's Arieh here, in Jerusalem."

"Yes, Arieh, hallo, it's Tsvi here, how are you?"

"Everything is fine here. We're speaking from the pharmacy."

"So are we. What's new?"

"Nothing new here. How about at your end, Tsvi? Tell us how it's going."

"Everything is OK. Nothing special to report. We're all well."

"No news is good news. There's no news here either. We're all fine. How about you?"

"We're fine too."

"That's good. Now Fania wants to speak to you."

And then the same thing all over again. How are you? What's new? And then: "Now Amos wants to say a few words."

And that was the whole conversation. What's new? Good. Well, so let's speak again soon. It's good to hear from you. It's good to hear from you too. We'll write and set a time for the next call. We'll talk. Yes. Definitely. Soon. See you soon. Look after yourselves. All the best. You too.

But it was no joke: our lives hung by a thread. I realize now that they were not at all sure they would really talk again, this might be the last time, who knew what would happen, there could be riots, a pogrom, a blood bath, the Arabs might rise up and slaughter the lot of us, there might be a war, a terrible disaster, after all Hitler's tanks had almost reached our doorstep from two directions, North Africa and the Caucasus, who knew what else awaited us? This empty conversation was not really empty, it was just awkward.

What those telephone conversations reveal to me now is how hard it was for them—for everyone, not just my parents—to express private feelings. They had no difficulty at all expressing communal feelings—they were emotional people, and they knew how to talk. Oh, how they could talk! They were capable of conversing for hours on end in excited tones about Nietzsche, Stalin, Freud, Jabotinsky, giving it everything
they had, shedding tears of pathos, arguing in a singsong, about colonialism, anti-Semitism, justice, the "agrarian question," the "woman question," "art versus life," but the moment they tried to give voice to a private feeling, what came out was something tense, dry, even frightened, the result of generation upon generation of repression and negation. A double negation in fact, two sets of brakes, as bourgeois European manners reinforced the constraints of the religious Jewish community. Virtually everything was "forbidden" or "not done" or "not very nice."

Apart from which, there was a great lack of words: Hebrew was still not a natural enough language, it was certainly not an intimate language, and it was hard to know what would actually come out when you spoke it. They could never be certain that they would not utter something ridiculous, and ridicule was something they lived in fear of. They were scared to death of it. Even people like my parents who knew Hebrew well were not entirely its masters. They spoke it with a kind of obsession for accuracy. They frequently changed their minds, and reformulated something they had just said. Perhaps that is how a shortsighted driver feels, trying to find his way at night through a warren of side streets in a strange city in an unfamiliar car.

One Saturday a friend of my mother's came to visit us, a teacher by the name of Lilia Bar-Samkha. Whenever the visitor said in the course of the conversation that she had had a fright or that someone was in a frightful state, I burst out laughing. In everyday slang her word for "fright" meant "fart" No one else seemed to find it funny, or perhaps they were pretending not to. It was the same when my father spoke about the arms race, or raged against the decision of the NATO countries to rearm Germany as a deterrent to Stalin. He had no idea that his bookish word for "arm" meant "fuck" in current Hebrew slang.