Only Yesterday (65 page)
I
A small lamp was hanging on the wall and the smell of coffee per-vaded the house. Rebecca wasn’t at home. Ever since her share of the Distribution had been taken away, she had gone peddling coffee to her neighbors. The smell of the coffee and the light of the lamp made the house seem tranquil. In addition, there were the white linens on Reb Fayesh’s bed. But the tranquility was only make-believe. God in Heaven, do You know what happened here? Isaac asked in his heart as he glanced and looked at Shifra. And she glanced at him too through her tears, and all her beauty disappeared because of her grief.
What happened? On that day, Shifra’s mother went to get her share of the Distribution and heard harsh words from the officer because of her daughter and that fellow she had taken up with. Rebecca heard her disgrace and didn’t reply, for she herself had given a pretext to folks, for she had greeted Isaac warmly. But it wasn’t she who had brought Isaac into her house, it was her father who had brought him in and brought him close, but her father had spent most of his years Outside the Land and was used to all kinds of people, while Jerusalemites are withdrawn from the world, and not every per-son is proper in their eyes. What bad things did they find in Isaac? Master of the Universe, to whom will she tell her troubles and to whom will she open her heart? Fayesh lies like a dead man, and she is worse than a widow, for a widow’s husband is dead and she’s alive, while her husband isn’t alive, and she isn’t dead. And her father and mother are farther than a few days away and by the time a letter arrives from them, the eyes are extinguished but the tears aren’t. Rebecca wrings her hands and says, Tell me, good people, what shall I do? Her neighbors tell Rebecca, You’re asking us, ask your daughter. Rebecca shouts in torment, Oh God, what do they want from my daughter? A neighbor woman replies, Her good and your good I want, as long as the fellow is in her hands, marry them off properly. Rebecca recoils and then follows her neighbor again, for it has never occurred to Rebecca that Isaac is a mate for Shifra, and that woman comes along and says marry them off properly.
A Welcome
1
I
Her neighbor’s words impressed her. This wasn’t the only time the neighbors had said those words, for every single day they had spread slander and advice, but she hadn’t noticed them until now. And when she did notice, she resolved to keep Isaac away from her house. In her heart, Rebecca would discuss with Isaac, What did my daughter do to you and what do you want from her? And is that the reward for my father, who let you into his house, that you bring shame on his granddaughter? You think that if there are only women here, you can do whatever your heart desires. Don’t worry, Fayesh, your daughter is my daughter, and I won’t give her to just any man. How many times a day did Rebecca look at her daughter and say to herself, If you won’t make it hard for me, I promise you that no evil shall befall you.
Rebecca returned from the market and found the house dark. She put down her things and asked in a whisper, Are you sleeping, Shifra? Shifra answered, I’m not sleeping. Said Rebecca, Then, let’s light the lamp. She checked to see if there was kerosene in the lamp. She lit it and hung it on the hook in the wall and glanced with sad eyes at her husband’s bed. Reb Fayesh noticed her and looked at her. She took a cloth and spread it on his heart and brought him din-ner. Then she took her prayer book and recited the evening prayer. After the prayer, she returned to her husband, arranged his bed, whispered Goodnight, and looked at him to see if he had heard her blessing, and if he understood her words. And you, Mother, said Shifra, you haven’t tasted a thing today. Said Rebecca, I’m eating. She took a scrap of bread with a drop of oil. After she ate and recited the bless-
542
I
ing on bread, she turned up the wick of the lamp and brought a bas-ket of stockings, and sat down to do her work.
She sat and did her work, raised her head and said, A letter didn’t come from grandfather. No, answered Shifra. Said Rebecca, Could you imagine that he hasn’t written to us? Said Shifra, Of course he’s written, but the letter hasn’t reached us. Said Rebecca, What does that mean, it hasn’t reached us? If he wrote to us, the let-ter should have reached us. Said Shifra, In Safed, the only post of-fice is the Turkish one, and everybody knows that sending a letter in the Turkish post office is like not sending it. Said Rebecca, There are people here who get letters from Safed. And we also got letters from Safed. Said Shifra, That was a miracle. Said Rebecca, Perhaps our letter didn’t reach Grandfather? Said Shifra, Why do you say that? Said Rebecca, It seems to me that people are coming. Shifra blushed and fell silent. A short time passed and no one came. Rebecca looked at the door and said, I don’t know what’s got into me. All day long, it has seemed to me that someone’s coming and going. But someone really is coming. Who’s coming?
I
Isaac knocked on the door and came in. Rebecca raised her head in terror. What she had feared during the day came upon her at night. Rebecca thought to herself, I should say something to him. She for-got that she had resolved to keep Isaac away, and she said, Sit down, Isaac, sit down. What’s new in the world? I see that you’re coming from work. Have you eaten supper? And when she heard that he had worked all day for a Gentile, she said, Then you didn’t eat any cooked food. She went to the stove to make him something and tried to make him a good dish that he would eat and enjoy.
Shifra heard and was amazed. Why did Mother want to bring Isaac so close? Shifra saw herself forgotten and abandoned. Father is sick and her grandparents live in Safed. All she has left was Mother. Now Mother is currying favor with Isaac. Her soul was gloomy as if she were left alone in the world.
Rebecca spread a cloth on the table and urged Isaac to eat. Isaac dipped his hands and ate heartily. For two days now he hadn’t
eaten any cooked food, and here is a warm meal and a warm wel-come. Eat, Isaac, eat, said Rebecca softly, and urged him to eat and drink. When he had eaten and drunk, he recited the blessing. And even though everyone is wont to recite the blessing after his food, Rebecca was amazed. Rebecca thought that every Zionist was a heretic, and here she sees him recite a blessing.
On the table was an Etrog case, which Rebecca took out every day to pawn it, and every day she forgets to take it to the pawn-shop. Isaac looked at the box and praised its beauty. Said Rebecca to Shifra, This case was given by my father to your father on our wedding day. Shifra looked in amazement, as if it was strange that her fa-ther and her mother got married. Rebecca groaned, How close I came to pawning that case. And if I had pawned it, I don’t think I could ever have redeemed it. How many adventures we’ve been through since the day Father gave that case to Fayesh. But even among the troubles, there were good days.
The lamp is lit on the wall and a colorful cloth is spread on the end of the table. The silver case absorbs the lamplight and the flowers embroidered on the cloth and shines them on Isaac and on Rebecca and on Shifra. Reb Fayesh is dozing and Rebecca is sitting and talking. For many years Rebecca had been silent, now her words flow from her mouth and with them all the times of her life rise up before her. And it seems that even the years of troubles weren’t bereft of good. Shifra lifts her eyes. An event occurred in the house, and she doesn’t know what it was.
Rebecca said to Isaac, Isaac, you never told us where you came from, what city you’re from, if you have a father and mother, a brother and sister. And as she spoke, she was amazed at herself that it hadn’t occurred to her to ask until now. Isaac answered, My mother, may she rest in peace, died a year and a half before I ascended to the Land of Israel and my father was left a widower, even though before she died, she ordered him to get married, for the orphans were little and needed taking care of. But Father didn’t get married. Father said, How can I bring a strange woman into the house? Said Rebecca, So you lost your mother. And she groaned over him as if he were orphaned only now. Shifra lifted her eyes and looked at Isaac, like a baby
lying tranquilly who hears that one of its relatives is in mourning. She observed Isaac and was amazed that he didn’t look as if he were in mourning, and she looked at her mother and rejoiced that she was alive. And again Shifra felt that there was something in the house that hadn’t been here before. As she was serene, her mother was serene. From the day her husband took sick, Rebecca had never imagined she could take her mind off his illness. Rebecca recalled everything she had been through since the day Reb Fayesh got sick and she recalled days when her husband was healthy, and days when she was a girl. She was amazed at herself that in a short time she recalled a lot of things. If she wanted to tell them, she wouldn’t have had enough time. And as if to test whether those things could be told, she started telling. If we put one item together with another, this is the gist of her story.
I
Reb Moyshe Amram, Rebecca’s father, was a wine merchant, and everybody was fond of his wines. Lords and ladies and—quite the contrary—Rebbes and Hasids quenched their thirst with them. And he earned in one year more than he ate in three years. And she, Rebecca, was the daughter of their supplications, for she came into the world because of the prayer they had prayed for her to come into the world, and she was the daughter of a soul, for they gave up a soul for her. For when her mother was about to give birth to her, it took her thirty-three hours to be born, and all those hours, her mother’s father didn’t budge from Mother’s bed. He didn’t eat and he didn’t drink and he didn’t take off his clothes and he didn’t lie down to sleep. In the outer room stood the elders of the city and in the inner rooms sat all the teachers in the city with their pupils and recited Psalms, while the mothers of the children stood in the cemetery, the House of Life, and measured graves. But He, May-He-Be-Blessed, demanded more. And when her mother’s father saw that, he went to the synagogue and opened the Ark of the Covenant and said, My soul for hers. His words were accepted and his sacrifice was agreeable. He passed out of this world and Rebecca came into it.
Good were the days of Rebecca’s childhood. Everything she asked for was given her. But she didn’t ask for anything. What
will a girl ask for who doesn’t imagine what she doesn’t see with her own eyes? Once, her father brought a fellow who was outstanding in Torah and summoned all the dignitaries of the city. Her mother brought many bowls of rose jam and put a bowl in front of every sin-gle one of them. The fellow stood up and preached a tremendous sermon. When he concluded his sermon, he picked up his bowl and ate, when the bowl was empty, he picked up his neighbors’ bowls and didn’t leave a single bowl that he didn’t empty. What did Rebecca do? She placed the entire platter in front of him. What did he do? He picked up the platter and ate everything on it. Rebecca’s mother asked Rebecca, What do you think of that fellow? Said Rebecca, I don’t want him. Said her mother, I didn’t think you should want him either. Father appeased him with many words and gifts and sent him off. Later on, when Rebecca ascended to the Land of Israel with her husband, they went to him to be blessed with his blessings, for in the meantime he had become famous as a holy man of God. He didn’t recognize Rebecca, but Rebecca recognized him.
A few days after that event, Father brought Fayesh. A thin fel-low he was, just like Shifra, and his eyes filled his whole face, and a light came from them that kindled and burned. He didn’t raise his eyes to Rebecca, but Rebecca didn’t take her eyes off of him. His two sidelocks lay on his cheeks like two kosher butcher knives, and his movements were swift as a butterfly. He preached no sermon, raised no hair-splitting issues, but when he opened his mouth, everyone bent their ears to hear.
Rebecca’s mother asked Rebecca, You want him? Said Rebecca, Do they ask girls who they want and who they don’t want? Said her mother, Father and I want to marry you off to him. Said Rebecca, If so, do you want me to disagree with Father and Mother? Her mother laughed and Rebecca laughed too.
After her wedding, the laughter stopped, for she was forced to leave her father and mother. And why was she forced to leave them? Because of Fayesh, who couldn’t bear the Polaks and the Gali-cians who came to get wine from her father, whose voices were strange and whose movements were strange and whose pronuncia—
tion was strange. Nor did he like Father’s house, because there was too much wealth there, because they ate fat meat and drank old wine and slept on soft beds and wore nice clothes, because Fayesh said that all those delicacies hinder a person from serving the Lord and from studying Torah in piety. He began to stay away from the table and fasted on Monday and Thursday and slept on a hard bed, and he didn’t calm down until he resolved to leave Father’s house and go to the first place he came to. He came to a small village that was looking for a kosher slaughterer. He took Rebecca and went there with her.
For Father and Mother, the separation from their only daughter was hard, and it was harder for their only daughter to separate from Father and Mother and to leave a house full of love and affection and go to a place where no one knew her and where she knew no one. When they came there, a new trouble came. Fayesh refused to slaughter fattened geese, which the Rabbis of every state allow, and the people of the village didn’t want to give up fattened geese, and so a Quarrel erupted between them and Fayesh. And when it started, it didn’t stop. And if he declared an animal unkosher, they shouted that he was jealous of them because they would eat meat. Fayesh got angry at them and shouted, Wicked people, you want me to allow you animals that are carcasses or aren’t kosher, if it’s meat of carcasses you want, a lot of carcasses are thrown in the garbage, go and eat. They got mad at him and said that all his disqualified meat was nothing but revenge. Fayesh got mad at them for suspecting him of mak-ing the Torah a matter of revenge. They got mad at him for it wasn’t bad enough that he gave them grief with his kosher, but he also called them wicked. The ground couldn’t bear him. He resolved to go somewhere else.
He began examining various places, and didn’t find a decent place. One village he found defective because they sent their sons to school; and another village he found defective because the girls wore red shoes like the Gentile girls. Finally, he came upon a kosher place, where the whole community was famous for its piety. It wasn’t long before he came upon a wedding. He saw that the bride lit candles be-fore her wedding and blessed the candles by HASHEM who has
commanded us to kindle the light of Yom Kippur, for it was an old custom in that community that brides bless before their wedding with the blessing of the Yom Kippur candles, because they compared the wedding day to Yom Kippur, and everyone answered Amen. Fayesh scolded them, shouting, That’s a vain blessing, and he almost upset the whole wedding. To make a long story short, wherever he turned, he found a defect. When you want to, you find flaws. Said Fayesh, Why should I end my days in Exile, I better immigrate to the Land of Israel, for the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, and surely no wicked person can exist there, and I don’t need to ruin my life among the wicked. Great joy entered his heart. And because of his joy, he stroked his wife’s hand, something he wasn’t in the habit of doing, and said to Rebecca, This year, God willing, we shall as-cend to the Land of Israel. Rebecca heard and was scared. How would she leave her homeland and go to a faraway place overseas and never see her father and her mother. She wailed and wept, and he rejoiced that the Lord had given him the idea of ascending to the Land of Israel to serve the Creator Blessed-Be-He in His own home. And he was a stubborn man, if something came up into his heart, he didn’t let go of it.
It’s hard for a woman whose husband is a stubborn man, and yet there is a bit of good in his stubbornness. There are men who want something today, and when their wife starts getting used to it, they set their sights on something else, and when their wife starts getting used to that, they have already set their sights on something else again. But that’s not so when her husband is resolute, for a woman doesn’t have to change her deeds all the time. Father and Mother heard that Fayesh wanted to ascend to the Land of Israel and reluc-tantly they answered Amen. They knew Fayesh and knew he wouldn’t change his mind, whether they agreed or whether they didn’t. And they consoled themselves that the Land of Israel is propitious for children. And indeed it was. Within one year, Shifra was born. Now this same Reb Fayesh, who feared no one in the world, lay on his sickbed because he was frightened by a dog, and our comrade Isaac who couldn’t set foot in Reb Fayesh’s house, frequented Reb Fayesh’s house because he wrote silly words on the dog’s skin. And neither
Isaac nor Reb Fayesh knows that it was that dog and those words that caused whatever they caused.
I
Rebecca asked Isaac, And don’t you miss your father? Said Isaac, At first I missed my father and my brothers and my sisters, even my hometown. Now I don’t know if I miss them. Shifra lowered her eyes and blushed. Said Rebecca, What has changed now from before? Isaac blushed. He took his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his forehead and said, It’s hot here. Said Shifra, Not like in Jaffa at any rate. Said Isaac, But in Jaffa, a sea wind blows. Said Rebecca, But the sun of Jaffa is twice as strong as in Jerusalem and the sand is sear-ing. When I went to greet Father and Mother on the ship, I thought I was condemned to be boiled, all day long I wiped the sweat off my face and the sweat kept coming back. Said Isaac, That day was hot. Said Rebecca, Blessed is He Who reminds us of what is forgotten. Didn’t you travel with Father and Mother in the same ship?
Isaac recalled that moment when his ship reached the port and Rebecca came to greet her father and mother and he was jealous of them because as soon as they entered the Land they found a home and family. All his experiences began unfurling before him, everything that had happened to him from that moment until now, and he wondered. Wouldn’t it have been better if he had gone from the ship with Rebecca and hadn’t hesitated so much.
Said Rebecca, Now you’re sitting here and Father and Mother are in Safed. How many years did I pray that I would be blessed to see them. God heard my prayer and they came. And in the end they went to Safed. Will I ever be blessed to see them? Said Shifra, Why not? Said Rebecca, Father is sick and Mother isn’t healthy. Master of the Universe, take pity on us. Said Shifra, Go to them. Rebecca glanced at her husband’s bed and said, What are you talking about, daughter, he’s sick, and I should go?
Isaac pondered, If I . . . Then she . . . That is, if I marry Shifra, she, that is, my mother-in-law, can travel to her parents. Said Rebecca, Just imagine, my father and mother are in the Land of Is-rael and I can’t see them. Go, they tell me. It’s fine for the two of you
to say go. Why are you laughing, Shifra? Said Shifra, I’m the only one who said it, and you say the two of you. Rebecca recalled everything she had determined about Isaac, and was furious that everything she had done was the complete opposite of everything she had wanted to do. Shifra looked at her mother and was amazed.
