Shira (2 page)

He left Weltfremdt’s house and had not gone far when he began to picture Lisbet Neu’s face, realizing how rare it was to see such a woman. He was sorry he hadn’t said something to her that could be pursued. But, even if he had said something that could be pursued, he could not have pursued it, for he was married, the father of two grown daughters; even if he were to speak with her again, what did it matter? Still, Lisbet Neu was certainly worth seeing.

Like people who choose a vocation in their youth, Manfred Herbst put Lisbet Neu out of mind. When he did remember her, he remembered only so he could tell himself that even if he were to find her, he wouldn’t recognize her, because he didn’t have an eye for faces and wouldn’t recognize anyone after a single meeting, even a woman as lovely as Lisbet Neu. Perhaps he should have asked her to be sure to say hello, should she happen to see him first, because of his age, because of his vision, or because of both of these infirmities. Having neglected to ask, there was no hope of seeing her.

What hope did not accomplish was accomplished through luck. Not many days later, he met her, recognized her, and, what is more, it was he who recognized her instantly, whereas she didn’t know him until he told her his name, for, when she had come with her mother to congratulate Professor Weltfremdt on becoming a full professor, she hadn’t had a chance to engrave Herbst’s image in her heart. For one thing, all of Professor Weltfremdt’s furnishings were black, a setting in which it is hard to discern a person’s face, and, for another, immediately after conveying their good wishes, they left to give the two scholars a chance to talk about their own affairs.

She was plainly dressed and wore a straw hat, which was out of season, for summer was over and the days were rainy. It was clear from her appearance that she was poor. Those immigrants from Germany, who had lived in an abundance of wealth and honor until they were exiled from their splendid houses by Gentiles and who finally went up to the Land of Israel, were penniless and financially pressed by the time they found jobs. But her poverty was masked by charm, charm that was enhanced by reticence. At first glance, she seemed to have no self-confidence, like someone who has landed in a place where she is totally unknown. But, in this case, her reticence was in her character. She felt that she didn’t deserve to enjoy the bounty of a land others had toiled over – for her father’s and mother’s families had lived complacently, fulfilling their commitment to the Land of Israel through donations to the poor of Jerusalem and to charitable organizations, while the Jews of Russia, Poland, Galicia, and Rumania came and built houses, planted vineyards, made citrus groves, established settlements, and prepared the country for their brothers-inexile. Much as Herbst scorned both racist theory and the would-be scholars of this would-be theory, when he discovered Lisbet Neu, in whom youthful grace was joined with ancient splendor, he was glad, despite himself, to be of her people.

Since Lisbet Neu is destined to occupy several sections of the book
Shira
, I will include some of the conversation between Dr. Herbst and Lisbet Neu. But, rather than present it in dialogue form, I will relate the general content of their conversation.

Herbst began by telling Lisbet Neu about the recent book by her aged uncle, Professor Alfred Neu, which even his adversaries conceded was a scholarly breakthrough that would soon be considered a classic in the field. Lisbet was very surprised. In all the years she had known her uncle, it had never occurred to her that his distinction derived from books. She regarded him as an uncle, one of her closest relations. He was actually a distant relative, but, since we have no special word for this relationship, and since it is customary to use the term
uncle
broadly, she called him Uncle, though he was not her uncle but her grandfather’s uncle, having been born to an elderly father at an advanced age, so that, as it turned out, he was younger than her own grandfather, who was the grandson of Professor Neu’s grandfather. “But,” Lisbet Neu said, “my mother and I are now worried, for it is more than a year and a half since our uncle wrote to us, and he used to write three or four times a year, apart from sending New Year greetings.” “He wrote to you four or five times a year?” Herbst cried in amazement. “Four or five times a year…. He must be very fond of you. Scholars from all over the world send him letters that remain unanswered. If he does answer, he answers one out of many, so he takes time from them for you and writes to you four or five times a year!” Herbst did not take leave of Lisbet Neu without promising to inquire about Professor Neu’s health and report back to her.

As it happened, Herbst happened to stop in to see his friend Professor Lemner and found him in a state of elation, having just received a letter from Professor Neu. And, as it happened, he happened to run into Lisbet Neu that very day. He said to her, “I have something good to tell you, my dear lady. I just saw a letter from Professor Neu that was received today, written in a hand that proves he has the strength of seven youths.” Lisbet Neu laughed and said, “We had a letter too. He must have written both letters on the same day. Uncle Alfred sets aside special days for letter writing.” From then on, whenever Manfred Herbst met Lisbet Neu, he would discuss Professor Neu with her. So-and-so had a letter from Professor Neu; in such-and-such a journal, there was an article about her uncle or about his theory. Since she knew so little about Professor Neu’s field, Herbst could not engage her with words. Since he could not engage her with words, the conversation ended where it began. He was aware that he was not one to win a maiden’s heart through fine conversation, so he was brief rather than risk inflicting boredom. To her, this was a virtue, for she understood, in her own way, that Dr. Herbst was a distinguished scholar, and it was not the way of scholars to converse with simple girls endowed with neither Torah, wisdom, nor anything else.

A month passed, then another month. The world was occupied with its affairs, as was Dr. Herbst. Who can relate the affairs of the world? The affairs of Dr. Herbst I can relate.

I’ll begin with essentials and relate one thing at a time. He prepared lectures and delivered them to his students. He read many books and journals in his field, as well as related fields. When he found something worthwhile, he copied it by hand and put it in a box. If it was not worth copying, but nonetheless of interest, he would mark it in pencil, sometimes even in ink. In addition to all this, he talked with his colleagues at the university, with his students, and at times with ordinary people, such as the bus driver, the shopkeeper who sold him stationery, or the neighbors, and, needless to say, with his wife and daughters when they were at home. Zahara, his eldest daughter, lived on a
kvutza
, and Tamara lived at home and didn’t burden her father with conversation. I will not dwell on the daughters now, though I mean to tell about them in time.

And so several months passed, during which he didn’t see Lisbet Neu. He was too busy to notice. When he did notice, he thought to himself: How is it that one doesn’t see Neu’s relative? Finding no one to answer his question, he answered it himself: She must have gone to Tel Aviv or to some other place. Finding no one to ask, he observed to himself: Actually, what’s it to me if she’s in Jerusalem or not? Even if she is in Jerusalem, and if I do see her, I have nothing to say to her. Still, what a joy it is for a “tent dweller” to venture into town and see a fine young woman there.

Chapter three

I
will add several words on this subject. Manfred Herbst didn’t tell his wife about the young woman he met at Ernst Weltfremdt’s when she and her mother came to congratulate Weltfremdt on becoming a professor. Though it was Manfred’s custom to tell Henrietta everything, he didn’t breathe a word about Lisbet Neu, though he knew that if he were to say anything to her, she would make nothing of it. Henrietta doesn’t follow every turn of Manfred’s eye, especially when the young woman in question is the relative of an eminent professor, and Henrietta had surely noted, when she came with her uncle, that she wasn’t one of those meddling spinsters who pursue other women’s husbands.

I will clarify something that needs to be clarified. When Lisbet Neu told Dr. Herbst that she and her uncle had been in his house but hadn’t found him in, he expressed regret at having been denied the privilege of receiving his eminent professor in his home. Though Herbst didn’t see him, Henrietta did, and she surely told him so. Still, his words suggested that he hadn’t heard about the visit at all. In fact, Henrietta did tell him, and Professor Neu told him too, before leaving the country, so that what Herbst told Lisbet Neu was mere rhetoric.

Let us linger awhile with Henrietta. At about this time, she had begun to age rapidly. Wrinkles appeared on her face, and, though it is common for blondes to age before their time in this country, in her case it was due less to climate than to stress. Her relatives in Germany were in great distress, so her mind was totally fixed on getting them out of there and into the Land of Israel. Her concerns were imprinted on her face in the form of wrinkles, which, unlike others her age, she did nothing to conceal, making no attempt to improve herself for her husband. At night, when a woman is unencumbered by household tasks and can give her mind free rein, she would be scheming: what to do next, and how. And what she decided by night she acted on by day, running to the Jewish Agency, to lawyers, to the immigration office, from there to brokers, agents, advisers who, though they were not evil, behaved unscrupulously. When evil pervades the world, even those who are not evil behave in an evil fashion. Henrietta took all this on, sparing her husband the runaround and abuse so many of our people were subjected to in those days by English officials, Arabs, and those Jewish officials who allied themselves with all the others and were more cruel than the Gentiles. Since Manfred was spared these troubles, the One who was created only to make trouble came and troubled him, saying: Take a look at yourself and you’ll see – if you’re not young, you’re not old either. Though you and Henrietta are equal in years, there is a difference between man and woman. She is already aging, but you still have your youthful vigor. In such matters, one tends to accept idle talk as ultimate truth. This was true even for Manfred Herbst, the renowned scholar, the author of a six-hundred-page tome on the artifacts in the Byzantine church of Santa Sophia at the time of Leo iii, a work praised by most scholars, who found nothing to delete or add, beyond two or three questions which, according to other scholars, had to be studied further in order to determine whether the small beakers actually existed in Leo’s time or were introduced later. This same Manfred Herbst began to say: I’d better take over before old age overtakes me. How? Through the company of attractive young women. As long as Henrietta was young, while the girls were small and the house was in good order, he sat with his books, collecting material for an essay on burial customs of the poor in Byzantium, without giving a thought to finding companionship away from home. Now that Henrietta was aging, the girls were grown, and he was less confident about finishing his paper, he was drawn to follow his roving eye. But his eyes were slow to find what his heart was after. Then he made the acquaintance of Lisbet Neu. Though he realized she was not the girl he was seeking, his loftiest thoughts were of her. Were it my tendency to analyze, I would suggest that deep in his heart he was displeased with the winds that disperse illicit fantasies.

One day Manfred Herbst came out of the French Library on Ben Yehuda Street, carrying new novels from Paris. Some scholars boast of not having read a poem, story, novel, or anything else outside of their field since their schooldays. Others, when they wish to read for pleasure, choose a detective story and read it discreetly, so as not to be seen. Herbst read a great deal of poetry, as well as short stories and novels, and he was open about this. As he walked down the street, he treated himself to a taste of what he would soon be reading. Suddenly he felt a rush of warmth, a flash of radiance. Even before he could identify the source of the warmth and radiance, Lisbet Neu came toward him. She looked up, her black eyes flashing. Herbst forgot that he had told himself he had nothing to say to her and forgot that he had told himself that, should he talk to her, he had best be brief, as they were barely acquainted. By some miracle, it was she who began speaking. She said, “Please, Dr. Herbst, could you possibly give me a bit of your time? It won’t take long. I need some advice.” His heart was stirred by her voice, even more so by her eyes: the look of concern – had she overstepped? Perhaps she had asked too much…. Herbst hugged the novels he was holding and said, “Wherever you choose, I’ll be there. Anytime.” Lisbet was bewildered. This was beyond what she had in mind, though the consultation did, in fact, require a time and place. She braced herself and said, “If it’s all right with you, I’ll be at the Café Zichel tomorrow at six.” When Herbst repeated her words so he wouldn’t forget them, a note of furtive joy rang in every syllable he uttered. He was breathless, like someone anticipating joy but unable to wait for it. She soon took leave of him and was on her way.

Herbst didn’t watch her go, but in his mind he followed her footsteps as she made her way among passersby, unaware of the company they were in and that her every step was putting distance between them. All of a sudden he remembered something he did not want to miss. He turned to look after her. She was already far away, so that he could barely make out the fringe of her hat, blown by the evening breeze like a curtain designed to shut out the street.

I am skipping an entire day, which was in no hurry to pass – the day between meeting and meeting – but let’s see what followed. This sort of thing, O ye who seek novelty, is already common and recurs every day, at any time, at any hour: a married man, father of two daughters, lecturer at a university, arranges to meet a twenty-four-year-old woman of good family in a café. I will nonetheless recount it as if it were news, from beginning to end: how he waited for her, how he went into the café with her, sat with her, what he said to her, and all that ensued.