Shira (55 page)

“After that incident, Hemdat fled from his room and roamed the streets, the avenues, the shore, the beach, the vineyards – any place that wasn’t fenced off, with the exception of the German neighborhood, which he chose to stay far away from. After several hours, when it was already night and he was plagued by hunger, he returned to Neve Zedek. He passed the synagogue and, hearing the drone of voices, he went in and found people engaged in Torah study. One of them, with earlocks and a beard like all the others, was leading the lesson. This person was the
shohet.
Hemdat gazed at him, searching for a sign of ruthlessness, of savagery. He found none. On the contrary, he saw a thread of kindness stretched across the man’s face. He asked about him and learned that he was a man of sterling character and high moral qualities, that he was especially generous in offering hospitality and charity for the poor.” Tamara said, “Here comes Father.” Taglicht followed her eyes and said, “I don’t see him.” Tamara said, “But I do. Here he comes.” Taglicht said, “Now I see him.”

Herbst appeared. His face was clear, with no trace of sorrow, probably because he was pleased to find his daughter with Taglicht. Herbst said, “I don’t want to interrupt. Continue your conversation and your walk.” Tamara said, “Come and join us. We’re heading for a café. Come on, Manfred. Come.” Herbst said, “How can I come if you call me Manfred? What will people say? He has a grown daughter and sits in cafés with young women. Isn’t that so, Dr. Taglicht?” “Of course, of course,” Taglicht answered, without having heard what Herbst said. After a few steps, Taglicht stopped and said, “Excuse me, but I can’t go with you. Weltfremdt is waiting for me.” “Ernst or Julian?” Tamara said, “Father, it’s as if you’re asking ‘odds or evens?’“

Neither one of the Weltfremdts was waiting for Taglicht, but he wanted to give the father and daughter a chance to be alone together. Tamara said, “Have you changed your mind?” Taglicht said, “What can I do? They’re waiting for me.” Herbst said to his daughter, “We’ll let him go now if he promises to come to us for supper.” Tamara said, “Eggs in a glass, tea in a glass, and a lump of sugar.” Taglicht said, “I’ll try to come.” Tamara said, “You see, Manf – I mean, Father – how much influence I have. He didn’t say, ‘God willing.’“ Herbst smiled. Taglicht smiled and took leave of them.

It was odd for Herbst to be going to a café with his daughter. He had never sat in a café in Jerusalem with either Zahara or Tamara. After ordering what he ordered, he began searching his mind for something with which to entertain his daughter. He found nothing. He wanted to tell her one of those anecdotes about university personalities. But he felt that the time and place required something special, not the sort of subjects they discussed at home. It occurred to him that he could ask her to do the talking. But he felt that he should entertain her. Again, he searched his mind and found nothing suitable to say to his daughter. While he was searching and failing to find anything, a newsboy came through, shouting at the top of his lungs that eight Jews had been killed on Mount Carmel. There was chaos in the café. The newspapers were snatched up, without much attention to proper change, and were all gone in a minute. Herbst barely managed to get a copy.

Herbst and his daughter sat in the café. He had a cup of coffee, she had a dish of ice cream. She was leaning over him, and they were both reading the names of the victims and the brutal details of the murders. After reading the entire account, Herbst scanned the other items in the paper, one about an attempt to smuggle arms from Syria and one about an interview with a Jew imprisoned in Acre who had been sentenced to hang.

This is how Herbst and his daughter spent the time on the one occasion in their lives when they were together in a café. Herbst suddenly said, “Time to go. Mother might worry about us. You didn’t finish your ice cream. It’s all melted. I’ll order another. You don’t want it? Then let’s go.”

On the way, Tamara said to her father, “We didn’t even mention Alfreda Weltfremdt, who just got engaged.” “Engaged? To whom is she engaged?” “You didn’t see the notice? She’s engaged to someone whose name I forget.” Herbst said, “Mrs. Ernst Weltfremdt must be very happy.” Tamara said, “Why single her out?” Herbst said, “Because now she has something to write a poem or a play about. But we, who will be invited to hear her verses, are not to be envied.

Taglicht was always careful not to lie, because one lie leads to another, ad infinitum. There is no end to the pile of lies, and, even if there was no choice about the initial one, you end up with an appetite for lying. Now that he had told Herbst and Tamara that he had promised Julian Weltfremdt to stop in, he wished to sweeten the lie with a dose of truth.

Julian Weltfremdt was not used to having guests. Since the death of his little girl and the loss of his library, he no longer invited people to his home. If a guest did stop by, it was a red-letter day for Mimi. Apart from her piano and the pretense that she was a protector of the needy, she had nothing to be happy about.

That day, she had bought artichokes for supper. When she saw Taglicht in her house, she was elated and invited him to eat with them. Julian, who knew Taglicht would refuse, remained silent. He could see in her eyes how eager she was to share the pleasures of her table with a guest. He said to Taglicht, “I know you pharisees don’t give an inch on ritual, even when it’s a matter of pleasing someone. But, if I promise to make sure Mimi doesn’t feed you anything unkosher, will you perhaps indulge her and eat with us? What can a kosher Jew eat in the home of an infidel such as me? Mimi, what did your grandmother feed that merchant from Galicia, the one your grandfather used to deal with? Pickled fish and whiskey. We don’t have any pickled fish and whiskey, but we have sardines and some superb cognac. But I don’t know if it’s kosher – it was a gift from an Englishman I rescued from an Arab shepherd who was about to thrust a knife in his back.”

Taglicht knew it would be right for him to accommodate these two solitary people and eat with them. Since the day their daughter died, they had lived together like two mutes. But he had promised Herbst and Tamara that he would come there for supper, so he couldn’t do the decent thing; he did what was required to keep his promise. Mimi gazed at him, her lovely eyes veiled by a film of grief. Julian, like most men who cause their wives sorrow without knowing it, noticed this and was annoyed at Taglicht, a gentle man who had suddenly become harsh. Taglicht stammered a bit and took leave of them.

When he left, Julian followed him out and said, “Wait, and I’ll show you a shortcut.” Taglicht said to him, “When did you last see Herbst? I wanted to talk to you about him. I don’t know anything specific. I know only what I see on his face. He looks tormented. If you see him, pay attention.”

Chapter nineteen

W
hen Taglicht left the Weltfremdts’, he was haunted by the bleakness that prevailed there, even though it was overshadowed by the happy face of the lady of the house when a guest arrived at her long-forsaken door. Taglicht, true to character, tried to ignore what he had seen, to avoid thinking about his friends, but he didn’t succeed. He found himself reflecting on these two solitary people, who had suffered a double blow. After their furnishings and books were lost, their daughter died. When the child was alive, she had sweetened their plight and linked their souls. When she died, the link was severed and their souls became separate. They live together now, like the piano she brought with her from her father’s house and the crumbling box of books, the remains of his collection. Julian has no use for the tunes, and Mimi has no use for the books. What connects Julian and Mimi? Fear of change, habit, compassion, and sadness. Mimi’s sadness adds to her charm; Julian’s sadness makes him angry. They are alike in one respect: they are both kind. But they are different in that he communicates through reproaches, whereas she uses her lovely voice. Taglicht was feeling more and more troubled, until his thoughts shifted back to the Mount Carmel victims. They had been in his mind from the time he left Herbst until he entered the Weltfremdt house. There was no end to the murder, no limit to the massacre. Jews were killed in other countries; Jews were killed in this country too. Before a boy could distinguish between death and murder, he heard about Jews being killed. Taglicht himself remembered that one day he went to school and saw the city weeping. He learned that a Jew, a milkman, had been murdered. After a while, the culprit was found, and he told how he had killed the milkman. They were both early risers. The milkman used to get up early to cart milk from the country to the city, while he used to get up early to cut firewood and bring it to the city. That day the Gentile said to the milkman, “Jew, give me your head, so I can test out my axe.” The Jew laughed. The Gentile swung his axe and chopped off the milkman’s head. Everyone was still in shock about the milkman when another incident occurred. A Jewish midwife was called to some village by a local gentlewoman and didn’t return. The area was searched, but she wasn’t found. After a while, the gentlewoman got married. She hired workers to renovate her palace. One day they went to check something in the cellar. They noticed a barrel filled with honey, opened the barrel, and found the body of a woman, the missing midwife. While everyone was still in shock about the midwife, another incident occurred, involving a family of nine, all of whom were murdered. In each of these cases, Jews had been murdered secretly, and everyone – Jew and Gentile alike – was upset by the bloodshed. Suddenly, the events of Kishinev occurred: Jews were killed openly. From then on, it seemed to be acceptable to spill Jewish blood, and pogroms became common.

The massacre continues, and there is no end to the horrors that have transpired in the world, with Jews the principal victims. A Jew seeking refuge from trouble is pursued by trouble wherever he goes. Even here, there is no respite. What can one do to avoid being murdered? Some of what has to be done is being done by the Haganah, teaching us to defend ourselves, to protect our property, to prevent our enemies from destroying us. Taglicht doesn’t want revenge; he wants to contain the trouble. He enlisted in the Haganah as soon as he arrived in the Land of Israel. He goes where he is sent, without concern for his own safety, never avoiding danger. But the Haganah’s approach has to be scrutinized, because it protects and defends but never attacks, and, as long as you don’t attack, the enemy has the upper hand. If he kills, he kills; and if he fails to kill, what has he lost? He is merely driven off, unharmed. This subverts the Haganah. If we were to show the enemy that we can be like them, they wouldn’t be so eager for our blood, and we could prevent the murder of countless Jews. Until it becomes clear to the Arabs that Jewish blood does not come cheap, we have to act on the talmudic principle: “When someone comes to kill you, beat him to the draw.”

Taglicht did not arrive at this conclusion through his conversation with Tamara. On several occasions, when he was standing guard alone at night in Mekor Hayim, Beit Yisrael, or some other Jewish neighborhood, he had thought to himself: It’s good that we’re guarding the neighborhood; it would be even better if we were to make the first move.

These thoughts were difficult for him to accept, for they were contrary to the opinions with which he had grown up and which governed most of his actions. Not only calculated actions, based on consciousness and understanding, but the simple actions one engages in unconsciously. If he was ambivalent about some issue, when it was time to act, he followed the logic he had grown up with rather than the dictates of his heart, gleaned through his own experience. One night, while he was guarding Mekor Hayim, he had sensed that the enemy was approaching. He had not responded on the basis of “when someone comes to kill you, beat him to the draw.” He had fired into the air, allowing the enemy to escape. An enemy that escapes returns again. The trouble is averted for a time, but it isn’t eradicated. Raising his eyes, Taglicht looked around, like someone in conflict who seeks advice from others. The street was empty. There was no one in sight. Whether or not a curfew was in force, Jerusalem was shut in. Jerusalem was accustomed to the fact that its citizens stayed in at night unless there was an emergency. Only Taglicht was out on the street – because he had to go to Herbst because he had promised to have supper with him because he had left so abruptly because he had said he had to go to Julian Weltfremdt’s when he didn’t really have to go and it was just an excuse. And later, when he got to Julian’s, he left quickly, because he had promised Herbst he would come there.

This muddle compounded his weariness. His soul was already worn down by the news of the Mount Carmel attack. In his heart, the eight victims killed together did not constitute the number reported in the headlines and announced by the newsboys. To him, every one of them stood alone, distinct and alive, until he was struck by the murderers’ gunfire and fell dead in a pool of his own blood and the blood of unborn generations.

A bell was ringing at the top of a tower. Taglicht heard it and hurried to the bus stop. He wanted to ride to Herbst’s house, since it was almost suppertime. When he got to the bus stop, it was empty. No people, no buses. He looked in all directions, hoping to find a taxi. He saw a small car. It was hard to tell whether it belonged to a Jew, an Englishman, or an Arab. Then, all of a sudden, he heard drums and dancing. He looked up and saw that one of the two Rabinowitz hotels was brightly lit, that the porches and the entire building were crowded with men and women. He realized there was a wedding in town.

Taglicht was a frequent caller at the Herbst home. Julian Weltfremdt was not. That night, Weltfremdt called on the Herbsts. This was a novelty, since he didn’t visit very much, because of the comedies and tragedies: the comedies couples perform for guests and the tragedies a guest sees for himself.

At this point, it seems appropriate to tell about Julian Weltfremdt, as I have done about most of his friends. Though I already told about his books, I didn’t tell very much. Still, I’ll skip the major part of his life story and relate a most trivial detail, one that was on the lips of everyone in Jerusalem. It’s about those long brown cigarettes that took over the mouths of Jerusalem’s intelligentsia. If I were to go to Tel Aviv or Haifa, I wouldn’t be surprised to find them there, poking out of countless mouths.