Shhh...Magnapoets is sleeping...or lying on the beach, watching cold glasses of lemonade bead...or frolicking in the sun, or perhaps writing some fantastic poetry.
We will be back September 8th with fresh verse, inspired, eager minds, and peeling sunburns.
See you then!
Translated from the Hebrew by Alan Sacks
I had a vision one night of my grandfather, Rabbi Yosef Yoselevitch, my father's father who died in Poland before the war. He lay in his house by the window while outside, hundreds of Jews wrapped in black fur hats and dark coats gathered in the small planked yard awash in mud left by the melting snow. With a bright face, he smiled and beckoned me closer. "Please, don't be afraid, my grandson-whom-I-did-not-deserve. Come to me, come to grandfather." The windows were open, it was cold, and dozens of grieving Jews thrust their heads into the room.
"Pay no attention to them," grandfather said. "And don't be afraid. Come to me."
Wait a minute. What language did he speak to me? Yes, I have this bad habit. I bring myself to a stop in the middle of reliving the dream. I have to know: What language did they actually speak in the dream? Did my grandfather speak Sephardic Hebrew, for him the language of a future that he never knew? Or did he speak to me in Yiddish, which for me was a useless language of the past? Or was it a picture language peculiar to dreams that was not Hebrew, Ashkenazic German, or Yiddish?
I just don't remember. Sometimes, something from my dreams comes to me weeks later. It's usually a trivial thing, of no importance, yet stamped indelibly into my memory. I once read some book about the interpretation of dreams. The author claimed that it was precisely these small, seemingly meaningless details that must be grasped because they hold the key to explaining the dream.
During a trip to Europe some years ago, I met my uncle, my mother's brother, for the first and last time. My uncle was already old and ill. His legs were nearly paralyzed and he moved about with difficulty, with a walker. On the way from the hotel to his house, I wasn't concerned with which language we would speak. It all seemed so simple. The old uncle and his nephew from Israel were meeting. Was it conceivable that they would be unable to speak to one another? And in fact, the instant we met--after a few awkward moments--the flow of talk never ran dry. He asked questions, which I answered, and then he tried to answer my questions.
We sat in the house with his family, his sickly wife and watchful son-in-law as his daughter fussed around us. My wife, who had come with me from the hotel, also sat with us. I've saved it all inside me: the names, the dates, the family history that has come down to us. The siege, the rescue, the flight, everything. I even knew that he had grown tired of Judaism and was leading an assimilated life. But in his soul, he yearned to live a different kind of Jewish life.
On our ride back to the hotel that night, I asked my wife what language my uncle and I had spoken. I felt excited and quite confused. My question astonished her. Why, it was the family language, of course, the language revived from the past. "True, but what is the family language based on?" I persisted. My wife had noticed bits of Hebrew, fragments of French, she said, whole sentences spoken in Yiddish and a lot of English. I was amazed that night at how all those languages had melded inside me. They had been hiding, waiting for the right moment, and when they burst forth, there emerged a coherent, whole language: the family language.
And now we return to my paternal grandfather, to his last night in a small city in northeastern Poland on the Lithuanian border. The windows are open to the chilly, early spring evening. He signals me, calling me to him. I now know that he called me in the family language; indeed, we did not speak any common language. Actually, I still hadn't said anything. To tell the truth, that night, a night in the Hebrew month of Shevat in the year 1935, I still hadn't been born.
My father, a young, zealous pioneer, had already been in the land of Israel for some years. But I distinctly remember that he was with us there, at the rabbi's bed. And when I probe my memory, I also recall the faces of the founders of our kibbutz standing along the walls. Some of them are still shod in the high rubber boots they wore during our wet winters. Their boots are sopping with our reddish mud, the loam of the land of Israel, not the dark Polish forest mud whose exact color even I don't know. Through the open window comes the piercing cry of wailing. Some women mourning in the distant throng can no longer control themselves.
Are the women allowed to enter the dying man's room? I don't know. I'm not an expert in religious law. All I know is what I can see in my dream. Women were there, definitely: relatives, neighbors who loved the brilliant rabbi, tender young girls of the Hashomer Hatzair Zionist movement bound for Israel, all encircling the house. Some of them were already bursting into tears. The men still restrained themselves, but were praying in pained, tormented voices: "May the rabbi live, amen. May the rabbi live, amen. Maytherabbiliveamen. Amenamenamen."
Only someone who has tried diving into a raging sea can begin to imagine what I went through. There is no firm bottom to a dream. Everything is mixed together, swept around, and I was close to drowning.
On my grandfather Rabbi Yosef Yoselevitch's last night, he appeared to me, the baby, his grandson not yet born. He smiled and invited me to play on his knees. But I could already detect beneath his yellow skin something that the jostling crowd on the wooden streets outside hadn't seen. Large white candles glowed in the room beside his head and someone put a damp towel on his brow. The murmur of prayer outside grew louder.
If the language of my grandfather's terms of endearment had been hard for me, the language of the prayers was seven times harder. I couldn't tell at first if they were real words or just sounds that repeated themselves like the booms of distant drums.
But now I could hear the recurring words of the prayers like a solemn oath. "Ana b'khoach gedulat y'minkha. With the strength of your right hand's greatness, we beg thee. We beg thee, use your power. Webegtheewiththestrength, webegtheewiththestrength. Withestrengthofyourrighthand'sgreatness."
In the little garden trampled beneath the street's leafless trees, people were weeping, stooped over and wailing, the women in high, shrill voices, the men in dull ones. The language of the prayers outside was carried inside the room and surrounded the beloved rabbi on his death bed. "With the strength of your right hand's greatness, we beg thee. Preserve the life within him, let him sit again among the living. By your right hand so great and mighty, can you not return our dead to life?"
What did I know of the world of yeshivas? What did I know of the Lithuanian school or the geniuses of the Musar movement? Even in my wildest dreams, I couldn't guess that I would seek out the schools in Jerusalem and read the heartrending lamentations that the great rabbies of Israel and Diaspora had written over my grandfather.
Once, giving in to a pique of curiosity, I went to visit the Lithuanian yeshivas in Jerusalem. I met teachers and headmasters, some of whom remembered my grandfather and even gave me a measure of respect, or perhaps it only seemed to me that they did, because I was the grandson of the Lubitsch. I chatted with them about the great achievements of those who had restored the world of the Lithuaninan yeshivas, the giants of Musar, Abramsky and Grodzensky, the Meltzer rebbe and the Blazer rebbe. But inside, I felt that this was a lost world. I sat in their narrow, cramped offices in the Romema quarter. I drank from their cups and ate a little from their tables. They exchanged words among themselves in an indecipherable language; all I understood was that they were intrigued to see what had become of the secular grandson of the master of Lubitsch.
"Pay no attention to them," my grandfather the Lubitscher draws me to his bed ringed with candles. He chirps at me and showers me with sweet words of affection, hoping that I'll come out of the wall and take the form of a baby in the room, that I'll climb on his knees on this, his last night. Yes, it seemed to me in the dream that he swung me up on his frail knees and hummed in my hair some forgotten melody that I, too, sometimes recall. Then I am snatched off his knees because the rabbi is very weak. He has to be put to bed at once and prepared for death. So many Jews crowd around his bed. The dark coats are steaming and I recoil from the acrid stench of their boots. "Pay no attention to them."
My grandfather draws me to his ever paler face on the pillows. Outside, the women's wails are now rending the night air and the men are tearing their clothes. At night, in my hospital bed across from the cardiology nurses' station, I grasp for my memory. Tenaciously, by sheer force, I struggle to remember every word of the prayer-oath, "We beg you, with your strength." If the Jews clustered by the dying rabbi's window had such unshakable faith in the words' magic powers, why shouldn't I believe in it, too? Why shouldn't its powers heal me, too? In every corner, they murmured, "May the rabbi live, may the rabbi live," even though his soul was already fluttering around the candles' flickering flames. What is the power of this prayer? Was it the combination of its letters, or the charm of its syllables, or the 42 words whose initials form the secret 42-letter Name of God? I too join those in the crowd, whispering and hoping. I too put letters together, compose abbreviations and memorize obscure acronymus. Let it have an ancient source. Let it have a mystical source. Let it even come from the imaginary world of the Kabbalah. Just now, I don't care at all what the source of the prayer is. Just let it work. Let the threat hanging over me in the hospital ward be removed and shattered. I know in my heart that my request hasn't been granted. The brilliant rabbi, the man of morals beloved by his people, was called to the Yeshiva on High and has not come back. Only in my cryptic dreams is he lying on his deathbed, propped up on his pillows. A sweet smile, a smile unlike any I have ever seen before, spreads over his face, its pallor calling to me.
THE DREAM SALON
Dreams are windows into the soul.
"Poppycock," my mother said, interrupting her reading and lowering the newspaper. "Rennata Sadek is a phony, through and through. She used to think she was better than the rest of us, but look at her now."
"Let me read the article," I said, trying to snatch the paper away from her.
The recently opened Rennata's Dream Salon, located at the end of Main Street across from the train station, will be open from 7:00 a.m. until 10:00 a.m. and again from 5:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. Mrs. Sadek especially hopes to interest the morning commuters when the dreams are still fresh in their minds.
I tried to grab the paper again, but my mother pulled it away and read some more. "It says here, $1.00 dollar a dream, three for $2.50. Oh, and listen to this. Commuters can get their morning coffee and donuts from Zeke's Coffee Shop next door before going in to see Mrs. Sadek through the connecting door in the back.
"Honestly, if that doesn't take the cake," she said, finally surrendering the paper. "Does she really expect to have sensible hard working people spend their money on this kind of flim-flam stuff? It's a wonder they even spend money on what she and her husband serve in that greasy spoon."
"I bet Zeke sells a lot more donuts with Rennata working next door."
"Precisely," my mother said, placing her hands on her hips and shaking her head as she pressed her lips together, her usual "isn't it obvious?" attitude she always assumed with me, a mere 13 year old girl who didn't know any better. "It's just a gimmick. Rennata knows absolutely nothing about analyzing dreams, nor about cooking, either."
Contrary to my mother's opinion, sensible hard working people did spend their money to have their dreams analyzed. It was the summer of 1952, and in the morning, on my way to the summer school class I had to take, I went out of my way a couple of blocks and peddled past the train station. Zeke's Coffee Shop was more crowded than usual. The stools and tables were filled, not just with the daily commuters, but with some of the people who worked in the shops nearby. Everybody, it seemed, was curious.
I tried to see who went through the connecting door, but I couldn't see past the crowd.
"What'll you have, Connie?" Zeke asked me, calling over the heads of the suited men with their briefcases. "Nothing, Zeke," I said and left. Zeke and Rennata were okay if you came in later, but at 8:00 in the morning they didn't have the time for kids. I did notice that Rennata wasn't behind the counter. There was only Alex, their son who must been about 18 then. Alex never had the time for anybody, no matter what hour of the day. He always needed a haircut and wore a perpetually pained look, as if waiting on the customers and washing up the dirty dishes were killing him.
Outside I tried to peer into the windows of the shop next door, but the glass had been covered with dark maroon curtains almost three-quarters of the way up. It used to be a shoe repair shop, and the wooden sign with a lady's laced boot still hung above the door, but the words had been painted over to read, "Rennata's Dream Salon." And in smaller print, "Step inside for a look into your subconscious." The glass door to the shop was also heavily curtained and had a small sign which read, "Enter through Zeke's Coffee Shop."
There was a glow from two lamps placed at either window just behind the curtains, and looking up I saw shadows on the ceiling. One shadow I was sure was Rennata's. It was round and full, and I imagined her sitting in the dimly lighted room, her short plump fingers spread across a table. She had very black hair worn pulled back into two thick braids pinned across the top of head, but, in my imagination, her hair was loose and wild, like a gypsy.
I went by the Dream Salon a few times a week and always saw shadows moving across the ceiling. "I think Rennata's doing a big business," I reported to my mother.
"I certainly hope you're not going to spend your baby sitting money on that sort of foolishness."
I hadn't really planned on it only because I never had any exciting dreams. Most of the time I didn't dream at all, or, if I did, I couldn't remember enough in the morning. My dreams were usually the result of too much bedtime snacking or late night reading of books like Dracula or Frankenstein.
Also, I didn't think Zeke would let kids in to see Rennata. But I was curious, and I decided to write down all my dreams, no matter how fragmented they were nor how much they resembled the latest ghost story I was reading.
Maybe there would be something about me, hidden deep in my subconscious, which nobody knew about, least of all I, and it was revealed only in my dreams. Something wonderful and terrific. Like I was actually a genius and not just a "C" student. Or that I really was creative and funny, and even though I was plain and freckled and had a figure like a signboard I was beautiful inside. And someday the inside would overtake the outside and I would have boys calling or walking me home like my friends Katy and Nancy did.
I bought a diary at the stationers, at half price since it was July, and daily wrote down my dreams. If I didn't have any or couldn't remember them I wrote anything which came into my head--things about my bratty kid brother and my grandmother's 75th birthday, the heat that summer and the concerts in the village green, but mostly about me.
I went to the pool today, I wrote on July 10, with Katy. Saw Chuck Sonders and Peter Conlin. All they saw was Katy. So I practiced my crawl. I can do six laps without getting tired.
I dreamt about a swamp. And fog. But I don't remember what exactly. And my math class. I'm not doing any better this summer than I did last year. That was on July 12.
On July 15 I wrote. I had a dream last night about someone, but I can't write about it. I couldn't write about it because I was too embarrassed. Katy and I had been to the pool the previous afternoon. Peter was there fooling around, mostly teasing Katy and dunking her, but he tried to dunk me once. He had come up from behind, grabbed me by the waist and tried to pull me down. I squirmed out of his grasp, and we wrestled in the water for a couple of minutes before I swam away.
In my dream, Peter and I weren't wrestling. He had his arms around me and kissed me. I woke up feeling hot and sticky and strange all over, sort of quivery and squishy, like Jello. But I wasn't going to write that dream in my book. And I was sure I would never tell Rennata about it, if I ever went to the Dream Salon.
Early in August, just after summer school was over, I decided I would do it, have my dreams analyzed. I read everything I had written the past month. Although each dream description was short, pithy, my English teacher would have said, I felt that all of them together might reveal something about my subconscious.
"Hi, Connie. What can I do for you?" Zeke asked me. It was 9:30 on a Wednesday morning, and the coffee shop was practically empty. Two business men sat at the counter reading the morning papers, waiting for the 9:43 train, and Melvin, who drove one of the three village taxis, was waiting at the end of the counter for Alex to get his take out order.
"Well," I said, lowering my voice almost to a whisper. "I want to see Rennata."
"What do you want? I can get it for you?"
"No, you can't. I mean, I'm here to pay a professional call."
"A professional...? Oh, I see. Rennata! You got a client."
Rennata came out from the storeroom, a white apron spread across her ample stomach, a jar of mayonnaise in one hand and a bottle of ketchup in the other.
"Connie wants her dreams analyzed," Zeke shouted, as I looked around, hoping no one heard.
"Sit over here," Rennata said, motioning me with a nod of her head to a stool at the far end of the counter.
"But, don't you do it in there?" I asked, moving toward the connecting door to the Dream Salon.
Rennata put down the bottle and jar, removed her apron and opened the door, bowing a little as she ushered me through the opening.
"So, you want the full treatment?" she asked.
With the thick curtains covering most of the windows, the room was dark and gloomy and very hot. Rennata switched on a stand-up floor fan and the two lamps in front of the windows. She sat down at a card table placed in the center of the room with her back to the curtained glass and indicated that I should sit on the cane-backed straight chair opposite her.
The room was pretty much the way I had remembered the shoe repair shop, worn black and white checkered linoleum on the floor, painted green walls with shelves and cubby holes for all the shoes. Only now, the shelves and cubby holes were empty. I had pictured something more colorful and flamboyant, stripped awnings, satin pillows with tassels and fringed shawls, a gypsy caravan.
"So," Rennata said, "you want me to analyze a dream. It's $1.00 or three for $2.50." As she spoke she pointed to a hand lettered sign pinned to the curtains behind her.
"Well," I said fumbling in my pocket for the money, "I don't have a whole dream, but a bunch of half dreams. I mean, I never can remember a whole dream, but I wrote down whatever I could remember." I held up the diary for her to see. "I don't dream every night, but when I do they're always short and they don't make sense, and I don't know what they mean, except maybe the ones about ghosts and monsters and stuff 'cause I read a spooky book. But I thought 'cause they are so short I could tell you about a whole bunch of 'em, and it would be like one real long dream, and you could tell me about myself, about my subconscious and all and what I'm really like." I spoke quickly, getting it all out in one breath.
"Connie, I don't have time to go through your entire diary. It's hot in here and Zeke needs me out front for lunch."
"But I thought you analyzed dreams until 10:00. That's what the news article said. And I've seen people come in here. Every day." I placed my dollar in front of her, but Rennata didn't pick it up right away. It did a dance on the table, tossed about by the fan, but, before it was blown off, Rennata scooped it up with her right hand and jammed the bill into her pocket.
"So, you think I can tell you about your real self, about what you're really like. Don't you know?" She took a handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped the beads of perspiration which had formed on her forehead and upper lip.
Even with the fan blowing directly on us, I felt the moisture collecting under my blouse and wondered just how many people she actually got to come in this sweat box every day.
"I know what I'm like on the outside, but you said, 'Dreams are windows into the soul.' Is that true?"
"Yes, it's true, I said it. I thought it had a nice flair, don't you? Brought some people in anyway at the beginning. But, I don't know anything about the soul."
"But the newspaper said..."
"Didn't anyone ever tell you not to believe what you read in the papers? I can analyze your dreams, Connie, but so can anybody else. A little common sense, a little guess work, a little make believe."
She pulled out the dollar from her pocket, and, prying my hand off the diary, stuck the bill on my palm and closed my fingers over the money.
When I didn't move, she gave a sigh of resignation, and, folding her hands on the table, said, "O.K. Tell me some of these half dreams. I'll see what I can tell you about yourself." I attempted to give her back the money, but she pushed my hand away. "This is on the house. You're the first client I've had in weeks. People came in the beginning. Everybody was curious, but it's too hot, and the novelty is gone. Or maybe, people don't really want to know about themselves. But not you. You want to know the real you."
I wasn't sure if I should stay. Nothing was as I had expected, neither the room, nor Rennata. She had always been brusque with the customers in the coffee shop, unlike Zeke who usually had time for a joke or a story, but I thought here, in the Dream Salon, she would be different, dreamy perhaps, even mysterious.
"Here, let me have it," she said, taking the diary out of my hands. When I tried to get it back, she held it beyond my reach. "Is there something you don't want me to read?"
I didn't answer, and she began flipping through the pages. "I'll pick out the dreams I can analyze."
July 20, she read. Dreamt of falling. Woke up scared. She turned to the previous page. July 19. Went to Coney Island with Katy and her family. Rode the Thunderbolt and was scared stiff.
"Well, that explains your dream. See. Just as I said. Common sense."
August 7. Dreamt about math test and I couldn't get there. Couldn't lift my feet more than an inch at a time so matter how hard I tried.
"This is easy, too," Rennata said, looking up at me. "You really want to do better in school, and deep in your subconscious you know you should try harder.
"What's this dream all about?" she asked, pointing to the entry on August 1. Dreamt about that person again, the one I can't write about.
Again, I didn't answer.
Still holding the diary just beyond my reach she continued to flip through the pages. "Is he your boyfriend?"
"No. I'm not allowed to have one until I'm sixteen."
"But this person is a boy, isn't it, and you'd like him to be your boyfriend? Right?"
I leaned far across the card table and grabbed the diary, then got up to leave. I suppose I should have thanked her. After all, she did explain one dream, but I didn't want Rennata to know about those dreams of Peter Conlin or that I was embarrassed by them.
"When I was your age, I had many dreams about boys. And I didn't want to talk about them, either. But you want to know what they mean."
I waited, delaying my exit.
"They just mean that you're growing up, that you're a normal girl. Those are the sweet, uncomplicated dreams of youth, the awakening of your womanhood, when anything is possible and love seems to be the answer to everything."
She wasn't talking to me anymore. She was looking beyond me, to some place in her memory which only she saw. When Rennata paused, I turned to leave, but she called me back.
"Don't try to analyze or pick your dreams apart. Maybe it is better not to know what our dreams really mean. Either they're pleasant or they're not. Remember the pleasant ones and forget the nightmares. Blame those on indigestion. But whether they're good or bad, they're just dreams, after all, not real life, and you always have to wake up. Real life, on the other hand, is...Well... real life is..."
I waited for Rennata to reveal more of her secret wisdom, and, except for the whir of the fan, there was just a heavy silence in that room.
Suddenly, she pushed her chair away from the table, grating it across the floor, and looked toward the door. "I've got to get out there," she said, as if she had heard a call from Zeke, but I had heard nothing.
She arranged both chairs neatly under the table, and after turning off the fan and lights, she surveyed the room. When her eyes reached the sign pinned to the curtains, she walked over and carefully unpinned it, then tore it into small pieces and dropped them into her pocket.
Opening the door, she pushed me through. "Come on, come on. I've got no more time to waste."
"Thanks," I mumbled, but I don't think Rennata heard me. She had reached behind her and firmly closed the connecting door with a decisive slam.
By the following afternoon the sign for "Rennata's Dream Salon" was gone and taped to the window was a sheet of note paper with the words, "Vacant Store for Rent. Inquire at Zeke's Coffee Shop."
The closing of Rennata's Dream Salon didn't merit a follow-up article in the newspaper, and the fact that it had ever been there soon faded from most villagers' memories.
Three months later Alex took off for parts unknown, and Rennata's tongue got sharper as her figure became rounder. Every now and then, until they closed the coffee shop two years later, I wanted to ask Rennata about a dream I had, and I often sensed she was on the verge of saying something to me, but neither of us spoke beyond my order for a donut, usually unspecified as to flavor, and her gruff response, "Hurry and choose one. I don't have all day."
In memory of Aharon Amir
Translated from the Hebrew by Cindy Eisner
In the early sixties, after I was discharged from my military service, I returned to the sheepfold and immersed myself in heavy labor with the stubborn stinking sheep. After a backbreaking night milking I would go to the upper floor of the renovated culture hall, enter the empty reading room, turn on the lights, sit by the reading table and become engrossed in the journal Keshet. The periodical completely enchanted me. Somehow my years of military service had passed without me having a chance to examine it. I didn't even know of its existence. And only when I returned to the communal farm did I discover it in the reading room. I was utterly paralyzed from the shock of exposure to its texts.
Boys my age, young men who had surely just shed their military uniforms, exactly like me, had published in it their first efforts, wonderful poems and stories. I sat before the pages and imagined these novice writers marching surefootedly on the literary path. A path of which I too had dreamed in the nights, and in the lull between acts of love. I could see them marching surefootedly on the path laid out at their feet. I could sense that there was someone pushing them forcibly to the writing table. I could actually feel that there was someone pulling them powerfully into the circle of fame and literary glory. My love felt the melancholy that befell me afterwards, and the strange longings that consumed my spirit. "What? What?" she asked, "What is eating you?" I told her about the shock of discovering the periodical. About the armies of young men moving and being guided within it. About the bonds of paralysis that grasped me in the early hours of the morning in the reading room, in front of the journal Keshet.
They won't need to wait, like me, ten years and more. They owe nothing. Not to the communal farm, not to the sheepfold, not to the young family that I had established. They won't have to hide, won't have to flee the call that prods them to sit down with a notebook and write. They are students, single, free, flitting between the centers of Hebrew literature. They won't eat their hearts out, ten years and more, because unlike me, they didn't make a sorry choice, to deny their writing. They won't spend fifteen years of painful estrangement from what they were really meant to do. From what it is really their obligation to do. Thoughts of them and of the longed-for writing sometimes bothered me so much that my love asked me once why my eyes were teary.
And one day I couldn't hold things inside any longer. And I lost myself for a good few hours. Hunched over a simple child's notebook, heavy-handedly etching the pages with a thick pencil. And I've already written in one of my books how for a unique and miraculous stretch of time the block was lifted from my writing hand. At least for a few hours, and at least for a first tentative story. I went up to the reading room and took another peek, just to be sure, at the latest issue of Keshet, and I told myself that my fevered story was in no way inferior to those that had been printed. Despite its being heavy-handedly etched on the pages of the notebook, and despite its being written with a thick pencil. If there is there an editor with an eye and with a heart, I told myself, he will not be able to ignore my sweaty pages, upon which I had spilled my heart's blood.
I do not remember how many times I copied out the story. I only remember that each copy was made with the same thick pencil. I stole into the small Kibbutz post office when it was empty, and with trembling hands I presented the envelope to the postal clerk. The envelope opened and in my agitation I only scattered the pages even more. The postal clerk gazed at me and silently helped me to put the pages back into the envelope. She saw into my heart, I am convinced today, even though we did not speak of it. "Are you sure this is the right address?" she asked me, "Are you sure that there is such an address in Tel Aviv?" And I left sweating and chagrined. The whole thing embarrassed me greatly. Suddenly I found myself in some kind of strange undertaking, unusual on the Kibbutz. Just wait, I told myself, until word gets around the whole Kibbutz. I hurried to get away and to forget my discomfiture and agitation in the hard work with the smelly ewes in the sheepfold.
Every day I presented myself excitedly, at a time when there were no customers, at the post office boxes. Every day I hoped for an envelope, a small letter, a slip of paper from the editor that would inform me of the fate of my first story. So passed three weeks and more. And one day the postal clerk met me in the sweltering dining hall, in the middle of lunch, in between milkings. A response from Tel Aviv has arrived for you, she told me. And because the envelope is large I am hereby invited to the post office, to take it myself. I followed her abashedly. What is the meaning of the large envelope? Aren't responses from the editor supposed to come in regular or small envelopes? We entered the office and she weighed the envelope in front of me. And added a few words, some of which I've already written about in that erstwhile story.
I ran down the hill to my tiny blazing shack. I carefully closed the door after me and opened the envelope. My notebook pages fell out of it. I immediately knew my hurried handwriting. I instantly recognized the etchings of my pencil. And when I shook the envelope, a typewritten page fell from it as well, printed with the name of the quarterly Keshet, the address and phone number and all the rest. And then my young and tender heart began to beat faster, and I squatted on the bench and read the enclosed letter.
"As the editor is a very busy man, and cannot find the time to read all of the submissions…," I realized right away that the letter had not been written by the editor, Aharon Amir, but rather by his assistant, Heda Boshes. The editorial secretary or whatever she was. A sharp pain split my heart, because I had already guessed at the rest. And she continued fluently, "This is evidently the first story that you have sent us. It contains many soulful locutions and important and impassioned expressions. But unfortunately, none of these are meritorious. It seems you have much to convey. But as yet you do not possess an identifiable lyrical voice. You are lacking a personal style that will make your stories worthy of publication…" I sweated heavily, my breathing was very shallow, and I was constantly afraid lest someone enter the shack. And Heda Boshes continued to spill my blood. "Why don't we wait, we at the editor's office and you at your desk, let's say a year or two, until you have made a more worthy literary effort? What do you think?..."
I sat discouraged on the floor. Even the ever-cool floor tiles boiled under me from the insult. The letter too seared my hand. And Heda Boshes continued, "And finally I would like to remark that we did you a personal favor, the editor and I, in that we even bothered to read your messy manuscript. In pencil! That is something that we have not seen in our humble offices for years! In the future, if you would like someone to read your work, please would you be so kind as to type it on a typewriter. Like everyone else does! And we herein return your manuscript with thanks, despite the fact that you did not include a stamped envelope as required! Sincerely, Heda Boshes, Editorial Secretary…"
The blow of the rejection letter was too strong for me. I could not bear it, and I simply made myself forget about writing stories for a number of years. Never again, I told myself, never again will I make a mockery of myself like that. And with such a reprimand, not in pencil, and without a stamped envelope. Painfully and regretfully I resigned myself to my failure. I won't let them there, in the editor's office of Keshet, humiliate me a second time. I remember that for a certain period I even boycotted the quarterly, and I didn't go up to the reading room to lose myself in it as I so loved to do. Lyrical voice? What is that anyway? Personal style? Did she write and formulate the whole letter by herself, or did Aharon Amir stand behind her and dictate it to her? You will wait at your editorial desks, I told myself with pitiful vindictiveness, not a year and not two years. You will wait at your desks no less than ten years!
The Six Day War broke out in the summer of 1967. Our sheepfold became a calf shed. The flock was sold, and I was free of the heavy burden of the sheep. I was once again almost completely my own master. The sights of war sank into my being and when I returned home I sat down and wrote a few things that I couldn't hold inside. My wife found me an old typewriter and I typed the stories at night. Without thinking much I sent them once again to Aharon Amir. Whatever he does with them, whatever he thinks of them, I had already taken my revenge. The war and the years that had passed had hardened my heart, and sending the stories no longer ruffled me, and I did not wait with the anxiety of a novice for the editor's response.
But it arrived quickly. And he asked for more! And I waved his letter in my wife's face with the pride of a new author. Here, do you see, ten years of silence. Maybe we'll wait another year or two, we at the editor's desk and you at your desk? He wants more stories! That copy, of an issue of the old Keshet in which my story was printed, was a complete delight to me. I preserved it carefully for many years. But in the end it was lost with the rest of my papers. So, Heda Boshes, do I have an identifiable lyrical voice yet? Do I have a personal style, one that the public will want to read? So, Heda Boshes, did I succeed in making a more worthy literary effort? And in my heart of hearts I thought, I am aiming at Heda Boshes, but also at the editor who stood over her shoulder while she wrote the letter, the same letter that had broken my heart for so many years.
In the Yom Kippur War, while the actual fighting was still going on and also during the cease fire, I sent Aharon Amir some poems from the Golan Heights and from the Syrian "enclave". Poems that I finally collected at the end of 1975 in my first book of poetry, Hushniya, the Mosque. I knew that he had already decided that the days of his quarterly were numbered, and had even publicly announced its closing. I will never forget his excited response, just a few lines, on pale yellow writing paper. "Where have you been all these years?" he asked, "The gates of the quarterly are open wide for your poems!" And I secretly added, and why did you waste your years on your immature stories? And why did you send such a tentative hesitant story, etched in pencil? Heda Boshes had long abandoned her position as editorial assistant, and her malignant response must finally be forgotten. "Your poems that are rooted in the heart and emerge from the burning basalt," he wrote me, "will endure long after the quarterly has folded." After all this do I need to emphasize any more clearly, any more explicitly, the debt that I owe him for my writing? Whether or not he really stood over his secretary's shoulder, and whether or not he called to me in his own handwriting, "Where have you been hiding all these years? Where have you been all of these years?"
In time we developed a good relationship. He invited me to participate in the Jubilee Issue of Keshet, in honor of the fortieth anniversary of the quarterly, in 1998. And when he decided to launch New Keshet he saw me as an obvious player. I never forgave him the rejection letter, but neither did I forget the excited acceptance letter. I even tried, once or twice, in a friendly phone call, to remind him of those long ago days, but he didn't cooperate. "What you remember, you remember," he told me in his spare conversational style, "I don't look back." I dedicated one of my later poems to him, one that appeared in my book of poems The Dinosaurs of the Language. And near the beginning of last winter, at the poets' festival in Sdeh Boker, was the last time I saw him. His illness had changed him very much. We exchanged a few words, and in a moment of inspiration I decided to dedicate a poem to him as I read it on stage. I was emotional as I read, I was a little hoarse and I mixed up the words. He sat right in front of me, in the first row. I don't know what he felt as I read the poem, but I know exactly what I felt. I had been granted the privilege of repaying my debt to him.
"Αh! The simple things mean the most. Like a circle meaning a rectangle and falling in love. And if I wait a lifetime, will you come?"
Yiannis Antiochou
To Ria anyway…
IF YOU WANT TO KILL YOURSELF here’s a good idea for a suicide hang by the words. If at some point the vision of a poetry was proven this phenomenologically corresponds to the emotion and not the tangibility of matters. A body speaks! And the speech is thoroughly transcribed in the texts the poetry that confesses is no other than the importance of the existence of a deep blue ach..on the verge of boredom and so be it.
Our issue is the reconstruction or how to interpret poetry in the so-called material world Universe since love is the motive power. Let it be the only one who needs its disability and its tied-up dream in the eyes straight as you teach a child to read, the poet of "chaos". If for example we told how is fulfilled a dream tied at the waterfront with a little whitewash darkness falls and always always slowly moves the hand betrayed in front of the telephone.
Affection is love and love is the autumn at the just vacated fingers of a woman or a man, with the eyes straight to the waves. I mean to say that sometimes you reach the significant from far away but what happiness when next to your bed sheets awakes your second life. And then you realize how precious is the breath of a poet in love, in the summers of his life.
When I read the poems I feel like washing my face with clear sky water, like visiting a sick body and yes!.. to recover you have to be sick first..
The sickness of love is a little church in a storm, is the storm of a date of seven a.m. at the torn canvas, is what your intuition tells you or else your instinct under the sea.. Truly I never felt such strong pain in the viscera the guts and in fact the aortic arch but only when I fell in love with that smile. And I wasted days and nights of my life trying if possible to trap it in an image a poem a word the vowel of love. So be it..
In how much danger was I and was it real? The minefield of darkness corresponds to an existence which if we want to name its name would be none other than amity. Yes amity and aurora borealis! Wobbling the traces of the body on the waterside and the cells of midnight we face creases speaking another language the language of heartthrobs…The branches of the arc and the breaths interpreting the atmosphere are on the other hand the only thematic part due us. And from above the palm trees make an impression otherwise. The traumatotropes are a music to the just permitted. And imagine that they do nothing else than what their heart dictates. I mean to say that stirring the minefield we discover our passions and our love that explode in the depths of the horizons…And so be it!
The movies are my life and if there was still an islet where Saint Symeon has tread with the outside world I would have no azure thought. And yet everything is the great Wisdom from the moment you temporalize the pit of the flowers, and be it a dream. You watch it and wake from the torpor of the seven days and nights of your work. Time runs in circles and loses complexes of checkered rock formations. From your neck hangs nostalgia in open space and love armed and ready. I man to say that all the magic of lightning rod love consists in exactly its noons and in fact the most secret phosphorous consumables. When you held me in your arms the birdies between the pavement were eating my memory and dying automatically Imbecilic associations were operating besides…
This was the reason I loved you!
But once more the natural phenomena with the painting of always say it is the most momentous "the sorrow that mellows you". And it is not only this it is also love which never and nowhere lets off if it is to be born it leads you tenderly to the sheets and the hypodermic feelings. How can you go around in the landscape if you are to be drowned every so often in the most archaic building even if it protects you from a war. I mean to say that if you are to duel in all in the powers of the sea in the bodies that are given you you write and write about your crease which is not seen. If only those that get angry could understand you even if here is the problem…But usually the problem is not here but only in the words of Elytis "I have no relatives, from all mylife I tried to make a stony youth. I filled love with crosses." And no hope.
To smell the excellent…The juvenile caresses reach the place of poetry and the words that if nothing else charm lost are found in the look and you follow me if possible to the guardhouse of love. Everything talks to me however even the docile rectangular horizontal and vertical of the body that weaves a story a memory a past delaying the enchantment!
I mean to say that one thing is affection and another is love, love endures like a solstice in the middle of the Nile leaning flirtatiously the female body on its moonshore and love always encloses the significant without the fall from the deep blue waters of Niagara being feasible. Suffice to say and say forthright in the blue of the breath as slow burning as it is.
I burn for a truth the truth hovering over the crimson cover of a book. The river flows and whispers are heard the bodies darken and screams are heard, it is the time I have to see you in my dream have to conquer Mesagros and the ray of the precise. A feeling overwhelms me and I cannot sleep, the hours wrestle with the shipwrecked sheets, Spring finally came, the words will flower again...
My agony is poetry and the magic that the verse in the viscera respires, the bowels explode and I learn to watch my vision, a rocky shadow that hollows to rceive a wave the sea eating up the body with its saltiness and the spluttering of the moon in dreams. Death is no more!
To dine poetry and love need the human body, to get drunk they want the poet and thus the transparent reflected word upon the verse is the truth jeopardized in the city without mind and intellect scrapings dark like a ray of sun even if under a magnifying glass.
And if I sensually ask you for the overt lip of the Universe, will you kiss me?
I have to say that the magnitude of the calamity seems to be completely recompensed by respectable meetings of if I want something I want it now and so on. The jugglery of love never renders you reach. It so happens that the innocence of poetry seduces and thus you write how else? To become a poet or not is a state you verify in your inmost dreams, you wake up and you know that to fall in love you have to write poems and vice versa. The most priceless I ever received was an avalanche of affinities of souls and bodies. Fateful was the snapshot of empty wine glasses, with a collar round the table of our desires. And then came the thrill…
Extremely we completely comprehend the body of imagination and choice if it is known beforehand but then again. We have to spend ourselves on the back of the palm tree and the erotic banquet when the girl falls in love with a man and the reverse, without incrimination and totally lackadaisically different. Love has to drown and resurrect the bodies by a flame like the one of the Roman yellow candles in the background. The room shines and silence hovers and I want to touch you to smell you and poetry is late but comes with the look of a girl on the floor because there the heart lies in the bottom of the fog, from there I speak to you! It seems that the fingers resemble serenades of an orchestral ensemble in the midst of the stage playing the piano or preferably the violin at the tracks of a fibrous heart about a decade ago and let it be…
The truth is found inside you and it is important that the questions of writing to be solved endoscopically like love nevertheless is resolved…
Even if it is not in vain!
The misspelling of love…
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
- Anais Nin
That gnawing, remote feeling of parting from someone close is more intense and haunting than the romantic encounter between two people. It is this lingering convulsion of loss when one begins to ruminate how a cherished encounter winds up to a rancorous end. Perhaps, if one had the capability to change the course of time, he or she would go back to the path where all the extraordinary encounters converge and happen.
But no one had the power to revert the irreversible certainty of departure from arrival and neither one could change or alter the inevitable processes and forces of nature.
Everything arrives and departs at a particular time and space of its respective existence. The rising and setting of the sun, for instance, paves the way for the coming of nightfall in the same manner, as dawn departs at the bursting of morning light from the eastern horizon.
Everything is subject to the tedious rhythms of coming and leaving, of entrance and exit, of birthing and dying, of hello and good bye... But in between these invincible rhythms, something ineffable takes place, something transcendent and indispensable than the reality of arrival and departure.
If only one could seize and live that ineffable in-between, then all arrivals and departures would conflate into a single entity of all that there is and what is to come. Everything becomes a defining moment of all encounters where beginning and ending are no longer consequential.
Departure becomes an encounter and arrival becomes the completion of a particular departure. One can find joy even in sadness, victory in defeat, kindness in ruthlessness, love in hatred, and so on and so forth...
And when that happens, utopia or heaven is no longer a distant aspiration to be dreamt and cherished, but an inch away from the human touch!
© Danny C. Sillada
Communication within the Arena of the Digital Culture.
(The opinions expressed within this article do not reflect the opinions of the Management. They do not reflect anything at all. This is not a scholarly treatise. This is not a rehash of all those countless, dry articles written by well-meaning experts on Visual Anthropology. This is written by a man with a headache. So relax. Watch a commercial. Have some chips. Buy a new car.)
Word: jour·nal·ism
Pronunciation: jûr'nuh-liz'-um
Function: noun
a : The collecting, writing, editing, and presenting of news or news articles in newspapers and magazines and in radio and television broadcasts; b : products of the public press, "the fifth estate"; c : writing, recorded media or electronic visual media characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation...
I watch the flickering electronic eye... I think the eye watches back.
Watching the televised talking heads on CNN and MSNBC run through the gamut of daily news, political, economic, medical and industrial, is often a surreal experience, a dance at the door to "trans-reality" where the true news stories are obfuscated, turned inside-out, and insignificant stories become overblown, hyped-up docu-drama.
No Trailer Park So Fierce --- There's the story about the dead celebrity super-model and the legitimacy of her love-child's claim on a disputed family fortune. A neurotic junkie who danced naked on tabletops had a baby with a rich old codger who died...and then, after working very hard to re-create herself as a guilty pleasure-of-a-trashy-public spectacle, she herself died. The vultures circled. Why anyone should care is a topic never broached, a glimmer of thought that dies stillborn.
Damaged and Loving It --- There's the musical popstar who may or may not be a pederast. Or the rock star whose supposedly private sex tapes have wound up on the internet ? Or is this the story of the actor who publically humiliates his children? Or is this the one about all the cadaverous fashionistas denying they have eating disorders? Or is this the tale of the billionaire talk show host and her undeclared religious cult of American suburban housewives? Or is this about the megalomaniacal real estate tycoon who has decided to become a reality television star and his verbal "feud" with an unfunny, lesbian comedianne-turned-political commentator ?
Penguins in the Rainforest --- There's the anti-debate and blame-laying in the highest corridors of science and industry about the warming of the planet and the dangers thereof. Someone films a rambling discussion about an inconvenient truth and corporate America desperately seeks a gag order while everyone else turns a earnest, quiet man into a prophet of ecological doom.
Jesus Loves His Kalashnikov --- There's the war against terror, the axis of evil, and the debate as to whether anyone truly understands the web of intrigue, the global sociological implications of and the labyrinth of religious intolerance in the countries of the Middle East. The history of a region is ignored, the struggles of a civilization at war with itself are marginalized, facts are fabricated, rumors become truth, the truth gets buried out beyond the borders of the propaganda graveyard.
MTV In My Pants --- It's all for the children, everything we do is for the children. Indeed. The music, the fashions, the cinema, the video games, the sexual mores, all for the children. It takes a paranoid, global electronic village to raise an alienated, egocentric, materialistic, violence-addicted child. And the child hates us for the effort.
Greed is the New Black --- Do you want it, whatever that may be, do you really, really want it? And how badly? What are you willing to do to get it? How far will you debase yourself ... and are you willing to do that, participate in your own denigration, for 13-weeks with like-minded contestants on television?
Infotainment and High Finance, giving the public more bang for their buck.
Everyone seems to dance around the crux of the matter, as if getting to the point is tantamount to a criminal act or, at very least, a sin of heresy. In a world where "sin" is loosely-defined and mostly situational and interpretive, no one dares call it by its true name...
Ignorance. Welcome to the Church of the Candid Camera Confessional.
It is frequently presented as a break in scheduled programming, which (said programmed television shows), in themselves, are by definition, a break between attempts to sell you something. Gotta sell those hemorrhoid medications, gotta sell those automobiles, gotta remind you to buy empty-calorie food that isn't good for you. Look better, smell better, have better sex through pharmaceutical chemistry. It, the news, is often presented as Truth. It masquerades as knowledge.
Hallelujah and pass the Visine: you just can't stop watching.
The electronic eye is no longer a friendly technological innovation bringing news and entertainment into our lives, linking us together as one great multicultural community. It glares at us with undisguised distaste and disdain and we realize, belatedly, that each night when we shut it off, we see the blank screen has more and more come to resemble the dark tunnel in the barrel of a gun.
We are all in the crosshairs... and there's a disgruntled Ad-man on the grassy knoll.
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Image courtesy of WittsEnd SciFi Wallpapers, fantasy252.jpg
"Wow. You write some really dark stuff. Why are your poems so harsh and gloomy? I mean, it's poetry, right? Shouldn't it leave me feeling all happy and hopeful?"
Incredibly, at least it's incredible to ME, I get asked that question -- a lot. Inevitably I then think about or even re-read some poem I've posted or had published and I examine it looking for telltale signs of misanthropy, cynicism, agnostic heresy, or wiseass nihilism. And just as inevitably I see only that I've created a poem with subject matter that is part and parcel of the Real World in which we live.
I guess I'm not supposed to do that. It's not polite.
What irks me most is that the aforementioned question is often asked by fellow poets.
I’ll start by stating the obvious: there’s a lot of craziness and viciousness loose in the world today – words are weapons and there are a glut of assassinations every hour. We all know this. Anyone who has ever watched the evening news or read the daily newspapers knows this. Anyone who has ever stood at a bus stop or in front of a movie theater where cocky, impudent, mean-spirited urban teenagers have gathered knows this. Sarcasm rules. The art of verbal assassination is ascendant. The endless proliferation of shock-jock Morning Shows saturating the radio airwaves are full of examples of ambush (so-called) “journalism”. Even our multimedia advertising, like television commercials for instance, reflect the wiseacre nature of modern existence. Sales pitches are slanted towards Mad Magazine/Saturday Night Live comedy skits lampooning our suburbanized and homogenized, upwardly-mobile sacred cows.
Many believe that Meanness has been elevated to an art form. Many authors and media critics believe that to publicly acknowledge the rough edges, sharp fangs and ferocious intolerance implicit in human nature is tantamount to beknighting its existence. If you admit its existence you give it undue legitimacy.
And yet, in modern popular literature, which supposedly, at its best, holds up a mirror reflecting the social mores of the times, there seems to be an unspoken collective decision amongst authors and publishers to stay away from those sharp-edged and angry shores. No one wants to be washed up shipwrecked on the beach of anger. Nowhere is this head-in-the-sand, fingers-in-the-ears-la-la-la refusal to see and speak of the unpleasant more visible than in poetry.
Everyone wants to ignore the fact that there are SUPPOSED to be sharks in the waters…
It’s a denial of evolution. It’s a denial of the duality of human nature and human existence.
Poets, listen up: you can’t have the Light without the Dark.
No, don’t over-think it. Don’t neuter that realization with intellectualized vagaries that blunt the sharp edges and detoxify the venom inherent to the subject. Don’t bore us ad nauseam with bloodless historical citations of classicist examples of irony and weak-kneed, gentile satire.
Yin. Yang. Deal with it.
Get your hands dirty. Dip your pens in freshly spilled blood. Look the animal you’re going to kill right in the eyes and don’t mask your intentions. Draw the knife. Make the cut and make it deep.
Hurt something. Then tell everyone that you did it.
It’s not an academic exercise. It’s not a fit of pique. It’s a responsibility. It’s a Holy Calling.
As a poet, you have the responsibility to occasionally Say Something (capitol letters intentional) that slaps the reader across the face and reminds them that the unpleasant sting they just felt is a gift: a reminder that Beauty is a bouquet adorned with thorns and that’s the way Nature intended it.
It promotes growth, spiritual, intellectual, artistic, moral and societal growth. Without it, that sharp sting, that anxiety-inducing unease, that sensibility-offending stench temporarily polluting the air, we would, as a culture, become little more than dandified, perfumed, overly-polite, politically-correct cattle --- eunuchs at the orgy. We would be at an evolutionary dead end.
Allow yourself and your poetry to hold up that mirror to the Dark Places and let that reflection be its own illumination of the things hiding in those shadows.
Stop being so damn polite. Really.
How many ways are there to say “I Love You” without the phrase becoming trite and losing meaning altogether? How many odes to the nostalgia of fleeting youth can you craft before those writes become little more than the automatic writing of a trance medium at a carny show? How many times can you suppress your own inner outrage while in the midst of crafting a paen to a passion between fictional lovers whom you know will interest no one other than some snobbish, reactionary literary critic at a magazine no one has ever heard of?
What exactly are you accomplishing? Is this poetry for poetry’s sake, a work of fleeting poesy? Don't you think that is odd? I mean, come on, YOU'VE been In Love... Has it always been postcard sunsets, flowers, candlelight dinners and sweet bird songs for you? And when the inevitable has happened and the affair has ended, when the love has drained away and all that has been left is memory and familiarity and weary politeness, has it always had the golden-glow feel of sweet nostalgia? No anger? No bitter regret? No hot tears of frustration? No urge to break something as you watch them walk out the door for that final time (or as YOU walk out the door for the last time)?
We both know the answer to that. And if you deny that in your writing, then you're cheating. Cheating yourself and cheating your readers.
Worse, you've become stunted. You've rejected the onset of maturity. You've stopped evolving.
Grow. Let the lumps and bumps and gawky angles misshape your Raphaelian/Botticellian loveliness and become a work of art that challenges the perceptions of beauty. Grow and evolve. Stop writing the same technically proficient-but-unmemorable pap over and over.
Remember that, regardless of how lovely and tranquil the beach and how serene and inviting the ocean's azure waters may be, there are SUPPOSED to be sharks in the waters…
It’s the natural order. You can’t have the Light without the Dark.
So occasionally, write some dark stuff. Unapologetically. Unrepentently. Rant and rail and blaspheme. And no, it doesn't have to be "pretty". Pretty is very over-rated. Just write it well. Just infuse it with honesty and intelligence.
Revel in your Sharkiness. Hurt something.
Yin. Yang. Deal with it.
"Wow. You write some really dark stuff."
Yes. Yes I do.
This has been a public service announcement.
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Image courtesy of WittsEnd SciFi Wallpapers, scifi280.jpg
To Blog Or Not To Blog
The blogging craze has taken the world by storm, and why not? What’s not to love about quick, easy, and oftentimes free access to internet publishing?
Many blogs have enjoyed phenomenal success. For instance, Trent from Pink Is The New Blog, has seen his blogging turn into a career. He’s often photographed with big-name celebrities, as he watches their shows and then writes about them. And then there’s Charles from Little Green Footballs , a political blog that has led him to CNN and top-notch radio shows. But for the sake of this article, we will look at poetry blogs.
Poetry blogs have the distinction of being the best – or the worst – that blogland has to offer. Here you will find big names in the poetry world, such as the esteemed Matt Morden, Alison Williams, Jerry Dreesen, Robert Wilson, David Giacalone, and Denis Garrison, sharing their poetry and art as it happens. If you want to learn about haiku, or an art form, these bloggers often have links on the sidebars of their blogs that direct you to just that. Many have their comments section open, so that you can leave a word or a question which they will generously answer.
Blogging can take us to different parts of the world, such as the Isle of Skye in the United Kingdom. One by the moniker of “Floots” (yes, he really does play the flute), graces us with breathtaking photos and thought-provoking words quite regularly. Truly, it’s almost like going on a mini vacation every lunch hour, to stop by Floots’ I-Land-I site, and enjoy a good read.
Continuing on our travels, we have Dr. Kianseng Ng, a physician by day, and dynamite poet and artisan by night. Dr. Ng couples his skilled poetry with some of the most intrinsic and inspiring batik I have ever seen. On Always More Beyond, topics such as mental illness, Parkinson’s Disease, and loneliness are touched upon with such insight and tenderness, that one realizes the duty and power of pure poetry.
Eric Houck, Jr. is another person who has found art through blogging. Author of the award-wining children’s book, Rabbit’s Surprise, Eric also is an amazing photographer. He credits blogging at his site simply and appropriately called Haiga, with inspiring him to publish a collection of haiga, entitled the back roads of Delaware county, which gives a glimpse into the world of Walton, New York where Eric lives. He is currently working on a children’s book, again inspired by his venture into blogging.
Nick Zegarac, film critic and writer, dedicates The Hollywood Art to film and stars, but Poet Is The New Blah Blah Blog is devoted solely to poetry. His highly stylized form and presentation are unmistakable, and his range of topics wide.
Blogging, besides presenting the opportunity to learn more about enjoyable poetry, gives us the chance to forge wonderful and meaningful friendships. It is through blogging that I met Kai, the young poetess at Poetry by Kai.. She has become my best email buddy, and her exuberance for poetry is inspiring.
Now onto the “dark” side of blogging. As aforementioned, there is a lot of bad poetry on the web, and blogging is no exception. It is extremely disconcerting and almost painful to see what passes for poetry on the web, particularly haiku, which is so much more than three lines slapped together.
Plagiarism abounds in blogland. Many times I have seen my own, or my friends’ poetry, appear on various blogs. Just recently I came across my friend Christopher John Horne’s 2003-published poem, If love could be a thing on someone else’s blog, with little changes here and there. And yes, I’ve seen art and photography “borrowed”, too.
In addition, blogging can open the door to cyber stalking. You’d be surprised at how many people pay attention to every detail written on the object of their affection’s blog, sometimes putting them together to do some serious stalking. It is for this reason that I recommend little be shared about personal lives on a blog, instead focusing on poetry or art for the love of the form.
Blogging can also pass misinformation along. I recently read the blog of a self-proclaimed poetry expert, which contained so many wrong rules about Japanese-form poetry,that I wanted to pull my hair out in dismay. I can only hope that if one truly wants to learn about a mode of verse, he/she will be wise enough to consult true experts.
And sometimes blogging technology fails and posts or even entire blogs are lost. There are various blogging services out there, and it does well to seek the best ones out, even if you have to pay for it.
However, with all that said and done, blogging still presents a rewarding and challenging opportunity to get one’s voice heard. As an editor, I often search blogs to find publishable work, and am pleasantly delighted.
So if you have something to say, or want to learn how to say it, start blogging. You might be surprised to find out just who is reading your work.
One of the best – and potentially worst – things about the internet is the feedback we writers get on our work. Every writer likes to know that he/she is being read and appreciated, and many of us realize that our work cannot appeal to everyone all the time. That said, there are times when feedback is not all it’s cracked up to be.
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Prior to easy internet advancement, a stamp and postal address were needed in order for letters to reach a writer’s desk. It took more than a push of a button for contact, so only serious readers usually took the time to respond. Today, in this age of instant accessibility, anyone – and often everyone – decides to drop a line now and then.
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I’ve done my share of controversial political articles, and as a result, have received a plethora of threatening letters, harsh criticism, and calls for my head on a silver platter. None of that prepared me for the responses I would receive via the internet to my poetry.
For example, one time I wrote a tongue-in-cheek poem entitled “Femme Fatale”, based on an over-heard conversation. It was quickly snatched up for publication, and the editor seemed happy with it, I was happy, and the readers…..? Well let’s just say I’ve never received as much hate mail as I have from that one poem. Men and women wrote in droves to tell me that my poem was not appreciated, and I was called all kinds of names, many that I can’t print here. And to further the suggestion that some readers have problems separating fantasy from reality, let’s just explore what happened when I switched poetic writing partners.
You see, I enjoy collaborating with fellow writers from time to time for inspiration, and just plain fun. It’s great to work off of another writer, using their words to fuel your own, or to take your poetry in a direction it’s not been before. I have never been romantically involved with any of my writing partners, yet many readers assume that I am playing tonsil hockey with whomever my writing partner du jour happens to be.
When I completed a writing project with my very good friend, Christopher John Horne, and wrote a few poems with a new partner, my inbox was filled with angry responses. One of my favourites began, “arora u r a slut” (spelling errors in the original). I was asked repeatedly why I dumped that “nice young man” for an older, ugly one, and insults flew left right and center. I tried to explain the situation a few times, but later resigned myself to some chuckles over the unfortunate misunderstanding.
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And then there are those who are angry with writers when we are unable to play pen pals. Yes indeed, many people don’t realize that we cannot take time to write to “a lonely man who is in a new town and doesn’t have anyone to talk to”, nor do we want to meet up with someone who just “happens to be planning a trip” to our town and wants to see the sites. Yes folks, we writers are busy writing our articles and stories and verse because that’s what we do. Our publications are not dating services, and no, we don’t really want to reach out and touch you quite that closely,so if you like what you read, please keep reading, and if not, send some constructive criticism our way, but please don’t try to do it over drinks and candlelit dinners for two.
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Now I’ve only discussed unwanted messages, and have yet to touch upon the very best part of writer feedback, and that is letters from appreciative readers, particularly young ones wanting to start out in the field. I cannot begin to tell you what it means to receive these letters, many of which include mind-blowing poetry that, if any indication, means the world will not be at loss for dynamic writers in the future.
And then there are those readers who take time out of their busy schedules to let us know our work has touched them in some way, or the editors who have constructive criticism to offer, or fellow writers who would like to gift us with copies of their latest books. Those are the most humbling kinds of feedback.
So if you read something we write, and you like it, it’s a kind gesture to let us know. If you think we can improve our craft, please show us how. But for all other inquiries, may I direct you to my colleague ….
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previously published in Dana
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translated to the English by Alan Sacks
This morning, much to my surprise, I felt some of my strength of old return. The slight blurring of my vision, the side effect of a disorienting dizziness, eased as my medication relaxed its grip on me. Reinvigorated, Iapproached the bookcase, pulled out some of the tightly packed volumes and blew the dust from them. At last, exhausted, I held Kafka in my hands. Though it had been quite some time since I had turned to his works, he hadoften come to mind these past weeks. Now he was in my hands again, a small, hard-bound edition, with the Hebrew letters set in the old-fashioned type of Yeshuron Keshet and printed by Belet Gavshushi. Just a few days earlier, I heard the famous Czech poet,the one who would visit Israel one day, pronounce Kafka's name. Kafko, he said, and then again, Kafko. Suddenly, this alien ronunciation seemed to me just right, seven times better and a thousand times more faithful. It was, indeed, a significant change. I close my eyes and echo his voice for myself. Kafko or Kafka, Kafka versus Kafko. When the Czech poet intoned the name in his Slavic accented language, it sounded like Yosefko. Really, Yosefko, Yosko, Yoshko, Yoskof.
The name was terribly familiar to me, something I had known years ago, as though it had been printed on the kibbutz work roster of giant Bristol pages that could not be folded, pages so heavy they pulled out the tiny tacks holding them to the perforated wooden board. Yosek. K. Yoshko K. How easy it was to pronounce the name. I already liked Kofko, the new editions should print it Kafkoh and no other way. That is, the final vowel had to be embedded in the last consonant, but it was important that the suffix appear Hebrew and not western Slavic. Kahfkoh, which you could read as Kafkah or hear as Kafko, however the spirit moved you. A crackling good name that worked either way, two names suddenly merging, until I make a mistake and say, Yosef Kafka, thinking of his protagonist by that strange name instead of little Franz, which has simply escaped my memory.
There I stand at my bookcase, which exudes the aroma of damp wood. Kafko in my hand, I compose in my mind a letter to father. No version of this letter will ever be published. Kofko's writing, bewildering topic-switching prose, sets my teeth on edge. It sometimes resembles the fitful flight of some insect cautiously weaving 70 circles around an open flower. A lyrical turn occasionally flashes past in fear of an impending withdrawal. This is indeed timid writing, the sort that fears the direct approach. Here and there, a quick, direct sentence plucks up its courage and escapes. I fully expect that in the wake of this breach (on a small scale, of course, for he knows nothing of all-out attacks on his pages), occupation divisions will tramp forward to exploit the breakthrough, clean out the remaining outposts and establish a bridgehead.
But no. That is not for him. He instantly retreats to the safe shelter of the previous sentence. From there, he may sally forth in secret and once more try to reach his goal. His prose is self-defeating. Sentences imprison themselves within a multitude of bonds and bounds. It comes close to what they taught me in the army years and years ago. One foot on the ground and one in the air. While the pinning force seizes the commanding high ground, the assault unit scouts the enemy to surprise him in his trenches. Perhaps even this definition is not truly accurate. But what has accuracy to do with literature? One step forward and two steps back, that is how he fashions his advance. I pace before the book shelves, Kofko's book in my hand now open to the eye. We are writing the letter to father. Sentences race ahead, terrified, stooped, seeking shelter. With inexplicable courage, bold passages suddenly surge forth and whole columns are swept forward. The whole manuscript advances, an essay of black letters striking violently across the front until my heart skips a beat with some strange fear of sinking into a black morass. But I have nothing to fear. The first step forward has already been made. Now everything has come to a halt, pausing, scanning the terrain. It is as though Kafko himself has leapt from the page, taking the lie of the land and telling himself, whoa, too fast; the assault columns must be stopped. He is already planning his next move, a double step back. Once again, I am thrown far from the open heart of the wound.
Good, after the advances, we seat ourselves, the two of us, before father. There is a certain obscurity here, but I am in no rush to clear it up. Whose father is it before whom we sit? Little, scared Franzy, who slips the letter into the post box and takes to his heels - is it his father? Or does each of us face his own father, handing him the letter in person?
I remembered his stern face when I finished my days of punishment and was allowed back into the house. I was very sorry when he passed on and mourned him for a long time. I wondered how Kofko, writing his letter, would conduct himself, whether he would need to read an original, heartfelt eulogy while his father's coffin was lowered into the grave.
Prague, the city masked in Kofko's stories, was not destroyed in the great war. The house stands where it has always stood. The river flows past, the old bridges still. It all suddenly becomes clear. His mysteries are solved. Young, energetic Kafka, destined to grow as old as Methusaleh, was in the habit of plunging into the chilly waters of the river. According to his friends, who remembered what they saw there, he swam the river in swift strokes. In the evening, returning refreshed and bursting with vitality, he would mobilize his paper heroes for the astounding strategy he had devised. One step forward and two steps back.
Can the lead sentence deny all the sentences to follow? How is it possible that a single clause can open or bar seven gates? Where can he hide, the trembling boy seeking refuge from his father's wrath? I am reminded of a boy, a childhood friend, who once accidentally broke the key to his parents' apartment. That was in the new neighborhood. The chain fell to the floor while the broken key remained stuck in the hole. Sweating from head to toe in fright, he tried to draw the broken part from the door. When he finally succeeded, his whole body was shaking. He laid the broken key at the base of the door, as though it had fallen of itself and shattered on the floor. Even the crack he had tried to patch with spit could not be seen. He crawled into the garden on the slope of the lawn and crouched in the dark of the bushes until his parents returned from work. Only in the black of night did he dare to come out and present himself as someone who had traveled a great distance. In his absence, the mangled corpse of the key had been found on the porch. The air was thick with suspicion.
Of course, I am no seer when I dip into my memories. There is no limit to fear of a father's wrath. Even on a little kibbutz, a boy dreads the rage of an angry father returning home after a long day of work. He kicks the broken key and upbraids his wife who, as we recall from Kofko, is the beloved mother. "Ptui, ptui, ptui," he spits out. "Why, tell me why he has abused your precious `jewelry' again. Would it help to throw him out of the house for a few days? Maybe this time he'll learn how to behave?"
In my bed at the hospital, I drafted countless letters to father. What attracted me was the detached, remote nature of it, the opportunity to hide behind the other side of the composition, quite unlike the stories and poems I have written over the years. It is the yearnings laid bare and base desires that make a name for a piece. One can feel pain, even regret. In every important stage of my life, at every juncture, I have found myself facing him, composing my thoughts for him on a sheet of paper. On the one hand, I am glad he did not go through the terrible wars, worried sick for the safety of his children. On the other, I regret that he did not read my works or see his children grow up. I remember his final illness and my last visit to the hospital. It all comes back to me unexpectedly, the acrid odors, the hushed fears and panic-stricken voices.
"Give me another 10 years," I begged. "At least let me live as long as he did." I bargained passionately with the giver of life and death. I was not ashamed to mix in some tears.
Of course, I am no seer when I dip into my memories. There is no limit to fear of a father's wrath. Even on a little kibbutz, a boy dreads the rage of an angry father returning home after a long day of work. He kicks the broken key and upbraids his wife who, as we recall from... Who, Kofko? In his own demented way, he would throw a wild party one evening to free the household of a tyrannical father's yoke. It may be that as he steps forward, he breaks out in a drunken monologue of which the principal subject is the purpose of going forth in liberty. But little Franz instantly comes to and loses his nerve. With two steps back, he flings himself, wracked with longing, on the memory of the dearly departed, on the happy days of his childhood with his father and the simple, quiet pleasure of their home warm against the cold and rain of a European winter.
In the end, in that twisted way of his, he would spit, "ptui, ptui, ptui," berating his mother and sister so these slow-witted women, these stupid loved ones, would grasp at last just who it was they were bound to serve from then to the end of their days.
Breaking Writer’s Block
or
How To Be The Sparkling Creative Genius You Always Knew You Could Be
There’s nothing like a looming deadline, and a pocket empty but for a sourball and lint, to make those who earn their living by the written word, scramble to break writer’s block when it hits. Although writer’s block is a common affliction that happens from time to time to even the most seasoned writers, there are a few tricks of the trade that will help writer’s block dissipate when it’s your turn to suffer.
One of the reasons for writer’s block is over-commitment. You have too many different projects going on, and the last thing you seem to be able to do is get your mind off the endless list of things-to-do. Although it is tempting to chain yourself to the computer during these times, and just plough through the workload, such a method is actually counter-productive. Something mindless is often just the trick to release pent up creative juices. A quick walk in the park, a methodical scrubbing of the tub or raking of the leaves, some gardening, or jumping rope can do wonders for stimulating the part of the brain that needs to get busy producing some brilliant poetry. I’ve been found on my office floor close to deadline, doing Pilates. While to an outsider, it might not look like I’m working, I’m actually writing poetry as I stretch.
Music is something else that inspires verse. I have my tried and true CD’s nearby at all times, but I have also found that listening to something fresh often helps me think in a different direction. Scouring the internet for new bands, or raiding your friends’ CD collections, just might help you find what you’re looking for. Another trick I abide by, is listening to classical music, particularly if I’m working on a rhyming piece. Even if I don’t like the composition playing at the moment, it seems to put my brain into metrical gear. Also, once you’ve got the music resounding, be sure to enjoy the moment. Take a spin around the room, or pretend you’re a member of a famous ballet company. You might be surprised at the kind of poetry that comes to you after five minutes of imagining yourself to be a dying swan, or Camille.
Art is another feature I like to keep all around my writing area, and I change it often. An inexpensive way to do this is via the computer, by Googling for images. When writing haiku or tanka, I like to look at nature scenes, and if I’m writing about something seasonal, I find appropriate images for that, as well. And if you have the ability to paint, get out the watercolours and work on something with your hands while your mind drifts off somewhere else, and comes back to you with a delightful piece of rhyme.
Sometimes writer’s block is because of burn-out: you’ve used up all your ideas over and over again, and bled your brain dry in the process. This is when it’s time to sap someone else’s strength! What are other poets for? Pick the brain of your writer friends, find out what they’re currently working on, or ask them to look at the few scraps of words you might have scribbled, and see if they can give you ideas. Ask someone to collaborate with you – sometimes working with others provides the necessary stimulation to complete a poem. Don’t limit yourself to always working with the same sex, same few poets, or bind yourself to one style only. Open yourself up to new and creative ideas. Don’t forget to allow the tried-and-true classic poets to inspire you as well. There are lots of great poetry collections, and I’ve been known to turn to Shakespeare or Shelley for inspiration when my poetic well runs dry. Sometimes reading nothing but poetry for an entire hour or two makes me come up with a few gems of my own.
And who says your work has to always be autobiographical? Most of my poetry, personally, is not, and hasn’t been since I was a teenager. Writers are an inventive lot, so make something up! Or take other people’s stories, and turn those into poetry. I have been known to take snatches of conversation and make them into something presentable, or to borrow a great line from someone’s tale(with permission, of course), and build a poem around it.
The opposite is true as well: look at everyday occurrences as poetic opportunities. That incident in the mall, or the argument with your best friend (hi, Marc!) just might provide the impetus for a great piece of verse.
If you know more than one language, write in that, even if you’re not very good at it. Think of it as a mental exercise. Translate the poem back then into your mother tongue. It just might give you a different perspective on the same theme.
Switch forms: take a previously written piece of yours, and write it in a different style. I’ve taken haiku and turned them into tanka, or turned sonnets into haiku, and free verse into rhyme. Sometimes I also simply write what I want the poem to say, and then turn that subject matter into form later.
Keep snatches of verse stored in one area. What might be a great line or phrase now, can be the inspiration at a later date for a really great poem. Open these files up from time to time and read through them – you never know when a poem will be born.
Eat. Nothing keeps a writer from passionately partaking of art like a growling stomach. I like to keep healthy snacks near my writing area as well as lots of water so that I won’t be tempted to leave my space needlessly. Sometimes poetry can even be built around food! I have written several about dinners with friends, with lots of metaphors going on, that were quite fun to write, and well received. You never know when that baloney sandwich is going to turn into publishable material, and don’t laugh – I’ve done it.
Relax. Nothing kills poetry like forced language. If poetry isn’t coming to you, begging to be captured on paper, maybe it’s time to pull out the bath salts, your favourite magazine, and take a long hot soak. Or get someone to give you a massage – that ought to be good for at least half a dozen poems!
Above all, don’t beat yourself up. I know from personal experience that banging one’s head against a desk is counter-productive to poetic health. Everyone suffers writer’s block at some time or other. And in trying some of these ideas, you might come up with a few of your own. If you do, don’t forget to send them to me at three in the morning, when I’ve scarfed down my last bag of Doritos, as I’m looking forlornly at a blank page, quietly sobbing. And if you base it on anything I’ve written here, just remember – I want collaborative rights.
published in Poetic Voices and Dana Literary Publishing
translated from the Hebrew by Alan Sacks.
I find myself these days getting ready for the long haul. I am seized early each morning by a strange fever of activity, as if I had spent all the night making plans instead of sleeping. How does a man ready himself to go down this long road? Well, first off, I have to rid myself of non-essentials and chuck those things I've accumulated that are now merely dead weight. I root nervously through shelves of books, skipping over the few that I love. I pull them from the case, weigh them in my hand and hastily put them back. So be it. Fate is on your side. You are not a heavy burden. On the contrary, I would find it difficult to set out on this long road without you.
But I am heartless towards the others. Their hours of grace, in which they were allowed to remain on the shelf, have gone. I no longer need them. Better that they make their way to another place, and quickly, before I mourn them. Books, after all, are not expendable. They merely change residences all their lives. From my room, they are moving to the little library recently established at a remote kibbutz in the south. Fine. May they live their lives of boredom forever. I have no need for them just now and their pathetic lives do not appeal to me these days. I want to start on my path clean, free and empty, unsaddled with debts, leaving behind neither letters nor notes. I have seen jottings, forgotten after their authors set out on the long haul, put to ugly use. I have an urge to sweep the desk, emptying the drawers that keep filling themselves. What hope is there for this world? What hope is there for me, preparing myself to take leave of it?
Some days ago, I was visited by one of my few friends, an old man who had been a scintillating intellectual in his youth only to devote all his talents to building his kibbutz. Only now and then did biting verses fly from his barbed pen, as if he could not hold them in.
"Parochial work," I sadly offer him my opinion of the samples he has brought me. Pieces whose proper home is an in-house newsletter, the appropriate section of a regional newspaper or one of those local gazettes that recently have sprung up. They could be sent to a national paper as a reader's letter, or enclosed in a box, offered as a whimsy with apologies tendered in advance.The epigrammatic poems he has been writing lately drip with oppressive gloom. I sit across from him, his face encased in the stricken skin of an old man. His lively eyes implore me, don't be harsh, judge the work kindly, leave him hope that he is bequeathing works of taste. We say nothing of this aloud but we both well know what is at stake here. He is putting his writings in order before departing this world and embarking on the long haul. He asks my opinion, yet hints that these are the things he intends to leave behind, the ones he wants me to compile for his memorial book. He points again and again to the epigrams on one line. Afterwards, we look for the exact Hebrew equivalent of the foreign word "epitaph."
"Deep despair pervades what you've written," I tell him. "As though your whole life didn't amount to anything, neither the kibbutz you built with your own hands nor the long years you sacrificed when you could have been living a scholar's life. What consolation are you offering me or leaving your readers? What comfort is there for you before you set out on the long haul?"
He points to a short poem scrawled in his own hand. I notice at once that some vowels are missing, others wrong. He apologizes for giving too little study to Hebrew and Judaism. Buber, old Martin Buber, had inspired him to immigrate as a boy. He did the rest on his own but never had the time to finish his required subjects. What were these minor vowel errors compared to what he had built? What were rebellious Hebrew words defying his aged hand compared to the orchards he had planted? To his surprise, his native language, in all its riotous vitality, had recently come back to him. He hungered for translations, made the trip to the library and then, after a period of many years, again read translations of the great poets he had loved as a boy.
In all of them, he had no trouble seeing the line that divided their poems. He wondered if it matched the line that divided their lives. As though from a point where they had stopped for a moment in their course, they suddenly noticed another side of their lives, a fateful crossroads. Until then, they had made steady progress, modest but constant. In the period's final years, this progress leveled off. There are moments when you mistakenly believe that things will go on like this forever and ever. But no, you have made a small mistake, an optical illusion it seems to you at first. Later, when you sharpen your gaze, you can see what it really is: it's no optical illusion. Here is where the inevitable decline begins. The slope, like any slope, keeps getting steeper. It has its own gravity, which the first glance sometimes fails to reveal.
Here is where the difference appears between those who, yielding to the flow, race to the end unhindered, and those who believe that their lives are still in their hands, who delay their submission without realizing what is happening around them or understanding who is pulling them down on the long haul.
The translators, though diligent and skilled, simply missed this dividing line. This, one may say, is his private discovery. But he takes almost no pride in it, which is a pity, since it could completely change the meaning of the poems. Is it possible that they were so blind? Is it possible that they impatiently rushed to the end of the poems without realizing where the crossroads veered, the turning point of the poets' own lives? But he saw it, an old, old man whose keen mind's eye has not disappointed him. Not a single twisting curve has escaped him. No dust has gathered under him. Just as he did as a boy, he sat at his desk and squeezed some moments of illuminating translation out of his work time. It's nothing. Instead of ending his time writing tiresome letters to newspaper editors, he can produce fresh translations of the classic poetry that was the beacon of his youth before he immigrated. "You can't translate when you're young," he said with a weary smile. "You don't have the poet's broad view of life."
I find his words very depressing. They fuse unseen into my urge to throw things out. That is, even the books that I've loved and faithfully kept over all the years are destined for a second reading. Over them, too, hovers the danger of removal from the shelf. I'll need to pull out my drawers again and burn unimportant letters I have no interest in leaving behind. I'll need to go to the trouble again of depositing the few letters I value in the archives in Tel Aviv. But I'll have to be quick about it, or I'll change my mind and destroy those, too. The can I've set up in the garden for my bonfire is still there. My wife has often complained about the suffocating smoke filling our little room and the bits of ash which, carried by the wind, cover the lawn around our home, settle on the bushes and blacken the porch. One young man, a diligent worker at the factory who flew past my bonfire on his bike, said that I shouldn't use fire like a caveman. "Thank God we have much more modern equipment for getting rid of documents," he said. "Haven't you heard of high speed paper shredders? "
I return to the old translator. His fingers twist without rest. He has mixed up the folders placed before me. From the file marked "translations," I draw out occasional poems and epigrams that he published in the newspapers. From the file inscribed "miscellaneous," I take out impassioned translations of classical verse. I switch the files when he isn't looking. It would be a sin to embarrass him. He traveled a long, tiring road before reaching me and is getting ready for a trip much longer even than that. I have no right to disturb his plans even though his trembling hands and the skin peeling off his face make me want to cry out in protest, "Haven't you heard of a high speed shredder, gramps? Don't you hold out any hope? What will you tell your grandchildren when they ask?"
"Yes, that is my one hope," he answers me. "The babies, the little grandchildren. By all means, peek at the poems and see for yourself. They are my sole comfort, my last hope. They are just beginning the journey I am about to finish. My meager experience will go into the travel bag they'll sling over their backs. That is, indeed, my one consolation. A desperate, unflagging attempt to create a new man." Tears well up in his glowing eyes. Memories of his grandchildren come to him. He knew in his heart that the image of his grandchildren would go with him no matter how well he prepared himself for the long haul. It won't be easy to let go of them.
They are the sole comfort of his pitiful life, his one hope before he goes down the road of no return.
Their sweet voices anchor him to the spot. Their darling squeals leave him mute with happiness. Their laughter turns his legs to lead. Each memory of them adds an unforeseen weight to his body.
He sits silently before me. His hands, spread on the desk, have stopped their trembling. I, too, say nothing. I see that firm decisions are slowly dissolving. It seems that I still don't know everything. Even my own decision to ready myself to make the long haul may yet be changed.
(c) All rights reserved.
translated by Alan Sacks
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A modern secular Jew ponders a startlingly real vision of his grandfather, who was a famous and revered rabbi.
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I had a vision one night of my grandfather, Rabbi Yosef Yoselevitch, my father's father who died in Poland before the war. He lay in his house by the window while outside, hundreds of Jews wrapped in black fur hats and dark coats gathered in the small planked yard awashed in mud left by the melting snow. With a bright face, he smiled and beckoned me closer. "Please, don't be afraid, my grandson-whom-I-did-not-deserve. Come to me, come to grandfather."
The windows were open, it was cold and dozens of grieving Jews thrust their heads into the room. "Pay no attention to them," grandfather said. "And don't be afraid. Come to me."
Wait a minute. What language did he speak to me?
Yes, I have this bad habit. I bring myself to a stop in the middle of reliving the dream. I have to know: What language did they actually speak in the dream?
For some reason, the language spoken in my dreams is very important to me. Even after waking up delirious, I make it a point to know what language I spoke? Did my grandfather speak Sepharadic Hebrew, for him a language for the future that he never knew? Or did he speak to me in Yiddish, which for me even then was a useless language of thepast? Or was it a picture language peculiar to dreams that was not Hebrew, Ashkenazic German or Yiddish? I don't know.
I just don't remember. Sometimes, something from my dreams finally comes to me weeks later. It's usually a trivial thing, of no importance. Yet that is what is stamped indelibly into my memory of dreams. I once read some book about the interpretation of dreams. the author claimed that it was precisely these small, seemingly meaningless details that must be grasped because they hold the key to explaining the dream. But I didn't ask any questions. And the questions I ask now have no connection to the dream. And so: What language did I speak with my grandfather, my father's father?
During the trip to Europa some years ago, I met my uncle, my mother's brother, for the first and last time. My uncle was already old and ill. His legs were nearly paralyzed and he moved about, with difficulty, with a walker. It is interesting that on the way from the hotel to his house, I wasn't concerned with which language we would speak. It all seemed so simple. The old uncle and his nephew from Israel were meeting. Was it conceivable that they would be unable to speak to one another? And in fact, the instant we met - after a few awkward moments - the flow of talk never ran dry. He asked questions, which I answered, and then he tried to answer my questions. We sat in the house with his family, his sickly wife and watchful son-in-law as his daughter fussed around us. My wife, who had come with me from the hotel, also sat with us. It's my feeling that we spoke the family language. I've saved it all inside me: the names, the dates, the family history that has come down to us. The siege, the rescue, the flight, everything. I even knew that he had grown tired of Judaism and was leading an assimilated life. But in his soul, he yearned to live a different kind of Jewish life.
On our ride back to the hotel that night, I asked my wife what language my uncle and I had spoken. I felt excited and quite confused. My question astonished her. Why, it was the family language, of course, the language revived from the past. "True, but what is the family language based on?" I persisted. My wife had noticed bits of Hebrew, fragments of French, she said, whole sentences spoken in Yiddish and a lot of English. I was amazed that night at how all those languages had melded inside me. They had been hiding, waiting for the right moment, and when they burst forth, had emerged a coherent, whole language: the family language.
And now we return to my paternal grandfather, to his last night in a small city in northeastern Poland on the Lithuanian border. The windows are open to the chilly, early spring evening. He signals me, calling me to him. I now know that he called me in the family language;indeed, we did not speak any common language. Actually, I still hadn't said anything. To tell the truth, that night, a night in the Hebrew month of Shevat in the year 1935. I still hadn't been born.
"There is no firm bottom to a dream. Everything is mixed together, swept around and I was sure I was close to drowning."
But that doesn't change the dream at all. My father, a young, zealous pioneer, had already been in the land of Israel for some years. But I distinctly remember that he was with us there, at the rabbi's bed. And when I probe my memory, I also recall the dear faces of the founders of our Kibbutz standing along the walls. Some of them are still shod in the high rubber boots they wore during our wet winters. Their boots are sopping with our reddish mud, the loam of the land of Israel, not the dark Polish forest mud whose exact color even I don't know. Through the open window comes the piercing cry of wailing. Some women mourning in the distant throng can no longer control themselves. Are the women allowed to enter the dying man's room? I don't know. I'm not an expert in religious law. All I know is what they let me see in my dream.
Women were there, definitely: relatives, neighbors who dearly loved the brilliant rabbi, tender young girls of the Hashomer Hatzair Zionist movement bound for Israel, all encircling the house. I heard some of them already bursting into tears. The men still restrained themselves.
Actually, they had lost control and were praying in pained, tormented voices: "May the rabbi live, amen. May the rabbi live, amen. Maytherabbiliveamen. Amenamenamen."
What prayer did they raise there below the open windows? I dove to the bottom of the dream to make sure I didn't fail. Only someone who has tried diving into a raging sea can begin to imagine what I went through.
There is no firm bottom to a dream. Everything is mixed together, swept around, and I was close to drowning. so close that I had already given up on my new watch and the American sunglasses that I'd left behind on the beach.
On my grandfather Rabbi Yosef Yoselevitch's last night, he appeared to me, the baby, his grandson not yet born. He smiled and invited me to play on his knees. But I could already detect beneath his yellow skin something that the jostling crowd on the wooden streets outside hadn't seen. Large white candles glowed in the room beside his head and someone put a damp towel on his brow. The murmur of prayer outside grew louder. Now you could hear the recurring words of the prayers like a solemn oath. "With the strength of your right hand's greatness, we beg thee. We beg thee, use your power.
Withestrengthofyourrighthand'sgreatness."
(1) If the language of my grandfather's terms of endearment had been hard for me, the language of the prayers was seven times harder. I couldn't tell at first if they were real words or just sounds that repeated themselves like the booms of distant drums: Webegtheewiththestrength, webegthee with the strength.
2). People were now weeping loudly in the little garden trampled beneath the street's leafless trees. Everyone was now stooping, bowing his head and wailing, the women in high, shrill voices, the men in dull ones. The language of the prayers outside was carried inside the room and surrounded the beloved rabbi on his death bed. "With the strength of your right hand's greatness, we beg thee. Preserve the life within him, let him sit again among the living. By your right hand so great and mighty, can you not return our dead to life?"
What did I know then of the world of yeshivas? What did I know then on the Lithuanian school? What did I know then of the geniuses of the Musar movement?
(3). Even in my wildest dreams, I couldn't guess that I would return someday to the schools in Jerusalem and read the heart-rending lamentations that the great rabbies of Israel and Diaspora had written over my grandfather.
Once, giving in to a pique of curiosity, I even went to see the world of the Lithuanian Yeshivas in Jerusalem. I met teachers and headmasters, some of whom remembered my grandfather and even gave me a measure of respect, or perhaps it only seemed to me that they did, because I was the grandson of the Lubitch. I chatted with them about the great achievements of those who had restored the world of the Lithuaninan Yeshivas, the giants of ethics, Abramsky and Grodzensky, the Meltzer rebbe and the Blazer rebbe. But inside, I felt that this was a lost world. I sat in their narrow, cramped offices up in the Romema quarter. I drank from their cups and ate a little from their tables. They exchanged words among themselves in an indecipherable language; all I understood was that they were intrigued to see what had become of the secular grandson of the master of Lubitsch.
"Pay no attention to them," My grandfather, the Lubtcsher,draws me to his bed ringed with candles. He chirps at me and showers me with sweet words of affection, hoping that I'll come out of the wall and take the form of a baby in the room, that I'll climb on his knees on this, his last night.
Yes, it seemed to me in the dream that I remember how he swung me up on his frail knees and hummed in my hair some forgotten melody that I, too, sometimes recall during the dream. Then I was snatched off his knees because the rabbi was very weak. He had to be put to bed at once and prepared for death. So many Jews crowded around his bed. The dark coats were steaming and I recoiled from the acrid stench of their boots.
"Pay no attention to them." My grandfather, my father's father, draws me to his ever paler face on the pillows. Outside, the women's wails are now rending the night air and the men are tearing their clothes.
At night, in my hospital bed across from the nurses' station, I grasp for my memory. Tenaciously, by sheer force, I struggle to remember every word of the prayer-oath "We beg you, with your strength."
If the Jews clustered by the dying rabbi's window had such unshakable faith in the words' magic powers, why shouldn't I believe in it, too? Why shouldn't its powers heal me, too? In every corner, they murmured, "May the rabbi live, may the rabbi live," even though his soul was already fluttering around the candles' flickering flames.
What is the power of this prayer? In the combination of its letters, in the charm of its syllables, in its ancient sources? I too join those in the crowd, whispering and hoping. I too put letters together, compose abbreviations and memorize obscure acronymus. Let it have an ancient source. Let it have a mistycal source. Let it even come from the imaginary world of the Kabbala. Just now, I don't care at all what the source of the prayer is. Just that it will work. That the secret combination will do the job. That the threat hanging over me in the hospital ward will be removed and shattered.
I know in my heart that my request hasn't been granted. The brilliant rabbi, the man of morals beloved by his people, was called to the Yeshiva of High and has not come back. Only in my cryptic dreams is he lying on his deathbed, propped up on his pillows. A sweet smile, a smile unlike any I have ever seen before, spreads over his face, its pallor calling to me.
The translator's note:
1. A Kabbalistic prayer of 42 words, the initials of which form the secret
42-letter Name of God.
2. According the Kabbalists, the prayer should be divided into phrases
of two words each.
3. A movement aimed toward concentrated study of ethical practices
according to Jewish tradition, especially in many Torah academies of
Lithuania, starting in the 19th century.
for CL
A most dear friend called him Zarathustra. She had a knack in nicknames. She meant to put in it all the derision and disdain she felt for men but I put in it all the affection and admiration that belatedly grew up in me. There had been others before it: his Highness, the French Emperor, the Sun King. She asked for news every time I had an appointment. And how’s his Excellency doing? His Excellency was not always doing fine. He went through a period of depression once and shut himself off for several months. He told me about it when he was on the mend again. I listened carefully with compassionate attention. Human, all too human, after all. Besides, I knew what he was talking about. He was a democratic emperor, I must admit. An aristocrat, a republican, both facets of him were familiar to me. « Double-faced, dangerous men of power » my most dear friend apophthegmatically warned. But Zarathustra was harmless even when he showed his toughest, his most implacable face to me. I was pretty sure I’d never fall in love with him.
My most dear friend called it transference, as if the mystery of love could be resolved by that word. I had known Zarathustra for more than six supervising years but it was only on the seventh that he became dear to me. Naturally the why and how and when of such a development intrigued me. When I went about my daily activities, the matter seemed irrelevant to me but in the pre-dawn light of watchful consciousness, it became of utmost importance. I have a strict schedule which I follow with a disciplinarian’s faith, but my order-enforcing fervour miraculously fades away in the dead of the night. Then I enter the maze of desire whose existence I had forgotten for some time. I have always pictured the Minotaur as a silver-haired man, hefty and lusty and fire-breathing. Only elderly men take my fancy. Educated of course and of the intellectual type. Some artistic sensibility is an asset. Zarathustra proudly bears this profile. His hair shines with a metallic purity and he is of the most intellectual type. And if he had the choice, he’d rather be a writer than an academic. « I can’t write. I’ve tried » he told me twice. Twice my heart flew out to him but did not alight on such confidences. Something was lacking. That was usually the case. He often stirred some feeling in me but never my blood or imagination.
Another supervisor had done so before him but he wasn’t mine. He stirred everything in me. A real upheaval. Sturm und Drang. He was the specialist of the movement I aspired to study. Thus it never occurred to me that Zarathustra would ever enter my life, although I had known him for a little while. He was famous for his seminars I didn’t miss and infamous for his sharp tongue I didn’t care about. But as my ideal supervisor would not have me, Zarathustra stepped in or rather trod heavily in his elephant’s gait. « I’m not sensitive to the way people perceive me, » he told me, « just like an elephant. » A white elephant, I thought afterwards, when he became dear to me, like the white whale and such symbolic stuff I studied under his supervision. Since Zarathustra became dear to me, my imagination has been following a positive trend. I have a fertile imagination. I have sown in it the most mysterious, the most tenacious, the most voracious elective affinities. And I have reaped the most bitter fruit. « What a German swine! » my most dear friend burst out when I told her the tearful story of my heart-break and she bridled, « casting pearls before man. » She was strong on word-play. Yet no feminist wrath could shake a man off his pedestal (in any case, not a supervisor). Men have this enchanting thing that can defy the law of gravity. When my divine supervisor turned me down and I experienced my own death, Zarathustra had the opportunity to pick up the body. It was no surprise that he did not resurrect it. He was a mere man after all, albeit a superior one.
I accepted his offer. What could I do with a dead body, anyway? The idea of studying something, provided that it had nothing to do with Sturm and Drang, did not abandon me. Studying remained the only way out of the despair I perpetually found myself in. Some join communes, others climb up the mountains or set sail for the open sea, the brave or the cowardly kill themselves. I had decided to take up a doctoral dissertation, so I’d stick to it by hook or by crook. But it was to no avail. My heart was not in it. I read a lot and thought even more. But nothing flowed from it, not a single spark to brighten up the gloom of the task. I considered giving it up. But there was no commune to go to, the mountains gave me the creeps, the sea made me sick, as for suicide, in spite of Lucretius’ illustrious example, it seemed of poor taste to me. So, I slaved away under my master’s stern eye, no labour’s lost after all.
I am used to working hard. It’s the most important ingredient in my old maid’s health-minded recipe: yoghurt, yoga, swimming, chastity and hard work. Zarathustra has never seen me as an old maid. On the contrary, he takes me for a youngster. He noticed the hard work. I became sensitive to what he noticed after he became dear to me. But might not this endearing process have started before, when I was still enthralled by Sturm und Drang and later on when I was down in the dumps and could not look up but only plumb the depths of loss? Faces are overarching moons. They hover over us even if we don’t look up. Sometimes they even come down on us. Paul Klee with his animals and moons gave me the clue. I remember Zarathustra with his arrogant demeanour and his walk-on part in the delight and the dread of my life. A total stranger to me, without any genuine interest in it. Supervising my work didn’t alter this state of things.
That’s why Alan’s muffled jealousy became quite perplexing to me. Alan didn’t know him. He only took me to him and waited for me driving around the residential streets in Zarathustra’s suburb. I was worried a bit, because he had no driving license, I was training him. Alan’s a business student and an aspiring writer. He’s my student and would be my lover too, if I let him. But I can’t let a twenty-two year old boy be an old maid’s lover. I haven’t figured out how I could take him out of harm’s way. He smokes, he drinks, he sniffs; he knows what sodomy is and feels guilty about it. I don’t even know whether he did it for kick or out of a deeper need. He’s a lost kid, a fallen cherub. What has he found in me? It’s hard to be a mother to him. I feed him with yoghurt but he puts so much sugar in it. I take him to the pool but he doesn’t swim. I bring my yoga instructor to him but he finds her ugly and says to me that breath control would be too dangerous for him, he would just stop breathing for good. But he works harder than before and can concentrate next to me. Along with his marketing books there’s poetry and Proust and a blue note-book. « Inspiration » he says « that’s what I find in you ». I can’t help thinking about Zarathustra and sensing this shadow upon me he steals what he calls a pal’s kiss. It has a disconcerting heat. He says he’ll wait until he graduates and then he’ll propose to me. It’s hard to reason with him. His new character is called Oed and he’s a wide-eyed visionary and he’s bold and knows how to get what he wants. He says he’s impatient but he’s working on it. I’m sorry I have to be cruel. I’m not even attracted to him. That’s more than a technical hitch. But he thinks I will as soon as he writes what he has in mind. By that time, I’ll be in an old people’s home, I maliciously think. But I know that would be too early for me, I’d just be ageing, a decaying old maid. Nevertheless, he may become a writer one day and then things will get easier for him.
Alan has written the most poetic declaration of love anyone has ever made to me, in the most romantic circumstances a woman and a man could find themselves in. He’s a kid but he writes like a man. He writes sentences like this: « When I died, not even the rain let its silver tears fall upon my grave. » That was quite unexpected in my old maid’s days. The youth and the old maiden. Classroom favours such quaint things. I’m not very fond of acrostics but when my name sprang from the love poem he wrote to fulfil his declaration of love writing requirement, my heart leapt for joy. For the potential of romance in it. I could only take it for what it was: courtship. Yet how could I forget? He writes like a man but he’s a kid. I praised the verses but ignored the secret in them. He didn’t put it in bold after all. He didn’t expect me to respond. I was too old for him but apparently he was blind to it. The poem was only warming up. At the end of the second term he came up to me and declared that he was now free to ask me for a drink. He assumed I knew. His poem was between us, a flimsy veil to be lowered or raised. I’m sensitive to uncanny forms of love but I was embarrassed too, found it heartless to refuse yet I did and disliked my ways, dull, polite, tutor-like. But Alan is persistent and carried his point or rather his texts did it for him. So here we are, pals or perhaps something deeper than that. I had to drive off the sex thing and Alan temporarily settled for what was offered to him.
He came to my writing course because he heard there was passion in it. « Passion? » I echoed in disbelief. When Alan enunciated the word, I felt ill at ease -not that I believe that I’ve got nothing to teach- and then somewhat sick. « Passion? » I snorted out in mirth and said nothing more because Alan was not the right recipient for it. How could there be any passion left in that stump of a heart, in that dried-up hag? Self-contempt’s a terrible thing and I’m sometimes prone to it. Apart from that and some sporadic fits of distress, I fare quite well. « I wasn’t aware of it » I mumbled at last. But my amazement and dismay did not escape him, he saw the turmoil in me. I don’t know what he surmised from it but if he’s to become a writer, he should know how vulnerable and pitiable humans are, teachers and tutors, too.
They’re all bright kids. They write sentences like this: « It’s the dead of the night. I know this paper must not remain white. » That comes from Aline, the African queen, but there’s also Annabelle, the bluest eye, who wrote a letter to herself entitled « Narcissus in the Dock » and Jean-Sebastian, the sharpest mind, the most cultured of all. I’m glad they don’t dislike me. I thought I was more attentive to them than they were to me till Alan stepped in. He stayed both terms and kept a low profile in class but he was noticeable for his good looks, his air of Rupert Brooke. Then he handed in work. There was wit in it and a sort of despair, playful, deterred. « A beautiful loser » I thought in a literary mood. He didn’t always respect the assignments but I never reproved him for that. He handed extra work, too, texts he wanted me to read but refused to discuss in class. We discussed them in private in fact, in classroom tête-à-têtes. I edited them all and was curious to see what was coming next. I enjoy reading the students’ work: secret hopes and desires leaping out in disguise. They’re all honest kids. They strive for something still shapeless and undefined. I don’t know if they’ve experienced the strife I went through in their age. Alan has. Something consumes him day and night, never lets him rest. In the first page of his autobiography he wrote: « I’ve got a laptop but paper and pen are my best friends. » There’s another best friend too, Eve, alias Lady Bunny or junkie queen, the young man he slept with, slippery and serpent-like. He may go back to this text one day and then he’ll surely put in it that it got started as an assignment during a creative writing course in a French frontier city where his studies took him. He’ll relate then his infatuation with a woman past her prime, past desire. Writers don’t forget. That’s why they become writers. What happens to those, then, who can’t forget but can’t become writers either, who can’t even fall back on criticism as Zarathustra did? Alan wants to be a writer now. That’s not all he wants to be. He’ll go into advertising but he won’t sell his soul to it. He claims these are his new aims. Why not? A writer businessman. I told him James Fenimore Cooper was one. But James Fenimore Cooper bores him. He reads William Burroughs and Jean Genet at the pool in a scanty bathing suit. Men and women steal glances at him, some attempt to chat him up, but he holds his blue note-book fast and waves at me to show there’s somebody out there watching over him. He often looks up and gazes at me but I know it’s rather at the inner space in him, I can see he’s chasing a thought that keeps fleeing him, that he’s peering into an image still foggy in him.
He wants to know nothing about the writer I’ve spent my nights with, although he is the greatest stylist of the second half of the twentieth century. « This stammerer, this leper, the lewd, this ludicrous Narcissus, » he says scornfully and I can see that he has read more than he wants to admit. « He’s got a lot to teach, Alan » I insist, « he’s a Daedalus. Don’t take his wings, just look how he flies over the sea, just look at the splendour of these wings. » I’m thrilled to bits when I speak about him, his images tumble down on me. I’ve learnt how to fall asleep at will but I’ve stayed awake for his sake. He writes sentences like this:
« And, though there was much in the aftermath to regret, and a harm that would never cease, Betty remembered these days - the open fields, the dripping eaves, the paintings, the law books - as bright, as a single iridescent unit, not scattered as is a constellation but continuous, a rainbow, a U-turn. »
Writers have this magic thing, a flying carpet they provide you with. Zarathustra knows a lot about him. He recommended him to me at a time when I only knew a single story written by him. But it would have been enough to set me on the track. He says he admires him but doesn’t love him. Admiration without love seems quite lifeless to me. I don’t care who the man is, I love and admire the writer I’ve spent my nights with. But I respect Zarathustra’s views. We have the same tastes, anyway. We’ve only disagreed once, on Jung. Zarathustra says he’s a crook, but I’ve spent many a night with him, too. What to do? Zarathustra’s a fastidious thinker and an even more fastidious critic. He writes sentences like this:
« Joyce has been admired as the most prodigious artificer, Mann as the most thoughtful ironist, Proust as the most shrewdest analyst. For the graceful arabesques of lyrical prose and delicate glimpses into the dark, we have Virginia Woolf; for tense metaphysical speculation and flights into utopia, myth and mysticism, we can turn to Musil and Broch, to Gadda for the convoluted splendors of the baroque, to Nabokov for the dizzying heaven of « aesthetic bliss, » to Céline for the deafening nightmares of history; and for those who expect literature to take them to the threshold of silence, the supreme guide is still Beckett. »
Concise and precise, terse and tense, my supervisor’s prose puts literature in a nutshell. This luring list is from his magnum opus, his work on the European novel. He’ll never finish it. He’s got no more resources for it. He put it aside when he got depressed and never went back to it. Zarathustra will never climb up the mountain top although he has taught the Ubermensch. Zarathustra fears illness, death. They are no longer an abstraction to him. Zarathustra didn’t know there was a bound Prometheus in store for him. Zarathustra is plagued by Pandora’s gifts, hope too. He is learned but not wise. When he told me that he was sick, I was quite shaken but I refused to think about it. He chose to forget and so did I. Zarathustra is possessed. His sweet obsession with words drives me up the wall. He’s working on a woman now. He always works on something, of course. It’s an intensive, a hectic work. He’s thinking about her day and night, but at the end he’ll rest for the while. Yet there’ll always be illness, death. Zarathustra cannot rest. Only his superiority keeps him afloat. I don’t know if this is accurate enough. Surely women too. Words and women. Unlike his namesake, he’s not squeamish about female flesh. He won’t retreat before it. But I’ve got no great insight into him. Before, before he became dear to me, I used to think there was nothing to see. Now I think back and forth. I think about the day he gave a sign of lust, albeit an involuntary one.
Our meetings always took place in his living-room but once. His wife had visitors or something like that. I followed up the stairs a man who in a burst of youthful energy, of unreasonable speed started to run. I had to hurry to keep up. Zarathustra looked young. I was never aware of his age before that race, of his grey-tinged hair, the deepening silver shade. It was to be foreseen when Zarathustra announced his emeritus status to me but I didn’t think about it. Incurious, remote I found myself in the heart of his intimacy, his reading den. Zarathustra’s study is a classic-looking one, just like the man, sober but not square. After a guided visit to his library I missed the magazines, they’re in the attic I’ve never seen he made me sit on his reader’s sofa; he devours books lying on it, such a polymath ogre he is. The window was left open to dispel the cigarette smell. He’s an inveterate smoker, he won’t relent. I’m oversensitive to cold, especially the January one, and I thought I’d start shivering on the spot, but not at all. Zarathustra was smiling broadly. « Let us see, where is it? » Zarathustra’s tidy, but absent-minded too. He retrieved my cardboard folder from the upper drawer of his professor’s desk. « ‘Mother Tongue and the Prodigal Son’ That’s it. » It was the first part, the first crop of his supervisor’s work. His humorous tone could not be missed. Gently he sat next to me. His reader’s sofa was now accommodating another person on it. Gently, he looked at me. Zarathustra wears no glasses but I don’t know what colour his eyes are. They must be dark. He didn’t like the work, it wasn’t a failure crop but it wasn’t exactly what he expected from me. He couldn’t say what was wrong, but I knew. There was no heart in it to keep step with. « ‘Nutrition?’ How could you write such an ugly word? » he asked but he was in no polemical mood. He had left the supervisor’s armour on his professor’s desk and I wore no chastity belt. It was the first time, me, him and the books, steeped in those vibes, so very different in this room. Indeed, he had never given any signs of seduction before, unconscious or not. Playful, paternal, he commented the work, a plethora of remarks, side and central ones. It seemed such a delightful task. It seemed we embarked on a pleasure-craft. I felt at ease, such a smooth crossing of the sea with a library on board and a cosy sofa on top. I was warming to him. Even his pedantry was no longer disagreeable to me. He disliked the way the greatest stylist of the second half of the twentieth century spoke of sex. « The French writers » he said « are good at it, take Stendhal, Flaubert, so very refined, such a subtle mastery of it. » « But they’re dead, » I parried, « he’s alive, a man of our time » and I was tempted to quote a sentence of his that had got into me, « He woke up with an erection of metallic adamancy » but abstained from it. I didn’t dare bring this Esperanto of desire between a foreign student and her French supervisor. It might have seemed mischievous to him, although it sounded spry to me. So we remained with his French writers’ ways. My American writer’s narrative mores were too sharp, too unsettling perhaps. Yet while I think about my supervisor’s mountainous body, as he stirs from sleep, I do wish I had cited that sentence to him.
I left his study and forgot all about him. But why did I? How could I? He was my supervisor, after all. The other one was gone. He left me in the lurch. He dropped me like a ball that bounced up. Zarathustra was generous to me. He corrected the articles I wrote for magazines. He edited the texts I didn’t write for him. Zarathustra would do anything for the right word, the one that can kill and resurrect at once. He was devoted to it like a priest. I had no more gods or that’s what I wanted to believe. It took more than a year and a half to write the second part. It was such a perfunctory task although I became more involved in my American writer’s world. I kept thinking of turning into a farmer or something of the sort, I even took a course on the rudiments of organic farming and did some voluntary work. Alan was not around yet to mother and dote on. We became close to each other in the middle of Zarathustra’s fifth supervising year, but it was not too late to convince me that teaching was the right track, that I had to follow it up.
My most dear friend would call him Tadzio, if she saw him, but unfortunately she’s away. I told her about him, even about the literary nickname she would give him. That’s the main difference between us, she fancies the young and I fall for the old. Not that she doesn’t find Zarathustra handsome enough to attract a woman younger than him. But she hasn’t seen the vulnerability in him, the soft spots underneath the elephant’s skin. She only saw him ranting and raving and she would not put up with it. In her bestiary there are only swines and wolves, but Zarathustra belongs to another species of man. And he’s got presence and makes it felt he’s got charm. The day he walked into the debate room in a burgundy jacket, I also felt that although I was impervious to him. The colour suited him. It set off a greyish lock that kept falling on his forehead while he performed. Always at home in fighting talk, oral or written defiant discourse. He had his field-day and was acclaimed. A spellbinder in a burgundy jacket, an enviable man, a master of his superior man’s fate. He felt on top of the world when he juggled with words. He told me that, « I had an easy life, I was a happy man, » before the disease and the looming loss and all that stuff that prods man into sense.
But what is sense? Zarathustra in a short-sleeved jacket and beige Bermuda-shorts shook hands with me in the English bookshop. He was the last person I expected to see although he must have been going there as often as I did. It was a sultry July in the French Eastern city, one of those summers you can hardly breathe. It was courageous of him to leave the shade of his study in an afternoon of violent heat. I had seen him in slippers but his vacationer’s attire was new to me. He had recovered his taste for words, his old self and to tell the truth I preferred this man to the listless, the inert one I had glimpsed once. I had sent him my second part and he was reading it. « I’m here for you » he said and I smiled at these fateful words. He was looking for one of my American writer’s books to check a story up. He didn’t mention exactly what, but it was something I wrote which seemed dubious to him, not serious enough. « I can lend it to you » I said, but he declined the offer and looked reproachfully at me. I saw the mistrust. It was all cast around him. You are what you write, he seemed to say, although he remained silent and then took a book off a shelf and asked, « Are you familiar with him? » he meant J.M.Coetzee. I’ve only read In the Heart of the Country and found it wanting, I said, a fake foray into a woman’s heart, he doesn’t know it well enough. Zarathustra hadn’t seen anything wrong, but did he know much more than Coetzee about it? He told me, then, in a sardonic smile, I should give this marvellous writer a second chance and I took his word for it.
In mid-autumn I called. He sounded forbidding, my second part was no better than the first one. I wondered whether he was more irritated than disappointed. There was a touchy edge in his remarks. I could see his face, a rancorous mask. I didn’t know if my offence was as severe as that. Should I plead guilty and retract? Admittedly there was no heart in what he read but still there was some reason in it. I went back to his living-room to stand by it. His surly air, his glassy stare did not put me off. I listened to his stern rebuke without batting an eyelid. There was a bunch of flowers in a blue vase next to my visitor’s armchair. They looked incongruous in the frosty atmosphere. But blue was always appeasing to me. It was picked up by the painting opposite me, an open sea, behind him. It had often been a pleasure to rest my eyes on it, the rolling wave, the inscrutable offing. « You should not defend. It’s a corrida, you see, » Zarathustra was, now, saying to me. « I just can’t let you go to it. » I smiled at the image that sprang before me. How could I help seeing a sacrificial Athenian virgin marching up to a blood-thirsty bull? Zarathustra got up and rushed to the window, « What time are you coming back? » he called out to his wife who was starting up the car. « That’s marriage, too » he commented to me to link his act to my second part, although my « Connubial Confession » was far from being inspiring to him. « You seem to ignore one important term, desire, » he said, and his face was transformed by the power of the word, « the beautiful word of desire. » Zarathustra has two faces when he strikes a blow for literature, a sour and a sweet one. It was the latter that suddenly bloomed before us. When Zarathustra spoke thus, he struck a cord with me. He touched me to the quick. I still feel the prick. I still wince at the memory of it. My composure was gone. I wanted to flee. There was only one place offered to me, the hollow of the wave he displayed. « Have you started the third part? » Zarathustra spoke mildly. Why this volte-face?
« I’m almost through » I said.
« Then we’ll see each other soon. »
I was in no hurry, indeed. I left his living-room in a Sturm und Drang mood. His remark, a casual one, unleashed a torrent of misery in me. I thought it was just my regular allotment of grief but this time it seemed to be without stint. I shoved away the annotated second part, I shunned the third one. I thought that was the end of it. There was something in me I failed to grasp. I went to an analyst and told him why I started this dissertation, how I sought to dam despair up. I thought that was the crux or at least a loose thread to pick up. I found myself voluble, gleeful in speech but my verbose reprieve lasted only a couple of months. I was feeling better, but my finance was cracking up. I suspended the relief. The uneventfulness of days was weighing upon me. And the decision I was taking seemed unfortunate, of ill-will. But deus ex machina appeared to me. I ran into Zarathustra one afternoon in a down-town telephone booth. His size in that cramped space fell on me first, then his silver shine. The grey-haired man in a grey raincoat stood and spoke. He got sight of me and nodded through the glass. The ghost of desire was now between us. He had conjured it up. Our silent exchange reminded me that I should write and apologise for abandoning the work but kept putting it off. I wrote dozens of rough drafts. I could not find the decorous words, the right way to have a clear break. He was my last bond to it and I was unable to sever it. Zarathustra was involved in an enterprise that go going to the dogs, had unfortunately for me invested on it. It was impossible to write this brief note of release. I toiled on and completed the third part. I knew I wouldn’t have his blessings with it but I sent it to him and braced for the third round of rebuke. It was the best I could do. My task was done. I hadn’t given up.
I don’t easily give up. Zarathustra says I’m stubborn and he’s not wrong. He first made this remark when he knew little of me and I was surprised because I considered him blind to everything but texts. I can’t give people up. I’ve never thought of giving Zarathustra up, although he meant nothing to me, but he has. I didn’t really mind then, but that was before, before he became dear to me. Between me and him there’s a dead dissertation to bury or to relive. I can’t relate to people through hate so it has to be through love. I don’t like sweeping statements but any kind of love is the right one. That’s why I let Alan into my life though I’m still worried a bit. He’s a Round Table knight whose grail is set in a woman’s heart. He wrote this sentence in his paper at the end of the second term exam. Their adult understanding of their favourite childhood tale they were asked. It was Galahad’s legend his chosen one. Correcting was anonymous, but I instantly recognised his handwriting, his style, his turn of mind. It was a beautiful text. I kept it in my mind like the rest. How eagerly he opened up to me and complained about my unwillingness to do the same towards him. How tough to look for a grail in a dead heart. That’s why I’m on my guards. Alan has entered my cloister-like flat, sprawled on my bed, wrote at my desk, but knows nothing about my tight rope walking and the gap underneath my feet. « I’ve got no access to your body, but I often feel that your mind is also a virgin forest to me » he repeats. « Let’s call it our Hyde-and-seek. » That’s his brand of wit. Its flossy felicity delights me. I feel grateful to him. He has relieved the maiming monotony of the chain-like days and weeks. I walk along the river banks at dusk when he invades me leaving my flat to him. I trust him more than before. He no longer tells me, « if I wasn’t afraid of needles, I’d shoot. » He’s making plans. He wants to leave the city and wants me to follow him. I wasn’t born here, but here I’ll die. So will Zarathustra, indeed, it occurs to me. He was born here, has been walking along the same banks much longer than I have. His city strolling habits appeal to me. The countryside bores him. Now I’m surprised that such details beset my mind. Before, before he became dear to me, I thought I knew nothing about him. I was just sleepwalking in and out of his living-room looking at his paintings on the wall, blind to him opposite me.
Zarathustra’s living-room feels familiar. There’s his favourite edition, the whole Pléiade in it. I know where to stand and sit, when I should listen to him or start to speak. I didn’t fear the visit to discuss the third part, although I knew it was going to be tough. I felt aloof, detached. He was visibly annoyed, had the sulks. He took up the corrida leitmotiv, but there was a new element in it. « It’s a massacre, you see, and my name would be involved in it. » I really did not want my dissertation of discontent to disgrace his honourable name, but I clearly saw he was being unfair to me. « Another supervisor will be glad to go ahead » he said and I must admit I was quite taken aback by it, I must admit I found something craven in it. How unfortunate for him to get mired with me, but I’d just wash my hands off. « It’s up to you » I said and waited for his response. He didn’t pursue the issue further but leafed through the manuscript and started to comment on it. There was something I wanted to know, though, and I was sure he would not beat around the bush, he would tell me what to do. There was only one thing I could not do, put my heart in it, it had been sucked out of me. « Is it bad? » I asked, « Should I throw it in the dustbin? » I’d have been glad to get rid of it. Despair was still there but I was learning to live with it. It was his turn to be taken aback. The question even elicited a smile from him. He knew I was cruelly direct, he had told me that when we spoke about his disease. « No, » he said « you should not. Intellectual work should never go into a dustbin. » All was said and done for me. It was easier said than done for him. The verbal tussle that followed up was hard for both of us. « You’re fighting like a lioness » he said, « you’re fighting with claws and beak. » I had often admired Zarathustra’s imagery but I could hardly picture myself as a carnivorous animal or a bird of prey. I’m a vegetarian, anyway. « You’re dishonest » he said when he came across a quotation that sounded ambiguous although prestigious. But dishonest was not the right word. He doubted about my intellectual integrity, I doubted about his understanding of me. Twice he got up to bring evidence from his study to what we discussed. He was right the first time but the second he found out he was wrong. « Nobody’s infallible, not even the Pope » I said, although I didn’t know whether he was a Catholic or not. « Score one to one » he said but there was still an introduction and a conclusion for me to write and him to read.
« You must finish by all means, » Alan said to me, « get your mind off it, be free. I want you to have a deep feeling for me, the deepest one you can have for a man. » I couldn’t see the connection very well but Alan didn’t know how much I meant to invest on it and how little I finally did. I am sorry again I cannot not offer what he’s asked because he’s a kid and the deepest feeling I can have only goes to grey-haired men. He looks unhappier than before now that he no longer turns to drinks and drugs. I read with him Les Paradis Artificiels again but I refrained from making any comments on it. He’s more nervous too. He may resent having given up the only comfort within his reach. There’s a growing dislike in him for the man he has never seen, as if he’s sensed the spell Zarathustra has started to throw on me. I’ve got no boy-friend, yoga seems better than sex, still Alan’s jealous attention and affection are flattering me, human all too human after all, and on top his irrational attitude exasperates me. Then I see how my supervisor was exasperated by me although my middle-aged silliness was different from my spoiled kid’s. Why wasn’t Zarathustra more detached ? Why did he remind me of that terrible word I had cursed and damned? Why did he claim my heart?
After reading my introduction he looked more relaxed. The severity of his mien eased, the saturnine frown was gone. He seemed committed to end my ordeal. I never found him humane enough, I wondered whether he was moody, I considered how hopeless I’d be at humouring him. But Zarathustra spoke thus: « It’s your persistence, you see, there’s something convincing in it. » I was disappointed to see that Zarathutra didn’t know my American writer as intimately as I did. He became chatty, he pounced on Djuna Barnes. He was reading a doctoral dissertation on her. The dissertation was bad but Djuna was good. « I don’t think you know her » he said. « Of course I do » I protested but didn’t tell him about my hot nights with her. At least I was glad he liked her. « An out-of-bounds fornicator » he said. How prude my supervisor was turning out to be; but no, « incest » he confided to me. I couldn’t help thinking about Alan and his desperate drive to lay with a woman so much older than him. I looked keenly at Zarathustra. We were deep in sex. He was taking up the Esperanto of desire I had avoided once. And I who had thought he was not fluent enough. He wanted to comment on oral sex. My American writer brought it right before us. How gleefully, how glossily outspoken he had been about it. « Well, he’s a man » Zarathustra said. But I wasn’t thinking of the man. He was the man. With flesh and some blood. He looked handsome, at great ease. His voice steady and scholarly, his speech crisp. No warmth about him but the frost was gone. In the wake of his beauty I felt bemused. It was the first time he offered a lotus fruit. I gathered my befuddled wits, picked up the annotated folder Zarathustra handed to me. « He’s playing God with his students » my most dear friend had said. Certainly a Greek one, flawed and fragile, even frivolous perhaps. Zarathustra was just acting like a man. « I still don’t understand why your work was not as good as I thought it’d be. » Zarathustra looked perplexed. « Perhaps you’ve overestimated me » I offered. The smile that appeared on his face did not persist. A thoughtful gaze took over, stayed fixed. While he was weighing the evidence, I clearly saw he found hard to admit that he had been mistaken about me.
I pored over his annotations. They called fourth a single observation. Zarathustra no longer wanted to mortify me. There was only his turn of phrase in them. The improved version of my text bore his mark. The daze of desire was now upon me. I evaded it. With a mind full of misgiving I went to him. « I’ve got some changes to propose » he announced to me. His turn of phrase had been revisited, reviewed. The introduction had been corrected again. How very odd to see that Zarathustra was putting his heart in it. He gave me some instructions for the conclusion, too. I listened to him reverentially, I took notes diligently. I left with an important piece of information. Zao Wou-Ki was the painter of the open-sea opposite me, the painter who comforted me. It was bought before the artist became famous, at the early years of Zarathustra’s marriage. I had not asked for the name, it was spontaneously given to me after being tested on my knowledge of him. I failed the test, it was the only picture of his I had ever seen.
Zarathustra was gaining ground in my mind. He was now scudding across it. His wart-flecked face started pursuing me. I knew why. It was the shaft of aquamarine light. I’m no synaesthete but aquamarine is the colour of desire. The conclusion was not difficult to write. My absorption in it made me neglect Alan a bit. His latest texts were left unread. He sulked for days on end and I was in no mood to humour him. I was paying tribute to my American writer, it was a taxing job. Alan would have to wait, do his job. But kids are impatient, have no self-control. After he got his driving-licence he started wearing a black cap and called himself the lady’s chauffeur. He drove me to Zarathustra, when the conclusion was read, and was supposed to pick me up in a hour and a half. But Zarathustra was in a chatty mood and Flaubert and Stendhal came up and some others, too, I hardly knew - Céline apart - and would have to discover if I wished to catch up. And somewhere between Flaubert and Stendhal, Zarathustra told me again about his fear of death. But the immortal beam of aquamarine was now upon him. Then Zarathustra came to my « Conclusion ». « It was a surprise » he said as he leafed through the text « it was good, I really liked it. » I lost three battles but I won the war although I’d never be absolved of my past sins. There was truce between us now that we would be walking into separate ways. I could still cross his path along the river banks, but the city was big and God knew when I’d see him again once this Franco-American chapter in my life was sealed for good. I really didn’t care that the rest of the work was not good enough but that was before, before he became dear to me. Zarathustra finally came alive in my mind and that would review the whole past. I left with a wisp of regret, a wish to undo what had been done.
My car was nowhere to be seen. It had vanished with its driver in it. I walked home fast. Not that I was in a hurry to return but I knew that a quick gait could chase unwanted thoughts away. My car was pulled up in front of my block-of-flats. « I’m sorry, » I said « I was late, it’s good you didn’t wait. » Alan stayed still looking straight at the steering-wheel. « This silly old man’s a chatterbox, that’s all he is » he said in disdain. That was it. My heart flew out to him, the old man and the words. It alighted on his elephant’s skin and the soft spots hidden beneath. But of what use could it be? It could never sooth the soreness in them, it could never ease the fear of death. A useless heart is no better than a dead one.
The epiphany of Zarathustra’s body came to me a couple of months later. He wanted to see the whole work before binding and we fixed a loose date. I was supposed to phone before calling by him but there was no answer the whole afternoon. The wisest thing to do was to put the errand off. There was no real urgency but in my mind. Yet no yoga exercise could keep me from seeing Zarathustra that very day. Late in the evening, safely past dinner time, I called. I knew he would not mind, he would not be surprised. I said I was close to his house, I could be there in a couple of minutes. I always found the gate locked and rang the bell and after a considerable number of seconds Zarathustra would appear at the porch and would wait for me to cross the yard and walk up the ten steps to him, but tonight the gate had already been unlocked and Zarathustra was waiting for me at the porch. It was a darkling November and there was fog but his fleshy silhouette in a light grey sweater and dark grey trousers stood out sharply against the door, from the dark, in the faint light of the street lamps. He shook hands with me as he always did and for once I thought I could reach up to his cheek, just a daughterly kiss, brushing his skin like a leaf. That would be all. A chaste, good evening kiss, so natural in France. But that could not be all. The vibes were back, released like winds running amok, dancing crazily in November fog. So, I did not reach up to his cheek did not brush his skin like a leaf, and naturally did not grab his hand fast, did not melt into his arms. Zarathustra pushed the door open, stepped back, let me into the hall. The vibes followed of course. « You’re bringing me your child » he said as the metaphor goes. « It’s not my child, it’s my stillborn » I wanted to correct but checked this impulse too. « That’s not exactly how I see it » I qualified his remark but he persisted and unfolded his metaphor. And for once I did not answer back, I did not defend my view. « You were right about Coeztee » I said instead « I finally appreciated him. » But Zarathustra no longer remembered this exchange. I was acutely conscious of each minute we disposed of, ticking away. His failing memory, his failing health fell upon me. Zarathustra was now dear to me and the aquamarine was flooding into him. In the seasons of life it was winter for him, autumn for me, but our bodies were immersed in summer heat. And if I were a writer and wanted to expand on this furtive meeting of us, I’d put nothing in it of the crude sensuality my American writer sometimes favours for his illicit romances. I’d turn to my supervisor’s French masters instead, to learn how implicit one can be with the explosion of desire in one’s mind.
We’re all tentative writers. Our stories overlap, then break apart. I’ve adopted Alan. He needs a confidante and a reader too. I’m not a perfect mother but I’m a good listener and an ideal reader. Zarathustra’s entered the pantheon of the nearest, one more figure of endearment. We don’t choose our parents, sometimes our supervisors either. The aquamarine light is on in my mind. Softening, shimmering. How very odd, Zarathustra clad in grey, erect at his porch, in November fog, Zarathustra in July Bermuda-shorts buying the latest Coetzee in the English bookshop, Zarathustra in burgundy jacket that highlights the silver hue of a rebellious lock, chiding and indicting, then igniting the most serious talk, Zarathustra in formal dress, the cheered Diva at the Sorbonne, Zarathustra stark naked in my fantasies surrendering to a plea of reckless caresses, Zarathustra swathed in the afterglow of love, silent and serene cradled in my arms. I keep thinking, what was it? His age, his disease, his relish for the intellect, his craze for words, his literary thirst that nothing could quench, his vain discourse, his pride in scholarship? I keep thinking, when was it? The early afternoon I got a glimpse of his profile in the telephone-booth, he seemed even bigger to me, somewhat clumsy and bear-like about it, or the mid afternoon he sat next to me on the sofa in a promising proximity and he was paternal, pleasant and playful, or just the dark autumn evening, all erect waiting for me, clad in grey in November mist? It was inevitable, predictable, but I took no notice of it. Too salient to be seen, too hastily dismissed.
I’m glad I have this fondness in me, even if there’s the old pain in it and the phantom one, the one that is still to materialise in me, that is lurking in the dark, that I’ve been carrying along without being aware of it. I’m glad something finally came out of it, out of my sterile research and my futile supervisor. My main regret is that he knows nothing about it. I’ve never made a declaration of love to him, never uttered one of desire. It’d have been simple, really. No need for acrostics, really. In our leather armchairs, formal and frosty warming up to words, amidst his fervent discourse on Voltaire and Marquez - not a word on Sturm und Drang although his German culture is solid enough - and the French novel and the American short story, an irreverent, mid-phrase interruption, Je vous désire.
Translated from the Hebrew by Eddie Levenston
In the winter of 1976, a few weeks after the publication of my first book of poems, I received a telephone call from the radio station of the Israeli Army. A pleasant young voice courteously invited me to come and be interviewed for their weekly literature program. I felt excited and confused, I was a complete novice about advertising poetry and didn't know how to react to such encouraging invitations. I asked the girl if it was she herself who intended to interview me. She merely laughed and said they had a well-known poet at the station who interviewed poets whose new books had just been published. She was surprised I had never heard of him and his program and assured me that he was "an excellent interviewer whose programs were gripping, interesting and very helpful for listeners to get to know the poetry". I told her I would be very happy to give my first book of poems an encouraging start, even on the Army radio station, and asked her for the name of the poet-interviewer. She gave me his name and address and telephone number and added that he also published reviews of poetry in the press and if he liked me... I got the point. "You're a novice right?" she asked me before hanging up, "listen, don't get upset. They're saying here that you've written a moving book of poems."
And a few days later he did get in touch with me. At that time I was living in a hot, crowded students' dormitory in Jerusalem. He rang me in the afternoon, to the public telephone in the dorms. I was embarrassed again, my throat dried up, I paled and spluttered and my hand holding the receiver began to sweat. I remember some very unliterary haggling over where to hold the interview. I suggested the small apartment of mine on the kibbutz, surrounded by green lawns and happy shouting children. A place detached, as it were, from the worries and pressures of time. But he insisted on the interview taking place in Tel Aviv, the big city. He suggested a modest cafeteria near the radio station in Jaffa. But I refused, telling him it was difficult for me to find my way from the kibbutz to Jerusalem via Jaffa. And anyway, why Jaffa of all places? I remember asking him how Jaffa was better than my small room on the kibbutz? He thought for a moment and suggested that we meet at a small cafe in the square near the Town Hall, close to his apartment. I pondered and hesitated and finally he decided we should meet in his apartment. "Don't forget", he said, "on the second floor, it's an old building, in one of the small streets turning off Ibn Gvirol. and the door", he concluded, "is always open."
It was one day during the week, I think it must have been in the middle of February 1976, one of those bright warm days that take you by surprise in the depths of a cold winter. I reached his apartment, the door was brightly painted, the decorations around it overlapped the lintel. You could see at once that this was an apartment of artists, young free spirits who knew what was in. The door was open. I paused a moment on the landing to recover my breath. I was gasping. The second floor, he had said on the telephone, but actually it was the third, he had not counted the height of the pillars from the entrance level.
I opened the door and went inside. In order to avoid any embarrassment, I cleared my throat, coughed aloud and gave the chair that was standing in the entrance a kick. "Yes, come in, it's open," I heard his voice coming from the kitchen, "it's OK, I've been waiting for you". He was sitting by the kitchen table, painted a dazzling blue, with the tape recorder in front of him and my first book of poems lying there among the plates and the breadcrumbs. "Sit down, sit down," he told me, extending his arm from the shoulder, without getting out of his chair. "We can start in a minute. Would you like some coffee? Or tea? Maybe a roll?" He rummaged in the empty bread bin, apologized and said "Never mind, Rami will go down to the corner store and get some fresh rolls," and opened another door through which I caught a glimpse of a young man, almost naked, sprawled on a colored mattress that was lying on the floor.
"Rami is a good boy," he said and came back to sit in front of the tape recorder, "a fine, handsome boy, a real pussycat."
The interview began, he asked questions and I answered, and I was surprised by his journalistic efficiency. "You have written a moving book," he said as he was changing the cassette, "excellent poems about memory. But don't expect it to sell. And don't think anyone is going to take note of it and recognize your talent You'll see, you're going to be very disappointed." I was taken in by the style of his interview and the interest he displayed in my work; like a man high on drugs, by his dirty kitchen table, I poured forth all the pain and anger and frustration that had accumulated in me since the war. From the moment I had been discharged after a long period of military service, I had been unable to settle down. Like many of my acquaintances I had been badly shaken by the appalling trauma we had all undergone during the October War. Like a hurt child who does not know who is really responsible for his suffering, I placed the blame on everybody.
At night, when the politicians spoke to me from the television screen, I couldn't stand their bare-faced lies, and when intellectuals serving in the army broadcast laments for the loss of our ancient, valued identity and the birth of a new one, hard and painful, conceived in blood and tears, I laughed to myself at such idiotic naivety. I those days I could easily distinguish the various kinds of shirkers. Those who were firmly attached to their cafe tables, in Tel Aviv and other places. And at a time when my comrades and I, and thousands of other soldiers who had survived the firing line "were searching frantically" for cover from surprise hostile bombardment, they were holding pitiful, garrulous debates about the "existential abyss" they had suddenly discovered.
He stared at me and asked "What are you so angry about? Why are you so hostile? All I'm doing is interviewing you about a new book of poems, your first book of verse." Handsome Rami re-entered the apartment and with quiet grace put fresh rolls in front of us. I gazed in wonder at his mass of curls, and I remember the signs of sleep that marked his face. He looked at me for a moment as he passed my chair and I was sure he could see the cloud of anger and frustration that enveloped me. "A nice-looking kid, eh?" the poet said when Rami had left the kitchen. "A real curly-headed pussycat." Anger gave rise to anger, misery brought more misery and I could no longer stand the suspense. "Don't jabber to me about good-looking kids", I suddenly rounded on him, "I saw too many young lads piled up at casualty clearing stations. I saw too many handsome soldiers strewn on the ground in the maneuvers of that damn war".
He turned off the tape immediately. There was no point in continuing with the interview. I was a bundle of nerves. What had been recorded had been recorded, he said as he rose from the table, and the rest could be done when I had calmed down. "And what about everything I said?" I asked. "We'll see," he replied, packing away the cable, "maybe we can do something with it. This anger of yours will eat you up. You had better be careful, in your place I would do something about it." We parted in haste, with no particular amiability, no gesture of growing intimacy, and no promises whatever. We agreed that he would inform me when and in what framework the interview would be broadcast. And I left his Bohemian apartment, hurrying along the street of the wintry city towards the nearby bus terminal.
As I sat in the bus, on the road going up to Jerusalem, I was assailed by all the poems, all the sounds and memories of the war. The sense of outrage that I felt, whose precise origin I did not know, gave rise to a desire to settle accounts with the whole world. As usual I was too tense, too loud, too sure of the justice of my own stupid hatred. It had been born in the trenches, during the long bitter winter I had spent in the basalt army posts on the Syrian front. I was sorry he had been so quick to turn off the tape recorder. Some day someone would have to listen to me. It certainly wasn't all my fault, I consoled myself. He's a busy man, he was hurrying to another appointment. A pity I didn't ask him to play back what he had already recorded. It was a good thing I had recited some of the poems into the microphone. "Read, read," he had encouraged me, "no one can read your poems better than you can." I got off the bus at the central bus terminal in Jerusalem and made my way quickly to my room in the students' dormitories. The air was fresh and cool, reminding me of the dry mountain air I had breathed for such long months at the top of the basalt hills. Would I never be able to forget what I had seen? That was another reason why I had written the poems of recollection. To rid myself once and for all of troublesome memories. How long would they haunt me?
Two weeks later I was surprised again by a telephone call to the dorms. Again it was from the army radio station. This time it was the poet-interviewer himself speaking. "How are you? Have you calmed down?" And a few more polite remarks for starters. I was completely relaxed. Jerusalem had been kind enough gradually to banish the war. "Well, what now?" I asked, "when is the broadcast?" "Ah, that's it, that's exactly the problem. There will be no broadcast," he told me. "I listened to the partial recording that we made and it's really good. And your reading of the poems is wonderful. However, the interview will not be broadcast. The station manager has vetoed it." "Vetoed it?" I was dumbfounded. "What did I say? What did I say that had to be vetoed?" "Ah," he replied, "that's just the problem. The poems you read came out really good. I'll see that you get a tape with the poems. Make sure you keep them, you may find a use for them some time. A wonderful reading, really touching poems about memories. Some of them may be the best war poems I have read recently."
"So what's the problem?" I pressed him, "why did they veto the interview?" "It came out a little defeatist," the interviewer told me carefully. "That's what they thought, the people at the station who heard it. This is hardly the time to be broadcasting defeatist talk on an Army radio station. Such an interview could lower the morale of the listeners, that's what they say at the station, we should keep it till better times."
His words astonished me. I had thought of everything except such a moralistic argument. Of all the objections in the world, they should veto my first interview because it was defeatist? I had had no choice but to give expression to all those mute witnesses who had spent such long months with a feeling of betrayal. I had been obliged to give voice to my depression, to share with the listening public my outcry, my protest, my despair. "I'm sorry," he said finally, after hearing all my protestations, "I'm really sorry. It's a pity your book will be forgotten. Perhaps we can meet again, after you publish your next book of verse."
But I haven't written any more poems since then, my next book of verse is taking a very long time. Unexpectedly, we did meet again, several years later, in very different circumstances. I happened to find myself one day in the flowering garden of the President's residence in Jerusalem, on the occasion of Hebrew Book Week. The garden was decorated, refreshing, everything was very colorful and eye-catching. I recognized him immediately when he crossed the lawn. I was sitting at the back as usual, in the last row of chairs. He came and sat down next to me. He hadn't changed much, only the lines on his face had deepened. He didn't recognize me, waved a hand in greeting to scattered acquaintances among the guests present and stared at the drinks table which was standing close by. I told myself that if he didn't recognize me, I wouldn't bother him. In any case, quite a few years had passed since the interview. I doubted whether he would remember our short but intense meeting in his Bohemian apartment near the city square. Suddenly I remembered Rami, the good-looking spoilt "pussycat" who had gone down to the corner store and brought us coffee and rolls. He had not accompanied him to the celebrations of Hebrew literature at the President's residence.
All of a sudden, to everyone's total astonishment, he leapt from his chair and started screaming and running towards the platform. The security men moved quickly, grabbed him by the arms and pulled him away. "This isn't a Hebrew Book Week", he screamed at the crowd and the dignitaries sitting on the platform, "it's just a commercial occasion for publishers." The security men returned him to his chair and forcibly sat him down. All the guests turned their heads towards us and suddenly we were the focus of attention at the celebration. He assured the guards he would take it easy but they were hesitant. One of them went back to his place but the other remained standing behind the protesting poet, resting a heavy hand on his shoulder and keeping him in his place. "Try it once more", said the security guard , "and we'll sling you out." The poet pretended to relax and said to him "Hey, bring me something to drink."
The guard went to the drinks table and immediately the poet sprang up and started running towards the platform. "You're all crooks, this is one big racket. It's a celebration of exploitation and theft, the swindling of poets." The security men ran after him, grabbed hold of him, lifted him up and flung him down at the edge of the lawn. He fell on the grass, dazed, and tried to stand up and brush his clothes. But they manhandled him. "So, you promised to relax, eh?", they held him between them and dragged him off like a sack. The master of ceremonies tried to calm the guests and the protesting poet was thrown outside the gate of the presidential residence. He held on to the bars and shouted something incomprehensible. The guards offered him a cold drink and urged him to calm down. Beyond the lawn they couldn't harm him.
"Your anger proved too much for you, eh?" I asked him. "Anger is a very bad counselor." He looked, suddenly recognized me and said "I remember you. You're the disappointed poet who came home a wreck from the war." We shook hands outside the barred gate and I asked him whether the interview we had recorded had eventually been broadcast. "No, it was erased", he said "and you have nothing to regret." I didn't tell him that since then I had ceased writing poems. And I didn't remind him of his promise that he would interview me again when my second book of verse was published. He stood there trembling, his shoulders aching from the rough handling by the guards. "And what happened to the good-looking boy, Rami, who was with you at the time," I asked. He raised his lined face, and gazed at me, and I suddenly seemed to see in his eyes the betrayal in my own that I had left behind me in the war. "I've no idea where he is now, that pretty boy, that curly-headed pussycat. You're really dangerous, with your poet's memory." I turned round, to go back to my place on the lawn, but to my surprise he added "do you remember his magnificent curls?" I waved my hand in goodbye from a distance and suddenly felt sorry for him, and for the handsome lad, and for my next poems which, perhaps because of everything that had happened to me, were taking so long to get written.
"Father Wilberforce!" a young female's voice was heard outside Father Wilberforce's home.
Father Wilberforce looked around, as though he had heard the voice inside his modest living room. A few seconds elapsed before he directed his eyes towards the window. He then saw a young woman waving her hand to draw his attention. Father Wilberforce paced quickly towards the door. He opened it and asked the young woman to come in.
"Father Wilberforce," she said in a rather tense voice, "I am sorry to bother you, but I need to ask you to come with me."
"Dear Alice… Please, sit down." He pointed towards an armchair nearby.
"Thank you, Father. I would rather not, if you don't mind. I am here to ask you a favour."
"A favour?"
"Well, you see…My sister is not well."
"Please, tell me what's wrong," Father Wilberforce said in a low and soft voice so as to assuage her visible tense state of mind.
"My sister has been quite sad in recent weeks. Her situation deteriorated until she would hardly come out of her bedroom. She doesn't want to see anyone, except me; not even my parents….She hardly eats."
Father Wilberforce placed the book he had been reading on a chair.
"Are you sure you don't want to sit down?"
"No, thank you, Father. I am worried. We all are. I thought you might be able to help. Please, come with me to see her! Would you mind, Father?"
"Give me a minute, Alice," Father Wilberforce said as he rushed to his bedroom to take his coat.
Father Wilberforce was well-known and very much liked by the people in his parish. He was endowed with a subtle sense of humour and a singular ability to listen to people with empathy without losing a certain sense of detachment to assess matters objectively when necessary. A friendly if rather reclusive person, Father Wilberforce was in his late-forties. He was particularly liked by children, who were able to elicit from him a rather spontaneously childish response, quite in contrast to his usual self-controlled demeanour.
Alice and Father Wilberforce arrived quickly. They went in. Alice's parents welcomed them.
"Thank you so much for coming, Father!" said the mother as she proceeded to lead Father Wilberforce up the stairs to Deborah's bedroom.
Deborah, Alice's elder sister, was in her early twenties. She was beautiful and highly intelligent. She was known to be a friendly and humorous person. Now, in her bed, she seemed to be a shadow of herself.
"Would you excuse me for a minute, Father?" said the mother as she went into Deborah's bedroom.
After a while she came out. "She doesn't want to see anyone. She hardly speaks," explained the visibly worried mother.
Alice intervened. "I spoke with my sister before I went to see you, father. You may go in. Please, Father. I beg you: Go in…"
Father Wilberforce opened the door delicately and entered hesitatingly into Deborah's bedroom. He sat down on a chair right next to Deborah's bed. He took her right hand and held it softly. Father Wilberforce sat down for a while without uttering a word. Then, all of a sudden, Deborah looked at him with a deeply melancholic gaze and mentioned his name, without his ecclesiastic title. He smiled at her.
"Dear Deborah…" Father Wilberforce started a sentence without being able to continue. He tried again. "Dear Deborah, could you tell me precisely what you feel?"
A minute or so elapsed before she replied, in a very low voice, clearly exhausted, "Like being in a big black hole."
"With no way out?" he queried.
Deborah raised her eyes slowly towards him, clearly surprised at what he had just said. "Yes. Exactly. With no way out."
"Are you able to imagine yourself trying to come out of that big black hole?"
"Trying to imagine that is an impossible feat, let alone seeing myself doing that," she retorted, still in a singularly tired tone and very low voice. Her reply made it clear to Father Wilberforce that she was being very coherent.
"What about leaving your room and going downstairs to the kitchen…Could you imagine yourself doing it?"
"Thinking about it is like imagining myself swimming across an ocean." Deborah's gaze turned downwards.
Father Wilberforce did his utmost to conceal his sadness. His eyes conveyed a sense of empathy and understanding. He was still holding Deborah's right hand softly, though he realized his hands were tense. He went on to ask her when did this acute sadness start. He then asked her about the way her sense of acute sadness evolved as the days went by.
"I understand you don't want see people, with the sole exception of your sister, Alice…"
"Well, and you, Wilberforce."
Father Wilberforce smiled.
"I don't wish to see anyone. I find I am overwhelmed by the presence of people. I feel almost suffocated," she went on to say.
Father Wilberforce thought it would be wise to leave soon. Before leaving, he asked her if she felt his presence had been too daunting. "Be candid, Deborah. You may, as I am about to leave."
"Less so than I would have expected," Father Wilberforce noticed a smirk in her face.
"So, I tell you what. If you wish I could come back tomorrow and stay with you for a short while. We can continue talking. For my part, I would be glad to do that." Father Wilberforce smiled waiting for an answer.
Deborah nodded in assent. "Is there a way out of this, Father?"
"Oh, yes, there is," he asserted.
He was right. The way out, however, turned out to be a tragic, rather than a happy one. The following day Alice came to his house, the same way she had done the day before. Only now she said to him, as she was crying, that his presence was needed to console her and her parents.
Father Wilberforce embraced Alice.
Twenty years previously the same fate had befallen the wife of William Wilberforce, as he was then known. The parents of Deborah and Alice were there to console him.
Yoav J. Tenembaum
When Kaludka Mitreva heard the door bell ringing nervously she felt a desire to hide her head in the sand and keep low. Anyway, she took her courage and started shuffling with her swollen feet towards the entrance hall. The attempt to calm down that it might be someone else at the door was slowly dying away. Reaching the entrance she tried to put a faint image of a smile on her face. Something suggested her relentlessly that it was Ms Mitsa – the older daughter of the master who had kicked the bucket and now the mourning after his death would pile close and distant relatives together like honey gathers bees for some days…
She realized her friendliness wouldn’t help her – the newcomer would push her aside from the door after staring at Kaludka even angrier because she had forgotten her key. Her anger was not subdued even by the people gathered round the coffin. After she nodded gracefully her head to some of the people she placed her frosted carnations on the breast of the dead man, she crossed herself and headed for the library which also used to be her father’s study.
It was doing to be a hard day. She had to stand all mourners, part of them she had never seen before but now they had come to accompany their relatives. Reconciled, her trembling hands groped for the lighter – it was rounded and elegant, a jewel brought from Japan.
Not having found it, she stuffed the cigarette angrily back into the box. She was resolved to meet Kaludka again and ask her for a match. It seemed as if Kaludka sensed the lady’s needs using invisible wires then she took a peep with questioningly arched eyebrows. She was ready to fulfill any wish but was flapped away by a negligent hand wave. The house maid set out for serving the “God rest his soul!” treat.
Kaludka was her mother’s distant relative. Mano Simitov had taken her kindly in his house to help with the household after his wife’s death. The old man had been tough, with a straight bearing, being one of those who had been resolved to live for ages. He had looked that way before several months when he had had a brain stroke which startled his friends and enemies. He had stayed longer in bed, started lisping his speech and limping a little with one of his legs so he had needed someone to help him. Kaludka, who was backbitten by his three children, had turned to be the most needed person in the house. Nevertheless, Mitsa did not condone her. She felt Kaludka and her thirteen-year-old grandson had a hidden intention to look after the sick man and his big house selflessly and, by the way, she was not the only one thinking that way.
Now she made a cup of strong coffee, checked with a finger whether Kaludka had dusted the furniture, then she fixed the rims of crochets and miniatures which she knew exactly where they had been placed for years. Every single ring from the entrance hall made her stare through the stained glass of the study to see whether Burian and Kalia had arrived. Kalia was her younger sister who was addressed as Kala by the home folks. They would never come together but their delay enraged her in that endless day of trouble… She was up from early morning and since then she had been burdened with the funeral duties: the endless bargain with burial agents who had got the wind of prey like vultures even before the old man had stiffened, settling of a grave, obituary notices, flowers… Mitsa threatened them in her thought: “It has always been that way but I will pay them back! As they are younger than me they have always chosen the easy way!”
Grief and anger mingled in her chest – she had not seen Kala for years and now she could not discern what teased her more: Kala’s absence in Mitsa’s life or the fact that she burdened Mitsa with all duties of their father’s burial in the hardest moment of parting with him. They rarely met each other. The younger sister lived in a town by the sea. She was engrossed in the routine of teaching and fear of her two children’s lives. Her girl had always had ailing health. Kala would come to the capital to attend conferences and seminars but they would always spot each other on the railway platform the last moment just before the departure of the train. They would shout at each other directions and words which the wind would blow away…
Mitsa did her best. She invited her sister to the big house that had been built with skills and creativity by her husband, the architect. A great gap opened between them after those words uttered by their mother’s deathbed. As if they were honest, they sought mercy and comfort but something had broken into between them and would never be restored. In their childhood their souls flew together in the air finding happiness in running across meadows or playing the piano together. It was a long time ago. Only the memory of it would suddenly rush through her mind and make her heart sink helplessly. The piano was gathering dust after her only son had gone abroad… The lady suffered. She had become a widow at an early age and now she acquiesced in living without friends because of her stubborn character.
Only Burian lived in the capital city. He was the youngest child of the old contractor Mano Simitov. He was a self-taught sculptor whom the nature had bestowed with a portion of dexterity and artistry. Great success demanded other things and he knew it. Rarely did Burian stay in touch with his sisters most often when Mitsa braced her energies to hold evening parties for fictitious fellows. Most of the people were artists who turned out because of their friendship with the architect or to derive benefit. Kala and Burian had been getting on well but recently she appeared to be worried and incommunicative, dispirited about her children and family living.
A handsome man about thirty, Burian, awaiting his glory watered his patience with Mavrout wine in merry crowds of friends or accidental female acquaintances whom he scrutinized in the mornings. He sometimes happened to prolong nights into days, so he got up at about noon with a pale expression on his face. He felt heavy with apathy and weakness. Some other times he suddenly sprang to life, fidgeting around the consecutive group of people or a person, got delighted or kept tenaciously silent and then his relatives knew he was about to do something stupid…
After Mitsa’s second call to remind him for that important day today, he came draggling, unshaved in his casual reddish velveteen jacket as it was with shiny with wear shoulders and elbows – inappropriate for the funeral ceremony in the house. His older sister’s initial impulse to send him back to change clothes vanished with the thought that he might get lost in the afternoon and miss the burial of his father. She couldn’t afford herself to deprive him of one more thing at that moment. He had brought a bottle from the contractor’s wine supplies and he accompanied every drink with a gesture bearing a resemblance to crossing himself and saying “May God, have mercy on my father’s soul!”
Mitsa left him alone and went to the living-room to look after the guests and inspect Kaludka’s work that had already served the luncheon and now was serving coffee in their mother’s favorite coffee set - in the fragile cups of Sever china. As it usually happens people and voices mixed together. The initial haughtiness of the relatives coming from the capital was dying away and now they were patiently and indulgently bearing the gurgling of those coming from the country where the boy who had risen to eminence as a successful contractor had started… Mitsa’s exasperation overwhelmed her again – for the third time on that long day when she saw the maid’s grandson around - a thirteen-year-old boy with large eyes who could not speak yet loved deeply by Simitov.
The door bell prompted the arrival of her younger sister as she would always do, few minutes before the dead man’s body was about to be carried out of his home… Although Mitsa was trying to overcome her anger, she felt apathy in her sister’s hug. Even now Kala’s mind was hovering above something else and was far away from any sentimentality…
She shook on the carpet her wet hat which looked smart on her head, gave her umbrella to her sister and made for the room where the dead man’s body was. She came back quickly after lighting a candle and leaving her flowers onto the dead body.
“Dad’s gone, Kala!” Mitsa groaned with a heavy heart. This time she really meant it.
“We are all mortal, sis, at least he saw life! May God give us strength to reach his ripe old age!”
“You are right, Kala!” the older sister responded and was seized with an uneasiness creeping up her veins.
“He has passed away but we who still live lets get to work; I am here anyway!” the younger sister said in a business like way looking at Burian who had half-closed his eyes but now caught a glimpse of her with his dull eyes.
“Let’s do it now. It is much better to settle this down than drag the issue to the court!” Mitsa agreed and darted a suspicious look at Kalia’s compliance.
“You, sis, have a big house in the center of Sofia which you inherited from your husband. Let Burian and I divide the patrimony!”
“Don’t even think about it! I took care of him: I was by his side whenever he was ill and even when he had caught a slight cold, especially now as he got that brain stroke! Both you and Burian could never be taken seriously – you have always been far at the seaside and he has been wasting his time with his friends!”
“Who – me?! How dare you say that? Dad died lonely and wanted to see none of you, you babblers! You don’t practice what you preach and now you act like vultures! I will take the ground floor, he pledged it to me! To turn it into a studio!” the little brother suddenly became sober and his eyes started sparkling maliciously.
“Much good may it do you! You will drink it away anyway! Let’s remise him the ground floor, sis, and each of us will take a floor. We will toss up for the furniture – it is antique and I have already figured out how it would match the one I have at home! It might be used to furnish our villa as well!” the older sister attempted to bring the argument to an end peacefully but her words faded away when Kaludka opened the door to announce that it was time to carry out Mr. Simitov’s body.
On their way to the cemetery they were sitting in the dead architect’s Mercedes, keeping silent and their eyes were angrily wandering away. They were looking neither at the hearse nor at the driver who was a family friend and had fully replaced the widow’s husband in everything…
It had been inconstantly raining all morning. The earth was muddy and the people’s shoes sagged here and there. While they were walking among the graves looking for their father’s, Kala and Mitsa leveled their pace and the nacreous lips of the older sister hissed as to remind of something to Kala.
“We have an agreement, sis, haven’t we! No more than tomorrow we should go to a notary while Burian is still unaware of situation!”
The rain lashes grew denser. The mourners opened their umbrellas and looked reproachfully at the priest who was diligently preaching his requiescat. Their feet squelched in the puddles, the wind swelled their raincoats…
Having thrown the flowers into the grave they headed for the bus. Then a shriek made them turn round. The shriek was inarticulate and it tore the pelting rain. It came out of Kaludka’s grandson’s mouth who had jumped into Simitov’s grave with a white carnation in his hand…The flower had stuck by the dead man’s head…
The undertakers took the boy out using ropes. The boy was covered with mud holding only the stalk of the flower in his shaking hand.
Ivanka Deneva
Translated into English by Daniel Gospodinov
translated from Hebrew by Suzan Rosenfeld
Yair is my name; my family name is not to be mentioned here - because it is a well known name in the Yeshuv, a respected one. For the sake of your boundless curiosity I will add only this: I am a violinist and kibbutz member.
An odd combination. A strange combination. Two things that don't go together. Don't pay any mind to what you've read in the old newspapers. That is to say, a talented violinist with a brilliant career ahead of him. And suddenly, while still young and with life's pull still vigorous and strong, he gets up and leaves it all and settles down in the deep loess sands around Beersheva.
Nonsense - note that down so you'll remember. Utter nonsense. Untruth, or worse, if there's anything worse than untruth. For what was it that aroused that venomous journalistic wrath? The career broken off malevolently. The musical genius who quit. Or that he threw away his potential on what was mediocre in him, and withdrew to the kibbutz. You, who are familiar with this life, would you believe it? Kibbutz - what withdrawal is there in it? From what did he withdraw and to what?
You see, everything is open to interpretation. An entire life is before you to interpret. A unique life story, repeating itself perhaps in double motifs. And so forth, ad infinitum. And its up to you to decide: perhaps as a journalist - that is to say, a great musician who became a small kibbutznik.
Or like my colleagues who stayed in the city and describe it as a unforgivable act of folly. An act meriting ostracism and disgrace. Or like my friends the metal worker and the welder - true friends - who discern that once this fellow had a different life, different breath, was enveloped in different air.
And its true: Once I was a well-known violinist for whom great things were presaged. The giants from Europe and from Russia spoke words of praise about me. That is, the gentle treatment of the sapling that is expected one day to be plentifully endowed with fruit - that true endowment, not counterfeit, for which everyone so yearns. For the record, I am even prepared to add that I haven't deserted music for a single moment, but have transferred it to a different production line, as people say colloquially these days. I have measured it out in different portions. I have adapted it to the realistic existence which I have taken upon myself. To the existence derived from that reality which I, as an omnipotent creator, quite to the contrary, took upon myself as a privilege and a duty, an effort and a pleasure, to celebrate as the reality of my life. Donut be hasty and go making generalization right away. I did nothing earth-shaking. I didn't debase what was lofty. I didn't raise up the lowly.
That is to say, basically, that I took upon myself the laws and customs prevalent in our bestial earthly kingdom. But I wanted to admit to it a little candle-light. To illuminate its darkness a bit. No, donut aggravate me with your impatience; not with the help of my music. My music is not lamp oil. I mean the light of a candle in a more spiritual, higher, purer sense. Or, to be more precise, a more purifying sense.
Now, when you pick up a record you look to see: Where is Yair's playing as opposed to that of the orchestra? Where are his brilliant performances? Where are his wonderful recitals which the journalists trampled so gleefully? Where are those echoing recitatives which he would squeeze out of the violin pressed to his brave chin? Where are they all? Into what ephemerality have they gone astray and disappeared?
The hand which pulled the bow has been exchanged for that which splits clods; the extraordinary fingers have been subjected to the suffering and blisters of a worker on the night shift in the plastic factory; the heart which thumped out tempos and melted time into them has been tuned to the depressing noises of machinery, and his soul he pioneering".
And you can add to your notebook, right away, without hesitation: prolonged, hard years of drought. The burning desert of Beersheva, the hazy loess wilderness along highways shimmering in the heat. Years set ablaze in the great bellows of the desert. Yes, that's good. It explains the background.
It prepares the listener for the period of metamorphosis which comes next. Here you sow the seeds of surprise. When it comes to the details of that evening after the concert, struggling with one another within a forced succession whose outcome, apparently, is already known to you from your previous conversation. From will call your former meetings with the other heroes of the affair. First of all, perhaps you ought to be more precise and say, the other heroines of the story. You persist? Very well: There was one man. Who? Correct, the ever-worried culture coordinator. Yes, I had almost forgotten about him. And really, between us, what importance do you attach to him? What you say about his being important as an accelerator can be considered laughable. The nuclear accelerator of this farce, of this drama of degradation.
Take note that I am evading nothing; nor am I denying anything. You expected a firm denial.
Your disappointment is reflected in your eyes and in your fingers scribbling energetically through the pages of your notebook. I won't deny it, because I donut feel myself accused. You want to hear my story too, - all right. You can add it to the accused". Here in this whole rotten story there are no distinct positions of innocence and culpability; there are no varying distances from the illuminating, nuclear center of some specific justice. We are all stationed in positions of equal punishability. No one among us is more worthy than the others.
Donut forget that in your hurried scribbling in your notebook. I quote: Equal reward for different work. That's the nucleus of the collective idea, isn't it? So allow me to ask, does this mean material reward or a reward which is not material? Televisions or a reward from above? Lets see if your as smart as you make yourself out to be. Go ahead, try to give me an answer: What reward is meant here? And donut make it easy on yourself, please. When we say work, what work do we mean? Serving this great Golem, the kibbutz? Or the service of the individual within the community? Or serving idols?
You see, you can immediately discern the weakness of formulas. Music in exchange for kibbutz. Neglect of the individual personality in order to blend into kibbutz existence. Conquering the wilderness of the Negev around Beersheva. With the strength of hands running back and forth along a conveyor belt of melted plastic, and not with the volunterable strength of musicians hands. Understood? I wont mention my last name, and I will not allow you to mention so much as a hint of it. I have the feeling that everything will be revealed if I should say it in public. That is to say, as long as those who know the family is a distinguished one, purebred, real, among the foundation stones of the Yeshuv, as long as that is all they're talking about - its not so bad. But the moment they start making ignoble connections and pointing out questionable blood relationships and known madmen in the family who must have passed on the iron-clad rules of their madness to someone, to some distant offspring - no, I refuse to put up with that. Not even at the price of the story. You wont find any of that on the dust jackets of records. Neither beneath my picture nor above it.
By the way, I have also renounced making records. You didn't know that either? What's with you, man? Why didn't you prepare properly for this meeting? All these things lose their importance if I'm having a dialogue with an ignoramus. You mumble and lead me to think that maybe you really know something, and that you curiosity is based on something deeper. And in the end, only shameful shallowness. You simply neutralize all the enjoyment I might have gotten out of the story. Sluggard - go learn something about the history of the Yeshuv, the history of great people, the history of the kibbutz. Have you ever heard of A.D. Gordon? Have you read Brenner? And, damn it, what do you even know about music? There's more to life than gossip. True, its sometimes hard to find in it more than snatches of gossip made by mere shadows of human beings within some lump of time collecting dust on its way through the present. Right before our wondering eyes. But this way you are liable to lose interest in what's going on around you. All at once I shiver as I feel a sudden draft blowing from within that zero, moving quickly toward me, making me dizzy for a few moments and then, fortunately - my good fortune - leaving me alone. Such polar frigidity, if it lays hold of you, can empty you of everything that was in you and leave you an empty and puzzled child, as if you had never traveled and experienced all those years, as if during their passage you had never been charged with an electrifying load which keeps you alive, as you are, longing for the music which you will never be able to play, and secretly taking pride, a miserable foolish pride, that after all, if art has eluded you and will not return, there still remains in your closed fist the train of the raiment of another existence which will not fly off and vanish so quickly. A settled, comfortable existence that you donut have to run after. On the contrary, it chases you. Sometimes kibbutz "pioneering". Sometimes it can be termed sacrifice. And sometimes it can be said that you have sold you soul to the Satan of Justice. Do you know what it means for your hand to cry at night from longing for a touch of the bow, for the vibration of the strings, the smell of lacquer, the curvature of the wood.
"Damned eroticism", as you inquired. Snare or pit? Facing you open notebook and your young hand running through it, I find it very difficult to phrase my words. I could simply throw the raw materials, main points, hints, and principles at you, and leave the job of formulating it to you. But I donut trust you. I'm afraid you're liable to disappoint me. Its not just a matter of formulating things. Its a much more inclusive organization. You have to decide which portion of the tremendous flow you're going to freeze. Then you have to decide how many times to magnify it, which details you wish to conceal, and which, out of strange gleeful vengeance, you wish to highlight. That is to say, who within you to leave exposed - which may prove dangerous although that's something you cant know beforehand. There may be danger inherent in it, and also pleasure. When you are alone with the violin you are doing the same thing: freezing a bit of time. And afterwards, when it begins to rise and float on the face of the formlessness, you choose yourself a focal length and a wave and frequencies and modulations and magnify and clarify. But not the whole segment. Only portions of it. The ones that seem relevant to the matter at hand. And here you are lost if the ear of your audience interferes. No deals under the table.
Any compromise is rotten. Only what your inner ear whispers to you. Donut take the audience of you listeners into consideration. They're charmed. It is you who are leading them. They have only two external ears, connected to their heads. But you have more. You have an inner ear joined to other systems as well as to the systems of your body. A sensitive ear which absorbs sounds from other worlds. They sit spellbound. You are bound to the source which pours into you. They stretch out to you, to the motions of your hands, to the pressure of your fingers, to the sound waves which you create from within your body, from within your body warmth, your sweat, your metabolism, your horrible smells.
You stretch in a different direction. You have someone else calling to you through openings torn in the acoustic lining of the ceiling. You are different. They are blind. Donut see the light penetrating through those openings. They are unseeing. They think that there is no rent in the ceiling.
That only fluorescent lamps are shedding light upon them. You have more. More light gets through to you, flows to you, standing on the little stage, the vase of lilies for concert nights shaking on its stand from the impact of the notes. You are alone with the sources that have opened up to you tonight. Here they are. Their hearts open up to you. It is you who bring forth and present to them. Donut collapse under the weight of this responsibility. Ignore them.
Woe to you if you stop to ask: What do you think? Do you like it? Run ahead. Donut stop. Store away the profusion now so that you'll be able to scatter it to them, crumb by crumb, on the day the heavens close themselves to you and you can receive no more of their light.
Damned eroticism." I have already told you, and I repeat. You donut know whether you are bringing down or being brought down. Whether you are conquering or are vanquished. It is a wretched crawling from the snare into the pit. And again, back and fourth, over and over. There are always charming young women standing there, the smell of their youth astonishing - hanging their legs over the concrete stairs and turning their heads back at the sound of the screen door... The slight, faint breeze ruffles their soft hair, and your heart bursts within you foe what is unobtainable. Here, if you ask me, I am prepared to make a declaration: The most beautiful thing in the entire world is the soft hair of a young girl blowing in a gentle breeze. Donut misjudge me for being so frank.
Everything else, I tell you, everything else is just stories. A cabin whose foundations are rotting. A neglected garden. Bats devouring all the juicy fruit of the mimosa tree. Just a young girls hair blowing in a gentle breeze and my heart slows to a standstill. The spring returning the screen door with a forceful slam. A car disappearing in the darkness between the trunks of the Indian birches with their notched bark. That is only the background, I tell you. Donut aggravate me. Write it down exactly like that: background. I take the cabin and turn it upside down, pull it up with its foundations. Until the fifty-year-old iron rods are suddenly exposed and I throw it far away, and in its place bring a lawn on Shabbat or a lounge deserted after a celebration or a drinking party. Do you get the idea? You move your bow, and from the belly of the violin produce the necessary note, which vanishes among the accessories. It can make its way in any direction. Because, for it, any direction is true. Trees, roads, houses - all can pass away. Because they are not true. They are here only by accident. A sort of wrapping which may or may not be removed. But the true note is not interchangeable. It is one of a kind.
Follow it and see how it escapes from the lounge in the direction of the cabin. As if of its own accord, by the force of gravity.
Damned eroticism". From the snare of the concert stage into the pit of the wide bed in the guest room which the violinist is given for the night. And the long road from the sandstorms around Beersheva to this humid and burdensome coastal plain which now threatens to settle on his tired heart and burst it by force of these things which only he realizes will never return. And follow him further, as he escapes, like a youth after his first act of love, through the window with its shattered hinges; as he makes a soft landing on the earth of the neglected garden; as he hurries instinctively in the direction of his car parked in the unfamiliar lot, turns on its lights, slices the foliage-encased darkness with the surprise of spotlights; turns in place and without even checking to see if he has thrown all his things into the trunk, he lurches ahead, wildly, until the degrading encounter with the gatekeepers on the way out of the kibbutz. Its obvious that your heroines have filled your granaries with useful information. You're in a bad way. Your filled notebooks wont save you. You'll have to decide: Do you favor them or me? The marks you put down on the paper with such amazing speed will not let you avoid a slow moment of thought. Where to now? With Yair to the pits yawning at his feet at each concert? With Zipporka and with all the complainers in the world, who are always betrayed by people more important and more noble than they - taken advantage of, led by the nose until finally a cruel justice is done to the swindlers? Or perhaps with pretty Naomi, with her lilies, her soft hair waving in the afternoon breeze? The sheet music which her pretty hand turns fore. Her body, her bed, her searing warmth. Or with the culture coordinator, who wasn't involved in the affair at all but just floated in it at his leisure, from a safe distance, step after step, until its strange denouement?
Take your time to make up your mind. I wont press you. I have plenty of time and I'm prepared to wait. Ill gladly postpone our next meeting. For a week? Two weeks? As long as you like. But you must remember one thing: Donut put my family name into your papers where it doesn't belong. Donut touch that name!
At first, it’s always the same. You know where you are going. You know things are going to happen the way you expect them to. Then, after a while, it slips. You can’t control anything. Things go wrong.
We are in the attic.
The room is rather neat. Zelda cleans it every evening. Quietly. Very calmly. She’s used not to making a sound. Not to making herself noticed. You can’t make yourself noticed.
It’s very dangerous. It’s so hazardous. It could be fatal.
Since they have taken the neighbors away, since her own parents have disappeared, she is quiet.
For her they had disappeared a longer time ago, but she can’t accustom herself to their real abduction.
So Zelda hides herself behind a servant’s apron. She does the housework, she washes the dishes, the linens, she serves at the table, she dresses up Madam, she plays with Pauline, the daughter, less with Julien, the son, older, less inclined to games, more sullen, less cheerful...
Madam. This woman fascinates her, she’d like to look like her, but how could that be possible.
The large flat is bright and situated in the heart of the city.
The city, the Nazis have settled in for two years now. Life is hard. The goods are scarce. Yet, Sir, Madam and the children always have meat for dinner.
She’d like to eat meat once in a while.
I imagine her in the evening, in her bed. She tries to remember the taste of meat. She must have eaten any for three or four years. Since she left home, since her father, the old fur trader Rissenstein sent her packing.
She had become too free and too libertine.
She knows Madam watches her undress sometimes.
Madam is a Russian. She is from the aristocracy. The White Russia. That which fled from the Reds. That of the tsars and criminal princes.
Madam’s name’s Cassandre. Sir’s Arthur.
Zelda Rissenstein works for the Fauberts. In Paris. In 1942.
So it’s the war everywhere in Europe. The concentration camps. The Resistants. The prisoners. The coupons. The children go bare foot down the streets. The grey colors of a city looking for itself. Everyone thinks you’re so happy here. Are they really?
The army of occupation is here, too often, too visible, it doesn’t seem it wants to let loose.
People disappear. People we don’t want on the French territory. People who the present régime wants to get rid of. The collaborationists give them to bring war prisoners back. We send the unwanted people away; we have the nation’s sons back. Families have a father, a brother, a son back home, it’s nice, and it’s comforting. The Caring Father* makes sure his citizens are well. That’s for the best. Indeed, those against whom we trade the prisoners, who gives a damn about them, they’re nothing, we don’t want them home, they’re scum, rubbish, robbers, liars, people we suspect.
Look at them, their nose, their eyes, their low forehead, their sharp chin, the black clothes they wear. How awful!
The state did well to neglect them, to suppress their jobs, to displace them, to forbid them being French.
Where are they sent by the way? Who cares? They disappear, that’s good enough. So we get our dear children back home.
Zelda hears all this when she goes to the market place, when she goes for a pack of cigarettes for Sir, when a letter needs sending.
Yet she knows she shouldn’t go out so often. She puts her life at risk any time she steps outside.
Where these people go, Zelda knows it well. Cassandre told her: “Zelda, my child, don’t try to go out, don’t rebel against us, you’re well off with us. Do you only know what they do to people like you? They make them work till exhaust. They practice experiment on them. The other ones they kill and burn them.”
How can Madam know all this? Cassandre. The Oracle. How can you believe such things?
Arthur came in Zelda’s attic last night. He only listened to her while she was sleeping. But while he was watching on her, he found a small bottle of perfume on the bed-side and remembered it was one of Cassandre’s.
He now knows what he had always suspected, this girl is a robber, her beauty stole his senses, and she didn’t just steal his heart and soul.
But he won’t say a word; Cassandre didn’t seem to complain from the disappearing of this small bottle of perfume.
On the following evening, Sir comes home late. Cassandre is alone in her bed. The children are asleep.
The bell rings in the attic and Zelda goes downstairs to show herself in front of Madam. Cassandre greets her dressed in a night gown. She is naked underneath this light piece of cloth.
Half-open, it lets Cassandre’s smooth and white legs show off.
- Go back upstairs my child, go back to your room.
Zelda walks up the tiny staircase. She goes back into her dark attic where only the fragile light of a candle helps her to see in the darkness.
Madam comes in the attic. She’s still wearing her satin night gown but it is wide-open now.
She slowly undresses her servant and drives her hand in the grey cotton panty.
Zelda recognizes there long gone sensations.
Cassandre’s hand join Zelda’s, spread on her breast and rubbing her nipples erected towards Paris grey sky, towards the yellowish ceiling of the dark attic.
Sir has come back home, but they haven’t heard him.
Sir had but one idea in mind. Get out of this freezing cold air, go up to see little Zelda and keep her company a bit of night, warm up against her, forget the horror.
Through the half-open door, he can see his wife, bare-naked, her head resting between Zelda’s thighs. He watches them, an unaware peeper. Zelda felt his presence. But she didn’t say anything; she lets the fire burn her.
What else is she thinking about? About her parents? About what happened to them? About the lost joy? About the joy she found again under Cassandre’s expert tongue.
She comes.
Arthur left them to their easy flow; he went back downstairs. He hanged off the phone. In a short time, life is going to collapse into horror.
He himself won’t be left unharmed.
An hour later, maybe it took them less time, the Gestapo is in the flat and two officers ran up the stairs driving them to the attic where Cassandre and Zelda have fallen asleep.
They are brutally woken up by iron wrought hands that cut their delicate bodies.
When the officers go out, taking both women with them, Arthur thinks about his brother, Armand. Armand is far away now. On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
He doesn’t know yet that he will join the two ladies in the Gestapo office tomorrow.
The future will be coarse for them three.
The year 1942 will be soon closing but three long years will follow.
When the souvenir of Zelda is not so insistent in his memory, Arthur will be en route to join Armand and try to forget his past completely.
Cassandre will have gone to other banishment places in the Siberian inferno.
Zelda died a long time ago. I helped her give birth to the child she was unknowingly expecting.
Both died in my arms, blown away by tiredness, hunger and cold.
1st published in French at http://revue.hauteurs.free.fr/zelda.html
Translated into English by the author.
*Philippe Pétain, chief of the French collaborationist government (régime de Vichy) during WW2 - from 1940 to 1944.
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