Magnapoets Short Stories

Wildlife (Margarita Engle)

We entered the rain forest on horseback, followed by a shimmering blue morpho butterfly the size of my hand.  On foot, we hiked up a muddy trail of slick stone steps and protruding roots, until we reached a rustic wooden ladder attached to a massive tree trunk.  Above us, the crown of the forest created an illusion of green sky.

From a tiny, hanging metal platform high in the canopy of branches and leaves, we took turns learning how to leap, before speeding along a "zip line" cable strung between treetops, shrieking at the thrill of gliding two hundred feet above the moist forest floor.  Timid and hesitant, I moved too slowly, and soon found myself dangling, trapped in midair, a flimsy harness and a few metal buckles the only things keeping me from plummeting down to the mulch of rotting leaves far below.

While I waited to be rescued, wild creatures emerged from hiding, invited by my terrified, stunned silence.  Suspended in blue time and green space, I hung like windblown laundry on a line, while all around me, animals stared.  I glanced up into the highest branches, feeling strangely comforted by the curious eyes of two brilliantly hued toucans, a white hawk, and a troop of reddish gold spider monkeys.

Oblivious to my plight, the rest of the botanists moved on, still gliding and shrieking as they zipped along the series of cables that led from one elevated platform to another.  They paused briefly on each level to gather a few rare orchids and bromeliads, reaching only the nearest branches, taking whichever flowers were easily available, before continuing the zip line adventure.  Meanwhile, I remained stranded where I was, swaying and silent, returning the sympathetic stare of a smiling, upside-down sloth.

Afterwards, I said nothing when the brave, noisy shriekers kept commenting on the scarcity of wildlife in such remote, primeval rain forest.  I had not collected a single flower.  If I boasted about the toucans, hawk, monkeys, and sloth, who would be quiet enough to hear me---who would be attentive enough to believe that all sorts of animals had calmly watched the strangely human, wildly primitive acrobatic display---listening to each feral scream, hearing the screeches, yips, and howls?

Night of the Scorpions (Elisha Porat)

Some months ago, a heavy, oppressive Hamsin-a desert wind-swept over the country. The heat suffocated chickens in their coops, trees withered and dropped their ripe fruits in the orchards.

In the heat trapped in the house, I had trouble falling asleep at night. Mosquitoes swarmed around the bed; strange insects rustled on the floor. It seemed as if even the jays couldn't fall into that peculiar slumber that birds sleep.

I grabbed a damp towel, went out to the porch, and lay down in the rope hammock that my neighbor had strung between the cypress trees. The grass glowed and thick warm air wafted from deep within the bowels of the gardens. At the edge of my field of vision, just before it was blocked by the right wall of the porch, the sloping roofs were swallowed up in the wind's clear skies.

Was there a full moon, or only a faint silvery crescent shining through the shimmering haze? What were those lights flickering in the gloom? And what was that dull rumbling sound growling from the shrouded orange groves?

I rocked slowly in the hammock. From far off in the dark rose the woeful lowing of penned cattle. I fled the agonies of insomnia and gave myself entirely to the hammock's sway, yielding myself so completely that I forgot where I was. The Hamsin wrapped me in its fever and I was borne aloft on the wings of misty memories to another parched night that I had endured long ago.

I could hardly believe how the hammock had transported me through the cracks of time. But I was suddenly free of the stifling Hamsin. Memory came back, sharp and clear, and I saw again the Night of the Scorpions as though it had happened under the hammock the night before.

On one such Hamsin night between the holidays of Passover and Shavu'ot, the earth's vermin rose up against a tired company of soldiers on the bright stone slopes of the mountains of Samaria. They rebelled with such fury that they nearly conquered the troops. A nice beginning, I thought, sinking into the rhythms of memory, and continuing to wrestle with the legacy of that Hamsin night.

In the blazing hot morning, when the exhausted men refused to go down to the range, I came out of the isolated command officer's tent and slowly went to the small compound facing the camp kitchen. A commotion had drawn me. The company commander, who had gone to brigade headquarters to get final orders for the last drill, was absent. His likable but bumbling deputy had no control over the agitated company.

The dangerous drill was driving all the men crazy. The Minister of Defense himself was coming to observe the men who had volunteered to put on their gear and fire a new model machine gun. For days, a tractor had ceaselessly churned up dust and gyrated below the slopes strewn with scorched rocks. The landing pad for the helicopter carrying the VIPs and top officers was meticulously straightened and leveled. The entire company groaned with an eerie fear even though every raw recruit knows that the Minister of Defense can't do anything to him.

Wan, ashen-faced, and drenched in sweat, his clothes gray and coated with dust, the Minister of Defense emerged dazed from the chopper's door. The unit's proud young officers carried him in their strong hands straight to the firing range to observe the last firing exercise, for which the company had worked non-stop for more than two weeks.

His ears were deafened by the sudden blazing bursts of the new machine gun, his eyes blinded by the glint of flashing map cases. He watched in astonishment as the thrown hand grenades blossomed into mushrooms of smoke. A touch of nausea gripped him and a young officer was dispatched to bring him a bottle of cola.

How was it that he had ended up in this burning desert? Why hadn't he managed to send one of his adjutants? And why had he allowed the Prime Minister, who was always occupied with urgent affairs, to force this unnecessary trip on him?

Far to the southeast in the broiling sun's hazy halo, I could see bewitching oases quivering in the incandescent air: lofty palm trees; gushing, refreshing streams; and deep shade beneath falling water. Jordan-Jericho on the border of the eastern sector. You couldn't shoot to the east of that, where camps of black tents were scattered on the seared slopes and tethered livestock bleated and mooed at night.

The unexpected confusion flustered our good-natured deputy CO. He wasn't used to such important guests. He cursed the stinking day and the CO's drawn-out trip and the terrible Hamsin, which had not consulted the commander's office up in the hills but instead had fallen with all its wrath on this lonely company. As if this weren't enough, he now realized that the company physician was also missing.

How had he overlooked that during the chaos of the night's troubles? He had gone off two days before with men injured in an accident, as though no one else could have accompanied them to the distant hospital. Why was he tarrying there? Why hadn't he come back when he was so badly needed here?

The three orderlies, conscientious men but inept and bewildered, hadn't slept the whole night. Actually, apart from me, I thought on my way to the grounds, who had slept that night?

The cries of the soldiers attacked by thousands of scorpions kept the breathless orderlies dashing among the tents. I hoped that the final live-fire exercise would be called off. Without our CO, the sympathetic and beloved instructor, and the good doctor, the men wouldn't dare open fire. I hoped that up there, at brigade HQ, they wouldn't approve the drill. No company in the world could give an exhibition exercise, before the Minister of Defense and his nit-picking staff, after a nightmarish Hamsin night such as we had just gone through.

I had never seen such an astounding spectacle in my life. All the desert's scorpions, thousands upon thousands-you couldn't tell in the sweltering dark whether they were yellow, black, or brown-had gathered at our unfortunate company's gritty camp. As if it weren't enough that men had been hurt in an accident or that soldiers had shriveled from thirst the week before.

The men ran around panic-stricken in their combat boots and skimpy underwear; the heat of the Hamsin wouldn't let anyone stretch out on his mattress. Even the bravest of the company's soldiers, the proud volunteers who took pride in shooting the new machine-guns, shouted for help. The tormented drivers jumped into their seats, someone shouted an order and their headlights went on. The vehicles began to plow through the camp, crushing thousands of stinger-drawn scorpions.

But beneath the ground pulp sprouted new scorpions erupting from the sand. Column after column formed up in the furrows left by the drivers' wheels. From the eastern sector, from the general direction of the refreshing Jordan-Jericho, rose a strange vapor.

Was a full moon shining over the company? Did it illuminate each dark segment on the tails of the hordes of scorpions? Did I hear the insects screaming? Could I hear the cry of these small creatures? Or had I too lost my mind, just like the raving soldiers of our abandoned company? But the dark tent's flickering lights calmed me down. The tranquil lowing of the cattle skipped on the breeze, and the placid bleating of goats betrayed no sign of fright or discontent.

The poor deputy CO summoned the platoon commanders and the incompetent orderlies, mess hall tables were turned into improvised cots, mattresses were hung between tent poles like large hammocks. The terrified soldiers climbed into them as if they were sent to their rescue. On the tables, the scorpions strode across the rifle butts.

That pleasant, acrid odor given off by the tingling acid of ants spread over the encampment. Was it this cloud of gas, of evaporating ant gas, that had called all the desert's scorpions here? Layer upon layer of the insects were stomped and trampled, but below them, inside the fissures of the earth, welled up fresh new battalions of swift, fearsome scorpions, their tails unfurled and their stingers raised.

Woe to him who made the mistake of flicking on his flashlight for a moment or striking a match. Woe to him who drew masses of scorpions streaming towards the source of light. And woe and more woe to him who hadn't fled from the campfires, into which the insects crawled endlessly and unwaveringly and then split open in the flames.

It was only the officers' tent, off by itself, that none of the scorpions entered. I, who had been left alone in the tent, was besieged. I couldn't go out into the sea of scorpions rolling and seething below me. In the tent, seized by madness, orders were given in savage, throat-wrenching shrieks. The dryness of the air, the burn of the east wind, and the relentless heat radiating from the ground scrambled the company compound, turning it into a thick stew of lights, screams, dust, and the stench of these repulsive vermin. Heaps of their dead were piled up everywhere.

Could it be that I alone had been spared all this pandemonium? Was it possible that only I had lain on my army mattress, propped my head in my hands and wondered how it all could end?

Through the rolled-up tent flap, I saw the warm lights of the shepherds' tents and heard the tranquil sounds of gurgling around the dust-ridden company camp. During the day, when I sweated on the range and followed the shooters and cursed the careless, I didn't notice these sounds. The roar of gunfire and the range marshals' orders blotted them out, but now on my bed, cut off from everything, I imagined that I would even be able to hear the roosters crowing just before sunrise.

I didn't dare get off the mattress for a minute. The canteens I had filled and put beside me grew heavy against my rolled-up shirt. To defend myself against the invaders, I also heaped up crinkling sheets of newspaper around me and wedged thick board under the mattress, a barrier against scorpions that also worked against back pain. I tied my shoes above me in the lashing and ignored the cries of the soldiers, the rumble of angry engines, and the screeches of the abandoned company's radio receiver.

I drifted to the cool falls of Jordan-Jericho, to the brooks and the dripping ferns and the secluded river's shaded recesses, all the way to the boundary of our eastern sector, beyond which it is absolutely forbidden to shoot. Anyone who dared shoot there during the final live-fire exercise, in the presence of Minister of Defense and his trailing entourage, would be hauled before the CO for summary judgment.

My rope hammock suddenly creaked beneath me and the trunks of the cypresses trembled. From the closest houses came a child's sudden cry. Had I momentarily awakened from my nightmares? Had all the creatures of the desert risen up against us that night? Bats woozy from the heat beat on the roof of the porch. I swathed myself in the damp towel, which had already grown warm on my feverish brow.

If I hadn't been sleepy and lazy, I'd have gotten up and soaked it again. The night of the scorpions appeared before me like a dream that had never happened. Had a torrent of sweat drenched me then too? Had the throbbing of my heart suddenly pounded so dreadfully in my ears?

Toward morning, the desert's vermin mercifully abated their attack on our wounded company. Their throats parched, the men of our broken troop began to shout the good news from tent to tent. The company CO heard of the surprise assault made by the desert scorpions. He was already on his way back, returning from brigade HQ with a small convoy carrying everything we needed.

From below, from the desert road, the radio picked up the doctor's concerned voice as he hurried back with an ambulance driver. They would be at the camp in just a few more minutes. And the tidings we had all hoped for also went around: the final exercise had been canceled because of the brutal Hamsin.

The Minister of Defense personally expressed his desire to visit the battered company another time. One of his top adjutants was already seeing to the arrangements.

One platoon leader, a member of the nature society, suddenly got an order and announced in an authoritative voice that he really needed heroes now. He would painstakingly classify each type of scorpion that had attacked us in the night. Not one would be overlooked.

Whoever had any strength left, any fighting spirit, was invited to sift through the piles of corpses, aided by the field guides he pulled out of his knapsack.

Through the open flap, I heard the roosters crowing in the distance. I saw the lights going out in the shepherds' lodges. And I heard the flocks going out to pasture, to the glowing slopes of the eastern mountains of Samaria. Had there been any injured? Wounded, stung? No, I don't remember; I think not a single soldier was stung.

Such strange incidents occur in nature. In the crazy desert, you always expect surprises. So what had all this been? A horrible Hamsin dream or a true vision of terror?

That Hamsin night between the end of Passover and the holiday of Shavu'ot, on the ivory limestone slopes of Samaria's mountains, I saw how the desert's insects had risen against a far-flung company of soldiers, laying siege to the camp, blocking all routes to the water tanks and the ammunition depot. They streamed over the cracked earth and overran the mounds of gear meant for the final live-fire exercise.

It was as though they had a well-prepared plan for foiling the drill. Some of them even were caught in the chair intended for the Minister of Defense.

Their stingers held high and reeking of acidic vapors, these daring insects had confounded all insecticides, all swatters and sprayers. Not far off was the moment when they would drive the company's stunned men off into the desert, a humiliating flight that would rout soldiers wearing only skimpy underwear and heavy combat boots.

I sat by the edge of the tent, draped in a mosquito net. If it was good against gnats, it should be good against scorpions. Loud, heart-rending ballads came from the shepherds' tents. I was struck by a desert yearning that has no name. Had someone called me? Had someone tried to talk to me that night? Had the scorpions been sent to me? And who was I, a frail man, that I could read the writing of insects?

I rose with the rising sun. I put on the rolled netting like a transparent dress. Jordan-Jericho savagely drew me. Who would come to our aid? What could we grab to keep us from slipping among the swaying tails? Who would protect us and prevent us from falling under the upraised stingers?

The jays struggled awake in the dense boughs above my porch. The brief Hamsin night had come to an end. The wet towel that I had wrapped around me had long since dried out. The rope hammock had pressed red creases deep into my flesh. I was all mixed up by what I had seen and remembered. Before I escaped to my bed, I remembered, with difficulty, where to find the switch to the air conditioner.

(Translated from the Hebrew by Alan Sacks)

Truth Be Told (Aurora Antonovic)

 
Truth be told, every family’s got one. You know, a crazy relative they keep tucked away in the background, trotting them out only when they have to, being nice to them ‘cause they’re family.  Well, in my family, we had two of them. Yep, that’s right, two.  One, of course, died long before I was born, and that was my Granny Alder.  The older ones in my family sure could tell tales about her and all her crazy ways, like how she used to try to sneak salt inside the sugar bowl, and watch people’s faces get all screwed up when they tasted their coffee, and then cackle real crazy like.  Then there was the times she used to sneak up behind people, at family dinners and all, special occasions like birthdays, and Christmas, and bop them over the head with a broken piece of broom handle. Yeah, she was a crazy one, all right, and her daughter, my Aunt Louella, Daddy’s younger sister, was just as crazy, some say even worse.

Aunt Louella was a tall, skinny woman with straw like hair that she would pull back into a bun, all tight, with a hair net wound over it. She would go to her job, at the mill, day after day, and come home and rock in her chair, night after night, until it was bedtime, only leaving home to go to work, and once a week to go grocery shopping. That was it.  She was afraid of all kinds of things, like horses, and bumble bees, and having her picture taken. Most family photos showed Louella hiding behind trees, or one of us kids. But the worst thing she ever done was the time my Granny Alder died, and Aunt Louella pulled her up out of the coffin and cried, “Don’t leave me, Mama!” and something flew out of Granny’s nose, like a piece of cotton or something that the undertaker had placed up there. They had to pull her off, and try to put Granny Alder back together, and keep Aunt Louella locked up til they buried Granny. Yep, no fooling, Aunt Louella was a crazy one.

Well, Daddy had always taught us to be real polite to Aunt Louella, her being his youngest sister and all, and we was. We talked nice to her, and we would visit her on Sunday afternoons and tell her about church and all, and name everyone who asked after her. Mama would send her chicken dinner every Sunday, sometimes with the apple pie that was Aunt Louella’s favourite, and she would eat it with her hands, as if she was starving.  We put up with all of her crazy ways, until….well, until Daddy died.

You see, my Daddy had been feeling poorly, and one day he came in with his hand on his stomach, and a worried look on his face, which was all grey-like, and told Mama he didn’t feel so good. When she asked if she oughta send one of us to get the doctor, Daddy fell over, just slumped-like, on the kitchen table and made one sound, like an “Ooof”, and then Mama ran to him and lifted him up while my brother Billy ran like the dickens to fetch Doc Morgan.  By supper time that night, my Daddy was dead.

It was hard, all right, Mama bawling, and all my brothers and sisters crying like the world had ended, and me wanting to go to bed and wake up and find none of this had happened, but of course, it had, and there weren’t nothing I nor Mama or anybody could do about it, so we set about making funeral arrangements. And then the topic came up about crazy Aunt Louella, and Billy said he’d watch her real good so she wouldn’t jump on Daddy in the coffin and try to lift him up like she’d done to Granny Alder. You see, Billy was the oldest in our family, and he remembered what Aunt Louella had done.  He was big, and strong, and fully able to hold Aunt Louella off, but Mama wanted to try to talk to Aunt Louella first, in the hopes that this big scene could be avoided.

Well, when Mama talked to Aunt Louella the night before we buried Daddy, Aunt Louella went all blank like. Then she started wailing and crying, “Oh, my Georgies’s dead!” and then called for Granny Alder, so we knew this was a bust.  Mama’s gentle words couldn’t control Aunt Louella. So Mama came home and told Billy, “Son, you do whatever you gotta do, but keep Aunt Louella off of Daddy.”  Billy promised he would, and so did Randy, the second oldest, who was just as big and tough as Billy. We little kids all promised we’d keep an eye on crazy Aunt Louella ,too, but the next day, something at the funeral happened that nobody could have foretold.

You see, Aunt Louella showed up, and she kind of sensed, maybe in the way she was being watched, that she wasn’t going to get an opportunity to jump on Daddy as he was lying in his casket.  She just sat in the back row, her tiny, icy blue eyes darting back and forth, not really looking at anything in particular, just moving nervous-like.  But then part of Mrs. Simmon’s baby’s rattle or something came off, and he was choking, and turning blue and all, and Mrs. Simmons was screaming for someone to do something. Billy stepped through the crowd, and picked up little Lester and gave his back a good whack. Doc Morgan was right behind, but it was Billy who got the  piece of plastic that had been stuck in little Lester’s throat,  to just fly out, and we was all happy. It was just then that Aunt Louella must have sensed an opportunity or something ,’cause next thing we knew, she was at Daddy’s casket, and neither Billy nor Randy was near enough to grab her.

Well, we also have a brother we call Buddy, except that’s not his real name. It’s Walter, but everyone just calls him “Buddy” and he seems to like it. He’s real little, and scrawny, and he’s got them same kind of icy eyes like Granny Alder and Aunt Louella had, and truth be told, maybe he’s got some of their crazy ways, ‘cause of the way he looked, right at Aunt Louella, and  real quietly, but powerful-like, he faced her and said, “I wouldn’t be doing that if I was you, Aunt Louella”, and she says, “No?” like it was a question, and real serious-like, he says, “No.”  Well, Aunt Louella backed off, totally walked backwards, too, to her seat in the back of the room, and the Parson went up front and took over and gave the sermon so we could bury Daddy.

And Aunt Louella seemed to like Buddy better after that day. She would sometimes let him eat some of the apple pie Mama sent her on Sundays, and she would let him tell all about Sunday service and everyone who asked about her as they ate their pie.  After that, we all started noticing changes in Buddy, more of that crazy look in his eyes just like Aunt Louella’s.   We started seeing him do odder and odder things, like talking to himself and killing bugs, and spending hours twirling as he sang.  We figured the next funeral we’d be having, we wouldn’t have to watch out for Aunt Louella anymore. Nope, it was Buddy we’d have to be watching. Seems some craziness can run in families, I reckon. Truth be told.

first publised in The Sidewalk's End 

HOME by Mois Benarroch

HOME

TRANSLATED FROM THE HEBREW BY ROCHELLE MASS.

            

A

“ I burned the best book I ever wrote the moment it was finished.  It was  perfect, it couldn’t be improved, I can still see it in front of my eyes, the smoke rising from it, reminding me that the book that exists is as  valuable as the one that no longer exists.”

            (Paulus The Sad,  “Memories of Pancho Del Toro”, as quoted by Menashe Har Esh, in his book “HOME”.)

The first time I heard about the book ‘HOME’ was when I was five years old, my father showed it to me proudly:  “One day you will read this book.”  I answered him as proudly: “I will write it!”  He yelled and reminded me that just the year before I had said to him:   “Father, write Bialik’s poems for me” after I had heard Bialik’s poetry for the first time in the kindergarten.  My father was a future poet.  He had written maybe five poems, however, he always talked about the big book of poetry he was about to write. He would come home every year with a new car, saying:  “My son”,  he never called me by name,  “this is a new car, but truthfully I would rather write a book of poetry than write a new car, buy a new car, for it is only matter, you understand, and matter goes, it conquers you, controls you.”  The years passed and following the period referred to as the “Shopping Spree”   he seemed very sad because we owned the same car for more than ten years, even rides were few because there was a scarcity of both fuel and coupons from the government, few spare parts and not much money.

He could talk for hours about the book, for an entire year that’s almost all he talked about, even though I was only six years old I understood that the book dealt with the connection between parents and children, the home, the importance of the woman in the home, about the end of the century, the end of the millennium, about the loss of love.

            “There’s no love in the world”, he told my mother one morning, and started a great philosophical discussion about love through the centuries, “Just like Har Esh says, Menashe Har Esh, in his book HOME - and so on, without end, talking in words I couldn’t understand.

            Years later I heard about the book from my girlfriend Michelle when I was fifteen.   She also talked about it with the same astonishment and wonder,  as others did later.  However, what surprised me was that she seemed to be  referring to another book altogether.  She said that this book was about a journey to

India

in which the narrator, David Malchi, goes to find his roots and returns to Judaism.  I remember, for sure, that was the last time I ever saw the book. I saw the jacket, the picture of the camel, however, from my childhood memories and my father, I had adamantly refused to read it.  My father’s words: ”One day you will read it” continued to echo in my head, then my answer:  “You won’t decide for me what I’ll do and what I won’t, I’ll decide for myself, if I decide not to, it’ll not be what you want Father, especially not what you want.”

            Years passed.  HOME was forgotten, I began to write books of poetry and then novels.  From time to time someone would mention Menashe Har Esh as a poet and somewhat strange author  on the margins of Hebrew literature who published four books as well as another that no one had even seen a copy of for at least ten years.  This was, of course, HOME .  I’m about to tell you the story of the search.   From time to time a visitor would quote a few lines of the book from memory, or mention it, or describe the plot.  Each reader, of course, remembered another story line.

            Not only did I decide to look for a copy of the book, I also wanted to read it.

As my father said,  his words took on another meaning after the birth of my two daughters.  They became softer, a sort of stroking of memory during difficult moments.  No doubt we are living in difficult times.

            The first person I went to see was his son, Yoel Har Esh,  a famous Homeopath in

Jerusalem

.  It seemed that he had been waiting for years for the moment someone would ask about his father. “Twenty or twenty-five years ago, it’s hard to say with the new calendar, he disappeared.  I was thirteen years old, after my Bar Mitzvah, I’m sure,  thirteen.  The book,  HOME, was in my possession, but after he disappeared I threw it out, with the dedication and everything.  I was very angry with him.  Perhaps I understand more today.  He was very closed, loved very dearly on the one hand, suffered a great deal, as a child, from his father.  You know that Homeopathy  distinguishes between personality types.  Today I understand and maybe because of it I went to study Homeopathy.  I wanted to learn about my father and myself, he was a Natrum Muriaticum type, one who  seems relaxed, seems to deal well with his environment, but keeps it all inside him.  One day they just get up and go to live in some deserted village, they don’t talk to anyone, they’re completely alone.

            “Without a doubt he deeply suffered from lack of literary success since he had invested all his resources in that, and the responses were so minimal.  He talked a great deal about HOME, said that this was his greatest creation.  He probably wrote it when I was seven years old, in school, he printed the book himself,  brought it to me with a personal dedication.  I don’t remember what he wrote, I really don’t know, something about a house, maybe, the family, a family book, he talked a lot about his own father, a little about his mother, it seemed the book was printed in only a few copies, maybe a hundred, maybe two hundred, no more than that.”

            “Didn’t you look through it?  Didn’t you read it?”

“It wasn’t exactly a children’s book.  Maybe here and there I read a few pages, I didn’t understand much, it was written in very complicated  language, certainly not for children, he talked a great deal about the book, then one day he stopped,  just like everything else he did.  He would talk about one subject for months, for years, then you wouldn’t hear a thing about it, he would go onto another subject, to astrology or homeopathy, then would write a book, then would talk about the book he was writing and nothing else, and then onto something else, like Kabbalah.  All the time it was another topic, then  one day he’d stop talking about it, and one day he completely stopped speaking and disappeared.  My mother never understood, she died two years after he disappeared.

            “And your sister?”

            “My older sister died two years ago.  In the year 66 B.E.D., Before the End of Days.  If I’m not mistaken, that is how they counted the years till the End if Days.  It’s sort of confusing.”

            “They added a year.”

            “Oh, yes, you’re right, they added a year, so it is 66,  but anyway it was two years ago, maybe her children have the book, maybe her oldest, he must be about twenty now, but my sister lived in New York.  I don’t know where her son lives, she was much older than me, so there wasn’t much connection between us.”

            “Friends?”

            “He had a friend who is still living, he’s a lecturer at the University, Goldstein.  Professor Goldstein.  He’s really the only one, I think, that teaches a course about him.   He didn’t have many friends, he was always busy writing. Tell me, why are you looking for this book?”

            “It’s a long story, it’s connected with my father.  He would show me the book all the time, he was very contented of it, and told me that one day I would read it, a childhood memory. A memory that persecutes me.”

            “A strong father, a difficult father ... I understand.”

            “Can I come and talk with you if I have more questions?”

            He didn’t answer.   The next day I went to see Prof. Goldstein at the University on

Mount

Scopus

.   Prof. B. Goldstein was written on the door.

            “You must have come to talk with me about an important subject.  It’s dangerous to come here, I haven’t left the building for years, they’re shooting everywhere.”

            “Shooting?”

            “Yes, I don’t know where people live, each time I poke my head out the window I see a bomb lying over there.”

            “Menashe Har Esh.  The House.”

            “Menashe Har Esh?  No one ever asked me about him, what brings you to ask about Menashe Har Esh?  And, about The House.  This book is essentially fictitious, it has not been written.  Har Esh spoke about it, even published a few copies of that name on his own account, but these were chapters from other books, a sort of collage.  I am not even sure that it was published.  I never saw a copy.”

            I look at him sternly, and said, to him, without reason:  “You are lying!”

            “I’m lying?”

            His face showed that he hesitated to admit he was lying or that he wanted to throw me out of his office.

            “He was my good friend and a very talented author.  He wrote seven books, a cycle of seven in the life of the world, or something like that.  Each book was to be one of the seven planets revolving around the sun, one of the fast planets, also one of the days of the week, and other symbols.  It was a failure, that is, the man worked on the project for more than twenty years, and it failed in literary and economic terms.  He believed in his books.  I told him to write a book a little more open symbolically, a little more communicative  and he brought me ‘HOME’.  I fell apart when I saw the manuscript.  It was madness.  At that time it was suicide to talk about the holy temple in Hebrew literature.  Maybe even now I don’t know,  it was literary suicide on a large scale, that’s what he called it.  He would have committed suicide every day, Menashe, he said to me, I remember his words exactly:  ‘Baruch - these words  are in the air, I don’t choose them, they come to me, they land on my pages.’  I thought this was absolutely nonsense.  Derida also said that there are things that must be written and someone simply does it.  That’s the way he justified Nazi articles by his teacher and that’s the way he was able to justify his philosophy of life, you understand.  Someone has to write it, and so it’s written.  Where is freedom of choice?  He was very angry with my criticism and since then our relationship cooled a great deal.  I haven’t seen a copy of the book, however I heard that he printed a limited series of HOME.  I don’t know if this is right or not, I am not able to tell you, but I think it’s true.”

            Suddenly I remembered his name, Baruch Goldstein, I’d heard it before.      

            “Baruch Goldstein, do you know where your name comes from?”

            “My father was called Gold.  He was born in the United States, seemed this was an abbreviation of Goldenberg, but there was a just man called Goldstein and so he changed his name to Goldstein, gave me the name of the Baruch Goldstein, the Just.  I really don’t know what he did, but there are people that go to visit his grave.  I have never gone there.  I don’t believe in graves.  I don’t even go to Razin’s grave.

            “I heard that Baruch Goldstein was a criminal,  that he’d go into Arab homes and murder the husband, then rape the wife.  Something like that.  Sort of a Jessie James of the Wild East.   I don’t know what’s true and what’s not.  They also say that he murdered a Minister during the War for Peace.”

            “The War of Peace?  I haven’t yet heard about that war.  I don’t know anything about this Baruch Goldstein and I have no interest in him.  The past is so confusing, the present isn’t anything special.  I have been sleeping here for the last two years.  I haven’t left the building.  My home was ruined.” 

THE HAND OF CIRCUMSTANCE

            Two weeks later I took a walk through Nahalat Shiva, on

Yasser Street

.  Suddenly I felt a hand on my back.  A big man with a white glove stood behind me and talked so quickly that he swallowed half his words.  “I’vegothe book thatyoure lookinfor.”

            “How do you know that I’m looking for a book?”

            “Iknow... comewithme.”

            I went along, trying to keep up with his pace.  We came to the place, through Gan Oslo, to

Ya’acov Razin Boulevard

, then to

Aza Street

.  All the way he talked.

            “Youknowwho Ya’acovRazinwas? He was a very wise man from Morrocco who was murdered by Arabs in the uprisings of

1929 in

Tel Aviv.  A very just man, and now, every first of the month of Heshvan there is a celebration for the Babba Razin, did you know that?”

            “I heard about it, but I don’t like crowds.”

            “Everyone cries and lights candles, there are always people that go to visit the grave on

Mount

Razin

to light candles.  He was a very just man, so on the day of the festivities people buy lots of things they don’t need so as to improve the economy of

Israel

.  This is a very important act, buying  as much as possible, especially when there is a celebration for a just men, like the Babba Razin, and also for the Rebbe Yehuda Perski Shalitah.  His street is over there, not far.  You have to return to the faith, David.”

            “How do you know my name?”

            “I dreamt about it.  Besides, I dreamt that one day you would be the King of Israel.”

           “Ah ha!  King of

Israel

.  Is there really something like that?  We already have King Hassan, he is the king of the entire country, isn’t he?”

            “Never.   We’ve arrived.”

            We went into a house without electricity or television. In the corner of the room sat a child of about twelve years old, smiled at me and sang:  “My father told me the messiah will come tomorrow.”

            “Sit down here for a minute.  I have the book for you.  Here it is.”

            The book was completely stuck together, perhaps from the heavy humidity that filled the house.   HOME was written on the cover,  without any mention of the author.  The first page was faded, however it was possible to read the dedication ‘to my friend Professor Goldstein’  more or less clearly.  And  it was possible to understand something on page 48:  “Your Honor, the Judge ... my apologies, Your Honor, I never said that I agree with murder, however, I am happy that this individual was murdered, I am happy since I didn’t like him.  I am also happy that my father died, since he left me a large inheritance.  If every person who derives pleasure from the fact that someone has died is put in jail, you’d have to put half of the country into jail.  King David  organized a banquet after his son Absalom died, didn’t he?”

            What came after was all faded, pages were stuck one to the other.

            “Home, Home.  My holy

Temple

.  I weep for its destruction, I am already weeping for your construction, dead stones, many Rabbis,  ..... dark and hollow, once again the same lack of understanding, I weep for the destruction and you..” again faded.

            “But,”  I said to him,  “How do I know that this is the book?  The name of the author does not appear anywhere.  How do I know that this is Menashe Har Esh’s book and not a book of the same name of someone else. Maybe according to the dedication, however, I would guess that many people have dedicated books to a professor of literature.”

            “This is the book and this is the house.”

            “Can I buy it from you?”

            “No, I am not selling it.”

            I thought that this was a form of bargaining so as to get more money, but soon enough I realized that I was mistaken.

            “I am ready to give you 200 zuzim.”

            “You make me laugh. What can you do with 200 zuzim?”

            “What’s happened to you?  That’s apartment rent for a year.”

            “I already have an apartment.”

            And the child began singing something again about salvation and the messiah.  It seemed that this is what they talked about all the time.

            “You should know that this is an important  book for encouraging the coming of the Messiah.  They say that whoever has it in his home when Ben David arrives will be the first to visit the

Temple

with him.  There are maybe another ten people who have this book.  Maybe less. However, no more than seventy people, that’s for sure.  This book is worth more than my house.”

            “Tell me, what is the dedication to Professor Goldstein?”

            

“Baruch Goldstein, the wicked, beastly one, who makes generations of students crazy, and pushes them to go from Judaism to the the State religion…, State religion… We didn’t expect that even in the holy writings.  I don’t know why he dedicated the book to him,  in any event I never bought it from him, rather a woman ....... after her husband’s death, who lived not far from my house.  She’s also passed away in the meantime.“

            I continued turning the pages of the book while we talked, and the pages began to separate, something which didn’t make the reading any easier.  It was possible to read a sentence here and a sentence there, but I wasn’t sure that this was the book, and the more I read things seemed very far from the book that I was looking for.

            “Thank you”, I said.  “You were a great help to me.”

            “Go on your way, don’t be afraid, David.  The day will come when you’ll rule

Israel

, don’t lose your way.” 

            “The Jerusalem Syndrome,”  I said to myself and left his house.

            I ran to

Mount

Scopus

to meet with the professor.  I found the University closed.  People were running in the hallways, bringing tables, chairs and books.

            “What’s happening here?”

            A pleasant woman who looked like a guide in the confusion said: “The University is closing.    In its place the Observer Yeshiva will be erected.”

            “A Yeshiva?”

            “A reform Yeshiva.   The University is closing down because of a chronic lack of funds.  It should not be forgotten that more than half of the Jewish population in

Jerusalem

is reform.”

            “I didn’t know that.”

            “ It’s a fact.”

            “I’m looking for Professor Goldstein.”

            “I don’t think you will be able to find him.  Everyone left quite disappointed.  They won’t be returning.  It was sudden.  We bought the place through a tender ... an auction. “

            “I’m looking for a book  by Menashe Har Esh.

            Someone walked quickly by and suddenly stopped.