melancholy, because I do not know what other term to use.
I was ill. Even when Dr. Urbach announced that he was satisfied that the complication was cleared up, and that I was free to resume a normal life in every way, even then I was still ill. However, I resolved to move Michael's camp-bed out of the room where the cradle was. From now on I took the care of the baby on myself. My husband was to sleep in the living room so that we should no longer distract him from his studies. He would have an opportunity to catch up on the work he had been prevented from doing the previous months.
At eight o'clock in the evening I would feed the child, put him to sleep, lock the door from the inside, and then stretch out by myself on the broad double bed. Sometimes at half past nine or ten o'clock Michael would tap gently on the door. If I opened it he would say:
"I saw a light under the door and I knew you weren't asleep. That's why I knocked."
As he spoke he looked at me with his gray eyes like a thoughtful elder son. Distant and cold, I would answer:
"I'm ill, Michael. You know I'm not well."
He clenched his hand on his empty pipe till the knuckles showed red. "I only wanted to ask if ... if I'm not disturbing you ... If there's anything I can do to help, or—do you need me? Not now? Well, you know, Hannah, I'm just in the next room if you want anything ... I'm not doing anything important, just reading through Goldschmidt for the third time, and..."
A long time before, Michael Gonen had told me that cats are never wrong about people. A cat would never make friends with anyone who was not disposed to like him. Well, then.
I would wake before dawn. Jerusalem is a remote city, even if you live there, even if you were born there. I wake and hear the wind in the narrow streets of Mekor Baruch. There are corrugated-iron huts in backyards and on ancient balconies. The wind plays on them. Washing rustles on washlines strung across the road. Garbage men drag cans along the pavement. One of them always curses hoarsely. In some backyard a cock crows angrily. Distant voices clamor on all sides. There is a still, tense fever all around. The howling of cats mad with desire. A single shot in the distant darkness to the north. A motor roaring in the distance. A woman moaning in another flat. Bells singing far off in the east, perhaps from the churches of the Old City. A fresh wind plows the tree-tops. Jerusalem is a city of pine trees. A taut sympathy reigns between the pine trees and the wind. Ancient pines in Talpiot, in Katamon, in Beit Hakerem and behind the dark Schneller Woods. Now in the low village of Ein Kerem white mists at dawn are envoys of a realm of different colors. The convents are ringed with high walls in the low village of Ein Kerem. Even within the walls are whispering pines. Sinister things are plotting by the blind light of dawn. Plotting as if I were not here to hear them. As if I were not here. The swish of tires. The milkman's bicycle. His light footfall on the landing. His muffled coughing. Dogs barking in the yards. There is a frightening sight out there in the yard and the dogs can see it and I cannot. A shutter wails. They know that I am here awake and trembling. They are conspiring as if I were not here. Their target is me.
***
Every morning, after doing the shopping and tidying the house, I take Yair for a walk in his carriage. It is summer in Jerusalem. A calm blue sky. We make for Mahane Yehuda market to buy a cheap frying pan or strainer. When I was a child I used to like watching the bare brown backs of the porters in the market. I enjoyed the odor of their sweat. Even now the eddying smells in Mahane Yehuda market give me a feeling of repose. Sometimes I would sit on a bench opposite the railings of the Tachkemoni Orthodox Boys' School, the baby carriage by my side, and follow with my eyes the boys wrestling in the playground in the break between lessons.
Often we went as far as the Schneller Woods.
I was ill. Even when Dr. Urbach announced that he was satisfied that the complication was cleared up, and that I was free to resume a normal life in every way, even then I was still ill. However, I resolved to move Michael's camp-bed out of the room where the cradle was. From now on I took the care of the baby on myself. My husband was to sleep in the living room so that we should no longer distract him from his studies. He would have an opportunity to catch up on the work he had been prevented from doing the previous months.
At eight o'clock in the evening I would feed the child, put him to sleep, lock the door from the inside, and then stretch out by myself on the broad double bed. Sometimes at half past nine or ten o'clock Michael would tap gently on the door. If I opened it he would say:
"I saw a light under the door and I knew you weren't asleep. That's why I knocked."
As he spoke he looked at me with his gray eyes like a thoughtful elder son. Distant and cold, I would answer:
"I'm ill, Michael. You know I'm not well."
He clenched his hand on his empty pipe till the knuckles showed red. "I only wanted to ask if ... if I'm not disturbing you ... If there's anything I can do to help, or—do you need me? Not now? Well, you know, Hannah, I'm just in the next room if you want anything ... I'm not doing anything important, just reading through Goldschmidt for the third time, and..."
A long time before, Michael Gonen had told me that cats are never wrong about people. A cat would never make friends with anyone who was not disposed to like him. Well, then.
I would wake before dawn. Jerusalem is a remote city, even if you live there, even if you were born there. I wake and hear the wind in the narrow streets of Mekor Baruch. There are corrugated-iron huts in backyards and on ancient balconies. The wind plays on them. Washing rustles on washlines strung across the road. Garbage men drag cans along the pavement. One of them always curses hoarsely. In some backyard a cock crows angrily. Distant voices clamor on all sides. There is a still, tense fever all around. The howling of cats mad with desire. A single shot in the distant darkness to the north. A motor roaring in the distance. A woman moaning in another flat. Bells singing far off in the east, perhaps from the churches of the Old City. A fresh wind plows the tree-tops. Jerusalem is a city of pine trees. A taut sympathy reigns between the pine trees and the wind. Ancient pines in Talpiot, in Katamon, in Beit Hakerem and behind the dark Schneller Woods. Now in the low village of Ein Kerem white mists at dawn are envoys of a realm of different colors. The convents are ringed with high walls in the low village of Ein Kerem. Even within the walls are whispering pines. Sinister things are plotting by the blind light of dawn. Plotting as if I were not here to hear them. As if I were not here. The swish of tires. The milkman's bicycle. His light footfall on the landing. His muffled coughing. Dogs barking in the yards. There is a frightening sight out there in the yard and the dogs can see it and I cannot. A shutter wails. They know that I am here awake and trembling. They are conspiring as if I were not here. Their target is me.
***
Every morning, after doing the shopping and tidying the house, I take Yair for a walk in his carriage. It is summer in Jerusalem. A calm blue sky. We make for Mahane Yehuda market to buy a cheap frying pan or strainer. When I was a child I used to like watching the bare brown backs of the porters in the market. I enjoyed the odor of their sweat. Even now the eddying smells in Mahane Yehuda market give me a feeling of repose. Sometimes I would sit on a bench opposite the railings of the Tachkemoni Orthodox Boys' School, the baby carriage by my side, and follow with my eyes the boys wrestling in the playground in the break between lessons.
Often we went as far as the Schneller Woods.
Similar Books
