standing at the back, the shorter ones with the women and children sitting in front, closing up the gaps, moving heads closer together, walking among them two or three times, straightening a collar here, a sleeve there, or a hair ribbon, then retreating behind the camera perched on its tripod, burying his head in the black cloth, closing one eye, counting aloud one-two-three, finally pressing the trigger and turning them all into ghosts. (Only Miriam Nehoraitâs grey cat refused to be still, maybe he sniffed the presence of Joselito, so he has been immortalised in a corner of the picture with three or four tails. Lisaveta Kunitsin blinked and looks as though she is winking. The bald pate of Mr Leon, the gangsterâs henchman, reflects an unhealthy glow. The young poet Yuval Dahan/Dotan forgot to smile, but Charlie is grinning broadly, Rochele Reznik is looking down at the tips of her shoes, while Lucy, runner-up in the Queen of the Waves contest, has a slight, not unattractive squint in her left eye.)
*
But why write about things that exist even without you? Why describe in words things that are not words?
Moreover, what purpose, if any, is served by your stories? Whom do they benefit? Who, if you will excuse the question, needs your shabby fantasies about all kinds of worn-out sex scenes with frustrated waitresses, lonely readers who live with cats, or runners-up in Eilat Queen of the Waves contests from years ago? Maybe you wouldnât mind explaining to us, please, briefly and in your own words, what the Author is trying to tell us here?
He is covered in shame and confusion because he observes them all from a distance, from the wings, as if they all exist only for him to make use of in his books. And with the shame comes a profound sadness that he is always an outsider, unable to touch or to be touched, with his head perpetually buried under the photographerâs old black cloth.
You cannot write without looking behind you; like Lotâs wife. And in doing so you turn yourself and them into blocks of salt.
To write about things that exist, to try to capture a colour or smell or sound in words, is a little likeplaying Schubert when Schubert is sitting in the hall, and perhaps sniggering in the darkness.
Itâs green and peaceful here, a crow
stands on a pillar, all alone,
a pair of cypress trees together
and another on its own.
*
You need to make a correction. Your description of Mrs Miriam Nehorait was not entirely accurate: swollen legs with purple varicose veins and a wizened face wrapped in cultural sweetness. Later, when she came up to you, you noticed her delicate mouth, her well-shaped fingers, her pleasant brown eyes, like those of an enthusiastic child, with long, gently upturned lashes. Twice every day she feeds eight alley-cats, one of which is missing an ear. Yechiel Nehorai, her husband, was run over nine years ago when he was a Zionist emissary in Montevideo. Her two married sons are both gynaecologists in New York. (One of them is married to the daughter of the peeping neighbour, the optician Lisaveta Kunitsin.)
For some time now a hesitant, ill-defined relationship has been developing between Miriam Nehorait, a mature woman who has lived on her own for years in a two-roomed flat with a little entrance hall, and her widowed neighbour, Yerucham Shdemati, the bubbly cultural administrator, with his noisy gaiety and his body odour, the man whose face looks like an old loaf of bread that has stood for too long in the basket and has started to shrivel and crack. Once, in the sixties, he was put thirteenth on the Labour Union Zionist Workersâ Party list, and he was nearly elected to the Knesset. He was one of the last remaining campaigners for the creation of a general commune of all the workers in the Land of Israel, Jews and Arabs, men and women, who would all work to the best of their ability and put their monthly earnings into the communal chest, from which each worker would be
*
But why write about things that exist even without you? Why describe in words things that are not words?
Moreover, what purpose, if any, is served by your stories? Whom do they benefit? Who, if you will excuse the question, needs your shabby fantasies about all kinds of worn-out sex scenes with frustrated waitresses, lonely readers who live with cats, or runners-up in Eilat Queen of the Waves contests from years ago? Maybe you wouldnât mind explaining to us, please, briefly and in your own words, what the Author is trying to tell us here?
He is covered in shame and confusion because he observes them all from a distance, from the wings, as if they all exist only for him to make use of in his books. And with the shame comes a profound sadness that he is always an outsider, unable to touch or to be touched, with his head perpetually buried under the photographerâs old black cloth.
You cannot write without looking behind you; like Lotâs wife. And in doing so you turn yourself and them into blocks of salt.
To write about things that exist, to try to capture a colour or smell or sound in words, is a little likeplaying Schubert when Schubert is sitting in the hall, and perhaps sniggering in the darkness.
Itâs green and peaceful here, a crow
stands on a pillar, all alone,
a pair of cypress trees together
and another on its own.
*
You need to make a correction. Your description of Mrs Miriam Nehorait was not entirely accurate: swollen legs with purple varicose veins and a wizened face wrapped in cultural sweetness. Later, when she came up to you, you noticed her delicate mouth, her well-shaped fingers, her pleasant brown eyes, like those of an enthusiastic child, with long, gently upturned lashes. Twice every day she feeds eight alley-cats, one of which is missing an ear. Yechiel Nehorai, her husband, was run over nine years ago when he was a Zionist emissary in Montevideo. Her two married sons are both gynaecologists in New York. (One of them is married to the daughter of the peeping neighbour, the optician Lisaveta Kunitsin.)
For some time now a hesitant, ill-defined relationship has been developing between Miriam Nehorait, a mature woman who has lived on her own for years in a two-roomed flat with a little entrance hall, and her widowed neighbour, Yerucham Shdemati, the bubbly cultural administrator, with his noisy gaiety and his body odour, the man whose face looks like an old loaf of bread that has stood for too long in the basket and has started to shrivel and crack. Once, in the sixties, he was put thirteenth on the Labour Union Zionist Workersâ Party list, and he was nearly elected to the Knesset. He was one of the last remaining campaigners for the creation of a general commune of all the workers in the Land of Israel, Jews and Arabs, men and women, who would all work to the best of their ability and put their monthly earnings into the communal chest, from which each worker would be
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