sketched in, capable of unloading whole mountains of merchandise from colossal ships. All in meticulous architectural perspective, in matching scale, lunatic fire trapped in the amber crystals of mathematics. If the greatest ship in the world were enticed to lay anchor between Dovâs quays in his harbor of the Jerusalem night, this ship would look like a beetle crawling on an elephantâs tusk.
The blue pencil shaded in the whole of the bay and then delicately scattered water into a network of canals. A strangerâs footsteps sounded on the stairs outside. Somebody leaned heavily on the banister. There was a creak. And silence.
Dov leapt up from his seat, rushed to the window, and checked the bolts of the shutters. They were screwed down. In the cracks the empty street appeared. Beam upon beam of desolate starlight stretched across the street, from rooftops to balcony rails, from garbage cans to the crowns of cypress trees, from the Municipal Information Bureau to the telephone booth, from the top of the stone steps to the cracks in the sidewalk. A silent crust covered the earth, and a blue vapor came down. Or dew.
Another fragment of plaster fell from the ceiling, larger than the first. Tiny flakes of whitewash were scattered over the bedspread that resembled the intimate clothing of a loose woman. The footsteps on the staircase ceased. Perhaps the stranger was now on the first floor. There was silence, no sound of a key turning in a lock, or of a bell ringing. He must be standing motionless, examining the peeling doors and perhaps taking in the names of the residents on the mailboxes. Dov clenched his teeth. His jaws tensed like a fist. He stood up, hid his plan of the port of Jerusalem in the antique chest of drawers, and returned to the writing desk. He ripped out a fresh sheet of graph paper, sat down, and started to draw a picture-map of a mountainous land.
7
H E WAS a gray man: gray eyes, face, and hair. But he almost invariably chose to wear a blue shirt of the kind favored by young athletes, and sandals of biblical style. Hidden beneath his shirt was a strong and hairy torso, crisscrossed with sinews. At first sight he seemed still in his prime, and he had the build of a stevedore. Only his heart was weak, but this was not evident to the eye. In the autumn he would be sixty years old.
He sketched the map of a mountainous land. A green police patrol car raced down the street, ripping the silence apart, and then silence returned and sewed up the breach with a cool, dreamy hand. The patrol car receded southward, toward the steep alleyways at the approaches to the railway station. On three sides the truce line encircled the city of Jerusalem. To the north and east of this line a different Jerusalem brooded. And to the south lay Bethlehem and, farther still, the godforsaken hills of Hebron, and at their feet, forever, the desert.
Â
Dov drew a land of black basalt hills. To these hills he gave sharp snow-capped peaks tall enough to pierce the embroidered-silk screen of the stars. He drew monsters of rock, sharp daggers of stone, summits like drawn swords. And wild ravines cleaving the vaulted ranges. Here and there were ominous overhangs, threatening at any moment to hurl primeval cataracts of smashed rock down into the abyss. Canyons and gorges carved out in drunkenness. Brooding labyrinths and volcanic caves, the menace of a different silence.
At last he stopped drawing and stared at the page. His jaws were gray. He took a red crayon and began to write in the altitudes of his peaks. The foothills of these mountains could have laughed the summits of the Alps to scorn.
8
D RIVEN BY hunger and cold, perhaps by regret, one of the jackals of Bethlehem began to weep bitterly. At once he was answered by jackal packs from the heights of Bet Zafafa, from Zur Bahar, from the hill of Mar Elias, in an outburst of perverted laughter and malice. The wind stopped blowing, as if listening with rapt attention.
The
The blue pencil shaded in the whole of the bay and then delicately scattered water into a network of canals. A strangerâs footsteps sounded on the stairs outside. Somebody leaned heavily on the banister. There was a creak. And silence.
Dov leapt up from his seat, rushed to the window, and checked the bolts of the shutters. They were screwed down. In the cracks the empty street appeared. Beam upon beam of desolate starlight stretched across the street, from rooftops to balcony rails, from garbage cans to the crowns of cypress trees, from the Municipal Information Bureau to the telephone booth, from the top of the stone steps to the cracks in the sidewalk. A silent crust covered the earth, and a blue vapor came down. Or dew.
Another fragment of plaster fell from the ceiling, larger than the first. Tiny flakes of whitewash were scattered over the bedspread that resembled the intimate clothing of a loose woman. The footsteps on the staircase ceased. Perhaps the stranger was now on the first floor. There was silence, no sound of a key turning in a lock, or of a bell ringing. He must be standing motionless, examining the peeling doors and perhaps taking in the names of the residents on the mailboxes. Dov clenched his teeth. His jaws tensed like a fist. He stood up, hid his plan of the port of Jerusalem in the antique chest of drawers, and returned to the writing desk. He ripped out a fresh sheet of graph paper, sat down, and started to draw a picture-map of a mountainous land.
7
H E WAS a gray man: gray eyes, face, and hair. But he almost invariably chose to wear a blue shirt of the kind favored by young athletes, and sandals of biblical style. Hidden beneath his shirt was a strong and hairy torso, crisscrossed with sinews. At first sight he seemed still in his prime, and he had the build of a stevedore. Only his heart was weak, but this was not evident to the eye. In the autumn he would be sixty years old.
He sketched the map of a mountainous land. A green police patrol car raced down the street, ripping the silence apart, and then silence returned and sewed up the breach with a cool, dreamy hand. The patrol car receded southward, toward the steep alleyways at the approaches to the railway station. On three sides the truce line encircled the city of Jerusalem. To the north and east of this line a different Jerusalem brooded. And to the south lay Bethlehem and, farther still, the godforsaken hills of Hebron, and at their feet, forever, the desert.
Â
Dov drew a land of black basalt hills. To these hills he gave sharp snow-capped peaks tall enough to pierce the embroidered-silk screen of the stars. He drew monsters of rock, sharp daggers of stone, summits like drawn swords. And wild ravines cleaving the vaulted ranges. Here and there were ominous overhangs, threatening at any moment to hurl primeval cataracts of smashed rock down into the abyss. Canyons and gorges carved out in drunkenness. Brooding labyrinths and volcanic caves, the menace of a different silence.
At last he stopped drawing and stared at the page. His jaws were gray. He took a red crayon and began to write in the altitudes of his peaks. The foothills of these mountains could have laughed the summits of the Alps to scorn.
8
D RIVEN BY hunger and cold, perhaps by regret, one of the jackals of Bethlehem began to weep bitterly. At once he was answered by jackal packs from the heights of Bet Zafafa, from Zur Bahar, from the hill of Mar Elias, in an outburst of perverted laughter and malice. The wind stopped blowing, as if listening with rapt attention.
The
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