Yasmine by Eli Amir

brought me back to Elazar Street it was quite late. I emptied my mailbox and climbed the stairs, feeling worn out. The dirt and untidiness in the flat depressed me; I had to impose some order and turn over a new leaf.
    “Miaow miaow,” Grushka greeted me at the door. I let her in and gave her the cream Mother had given me (Mother knows I dislike cream, but keeps trying). Grushka lapped it up, whitening her whiskers. I understood that from now on she would despise the yogurt I used to give her before the war. I wrote on the shopping-list on the fridge: “Cream for the princess”.
    The radio was playing a Mendelssohn symphony which revived me, and despite my fatigue I plunged into housework and started cleaning. Mother had instilled these habits in me as a child, and I learned to be tidy during my time in the kibbutz. There I had a small section in a wardrobe shared with other kids, and had to keep all my clothes in it – underwear, shirts, socks, sabbath clothes and work clothes, even towels – and in time I got to be a dab hand at folding things neatly. Here in my flat I had a big old wardrobe all to myself, and it held everything – bed linen, clothes, tapes, files, notes, text-books and newspaper cuttings. In the course of the week it all got jumbled up, but periodically I put things back in order.
    Soon the flat was sparkling and fresh-smelling. I took a shower and then sat down with a shot of slivowitz to read my letters. One was from Sonia, my group teacher in the kibbutz. After asking the usual polite questions, she wrote that our schoolmate, “Mister Universe”, a.k.a. Amram Iwa, was killed onthe first day of the war. Though he’d left long before, the notice was sent to the kibbutz because when he was conscripted he gave the kibbutz as his home address, hoping it would help him get into the paras. Sonia asked me to speak about him at the thirty-day memorial service at his family home in Netanya.
    Tears were blinding me and I went and lay on the bed. I thought about our time in the transit camp on Mount Carmel, and in the youth group at the kibbutz. As sleep crept up on me scenes from the past flashed through my mind, one was especially memorable: Amram, tall, sturdy, surrounded by a crowd of boys and girls, breathlessly watching him bending iron bars with his hands. Cries of “Bravo!” from all sides, and Amram walking away, proud as a peacock, with a beautiful Romanian girl on his arm.

7
“Vie krikhtmen arois?”
    I’m very fond of The Book of Legends by Bialik and Ravnitzky, which I received as a present from Professor Shadmi when I finished my national service. It’s always on my desk and from time to time I dive into it for wisdom from our Sages.
    These days I keep recalling the famous statement of Rabbi Yohanan: “The Son of David cannot come except in a generation that is wholly righteous or wholly iniquitous.” I admit that I’m not waiting for the Messiah, and I don’t believe that people will ever be all good or all bad, but with the liberation of Jerusalem there is something of the taste of Messianic times hanging in the air, and there is a sense that it’s a great privilege but also a great anxiety that wrong actions could jeopardize it all.
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    Now that the Western Wall is in our hands, I could give Mother a real treat by taking her there. She was very excited. The night before, however, she dreamed about her father, who was a pious and humble rabbi, but she did not remember any details of the dream and it left her feeling vaguely uneasy. Since coming to Israel Mother had known many upheavals, but she never gave up her simple religiosity. She observed the Sabbath, kept akosher kitchen and followed all the rules. Still, she became more tolerant with us, and didn’t force her sons to be like her. It seems she accepted that it’s possible to be a good Jew without sticking to all the laws.
    When she saw the Wall her face shone with the same light and