Two Tales: Betrothed & Edo and Enam Page 13

  Greifenbach, who had made a hobby of philology, began to speak of the mysteries of language and all the new discoveries in that field. I added something of what I had learned from the literature of the Kabbalah, which in this matter has anticipated academic scholarship. Mrs. Greifenbach interrupted us by saying, “The woman sang, too, in a strange language we knew nothing about. Judging by her voice, I’d say she was sad and bitter. Gerhard, where have you hidden the present our tenant gave you the morning after our anniversary? What pity you weren’t there, my dear. Our wedding, you know, was a very simple affair, but we made up for it with our party ten years after. Don’t be lazy, Gerhard; get up and show him what Ginat gave you.”

  Greifenbach got up, opened an iron box, and took out two parched brown leaves that resembled leaves of old tobacco. He set them before me with pride and watched for my reaction. From the look on his face it was clear that he believed he was exhibiting a rare possession. I glanced at the leaves for a moment and then asked what they were.

  “Look again,” he said. I looked again but could see nothing except certain strange lines and markings which might be taken, if one were so inclined, for letters of a secret code.

  “What is all this?” I insisted.

  Greifenbach answered, “I know only what Ginat told me, and what he said was that they are talismans. What kind of talismans he didn’t say, but he told me that he has a collection of such things, and these leaves are duplicates and come from a far-off country. It’s a pity they have no power against burglers.”

  “Perhaps,” said Gerda, “those that Ginat kept for himself do have that power.”

  Greifenbach lit his pipe and sat silent, as if preoccupied with his own thoughts. After a while he knocked out the ash and took a cigarette. He lit up and went on, “You see, whatever we find to talk about leads us back to our worries about the house. As for the squatters, it’s even possible that right is on their side. A young fellow, let us say, comes back after the war. He needs a roof over his head and can’t find one. What’s he to do but break in somewhere? Let me tell you something. One Saturday evening I was standing at a bus stop. The bus was full up and passengers were still pressing in. The driver sounded his horn and drove off. All the people left behind stood about miserably as they waited for a second bus. But, of course, it never came; the more passengers there are, the fewer the buses, as is always the case in Jerusalem. A couple were standing together, a young fellow and a girl. The girl was looking at him with passionate longing. ‘Günther,’ she said, ‘it’s over a year since we were married and we’ve still not spent a single night alone together.’ The fellow squeezed his young wife’s hand, sucked his lips in and was silent with grief and anger. Günther and his wife haven’t found a home for themselves. They live apart, wherever they happen to be. The landlords make difficulties about their visiting one another, hoping that they will get tired of their rooms and leave them, because meanwhile the number of people wanting apartments has increased and the number of rooms available has become less, and if they leave, the landlords can raise the rent. They meet each other in cafés and amusement places and separate to go back to their rooms at the opposite ends of the town, all because they have no place where they can live together. So now you know why we are so scared about our home. In fact, we got into such a state that one night Gerda woke me up because she thought someone was walking on the roof.”

  “You are always telling tales about me,” said Mrs. Greifenbach. “Why don’t you tell him what you said?”

  “I said nothing. I don’t remember saying anything.”

  “Do you want me to remind you?” said Gerda.

  Gerhard laughed heartily. “And if I don’t want you to, does that mean you won’t tell him?”

  “If it weren’t so funny,” said Gerda, “I wouldn’t repeat it. Do you know what this master mind had to say? He said, in these very words, ‘It must be the girl Ginat created, taking a stroll on the roof.’”

  Greifenbach laid down his cigarette, took up his pipe again, and remarked to me, “Do you really believe I said that?”

  “Who wouldn’t believe a lovely girl like Gerda?”

  Mrs. Greifenbach laughed. “A lovely girl, indeed,” she said, “whose wedding canopy has been pressing on her head for ten years now!”

  “Have you two really been married for ten years already?”

  “Those leaves,” said Gerda, “which Ginat gave to Gerhard were his present on our tenth anniversary. If they came into just anybody’s hands he’d probably break them up as tobacco for his pipe. He wouldn’t know there was magic in them. To tell the truth, we wouldn’t have known either if we hadn’t heard it from Ginat; and we believe him, because he’s quite without guile. Well, tomorrow we start on our travels, and I don’t know whether I should feel glad or sorry.”

  Without thinking about it much, I said to Gerda, “You’ve no need to feel sorry. I’ll take it upon me to keep an eye on your house, and if I think it necessary, I’ll stay here for two or three nights.”

  The Greifenbachs were delighted at this offer. “Now we can travel with an easy mind,” they said.

  “Surely you don’t have to thank me,” I added.

  “Really, it’s I who ought to thank you; your house is a wonderful place for sleep, as I learned on curfew nights.”

  My remark brought back to mind that troubled time, when people who went into the city could not get home again because the Mandate government had suddenly proclaimed a curfew. Anyone out on the Street who lived away from the center and couldn’t find shelter in town would be taken by the police and locked up in jail for the night. His family, not knowing where he had disappeared to, would be worried to death. And this had led to other oppressive decrees against us, decrees which at the time seemed to be in the very nature of life in this country. So we talked on about the curfew nights. Yet, evil and oppressive as they were, some little good came of them. People were obliged to stay at home and as a result gave thought to their wives and children, which they had not been accustomed to doing when they spent their evenings at assemblies, councils, meetings and the like, all of which estrange a man from himself and, needless to say, from his family. You might even say that public affairs benefited; with fewer meetings and debates things worked out in their own way, and in spite of it all turned out for the best. Another positive result of the curfew nights was that many bachelors, compelled to stay indoors, came to know the daughters of the house and ended up marrying them.

  So we sat and talked, the Greifenbachs and I, until I said it was time for me to go. Greifenbach gave me the key of the house and showed me all its entrances and exits. Soon afterwards I parted from him and his wife and went on my way.

  II

  One day at sunset I went out to get myself some bread and olives. My wife and children had gone away to Gederah, and I was left to provide for myself. Carrying my bread and olives, I strolled about among the shops. I had no desire to go home, since no one was there and there was nothing I especially wished to do at the day’s end. Walking on aimlessly, letting my feet carry me where they wished, I found I had come to the valley where the Greifenbach’s house stood. In the stillness that fills the valleys of Jerusalem at sunset all manner of blessings abide. It is as if the valleys were cut off from the settled land around them; as if they contained in their depths the whole world. And this valley especially is ringed with a crown of trees through which beneficent vapors flow, keeping it free from the taint of malign airs. I said to myself, Since I am here, I shall go and see how things stand at the Greifenbachs’ house; and since I have the key in my pocket, I may as well go inside.

  I went in, put on the light, and walked about from room to room. The four pleasant rooms and their equally agreeable contents were all in good order, as if the mistress of the house had just given them her attention. Yet a month had already passed since the Greifenbachs left home. Truly, when a house has a good mistress it remains well kept even though she is far away.

  Just
then I was neither hungry nor thirsty, only tired. I put out all the lights, opened the window, and sat down to rest. Out of the secret places of the night, silence came and wrapped itself around me until I could see and touch the tranquility. I made up my mind to spend the night there and so keep my promise to the Greifenbachs. I rose from my seat and lit the table lamp. Then I picked up a book to read in bed by a lamp already at the bedside, glad that I would not need to shift any article in someone else’s house. Actually, so long as I held the key, I had the right to regard myself as in my own home; but the sense of strangeness we feel on such occasions makes us forget our privileges.

  I sat in Greifenbach’s chair and reflected. Just now, while I am staying in their house, perhaps they are looking in vain for a place to spend the night; or if they have found one, it is not the kind they are accustomed to. Why should they have left their beautifully furnished home to wander about in foreign parts? What reason, indeed, have all those who leave their homes and drift from place to place? Is it a first law of our experience or a mocking illusion that, as the ancient proverb has it, “Your happiness is where you are not”?

  I took off my shoes, undressed, picked up my book, put out the table lamp and lit the one by the bed. I lay down and opened the book. I could feel myself dozing off, while an idea of sorts seemed to be thinking itself out on its own. Strange, I thought, that I, who on other nights can’t get to sleep even after midnight, should now feel suddenly drowsy before the night has properly set in. I put the book down, switched off the light, turned to face the wall and closed my eyes. I told myself in silent speech: Here in this house, where not a soul in the world knows of your presence, you can sleep as long as you like and no one will come to seek you.

  All around me was stillness and repose, such as one finds in the valleys of Jerusalem, which the good Lord hid away for lovers of tranquility. The Greifenbachs had good reason to be concerned for their home: if any squatter were to break in, no one hereabouts would be aware of it. Little by little the run of my thoughts came to a halt, until nothing remained but the dim sensation that all my limbs were locked in sleep.

  Suddenly I heard a sound of scratching and awoke. Since I had put my bread and olives away in a tin box, I was not afraid that mice might get at them; but I was afraid that mice might damage the carpet, the clothes or books, or those leaves that Ginat had given to Greifenbach. I pricked up my ears and realized that the sound was not made by a mouse, but by a man who was fumbling at the outside door. If it’s not a housebreaker, I thought, then it must be Dr. Ginat, who has come home and is trying the wrong door. I’ll open up for him, and so I’ll see him face to face.

  I got out of bed and opened the door. Someone was outside, groping for the bell. I pressed the switch, put on the light, and then – words failed me. After all, I had not told a soul that I would be spending the night at the Greifenbachs’, indeed, I myself hadn’t known that I would be here, how then could Gabriel Gamzu have known my whereabouts?

  “Is it you, Mr. Gamzu?” I called. “Wait a moment while I put on some clothes.”

  I went back and dressed, wondering why this visitor was here. He was not acquainted with either the owner of the house or his wife. Greifenbach was not looking for books in Hebrew, even less for manuscripts and first editions. The little Hebrew he knew had been learned with difficulty. Although he prided himself on his sound knowledge of the language and its grammar, all this amounted to was some biblical grammar he had studied in Gesenius’ textbook on the structure of Hebrew. His wife managed better than he, for although her grammar was an amateur affair and she knew nothing of Gesenius, she could get on in Hebrew with her cleaning woman Grazia, and with the street traders too. All the same, Hebrew books were none of her concern. So the question still stood, what had brought Gamzu here? I had to conclude that he was here on my account. Gamzu knew that he was always welcome, to me as to all his friends and acquaintances, because he was a scholar, had seen the world, had voyaged to distant lands, and reached places where no traveler had been before. From these far-off parts he had brought back poems by authors about whom nothing was known and manuscripts and first editions of whose very existence we had been ignorant. But now he no longer traveled at all; he stayed at home with his wife. This man, so used to making journeys, had become in his prime the attendant of a sick wife who, it was said, had been bedridden since their wedding night. Whether or not the story was true, it was certainly a fact that he had a sick wife at home, that there was no earthly cure for her, and that her husband had to nurse her, wash her, feed her and attend to her every need. Nor was she grateful for his self-sacrifice, but would beat him and bite him and tear his clothes. Because of this he went about his business at night, being ashamed to show himself in the street by day with torn clothing and bruised face. Now he had come to me. And why had he come? He had saved twelve pounds to purchase a place for his wife in a nursing home; he was afraid to carry the money about on him in case he should spend it, and so he had left it with me. On the day he did so I had gone on a trip to the Dead Sea region and left the money behind at home. Thieves had broken in and robbed my house and taken Gamzu’s money. I had sent him a message not to worry about it; all the same, he had come to hear from me directly whether I was really prepared to repay him what had been stolen. And since he had not been able to find me at home, he had come to see me here. This was my conjecture. I was later to see that it was wrong; Gamzu had not come on account of the money, but for another reason.

  III

  Having put on some clothes, I returned to Gamzu and said, “You’ve come for your money?”

  He gazed at me woefully with an uncertain look in his eyes, imploring in a broken voice, “Please let me in.”

  I showed him into the house and offered him a chair. He looked around in all directions and deliberated for a while. At last he stammered out, “My wife.” After another pause he added, “I went home and my wife wasn’t there.”

  “So what do you intend to do?” I asked.

  “Forgive me,” he said, “for suddenly bursting in on you. Just imagine: I came home after the evening service at the synagogue to get my wife settled for the night and found the bed empty. I went off in search of her. ‘Going to the south, turning to the north, turning, turning goes the wind, and again to its circuits the wind returns.’ Suddenly I found myself in this valley without knowing how I came to be here. I saw a house; I felt drawn to enter it. I knew there was no point in doing this, but I did so just the same. It’s good that I found you. Let me sit here for a short while and then I’ll go away.”

  “Pardon me for asking, Mr. Gamzu,” I said. “I have heard that your wife is bedridden.”

  “Bedridden she is,” Gamzu replied.

  “Then how is it that you found the bed empty? If she can’t move, how did she get out of bed and go outside?”

  He whispered, “She’s a sleepwalker.”

  I sat for a while without speaking. Then I repeated his words in the form of a question, whispering back, “A sleepwalker?”

  “Yes.”

  I looked at him as a man might who has heard a report and does not know what to make of it. Perceiving this, he said, “Every night when the moon is full, my wife gets up from bed and walks wherever the moon leads her.”

  I could not keep myself from saying reproachfully, “And don’t you lock the door?”

  Gamzu smiled slyly. “I lock the door.”

  “If so,” I said, “how can she get out?”

  “Even if I hung seven locks upon the door, and locked every one with seven keys, and threw each key into one of the seven seas of the Land of Israel, my wife would find them all and open the door and go walking.”

  I sat on, saying nothing, and he too sat in silence. At last I said, “Since when have you known that she is in that condition? I mean, that she’s a sleepwalker?”

  He clutched his forehead, dug his thumbs into his temples, and said, “Since when have I known that she is a sleepwalker? I have kno
wn since the day I met her.”

  I was silent again, but not for long. “Nevertheless,” I said, “this did not keep you from marrying her.”

  He took off his hat, brought out a small skullcap and put it on, paused, and asked, “What were you saying?”

  I repeated my words.

  He smiled and said, “Nevertheless it did not pre-vent me from marrying her. On the contrary, when I saw her for the first time poised on a rock at the top of a mountain which not every man could climb, with the moon lighting up her face while she sang, ‘Yiddal, yiddal, yiddal, vah, pah, mah,’ I said to myself, If she is not one of the angels of the Divine Presence who have union with the angels of the Divine Being, she must be one of the twelve constellations of the Zodiac, and none other than the constellation Virgo. I went to her father’s home and said, ‘I wish to marry your daughter.’ He answered me, ‘My son, you know of Gemulah’s condition and yet you wish to marry her?’ I said, ‘The All-Merciful will be merciful to us.’ He looked up to the sky, addressing the Holy One, ‘Master of the World, if this man who comes from afar is filled with mercy towards her, how much more so will you, who are so near, show mercy to us.’ Next day he called me and said, ‘Come with me.’ I went with him until we reached a mountain, the highest of the range of steep mountains that raised themselves up to heaven. I climbed with him, leaping with him from crag to crag, until he stood by a perpendicular rock. He looked about him in all directions. When he knew that no one could see us, he bent down and dug beneath the rock and lifted one stone. A cave opened up and he went inside. When he came out, he was holding an earthenware jar. ‘Let us go back,’ he said. On the way back, he opened the jar and showed me a bundle of dry leaves unlike any I had ever seen; and on them were the strange characters of a script unlike any that I knew; and the color of the characters, that is, the color of the ink in which they were written, was not like any color we know. At first sight I should have said that the scribe had mixed gold, azure and purple with all the primary colors of the rainbow and written with them. But as I stood gazing, the colors altered before my eyes and changed into the tints of sea-weeds drawn from the depths, such weeds as Dr. Rechnitz drew up from the sea near Jaffa. Then again, they were like the silver strands we observe on the moon. I stared at the leaves, at the characters, at Gemulah’s father. At that moment he seemed as if transported to another world. And then it became increasingly clear that what at first sight had seemed an illusion was the truth itself. If you ask me what it all meant, I can give you no answer. For my part it was clear, crystal clear, even though I wonder now how I am able to say this. And if I have no words to describe the experience, yet it was more distinct than anything one can explain in words. At that moment I had neither speech nor power to ask any question; and the cause of this was not the leaves or the characters on them, but the ecstatic state of Gemulah’s father. As for the characters, all the colors which I had seen before faded later and underwent a complete change, but I have no clear knowledge of how the characters came to shed their colors and when this change came about. As I stood marveling, Gemulah’s father replaced the leaves in the jar and spoke to me simply, with these words: ‘They are plants of the earth, and they have been given power to influence the upper air.’