Two Tales: Betrothed & Edo and Enam Read online

  Gamzu rolled himself a cigarette and laid it down. He rubbed his dead eye, smiled out of his good eye, and again took up the cigarette, holding it unlit between his fingers and saying, “When I pass over to the next world, they will lead me to the place where carcasses like me belong. I shall lie there in my shame, justifying the divine decree that I have been left exactly where I am, telling myself I have no right to expect anything better, naked as I am of merit and good works. At that moment, rank upon rank of demons will be massing against me, created out of my own sins. They will rise on high before the seat of judgment to accuse me and make hell deep for me. While waiting for the sentence, what shall I do? I shall recite from memory the hymns I know, until I forget where I am, and become so excited by them that I shall start shouting them aloud. The holy poets will hear me and say, ‘What noise is that from the grave? Let us go and see.’ They will come down and see this wretched soul and take me up in their hallowed hands, saying, ‘You are the man who rescued us from the depths of oblivion.’ And they will smile at me in the humility of their virtue and say, ‘Gabriel Gamzu, come with us.’ So they will bring me to dwell with them, and I will find shelter in the shade of their holiness. That is how I console myself in my misery.”

  Gamzu sat there smiling, with the expression of a man who knowingly deceives himself and is aware that he is only joking at his own expense. But I knew him very well; I understood that he believed in what he had said, more completely, perhaps, than he would admit to himself. I looked at his face, the face of a Jew out of the Middle Ages, reincarnated in this generation in order to procure manuscripts and early prints for scholars and investigators, enabling them to write observations and annotations and bibliographies, so that men like me might read these works and delight in the beauty of their verse.

  Thus Gamzu bore his sufferings and solaced himself with the thought of better things to come. Meanwhile he was fully taken up with the troubles of his wife, an incurable invalid. I began to speak to him about nursing homes where the sick receive some degree of attention. “It would be a good idea to place Gemulah in a nursing home,” I said. “As for the cost, I have here the first payment of twelve pounds; the rest will surely come.”

  Gamzu blew on his skullcap. “Those twelve pounds,” he said, “are what I received for the manuscripts I sold to whoever got the talismans.” I asked if he suspected this person of taking the magic objects by deceit.

  “I am not a suspicious man,” he said. “It is possible that whoever took them did not notice them at first, and when he did so, told himself that since they had come into his possession they were his. Or perhaps he believed that the charms were part of the lot he had bought. He may sometimes have thought one way, and sometimes another. Morality admits of compromise, and a man can still be moral even if he compromises according to his need; especially where books are concerned.”

  “Do you suppose,” I asked, “that he knows the properties of the charms?”

  “How should he know? If an article of that kind came into my hands by chance, and no one told me what it was, would I know? Besides, all these scholars are modern men; even if you were to reveal the properties of the charms, they would only laugh at you; and if they bought them, it would be as specimens of folklore. Ah, folklore, folklore! Everything which is not material for scientific research they treat as folklore. Have they not made our holy Torah into either one or the other? People live out their lives according to the Torah, they lay down their lives for the heritage of their fathers; then along come the scholars, and make the Torah into ‘research material,’ and the ways of our fathers into folklore.”

  I listened carefully to what Gamzu said, and thought of those scholars who acquire what their original owners regarded as articles of magic, but which for those who have bought them are only so much bric-a-brac; and I thought, too, of this poor Gamzu, afflicted and dejected, whom the Holy One had crushed with sorrow. If we are allowed to judge a man by his deeds, surely it was not for the deeds Gamzu had done in this incarnation that he had been so doomed. But who was I to involve myself in these issues? Such as I was, I should be satisfied that the Holy One had, in a manner of speaking, not looked in my direction for some little while. I passed my hand over my forehead as if to set these thoughts aside, and gave all my attention to my companion.

  There he sat, in a strange posture, his head bent to one side and an ear turned towards the wall. After a considerable lapse of time, in which he still kept his ear averted, I said, “You look as if you can hear what the stones in the walls are saying to one another.”

  He stared at me without reply and went on listening, his ear concentrated on the wall and both eyes aflame. There was no difference between his good eye and his dead eye, except that one was full of amazement and the other grew more and more irate. I took it that he was listening to matters which made him angry, and asked, “Can you hear anything?”

  He stirred as though from sleep. “I can hear nothing, nothing at all. And what about you? Do you hear anything?”

  “No, nothing,” I answered.

  He rubbed his ear. “Well then, it must be a hallucination.”

  He began to feel about in his pockets, produced some tobacco, and set it down. Then he extracted a handkerchief and laid that down, too. Next he stroked with his fingers the space between his nose and beard, then passed his hand over his beard, and finally said, “Didn’t you say you could hear footsteps?”

  “When did I say that?”

  “When? Just a little while ago you said it.”

  “And didn’t you answer that there was not a sound, nor the slightest suspicion of a sound?”

  “So I said,” he replied, “and so I am still inclined to think. But if you were to tell me now that you can hear something, I should not contradict you.”

  “Then you did hear something?”

  “No, I didn’t,” he answered.

  “Very well,” I said, “let’s return to our previous subject. What were we talking about before?”

  “I swear, I don’t remember.”

  “Does what you say count so little to you,” I asked, “that you don’t even try to remember it?”

  “On the contrary.”

  “Why ‘on the contrary’?”

  “Because talk between two men of Israel is important, just as songs and hymns are; when you try to repeat them, the tune is never the same. Listen, I have just had an idea. I shall take Gemulah to the village of Atruz.”

  “To Atruz? Why?”

  “Atruz is the name for Atrot Gad, which is in the territory of Gad, and Gemulah is of the tribe of Gad. She will breathe the odor of her own land and recover her health. I shall never forget how glad she was of my presence when Gadi Ben Ge’im was about to snatch her and I anticipated him and seized her first. I would give the whole world only to hear Gemulah laugh again as she laughed at that moment. But now let me ask you about that doctor, not Dr. Greifenbach, but Dr. Ginat. Everything you have told me about him pleases me. Our sages of blessed memory have said, ‘Who is wise? He who knows his place.’ If it were not wrong to add to their words, I should continue, ‘when others do not know it.’ At any rate, I am surprised that you live with him in the same house and have not come to know him. Is he old or young? How do you like his books? You have made me curious about matters I have not given any thought to. Why is this?”

  I said, “See how many of our savants have been given high positions, and the journalists hang on to what they say and make them into worldwide celebrities, yet we ignore them. But this great scholar has no post, no articles are written in his praise; yet we wonder at him and try to know more about him. Even you, Mr. Gamzu, have undertaken to read his books in your second or third incarnation, and already in this one he arouses your curiosity.”

  Suddenly the colors began to change in Gamzu’s face, until at last all color left it, and there remained only a pale cast that gradually darkened, leaving his features like formless clay. Within that clay without form, I re
ad a kind of horrified amazement. Contemplating it, I was so shocked that my hair stood on end, for never in my life had I seen a living man so completely divest himself of his own likeness. Gamzu took hold of my hand and said, “What’s the matter?”

  I sat speechless. When I withdrew my hand from his, he did not even notice. “What happened to you?” I asked.

  Roused from his trance, he smiled in an embarrassed fashion, waved his hand and said, “Idiot that I am, I’ve been fooled by my senses.”

  “What is your answer, then?” I asked.

  “I don’t know what you are referring to,” he replied.

  “To the suggestion of the nursing home.”

  He waved his hand again. “My mind is not on that now.”

  “And when will you put your mind to it?”

  “Not now, at any rate.”

  I began to describe to Gamzu how much he would benefit if he sent his wife to the nursing home. “It would certainly be good for Gemulah to be there, and you too, Mr. Gamzu, would take new heart; then perhaps you would go on your travels again and discover new hidden treasures. These days, it is as if the earth had opened up and brought forth all that the first ages of man stored away. Has not Ginat discovered things that were concealed for thousands of years, the Edo language and the Enamite Hymns? But why should I mention Ginat? Haven’t you yourself discovered ancient treasures that were unknown to us?”

  Gamzu looked at me, but his ears were inclined elsewhere. Sometimes he turned them in the direction of the door, sometimes toward the window, and betweentimes toward the wall. I was irritated with him. “What a brain you have, Reb Gabriel. It is not enough that you listen simultaneously to what the door, the window and the wall are saying to one another; you even take note of every word spoken by a mere man like me.”

  Gamzu stared at me. “What did you say?”

  “I didn’t say anything,” I replied.

  “I was convinced that I heard people speaking.”

  In my annoyance I answered, “If so, tell me in what language they spoke. Was it in Edo, or Enam?”

  Gamzu realized that I was angry. In a broken voice he said, “Believe it or not, they spoke that very language.”

  “What language?”

  “The language that Gemulah used to speak to her father, the language they made up to amuse themselves. My nerves are in such a state that I believe I hear things impossible to hear; and I am not far from saying that what I hear sounds like Gemulah’s voice.”

  I sat quiet, making no reply; for what indeed should I say to a man whose spirit has been broken by his troubles and who seeks to console himself with that which gave him pleasure in the days when he enjoyed peace of mind? Gamzu’s blood had drained away from his face; only his ears seemed to be alive. He sat there and hearkened with those ears which were all that was left to him of his whole motionless being. In the end he waved his hand in dismissal and said, “It is all mere fancy.” He smiled with embarrassment, adding, “When a man’s imagination gets the better of him, the merest shadow of a wall seems like a substantial thing. What is the time? It is time for me to go back home. I am worried that the garment I put down before Gemulah’s bed may have dried up by now. In the Land of Israel even the moon gives off more heat than the sun in other countries.”

  He stood up, then sat down again. Seated, he stared straight ahead and muttered sorrowfully to himself, “And a word was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a whisper thereof.”

  “You are sad,” I said.

  He smiled. “It is not I who am sad. Those words were spoken by Job. He was the sad one.”

  I surveyed him and tried to think of what I could say. I felt in my pocket, like a man who has been searching in the recesses of his heart and ends by rummaging through his possessions. In so doing I brought out a picture postcard that had reached me from Greifenbach and his wife. I looked at it and saw depicted there a kind of moon shape resting on a roof. Gamzu took out some paper and tobacco, and rolled himself a cigarette. He licked the edges of the paper and put the cigarette between his lips and lit it. “Won’t you smoke?” he asked. “Let me roll you a cigarette.”

  “Don’t trouble, friend,” I said, and taking out a pack of cigarettes, I lit one for myself.

  We sat smoking together; the smoke of the cigarettes rose in the air, and our conversation came to a halt. I looked at the smoke and began to reflect in silence. If Gamzu gets up to leave, I said to myself, I shall not tell him to sit down again; and if he goes, I shall not call him back. When he has left, I shall make my bed and lie down. And God willing, tomorrow I shall write a letter to Gerhard and Gerda saying, “Your house is being well looked after.” As for my own home, I am not worried, for after the thieves broke in I had strong new locks made.

  Now my thoughts turned to my wife and children, who were staying in the country. Away from the city, they would certainly be asleep by now, for village people go to bed early. I too should be asleep were it not for Gamzu. As for Gamzu, wasn’t it strange that he had come here? What would he have done if he had not found me? I reached out and tilted the lamp over to the other side. The moon came and shone straight into the room. My eyelids closed involuntarily, my head began to nod. With an effort I looked up to see if Gamzu had noticed that I was falling asleep. I saw that his fist was clenched and laid against his lips. Saying nothing, I thought: Why should he have put his hand over his lips? If he wants to hint that I am not to speak, I am not speaking anyhow. From so much thinking my head grew heavy; my eyelids were heavy too. My head sank down on my breast; the lids closed over my eyes.

  Both my eyes were closed, craving a little sleep. But my ears were not ready for sleep, because of the sound of bare feet on the stone floor of the nearby room. I bent my ear and heard a voice singing, “Yiddal, yiddal, yiddal, vah, pah, mah; yid-dal, yiddal, yiddal, vah, pah, mah.” I am back in my dream again, I thought. The moon shone straight upon my eyes. I said to the moon, “I know you. You are the one, aren’t you, whose face was on the picture postcard.” Again the voice sang, “Yiddal, yiddal, yiddal, vah, pah, mah.” The moon lit up the voice, and within the voice was the likeness of a woman. If that is so, I said to myself, then Greifenbach spoke the truth when he said that Ginat had created a girl for himself. But this pain in my fingers, where has it come from all of a sudden?

  I opened my eyes and saw Gamzu standing beside me pressing my hand. Taking my hand out of his, I looked at him in amazement. Gamzu sat down again. He closed his live eye and let it set in sleep, but his dead eye began to burn. Why did he squeeze my fingers, I wondered. Because he wanted me to listen to the song. So there really was a song, a song in waking and not only in dream. What song, then? It was a woman’s, and she was beating time with her feet. I laughed inwardly at my having been ready to think of her as a girl created by the imagination. And to rid myself of all doubt, I made up my mind to ask Gamzu what he thought. Gamzu had closed his dead eye together with his live eye, and his face wore a smile of delight, like that of a young man who hears his true love speaking. It was hard to break in upon his rapture. I lowered my eyes and sat in silence.

  There was the sound again, no longer the sound of singing now, but of spoken words. In what language? In a tongue that was unlike those we know. I wanted to ask Gamzu about it. I opened my eyes and saw that his chair was vacant. I looked all around but could not see him. I stood up and went from room to room without finding him, and came back and sat down again. About ten minutes passed, but he did not return. I began to feel anxious lest something had happened to him. Getting up from my chair, I went out into the hall. Gamzu was not to be found. I shall wait for him in my room, I thought. Before I could manage to return, I entered a room which had been built as a sukkah for the festival and was now serving as an anteroom to that of Ginat. I looked around me, and saw Gamzu standing behind the door; I wondered what on earth he was doing there. The palm of a hand reached out and touched the door. Before I could decide whether what I saw was really seen or not,
the door opened half way and the light in the room shone out brightly. It drew me and I looked inside.

  Moonlight filled the room, and in the room stood a young woman wrapped in white, her feet bare, her hair disheveled, her eyes closed. And a young man sat at the table by the window and wrote in ink on paper all that she spoke. I did not comprehend one word of her speech, and I doubt if there is any man in the world who could understand a language mysterious as this. Still the woman spoke and the pen wrote. And this was clear, that the man writing down the woman’s words was Ginat. When had he returned, when had he gone to his room? He must have come back while Gamzu and I were sitting in Greifenbach’s room, and the woman must have gotten in through the window. That was why I had heard a window being opened and the sound of bare feet. With all the things I was seeing in quick succession I forgot Gamzu, and did not notice that he was standing beside me. But then Gamzu—yes, Gamzu!—did a strange thing. He forgot all manners and proprieties. He flung himself into the room and twined his arms around the woman’s waist. This chaste man, who had devoted his entire being to his wife, burst into a strange room and embraced a strange woman.

  And now things began to get confused, and I am surprised that I can remember their sequence. These events all happened in a short time, yet how long it seemed. I stood with Gamzu facing the room of Ginat, and the door was half open. I peeped into the room, which was lit up by the moon. The moon had shrunk in order to get inside, but once in, she proceeded to expand until the whole room and its contents were visible. I saw a woman standing there, and a young man seated before the table writing. Gamzu suddenly rushed in and clasped the woman’s waist with his arms. The woman drew back her head from him, and still in his embrace, cried out, “Hakham!” Her voice was that of a maiden whose love has fully ripened.