Only Yesterday (16 page)

Sonya doesn’t read newspapers. By the time the newspapers reach the Land, they have grown old and their words are history. And she doesn’t like history, but she does like the Scriptures. And for that she has to thank Doctor Schimmelmann, who lectures to a group of young women on the Prophets. Before Dr. Schimmelmann came, she didn’t realize that there was anything interesting in the Scriptures, but first we have to correct its text. You learn that the Prophets weren’t idlers, but were people like you and me, who lived the life of their time and suffered the pain of their generation. If you like, they were the journalists and orators of their period. With Dr. Schimmelmann’s emendations, there are prophecies that read like modern articles. The same is true of the narrative part of the Holy Scriptures. If you like, they’re oral feuilletons, for we can’t say that there were newspapers in their day. And even satire you find in the Bible. Open the Book of Jonah and you’ve got a biting satire on a nationalist prophet who withheld his own prophecy and didn’t want to prophesy to the Gentiles.

From Dr. Schimmelmann, Sonya’s conversation came round to the other great men of the Yishuv, to Makherovitch who doesn’t

let a day go by without giving a speech, and Professor Schatz who created the Bezalel Art School. The Professor was now making tablets of olive wood that say: Jew what did you do today for your Na-tion and your Land?, so that a person should hang a tablet in his house and see and remember and do. From Schatz’s feats, Sonya’s words came round to two big assemblies that were in Jaffa, one concerning the agricultural laborers whose housing shortage in the settlements keeps them from putting down stakes there, and another assembly about establishing an organization of half a million people to present a petition to ICA to urge them to do real work in the Land of Israel. From those assemblies, Sonya got to the workers, who are called workers only because of their yearning. For nobody gives them work. From the workers, Sonya got to the activists of the Yishuv, who regard the Hebrew worker as if he were undermining their deeds and scaring the capitalists off of settling in the Land. From the activists of the Yishuv, Sonya got to the farmers of the settlements, who ask what we need Jewish workers for, since we’ve got Arab workers. From the builders of the Yishuv, Sonya got to Zionism, whose activities were carried out mostly by young men and women. Isaac drank in her words, words like Sonya’s a person doesn’t say unless he has thought about them a lot. And someone who can think like that is endowed with great wisdom.

Isaac doesn’t belong to any sect and doesn’t join any collective. He hasn’t become a member of either
Ha-Po’el Ha-Tsa’ir
or
Po’alei Tsion
. And even though there isn’t a person in the Land who isn’t a member of a party, Isaac didn’t join any party. It’s enough for Isaac that he’s a Zionist. And that he is a Zionist is really shown in fact, for he did ascend to the Land of Israel. As the son of poor, wretched, and ineffectual parents, Isaac grew up in a world where all people are conditioned and stand from their birth in the place where their fortune put them, higher ones on top and lower ones on the bot-tom. If success favors a person, he rises. The more he’s favored, the more he rises. And the idea that people can change the laws of na-ture and human beings can improve themselves if they have the will was not only inconceivable to him, he even poked fun at it. Back then in his hometown he made fun of the socialists who wanted to change

the order of the world, which never changes. And if he dismissed the socialists with mockery, he complained and grumbled about the Labor Zionists because they mix Zionism together with socialism. And when they made a chapter of the Labor Zionists in his hometown and came to Isaac, he told them, How can you mix two things that don’t go together, and are often opposed to one another, for then you’re getting yourself into something and its opposite. And in fact, Isaac’s propecy did come true, for when they heard that Davis Trietsch was coming to town and the Zionists wanted to make a party in his honor, the Labor Zionists didn’t know what to do, whether to honor him, but he did own a factory for wooden goods in Jaffa and the workers there were on strike, or whether to demonstrate against him, but he was a famous Zionist. Just as Outside the Land Isaac maintained his Zionism as it was originally given, without any additional opinions that aren’t essential to it, so he maintained it in the Land of Israel, too. And he wondered at our comrades, for after all they ascended to the Land to rebuild it and in the end out of irrele-vant ideals, they make war on the farmers, which sometimes leads to strikes and inhibits the work of the Land. Isaac recognized the strug-gle of the Enlightenment, and needless to say, our war against the as-similationists, but how can Zionists who come there to work the Land make sects on top of sects that crush the Land into sections. And since he wasn’t a member of any sect and didn’t go to assemblies, he didn’t know much about the issues of the Land, and if an issue of the magazine
The Young Laborer
fell into his hand, he read the poems and stories and critical articles, but not the news articles. Now that he heard Sonya talking, even things everybody had already hashed over were like a new teaching to him. Moreover, it’s nicer to hear things from a living person, from a young woman, than to hear them from irascible speakers or to read them in a squashed paper groped by many hands.

From the founders of Zionism, Sonya got to ordinary human beings, the ones you don’t know why they came and what brought them here. They heard a rumor and they came. Blame the Zionist preachers who go around the cities of Exile and stir up the rich to buy themselves property in the Land of Israel. The rich aren’t stirred,

but the poor are roused, the ones who don’t have a livelihood there, and think that if they come to the Land, every single one will immediately be offered a colony. Colonies aren’t offered them and not everybody can work, and even those who are willing to work don’t find work, and they go to the dogs.

And Sonya went back to talking about the distinguished men of the Yishuv and about our national institutions. No doubt they’re bona fide Zionists, but their acts are far from Zionism. And, Sonya expatiated and said, Have you ever considered that most of our activists, are followers of Ahad Ha-Am? That’s no accident, but there’s an ideology here that comes essentially from fear. Those good peo-ple, who are afraid of any real action, for them it’s convenient to dream of a Spiritual Center, that the whole Land will be filled with schools and small children will be knowledgeable about Judaism and so forth. But we need work, life, a nation working its own soil that brings bread out of the Land.

From the national institutions, Sonya got to the officials of the institutions and to Orgelbrand who had rented Rabinovitch’s room. And as she mentioned Rabinovitch, she started talking about him. A marvelous quality, Rabinovitch has, that he accepts every sin-gle thing as inevitable, but he doesn’t bow to it, and is ready at any time to break out of its domination. People like Rabinovitch aren’t revolutionaries or innovators, but under certain conditions they be-come partners in building a society.

Sonya didn’t conclude all her praise of Rabinovitch. For, aside from that virtue she found in him, he’s got a good quality that outweighs all other qualities, that is love of his fellow man. And here Isaac began telling some things Sonya knew and some she didn’t know. Now Rabinovitch lives in Berlin or Vienna, and he has probably already found what he was looking for. A person like Rabinovitch never gets lost. If you saw Rabinovitch looking for work from the farmers and saw him afterward measuring a garment for a Kaymakam you know that any place is his place. In a year or two Rabinovitch will return to the Land of Israel and return to his work. Said Sonya, In a year or two, he’ll return with his boss’s daughter, whom he got from her father along with a dowry.

That was a bad joke. A person like Rabinovitch is as true as gold and doesn’t betray for a dowry. And maybe it was Sonya who made Rabinovitch leave the Land so he could get rich and come back and take her and give her a life of pleasure and honor. This idea that his friend had left the Land of Israel because of Sonya elevated her in his eyes, even though he wasn’t happy with her words.

Sonya sensed that Isaac was seared by her words. She placed both her hands on his as a gesture of reconciliation. Isaac blushed and dropped his eyes, as if, in the touch of Sonya’s hands, there was some affront to Rabinovitch’s honor. She glanced at him and was puzzled.

In the Workers’ Club

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I

A meager light illuminated the two rooms of the club. The tables and chairs and other furnishings weren’t the kind of accoutrements that expand the mind. Some were bought from those who descended Outside the Land and some came from volunteers, and sometimes a person comes to the club and sits on a chair he loathed in his own house and here he was glad to sit on it, for the other chairs were even worse.

That night was an ordinary night. There were no confer-ences or assemblies. Our comrades sat there, some were drinking tea, some were reading newspapers, some were talking with one another. Some weren’t reading or drinking or talking, but were sitting by themselves and thinking. They were thinking about this, that, and the other. About yesterday that had passed and about tomorrow that was to come. Many are the days here, and every day is as turgid as sooty glass that muddies the lamplight. Was the woman at the buf-fet so busy she didn’t have time to clean the lamp, or because she doesn’t have anything to do, she doesn’t do what she has to do.

At the end of the table sat Gorishkin, reading a book. Gorishkin sat and didn’t think, neither trivial things nor sublime things, but just sat and read. Gorishkin isn’t one of those who think a man dredges everything up out of himself, but he knows that anyone who wants to be a writer has to read a lot and study a lot and expand the scope of his knowledge. Gorishkin has already left behind all his own thoughts and wants only to be the writer of the Land of Israel. A new life is taking shape in the Land and it needs its writer. He hasn’t yet started writing because he doesn’t have a corner of his own, for he

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lives in a room with three or four of his comrades, and the room is about the size of an egg and the table is about the size of an olive. And there’s no space there to spread out paper. And mainly, because he hasn’t yet made up his mind whether to write things as they are, that is, to copy from reality, or to make his books novels. On the one hand, his heart inclines to things as they are, for there is no truth like the truth of actions, and on the other hand, novels are likely to ap-peal to the heart and lead to action. For the time being, he reads every book that comes to hand, for, aside from expanding a man’s mind, books, to quote Bialik, are like dung to a field for a person with tal-ent, and to quote Simkha BenTsion, like dew to the flowers.

Our comrade Gorishkin is sitting and reading a new book, for the librarian took pity on him and lent it to him before he had read it himself. His head is sunk in the book and the branches of his mustache run from line to line, like pointers for children, and he doesn’t see Sonya or Isaac. Isaac, who hadn’t seen him since the day he met him at Rabinovitch’s, wanted to go ask him how he was, but it wasn’t proper to leave Sonya. And Sonya doesn’t notice anything, for it doesn’t occur to her that someone would want to leave her for someone like Gorishkin.

Next to our comrade Gorishkin sat a fellow over a cup of tea. He sipped it slowly because his money was limited and he had to make do with one cup as if it were two. For a long time he had been idle until he was exhausted with idleness and hunger, and finally found work to do, and when he began working, he got sick. He girded his loins and paid no heed to his illness, for if they knew he was sick, they would fire him immediately. Sometimes he got the upper hand and sometimes his illness did. Suddenly he found himself in the hospital. He spent two months there and came out. Was the doctor mistaken when he told him he was healthy. If the doctor was mistaken, he isn’t mistaken. His bones are soft and all his limbs are scattered abroad and dispersed. He picked up his cup and drank drop by drop, like a man who uses glue to glue one thing to another. He sat before his cup and pondered, So I got sick again, and since they put me out of the hospital, they won’t take me back. So what shall I do? To go back to work, I can’t, since I’m sick, and to sit idle I can’t, because I

have to eat. So what will become of me? If there’s no food, there’s no strength, and if there’s no strength, there’s no food. Your prophesy has come true, Father, when you saw me preparing for a craft and said, I see, my son, that you’ve got two right hands, and you will wind up an artisan, not a merchant and not a rich man, may you not have to starve. Your prophesy has come true, Father, your blessing hasn’t. He turns here and there. Here they’re quibbling about current events and there they’re discussing literature. Here and there, no one has an extra penny to lend him in his hour of need.

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Not all faces are alike. While that fellow sits in his grief, Puah Hofenstein sits happy for she has received good tidings that her brother had managed to escape from Siberia and is on his way to the Land of Is-rael. And Madame Hofenstein’s joy is shared by Ossip the anarchist, her brother’s comrade. Ossip sits nearby with his thick stick, the stick we joked about, saying that it gets thicker as its owner grows more shriveled from day to day. Ossip doesn’t show his joy, but only mutters, Hmm, hmm. But his stick tells us he’s happy, for if not, the stick in his hand wouldn’t be dancing.

Ossip is shriveling more and more and it’s no wonder. For Ossip left a vast land and came to this little Land, which is as im-penetrable as a rock. The Arabs speak a language you don’t know. And the Jews are divided into several tribes and several languages, and every tribe is a nation unto itself and a language unto itself. Sephardim and Ashkenazim and Yemenites and Mughrabians,
etc.
Reluctantly you have to give up on all those whose language you don’t know. All you’ve got left are the Ashkenazim. If you count all of them, there are no more of them in the Land than in a middle-sized city in Russia. And they’re divided, too. The members of the Old Yishuv settled in the Land mainly to be buried in its soil, and the members of the New Yishuv are either Effendis with wealth or destitute ragamuffins. Anyone with a grain of sense sees that the ragamuffins should regard the Effendis as enemies, yet in the end, they cooperate with them to increase their wealth, and they don’t let you open your mouth to argue with them, because you can’t speak the