Only Yesterday (17 page)
Holy Tongue. Another trouble here is that you haven’t got a livelihood. But thanks to Puah Hofenstein who shared her meals with him he was saved from starvation, because of the fraternal bond between him and her brother. And even though food and drink are better than starvation and thirst, his pleasure wasn’t perfect, for as long as you sit before her, you see yourself sinking into the abyss of the indulgent bourgeois life you escaped from.
There were others in the club too. Like Princess Mira Ramishvili Lordswill and Masha Yasinovski Lordswill, the ex-wives of Vittorio Lordswill, the wonderful musician, famous all over the world. Those women had opened a millinery salon. Princess Mira Ramishvili Lordswill and Masha Yasinovski Lordswill don’t usually come to the Laborer’s Club, so why did they come? Because once Tsina Dizengoff came to have a hat made for the winter season and told them that she saw in the newspaper the name of Prince Ramishvili, and Prince Ramishvili had been Mira’s husband before she met Lordswill. So she and her friend Masha came to see what the newspapers write about the Prince. Across from them sat Sasha Tugendherz, who had gotten a good job in the Russian consulate. And Sasha hadn’t yet argued anything before the consul.
Our comrade Joseph Aronovitch was also here. He was still dressed like all our comrades in the settlements, with threadbare garments on his body and oversized sandals on his feet and a torn straw hat on his head, even though summer was already over and the rains would soon come. And in his hand, he wasn’t holding a leather bag, as editors do, but his pockets served as the editorial briefcase for
The Young Laborer
.
Silman saw him and told him he was preparing an issue for Purim. Aronovitch looked at him out of the corner of his eyes and smiled at him. Suddenly the mockery was gone from his eyes and the lines of his forehead filled with great sadness. And Aronovitch told Silman, You want to publish a Purim paper, to rouse laughter and mockery with the jokes you make up. But if you heed my advice, you’ll take from what is happening in the Land, things as they are, without embellishing anything, and I guarantee you that you’ll make them laugh more than all the humorists in the world, even though
woe is us from that laughter. Aronovitch immediately reminded him of actions that had been done and actions that were about to be done, and every action was more ridiculous than the last. And more ridiculous than the actions were their actors, who boast as if the whole Yishuv depends on them. And even if every day were Purim and every day you publish a comic newspaper, you still wouldn’t be able to tell everything. And maybe a Purim paper shouldn’t take from reality, for things we see as painfully ridiculous, and that every sensible person weeps over them, are used as material for propaganda in the Diaspora. Silman looked at Aronovitch, whose face was full of grief and began laughing, for laughter is nicer than grief. Aronovitch looked at him and was amazed, for those actions should make you weep and not laugh.
And there were also others in the club. Printing press workers and building workers, workers who have no specific skill, and workers who were out of work and looking for work, and workers who left their work because of illness and became secretaries, this one in the SHILOH Company, whose initials stand for Sail Home Israel to the Land of Hope, and that one in
Akhuzat Bayit
, the committee preparing to build a new neighborhood in Jaffa. The whole club con-sisted of two rooms, one room for eating and drinking and another room for reading, but no one is strict about reading in the place for reading and eating and drinking in the place for eating and drinking, but this one eats and reads and that one reads and drinks. This one comes in and that one goes out. This one is a member of
Ha-Po’el Ha-Tsa’ir
and that one is a member of
Po’aley Tsion
. The Purim event is already forgotten, when our comrades got into a fight and the fight spilled out to the street, and the Kaymakam of Jaffa got per-mission from the Russian Consul and sent Arab Ottoman police to make order and thirteen Jews were wounded.
Falk Spaltleder entered and ordered two portions of ham-burger and a loaf of bread. And even though he was hungry as a dog, Tsippa Shoshi, the girl at the buffet, didn’t pay attention to him because at that moment she was busy with Tshernipolski, who had been measuring several countries with his feet. People are wont to stroll in the Land, from Jaffa to Kfar Saba and from Kfar Saba to Hadera and
from Hadera to Zikhron Ya’akov and back. And if they’re a bit more adventuresome, they go up to the Galilee and to Metullah. While our comrade Tshernipolski swallowed up the entire Land, its length and breadth, with the soles of his feet, all the way to Mount Hermon, and didn’t miss a single village. In one place he stayed overnight and in another place he drank pomegranate juice with snow, and in one village he saw a wedding celebration and in one village he saw something, but he won’t tell. A person has to conceal his feelings, for by concealing them in his heart they bear fruit. And once upon a time he sat on the crest of a rock at sunrise to eat his bread and garlic. And he felt in himself a kind of stirring that not everyone feels. If he wanted, he would have written a great poem with a few hundred stan-zas about that. A poem like that, Tsippa Shoshi my dear, such a poem that Tshernipolski would write is worth all the poems of Pizmoni.
Gorishkin put down his book and sat and pondered, That tale I read here also happened to me, if not really the same, then something similar, but it didn’t occur to me to write, and that writer came along and wrote and made a book, and I sat and read his book, and tomorrow others will come along, and the day after tomorrow others, until there won’t be a person left in the Land who hasn’t read it. And when I come along and publish my book, they’ll say, We’ve already read all that. It seems to me that the essence of a writer is his speed. If he’s fast and writes, he wins, and if not, others come along and take what’s his. The time has come for me to rent a room of my own with a table. I don’t ask for a desk with a green cloth, like those teachers in Jaffa who all make themselves a desk and put a basket full of torn paper in front of it so people will regard them as writers. All I need is an upturned barrel, just so I can spread a piece of paper on it.
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Gorishkin raised his eyes and saw Sonya. He thrust his book in his pocket and went up to her. He saw Isaac and asked how he was. Said Sonya, And about Rabinovitch you don’t ask? Said Gorishkin, Why do I have to ask, if you had something to tell me about him, wouldn’t you have told? Said Sonya, In fact, I don’t have anything to tell about
him because he doesn’t write to me. Said Gorishkin, If he had something to write, he would write.
Said Sonya, You returned to Jaffa. What are you doing here? Said Gorishkin, I’m doing what I haven’t done for days and years. I’m working, I’m working, Sonya. Where? she asked. And Gorishkin took the two ends of his mustache in his fingertips and said triumphantly and proudly, I’m working at the building of the girls’ school, with clay and stones. Said Sonya, Good for you that you found work. Said Gorishkin, It found me. At long last they’ve got to hire Jewish workers. And we’re flaying the skin off our bones just so they won’t find empty excuses to reject us. So what does Rabinovitch write? Sonya laughed and said, Didn’t you just say if he had something to write he would write. Said Gorishkin, Which means that he doesn’t have anything to write. Said Sonya, That’s not so, you must say he’s got lots of things to write and so he doesn’t write at all. Let’s go, said Sonya to Isaac. You’re going? asked Gorishkin. Sonya turned her head back and said, Say hello to Pnina. Here she comes.
Pnina said to Gorishkin, I didn’t know you were here. Said Gorishkin, If you had known, you wouldn’t have come? Said Pnina, That’s not what I said. Said he, But in your heart, that’s what you thought. Said she, Does a person know what’s in his comrade’s heart, aside from writers? Said Gorishkin, Believe me, Pnina, they don’t know anything either, but when you read their words it seems to you that they do know. Said Pnina, What’s that in your pocket, a new book? Said Gorishkin, The book is a new book, the content is old content. If you like, the same thing happened to you and to me. The very same thing? she asked. And if there are some changes, that doesn’t change a thing. Let’s go, said Sonya.
Sonya doesn’t look down on Pnina or Gorishkin. Pnina is a much more honest and pleasant girl than Yael Hayyot, whom Hem-dat is wooing. And if she bores you—it’s her naïveté that’s boring. And Gorishkin is also an honest man. Before she met Rabinovitch, she used to go out with Gorishkin, and she is grateful to him for not wooing her too much. In fact, no man woos a woman unless she is willing. However, she remembers Gorishkin kindly for not making her do that, so that she could look Rabinovitch in the eye even when
Gorishkin was with them. Now Rabinovitch has gone and includes her in his letters to Isaac Kumer. That Galician, it seems his heart is blank. Has he really not spoken with a girl in his life, or is he just say-ing that to make himself interesting?
When they emerged from the dark lane of the club and came to the crossroads, Sonya took her leave of Isaac, even though she hadn’t yet come to her house. For no reason, as we people of the Land of Israel say, she took her leave of him. As she took her leave of him and went off, twice she told him goodbye: Shalom, shalom.
At Sonya’s Place
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A few days after that night, Isaac saw Sonya walking in the street. He waved his hat and went toward her. In fact, Isaac should already have tried to see her because he got a letter from Rabinovitch, and in that letter, Rabinovitch asked how Sonya was. What does our friend Rabinovitch write? Our friend Rabinovitch writes almost nothing. If Madam wants to read it—please. Sonya took the letter and read, Ohhh, said Sonya, a person goes to Europe and finds nothing there but bad wine in Brindisi and sailors who beat each other up over a prostitute. At any rate, our Rabinovitch isn’t willing to fight over a girl. Rabinovitch was deserving of Sonya’s praise, for he didn’t fail to write them. Yet in the end, she chides and mocks him. Isaac bowed his head in embarrassment, so as not to look at her while she is mock-ing, but her face didn’t turn away from him. This was not the face he had seen on the ship when Sonya stood on Rabinovitch’s shoes with her face glued to his. Isaac glanced at her from the side and once again was embarrassed. But his embarrassment was divided, half of it tremulous and half of it rejoicing. Said Sonya, Look, you say of Rabinovitch that every place is his place. There’s a bit of truth in that, but I say not every place a person acquires is flattering for him. Are you in a hurry, Kumer? No, then let’s stroll a little.
So Isaac walks with Sonya. Sometimes next to her and sometimes behind her, as she tries to match her steps to his steps. Passersby ask how she is. Some of them are teachers, some of them are writers, some of them are clerks. And though they are noted people whose name you find in the newspapers, she replies to their greetings rather casually. So they went through a few streets and a few alleys until they
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I
came to her house. Sonya stood still and said, Here’s where I live. Are you busy? No. Then come in.
I
Never in his life had Isaac seen a girl’s room, and suddenly he finds himself sitting in Sonya’s room. The room is neither small nor big, but is medium size, and it has two windows, one window looks onto the street and has a curtain hanging on it, and one window opens onto a narrow alley where not everyone can pass. In the room is a bed and a sofa and a small table and a closet. The bed is covered by a colorful blanket embroidered with a yellow dog carrying a stick in his mouth. And under the sofa is a yellow box full of glasses and bowls and plates and spoons and knives and forks, all of Sonya’s crockery. And in the closet her dresses are hanging. And on top of the closet is a round hat-box. The room also has a lamp and a washbasin and a pitcher and two glasses, and a picture of Berele, our comrade who was killed by Arabs. Sonya didn’t know Berele, but because she had taken care of his be-reaved mother who came to prostrate herself on his grave, the woman gave her his picture. And because all our comrades were fond of him, it seemed to Sonya that she knew him better than anybody and was more fond of him than anybody. And sometimes she chides Berele’s girlfriends who consider themselves closer to him than she is. Isaac didn’t raise his eyes from the table, and whatever he saw in the room, he saw only by short glances, split into several details.
Her dress is handsome and light, wraps her body and taps on her limbs. Most of the girls wear such a dress, but not every girl brings her dress to life like Sonya, for the dress gambols on her, as if it too were alive. And another secret Sonya has, her shoes, which were made for her by the cobbler from Homel, that most women don’t know. Their shoes are made by Greek cobblers, and those women don’t know that there’s a poor Jewish cobbler here, and the shoes he makes give you an upright body and a fine posture. That cobbler deserves gratitude, but Sonya keeps her secret and doesn’t reveal it to her girlfriends.
Sonya is not exceptionally beautiful. Rachel Heilperin is bet-ter looking, Leah Luria is better looking, Asnat Magergut and Yael
Hayyot are better looking. Even other girls who aren’t famous beauties may be better looking than Sonya. As for her face, it’s freckled. And her eyes are neither black nor blue. And as for her hair, it’s bobbed and of indefinite shade. But all the defects gathered together in Sonya endow her with charm. Not for nothing did that Russian journalist, the friend of Sonya’s father, who taught Sonya Hebrew, say, There’s nobody like you, Sonya. That sinner already considered himself old, but when he met Sonya, his heart became young. As Sonya attracts the hearts of old men, so she attracts the hearts of young men. Grisha was attracted to her, Yarkoni was attracted to her, Gorishkin was attracted to her, not to mention Rabinovitch. Now Isaac sits before Sonya, because he is the friend of Rabinovitch who is Sonya’s friend. Isaac isn’t shrewd like all our other comrades. But there is something about him that attracts the heart. Sonya doesn’t know what it is. We who do know what it is will explain. There is in our comrade Isaac what there is in most young sons of Israel who have not yet tasted sin either in deed or in thought, and that is what endowed him with charm. Sonya passed her right hand over her head and smoothed her hair. Her hairdo is masculine, although she is not. When Isaac saw Sonya on the sea, she looked like a lad, now he sees her as a maiden, whom our comrade Rabinovitch liked bet-ter than all our women comrades in Jaffa. Maybe Isaac was sitting and maybe not. Even though he isn’t experienced with women, Isaac does know that as long as the hostess is standing, it’s not fitting for a guest to sit. And if he does sit, he sits tentatively.
Sonya bent over to the sofa, and from the box underneath it, she took out a small wicker basket and two flat plates and knives and paper napkins to wipe their hands. She stood up on tiptoe and brought down some oranges from the top of the closet. And then she put the oranges in the basket and set it on the table. She sat down, picked up a knife and peeled, and placed before Isaac a peeled or-ange sliced into sections. Isaac took a section and ate, while Sonya peeled a second and a third. Eat, Mr. Kumer, eat, said Sonya softly; there’s a lot here. Isaac took another section and told Sonya of the first time he had eaten an orange. Once upon a time, Mother, may-she-rest-in-peace, was sick and Father got her an orange. Mother divided the orange and gave some to every single child. At last nothing was left for her. Sonya said, Yes, yes, Outside the Land, oranges are expensive, while in the Land of Israel they are literally rolling in the street. Once the priest’s wife from her hometown ascended to the Land of Israel and came to see Sonya. Sonya put a heap of oranges before her. Said the priest’s wife, Sonichka, you treat that expensive fruit the way we treat potatoes. Said Sonya, And where you are, you treat potatoes the way we treat oranges here. Yes, yes, said the priest’s wife, a person doesn’t appreciate what he’s got, but likes and appreciates what he hasn’t got. Yes, yes, Sonya repeated the words of the priest’s wife, a person doesn’t appreciate what he’s got. Sometimes you find perfect wisdom in simple speech. Isaac wiped his hands and picked up a Bible from the table. He looked at it and saw a line erased here and a verse written there. Said Sonya, That belongs to my girlfriend, who corrected it according to the emendations of Doctor Schimmelman. You know Doctor Schimmelmann, don’t you? He speaks like a prophet and researches like a professor.
As Isaac was about to leave, Sonya said, Now that you’ve been in my house, I hope you’ll come back. Isaac answered, Sure, sure. Isaac knew that his sure’s were dubious. But in his heart he thought, If we meet again and she tells me to come in, I won’t refuse. On my own I won’t come. As soon as he had left he wanted to return.
I
The moon stood in the sky and the citrus groves were fragrant and the sea uttered its voice, not the voice of mighty waters, but the voice of a quiet humming. Even if you hadn’t been sitting with a girl like Sonya, you saw that this night was not like all other nights. The moon plays with the world and the universe is happy, and the fragrance of oranges wafts from every citrus grove and every tree, that’s the fragrance of oranges close to you and if you stretch out your hands to a tree and pluck off a fruit, the owner of the citrus grove won’t scold you, for oranges roll around here like potatoes Outside the Land. The distress of hunger and the disgrace of wandering from farmer to farmer and from office to office, and all the other things Isaac had experienced—were nothing now but a memory. Our comrade Rabinovitch was foolish to leave. At that moment, Isaac didn’t long for Rabinovitch, Isaac did long for something but he didn’t know what. The moon played by itself. It hid between the clouds and shone through them.
As he walked, Isaac came to the German Colony. The Negro guard saw him and recognized him because he had painted the homes of the residents of the Colony and frequented the home of Bra-bra-no-rish, the man of many clothes. The guard opened the little gate for him and let him in. He went in and started strolling around.
Mr. Orgelbrand came out, as he was wont to do every night before going to sleep, for every sleep that is not preceded by a stroll is heavy. There are people who stroll around for no good reason, but not Orgelbrand, for all his times are calculated, and he allocated this short time for a stroll. In the past, Orgelbrand lived on the sands at the sea and the sea roiled his sleep. When Rabinovitch left the Land, he came and rented his room. And now he’s happy about the change. No longer does he have to weary his legs in the sands, but walks on solid ground. And when he comes back from work, he sits down at the window like a person sitting in his garden, looking at the trees and bushes and flowers standing peacefully and not lacking anything. And he doesn’t lack anything either. He gets his pay every month and eats his fill and dresses well and is respected by folks, but it is that peace that made him start feeling the lack of something and if you lack that something, you lack everything.
Jonathan Orgelbrand is one of the clerks of the Anglo-Pales- tine Company, and a distant relative of Sonya’s, and is ten years older than Sonya, maybe more. At first, he expected Sonya to see his na-ture and overlook his years, then Rabinovitch came and destroyed his hope. When Rabinovitch left the Land, his hope for Sonya returned, since anyone who leaves the Land of Israel doesn’t come back so fast. And if he does come back, he doesn’t come back to old things. Hence the contact between Sonya and Rabinovitch was bro-ken, even though it ostensibly still exists, and Sonya is unattached and it is no crime if you think about her. Suddenly he found her walking with Isaac Kumer. He really doesn’t have anything against
Mr. Kumer. He’s a worker like all other workers in the Land, at any rate, if Sonya hadn’t been walking with him, he wouldn’t have noticed him.
Orgelbrand hung his stick on his arm and pulled his cap down on his forehead, the black cap he wears at night in front of his house. His good, languid eyes expanded because the cap shrank his forehead and because he saw Mr. Kumer. Since the night is fine and the moon is shining and he found a person to talk with, he started talking. First about the moon, which is twice as big here as Outside the Land, and then about other things that are different in the Land of Israel from all other lands, and about the people of the Land of Is-rael who are different from other people, and then about the ways of commerce, and from the ways or commerce, he got to the Ango-Palestine Company.
Isaac Kumer stands there, a little painter from a little town in Galicia, before Mr. Jonathan Orgelbrand, a certain clerk of the Ango-Palestine Company, and hears things about an issue that had excited him in his childhood, when two doctors from Lemberg came down to his hometown and delivered lectures about the Settlement Fund and about shares that give the Children of Israel possession of the Land of Israel, and would give their owners great profits. Like most matters that start with a bang and are forgotten, so Isaac had forgotten that matter too, until he came to Jaffa and saw a big building with a sign on it, and a lot of people roaring and pouring there, this is our bank, which the Zionists Outside the Land are proud of and say, May we live to be attendants in it. Many times, Isaac had chanced to see the director of the Anglo-Palestine Company riding in a carriage from his house to the bank and from the bank to his house, with a liveried attendant sitting in front, and everyone who sees him bows down to him, and Arabs call him Father of Money. Some merchants complain about the director that he doesn’t lend them money in time of need, and some activists grumble that if he’s offered land to buy he doesn’t buy. Maybe he’s right, for he knows the Land and knows what should be done and what shouldn’t be done, and maybe the merchants and activists are right, for the Anglo-Palestine Company wasn’t created only to make money, but to support the Land and its inhabitants. Whether it’s one or the other, it’s great to hear from a certain clerk of the Ango-Palestine Company certain things about the Anglo-Palestine Company that the whole Yishuv can be proud of.
Orgelbrand dropped the subject and asked Isaac, What does our comrade Mr. Rabinovitch write? Isaac answered, What does our comrade Rabinovitch write, trivial things he writes. Orgelbrand dropped his eyes as if he were ashamed of his question and said, To you he doesn’t write, to Madame Zweiering he writes. Isaac answered, To her too he writes almost nothing. Said Orgelbrand, How can it be that he writes almost nothing to her? As he spoke, he be-came alarmed at his own words. Mr. Orgelbrand didn’t intend to stick his nose so far into other people’s business.
I
Jonathan Orgelbrand makes a good salary and is respected by folks. There are merchants who cast their eye on him for their daughters, and there are daughters who cast their eye on him for themselves. And still he wasn’t yet married, even though he was already past his prime, and of all the money he earns he doesn’t have enough left to build himself a house, for he spends most of his money on various relatives who are no longer related to him. From the first day of his life, Jonathan Orgelbrand has borne the yoke. First with his father, who ruled him ruthlessly because he wanted to teach him the trade of hatmaking while he wanted to study office work, to be a clerk, because the clerk sits in a warm building on a swivel chair, and everybody tips his hat to honor the clerk, not like that hatmaker who makes hats for everybody and nobody tips his hat to him. As long as his mother was alive, he suffered his father’s rule. When she died and his father married another woman who brought him three daughters from her first husband, Jonathan ran away to the city of Baruch Zweiering (Sonya Zweiering’s father), a distant relative on his mother’s side. Mr. Zweiering gave him room and board and found him comrades from good families to teach him language and literature, for in those days folks were good to one another and helped one another. Orgelbrand was a diligent student and didn’t waste a
minute, like a person who yearns to reach a certain status in society and knows the value of time. And what status did he want to reach, the status of a clerk. And not because the clerk sits in a warm building in a swivel chair, but because he was inclined to that, for he had already become a man and turned his mind to his future.
Before long he went to work in a bank. First as a lowly secretary, and then as an assistant clerk, and then as a full clerk. He heard that they were about to establish a bank in Jaffa and needed expert clerks. He, who was drawn to Zionism and saw himself as an expert, took a pouch full of letters of recommendation with him and ascended to the Land of Israel.
He came to the director of the Anglo-Palestine Company. The director looked at his letters and said, Let’s see if you’re as good as they are. He examined him and found that they had written scarcely half the truth about him. So he gave him a position and raised his wages several times. When Orgelbrand ran away from his father he had nothing but the clothes on his back and a new hat he had taken unbeknownst to his father, and was supported by others, and now he has three suits and supports others with his money, for when he started getting paid, he started helping his father with money, first occasionally, and then on a regular basis. Then the fa-ther died and his widow married somebody else because people said that man could support her. But he couldn’t support her, for he was a sick man who needed to be supported. She wrote anguished letters to her stepson. He took pity on that wretched woman and started sending her money, as he had sent his father—at first to support the family, then additional money as a dowry for her oldest daughter, then for the second one, then for the third one, and aside from that, he sent money for the husband’s medical treatment. Things had reached such a pass that he spent half his salary on his father’s widow. And by now he was used to that, as something natural.
One day, he encountered Sonya Zweiering. He recalled all the favors of her father who had brought him into his home and fed him and gave him whatever he needed and hired teachers for him until he reached wherever he reached, and now his daughter lives here among strangers and needs to be taken care of like all the other
girls. And out of his pity and his affection, he started thinking, If I were married, I would bring her into my home and repay her for all the benefits her father granted me. But what should he do, since he is a bachelor and has no home, and all the nice things he should do, he can’t do. It occurred to him that maybe God willing, she would take a shine to him. He still wasn’t clear about what he wanted. When it did become clear to him, he got scared of the boldness of the idea, even though he didn’t stop thinking, Perhaps and maybe. As he wavered between the various possibilities, he found
Sonya going out with Rabinovitch. He curbed his feelings and tried to take his mind off her. But he invited her and Rabinovitch to his home, and offered them fruit and sweets, and accustomed himself to seeing them as a couple. And he was already considering what gift he would give them for their wedding. Then Rabinovitch left the Land. Orgelbrand understood that the package had come undone, that if they had been a couple, he wouldn’t have gone, or she would have gone with him. He began turning his mind to her again. Suddenly he found her walking with Isaac Kumer. Once again he wanted to take his thoughts off her, and didn’t succeed, but on the contrary, would ponder and say, And if Rabinovitch the merchant isn’t a match for her, even less so is this Kumer, this laborer. And if you say, Isn’t she going out with him, it’s the way of the world that lively girls go out with fellows until they find their mate and wash their hands of the others, and we cannot change that custom.