Only Yesterday (51 page)
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I
And here the sea of Jaffa cheers the heart and the green citrus groves gladden the eyes and the red pomegranate trees are suffused with a
loveliness of beauty like a sweet promise. Date palms sway in the wind and ancient sycamores spread their shoots and give you shade. And white houses basking in sun sit within the citrus groves, and vineyards spread out into the distance, and every day they bring wet grapes from the settlements, and every grape is like a glass of good wine, and the grapes here are cheap. If you want, you get yourself half a Rotel of grapes, and you sit yourself down in the shade of a tree in the Baron’s garden, and you pick a grape and eat it, pick a grape and eat it. If you want, you climb a high hill and look down on Jaffa the Belle of the Seas.
And Jaffa also has this advantage over Jerusalem, that everywhere you go there, you find comrades. You go into a café and you find the activists of the Yishuv and you hear how the deeds of the Land are done. Sometimes Mordechai Ben-Hillel Ha-Cohen comes in. Mordechai Ben-Hillel isn’t one of those who sits in a café, but between one assembly and another, he comes in and sits at the head and tells what he said to Deputy Minister So-and-So in Petersburg, and what the Russian Consul in Jerusalem said to him, on the day he came to him adorned with all the medals he had received from the government, and it seems to you that the world is revolving right in front of your eyes. You go into a restaurant and no one turns up his nose because you’re a painter, for here a craft honors those who practice it. Sons of good families who practice a craft beautify the craft. While in Jerusalem, the educated people preach in praise of crafts and welcome the labor leaders, but a simple laborer doesn’t see a welcome. Great is a craft so long as you don’t smell the smell of its sweat. And it is no wonder, a city that heard that a vocational school is banned and excommunicated, how will it honor a craft. Therefore, all artisans in Jerusalem are lowly in the eyes of the folks, and lowly in their own eyes, and they don’t see an hour of satisfaction and not a voice is heard singing at their work. And the students of Bezalel, who should have brought Isaac close to them, stay far away from him, so that painter will not be counted as one of them. Isaac still remembers that artist he met in Jerusalem when Isaac asked him about his fellow artisans, the housepainters, and he looked at him as some triviality that doesn’t deserve to be looked at.
Happy People
I
On the eve of the Sabbath, before dark, Isaac went down to the sea, as the people of Jaffa are wont to do, to bathe in honor of the Sabbath. He found a few of his comrades. Some stood naked and warmed themselves in the sun, and some split the blue waves, this one lay supine and that one lay on his side, this one suddenly disappeared into the mighty waters and floated up again to the surface of the water, and that one grabbed his comrade by the heel as if he wanted to drown him, but his comrade overcame him and rode on his shoulders, and the two of them rose up like a two-headed creature. Meanwhile, a third jumped onto their backs, raising both hands up, as if he were holding up the sun so it wouldn’t fall into the sea. Thus they played like Gymnasium students who don’t have the yoke of a livelihood on them, for from Friday afternoon until Sunday morning, they were free from work.
Said one to his comrade, It’s good that there’s the Sabbath in the world, isn’t it. Said his comrade, If the Sabbath day is good I don’t know, but the eve of the Sabbath is certainly good. Said he, If there were no Sabbath, there would be no Sabbath eve, would there. Said he, Aren’t you from the Lida Yeshiva, where they teach Talmud through logic. Said he, And you who didn’t learn Talmud, there isn’t a trace of logic in your skull, is there.
Between this and that, the sun sank and fell into the sea. The gate of the west turned red and the waves of the sea grew bigger. The sea uttered a sound, and within the sound was silence. The sea brought up foam and the foam covered the tops of the waves, which changed their hues like that world between heaven and earth and
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419between sea and firmament. And the heaven and the earth also changed their nature, and hidden yearnings began permeating the space of the world, yearnings that aren’t grasped by any of the five senses, but the heart grasps them because it is part of those yearnings. Everyone who was in the water separated from the waves and came up, dried himself off and got dressed, every single one with his beard shaved and his moustache trimmed, for before they went to the sea, they went to the barber.
They put on clean Sabbath clothes, cloth trousers with a white or gray or blue shirt. They belted their shirt, this one with a woven belt and that one with a leather belt. They put shoes on their feet, not camel skin ones and not torn ones, but light shoes like the shoes worn by strollers. On their head, this one put a straw hat and that one a cap. At that time, in the heavens above, the Sabbath candles were lit and their light was seen from the sea. Some members of the group recalled their mother’s candles and some their father’s table. Rhymes of Sabbath songs emanated from their heart and yearnings of yearnings surrounded the melody and became another melody, like those waves of the sea, which are the same as they were at first, but are heavier and bolder and gloomier than they were at first.
One laughed and said, You guys haven’t eaten yet and you’re already singing songs. Hey gang, let’s go eat. Another one heard it and said, If you’re hungry, go eat. And the first one answered, And you, you’re not hungry? Said he, Whether I’m hungry or not, I’m willing to eat any time and any hour. This one got up and went to Levi Isaac and that one to Sussman, this one to Malkhov and that one to another restaurant, for our comrades were already used to celebrating their Sabbath in a restaurant, and even those who dined in their rooms every night, on the Sabbath they dined in the restaurant, for the restaurants in Jaffa are jolly on Sabbath nights. Don’t look in the bowl to see if there is meat and fish in it or if there isn’t meat and fish in it, but look at the joy between one bowl and the next. Everyone who can sing sings and all the rest assist him and bang a spoon or a fork like singers and musicians, until they get up from the table and move the chairs aside and dance, and continue into the street of
the city. Other comrades of ours come from other restaurants and accompany them, dancing. Isaac who ordered his meal in his hotel which our comrades don’t frequent, was sorry to sit alone, as on Sabbath nights in Jerusalem.
I
Behold, that hotel, of all places, was joyous. That night was the birthday of the owner’s only daughter, who was born on the ship on the way to the Land of Israel and some of the passengers of that ship came to wish her happy birthday, and with them came the two ex-wives of Vittorio Lordswill. The owner brought out muscat wine and his wife brought fruit and sweets. They ate and they drank and they ate. And Masha Yesinovsky Lordswill, whom Lordswill the wonderful musician had courted for her fine voice, raised her voice and sang some splendid songs. And the princess Mira Ramishvili Lordswill, her friend, who had left her husband Prince Ramishvili for Vittorio Lordswill, got up and danced, and as she danced, she took her friend Masha and danced before her the dance of a bridegroom trying to please his bride, until sparks of fire sprayed from their eyes and from our eyes too. And Masha Yesinovsky Lordswill put her handsome head on the heart of Mira the princess, like a girl who puts her head on the heart of her lover. The sea roared and a wind came from the sea. The wind put out the candles and a sweet gloom swathed the space of the house.
Afterward, we went out to the balcony and from the balcony to the courtyard and from the courtyard to the street, and from the street we went into Levi Isaac’s house, for there was great joy in Levi Isaac’s hotel, where Michael Heilperin made himself a new suit of Lebanese silk, with a light blue belt around his waist and an immense straw hat on his head, and he danced in a circle they formed, and he held a dagger in his hand, the dagger he grabbed from the hand of an Arab who was about to kill him with it. His golden curls that had turned gray in a few spots were waving in the wind, and two blue fringes hung down from his hat below his neck, and his blond beard was neatly trimmed and came down to his long neck, and his blue eyes sprayed sparks of molten steel. Six kinds of dances he danced
that night, until Mira came and put her big hand on his shoulder and danced with him the dance of the seven bayonets. And you, Hem-dat, used to say that dancing was given only to the Hasids. But that moment, you shook your head and said, Great, great. A happy group we were in those days in Jaffa, the Belle of the Seas.
Hemdat shook his head and said, Great, great. Little by lit-tle, his eyes cooled down, like someone who sees a person approaching, and thinks it’s his comrade, but when he gets to him he sees it isn’t his comrade. Brenner sat with Aharon David Gordon, who came from Eyn Ganim on the Sabbath eve. Levy Isaac ran to and fro. And as he ran, he dropped a word here and a word there and his bald head gleamed, as if he were Heilperin and Mira and Brenner and Gordon all at the same time. Right away, said Levi Isaac to someone who didn’t ask him for anything. Zhelde Zhlate, he called to his wife, Zhelde Zhlate, a cup of tea for comrade Brenner. Won’t you spend the night here, comrade Gordon. Falk Shpaltleder explained the essence of dancing to Pnina. You see, Pnina, this thing, namely the dancing, in fact it’s nothing but a result of the legs, but it raises the body to the level of the soul. A man walking aimlessly doesn’t make an impression on us, he is one of thousands, tens of thousands, millions of people, for it is the nature of man to walk, just as on the other hand, man is wont to stand or sit or lie, for all those functions are in the nature of man. And yet let a man lift his feet and launch into a dance, then his spirit is exalted, and his soul soars so high that we say that all his limbs, all his body are transformed into soul, for thus the body was elated and his whole body became all soul.
Pnina wasn’t listening. Her small eyes narrowed and her lashes meshed together, like a person making a bundle and tying up everything in it. Heilperin’s golden curls and Mira’s dark eyes suddenly merged into one face, and the sound of their feet answered, That’s how we are, one face are we. Pnina opened her eyes wide and as she went on looking, she saw that it was true, Michael and Mira were one person. And they, that is he, his curls caress her cheeks and his eyes look at her with love. If not for Yael Hayyot’s laughter, she could have stood like that to the end of her days. Pnina shut her small
eyes so that vision wouldn’t be swallowed up in that sight. And yet, from Yael’s full lips rolled a jolly laugh. Shortly before that, Shammai whispered something to her, and now that she fathomed his meaning, she started laughing, and the whole delightful existence Pnina saw went off.
Gorishkin, our comrade in distress, sat and pondered, This Heilperin ascended to the Land when he was rich and, with his own money, he built a big flour mill in Nes Tsiona and taught his workers how to strike, the first strike in the Land of Israel. Heilperin lost his money and became a guard in the Herziliya Gymnasium. Events are in abundance here and there’s no author to put them into writing. Brenner writes about the miserable and the bereaved, and all the other authors write as they are wont about beggars and Yeshiva students. In that generation, not all readers were happy with their stories, some complained about the authors, Why doesn’t this author write like that author, and others complained, Why doesn’t that au-thor write like this author? But Gorishkin wasn’t happy, because the authors leave the Land of our Resurrection and do dwell on the small towns of Diaspora.
In honor of Gordon, some began singing a song Gordon had composed against the zealots in Petach Tikva and against Yehoshua Shtemper, the leader of the zealots, who loathed the young workers who didn’t follow the Torah. That Shtemper who had risked ascending on foot to the Land of Israel, and was blessed to be one of the first three founders who established the first settlement in the Land of Israel and defended it with his life against the Bedouins, and finally when they were about to establish a settlement of young workers next to Petach Tikva, he said it was better that German Gentiles settled near us rather than heretics. Gordon gathered his beard in his hands, as he was wont to do when his soul was upset, and said to Brenner, I hear, I hear. Said Brenner, An Englishman walks around in the streets of Jerusalem and addresses me in English, and it doesn’t occur to that gentleman that these aren’t English people here, and no one here understands English. Fortunately for him, I lived in London and I understand a little English and I answered him, even though it vexed me a bit, for am I obligated to understand his tongue. So is
that nation, wherever they go, they imagine they’re at home, for all the lands of the globe are theirs, only theirs.
Heilperin danced a new dance like a fellow who speeds up in the lightness of his movement, and when he came to Mira, she turned her face away from him and glanced behind her shoulder with a fondness for seduction, like a bride who urges her fiancé to follow her. And when he approached her and enjoyed seeing her, she slipped off and slid away, making her arm a kind of a bow and peeping at him from there. He jumped up and slipped his head through the bow of her arm and thus he danced.
Gordon stroked his beard and asked Hemdat, my prince, what do you say about that? Hemdat shook his head and said, Great, great. But his cold eyes revealed what was on his mind. Gordon gathered his beard in his hand and said, Never will I understand the heart of our youth. It’s almost six years since I’ve been here in the Land of Israel, and at every time and every hour and everywhere I set foot, I see our fellows sad as mourners. Is it because of the short perspective visible to us from our work in the Land that you are sad, or is the suffering of your heart so much more important to you than our work in the Land of our Resurrection that you don’t find a bit of solace for your souls in forgetting your personal troubles.