Only Yesterday (56 page)

Rebecca said to her daughter, Shifra, tell me, is there anything I can do? Shifra laid her head on her mother’s heart and wept. Rebecca stroked her cheeks and didn’t know what else to do. She looked into her beautiful and sad face, that gloomy beauty that caused the trouble that that fellow set his sights on her. Rebecca hadn’t been blessed with such beauty, nevertheless Fayesh had married her. It’s doubtful if he even looked at her, either before they were married or after they were married. And if she hadn’t known that all her husband’s deeds were for the sake of Heaven, she would have said that that was why he never showed her any sign of affection.

Shifra’s head lies on her mother’s heart. Rebecca strokes her daughter’s cheeks and thinks, How many years did she live with Fayesh until they were blessed with that daughter. Reb Fayesh was a ritual slaughterer Outside the Land and he always had a dispute with butchers, for they said he unjustly disqualified their livestock. And the dispute destroyed his strength. Finally he put away his knife

and they ascended to the Land of Israel to get away from the sinners and to be blessed with sons. Sons he wasn’t blessed with, but only this one daughter. And when she was born, Rebecca was afraid Fayesh would be angry at her for giving birth to a daughter and not to a son, but Fayesh wasn’t angry, but on the contrary, he blessed her with great joy. Now this daughter is grieving and there’s no way her mother can save her.

Peace

1
I

Isaac didn’t go to Abu Hassan because he was eager to return to Jerusalem, and he didn’t return to Jerusalem because he found an apartment for free here, for Sweet Foot was going with Shakhnai the surveyor or with Goldman the engineer or with neither one nor the other, but was fleeing from his ex-wife and from the upholsterer who was wooing her to marry her. He gave Isaac his hut to live in. Isaac was glad to stay in Jaffa, for living there is pleasurable, and he was glad he had chanced to get an apartment for free.

Deserts of sand stretch from the hut to the great sea, and a broad sky is stretched over them and over the hut, and a sprout blossoms from the sand, and sometimes a bird comes down from the sky and settles on the blossom. That bird isn’t one of those birds that Isaac saw on the ship on the sea. But the same wonderment he felt for the birds he saw on the ship on the sea, he felt for that bird.

Isaac stands in the doorway of his hut and compares his voice to the voice of the bird. But the bird doesn’t pay any heed to him, for he isn’t directing his song at a creature like him, but at the mate he desires. At that moment, another bird comes flying in, and now they spread their wings and fly among the blue waves between the sky and the land, sometimes with one another and sometimes against one another, and they come back to where they started. And it is a great joy in the world that two creatures who longed for one another mated in one place and you stand there and are glad, too. Peace and tranquility all around him and peace in his heart.

And since there is peace and tranquility here and there isn’t a person here, sometimes a person comes here to be alone with him-

I
457

self. Once Arzef from Jerusalem passed by here. Not looking for a phoenix did Arzef come to the deserts of sand, but a pair of stuffed skins Arzef sent Outside the Land and was bothered by the customs officials, who had trouble assessing how much customs duties to im-pose on them, either the rate for live animals but they weren’t alive, or the rate for inanimate objects but they did have skin and they did have bones. Arzef debated with them until his soul grew weary and he went to divert himself on the seashore. Isaac saw him and came out to greet him. Arzef didn’t recognize Isaac, but Isaac recognized Arzef, for once on the Sabbath, he had gone to him in Eyn Rogel with his comrades. Isaac brought him to his hut and put the kettle on and made him tea. And as is the way of our comrades, for whom every issue and matter is close to their hearts, he talked about the fowls of the heaven and the beast of the earth. And Arzef nodded at every single thing and stroked him with his eyes, as he was wont to do with man and beast and stuffed animal skin.

2
I

Everyone who goes to live in a dwelling that has no neighbors seems to be relieved of all his constraints. Like most sons of the poor whom the Lord placed in a crowded world, from the moment he was born, Isaac found himself closed in on all sides, for he was given only a nar-row place for his body. When he ascended to the Land of Israel and rented a private room for himself, his domain didn’t expand, for his room was shrunk among a lot of rooms among a lot of neighbors. But from the day he went to live in Sweet Foot’s hut, that stood alone in the deserts of sand, Isaac’s boundaries burst open and his domain expanded, for wherever he turned, he saw himself alone. When he returned home at night, he doesn’t have to watch his steps because of the neighbors, when he gets out of bed in the morning, he can raise his voice in song, for there is no one here but the tranquil wind mov-ing among the sands and the roar of the waves of the sea.

Isaac removed his mind from the world and lived on what he found in the hut, rusks and smoked meat and canned fish and various jams and tinned milk and coffee and tea and cocoa and chocolate and sugar and wine and cognac and liquor and fruit juices,

Peace
I
459

which Sweet Foot’s ex-wife brought Sweet Foot. The dead husband of that Rabbi’s wife left her money, along with what she inherited from her father, and she was bored and didn’t know what to do. She went round to the shops and got whatever she laid eyes on, and hired herself a carriage and came to Sweet Foot, for she was afraid he would starve to death, for he was busy with various inventions and didn’t look for paid work. But Sweet Foot doesn’t like delicacies because delicacies lead to laziness, and when he gave his hut to Isaac, he did it on condition that he eat everything and not leave anything for the mice.

1. I
   

   Isaac feels good and doesn’t do anything. You don’t know how much man is prone to be idle. The moralists think that man’s purpose in the world is to do good deeds, and those with a purpose think that man’s purpose is to reach a purpose. If we look at Isaac, we see that if he has a bed and a table, he has his purpose. If a thought comes to him to return to Jerusalem, another thought comes that, as long as he can sit here, there’s no point moving. And if his heart was drawn to Shifra, his thoughts brought him closer to her than he could be in reality. Thoughts have no limits, wherever the heart wishes, they enter. And if you say, what will we eat after Sweet Foot comes back and Isaac has to clear out of his place, there is enough in his purse to support himself for a month or two. And in the winter, what will he do, when the painters are idle because the paint doesn’t dry fast, and there are landlords who keep a lid on their fees, wait for winter and live on their debts. Even the winter itself that reduces his income brings him profit. How? For when the great rains fell and got into their churches and blurred the paints, the priests called him to re-paint in honor of the pilgrims who come from Outside the Land for Christmas. And sign-painting also brings him a penny or two.
   

2. I
   

In those days when Isaac lived in the hut, he relived his first days, ex-cept that in the past he was idle because he didn’t have anything to do, and now he is idle because he doesn’t have to do anything. And

Isaac has now forgotten the days of hunger, the days of despair, the days when he didn’t see a cent and didn’t see how he would earn any money for tomorrow. A bit of good makes us forget a lot of bad. And since he is steeped in goodness, his mind is fine and his heart expands. And he sees the Land from another perspective. Not like Brenner, who says a moneylender in Poland owns more houses than Ahuzat Bayit will build, and not like those who sneer at everything that is done in the Land of Israel, but like those who say houses Outside the Land of Israel are houses, but the houses in the Land of Is-rael build the Land, and all those deeds they sneer at today may one day be the foundation of our life in the Land.

In Jaffa, Isaac found some of his first comrades with whom he humbled himself looking for work from the farmers and with whom he beat his feet on the doorsills of the activists. Like all our comrades, they too came to build and to be rebuilt. Years went by and they weren’t rebuilt, not them and not the Land. Their eyes grew dim and their backs grew bent. Now they are erect as cypresses and their eyes are smiling. They were joined by new people who ascended from the Diaspora, and they have the enthusiasm of the first ones but they don’t have the doubts of the first ones. They do whatever work comes along and they don’t split hairs about what should be done and what shouldn’t be done. Some of them went out to the new settlements founded by Ruppin, and some find their livelihood in the city, building houses. The people of Jaffa abhorred the Arab houses whose filth was great and whose air was heavy. There are houses whose cesspools are close to the water cisterns and their wa-ters blend and bring all kinds of diseases, and there are houses where there is no cesspool and they pour their waste in front of the house and raise mosquitoes and gnats and flies that bring malaria. And the Arabs raise the rent from one year to the next, for every ship brings new immigrants and all the houses in Jaffa cannot absorb all those who come. So the people of Jaffa formed an association to build themselves decent houses in a separate neighborhood, that’s the neighborhood of Tel Aviv, which became a major city in Israel.

Beginning of Tel Aviv

1. I
   

   At first, they planned to build summer houses where a person could find rest after the toil of the day, and his wife and sons and daughters could sit in fresh air and not fear trachoma and all the other diseases of the Land, for the Land made its inhabitants sick ever since the first day we were exiled from our Land, with diseases the children catch from their Arab neighbors. Money to buy land and build houses they didn’t have. After all, they didn’t bring money from Outside the Land, and what a person earns here isn’t enough for anything but a modest livelihood. But their heart’s desire and their will grew strong. And since they got the idea in their heads, they didn’t let go of it. And furthermore, they decided to build themselves a regular neighborhood for all seasons, summer and winter.
   

   About sixty people gathered together and formed a company and called that company Ahuzat Bayit, because every one of them wanted to make himself a house in the Land of our possession. Some wanted to build their neighborhood within the city of Jaffa for their livelihood was in the city and if their houses were far away from the city, they would be weary from the sun in summer and from the rain in winter and far away from social life, for all social life was in the city. Furthermore, a settlement outside the city is far from the foreign consuls and there is danger in that. And some said, No, on the contrary, we’ll build ourselves a special quarter outside the city, and we’ll build ourselves fine houses, and in front of every house we’ll plant ourselves a little garden and we’ll make ourselves straight, broad streets, and we’ll make our spirit, the pure spirit of Israel, prevail in that place. And when we achieve that, we’ll make ourselves a kind of
   

   I
   461
   

   autonomy. For it’s impossible to do that unless we’re far away from the city. The latter defeated the former and they agreed to make the neighborhood outside the city. Everyone gave twenty Francs for the first expenses and they started looking for land. They found land in the wasteland of the city, but they couldn’t pay the price of the land. They made an effort to get a loan. They appealed here and there and didn’t get an answer. At last, the Jewish National Fund did respond and lent them three hundred thousand Francs.
   

   They got themselves land, part sand dunes and part ravines and valleys. They hired themselves workers to prepare the land and ready it for building houses. Our comrades move mountains and pour the sand into the valleys and bring stones from the sea and set them in the sand and fill in ditches. And camels and mules carry sand and wheelbarrows run, and hammers strike, and a stone crusher crushes the stones, and our comrades scatter gravel among the stones and make the valleys and hills into a plain. Our comrades stand sunk in sand, and a forest of wide hats waves in the air, and a supervisor wearing high boots up over his knees runs from place to place, and looks here a little and there a little, and has a word with this one and half a word with that one. And the workers run, not like the Arabs who have to be prodded. And our comrades don’t stop except to drink water and wipe their sweat, and sometimes, near dark, a person asks his comrade what time it is. And a sound of blasting comes from the quarry where they bring building stones and a smell of burned dust bubbles up. Not the sound of war and not the smell of war, but the sound of building and the smell of settlement. And a sort of road now sprouts from the sands and it lets a person’s feet stand firm. And men and women and children come from Jaffa and try out their feet on the road. Behold that wonder, the road doesn’t sink and the foot doesn’t drown in the sand.
   

   There are those who slander the Jewish National Fund for lending money to the members of Ahuzat Bayit, for they include merchants and shopowners and some of them are moneylenders, who are saving their own money that brings them high interest, and are asking for public money at low interest. And there are those who mock the members of Ahuzat Bayit, who want to build on the sand,
   

   Beginning of Tel Aviv
   I
   463
   

   and whose end is inherent from the start, like the well-known proverb about those who build on sand. Furthermore, expenses will be added on top of expenses, for their livelihood is in the city and they will have to hire a wagon, and needless to say the children need a school.
   

2. I
   

Not all opinions are the same. Some mock and some rejoice, some grumble and slander and some build and respond, This place that was desolate and without a settlement will be full of big and fine houses and beautiful trees, and right in the center of the neighborhood, we’ll plant a big garden, and around the garden we’ll build a synagogue and a library and a town hall and schools, and all the streets will be filled with boys and girls. The Herziliya Gymnasium already started building its school in our neighborhood and everyone who wants to give his sons and daughters a Hebrew schooling along with a general education will send his sons and daughters to us, and will send their mother along with them, and then he himself will come.