The Last Rain (23 page)

A lot of Arab women get on the bus with their baskets. Mummy laughs every time the bus bumps because it makes us jump up in our seats. I laugh with her. She peels an orange and gives me half because we left before breakfast. She says
pelah
⁵⁶
pelah Metushelah
which doesn’t mean anything—it just rhymes. Usually words that don’t mean anything are for babies but everyone says
pelah pelah Metushelah.
Even my brother David.

Mummy has to go to an office. It takes a long time. I play with my sunhat but there isn’t much you can do with a sunhat. When we’re finished Mummy says
you were so patient!
I say
I wasn’t patient at all
and she laughs very hard. I don’t know why exactly.

We go to a toilet to pee because later there might not be a toilet. It isn’t very clean but Mummy brought pieces of newspaper in her purse and she puts them on the seat so we won’t catch any germs. Then we wash our hands with soap. Mummy says
with soap you don’t have to worry who touched it
.

On the street I see a woman with very puffed hair. I say,
look Mummy she has a cake on her head!
and Mummy says
shhh
so the woman won’t hear but she smiles. She says
now I have a surprise for you—we’re going to see a Tarzan movie.

I can’t believe it! Now I’m the happiest girl in the world. The happiest girl who ever lived in the whole wide world.

We go into the cinema. The seats are made of wood and they bounce up unless you hold them. Mummy holds the seat down for me. It goes up a bit when I sit on it because I’m not heavy enough but I don’t mind. The movie starts. First there’s a monkey and then an elephant brings Tarzan a log. Then a boy sweeps the floor. He sweeps all the dirt under a carpet.

Mummy leans over and whispers
look how he sweeps!
So then I know it’s a joke and I laugh.
⁵⁷

The boy is Tarzan’s son. Mummy explains the movie to me but two big girls keep turning around to look at us and Mummy says we’re bothering them.

I don’t mind not understanding everything. It’s still the best movie in the world with the handsomest man in the world.

When the movie is over Mummy says out loud
the end
. The sun outside hurts my eyes and I have to cover them. Mummy says
I think I’m ready for the beach!
This is turning out to be the best day of my life.

On the way to the beach Mummy sees some stairs going down. She’s very curious about where they go. She says
should we go see where those stairs lead?
and I say
yes
and she says
but then we’ll have to climb back up.
She decides to go down anyhow. So we go down but when we get to the bottom there are more stairs! She can’t decide again.

Finally she decides to go down those stairs too. But when we get to the end there are even more stairs! Mummy says
well that’s it
and we go back up without ever finding out what was there. She was right about going up. It’s much harder than going down.

We walk to the beach and Mummy pays for a beach chair. She takes a bathing suit out of her bag and helps me put it on. She says
you can play in the water but stay on the foam
and she lies down on the chair and goes to sleep.

I sit on the soft foam and feel it with my fingers. I let the waves go over my legs. I look out at the sea and get the
abracadabra
feeling. That huge feeling of longing for something in the future. The longing makes me think of the song—

Oh the deep blue of the sea

Jerusalem I long for thee

Only the beginning of the song is beautiful. Then it changes and gets stupid.

I dig holes in the wet sand and collect pretty shells. I shake the shells in my hands. My favourites are the twisty ones with the pointy edge. I love the beach.

A man comes by yelling
Artik Artik
. He has a big box tied to his neck. Mummy wakes up and asks for two lemon Artiks. Lemon Artiks are much better than the popsicles in Canada. They’re softer and sweeter and more lemony. You have to eat them fast though. Otherwise they fall apart and drip on everything.

Mummy looks at her watch and says
we have to go back
. She isn’t happy about going back. I take off my bathing suit and get dressed. Mummy sings—

To Israel we came

Because we’re insane

and I laugh. The song is supposed to be—

To Israel we came

To plant and sow grain

Mummy laughs with me. We laugh all the way to the bus.

Diary of a Young Man

25 May 1922.
An event perpetrated by the “Night Group” yesterday stirred up a great deal of anger among some of our families. When they woke up in the morning they saw the hut of the empty Children’s House, which we have just built, had been rearranged to resemble the room of a petit-bourgeois family: two neatly made beds with slippers placed beneath them; on the husband’s bed a pipe and various accessories typical of a petit-bourgeois family room.

The message is clear: families are beginning to isolate themselves from the life of the greater family—the commune.

Strong feelings have been aroused, and the behaviour of the “Night Group” is being labelled tactless, truly brutish! R. even cried at this piece of mischief.

15 June 1922.
Our road work has ended and we have been moved to Nahalal to drain malaria-producing swamps. The hammer and chisel have been replaced by picks and shovels, highly unromantic tools.

Our work is so demanding that our Meetings are taken up entirely by discussions related to work. It can be quite boring. Isn’t it enough that we have to work all day, do we also have to discuss it at night?

But there are those among us, not many, for whom matters of work and economics are more important than the internal social life of the commune.

16 June 1922.
For a while there have been rumours that some members consider a few other members unsuited to the commune.

Yesterday at the Meeting this rumour was brought out into the open by way of one person’s demand that 48 members be asked to leave, of our total of 80—among them founders of the commune who have been here since its inception.

He listed the 48 members. There was a big hue and cry and his suggestion was condemned, even though secretly there are those who support him. Thus the 48 are staying and now divisiveness has been created. Altogether, this member has extraordinary ideas.

Dori

Hang down your head Tom Dooley!

Hang down your head and cry!

Hang down your head Tom Dooley!

Poor boy you’re bound to die!

Met her on the mountain!

There I took her life!

Met her on the mountain!

Stabbed her with my knife!

Hang down your head Tom Dooley!

Hang down your head and cry!

Hang down your head Tom Dooley!

Poor boy you’re bound to die!

Thy Neck with Chains of Gold

Dori

I’m putting on my socks next to Gilead’s bed. He shows me a razor blade. He says his father gave it to him even though I thought he didn’t have a father but maybe he does. He says
my father uses it for shaving.
He says
razors don’t hurt when they cut you
and I say
I don’t believe you
and he says
want to bet?
I say
ok.
We shake hands and do Abraham Isaac Jacob and he cuts the leg that doesn’t have the sock on yet.

Blood comes pouring out! I scream and Shoshana comes and takes me over to the window and wraps a bandage around my leg but the blood goes right through the bandage. I’m screaming my head off.

Shoshana finds someone to carry me to the Room. Daddy and Mummy come in and kiss me but I’m still screaming. Dafna the nurse comes in and gives me a needle like Skye had when the dog bit her. Daddy asks me if I want a candy and I nod. I suck on the candy and feel better. More people come into the Room and leave.

Daddy says
we’re calling the doctor to see if he can come to Eldar but if he can’t we’ll have to go to the hospital in Safed
. I really really don’t want to go to the hospital.

Mummy comes in and says the doctor can’t come— we’ll have to drive to Safed. I say
will you come with me?
and Daddy says
of course dollie we’ll all come with you.

We drive in the back seat of a truck. In Canada one time I was coming home with Mummy and suddenly we saw an ambulance. Right on Davaar Street. Mummy said
let’s go see what’s going on
and I said
no no don’t go!
But she went anyhow and she said
oh no it’s grandpa!
I didn’t understand how it could be my grandfather when it could have been anyone. If only she’d listened to me! But it would have been my grandfather no matter what. So then we had to drive in the ambulance with my grandfather and when we got to the hospital Mummy found a phone on the wall and called Daddy. I began to cry and she turned to me and said in a very worried voice
what is it?
I was surprised that she was asking
what is it?
but I could see she felt bad and I didn’t want to make her feel worse so I stopped crying.

I’m not crying now either. I’m happy to be with Mummy and Daddy in a truck. I’m sitting on Daddy’s lap.

We get to the hospital. It’s crowded with people on chairs and beds and it doesn’t look very clean. Mummy says
this is where you were born
. It bothers me that she wasn’t alone and that she gave birth in a dirty hospital.

Dafna the nurse pulls a curtain so no one can see us. The doctor is an old man. I say
just tell him not to put
on anything that burns!
So Daddy tells the doctor even though he doesn’t want to. Everyone tells me how good I am but I’m not good. I’m making sounds even though nothing burns and nothing hurts. I’m just making them so people will worry about me.

The doctor tells Daddy something and Daddy says
this is going to burn a little
and I say
all right
because they told me. It only burns for a second. Dafna leans over me so I won’t see and she tells the doctor what to do.
⁵⁸

The doctor gives me seven stitches. We drive back and I fall asleep on Daddy’s lap.

Daddy carries me to the Children’s House. I wake up on the way.