by Shifra Horn
The next day Davida came to visit Pnina-Mazal.
“Where’s Yitzhak?” she asked, her eyes prying into the corners of the house.
“Gone for a walk with David,” Pnina-Mazal replied.
Davida refused to give up and remained until it grew dark, regaling her friend with tales of the pranks of the girls at school and stories about Miss Farkash, and how the train of her dress had been caught up in the banister and three girls had come running to disentangle it. And how with one girl pulling in one direction and the other in another direction while the third supervised their efforts, the train had torn with a loud rip, and how Miss Farkash had ordered a carriage and driven home in disgrace, like a poor peacock that had lost its tail. And how it was about time that Miss Farkash started coming to school in a normal dress, instead of risking her life and the lives of others with superfluous appendages that added nothing to her beauty, charm, or dignity, and caused unnecessary conflict and fighting among the girls, who were prepared to scratch each other’s eyes out for the honor of carrying the train like the train of a bride being led to the marriage canopy, whereas Miss Farkash was an old maid who had never known a man and whose time to marry had long passed.
And Davida told her about Miss Mansoor, the Arabic teacher, who taught the girls the Egyptian pronunciation, so that when they went to the market and tried to show off their Arabic, the hawkers would split their sides laughing at their accents and mockingly call them Gamilla instead of Jamilla, in the local pronuncation.
And Pnina-Mazal listened to her stories and felt no nostalgia for the school, for the morning prayers, for Miss Farkash’s parades, and especially not for the sewing and cooking lessons she hated.
In the evening Davida departed disconsolately, having failed to catch a glimpse of the resplendent Yitzhak, whom David had smuggled into his room through the back door.
* * *
Having once tasted the delights of learning, Pnina-Mazal could no longer do without them, and she decided to develop her linguistic skills. A French tutor, Jean-Louis, was soon found for her. By day he worked as a clerk in the French Post Office, and in the evening he sat in the coffeehouses and ogled the girls of easy virtue with his roving eye, his oiled and parted hair, his waxed mustache, and his smooth talk. At the request of Sara, whose honey-colored eyes had pierced his heart, he agreed to come to her house once a week and teach her fair daughter the language of the aristocrats.
To procure a Russian teacher, Sara went all the way to the Russian compound, where she found Father Nikodeem. With his eyes boring into hers he agreed to come to her house and instruct her daughter, and herself if she so desired, in the Russian language and the works of Tolstoy. “I am honored, Madam, that your daughter wishes to learn our language,” he said with flashing eyes.
For instruction in the Greek language, Sara brought the novice monk Cyprianos to their house. Every Monday afternoon, before he set out, he would curl his mustache and oil his long hair and gather it into a neat bun on the nape of his neck. And when he sat with Pnina-Mazal in the sitting room and practiced Greek verbs with her, his eyes would wander over Sara’s curves, invade the neck of her blouse, and encircle her breasts.
Miss Mansoor, the Arabic teacher at the Baroness Sarita Cassuto School for Girls, gladly agreed to Sara’s request to teach her most gifted pupil, but on condition that no hint of the arrangement should reach Miss Farkash’s ears.
Now all that remained was for Sara to find an English teacher, a teacher whose knowledge of the language would be superior to her daughter’s. On Jean-Louis’s advice she went to the American colony and made inquiries about an English teacher there. Everyone she asked recommended Mrs. Rachel Godwin, who taught both Jewish and Arab children with excellent results. The next day Rachel came to Sara’s house. Her round face was encircled by a reddish plait coiled around her head. She was wearing a gleaming white lace dress, and a dainty parasol of the same stuff protected her fresh complexion from the blazing sun of the Jerusalem summer. Her hands were encased in white cotton gloves, and her whole appearance bespoke authority.
Pnina-Mazal was summoned from the yard and stood in front of the English teacher with her cheeks flushed. “I know you,” the little girl suddenly announced joyfully, as if she had discovered a long-lost relative.
“Where from?” Rachel asked her with chilly reserve.
“We met once, many years ago,” stated Pnina-Mazal confidently.
Rachel smothered a little laugh with her white gloves. “I don’t remember,” she said politely to the adamant child.
“I remember you,” repeated Pnina-Mazal, “but you had short hair then.”
“True, I only started growing my hair a few years ago, at my husband’s request. After he returned from his travels he decided that I had to grow my hair long. And it’s a great nuisance,” she added complacently, touching her braid and wondering whether there was any truth in the child’s words. “But when my hair was short you were a baby,” she added, and put an end to the conversation.
After that Rachel’s carriage drew up at their house twice a week. She would step out of the carriage with a dignified bearing and enter the house with the white-robed Sudanese driver in his red fez bringing up the rear, her books under his arm. With every visit the books grew heavier and thicker, and Pnina-Mazal would pounce on them gleefully. Rachel worked hard on Pnina-Mazal’s accent, which was too British for her taste, and taught her to speak like a young lady from the Southern states, tittering discreetly at the rapid Texan drawl emerging with youthful charm from her pupil’s mouth.
“If I took you with me to America nobody would guess that you came from here,” she said, smiling at her as they conversed in English.
“I have a daughter of your age,” she told Pnina-Mazal one day. “I would be happy if you came to our house and talked to her. Her legs are paralyzed and she can’t walk,” she said sadly, “and she lacks friends of her own age.” Rachel asked Sara’s permission. Sara gave it after some hesitation, on condition that Pnina-Mazal be given nothing to eat but fruit, and she told the child herself that she was to stop her ears if anybody tried to talk to her about the Christian Messiah and his virgin mother.
The next day the carriage drove up, and the driver opened the door for Pnina-Mazal as if she were a fine lady. The women of the neighborhood gathered in the yard, excited by the rumors about Pnina-Mazal, the Christian woman’s carriage, the Sudanese driver, and the American girl with the paralyzed legs.
* * *
In the evening Pnina-Mazal came home in a new ruffled dress and a straw hat decorated with a bunch of dried flowers; she was laden with books and full of stories about the beautiful house, or palace, as she called it, the splendor and luxury surrounding Rachel’s daughter Elizabeth, and how sweet and kind the girl was.
Sara was soon obliged to resign herself to Pnina-Mazal’s weekly visits to the Americans’ home.
“She’s learning spoken English there,” she said to her neighbor Esther, who cross-examined her on the subject, “and besides, she doesn’t taste a crumb of food in their house and she doesn’t talk to them about religion.”
Pnina-Mazal returned from her weekly visits full of stories. First she told them what Elizabeth did on the days when she wasn’t studying. “The servant carries her to the fields surrounding the big house. She points to the wildflowers she wants him to pick for her, and they’re always the smallest, tiniest flowers, so small I don’t see them when I walk through the fields and sometimes I even trample them under my feet. And she always comes back from the fields with a big bunch of little flowers. And at home she had two boards of wood joined together with a big screw. And she lays the flowers one by one between two pieces of paper, separating the petals from each other, and pushes them between the two boards of wood. Then she tightens the big screw, waits a few days, and the flower comes out completely flat and dry, as if a heavy foot has trodden on it.”
“And what does she do with the flowers?”
“She sticks them on thick paper or on album covers and they sell them in their big shop next to their house. Elizabeth showed me herself. They call them ‘Flowers from the Holy Land.’ And to think that I tread on flowers like that almost every day.” Pnina-Mazal giggled.
“And who buys them?”
“The Christians who come here, of course,” replied Pnina-Mazal. “Everything that belongs to our country is holy to them. The water, the soil, the air, and even the flowers.”
“And what does her father do?”
“I’ve never seen him, because he’s hardly ever at home. Elizabeth told me that he’s a photographer, and the pictures he takes here in the town are sold in their shop and even appear in newspapers all over the world. And when there’s nothing special happening in Jerusalem he travels all over the country and photographs the pioneers and the landscapes, and sometimes he gets on a ship and sails to other countries and takes photographs there. He hasn’t been home for nearly six months and Elizabeth misses him very much,” she added, hesitating as to whether she should ask her mother the painful question about her own father and when he would come to Jerusalem and be united with them.
* * *
One day Pnina-Mazal came home in great excitement and told Sara that next week Elizabeth’s father would return from abroad and bring Elizabeth a lot of presents. Both of them were invited to visit the Godwin family. “The only refreshments they’ll serve us will be fruit, and tea in glass cups, and you’ll come with me,” she added.
On Tuesday afternoon the carriage stopped at the gate and the Sudanese driver opened the door for them. The carriage drawn by two horses raced through the streets of the town to the ringing of the bells round the horses’ necks. In the end they stopped outside a house that looked like a palace. It had three stories and a large garden surrounded by pines and cypresses, the rustling of whose branches in the breeze clouded Sara’s eyes with an inexplicable sadness. A Sudanese servant in a snowy robe, his white teeth gleaming in his dark face, opened the heavy wooden door for them. A red carpet led them to the drawing room, whose high, flat ceiling was decorated with pictures of plump pink angels blowing trumpets. The glowing light of the summer twilight streamed into the house from the huge windows set in all the walls.
Sara and Pnina-Mazal sank into a sofa covered with crimson velvet and decorated with heavy silk tassels. Then Rachel entered the room, pushing a wooden bath chair holding Elizabeth, a slender little girl whose bright red cheeks and fair hair and dark blue eyes looked artificial, as if they had been painted by a photographer. Pnina-Mazal ran to meet her, kissed her on both cheeks, and engaged her in animated conversation. Rachel turned to Sara and made a few pleasant remarks, after which she rang the silver bell lying at her side. The Sudanese servant entered the room carrying a copper tray holding glasses of tea, cakes, and a bowl piled with fruit, nuts, and raisins. Pnina-Mazal swallowed her saliva at the sight of the soft butter cookies, the crumpets soaked in honey, and the walnut cakes, which she was forbidden to touch.
“My husband will join us shortly,” said Rachel to Sara. “He has just returned from a long journey,” she added apologetically. “In the meantime you can look at his photograph albums.” And she pointed delicately at the stack of albums piled on the footstool in front of her.
Sara picked up a heavy album bound with soft yellow leather. She lingered before opening it, breathing in the smell of the fine leather and feeling its softness with her fingertips. The pictures in the album were not foreign to her. Jews, Muslims, Christians, and Bedouin crowded the pages. She put the album down and picked up another. She paged through it absentmindedly and suddenly froze. The cover dropped from her hand and fell onto the thick pages filled with photographs held in place by black corners, raising a little cloud of dust that dispersed before her eyes.
At that moment the heavy oak door opened and the tall figure of a man entered the room. Sara, whose eyes were fixed on the cover of the album lying closed on her lap, turned to look at him. Through the mist filming her eyes she perceived only the silhouette of the man, who stopped dead in his tracks.
“Sara, this is my husband, Edward,” Rachel said, breaking the oppressive silence.
Pnina-Mazal looked into Edward’s eyes, then into her mother’s, and her merry chatter with Elizabeth stopped abruptly.
Edward froze for a moment, then he smiled, greeted Sara and Pnina-Mazal politely, and went up to his daughter, whose thick curls he rumpled affectionately.
“And how are we today?” he asked her, looking over her head at Sara, his gaze transfixed by the sparks of light flashing from her eyes.
“I’m afraid we have to leave, Yitzhak and Ben-Ami are waiting for their supper,” said Sara suddenly, gathering her skirt and beckoning Pnina-Mazal to stand up with her.
“But you’ve only just arrived,” Rachel said. She hurried up to Sara, taking her hands in hers and looking at her appealingly.
“Mother, Mrs. Godwin’s right, let’s stay a little longer.”
“You can stay and play with Elizabeth,” Sara snapped. “I’m going home.”
Edward accompanied her to the gate and helped her mount the carriage step. “I want to see you,” he whispered in Hebrew in his Anglo-Saxon accent.
“Don’t come to me,” she warned. “You mustn’t.”
Edward took her hands, just as his wife had done a few minutes before, enclosing them in his big hands.
“Tonight,” he whispered.
“Don’t come,” she replied, feeling the same weakness in her knees and butterflies in her stomach as she did whenever she thought of him. The Sudanese driver, with his back to them, pricked up his ears. Only then did Edward let go of her, and he stood watching the carriage as it drove away.
* * *
That evening Sara burned the food. The rissoles turned black, and when she slapped them down on the plates with a loud clatter they looked like shapeless lumps of coal. The lentils stuck to the bottom of the pot, and the bean soup evaporated on the stove. Yitzhak devoured his supper as voraciously as usual, demanding “food,” but Pnina-Mazal looked askance at the food in her plate, and avoided her mother’s eyes.
Before she went to bed Sara told David explicitly not to open the door to anyone, even if someone pounded on it with his fists. After she had washed the dishes and the house was still, she turned the wick down in the oil lamp, blew out the flame, and retired to bed. As soon as her head touched the pillow, the storm broke. The rise and fall of choppy ocean waves rocked her bed and turned her stomach upside down. Afraid she’d fall, she held on tight to the mattress, her nails digging into the kapok padding until her knuckles whitened. Her giddiness increased as the rocking grew more violent. Swaying like a sailor too long at sea she got out of bed and walked unsteadily to the kitchen, her knees like water and her stomach churning.
Then she heard the knock at the door and Edward’s authoritative voice commanding her in his strange accent, “Open the door.”
“Go away,” she hissed at him. “You’re waking the children.”
“Only for a minute,” he begged. “I want to talk to you.”
Sara dropped to her knees at the door, clinging to the handle, with her body pressed against the cold metal.
“Get out of my life, go away,” she hissed at him through the keyhole.
The sound of Edward’s receding footsteps echoed loudly in Sara’s ears as he walked away, followed by malevolent stares from dimly lit windows behind half-closed shutters. When she rose heavily to her feet she sensed eyes fixed on her back. David stood there, looking at her pityingly with his hands clasped behind his back.
“Go to bed, why are you standing there staring at me with calf’s eyes?” she snapped, with a hatred not intended for him.
All that night she battled the ocean waves in the worst storm she had ever experienced in her life. Struggling for breath as she rose to the surface, she felt as if the waves were dragging her down to the bottom of the sea. In the morning she made haste to wake the c
hildren, the black rings around her eyes emphasizing the lightness of their color. David avoided her eyes, but while she was busy at the stove he stole a worried look in her direction. Her eyes met his, and she gave him a warning glance.
Later that morning Esther came hurrying round. “We heard that he came last night,” she said, waiting to hear the details.
“Who are you talking about?” Sara said with pretended innocence.
“Him, the goy with the yellow hair.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t hear or see anything,” Sara replied angrily, and turned her back to her.
When Sara left the house to do her shopping at the market, she felt the eyes of the men penetrating the thin stuff of her dress, burning and consuming every inch of her body. She ran the gauntlet of their looks, reached her house panting for breath, and slammed the door shut behind her.
* * *
“You won’t be having any more English lessons from Mrs. Godwin,” Sara said grimly to Pnina-Mazal.
The child turned pale and even the freckles on her nose whitened. “Why?” she succeeded in blurting out after a long silence.
“They’re not for us,” Sara answered shortly.
“But I love her lessons,” Pnina-Mazal whispered. “English is my favorite language. I’m prepared to give up French,” she announced bravely.
“You’re not having any more lessons from Mrs. Godwin,” Sara repeated.
“I’m prepared to give up my Arabic lessons too,” Pnina-Mazal tried to bargain.
“That’s it. I’ve had my say. You’re not going there anymore, it will only end badly.”
Pnina-Mazal burst into heartbroken tears, shut herself in her room, and remained there for hours, sobbing intermittently. Sara pretended to be busy, clattering pots and pans loudly in the kitchen. Early that evening, as she laid the table, she called her to come and have her supper. Loud sobs and shouts of refusal rose from behind the closed door. The food on Pnina-Mazal’s plate was devoured by Yitzhak. Without asking permission David entered the little girl’s room. Sara strained her ears, trying to overhear their conversation through the lip-smacking and loud belches that accompanied Yitzhak as he ate.
