Hold on to the Sun

by Michal Govrin

  Lusia suddenly smiled without thinking.

  “Chopin,” she said.

  Then she opened her red-painted lips and emitted clumsy sounds.

  “Ra ra ra, ra ra ra, ra ra ra . . . ”

  “Right, right,” cried Monyek gaily, “Chopin. Chopin. Mazurka.”

  “Ra ra ra, ra ra ra, ra ra ra . . . ” repeated Lusia emphatically, swinging her head in time to the melody.

  “They’re playing it especially for us, like a request,” laughed Monyek, and he too moved his head, his brown silk tie jumping between the lapels of his jacket.

  “Nice music,” said Lusia, dismissing her own singing.

  “Very nice,” Monyek chimed in quickly, and he, too, fell silent.

  Lusia quickened her pace slightly. Her shoes seemed to tap out the triple beat on the paved path, in a kind of exhiliration.

  “Such a coincidence,” she said.

  On the merry-go-round the horses harnessed to their chariots pursued each other stubbornly. In one carriage, a lone girl in a sailor suit held on fiercely to the harness of her horse. The wooden manes waved in the mechanical round as if blown by the evening breeze. The volume of the music suddenly increased hurling its shrieking sounds into the haze.

  “Our vacation will soon be over,” said Monyek, too loudly, and after a moment he began again.

  “Before we leave, I wanted to ask you if you’ve already thought it over.”

  “Pardon?” Lusia pulled her eyes away from the merry-go-round.

  “I thought that we should think about the things we still have to arrange before we get married,” said Monyek.

  “Yes, yes. Of course,” said Lusia, and nodded her head obediently.

  “Yes,” repeated Monyek, after a moment, as if to himself.

  And for a moment the only sound to be heard was that of their footsteps, tapping out a stubborn accompaniment to the angelic tune ground out by the mechanical bellows.

  Suddenly Lusia stumbled and twisted her ankle, and but for the tightness of the skirt constricting her limbs she would have fallen to the ground. Monyek quickly stretched out his hand and seized hold of her elbow. Lusia’s purse slipped and fell onto the path with a quiet thud. Monyek bent down to pick up the purse which had fallen open and lay on the sand like a big bird with a broken wing.

  Monyek handed the purse to Lusia and got ready to hold her again. She shut the clasp with a snap and began dragging her orthopedic shoes up the path.

  “You really should look after yourself a bit better. You should rest,” said Monyek, hurrying after her.

  “Yes, yes,” said Lusia to herself.

  Her little face suddenly crumpled like a clenched rag, and her chin wobbled.

  “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry,” she said, and her pursed mouth gaped. Her brown eyes, hidden behind the quivering wrinkles of her cheeks, stared fixedly ahead.

  “I . . . I really don’t know,” she mumbled.

  “Mrs. Taft,” Monyek flapped his matchstick arms in the fine woolen sleeves, “I . . . ”

  The gathering mist dulled the colors of the merry-go-round and the day seemed to solidify in the haze without continuing its slide into the ocean.

  Monyek’s hands gripped his tie.

  “You really should rest,” he said.

  “Yes, yes. Perhaps,” replied Lusia, her hand clutching her handkerchief.

  “Why don’t we sit down a while,” said Monyek after a moment, “Over there, on the bench.”

  “Thank you,” replied Lusia and bowed her head.

  They plodded through the sand toward the bench, and for a moment their backs swayed, one toward the other. Monyek’s jacket hung awry on his shoulders and Lusia’s short body heaved with the exertion of trudging through the sand, like a wounded bird tottering and flapping its wings.

  On the beach behind them the little pennants waved, and close to the waterline, which seemed to stretch into infinity, the ebbing tide froze under a blanket of white mist.

  Monyek spread out his hand, indicating the bench, and said, “Here we are.”

  Lusia took a firmer grip on the purse under her arm and lifted her face.

  “Yes, yes,” she said.

  She crushed the flimsy handkerchief, carefully straightened her skirt, and approached the bench in order to sit down.

  BETWEEN TWO AND FOUR

  Every day between two and four the little girl was left by herself. The first few moments of those two hours—hours that would soon freeze until the world returned, thawing into its normal course—were still taken up by the usual routine that followed the meal.The mother piled the dishes into the sink to wait for after their nap, and the father filled the little kitchen—already steeped in the smells of vegetable soup and pumpkin—with the aroma of a cheap cigar that mingled with steam from the kettle and vapors that rose from the water poured into his tea cup. But these moments of grace came to an end when the newspaper dropped onto the father’s eyeglasses, and his snores were answered by the mother’s mutterings and mumblings as she too dozed off, and a prolonged oppressive silence took hold of the house.

  The sliding door closed behind her, and her room drowned in boredom. Sitting herself down on the prickly blanket that covered the sofa, she could not decide how to occupy herself. The smell of moth balls wafting from sweaters taken from the closet with the panic of the first rains nipped at her nostrils. When winter approached, the grey window always seemed terrified by a looming disaster. Now, the smell made the strangeness in the window even stranger. When she blinked her eyes shut, the window frame continued to float beneath her eyelids, a phosphorescent green that quickly turned to gold and was burned there, a sharp stain.

  The only refuge was the balcony, whose tiles still held the warmth of the morning sun’s rays. She poked her head through the iron railings, above wilting plants in asbestos pots. The new scene stamped on her sight brought with it the cooing of wild doves, air laden with the smell of mowed grass, and the top of a birch tree, pigeons hopping from its branches onto telephone wires. The waves of her breathing caressed her and the room’s terror was dispelled from her lungs, replaced by an inexplicable joy that seeped into her throat until she almost cried out. Biting hard on a hunk of sweater she had stuffed in her mouth to stifle the scream, the girl deeply abandoned herself to the waves of happiness that flooded her chest and swept along with them random pictures drenched in pleasure.

  But just as suddenly as she had freed herself from the grip of the room and the sofa, now something inside her decided that she had had enough. At once, she found herself in the midst of a string of hushed actions, intended first of all to open the sliding door to her room and guide it carefully back into place, and then to open the front door, which, despite the well-practiced pressure she put in every fraction of the handle’s turn, and the spit she spread on the cold bolt of the lock, still made squeaking sounds that made her heart jump and the whole stairwell pound and spin. The last slam, and the smell of plaster and dust that filled the stairwell, gave an air of secret adventure to the freedom now galloping toward her.

  It was cool in the courtyard. Now and then streaks of light broke through the clouds and rushed across her face. They would light up the wall of the house for a moment and then dissipate, leaving a patch of paled light on the limestone hills. Fallen leaves, earthworms, splintered ice-cream sticks, and cigarette stubs were scattered around the foot of the birch tree. She lay her hand on its naked trunk, but weak with joy she could not bring herself to climb it. For that she would have to take off her shoes and the woolen socks her mother had folded down, and fuss with the folds of her skirt that flapped between her knees. Finally, the sun’s warmth pulled her legs out from under her, and she sat cross-legged, spreading her skirt over clods of earth. She stared at the vein of a yellowing leaf until it became blurry. But after a moment, eyes that had refused to blink so as not to miss a single detail of the intoxicating sights were stabbed with a sharp pain. Or maybe it was the smell of manure rising from the sac
ks of the gardener who was then approaching the tool shed that swept the girl away from her reveries.

  The gardener’s heavy boots thudded on the stones that paved the path between the tall blades of grass. He wore coarse blue work clothes, his shirt carelessly tucked into his belt, black rubber baskets filled with gardening tools on his back. His dark face shone with a gentle kind of gaze that only deepened the darkness of his curls and mustache.

  Whenever he rode down the garden paths on his rusty bicycle, he would fix his dark smile and black eyes upon her. Slow and quiet. When she lagged downcast behind the bigger children, the gardener, popping up suddenly behind the bushes with his shears, was like a wave of warmth softening the moment’s stings. It was clear to her that the warmth was directed at her, the smile at her, and that he passed through the corner of the garden only to look at her. She tried to look pretty. Not to run around. To keep her skirt from blowing up. She was afraid that the other children would notice the gardener’s glances.Without anyone saying so, it was clear to her that the looks would then stop. That the warmth would immediately cool. That it was forbidden.

  So after what was to happen, on days when she would be woken by the noise of the lawn mower, or when the stunning smell of mounds of mowed grass would get tangled between her legs on her way home, she would take the long way, roundabout the building, so as to avoid the tool shed and the glance of the gardener darkening the doorway.

  But now, when the gardener approached, her body was so weak that she could not get up and leave, or turn her head, or even lift her lingering gaze from the figure clad in coarse blue, advancing with measured tread between the flowering shrubs. Even when it became clear that the gardener was coming straight toward her, she could not turn her eyes away.

  When he stopped, her eyes were glued to his belt. The bottom of his shirt rose and fell over it as he breathed.

  “How much do you weigh?”

  The thick silence in which she was stuck was shattered by the gardener’s voice, a rough voice, like that of a man who has for some time not moved his tongue. She shrank back slightly and tried to hide her body with a hesitant smile.

  “How much do you weigh?”

  This time the heavy smile returned to the gardener’s eyes, and they shown with a soft, dark, warmth. In vain, she tried to remember the scale covered with glossy oilcloth in the nurse’s room.The pictures evaporated even before they were formed.

  “Do you want me to weigh you?”

  Now the gardener’s gaze lay gently on the nape of her neck, as if he were rolling her on the lawn against her will. She drew her legs under the outspread skirt. Clods scratched her knees, and small, hard bits brushed into her socks. When she stood beside the gardener, she took care to straighten her skirt. And for some reason the grass, the few flowering shrubs trying to grow between the foam of the laundry water and the puddles of sewage—and the tree receding into the distance—all of them seemed to be taking leave of her with great ceremony. But because of her weakness, she could not cough up the lump of unease that stuck in her throat.

  She had never before entered the tool shed. Even its outsides were no more than a vague memory of her slipping past its door. Now she suddenly found herself inside it, surrounded by darkness, and the smell of soil mixed with the stench of mouse droppings made her knees even weaker than before.

  “Wait here, I’ll put on the light.”

  The iron door slowly creaked closed. In the darkness she heard only the sounds of boards banging and slats snapping; no doubt they blocked the gardener on his way to the fuse box on the opposite wall. The nearly pitch-black shed was filled with broken furniture, cement planters, and tattered books. More light filtered in past the sandbags left on the windows since the last war than came from the painted blue bulb that spewed shadows from its depths. It never occurred to her to ask where the scales were, or why. And even if she had tried to ask, the hard lump in her throat would have stifled the syllables. Still, despite the dark, she felt she had to be good, the way she always felt when the gardener passed by. She found it hard to rouse her body from its languor, but tried nevertheless to stretch her limbs. Straining to keep her eyes open, she saw nothing but dark shapeless lumps.The stench, the darkness, and the snapping sounds swelled about her until she very nearly stumbled. She clenched her fists.

  Cracking wood carried the gardener’s steps from the other side of the shed. She smiled her good-girl smile in the dark, so that it would be all over and he would continue on his way on his bicycle.

  “I’ll lift you onto the scale.”

  A cold touch under her skirt, and she was lifted from the ground. Her limp legs seemed detatched from her body, and her head drooped. The gardener’s grip enclosed her, holding her tightly to himself. A coarse chill sent a shudder through her spine and her curls.

  “Soon I’ll know how much you weigh.”

  The gardener hummed.

  “ . . . how much you weigh.”

  He bent himself above her head, again.

  She still smiled the good-girl smile fixed on her lips. In the gardener’s strong hands, her body seemed to have already floated away and abandoned her. Only the chill remained.

  Somehow, she did not collapse when the gardener put her back on the ground and her legs, not his hands, bore her weight. The smell of mouse droppings and putrid rubber slapped her, like a sudden wave. For a moment, she stood still in the dark with the smile still fixed on her face.

  “Would you like to know how much you weigh?” She heard these words somewhere behind her when, like a wind-up doll, she suddenly began to run across the planks, the black rubber baskets, the rakes, and burst through the iron door which opened with a whine when she pushed it. In the sudden flood of afternoon light, the shrubs, the puddle of sewage, and the mouse holes were blind to her. She gasped, and the gulp of breath froze transparent and bottomless in her stomach. Her sight returned to her only on the second floor, next to the neighbor’s door, which smelled as usual of frying burgers and radishes. With thunder in her heart that shook the whole stairwell, she took out her key hanging on a string around her neck. As she guided the trembling key to the keyhole, everything went dark again. It was as if all her body had emptied itself and flowed out through her eyes. Suddenly, without remembering exactly how, she found herself within the walls of her room.

  The parents arose, and the home awoke, and the kitchen filled with the kettle’s steam and the smell of squeezed oranges. Stern doors were abruptly thrown open, and the girl’s room was overwhelmed by the clatter of pots slammed back into their places and by the father’s cigarette-filled coughs. But on that day, the self-confident sounds that ordinarily melted the void in her stomach were shunted aside by a shivering that would not let her be.

  The mother’s calls hurried her into the kitchen. For a moment longer she found refuge in the dimness of the hallway, and then she dropped onto her chair in the warmth and steam of the kitchen. She sat opposite a window that opened onto grey skies.

  Even after the chocolate and orange juice she stuffed down her throat mixed their sweet and sour into a queasy mash, she went on pulling at her panties underneath the table. She gazed out far beyond the bare arms of the tree in the window, and her gaze was shattered only when the damp cloth wiped away the cake crumbs and drops of juice that trembled on the table top.

  The little girl dragged herself unconsciously to the big, flung open window in the parents’ room. A draught of air and the smell of mattresses soaked with strangeness and the sourness of cigarettes floated in and out.

  The shouts of children rose up to the window and drifted down without disturbing her gaze, still entangled in the arms of the tree and the raindrops of denial.

  ELIJAH’S SABBATH DAYS

  Although Elijah returned to Jerusalem a few hours before sunset, he didn’t get in touch with Hila before the Sabbath had begun. The sun was nearing the strip of haze above the ridge of buildings on the horizon; the bedspread on his couch was disappearing into the d
ark blue shades of its pattern, and he was still busy cleaning the dust that had accumulated during the week in his room which faced the valley. He quickly plumped the cushions on the couch, cleaned the sink, and gave thanks silently for the fact that the plants had survived without water until his return. As the west facing room settled into the deepening light, he hastily completed his washing up. And only when he emerged from the bathroom with his hair wet and combed did he feel some relief, as if the weight of the whole week had been lifted—his studies at the technical institute in Tel Aviv, his room in the south of that city, his textbooks and diagrams, and the jolting of the bus trip which had finally brought him back here again, at noon. When he turned to spread the white napkin, which served as the tablecloth, over the desk, he was struck by a ray of light piercing the curtains. He straightened up and quickly drew them open. Then he saw that the sun was already cutting through the red band above the rooftops, and in another moment it would sink behind the mountain.

  He was late. In Hila’s house they had already disconnected the telephone for the Sabbath.

  From the low cupboard in the kitchen he removed two candles and the copper candlesticks. He could not go to dinner at her parents’ house without letting them know beforehand, so he wouldn’t be able to see Hila this evening. He hadn’t even finished readying himself. And he was glad that he had not yet arranged to see her.

  He prepared his meal carefully, laid the table, and once again felt how these acts calmed him, brought him closer to her world, which was perhaps out of his reach, but nevertheless existed.