by Meir Shalev
2
In the fall of 1930, the year when two farmers here committed suicide, Ze’ev went to the cabin that housed our first synagogue, to celebrate the holiday of Simhat Torah. He saw Nahum Natan dancing vigorously and entertaining everyone with traditional Sephardic melodies, stamping his feet in his Turkish boots, and could not contain his mood.
He escaped from the synagogue and when he got home headed directly to the toolshed in the yard, took out a large saw, and went into the house. Ruth left the women’s section as she saw him exit. She rushed home from the synagogue, arriving a few seconds before him, and began fussing with something in the kitchen. She saw him enter and head for the bedroom and she was afraid. His demeanor and step, and the saw in his hand, prompted her to hurry after him.
Ze’ev pulled off the two mattresses that lay upon their bed, the double bed in which were joined the two beds, hers and his, from their parents’ homes. He leaned his left knee on it, inserted the sharp blade of the saw into the crack between the halves, and with gritted teeth and several precise and powerful strokes, he severed the first connective plank. He quickly slid the saw along the crack to the next plank and sawed that one too.
“What are you doing? What are you doing, Ze’ev?”
“What should have been done already on that night.”
With a few more strokes he sawed the third board and separated the beds one from the other. He pushed one half against the wall and threw one mattress on it; the other half and other mattress he picked up in his arms and carried outside, shoving and overturning chairs, tripping and knocking things down from shelves and tables, tearing a picture from a wall and a curtain from its window.
He went into the yard, straight to the shed, set down the bed and its mattress, returned to the house, put his face close to hers, and whispered: “From now on I will sleep in the shed! Not with you.”
“Why, Ze’ev, why?”
“You know why, and so do I.”
And so it was. Every evening he went into the shed after dark and returned to the house before sunrise, so no one would know. But he knew, and Ruth knew, and also Nahum Natan, who sneaked and eavesdropped and peeked—he knew. He knew and understood that he too had to act, before something terrible happened.
Ten days later, on the night of the first rain of that year, he peeked from the window of his house, waited till the oil lamp in Ze’ev’s shed went out, crept into their yard, stepped between the puddles and the rivulets that the rain had already carved in the ground, and knocked on the shutter of Ruth’s window. She opened the door and he took one step inside, stood in the entrance, and tried to persuade her to leave her husband and marry him and give birth to their child.
Ruth replied that she could not do that. “He’ll murder us both,” she said.
“We won’t stay here,” suggested Nahum, “we’ll run away.”
“He will pursue and catch us and kill me and you,” said Ruth. “You don’t know him and his family. They are not the kind of people we have here, certainly not people like you.”
“The seaport is not far,” said Nahum, “and there we’ll get on a ship. We’ll go to my father. Istanbul is a beautiful city.”
But Ruth again refused.
“Then what shall we do?” he asked. “In a few months the baby will be born.”
“I don’t know. He will probably kill me, and you might have to run away with the baby girl.”
“Girl?” asked Nahum. His heart filled with tenderness and love. “How do you know it’s a girl?”
“It’s a girl,” said Ruth. “A girl who is better than her mother.”
He again tried to convince her, but his wish was unfulfilled. Finally he despaired and left. He stood a few minutes in the rain, trying to decide whether to knock again on her window and implore her till she understood and gave in, but then the light in the house went out, the rain grew stronger, and a storm drew near from the sea, with thunder and lightning.
He decided to return to his house, wondering what his father would say if he suddenly appeared in Istanbul with the pregnant Ruth. A son who slept with a married woman? Pregnant with a bastard child? Could he ask him for help?
As he passed the fence a large figure appeared before him. It emerged from the blackness and rain with a rifle in its hand.
“What were you doing in my house?” asked Ze’ev.
“I spoke with Ruth,” said Nahum, quivering.
“About what?”
“About us,” said Nahum. “About the two of us. I asked her to leave you and marry me.”
“No one leaves me,” said Ze’ev.
“It would be better for you too,” said Nahum. “You’ll get another wife. A woman who will love you, and you won’t have to sleep alone in the shed.”
“You’re telling me who to sleep with?” snarled Ze’ev with suppressed rage. “You’re telling me what’s good for me?”
He pointed the rifle barrel at him. Nahum shouted “No!” and again shouted “No!” and then noticed the light of an oil lamp coming toward them from the adjacent yard and cried, “Help, he’s going to kill me!”
Ze’ev punched him with his fist. He sank to the ground unconscious and Ze’ev leaned over and fired one bullet into his mouth. Ruth, inside the house, did not hear a thing. The thunder and lightning that shattered the darkness, the sheets of rain and tearful wailing and the gunshot, blended into a single noise. Although the murder took place beside her house—and the victim was her lover and his killer her husband—she was the last to know about it.
Even at dawn, as the rumor traveled from house to house, and the terrified residents arose and congregated where the body had lain, and cows left in midmilking began to loudly moo—she was asleep in her bed. She was always a good sleeper and her plight deepened her sleep. The running around and shouting of people who had been summoned to the scene did not wake her. She got up on her own, and when she woke she saw the gray wintry light outside, and because a hard rain was drumming on the roof she decided to do some cooking and wait till later to do the yard work.
Only after a few minutes did she sense the bustle near her house, the unusual traffic of people, the agitated whispers that broke into syllables and recombined into words, and when she went out, she also saw the British policeman arriving in his black automobile, and before she understood what she saw, a wave of nausea rose from her belly and gagged her. Before she could rush back inside she vomited on the ground and realized this was not just the nausea of a pregnant woman.
She rinsed her face and mouth and walked hesitantly to the crowd. She was surprised by the slowness of her steps, by the fear apparent in them. What am I afraid of? she wondered. What makes me so weak?
Her ears heard the people talking among themselves, the words “unfortunate” and “broken” and “betrayal” and “revenge.” They stared at her, and she heard the words “because of her,” and more whispering whose content was inaudible but whose overtones were obvious, and then everything became clear at once. She made up her mind to get away from there, to find someplace where she could scream with her hand clamped on her mouth. But then her husband appeared.
“Our neighbor has committed suicide,” he whispered, his eyes hard and inquisitive, his body near to hers.
She was silent.
“You don’t want to know which neighbor?”
“I know,” she said.
“Very true,” said Ze’ev. “He shot himself. One bullet in the mouth.”
Ruth was silent.
“With my rifle,” added Ze’ev. “He stole it from me. Yitzhak Maslina saw what happened.”
Ruth began to retreat and Ze’ev advanced, his steps driving her backward.
“With my rifle,” he repeated quietly. “How could a man dare to touch the rifle of another man?”
His eyes continued to study her face, cold and alert as the eyes of a snake assessing the best time to strike. He continued: “How could a man dare to take what belongs to another man?” And whispered:
“Cowardly dog. Perhaps you know why he did such a terrible thing?”
Her legs, stepping backward, failed her. She sensed the weight in her belly and the sour taste of vomit in her throat and knew that more disasters would befall her, even greater than the one that had just occurred.
“Get in the house,” said Ze’ev. “People are watching. Now they’re still talking in whispers, but soon they’ll be talking out loud.”
She withdrew into the house. Ze’ev escorted her with his gaze and then returned to the crowd. Some of them theorized new theories and some talked more talk and some were gathered in worried silence, recognizing that this was not over.
With the remains of her strength Ruth walked up the three front stairs, and at the moment she entered the house she began to wail, trying and failing to choke her screams, flinging herself on the bed, burying her face in the pillow, dearly wishing to fall asleep as deeply as she had last night, at the very moment her husband shot her lover.
Too many things became clear in such a short time: she got pregnant, the man who got her pregnant died, he did not kill himself but was murdered, and the murderer was her husband. She stood up, began walking aimlessly in the house, wondering, asking and answering, and predicting the worst. What would be her fate? And the fate of the fetus growing in her belly?
In the afternoon the British policeman got into his car and drove away. A few hours later Nahum Natan was buried at a ceremony attended by very few people, and several days later the head of the committee was summoned to the police station, where he was informed that the investigation had confirmed the fact of suicide. Ruth, confused and crazed with fear, realized she had to flee, to save her life and that of her unborn daughter. Several days later she packed a small bag, hid it, and waited for a window of opportunity, the hour of escape.
3
On that day, at 5:30 in the morning, Ze’ev came out of the shed, put on his boots, walked across the yard, took off the boots, and went into the house. He fixed himself a glass of sweet tea and two thick slices of bread with salty cheese. He drank and ate, put his boots back on, and went out to the field. A few minutes later Ruth also came outside, the bag over her shoulder and the baby in her womb, and hurried to the vineyard. She ran hunched over between the vines, crossed the muddy stream in the wadi, climbed its opposite bank on all fours, and disappeared into the oak forest.
Half an hour after she set out, she heard Ze’ev’s shouts drawing closer and closer, and the sound of hoofbeats, stamping on solid ground or splashing in mud. Fear stricken, she tried to hide behind a bush. She lay there, her face pressed to the ground, feeling her belly tighten beneath her, trembling all over. The pounding of the hoofbeats grew nearer and stronger from second to second.
Her hand, as if acting on its own, groped around. Her fingers found a fallen branch and seized it, trying to summon strength and confidence. Her forehead rested on her arm. She noticed a small black beetle inching among the blades of glass, so near it was blurry. She followed it with her eyes. Sister of mine, she thought, what are you doing outdoors? Spring has not yet come.
She heard the horse approach, the voice of Ze’ev ordering it to halt, and his feet landing on the ground, walking three steps, stopping beside her.
He leaned over and said, “Get up.”
She didn’t move.
“Get up and come home.”
She didn’t budge.
“Nobody leaves me. Get up and come home, or I will kill you too.”
She didn’t answer. Floating on high she saw the forest where she lay. They alone were there, she, Ze’ev, and the horse, who lowered his head and munched some grass. Her body filled with silence. Lines and points of light danced behind her eyelids. His hand grabbed the back of her neck. She held the branch tighter, suddenly wheeled back, opened her eyes, and whipped him with all her might.
THIRTY-THREE
A few days ago you told me about the camera that Dovik brought back from the desert. What happened to it?
Good, Varda, you already know and use our names. Pretty soon we’ll add you to the family.
You also said that Dovik said there was film in it.
Correct.
So what did you do with it?
At first, nothing. It sat in my house for four years, and I didn’t have the nerve to touch it, then suddenly I felt brave and gave it to Ofer to develop the film inside.
Ofer? Who is that?
Ofer, I told you about him. My student. The one who almost drowned on me in the Sea of Galilee. The one who took pictures and made an exhibit about the moshava. Here’s that picture of our house that he took from the air, as I already explained to you.
Correct. The student you loved. I remember now. So you simply asked him to develop the film without your knowing what’s on it?
More or less. It was at a parents’ meeting. He came with his father, that moron Haim Maslina. I remember telling him, “Good for you, you’re the only father who came with a child, in general only the mothers come.”
“It’s because of you, Ruta.” He grinned. Those very words, without shame, and Ofer was mortified. “If it were another teacher I wouldn’t have come.”
Whatever. I restrained myself, got down to business, told him that his son Ofer was a smart boy and a good student, not always one hundred percent plugged in to what went on in the classroom, but who stood out for his understanding and originality, just barely resisting the impulse to add that as such he also stood out in his family.
Ofer said, “Thank you, Teacher Ruta. It’s nice of you to say this in front of my father, because he doesn’t think of me that way.”
You want to thank me? Take off your clothes! I turned deep inside into an animal, and the proud father smiled and said, “That’s not so. Ofer is absolutely okay at home too, helping out and working, and he also has a hobby.”
He turned to his son. “Tell her.”
“Drop it, Dad.”
“Tell, tell her,” he insisted. “Tell her about your hobby.”
“No need, Dad. It has nothing to do with school.”
“Ofer has set up a darkroom,” announced Haim. “He develops and prints and spends the whole day there.”
“Now you do this?” I asked. “With everybody going to digital?”
Ofer beamed with excitement. “We have a ton of old film and negatives that my father’s grandfather left us, and I’ve already developed a few and printed a few. And my mother convinced my father to give me the old shed as a darkroom and money to buy all the chemicals and paper and trays and enlarger. And I cleared out all the junk from the shed, and look what I found there, Teacher Ruta”—and he stretched out his legs—“you ever seen boots like these? Nice, right?”
“Very nice,” I said, “but kind of old, no?”
“I like them. All I had to do was clean and oil them, just that one stain refused to come out.”
“I told him,” said Haim. “It’s a bloodstain.”
“My father says they belonged to his grandfather,” continued Ofer, “but later on, when I printed the old negatives”—he turned to his father—“I saw them on the feet of someone else in one of the pictures.”
He took a photo from his shirt pocket. “You see these three guys? This is Grandpa Yitzhak, my father’s grandpa, on the right. And on the left is Ze’ev Tavori, your grandpa, still with two eyes, you see? And here, the boots I’m wearing. On the feet of the third guy, the short one standing between them. I brought this picture so you could help me. Maybe you know who that guy is?”
“No,” I said, my blood turning cold and thick in my veins. “Why don’t you ask your father?”
“He asked, but I don’t know,” said Haim.
“Could you ask your grandfather?” asked Ofer.
“Leave me the picture and I’ll ask him.”
I showed the picture to Grandpa Ze’ev.
“You look a little strange with two eyes,” I told him.
He didn’t react. He looked at the photo for a long
time and didn’t say a word.
“I recognize you and Yitzhak Maslina, but who’s this?” I asked, indicating the short guy in the boots.
He asked where I got this photo, and when I said my “whatever,” he said, “I bet those Maslina bastards gave it to you. Where else could it come from?”
“So who is this guy?” I asked again.
Grandpa Ze’ev was silent. He didn’t like talking too much about certain events and certain periods.
“So who is it?” I asked again.
“He was a neighbor of ours in the first years here.”
“And what happened to him?”
“He committed suicide, we had three suicides in one year. It was very bad.”
“I know the suicide version, Grandpa,” I said.
“If you know, why are you asking questions?”
“What was his name?”
“Who?”
“The guy who committed suicide. The one in the middle. Stop pretending.”
“Nahum. Nahum Natan or Natan Nahum, I don’t remember.”
“So how did his boots get to my student Ofer, the great-grandson of Yitzhak Maslina?”
Grandpa Ze’ev stood up. “I’m in charge of shoes? There was a British policeman here and he also determined it was suicide.”
I told Ofer that he was wearing the boots of someone named Nahum Natan who committed suicide many years ago, and I said I now had a request of him.
“Whatever you want, Teacher Ruta.”
“If among your negatives you find other pictures of my family, I would like copies, especially if there’s something with my grandmother Ruth.”
“Okay.”
And then I decided.
“And another small thing,” I said. “I have an old camera at home that nobody uses, but it might have film inside. Could you take it out and develop it for me?”
“Sure. I can try.”
“I’ll pay you.”
“Forget it.” He smiled. “We’ll make a trade, Teacher Ruta.”
