The World in Pieces

by Bart Midwood

  “Maybe they’re asleep,” said Lo Yadua.

  Whether they were asleep or not I don’t know. Before dinner I knocked on their door again, then once again before bed time, but they didn’t show themselves anymore.

  In the morning, when I woke up, I saw I was alone in the bed, so I went out to the corridor and down to our little dining room, and there I found Lo Yadua sitting with a cup of coffee.

  “They’re gone,” he said.

  “You saw them go?”

  “At about three o’clock.”

  He’d been awakened, he said, by the sound of them moving about the house. When he heard the front door open and shut, he got out of bed and went quietly into the dark living room, and there, through the front window, he saw them in the moonlight, stuffing their luggage into the car.

  “At first I told myself: ‘Go stop them.’ But then I thought: ‘What for?’”

  Interim

  A long time passed before we saw Anchel and Surah again. In this time Lo Yadua and I brought up three daughters. Already in ‘48 Lo Yadua had fought with honor in The War For Independence, but now he went on to fight in four more wars—The Sinai Campaign, The Six-Day War, The War of Attrition, and The Yom Kippur War. In each war he got medals, also promotions, and became finally a major. A few injuries he got too, but again and again he got himself back into condition and managed to go and fight wherever was the worst hell.

  Frieda lived another twenty years. In this last phase of her life she worked each week a few days on the tractor, did her painting and so on, and was, I think, quite content. The end came for her in her sleep on the last night of Hanukah in ‘79.

  In December, ‘78, Anchel and Surah believe it or not came for another visit. This time they stayed in a hotel in Tel Aviv and dropped by the kibbutz in the afternoon, just for a few hours. In the more than two decades since their last visit we’d heard from them only twice, when they sent gifts for our first two daughters, a little silver-plated loving cup and a pair of knitted booties. For our third, Elfie, they sent nothing.

  I made no fuss on this last visit, just a pot of coffee, which I served at the kitchen table, and the whole afternoon passed in a dreary muddle. Only one little incident sticks in my mind. As I was filling up the coffee cups, I said something about the Christophers, that they never did come to see us, and Surah she replied very curtly.

  “We broke off relations with them.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Surah,” I said.

  “It’s better this way.”

  “Did you find some new friends then?”

  “No. No one.”

  And here there followed a silence that was like a black hole where you could see the hell of isolation that was her life, to show us which maybe was the only purpose of her visit. Anyway I could find no other. As for Anchel, his purpose maybe it was the same as Surah’s, but who knows? Three years later came their death.

  Last Words

  Now I submit to you something in Italian, where Cesare tells about the situation in which my husband was taken out of the world. I know that Italian is no problem for you, so I don’t bother to translate. I have made a photocopy for myself and am giving you the original:

  Thursday night, October 27, 1983

  Why you want me to write about this terrible tragedy, Ila, I don’t understand. I can’t see what good it will do either of us. But since you are so insistent, I will try.

  So, here are the facts.

  Cohen took Yaddie and me for a stroll around the property. It was about noon. Blazing hot. With a clear sky and the sun bouncing into your eyes from every little grain of sand and pebble on the ground. For the past year, as I told you, Cohen had been trying to do something with the landscaping. Already he had put in a nice rock garden and some bushes, but now he had an idea for a little pool to keep exotic fish, and he wanted our opinion about where to put it. Yaddie and I had some disagreement on the subject. He said one side of the house and I the other, but neither of us were certain of our opinion here, so we took a little walk out to the edge of the road to get a wider perspective. Just as we were about to have a look at our problem, though, there appeared from around a curve two Arabs on bicycles, an old man called Habib and his teenage grandson Hamed. Before my arrival in Samaria Cohen had some dealings with these two, but mainly with Habib, who was something of a carpenter and had helped Cohen put up two doors, one in the den and one in the kitchen. Habib had done apparently a good enough job, but was slow, and so when a week later Cohen wanted help with another project, this time wall panels in the den, he hired someone else, a Turk who had a reputation in the neighborhood for getting a job done quickly. Habib naturally had heard about the panel job, and when he pulled up beside us on his bicycle, he was already steaming with resentment and at once began to take Cohen to task very spitefully. At that moment I hadn’t yet been informed about any of this business with the panels and the Turk, so I didn’t know what the devil Habib or Cohen were talking about. To tell you the truth, at first I supposed that Cohen probably had something to be ashamed of here, that probably in some way he had treated Habib shabbily. This impression I derived from the attitudes, a very apologetic one from Cohen and then one of pure righteous indignation from Habib. Still, though, I couldn’t sort out what was what until the moment when the talk suddenly fell out of wall panels and exploded in affairs of state. At which point suddenly I was hearing an argument of a type that we’ve all heard a million times before.

  This argument went on for a long time and I will spare you from it. Habib had four principal contentions: one, that Cohen had no right to be here; two, that a cousin of Habib’s had once owned the property that was now Cohen’s; three, that not only Cohen but all us Jews should get out; and four, that this Israel of ours was all a fantasy.

  When the argument got to the fourth contention, I decided finally to open my mouth and give Cohen a little help.

  “So where do you want us to go, Habib?” I said.

  “To the Devil, for all I care!” he said.

  “If that’s your position, Habib, then I can’t say I blame my friend Cohen for hiring someone else to finish the work in his house.”

  As soon as I said this, Hamed, the grandson, suddenly pulls a pistol out of his pocket.

  “What’s this?” I say.

  Out of the corner of my eye I can see that Yaddie has already pulled out his pistol as well, so, though I’m nervous, still I know I’m protected.

  “What’s the trouble?” says Habib, who is standing with his back to his grandson and therefore cannot understand why Yaddie has drawn his pistol.

  In the next moment, however, everything becomes quite clear to poor old Habib, and to all of us, because directly Hamed raises his arm, aims at me and shoots. And then two things happen. One, the bullet whizzes by my ear, zing! And two, Yaddie, instead of shooting in return, moves in front of me. Like the wind he moves, and as nimbly as a shadow, and just at the same moment as two more bullets come, one on the tail of the other, hitting him first in the chest, then in the neck, jerking him first this way, then that way, causing him to snap like a twig at the waist and to collapse in a fit of twisting and trembling as blood spits and spills over his collar and down his shirt and trousers. In short, in one instant it’s a nightmare. And old Habib gives a shriek of agony and, turning like a wild animal on his grandson, grabs the pistol and starts beating him with it on the back and cursing.

  “Go call for an ambulance,” I tell Cohen and he starts off back to the house. Considering that he has a nasty limp, which is caused by an arthritic condition in the left foot, he hurries along pretty quickly. Meanwhile I get down on my knees beside Yaddie and, holding his head and shoulders in my left arm, take the towel from my back pocket with my right and try to stanch the wounds.

  “Cohen has gone for help,” I say.

  “Never mind,” says Yaddie. “I’m finished.”

  “You still have the pistol in your hand.”

  “Leave it there.”<
br />
  “Why didn’t you use it?”

  “No time.”

  “You had time.”

  “No, Cesare.”

  “Yes! Plenty of time!”

  “All right. So I had time.”

  “So why didn’t you shoot the little bastard?”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Why? Why couldn’t you?”

  “He’s just a boy,” he said, and that was that.

  I remember, Ila, how these words, “He’s just a boy,” made you weep when I first had to tell you about this catastrophe. And now, I suppose, they will make you weep again. So I’m sorry. But you asked me to write this. So? Now I have done it.

  More I can’t say. Except to tell you that what I have written here, this is the best I can do to show you the image I have with me night and day.

  This image is why I don’t do my work with Cohen anymore. Cohen has by the way finally sold his house in Samaria. Just yesterday the deed-of-sale and other related papers came in the mail and he has signed them. I don’t remember if I mentioned that yesterday. Anyway so now he has officially moved in with me. Unofficially though it is already three months now that he has been living in my house. Do you realize that? Three months already! Well, no wonder he’s complaining. He moved in with the understanding that we’d work together on the book, and I haven’t kept my end of the bargain.

  I don’t know what else to say about all this, except that when I consider that Yaddie gave up his life so that I could have mine, and that now I can do nothing with it, I sometimes get so overwhelmed with shame that I go to the mirror and spit at it. Is this maybe the onset of a psychosis? Well, you’ll tell me, I’m sure.

  Cesare

  How and Why Cesare Was Persuaded to Write

  Naturally Lo Yadua’s death and the manner in which it occurred caused much grief among his friends, and for each in a different way. For me it is often as if I’m wandering about without a body.

  For Cesare, however, Lo Yadua’s death was especially complicated and powerful, in part of course because it happened literally in his arms. Terrible guilt he had, and confusion. And when three months after the funeral I saw still he was in a miserable state, I began to spend some time talking with him, a few hours here and there, but he does not have really much of a psychological orientation and our meetings again and again they ended in frustration for both of us.

  This is why finally about a week ago I decided to try to persuade him to write something. I hoped the writing might help to get his mind out of the mire. In the end, as you can see, he did write something, but first he and I had a struggle.

  “Look, Cesare,” I told him, “several times you’ve told me how Yaddie was killed, but still I don’t have a clear picture.”

  “You think I’m hiding something?”

  “My God, what a thing to say! Listen to me. I want you to do me a favor. Will you do me a favor?”

  “Whatever you want. Even if you want me to chop off my right hand and put it for you in a box.”

  “Good heavens, Cesare, where do you get such ideas about chopping off hands!”

  “It’s only a figure of speech.”

  “But to use such a figure is not like you, Cesare.”

  “So a man can change, can’t he?”

  “Of course. But also he can ask himself what he’s changing into!”

  “So what am I changing into, Ila?”

  “You’re changing into a grotesque.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Well, here we didn’t speak for a minute, and he began to grumble under his breath something in Italian.

  At last I said, “Are you having a nice talk with yourself, Cesare?”

  “Maybe, but I don’t know, because I’m not listening.”

  “You’re talking to yourself, but you’re not listening?”

  Here he got a mischievous twinkle in his eyes and gave me a little smile, thank God, and then we laughed.

  Then he said, “So, Ila, what’s this favor you want from me?”

  “Never mind. I think maybe it’s too much to ask from you.”

  “Don’t play games with me, Ila. I told you already I’d do anything you want.”

  “Yes, anything such as chopping off a hand, which you can do in one instant, like a madman. But this thing I want from you it will take a little thought. And some serious work!”

  “So? Do you suppose that I’ve become such a pathetic old fool that I can no longer think or work? I? Cesare Levi? Who am the architectural genius of what will be the political masterpiece of the century?”

  “To tell you the truth, Cesare, I don’t know what to suppose. After all, look at you, boasting about this so-called masterpiece of yours, while you know very well that you haven’t done a stitch of work on it in three months now!”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Cohen. He was here complaining about you only yesterday.”

  “Cohen had no right to bother you with his complaints. Doesn’t he know what kind of a grief you have to deal with?”

  “Never mind about my grief. I was glad that he came to me. Cohen is a very pleasant intelligent man, and I think his complaints are worth listening to.”

  “But still, he had no right! Listen, Ila, what’s this favor you want from me? Tell me at once!”

  “I want you to go home, Cesare, this instant, and sit at your desk and write the story of the incident in which Lo Yadua was killed.”

  “What? No!”

  “And I want you to bring me this story tomorrow morning.”

  “Are you serious? What good can this do you?”

  “I want it, Cesare. You said you would do whatever I want, didn’t you?”

  “But listen, Ila. I told you already the whole story. So what do you need it for again? It’s not so complicated.”

  “But it is.”

  “It’s not! Look. Cohen and an old Arab, a carpenter called Habib, they have an argument. On and on it goes, and me I keep my mouth shut. But you know, it’s hot out there this day, and finally I lose patience and I say something, two words, not more, I swear to you! And suddenly, just because I say two words, he pulls out a pistol and he shoots.”

  “Who shoots? Habib?”

  “The grandson of Habib. I told you this already. The one with the pistol was a Hamed, not a Habib.”

  “But that’s not what you said just now.”

  “Just now when? Never mind! Look, Ila, it was a Hamed. He’s the one with the pistol. Am I saying it right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good! Thank you! So Hamed shot, and Yaddie stepped in front of the bullet, and that was that. End of story.”

  “No, Cesare, it’s not the end.”

  “Of course it’s the end.”

  “But why in your mind did Yaddie do this?”

  “Believe me, nobody asked him to do it. Would I ask him to take bullets for me?”

  “Of course not. Who would ever think such a thing about you?”

  “Look, Ila, your husband he had a pistol ready in his hand, and he could have shot this Hamed. He had plenty of time. But no, he has to take the bullets!”

  “Nobody is questioning your part in this, Cesare. That Lo Yadua chose to take the bullets was obviously his own decision. How could it be otherwise? Don’t you think I know how much you cared for him? What you gave him all his life since he was a little boy of five?”

  “So, are you saying that maybe he felt he owed me something? That for all this care I gave him, he felt that now he had to take bullets for me?”

  “No, Cesare, my God!”

  “Listen, Ila. Lo Yadua said he had come to Samaria to help us, to protect us, not to take bullets! Do you think I would ever have agreed to let him be a protector if I knew he was going to take bullets?”

  “Stop, Cesare. I don’t want to have this conversation with you anymore. Either go home and write, or else don’t ever come back to my house. Do you hear me? Don’t come ba
ck!”

  This shocked him. Very hurt he looked as he lowered his chin to peer at me from under lowered brows.

  “This is the respect you give a man of eighty-eight?” he said.

  “Go home, Cesare.”

  “Go home, she says. Listen, Ila, this thing you’re asking me to do, it’s difficult. My written Hebrew isn’t so good.”

  “Then write in Italian.”

  “You’ve been keeping up with your Italian?”

  “Still I read Dante, Croce, a few others.”

  “You read Croce? Really? Well, in that case, I’ll try.”

  What Cesare Said After He Wrote

  The next morning he came knocking at my door quite early and he handed me the same few pieces of lined paper that I’ve enclosed for you here.

  “Come in, Cesare,” I said.

  “It’s too early. I’ll be disturbing you.”

  “Come. I just made a fresh pot of coffee.”

  So he came in and I had him sit at the kitchen table and I poured him a cup of coffee. Then I sat opposite him and read what he had written.

  When I was done, I took a few sips of my coffee, trying to steal a little time to collect feeling and thought. Frankly I was uncertain how to proceed, so not only did I sip coffee, but also I avoided looking at him. At the same time I could see peripherally that he was gazing at me anxiously and I knew that I shouldn’t keep him too long in suspense.

  “So what do you think, Ila?” he said impatiently.

  “Listen to me, Cesare,” I said. “It’s not your fault that Yaddie was shot.”

  “So who said it was? Did I say it was my fault?”

  “Just listen. There’s something you need to understand. For a long time now, ever since Yaddie was a little boy, he had in him this inclination to step in front of a bullet.”

  “What? No, this isn’t so.”

  “It is so. And believe me, if not for you and Frieda, your kindness, your goodness, he would have done it many years ago.”

  “No, no. Why would he have such an inclination!”