by Meir Shalev
The room fell silent. The Girl flushed like a proud mother. “That is very interesting,” Dr. Laufer said. He was reminded of what she had said about the pigeon disappearing from the eyes of the dispatcher as soon as she is seen by the person waiting for her, and suddenly he understood that this love blooming in front of his very eyes was greater and deeper than what he had imagined. But he shook himself free of these thoughts and resumed his role. “We, too, have interesting and beautiful ruminations such as these on occasion, but it is impossible to work thus.”
The other pigeon handlers agreed immediately One should return to the practical questions: What brings the pigeon back to the loft? A longing for home, the trough, the family? Is it fair and right and worth-while to train pigeons to fly against their nature, at night? Does the pigeon’s beak contain magnetic particles? And what function does the swelling on the beak play?
In the evening the Girl took the Baby for a walk on the beach, strolling with him on the promenade and keeping out of sight of several classmates of hers who wished to know who this boy, the stranger, was. She kissed him on his lips, and this time she allowed him to caress every part of her body, but only through her clothing. He showed her how he had learned to whistle, but he asked if they could do it as they had on their first meeting, each one’s fingers in the other’s mouth.
The next morning the Baby participated once again in the grownups’ discussion and said it was his dream to hybridize a local species more impervious to heat and parasites and thirst than the European pigeons. The Girl suddenly noted that in the past the greatest world centers for raising pigeons were in Cairo, Baghdad, and India, where the climate was far less optimal than in Liège or Brussels.
Later, during a ceremonious break during which everyone dunked cookies in tea colored yellow from so much lemon, the Baby followed the Girl from the classroom outside to the schoolyard.
“Is this where you go to school?” he asked. He was already planning in his heart how he would verify in which classroom she studied, in which row she sat, which table and which chair were hers.
“No,” she said. “Ahad Ha’am is a boys’ school.”
“So where do you go to school?”
“At Carmel. It’s near the zoo.”
“I practically don’t go to school anymore,” he told her. “I spend the whole day at the loft with the pigeons. But I do kibbutz chores and I read books, too.”
The Girl told him that the point he had raised about the sense of direction of pigeons was absolutely correct. “It’s not just about directions, either,” she said. “All she wants is to get home, but we’re sure she wants to pass important pigeongrams to the central pigeon loft.”
“We ladies are sure,” he corrected her, and this time when they laughed their eyes locked. They sat down, and he told her about another idea he had had, an idea that could fulfill the dream of all pigeon handlers of every generation: to train pigeons for two-way flight, not just to return home from somewhere but to travel back and forth between two lofts. Such a capability would open new opportunities in pigeon husbandry, he said excitedly A homing pigeon could make regular trips between a shepherd in the hills and his farm, between journalists in the field and the offices of their newspapers, or back and forth between army units and the high command.
“Between family members,” said the Girl. “Or lovers and couples, too.”
2
THE CONFERENCE lasted three days, and at the end the fat man from the zoo came laden with woven wicker baskets that cooed. Dr. Laufer fished pigeon after pigeon from them, handing them out to the participants and asking them to dispatch them upon their return home. He placed the pigeons brought by the others in the now empty baskets and told them the pigeons would be dispatched two mornings hence.
The pigeon handlers took their leave of one another and returned to their homes and their lofts. Dr. Laufer, whose life among the animals had taught him to comprehend every shudder of an eye and every hue of skin and every twitch of an earlobe, asked the Baby to stay awhile longer to help the Girl take down the pictures and posters and carry the baskets back to the zoo.
Now the two were alone. They took the pictures and mottoes down from the walls, rolling them up carefully so they would not wrinkle, and when they bent over to collect the baskets their heads drew close and touched. All at once they straightened up and their bodies pressed together.
While she leaned over him and planted her lips on his, the Baby took hold of her hips and pulled her body to his own; then—without knowing what he was doing—he lifted the edges of her blouse, so that her breasts were showing, and removed his lips from hers in order to kiss and suckle her nipples.
She trembled and moaned, but her hands descended, and before she could do anything more than grasp hold of him, the Baby sighed and, with the haste of young men, dispatched his seed into her hand. A pang of longing nipped at him even though she was with him. He felt he was both alive and dead. He had lost his strength and his age. And the Girl felt the warm flow between her fingers and a tremor passed through her. Never before had she known how strong she was.
The Baby, embarrassed, went searching for and found a rag to wipe clean his flesh and clothing, and her hand. But the Girl threw the rag to the floor, wiped her hand on his face, pulled him to the floor, and said, “Now you touch me like that, too.”
He was a boy, and did not know who was more anxious and who more pleasured, his hand or her loins, her flesh or his, and he wished to know who had bestowed upon his fingers the sense of taste and the ability to see, and although he did not yet understand all the messages his body was sending him, he already wanted to feel everything that she was—not approximately, but precisely To know the form of this wonder that his hand was caressing and exploring, not only its warmth and its smoothness and its softness, but also to taste it with his mouth and smell it with his nose and see it with his eyes. Would all this be similar to what he was feeling with his fingers?
The Girl took hold of his hand and moved it from her sex to her stomach. “No, that’s it,” she said. “I can’t anymore.” They lay for a while alongside each other, astonished by their power and their weakness, and he licked himself from her hand and she from his. They rose to their feet and adjusted their clothes and lifted the baskets with the pigeons. At first, slightly bashful, they walked down Ahad Ha’am Street. Then, smiling in their hearts, they descended the long, moderate slope that led to the zoo.
At the end of the slope there spread before them a sandy field and the remains of an orchard and a few sycamore trees, and at the opposite end the sandstone hillock with the pool and the zoo. These days, when I pass by there going in the other direction, I imagine the wooden planks placed there “before there were so many sidewalks.” The Baby did not wish to walk ahead of the Girl, nor behind her. He walked abreast of her, his legs sinking, his heart overjoyed, and already sadness was eating away at him: soon they would part. The Girl would remain in Tel Aviv and he would return to his pigeon loft on the kibbutz.
Chapter Twelve
1
THE TELEPHONE RANG. Aman’s thin voice said that my wife and I had passed the interview
“But there’s still one small problem that our treasurer would like to discuss with you,” he said, handing the phone to the treasurer, who cleared his throat grandly; something about this coughing indicated that a few other people were standing about and listening to the conversation. The treasurer told me that “there has been a slight misunderstanding,” and that the village, “after further investigation and consideration and the input of a professional,” would require a small addition to the price that had been set.
“How small?”
“Fifteen thousand dollars; that’s what we were told it would take.”
“I’ll get back to you,” I said, and phoned Tirzah.
“Of course,” she said. “Their ‘further investigation’ was that fancy car your real wife bought for you. We should have come in the junker of one of my p
lasterers and not in the security vehicle of the president of the United States of America.”
“So what am I supposed to do now?”
“Phone and tell them that you’re calling off the deal. But not right away. Do it another forty minutes from now Forty minutes is a particularly annoying amount of time: it’s too short for people to go home and too long to sit around waiting in the office.”
“But the house …” I fretted. “I want it.”
“Don’t worry They’ll back down. I’ll bet you that fifteen thousand dollars they asked for. Call back in forty minutes, and remember: don’t get emotional or angry Remind them that they were the ones who had set the price and we agreed on it, no haggling. Tell them that you’ve got the money ready and give them until tomorrow to decide. And don’t forget that as far as they’re concerned, I’m Mrs. Mendelsohn. If things get messed up I can step into the picture.”
“But why?” the village secretary said. “You passed the membership-committee interview so nicely If you don’t have enough cash on hand we can always make some sort of arrangement.”
“It’s not a matter of arrangements,” I said. “You set the price and we agreed without haggling. The money is ready, and you have until tomorrow afternoon to return to your original price or else you can find another buyer.”
Meshulam, upon hearing the story from his daughter, inc., the next morning, could not hide his satisfaction. “A new Iraleh!” He slapped my shoulder. “Too bad you didn’t add one more sentence: ‘You folks did not pass our membership committee.’ But never mind, the point is that now they know who they’re dealing with.”
And that is exactly the way it happened. They dropped their demand, and the next morning the new Iraleh signed the contract and paid the money in full. Then he took photographs of the house, had them developed in the nearby commercial center, and drove off to show them to his mother.
At the time, she was at Hadassah Hospital, the internal medicine ward, lying in a bed next to the window
I stood a few moments in the doorway and observed her. Her body was thin and frail. Her bald head was wrapped in a large blue kerchief She was gazing at the view— the Castel, Radar Hill, Nebi Samuel—then turned slowly toward me.
“Hello, Mother,” I said. “New kerchief ?”
“Meshulam gave it to me.”
She looked at the photos I had brought. “I’m happy That is precisely the place I was imagining. I see a few pigeons on the roof If they’ve nested under the roof, get rid of them and close up the holes. Pigeons in the roof are a nightmare.”
“I’m not a very good photographer,” I said, “and it’s hard in these pictures to see how well the house fits into the landscape. We’ll wait until you’re feeling a little better and I’ll take you there.”
She said, “I’m afraid that won’t be happening, Yair, but Tiraleh will certainly do a wonderful job on it. You’re in good hands.”
I was so taken aback that I did not even ask how she knew about Tirzah renovating the house. “You’ll get better,” I protested, “and you’ll see the house before and after the renovations, and you’ll come there whenever you want, and you’ll hear the wind blowing in the large trees, and you’ll sip your glass of brandy facing the view that you pictured. That house is more yours than mine.”
But the next day my mother lost consciousness, and three days later she died. Meshulam said it was only right to postpone starting the renovations. “The house can wait. First you should mourn properly What’s important is that she knew you’d found it and that you’re in good hands.” Then he burst out crying once again. “Since Gershon and Goldie I haven’t felt such pain.”
We thought to bury her in her city Tel Aviv, but my mother had left surprising and explicit instructions in her will. She wanted to be buried in Jerusalem, at the top of the hill in the northwest corner of the cemetery Through his connections, Meshulam took care of matters with the burial society “This is what she said to me and the lawyer I brought her: ‘It’s not so that I can look at Tel Aviv but that Tel Aviv can look at me.’”
We sat shivah in Yordad’s flat: Yordad, me, Zohar, who arranged for a samovar and cups and cookies. And Meshulam, who brought us food from Glick’s kiosk. The Double-Ys, Yariv and Yoav, were given time off from the army and made the apartment seem full of guests even when no one was there. Liora and Benjamin came in the evenings, along with his condolence callers and friends, who told horror stories of doctors’ errors. Tirzah did not come. Meshulam passed along a message from her: she is sorry, she loved your mother very much, and the engineer has set up another meeting with her and the surveyors will come after that.
I wondered whether the two men I saw once at my mother’s flat would show up as well: the elderly gentleman who asked me about my major in school and the dark-skinned one who limped and drank strong black coffee that he prepared himself as he hummed a funny tune about King Ahasuerus of the Purim story Instead, callers came to offer their condolences to Yordad: colleagues and former students, patients he had cared for or their children—some of them in gratitude and others to see what lay behind the brass nameplate that read “Y. MENDELSOHN, PRIVATE.”
On the last day of the seven-day mourning period a driving, late-season downpour took us by surprise. By the time I returned to Spinoza Street in Tel Aviv with Liora that evening, the streets were awash. The radio reported flooding and a terrible thought took hold of my mind: my mother’s fresh grave might have washed down the slope from the cemetery to Soreq Creek.
At Liora’s house, listening to the whisper of raindrops —flowing in the gutters, falling on the roof, dripping on leaves in the garden and tin roofs of memory—I envisioned terrible images of severed limbs and tumbling bones. I sprang up from my bed and got dressed. At last I would put to use the new Gore-Tex rainwear and rubber boots waiting for me in a box inside Behemoth.
“Where are you going?” Liora asked from her bedroom.
I told her the truth. I suspected that my mother’s grave had washed away in all the rain and I was going to see what was happening.
“What are you talking about? She’s buried inside a cement frame.”
“You have no idea what these floods are capable of”
“We just came back from there! What kind of story are you making up?”
“You can come with me if you don’t believe me,” I told her. She would not come. She would not take part in any of my craziness.
“Even neurotic Jewish sons in America don’t go to check whether their mothers’ graves have washed away in the rain, and believe me, back home in the U.S. we have worse rains and worse mothers than yours.”
“But here, the sons are better,” I said as I left.
The weather was terrible. The wind was blowing every which way and rain lashed in all directions. Sometimes it slammed the car’s roof and sometimes fell nearly sideways. But Behemoth, as determined as its owner, plied along with confidence and paid no heed to the pleas of smaller cars stuck on the roads, making its way through the Ayalon Valley, climbing past Sha’ar Hagai, ascending, descending, and finally making three right turns from the stoplight before the entrance to the city and up into the cemetery
I got out of the car and ran among the headstones. Rivulets of water flowed on the paths between the graves, but my mother’s plot was intact, along with all the wreaths. There was a wreath from Hadassah Hospital and one from Ichilov Hospital, a wreath from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and one from the Medical Doctors’ Association, a wreath from Kirschenbaum Real Estate of Tel Aviv, Boston, Washington, and New York and one from Meshulam Fried and Daughter, Inc. There was a small, white tin plaque, too, still stuck in a mound of mud. Wet and determined and erect, the words RAYA MENDELSOHN were written on it in black oil paint. I circled the grave, checked it out, and returned to Behemoth to phone Benjamin. “Everything’s fine,” I announced. “What’s fine? What are you talking about?” “Mother. Her grave is in order. It’s holding up in the rain.” “Where are y
ou, Yair? Did you go back to the cemetery?” “I was a little worried. This weather, and the grave hasn’t been covered in stone yet.”
Benjamin asked if I knew what time it was, I told him I knew, and he asked what was to become of me.
I told him that was not the problem, reminding him I had not asked his advice or assistance. I merely wanted to tell him what was happening.
“Even if you didn’t ask for advice,” he said, “I’m going to give you some. If you’re already in Jerusalem, go sleep at Yordad’s. It wouldn’t hurt you to pay a visit to a pediatrician before you turn in for the night.”
2
THE SKY CLEARED the next morning. When I arrived at the house I was met by the faces of three surveyors. One was old and lined and weathered, one, about my age, was potbellied and red-nosed, and one was a large, happy, diligent surveyor-in-training, to whom the others would say, “Bring cold water” or shout, “If your pole’s drooping, think about Brigitte Bardot!” to which they would roar with laughter.
After they left, the next-door neighbor came out of her house, stuck two pegs in the ground, and drew a long piece of string from one to the other.
“Why don’t you put up a real fence?” I suggested.
“No need.” She stretched the string and knotted it and straightened up. “Just so they know that right here’s the boundary That way there’ll be no issues or problems,” she said sharply
The next day she made her first tour of inspection along the new boundary “There have already been issues in the past,” she shouted when I stepped out of my house and wished her a good morning. “When matters are clear, all is well.”
