3 Novellas: Home / Leaving for Jerusalem / The Nobel Prize

by Mois Benarroch

  "This is a good reason to go to Jerusalem, endanger your young family and our future."

  "Believe me it’s no safer here, you are a kilometer from the orange line, seven kilometers from the yellow line and five from the blue line."

  "I don’t look at lines anymore."

  "Then how do you know that Jerusalem is more dangerous, from television? Do you believe the television?"

  "That’s what everyone says."

  "Since when do you believe everyone and not me? I was there, it’s very safe there, you’ll see, come and see."

  "I’ll never go to Jerusalem, the city of rituals. That’s not why my grandfather struggled, to remove the stupid rituals from the Jews. I belong to sane folks, not to mad people like you."

  "Sane?"

  "Yes, sane, you are crazy to go to a place where there’s a synagogue on every corner, a church or a mosque where people get killed everyday."

  "My grandfather told me that in Morocco people weren’t killed because of their religion, and that’s a fanatical Arab Moslem country. It’s only here that everyone is killed because of your holy secularism."

  "I’ve never heard you talk this way before."

  "That’s right. It’s true that Jerusalem changed me. It’s not just the book or working at the paper. I don’t know, all these stones, the temple, the Temple Mount, the Softic church, the Mosque, they all pulled me back to my grandfather’s stories, you haven’t succeeded in secularizing me, it’s as though my roots are too deep, too entrenched, as though the smell of olive oil calls me to come back, or the smell of my mother’s milk, that’s my roots, not purposeless secular Modi’in."

  "Have you found a purpose in those religions?"

  "I really don’t know what I found, but I did find something."

  "David, you didn’t just leave Modi’in, you also left me, in your thoughts you left me some time ago."

  "Maybe I am moving away from you, but I feel that you’ll come after me, it’s just a matter of time. Your daughter, our daughter, will bring you once again to me and Jerusalem. That’s where we belong."

  "If I were you I wouldn’t be so sure of that, or of your feelings."

  E

  Every two weeks I sent in an article. ‘HOME’ turned into a passing memory. At the beginning I talked with my wife on the phone. I told her it was pleasant in Jerusalem. I tried to convince her to come but she didn’t even visit me, until I finally stopped making suggestions. I won a prize for the article on the Sekhel Church, also known by the name of the Intellect Church. I became a well—known journalist and offers began to arrive from other newspapers, but all the writings on the churches simply increased my desire to know more about my place in the world.

  All this will be cut short or skipped over suddenly when I arrived one winter morning to the book store in Jerusalem and saw the window full of copies of ‘HOME’ by Menashe Har Esh.

  "Shalom," the female book seller said, "We are happy that you came to sign your books."

  "Sign?"

  "Yes, you’re Menashe Har Esh, aren’t you?"

  "Me?"

  "Ah, maybe there is a mistake, but you look so much like the photograph on the back cover of the book." She showed it to him.

  "That is really me."

  I looked at the book, I saw my writings, my story.

  "I really did write it, did I sleep for so long?"

  I looked at my hands which always indicate age. They were the hands of a man of seventy years old.

  "Seventy years old!"

  "Yes, Sir, we’ve arranged a table for you, people will surely be coming soon."

  "A table!"

  I took a book and went out into the cold air. I was afraid to turn back toward the store, be old once again, but my hands didn’t return to young skin, I ran, but my running had become slow and clumsy, I thought to myself that an old man of seventy running is as ridiculous as a poet who reads his poems at a literary evening or a journalist who tries to convince his editor to publish an article. I came to my favorite coffee shop ‘The Hot Espresso’. I sat down, once again I opened the book ‘HOME’ written by Menashe Har Esh, on the first page there was a signed inscription: "To my friend, David Koresh, without you this book would not have been published." Again I turned the pages, there was not one word of my writings on Jerusalem. Not even one sentence was familiar to me. At that moment I knew that I was starting a new religion. The waitress asked what I wanted.

  I answered: "This can’t be the end. This cannot be the end."

  "That’s right," she said. "It’s true, this really is not the end."

  Jerusalem, 1995.

  LEAVING FOR JERUSALEM

  Part One

  1.

  Jerusalem, Jerusalem, I have to go there. I have to go I cannot stay here I have to do something. When was it? 1997? I was there, a small publisher, what was his name, Golan, David Golan, Yaron Golan, that’s it, had published my first book in Hebrew, what am I doing in Lisbon? Everything is burning in Jerusalem, I have to go, I have to write it, I have to, I have no choice. It’s like needing to go to the bathroom, I can’t help, I take a xanax pill now and go to sleep, my system has been weak lately, weak, my immune system, since I had this mononucleosis I am not the same man but I have to write what is happening in Jerusalem, I have to write, I see the face of mother, the face of my mother when I asked her if I was a Jew, why didn’t she answer, even if it was a lie, why didn’t she say, no, we are Catholics, she goes every Sunday to the church, maybe she goes there to plead for her lost grandmother who never wanted to be a Christian, she didn’t answer, who are you then? Who are you Mr. Pedro Samarreta Perez, who are you? A Jew. A catholic, a Portuguese, what kind of Portuguese, yes, born in Lisbon, but so many years in New York City, hardly remembered, my parents they had to leave to make a living, then came back after they made some money and the dictatorship ended. I don’t have to go to Jerusalem, I hate planes, and then I am always traveling, like writing a book about New York in September, I had to go, and write it, what can a writer do? He can only write, he can write what he sees, what he feels, and now all these bombs in Jerusalem, I have a friend there, I will call him and ask what he thinks, is it too dangerous. My family will think I am crazy, my wife too, but she will never say it, she will not say a word, always supporting me, whatever I do, no matter what. My friend, what will they say, they won’t believe me, the news, every day the news about Israel and Jerusalem, like if it was the news of the latest pogrom, and the Jews are guilty, guilty of being killed, but we must also do something about the Palestinian, this cannot go on, we cannot suffocate them anymore, why do I say we? Who is this we now entering my words, I am a Portuguese, not a Jew, not an Israeli, so why do I say we, who is this we, why can’t I see we when I speak about the Portuguese, why do I feel better in Jerusalem than anywhere else in the world, why do I feel Jerusalem is my place, why can’t I feel the same about my beautiful city Lisbon, why can’t I see her beauty, why do I only see the stress of this city, I have to sleep, I have to go to sleep, to dream, I am not feeling very good, I am coughing too much, maybe it’s a pneumonia, maybe I am dying, maybe it’s cancer, maybe it’s the cancer all our generation is waiting like a bomb waiting to explode, are we all condemned to die from cancer? Like my friends Joan, like Drumondo, like Fernando, aren’t we tired of all these people calling us and telling they have tumor, aren’t we tired of this world, where everything is so easy, and everybody is dying from cancer, ultramoderm, everything is so ultramodern, call me if you want to come, call me if you want to die, call me when the moon is empty and the dogs bark because they can’t see at night, call me when the sun is hidden by clouds of pollution and call me when Shabbat is ready, my dear wife of other lives, call me when you light the candles. Why did she leave me three months after we married, my Jewish wife, Andrea, why did she leave, maybe she was afraid of my pennies, my non circumcised penis, she just left one morning and her father told me she will never come back, it was not easy, but why did I marry a
Jew in the first place, and then my son, my Jewish son of my unwed second wife, why did Andrea leave, what was she afraid of, where is she now, she left the country and lives in Paris, I would like to see her, maybe I should go to Paris and try to understand why she left, but she won’t talk to me, she never did, she never talked to me, even when we talked she was absent, now I see these 7 months in a new light, after coming back from Berlin where every jewish student will call me his brother and then, what? You are not a Jew? After I came back I asked my mother and she didn’t answer, maybe that is the most important answer I ever received, silence, silence is the answer, because when you answer with silence to a question that is the end of question, had she said yes or had she said no, I would have asked another question, but silence is the ultimate answer, now I understand what she answered, at this very moment of my life I understand my mother’s wisdom, there is a question where the answer does not lead to a new question, like in Jabes books "Le Livre Des Questions", maybe one day my son will come, my Jewish son will come and ask me a question to which I have no answer, I know this will happen a nigh between the new Jewish year and Kippur and he will ask me: who are you Pedro Smarreta Perez, and I will be in front of him, in from of my books, in front of the world and will have no answer, not even one letter will be able to go out of my mouth, from then on, as I have see the future, from then on, after his question I will be unable to write one my word, but tonight, my wife is in Barcelona, she went to see her grandmother and I have no choice but travel to Jerusalem, I know it as I know my name, as I know the name of my son, it’s not something I can decide, not something I can discuss with my friends, with my wife, I can’t discuss it because I am there already, no matter what I do I am there already.

  — Where are we heading mother?

  — We are leaving this city.

  — Why? What was wrong with this city?

  — Nothing, we are just going to another city.

  — Why?

  — Because human beings were created to walk.

  — But I wanted to stay. Was it because of what happened in school?

  — Not only, it happened because we have to walk from city to city. It’s our fate and we have to love it.

  — And what about our home, mum?

  — Someone else will live there until he is forced to leave too.

  — Who will it be?

  — Someone chased from another city.

  — And what is this tunnel mum?

  — At the end of this tunnel we’ll see the new city.

  2.

  Where am I? Still awake, 3 A.M., nothing helps, this xanax does not help me anymore, I am lost, where are you Magdalena, why have you left me know, but it’s OK, it’s rather OK that you have left me, now I know what I have to do, where I have to go, why I don’t know, it’s the call of the centuries, are we like birds, migrating when the season comes, do we have to go to some places at some time, do we have to go and we have no choice, and I have seen now my whole trip, I have see myself in the airport, on the plane, Lisbon Amsterdam, and now why should it be through Amsterdam, why did they cancel the direct flights from Lisbon to Tel Aviv, I think some of my ancestors came here through Amsterdam, or went from Portugal, maybe from Coimbre to Amsterdan in the 17th century, that’s why I have to go to Jerusalem through Amsterdam, that what Nahman of Braslau said, he said that if you travel to a place it is because you have something to fix there, spiritually of course, past lives maybe, my friend in Jerusalem told me that, it’s the kind of ideas that stay with you forever and change, a man can hear thousands of sentences and read millions, but just a few lines stay with him forever, I need some water, I need to drink, I am thirsty as if I was in the desert now, as if I had been in the desert for years, for centuries, I need water, world water me, Magdalena will come only next week, how will I be able to handle all this world by myself until then, the water is good, I like this Caramulo water, it’s clean, it cleans my soul, not my body, my soul, it’s like I am drinking the mountain of Caramulo, all the mountain and its loneliness over the centuries, maybe I’ll call her and tell her to come back sooner, all my books look like useless now, like if it wasn’t me the one who wrote them, it’s like I never touched anything, but I have to write a book about Jerusalem, I have to, it is the only way I can say something, maybe I should stay a day or two in Amsterdam, no, no, I should go only to Jerusalem, I will not even travel to Tel Aviv, only Jerusalem this time, I’ll stay there ten days, two weeks, I have to do it, I’ll call Magdalena now, just now, and tell her, no, I can wait until morning, she will say as always that I should do what I should do, and I will know that I am worrying her, I know it already, maybe I just should wait until she comes back and then tell her, it’s still night, maybe I should take another Xanax, the doctor told me I can take two once in a while, it’s dangerous, these pills are killing me, I know that, they are killing me, but now if I don’t take them I can’t sleep, I can’t, now I want to talk to my first wife, Mercedes, yes, Mercedes, I have not said her name for ten years now, Mercedes can you explain me why did you leave, why did you leave without explaining, you are my mother not answering me why I asked if we are Jews, something, a letter, why didn’t you explain something, a word, I hate you, you are a liar, something, not just going like that, like that into the night, what happened to you, Oh my dear, my youthful love, what was so difficult, did you hate my odor, the color of my skin, my voice, sometimes this things happen, but why didn’t you say anything, I asked your father, and he said you would not talk, you didn’t say a word for three weeks, but we were together you didn’t stop talking for a second, joking and laughing and then suddenly, one morning, in the Everest of my joy, you were just not there anymore, I should talk to you now, just you owe me an explanation, even one word, two words, whatever, I need a few words for you, then there was the mother of my child, Ariana, we did not really marry but were pretty much a wife and a husband, and she explained, she explained for three months why she was leaving me, she hated books, she did not want me to write, thought that books are a waste of time, to write them, and to read them, I didn’t say she was wrong, I am not sure about it even now, I tried not to read and not to write, I tried, I could do it for 2, sometimes 3 days, but I had to read and I had to write, then she would say, reading again? Wasting our time. Let’s go to a restaurant, to a movie, to buy more shoes, let’s do something. Reading is like a drug, Pedro, it gets worse with time until it kills you. And now you Magdalena, you let me do anything I want, who is crazy and who is the normal woman here, I never left the women, I don’t leave, it just happens, I try to adapt, not to read, not to write, not to wear ties, not to walk with Nike shoes, whatever you ask, I don’t leave you.

  — Where are keys to our car?

  — We have no car. They took our car.

  — So, how will we reach the city?

  — We shall leave the city.

  — But how can we walk? We have no shoes.

  — We shall fly.

  — We are not birds

  — The big eagle will come and take us to city.

  — What is the name of the city

  — The big eagle will tell us the name of the city.

  — But, we are we leaving.

  — Because we are birds. It’s an ancient blessing, some say it’s and ancient curse. We leave because we are like migrating birds and we have to leave.

  — I would like to stay.

  — My son, we have no time, once we leave the city will burn, we kept the city alive but they don’t want us here anymore, they prefer to die than have us here.

  — Will our house burn too?

  — It’s been destroyed already, everything is ash. All we have now is the next city.

  3.

  I’ll drink some port, my mother once told me she had an uncle who became a priest and left for Jerusalem, then I heard from another uncle that his father dies in Jerusalem, why did they go, and what were they looking for, maybe it’s a curse, it’s a curse to have to g
ot to Jerusalem, so how can I explain to anyone of my friends that I felt better in Jerusalem for a week than anywhere else, how can they understand, I sent an email to my friend in Jerusalem, I asked him if it is safe to go there now, as if the answer mattered at all, as if I didn’t know that the decision has been taken, I just want to understand why did I take such decision against any logic, against my own logic, and like the most important things in life, this is not logical, my mind is loose and lost thinking in four languages at a time, French, Portuguese, English, German, knowing all these languages and finally not really knowing any one of them, it’s like behind all these tongues there is an ancient, hidden, Jungian, wanting to be spoken, maybe it’s Hebrew and maybe it’s Ladino, it’s like this language is hidden behind all my words and all my thoughts and that’s why I can’t feel any language at all, all my languages are foreign to me, all my writings become my distorted mirror once they take the form of a book, is it the reason why I run from book to book, why I have written so many, why I am not happy with none of them, and here is the answer, my friend from Jerusalem, here is his email, and he tells me what I think, my double and my brother, "If you have to go, if you feel it very strongly then you should come.", he goes on to saying that I should be careful but there is no reason not to come, I know that in the T.V. here it sounds like a battlefield but I also know this is not true, it’s like he’s read my mind, he knows why I have to come, it’s an ancient call, he knows it, he says he told other friend to postpone their journeys, but to me he says something else, he feels things, he feels me, I will call my travel agent, now, before I go crazy, before I ask my wife, before I ask any of my friends, this is more personal than asking them about a divorce, or buying a new house, talking about Israel and the Jews has become something secret, no one really says what he thinks, many of them may know that they have Jewish blood, and maybe they want to clean themselves by being against Israel, it’s like the new Christians of the past being more pious than any Christian and hating the Jews more than the other to make clear that they are not Jews anymore. It’s like the whole Europe is trying to say to the world, and to itself, we are not Jews, we never were Jews, we have nothing to do with a Jewish state. The subconscious speaking noisily, the subconscious coming into the fore, the hidden demons of the centuries walking in front of the Europeans, walking on their tables and sitting on their chairs, now they are they, these Europeans are not we anymore, I feel so far from them, and I know that this culture is going to collapse, to be destroyed, it’s a slow agony, a sluggish stalk to the grave.