Paper Bride

by Nava Semel

  Homeland in Arabic is el-vatan. I won’t ever forget, Mohammed. I swear.

  He didn’t have time to say goodbye to Johnny Weissmuller. The dog wailed all night, and refused to come into the house. I didn’t know dogs could cry. Animals didn’t cry in the only movie I ever saw. I didn’t know whether the horse in the story Mohammed made up especially for me could cry. Now I didn’t have anyone to ask.

  Johnny Weissmuller barked to the air all night, and all the nights that followed.

  Mohammed

  You ask difficult questions, Aza’ar. How do I know whether it’s possible to foresee the future? Does the future have a picture? I’ve been a beekeeper all my life, and I don’t know how to answer even simpler questions than those. Allah has not revealed why the bees abstain from sleep and what drives them to draw nectar so stubbornly, to devote themselves to one queen, to save the last drops of honey they have gathered for her, even if it costs them their lives. A bee needs only a few flowers to satisfy its hunger, while it tastes three hundred. What is the purpose of all the trouble, the endless work it takes to amass a storehouse of honey it will never taste.

  The future is a bee, Aza’ar. Like the future, it is determined to attain its hidden desire, and no calamity will keep it from doing so. No frost or hunger in the land, not even the arrogance of man, who injures them so recklessly in the crevices of the trees. Even if the whole hive is destroyed and only a small number survives, the bees will build their home anew.

  If the future is a bee, that’s only because it is thinking of its offspring when it is procreating. Bees devote their entire existence to the next generation, never to themselves. Your father and mother made you during one night of love, so that even if they are in a different world, something of who they were still remains. They are inside you, Aza’ar, even if you don’t feel them this minute or the next. Allah, in his wisdom, created you in such a way that you can sense only yourself.

  Don’t look for a picture for all the things in the world, because not all of them have a shape, a form or an image. And if you are determined to find some kind of picture, go to the well, Aza’ar, put your face close to the water and look carefully at it. There is the picture of the future.

  Chapter 38

  I ran, breathing like an animal, and with every step I took, I felt pain in parts of my body I never knew existed. Every stride took me further away from one place and closer to another. I didn’t know whether I’d reach the place my legs had decided to take me. They insisted on moving forward, as if they had a will of their own, while my anarchist mind was moving in the opposite direction—back towards Mohammed Daudi. I imagined him crossing the Jordan, tramping though the desert sand. I could see him talking to his donkey, laden with bundles, but the donkey, which wasn’t a horse, didn’t answer.

  The olive trees, the hills, the well and the mosque raced past me at twice the normal speed. I couldn’t take in the details that were becoming increasingly blurred, getting drawn into each other, intermingling. I passed the grave of the Sheik. None of the wishes I’d made there had come true.

  I wanted to drink something, but I dared not stop for even a minute. I no longer felt the pain. It was hard to know what was more real—the scene in front of me or the one behind me, which I was tempted to take an occasional peek at. These days, no one remembers the name of that Marathon runner, only the name of the place he took off from. Now I’m the runner bearing the name of an Arab village who must reach a village with a Hebrew name, and the distance is less than forty-two kilometers.

  I took a short-cut through our village cemetery. Now, even the gravestones, small white squares, raced past on either side of me. Here and there, through the corner of my eye, I could see the glow of a memorial candle or a bouquet of withered flowers left over from a funeral slipping past me. I didn’t linger near my mother and father’s adjoining graves that we visit once a year, when Imri and I say Kaddish and I feel nothing. Only the blazing sun on my head. The rabbi would sing “B’maalot kiddushim v’toharim,” and I didn’t think my father and mother were “holy and pure,” like the prayer says, just because they were dead.

  My true feelings never emerged when I stood at their graves.

  Even though I moved closer to them, they backed further away from me and I couldn’t keep them near me. Mohammed would cross the river, Anna would travel overseas, Imri would remain in Jerusalem, and only the two Uziks would stay in the same place, with Aunt Miriam to tell them apart.

  I wished I were in a movie so I could cut out the unnecessary distance, but I wasn’t, so I had to cover every inch of the way.

  There, in distant Hollywood, they stop the camera to keep Johnny Weissmuller from getting tired, and tell him, “Now you’re here, and in the next picture you’re already in the place you wanted to get to.” I’ll never be Johnny Weissmuller. He won four gold medals in the Paris and Amsterdam Olympics and I can barely swim across the irrigation pond.

  For a minute, I almost lost the letter. That good-for-nothing wind snatched it from me. I began chasing it, but then slowed down, tempted to forget the whole thing, to let it go once and for all.

  But the wind seemed to regret what it had done and rolled the envelope back towards me, dropping it almost under my feet. I stopped only to pick it up and push it securely into my pants.

  I was covered with dust. My eyes burned. I didn’t want to fall. I would pass on the message, even if it wasn’t one of victory. One day, I would go down in the annals of the history of Palestine as the runner who pushed himself beyond the limits of human endurance only to bring news of defeat. But even so, I didn’t want to fall before the finish line. The idea that Aunt Miriam would one day talk to me in the air ...

  I’ll make it. I will make it.

  * * *

  The main street of the village was business as usual. Aharonchik was ambushing customers in the doorway of his bakery. The post office was deserted and even the committee house was closed. Zusia the wagoner was parked in front of our house and I saw Anna in her dark dress lifting her trunk onto the wagon.

  I could hear Aunt Miriam telling her she didn’t have to leave, whatever Imri had done. “Even if he was married to another woman, you’re part of us now. Uzik and I are your family.”

  Zusia pushed the trunk further onto the wagon. I had to make time move more slowly at all costs. I still had to return the second candlestick I had stolen. I couldn’t let Anna go without it, because then she would have no hope left at all.

  Taller than Aunt Miriam, Anna bent to hug her. Aunt Miriam muttered something, and I was horrified. Anna hadn’t even gone yet, and Aunt Miriam had already begun talking to her in the air.

  I wanted to shout, but I was in a silent movie now. Only my legs were moving, and my arms with them, pulling the letter out of my pants. I waved, apparently looking so ridiculous that they stared at me as if I were an airplane suddenly descending from the sky.

  Anna. Anna. Anna.

  She had already placed one foot on the wagon. Zusia took up the reins and the horse stamped its hooves. Anna means “where” in Hebrew. Even if I managed to roar like Johnny Weissmuller, it still would’ve been a silent picture.

  Anna’s lips were moving, and I could read the words, “Write to me, Uzik. Please write.”

  I wanted to shout out the only two words I knew how to write. I had been practicing them secretly for years. No one knew, not even Zionka. They were the only words I had ever said to my mother in the air.

  Come back!

  I unfolded the letter, tearing the envelope. The light of the sunset falling upon the page colored it red. The words slowed down and then came to a standstill. Everything stayed on the page, unmoving, as if the cover of the arms cache had been lifted, and I could clearly see everything inside. I roared out to Anna the words written on it. In Hebrew. Not Yiddish or Polish, because I was sure she already understood.

  “My love, my Anna. Tonka Greenbaum has agreed to give me a divorce. I am going to Jerusalem before she ch
anges her mind. I shall come back to you a free man. Wait for me. Come back!” I didn’t blush as the honeyed words dripped from my tongue. If I had known that Zionka was standing there, I would have cut them off instantly.

  Major Charles Timothy Parker

  When you read this letter, I shall already be beyond your borders.

  A rainy England greeted me the moment the wheels touched down. You want nothing of my castle or my Hawker. I fly in the sky alone, large drops of rain falling from above, beating on the canvas. I converse with my hawk, and it replies with the wheezing of its engine. Perhaps that is the fate of pilots doomed to be alone. No woman would consent to a bird armed with a machine gun competing for her man’s attention. Every time I walked out through the gate of the base, the sentry saluted me and said, “Here’s the major who prefers the company of dogs to the company of women,” and I smiled and said nothing. The little Zionist was right when he said that there was no substance to letters. After a while, they fade and their meaning is lost.

  If I were a king, I would give up my crown for you. In England, a king cannot rule if the woman at his side is a divorcee. Even if you really were only a “bride on paper,” I would lose my right to reign. I would gladly toss my crown to the wind and follow you into exile.

  Be happy, Annie, for me too. And burn this letter.

  Chapter 39

  I was still swaying on my legs, two slivers of wood that don’t look anything like olive tree trunks. I could barely stand up. I didn’t hear anything, not because I was in a silent movie, but because the whole village was standing around me, cheering thunderously. “He can read! He can read!!!”

  Zionka was the first to notice and shout, and even Herzl Fleischer applauded. I was surrounded by all the people I knew from the time I was born, the ones I loved, the ones I hated, and the ones I ignored. My teacher and the principal were there too. Now they wouldn’t expel me. What a shame. They’d force me to take written tests, like everybody else. And instead of being an anarchist in their eyes, I’d just be someone who obeyed the rules and did what others did, never challenging, never defying.

  Later I tried to convince them that it was a one-time miracle, and when I stood at the blackboard, I pretended to be confused. But everyone nodded and said indifferently, “We know your tricks, Uzik,” and they didn’t even add “the troublemaker.”

  We were still standing at the door. Anna in her dark dress, and Zusia the wagoner complaining about the delay and warning that they had to leave before the curfew. In the uproar, we didn’t realize that someone was standing among us, looking for a small crack through which he could enter. The toolshed had cast a shadow over him. Only Anna felt his presence. A tremor passed through her body, and then she froze, one hand on the handle of her trunk, the other in the air, as if she wanted to hang onto or lean against him.

  The air was not empty. It was filled with Imri. Thinner than I remembered, and pale, his hair was long and unkempt, his cheeks covered with stubble. At his feet was our father’s old valise.

  The end. What kind of ending do I want to choose, as if I could choose one at all. The person who wrote the one word I knew how to read, right on the last picture, already knew how the next movie would begin. The word burst forth—an aggravating, annoying bug—as the lights came up in the theater, because the projectionist was impatient to rewind the movie and show it from the beginning.

  But I didn’t want it to be over. And despite my terrible sorrow that it would all soon end, I managed to postpone the final moment.

  In the meantime, the three letters swam towards me, “E-N-D,” growing larger, taking over the screen, and then imprinting themselves on the pupils of my eyes, still flickering, even when light flooded the theater and erased all traces. I blinked. I didn’t want to go home.

  Where is home?

  Lutsk or Palestine, an Arab village or Trans-Jordan, or maybe a desolate castle in England, or the empty air. I didn’t want to choose. If I chose, I would be lost.

  Anna was holding her boat ticket. Maybe that was what the famous British certificate looked like. A piece of stamped paper that decided your fate here or somewhere else, and without it, you were forced to prove that you exist. I still didn’t know whether Anna had intended to go to America or back to Poland. And maybe she’d been convinced it would be better for her to go to England with Charlie.

  One way or another, she stayed.

  Imri dropped the valise and walked towards her. He released the horse’s reins, patted its back and sent Zusia the wagoner on his way. And when the wagon moved, Anna and Imri were close to each other, separated only by a sliver of air.

  Johnny Weissmuller jumped on me and knocked me over with his licking. I told him proudly, “The Marathon runner didn’t collapse. A dog knocked him down with happiness.”

  It was only because of Johnny that I missed one scene. I didn’t know whether Anna fell into Imri’s arms, or whether he gathered her up to taste her lips that were so rich with nectar.

  It was a scene that would never be mine, although I was sure it took place. I couldn’t see it because someone blocked for a minute what was happening there in the movie, but I could always fill in the missing scene. Or maybe there was no way to fill the void, because a scene wasn’t a stolen candlestick you could return and apologize for, and what I didn’t know was just as important as what I did know.

  Actually, what did it matter if Anna fell into Imri’s arms or the opposite, or when exactly they came together. I thought they both knew that what had happened between them could have ended in separation, although, years later, they would both discover that at that moment, Anna had separated for good from her family. And years later, I would discover Imri as a friend, not only an older brother.

  I remember very well what happened next. How I said to Johnny Weissmuller, “Even though I’m the runner in this story, I stayed alive. You’ll never have to bark to the air.”

  Maybe love, as Zionka said, was an easy word to write and to read, but I wasn’t sure you could always take aim and hit it. The troublemaker inside me always insisted on raising doubts, because a word sometimes describes the opposite of what it meant. Even if they fooled themselves into believing that all the problems were solved, and the boy wouldn’t be completely illiterate, I still wasn’t sure that the words weren’t just “fictitious.” I recognized all the letters in Zionka’s dictionary, and for some reason, I didn’t feel that the words became truer because I could read and write them. I wrote “for the sake of the homeland” on the blackboard just so I would get a good final grade, but I still wasn’t convinced. And I could also write my name and add the nasty names they’d decided to erase, the ones only I remembered.

  * * *

  I didn’t leave my room that night. Zionka found my rope tossed in a corner of their yard, and I could slide down it again. The British didn’t realize that it was Tarzan’s rope, and just threw it away, but I didn’t need it that night.

  I stayed in my room with Johnny Weissmuller. I covered us both with my blanket, whispering soft words to him. Outside, a hot, early summer breeze was blowing, and there was another rustling sound. The two empty tin cans shook and clattered between my window and Zionka’s. She had reconnected our telephone. I didn’t pull the string and I didn’t talk into it. It really was a magical device. What you say goes directly into the ears of the person you want to hear it, and you can’t avoid listening.

  “Now, we’ll be quiet,” I whispered to Johnny Weissmuller. The two of us in the dark, between what had ended and what was just beginning. And no one was allowed to disturb us.

  Uzik

  Since then, color has been added to movies, and today, even weddings are filmed as a matter of course. Anna and Imri’s wedding was nothing out of the ordinary. It had a wedding canopy, and witnesses, and the seven blessings, and the broken glass, and even the wedding rings that had once belonged to my parents and had not been buried with them.

  Imri didn’t buy Anna for the price of a hundre
d goats. He won her hand for nothing. She was his first bride and his last, and everyone did their best to forget there had been another one in between.

  “We who have been commanded concerning prohibited relationships.” I remember asking the rabbi what that meant, and he turned his back and called me “a rebellious child,” and there was no affection in his voice. I was filled with surprise. After all, most of the time, the rabbi had been eager to satisfy my curiosity about the laws and commandments, and it was that question about prohibited relationships that angered him. He scolded me, “That’s not for you. Wait until you grow up.” And the way he said “grow up” made it sound like a threat. I almost told the rabbi how I’d seen, with my own eyes, Anna and Imri sucking honey, body to body. Sometimes it’s too sweet, and sometimes it turns into bitter poison.

  The guys from the van stood on the side, whispering with the man from the Jewish Agency. They already understood that Imri wouldn’t complete his mission to marry four brides. The homeland would have to be satisfied with two. There are some things you can do for it, and some you can’t.

  Imri broke the glass perfectly. A beautifully aimed and executed stamp, as if he had practiced during the long winter nights on the Jewish National Fund box. Or maybe it was only because he had practice taking part in wedding ceremonies.

  There’s only one picture left from their wedding. The photographer tied the scrawny old horse to the castor bush behind the toolshed and spent a long time focusing his modern camera—not a wooden box with a black curtain he had to hide behind in order to take a picture— and placing all of us in two rows.