Hemdat thought of a pretty cousin of his who also had rebelled and left home. She had had a lovely voice and wanted to be a singer, and when her parents objected she ran away to Vienna and got along there on nothing, studying as much and eating as little as she could while waiting for the day she could support herself. Yet her dreams proved greater than her strength, which soon gave out, so that on the night of her debut before a large audience blood spurted from her mouth with the first note. Her parents came to take her home and plied her with doctors and drugs, and now, her lovely voice stilled, she never left her bed. Her brain had been affected too, and she lay wrapped in white in a white room with white walls and white rugs. All this whiteness was reflected in a large mirror, and if a doctor happened to bring her red roses, she sprinkled them with white powder while gazing off into dim space.
Once, as darkness was falling, Hemdat came to visit her. At first, although her eyes clung to him, she did not know who he was. Then she rose from her bed, spread her long, cold fingers, and ran them over his face. “Hemdat,” she said.
Hemdat jumped to his feet. He was certain that Yael Hayyut had called him. In this he was greatly mistaken, for he had imagined it. Grieving, he lay down again.
Hemdat lay in bed, his heart wide awake. Pikchin has nothing for you? Then sit down at your desk and get to work. You wanted to translate Jacobsen’s Niels Lyhne? Then do. He rose to get some paper and a new pen nib. The old nib was rusty. That was as far as he got. Still, it was a start.
Every morning Hemdat stepped out onto his terrace and gazed down at the railroad tracks in Emek Refaim. They gleamed as though polished. The train passed twice a day. Yael Hayyut would be on it and look out the window at him. “Hello, hello!” she would call. He secretly dreamed of a warm kiss. Yael would come and find him hard at work, and his chaste lips would linger on her pretty face. Though he was no longer the Don Juan he once had been, her calm mien stirred a longing for the pure elixir of a kiss. Someday, when he was already an old man, such pleasures would be his by right. He knew that Yael had been kissed before, but each kiss was holy to her and no man had profaned her face.
Hemdat got nowhere with his work. The sun beat down, its flat rays stinging like gnats and sapping his will. It was too hot, his heart was too inflamed, to get anything done. He remembered the days when his soul dripped its leafy dew on the tender buds of his poems while coffee sputtered on the alcohol stove. He wanted them back again and went to light the stove. Hemdat drank coffee like water. Black coffee must be running in his veins.
For hours, his eyes open and his mind blank, he lay on the divan without boredom. Weary was what he was, with a harsh, prolonged weariness. Oh, Lord, he said aloud, annoyed by the languor of his voice. Oh, Lord, where can I find rest. He lay without moving hand or foot, like a man about to be flogged. He heard the rumble of a train. It whistled as it approached.
A frightening shriek tore the silence. The train rushed by and was gone, leaving behind a slanting corkscrew of dark blue smoke.
“Yael!” cried Hemdat, jumping to his feet. Quickly he tidied up, did the dishes, spread the table with new wax paper, washed, put on fresh clothes, and sat down. His body came to life, his fingers sapient. The pen began to move, distributing letters over the page that joined into words, lines, sentences. I do believe the translation went well.
The hours went by and Yael did not come. Hemdat feared he had been wrong. Perhaps she had not been on the train after all. He had not seen her face, only a green coat. Could she already be wearing winter clothes? What would his landlord’s daughters say? The dowdy guests our tenant has! He had made a mistake. It was not Yael. Her face had been turned away from him. Surely she would not have ridden by in the train without a glance at his room.
Yael was back. She had not been seen looking so well since she arrived from Russia. Hemdat wondered if her hair had grown. You’ll find out when you see her tomorrow or the day after, he told himself, having heard from Pnina that she would come then. She had first gone to visit her mother in Rehovot. Yael’s mother was going back to Russia. An old woman like her was not meant for Palestine, nor was the country meant for her. Once, when Jews were more stalwart, coming to live out one’s last years in the Land of Israel had been the thing to do, but nowadays no punishment was harder. The sky dripped sweat, the earth brimmed dust, and a person did not last long. Even the food was not fit to eat. Whatever Yael’s mother ate went straight to her kidneys.
Hemdat, however, did not spend his time thinking about old people in the Land of Israel. He was twenty-two years old, Hemdat was, and not overly concerned with his digestion. If he had a bishlik he bought some bread, and if he had another, some figs, dates, or olives to go with it. “A land wherein you will eat bread without scarcity,” the Bible called it, and it had everything anyone could want. If you have any doubts about that, just count the treats that Hemdat bought for Yael.
Every morning after rising he cleaned his room — in fact, sometimes every minute. He changed his clothes each day and glanced often at the glass frame of the picture — that is, in case you have forgotten, at Rembrandt’s Bride and Groom. His room was spic-and-span, the table was freshly covered, and everything smelled good. He even scrubbed the floor all by himself. There was reason to suspect that he did it with eucalyptus water.
Having accomplished all this, Hemdat sat down at the table, picked up his pen, and guided it across the paper. How fine the tiny letters looked on the white page! Besides the page in front of him, two or three blank ones were laid on the edge of the table. Every few minutes he rose to open or close the window. Although he liked the breeze blowing through it, he also liked the quiet when it was shut, and since it was hard to decide, he kept changing his mind. Meanwhile, he heard Yael’s voice. Hemdat ran to the window. Yael was standing below. She had only a minute.
“Why don’t you come up,” he called down.
“Why won’t you come down,” she called up.
“Come,” said Hemdat.
“I can’t,” said Yael. “I have no time.”
Hemdat glanced back at his room as he started down the stairs. Bright and shiny though it was, it looked in mourning.
6
She came that evening. Hemdat met her in the yard. He held out his hand to her and said, “Come. Let’s go to my room.”
“Why?” asked Yael. “We could take a walk.”
They walked awhile, and Hemdat asked, “Why didn’t you write me from Jerusalem?”
“I didn’t think you would answer,” Yael said. And when he looked at her in silence, she added, “Pizmoni’s gone.”
“Where is he?”
“At some university.”
“What is he studying?”
“Zoology,” said Yael. “He should have chosen botany.” She would write him a long letter if she knew his address. Though, of course, he might not answer.
Hemdat broke his silence and began to talk. He hadn’t talked so much since the day he swore off women. It was unwise of him to let Yael know how he had longed for such a conversation. The more things he told her, the more trivial, even illogical, she became. At first, she said, she had found him insufferable. There had been something ridiculous about him. A woman passing in the street could make him blush. She would be a happy person if she knew Hebrew. That was her one desire.
Hemdat knew it was just chitchat, but he listened and was sorry when they parted. Before that, they came to a dune called the Hill of Love. Yael’s tall figure reached it first. Hemdat trailed behind her. He hadn’t kept a thing from her. He swung his arms limply, nothing left to say.