The dune was a lovely place on which to sit at night. The sand was dry and fragrant. Hemdat bent and scooped up a handful of it and they sat together on a little hillock. The words trickled a while longer from the wellspring of his heart and stopped. His right hand played with the sand, squeezing the gritty grains between his fingers and letting them run out. His hands felt cold. A breeze blew from the sea. Hemdat made a half-fist and placed it over his mouth like an empty clam shell. Yael glanced at him and said, “Why are you growing a beard? You look better without it. Something is digging into me. Oh, it’s the key.” She took the key to her room and handed it to Hemdat. Hemdat stuck it in his pocket.
All at once Yael rose. “Home!” she said. Hemdat walked her back and handed her the key. Yael opened the door and shut it from within. Hemdat’s pocket was empty. For a while he stood on the front stoop. He had thought she would turn around to say goodnight. Her firm footsteps rang in his ears. Hemdat smiled mockingly at himself and at his hopes, and went home.
* * *
Once she had come all the time, every evening of the week and twice on Saturdays, and now she had vanished.
“Why don’t you come anymore?” Hemdat asked Yael when he met her in the souk.
“I don’t want to keep you from your work,” Yael said. He had to work. The Mushalams had asked her what he lived off.
Yael Hayyut found an easy job overseeing the woman workers in a small fabrics factory. Hemdat talked to the manager, who agreed to hire her. Yael would make twenty-five francs a month, perhaps even thirty. “To tell you the truth,” said the manager, “I’m overpaying her at fifteen, but who can say no to a poet waxing eloquent?” Yael Hayyut had to pinch herself. She could rent a better room and buy a stove to cook on. She had already ruined her digestion. She thanked Hemdat for his efforts.
Hemdat went to get his hair cut. On the faded sign outside the barbershop was a man with a towel around his neck sitting in front of a barber. A small girl walked by, spat naughtily at the man, and ran off. Hemdat asked for a shave and a haircut. He was happy to have done Yael a good turn. The barber noticed his good mood and delivered a poetic speech about authors, who would sooner style their hair than their prose and cut their long locks than a word from their books. The scissors clicked and the barber’s eyes peered shrewdly out from a sea of hair to see what impression he was making. Hemdat was looking at his own hair, which lay scattered on the floor. “Right you are, old man,” said the barber. “The crown of your head’s on the ground to be tread.” When the barber was done, Hemdat looked in the mirror and saw his smooth, naked skull instead of his rich chestnut hair. He nodded and said, “There’s nothing like a change.”
That evening he went to see Yael Hayyut. The sight of what Hemdat had done to his beautiful hair nearly drove Yael crazy. His head came to a funny point. It was like a stand without a use. Hemdat took Yael’s hand. Back in Europe he had taken his little sister’s hand after shaving and run it over his cheek. “Ouch!” she had cried.
What more shall we tell you about Hemdat? All would have gone well with him had only it gone well with Yael Hayyut. Yael had a new worry. She had barely recovered before her arm got worse again. It wasn’t the future that troubled her, it was the past that wouldn’t go away. Yael had poor circulation and lived in fear of blood poisoning, and the slightest pain made her afraid that the arm would have to be amputated. Hemdat prayed for her health as though for a king’s. He brought her milk and medicines, and sat by her bed all day. “Yael’s brother,” he was called by the children in the neighborhood, and he bore the name with pride. An angelic soul, said the neighbors, which made him blush and bow his head. His alcohol stove had been thoroughly ruined by Yael, but she was getting better and soon was out of bed again.
Hemdat tidied up his room and went to see Yael. On the way he met an elder colleague. It was kind of the elder colleague to walk Hemdat to Yael, since it was Hemdat’s friendship with her that had caused him to stop seeing Hemdat — for Hemdat, thought his colleague, was spending too much time with Yael and not enough on his work. How pleased Yael would be to be visited by a famous author. She would tell all her friends that a famous author had been to see her.
The more was the pity, then, that Yael was not home. Tomorrow, thought Hemdat, she’ll come to see me. But she did not.
Hemdat ran into Yael in the street and asked her why she hadn’t come. She had wanted to, she said. Her room was like an oven. There was so little air that not a feather stirred in her torn pillow. “Then why didn’t you come?” asked Hemdat. “I was embarrassed,” said Yael, “because I don’t have a good dress.”
Next he met Mrs. Mushalam. Breezy Mrs. Mushalam was happy to see him. Dorban walked doubled over by her side, his hands gripping the ends of a rope. Although his meters were based on camel steps, he looked like anyone else beneath a load. Mrs. Mushalam had bought her husband the complete Brockhaus for his birthday, and Mr. Dorban had been kind enough to lend a hand. It wasn’t the latest edition, but you could hardly tell the difference. An encyclopedia was an encyclopedia. Of course, each edition had something new, but in Palestine one learned to make do. You could find everything in it from Chrysanthemums to Vasco da Gama. Reading an encyclopedia was like taking a tour around the world. She had already learned that Wasserman’s Caspar Hauser was based on a story from real life. “But why,” said Mrs. Mushalam, “should I even be talking to a man who hasn’t come to see my new furniture from Jerusalem? Didn’t Yael tell you about the inlaid furniture that I bought?” She held out a bouquet of roses and said, “Here, smell this rose.”
Hemdat apologized. “I’ve been meaning to come,” he said, “especially since there was something I wanted to talk to you about.”
Mrs. Mushalam pulled a rose stem from the bouquet as if reading his thoughts.
Hemdat buried his face in the rose. “When Yael’s mother left,” he said, “she gave me money for Yael to buy fabric for a dress. Yael can sew it herself.” It was Hemdat’s misfortune that he always blushed when he lied, but Mrs. Mushalam was a kind heart and did not hold it against him. “You needn’t tell Yael who gave it to you,” Hemdat said. “Any story will be fine. What a surprise it will be when she comes around in a new dress.”
Hemdat jumped back and rubbed his forehead. He had been stung by a bee. No, it was only a thorn. “The Revenge of the Rose,” said Mrs. Mushalam, laughing.
Although Hemdat did not know what fabric Yael would buy, he tried picturing her in her new dress. And if it is possible to picture a scent, he imagined that too. All day long he waited for her to come. But she did not. What was keeping her? Surely not the lack of a dress. Toward evening he left his room for the first time. What had he done at home all day? He had waited for Yael. And why had he not gone to see her? Because he had cleaned his room for her and wanted to share its intimacy with her. Now that his hopes had waned with the day, he stepped out.
Sandy Jaffa was at rest. The whole town had gone to walk by the sea. Hemdat strolled among the mounds of sand. A sound of singing came from some houses. Old Jews were sitting over the Sabbath’s last meal and singing the Sabbath’s last hymns. Hemdat felt a twinge. Through an open window he heard the rabbi giving a sweet-voiced homily. He tore himself away and walked to the sea. When Yael’s laugh reached him from a group of young people on the beach, he moved away and sat down by himself.
Hemdat sat facing the sea. The lacy waves raced in. Perhaps they bore Yael’s image. Pnina spied Hemdat and called to him from afar. Yael joined in, bidding him to come. Hemdat rose and went over. Pnina and the others slipped away. Yael acquiesced and stayed with Hemdat.