“What do you want that for? It’s dry as a stone. It’s not fresh.”
“I’ll grate it and make a soufflé.”
“You’ll never get a soufflé out of that. Dinaleh, don’t be a child.”
“I saw some recipe in a cookbook. Are you saving it for someone? How much does it cost?”
Father is in a rage you’re doing it to insult me he wraps it up angrily and flings it at me. The store is full of irritable customers the shopping net with the food lies on the counter father is red in the face mother is beside herself I’ve never said no to them like this before I kiss her and reach out my hand to him I slip away down the alley behind the Edison Theater walking by a high blank wall on whose other side is the movie screen recessed in its far end is a rundown kiosk with a leaky soda fountain and a few cartons of yellow chewing gum and dry wafers next to some thin writing pads and notebooks. Fat lame and inert the kiosk owner sits on his stool his back to the wall the sounds of the movie behind him a roar of cars of explosions all that American bang-bang he sits absorbed in the noise. I reach for a writing pad and choose an orange one with faded lines a product of the Jerusalem Paper Company.
“Are these the only writing pads you have?”
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t see me. In a trance he listens to the sounds from behind the heavy concrete wall.
“All right, then. I’ll take this one.”
He takes the pad from me to check its price. I hand him some change he counts it suspiciously I grab the pad back all at once my fingers are itching to write here on the border of downtown to one side of me the stone houses of Ge’ula a spiritual watershed down one slope of which flows a thickening stream of black coats before them a last display window with photos of leather-booted women a neighborhood of uglies who no longer turn to stare at me. I riffle through the small blank pages.
“Do you have a pen or a pencil?”
He produces a dusty pen I pay him he hands me back some moist change. I can feel an attack coming on. On one side I write Poetry I turn it over and write Prose on the other I lay the pad on the wet marble counter and write quickly.
Rockdrowsing snake. Rustling bleeding. Venomous skull soft bald head.
The kiosk owner looks up at me.
“Not here, lady. This isn’t a desk.”
But I pay no attention I flip it over quickly to the prose side. Father in knots large gloomy wall beyond the hum of projector muffled booms. Zombie-like kiosk owner selling soda in shade of banyan tree. She buys a small pad from him.
“Hey, lady, not here!”
A bus pulls up across the street the driver looks at me the doors hiss open and shut I signal him he brakes sharply I grab the pad and my bag and the cheese and dart to the opposite sidewalk the door opens again I’m safely inside. Thank you. He grins. He deserves to have me sit near him so I do smiling back sweetly as I pay him the fare but before he can get a word in I’ve whipped out my pad and plunged into it. The speedy recognition of beauty. And on the poetry side I write I saw her as she danced her body deep in soft melody.
It’s something else today.
The keys are already turning in the glass door of the bank but I manage to worm my way in. No one knows me though we have a joint account because Asi takes care of all our bank business but a nervous young teller takes me under his wing and manages to give me five thousand pounds even though I don’t have a checkbook he fills out the forms for me and carefully has me sign he runs to bring me my money in new bills and a new checkbook too I can feel him falling for me head over heels he’s the clean skinny intellectual type crushed by an ambitious mother he scents the tender virgin in me like a moth attracted to the light.
His thin wings beat against the counter of the emptying bank while the rest of the staff files away its papers and regards us with a smile. All of a sudden I must know exactly how much we have in our account. It turns out that we have several accounts he writes each down on a piece of paper and goes to check the computerized listings explaining everything precisely. Here you have twenty thousand pounds and here you have some German marks and here you even have a few stocks. I never knew or else I wasn’t listening when Asi told me. The amazing thing is that I’ve co-signed every one of them. Some little female clerk is impatiently jingling the keys but my moth with glasses has decided that now is the perfect time to sell me some new savings plan for the thrifty woman. I let him tell me about it acting docile even a little dumb nodding dependently but forced in the end to confess that my financial authority does not extend beyond five thousand pounds. I promise to send him my husband for a pep talk and slip the money into my purse letting my glance linger over him. He opens the glass door wide careful not to touch me.
I buy a cake and some flowers and board another bus. It’s already one o’clock I’d better hurry. I sit in the back I take out my pad and write noon light in an empty bank and on the flip side silver moth.
At home I take off my dress and change into pants I make the beds wash the dishes dust and air out the house. The refrigerator is practically empty. The white cheese has been left behind on the bus or in the bank. How stupid of me to say no to my parents they were so hurt perhaps I should call them. I run down to the corner grocery but it’s already closed. How could I have forgotten that it’s Tuesday? But the weather’s clearing up a bright blue sky is being unfurled the day that started glumly with such a cold wind is filling with warm clear light now.
I return to the apartment throw out old newspapers put Asi’s papers into drawers arrange the books change my pants put on makeup the time flies by. At two-thirty I’m downstairs again a bus roars by me without stopping. I step to the curb and stick out my hand to thumb a ride. A car screeches to a stop. I hate to hitch just because it’s so easy. The driver in dark glasses looks like a pimp. Downtown? At your service. I press against the door gently laying my hand with the wedding ring on the dashboard. A deterrent or an invitation? These days one never knows. He tries striking up a conversation I answer politely but more and more drily the closer we get to downtown. We stop for a light. May I? I open the door and slip out.
It’s five minutes to three. Suddenly I feel a burst of emotion. Asi’s father. Kaminka himself. This man whom I’ve known only from stories from arguments from short letters bearing the usual political dirges with the requests for books and journals at the end. Asi’s father a processed element within Asi tumbling in our sheets with us thrashing about in the throes of our marriage. In a few more minutes I’ll see him alive and in person at the bottom of Ben-Yehuda Street a subject for inquiry and interrogation. The number of the one o’clock cab from Haifa is five-thirty-two sit down right here miss I’ll find your party the minute it arrives what did you say his name was? I sit among parcels in the open office facing the busy street the sun at the top of it flooding the rooftops like a sea. People press around me the festive commotion of the approaching holiday I take out my darling pad the attack won’t let up today it’s been one continual rush of excitement. In prose throes of marriage. In poetry I cross out silver moth.
A taxi pulls up across the street. That’s it miss. The door opens I recognize him at once because it’s Tsvi. Amazing. Even uncanny. The most obvious thing about him they never mentioned to me that he’s the spitting image of Tsvi. Tall erect even powerfully built he stands by the car in rumpled clothes looking about glancing up at the sky his gray hair uncombed a little mustache what does he need it for. Something menacing about him. He looks tired confused but I’m frozen where I am. I watch him try catching the attention of the fat driver who’s taking parcels off the baggage rack shouting and joking with the office personnel across the street. Kaminka looks at me but doesn’t see me. At last the trunk is opened he takes out a coat hat and a small leather valise gathering them up while saying something to the driver he turns to look at the sun hanging at the top of the street. I must go to him but the pen won’t leave my hand I turn the page and write sun in the creases of a hat. He starts toward the office across Ben-Yehuda Street but abruptly veers and begins walking down it instead. Passing cars screen him from me I stuff the pad into my bag and jump to my feet the flow of cars keeps me from crossing the street he’s gone but at once I see him again about to turn into some side street by a traffic light he stops to ask something and light a cigarette I jaywalk quickly over to him and reach out to him in the middle of the street.