“Aren’t you sick of hearing about him?” I asked Elisheva. But my sister said that she was glad for Mommy and Daddy. She was glad because both of them were glad, and now that Daddy had a cousin he was sure to be happier, because family was good, and it was sad when somebody had a relative he didn’t see.
If it had been voiced by anyone else, this sentence could have been interpreted as a complaint about my absence, but Elisheva never hinted, and I ignored the non-existent hint and the unuttered complaint and slipped away again to pursue my own affairs. If they were all happy, why should I question their happiness? And to my friends at school I threw out: “A cousin of my father’s is coming, a British aristocrat or something, now they’ll force me to come visit all the time, what a bore.”
What room should they give him? My parents debated the question, and dwelled pleasurably on the subject right up to the eve of his arrival. First floor or second? Opposite the stairs or at the end of the corridor? Double or single? Our uncle would pay, he had made this an explicit condition, the income from three weeks was nothing to be sneezed at, but we had always preferred guests who came for a prolonged stay, and the ones who became like part of the family always received preferential treatment. If he preferred a double room, we would give it to him at the price of a single room. Number eighteen had a pastoral view, twenty-two was more modest, but he would have more privacy there, and for someone who was writing a book there was nothing more important: quiet and privacy, privacy and quiet — that’s what our place gave its guests and that’s what we could offer someone who had stayed in some of the most luxurious hotels in the world. Pay attention, girls, we won’t disturb Uncle Aaron, and on no account will we impose ourselves on him. We’ll spend just as much time with him as he wants to spend in our company, and we have to understand that he won’t spend as much time with us as he might wish, because he’s working on a book.
•
The business of the book was especially thrilling to my mother. From the intimate way she spoke about it you would have thought that he sent her drafts for her comments: Aaron will take advantage of his stay in Israel to go into the archives, but what Aaron’s working on isn’t just another piece of ordinary research. We know that this time it’s something much more literary. Aaron has set himself a high literary challenge. Aaron is about to deal with something that nobody before him has even dared to touch. His book will present a historical angle that other people haven’t had the courage to approach up to now. Aaron says that anyone who writes something so innovative has to expect a tremendous scandal after publication. And we, of course, are with Aaron. This is the small contribution that his family can make, and it goes without saying that we’ll give him all the conditions he needs for his work. If Aaron decides afterward to mention that he began writing the book here with us in Jerusalem, fine, we’re not hiding and we’ve got nothing to hide. A family has to be prepared to stand together even when there’s a huge scandal, and we’re not going to ask Uncle Aaron to hide anything either.
The excited anticipation improved my mother’s health to no end. People quite often used to say to me “You have a beautiful mother”—and when I was very small I thought so too. By the time I was in grade school she already seemed to me embarrassingly affected — but shortly before Aaron’s arrival I remember hearing such admiring remarks again. And I also remember my father saying: “Did you see how beautiful your mother looks today?”
The excitement took her almost every morning into the dining room, away from the account books, and from keeping account of expenses altogether. New glasses were purchased, both for cold drinks and for tea. And somehow she managed to persuade Jamilla to polish the ornamental samovar on the counter. In the evenings I know that she lingered to chat to the guests, smoking a slender cigarette, only one — she was permitted one little indulgence, who could deny her, life was short anyway — tapping off the ash with a finger freshly tipped with scarlet, gracefully inclining her chin, and waiting for another opportunity to insert Uncle Aaron into the conversation.
What was this special angle on history about which the professor was writing? To this Erica had no reply, and from the sly expression on her face it was hard to tell if she didn’t know the answer or if she had promised to keep the secret. Only the subject may perhaps be revealed, revealed but not elaborated on: Aaron had taken it upon himself to write about Hitler. Yes, Hitler. Imagine the strength of mind required to tackle such a subject. A historian, and moreover a Jew, and with Aaron’s personal background too, where did he get the courage? You’ll agree, said my mother, that his strength of mind must be tremendous.
He arrived in December and extended his stay beyond what my parents had dared to hope, but more than three weeks passed before I saw him. It was morning, and I was standing in the little kitchen cutting up vegetables: cucumbers and tomatoes for a salad. Breakfast was served to the guests at seven o’clock. It wasn’t yet seven, and he was already sitting in the dining room.
My father had gone out early to do some chores or other. My mother promised that she would finish getting dressed in a minute and come down to help me. Elisheva complained of stomachache, and I drew the curtains in our room and left her to rest in bed.
I stood and sliced vegetables; the tomatoes were a problem. My father was in the habit of buying crates of cheap vegetables, and the vegetables he bought were often too ripe or not ripe enough. Green tomatoes were easier to bury in a salad than those close to rotting, and that morning, I remember, the slices of tomato drowned in the juices on the board.
•
The tomato. From the point of view of its botanical classification a fruit, and not a vegetable: a flower-bearing dicotyledon, perennial plant of the family Solanaceae, native to tropical America. Thought to have been cultivated already in ancient Peru, but considered poisonous by Europeans who encountered it.
I have a lot more to say on the subject of tomatoes. I even know a song written in their honor, with a refrain which goes: Tomato, tomato / sing high, sing low / the song of the tomato / oh, the song of the tomato.”
I am prepared to sing the song of the tomato. It needs to be sung from the depths of the chest, taking a lot of air. I am also prepared to provide information on the nutritional value of this vegetable-fruit, which would no doubt be of interest to the reader and contribute to the public health.
I’m ready to do a lot of things — to sing, to investigate, to lecture, but apparently I am not yet ready to introduce the serpent. I knew that I would have to prepare myself for his introduction, and now that the time has come, I am not prepared.
Because what I am supposed to say about him — what? And how am I supposed to do it? Should I focus on his body and describe his appearance, so that he’ll come across as a “real person?” Should I mention, to make it more authentic, the cartilage of his gigantic ears? Let’s say this: he was very tall, his long legs were stretched out in front of him, feet clad in moccasins, his one ankle rested on the lower calf of the other leg. He was tall and quite broad-shouldered, and although I thought of him as old, he looked a little like a movie star or some important politician. Not somebody in particular, but somebody. A persona. A persona on vacation, in a jacket with leather elbow patches.
Is that enough? For me it’s definitely enough, and even if it isn’t enough, how the hell am I supposed to remember exactly how he looked to me then, when all my memories are colored by what happened afterward? Am I supposed to fabricate a description of Satan in order to convince you that he exists?