Hillel was seated in a deep armchair surrounded by large philodendrons. Here he huddled in his gym shorts and cotton undershirt, with his legs tucked beneath him.
He thought about the fanatics, of whom Daddy had said that they thought they always knew best what was right and what was wrong and what ought to be done, and wondered in a panic whether Daddy and Mommy might not be secret fanatics, because they, too, always seemed to think they knew best.
Madame Yabrova said:
"If you promise me never to pick your nose, you may have a piece of marzipan after your supper. Lyubov, krasavitsa, put down that filthy novel of yours for a moment and pop into the kitchen to get some bread and butter and jam for our guest. Spassibo."
Lyubov said:
"It's not a filthy novel, Auntie. It's nothing of the sort. It's true it's not exactly suitable for children, it's got all sorts of disasters and erotic scenes in it, but there's nothing dirty about it. And anyway, Hillel's almost a grown man. Just look at him."
Madame Yabrova snickered:
"Bozhe moi, Lyubov! Nothing dirty, indeed! Smut! Filth! That's all she has in her head. The body, Lyubov, is the purest thing there is in the whole world. Writers should write about love and suchlike with proper reticence. Not with all sorts of filth. Hillel is old enough, I can see, to know what is love and what is simply disgusting."
Hillel said:
"I don't like jam. I want some marzipan, please."
The room smelled dank and brown. In six vases of assorted shapes and sizes, last weekend's gladioli drooped and wilted. The windows were all closed to keep out the wind or the sounds of the night. Mommy and Daddy were far away. The shutters were closed, too. The curtains were drawn. Madame Yabrova was chain-smoking her Simon Arzdt cigarettes. The air was turning gray. She reached out to touch the child, who had glumly eaten half a buttered roll; she felt the muscles of his arm and exclaimed dramatically:
"Molodyetz! Soldatchik!"
Madame Yabrova put a record on the phonograph. Two suites for flute were followed without an interruption by an infectious dance tune. She kicked off her shoes and moved heavily around the room in her bare feet in time to the music.
Meanwhile, Hillel had consumed a soft-boiled egg from a chipped enamel mug, and rounded off his meal with a piece of marzipan. He played for a while with the glass globes with fake snowflakes. He was tired, drowsy, and miserable. He was suddenly seized with a vague apprehension.
Lyubov Binyamina Even-Hen came back into the room in a pink dressing gown. Her heavy, restless breasts were straining at the top button. Madame Yabrova switched on the lamp on the piano, which was. carved in the form of a blue nymph, and turned off the overhead light. The elaborate glass chandelier went dark, and so did the room. Drowsily Hillel let himself be fed a spoonful of plum preserve that tasted like sticky-sweet glue. Shadows played on the walls and the furniture. The two women came and went, whispering, exchanging secret giggles in Russian. Through his drooping eyelids, through the haze of cigarette smoke, Hillel seemed to see Binyamina slowly, painstakingly unfastening all the hooks and catches of her aunt's velvet dress. The two women seemed to be floating on the smoke and mingling with the blocks of shadow. They were seemingly dancing on the carpet, dancing and smoking in time to the music of the phonograph among the ornaments and figurines, one in a pink dressing gown and the other in a black petticoat.
Then, in the dark, they leaned over him from either side of the deep armchair, stroked his curly hair and his cheeks with honeyed fingers, felt his chest through his cotton shirt, and carried him off to bed in their arms. His nostrils suddenly caught a strange smell. His eyes were shut tight with tiredness, but some sudden stimulus, a throb of sly curiosity, made him open them just a crack. The light was poor. The air in the room was full of smoke and sweat and eau de cologne. He caught a strange, heart-pinching glimpse of the waistband of Binyamina's knickers through the opening in the front of her dressing gown. And a faint sucking sound behind the bed. A moist whisper. Russian. A vague, unfamiliar feeling thrust its way up and down his spine. Not knowing what it was, he lay motionless on his back and glimpsed a shoulder, a hip, unknown curves, and his heart pounded and pounded like a frightened rabbit's.
He went on breathing deeply, calmly, as if he were fast asleep. Now even he was shocked at his slyness. Sleep had deserted him completely. He could feel the blood throbbing in his ankles. He smelled a blend of strong smells, and he knew that a large woman was blowing on his cheek to see if he was asleep. The sheet rustled. Fear and excitement clashed in his breast, and he decided to go on pretending to be a little boy fast asleep. He suddenly remembered the gleam in Uncle Mitya's eye as he spoke about she-goats. He also remembered the words "Perfidious Albion," but he could not remember what they meant. Hands were pulling at his gym shorts. His organ, which was taut like a thin pencil, was being touched with something like warm, sticky jam. He gritted his teeth, and forced himself with all his might not to recoil, not to stop his rhythmic breathing. Asleep. Feeling nothing. Not here. Far away. Only don't let it stop now the feel of velvet she-goats silk jam pink transparent more more. And the naughty Oriental girls who knocked him down on piles of gravel and pulled and pulled his hair and one of them was beginning to grow breasts under her vest. Mommy. A wet, licking feeling up his spine. And pinching. Then the slender pencil began to sneeze convulsively between the fingers of the musical women. The boy stifled a moan. Madame Yabrova let out a low, fleshy laugh. And Lyubov Binyamina suddenly panted like a thirsty dog.
The lamp on the piano went out. The room was dark and still. He opened his eyes and saw nothing but darkness. There was not a sound to be heard. Nothing stirred. In that moment Hillel knew that Daddy and Mommy would never come back and girls would never fight with him again on the gravel heap and there would be no more Mitya or anyone, they had all gone away and would never return. He was alone in the house alone in the neighborhood there was no one in Tel Arza no one in Jerusalem no one in the whole country he was left all alone with the jackals and the woods and the nibbled skeleton of the Turkish janissary.
12
The guest of honor at the ball was the Hero of Malta, Admiral Sir Kenneth Horace Sutherland, V.C., K.B.E., Deputy First Sea Lord.
He was standing, tall, pink-faced, and broad-shouldered, on the edge of the illuminated fountain, resplendent in his spotless white uniform and gleaming medals. He was holding a cocktail in his right hand, while in his left he twirled a single magnificent rose. He was surrounded by officers and gentlemen, by red-fezzed Arab dignitaries with gold watch chains strung across their bellies, and by wistful, sparkling-eyed English ladies, while tall, pitch-black Sudanese servants moved everywhere brandishing silver salvers, with snow-white napkins draped over their hooked arms.
Admiral Sutherland was telling a slightly risqué story, in a dry delivery spiced with naval slang, about the American general George Patton, a performing monkey, and a hot-blooded Italian actress by the name of Silvana Lungo. When he got to the punch line, the men guffawed and the ladies let out shocked shrieks.
Colored lights shone under the water in the marble pool, more lights hung suspended in the air, paper lanterns glowed among the trees, and the light breeze ruffled the pines. The gently sloping lawns were dotted with rose beds and divided by impeccably kept gravel paths. The palace itself floated on the beams of concealed floodlights. Its arches of Jerusalem stone were delicately, almost tenderly, carved.