"What's the matter with you? Who's getting ideas about who? Calm down."
I was sorry for Bat-Ammi, and that was why I did not argue with her. Let her say what she liked. I was sorry for her because that summer she'd started growing breasts and, her big brothers said, hairs, too. I was sad because there was no way back, and Bat-Ammi could never stop these growths and be the same as she had been before. Even if she tried with all her might, she could never go back now. She was never consulted about it. She had to turn into a woman, and I was sorry for her. She would never ever be a little girl again. She would never be able to ride a boy's bike.
It's none of my business. I don't want to think about what Bat-Ammi's growing and things like that. I'm Ephraim's lieutenant. I'm going to live beyond the mountains all on my own in the sun in the wind without disgusting thoughts. I'm going to be tough.
Before getting into bed, I watched Bat-Ammi's big brothers roasting potatoes in a bonfire in the garden and burning a rag effigy. I expect they had called it Ernest Bevin, to get their revenge on the anti-Semitic British minister. Presently the moon appeared, sailing quickly between two water cisterns on the roof opposite. The Grill brothers peed into the fire onto their potatoes and they didn't know I was standing at my window watching. They scattered furtively, bubbling over with malicious glee, lying in wait for the girls coming back from their evening classes at the Lemel School. They were going to tempt the girls into eating the potatoes they had peed on. They would nudge one another, and they wouldn't be able to contain their snickers.
Even at night, by the light of the moon, the British soldiers did not stop bustling about their parade ground inside the Schneller Barracks. They seemed to me to be dropping with fatigue as I watched from my window. What a long way to Tipperary. People were saying that next week the High Commissioner might be coming to review the garrison. They were also saying that the commander of the Underground was hiding somewhere in Jerusalem, planning the last details of the Revolt.
Half asleep, I could catch snatches of my parents' conversation from the rear balcony. Father said:
"Tomorrow or the day after, we'll start printing New Year's cards. The beginning of August is only two days off."
Mother said: "Your Ephraim will end up electrocuting himself or blowing himself up. If he's not working all night, he's away for days on end. I think he's making mines and bombs and things for the boys. He's already turned Uri's mind. I've got a feeling it's all going to end in trouble."
Father said:
"Ephraim's in love with you, or something."
He gave a quick little laugh, as if he had accidentally said a dirty word.
Mother answered seriously:
"What a mistake."
But she did not specify whether it was Father or Ephraim who was making the mistake.
Then they fell silent. Father was probably quietly chewing his mint leaves, while Mother was deep in thought. The moon had left my window and crossed the lane. Perhaps it had stopped over our roof and was feeling the sheets and vests on the clothesline. I put my light out. I hid my head under the pillow and made myself a cellar. It's going to be a crucial autumn. What does crucial autumn mean. Where does Ephraim go on his wanderings. Printing New Year's cards seemed to me boring, pathetic, and shameful. There are those dogs barking again. And then the usual shouts. Comrade Grill, who was a driver in the Hammekasher bus cooperative and always came home after ten o'clock, had presumably awakened his four children as usual, lined them up in the passage, and given them a good hiding for all the day's pranks. In the middle of the beating Boaz suddenly cursed his father with the words "I wish you were dead." A moment later there was a rumbling, grating sound, like barrels being rolled. Helena Grill let out a piercing scream that must have roused the whole neighborhood:
"Murderer! Cossack! Help! He's murdering the child!"
At once there was silence.
It was my duty to get up right away and rescue Bat-Ammi.
Too late. The Grill household was in blackest silence. The Cossacks had come and butchered them and their children. A thick stream of blood was pouring down the stairs and would soon reach the street. I'll stay awake all night, I decided, I'll hear with my own ears once and for all whether there are spies abroad, whether Mother sneaks out before dawn, or Ephraim comes creeping to our house, whether the commander of the Underground rides through the night on his horse. I'll stay awake till I've found out. But as soon as I had made the decision I fell asleep, because yet another blazing blue summer's day had come to an end and I was very tired.
6
The soil in the backyards had turned to khaki in the summer heat; the parched oleanders had gone gray. The geranium stems were taking on a coppery tinge. Dry thistles stood waiting for the fire.
There was junk scattered everywhere, broken crockery, rusty cans, flattened cartons, remains of mattresses, fragments of the foreign packing cases in which the settlers had transported their belongings from Poland and Russia.
One morning I made up my mind to rejuvenate it all. To make a garden.
I made a furious start by attacking the rude words that the Grill boys had scratched on the rusty gate. I scrubbed at them with a damp cloth. In vain. I covered them with mud. In vain. I found a broken bottle and tried to scrape the writing off. I did not notice the cut until my gym shorts and vest and even my hair were covered with blood. So I abandoned the operation. After the victory, when the British had been driven out, a new era would begin. Then we would plant the whole country with beautiful gardens. Meanwhile, I went indoors, bleeding like a hero in the pictures, and Mother had a terrible fright.
Mother used to spend most of the morning lying with her feet up on the sofa. She covered her eyes with a damp dish towel. A jug of iced lemonade and a package of aspirin stood close at hand. Every hour or two, she made up her mind to ignore the climate and get up, put on her blue housecoat, and tackle the mounting piles of ironing. Sometimes the broom froze in her hands and she stood leaning on it as if in despair. She would suddenly close all the windows and shutters to keep the terrible light out of the house, then change her mind abruptly and throw them wide open because she felt suffocated. At times she would rush through the kitchen and bathroom turning all the faucets full on, so as to fill the house with the sound of running water. If I tried to follow her and surreptitiously turn them off, she would scream at me to stop, let her hear the water, stop tormenting her, all of us. Sometimes she went so far as to call us all savages.
But she would soon come to herself, turn off the faucets, laugh at the heat, put on some make-up, and dress in a low-cut blouse and white slacks, and then she put me in mind of one of the beautiful girls that the heroes in the pictures were always falling in love with, Esther Williams, Yvonne de Carlo.
One morning, Ephraim came and fitted her a special bedside lamp that strained the light and cast a dim blue glow like starlight. Mother was afraid of the dark and hated the light.
At lunchtime, when Father came up from the printing press, his nostrils twitched, and he said blankly, "Who's been here this morning? Whose smell is this?"
Mother laughed. Ephraim Nehamkin, she said, had dropped in to play chess with her. What was wrong with that. And he had also put up a marvelous lamp by her bedside.
"Ephraim again," Father said politely, and he smiled his schoolmasterly smile.
A few days earlier, Mother had asked Ephraim to invite her to his workshop to see how the bombs were loaded with dynamite. Ephraim had apologized, muttered an embarrassed denial, reaffirmed his friendship, groped for the right words, and finally managed to promise that everything would turn out all right. Mother had burst out and called him a charlatan.