Well, then.
Dear Mina, as I have already said, there is not much time left. War will break out here soon; almost everybody admits it now.
This morning I had a few neighbors in for a kind of meeting in my study. Even my own Kerem Avraham is already forming a sort of civil-defense committee. That's how far things have gone.
What will come of this war I haven't the faintest idea. Only all sorts of hopes and fears. You will be in a safe place, far from Jerusalem, far from Galilee and the valleys you have explored so thoroughly during these last years. It goes without saying that I shall not be able to play an active part in the war, either as a doctor on the battlefield or in a hospital behind the lines. The illness is progressing toward its final phases. Not in a continuous straight line, though. It is toying with me, with cunning ploys, temporary concessions, feigned moderation, a brilliant strategy of deception and false hopes. I almost smile to myself: doesn't it realize it's dealing with a doctor, and not, say, an artist? It can't take me in. These arabesques, the alternating alarms and all-clears, the false hopes, the avoidance of a frontal assault, how unnecessary they all are when the designated target is a man like me, an experienced diagnostician, an educated man, with a modest medical library at my disposal and with German as my mother tongue.
In short, I am my usual self: in a state of calm despair. The terminal stage will begin in the winter and be over before the spring, or it may begin in the spring and continue at most until the first heat waves of 1948.1 won't go into details. I trust, dear Mina, that there is no need to prove to you in writing that in the meantime I am quietly and confidently continuing with the routine of my daily life.
No news.
There's nothing much new that I can offer you in general.
I don't have much time to spare, either.
I spend most of the hours of day and night on the lookout to see what is happening in Jerusalem. Now and again I still try to make my modest patriotic contribution, such as this morning, in the meeting of the local defense committee. And I still keep up certain friendly neighborly contacts. And I am continuing my chemical experiments in my private laboratory, which may eventually render some service to the community in connection with the war effort.
Meanwhile, my observations have yielded a definite conviction that here in Jerusalem the summer is gradually, almost from day to day, relaxing its hold. There are already a few unobtrusive indications of the approach of autumn. The leaves have not begun to fall yet, of course, but there are hints of a slight change of tint, in the foliage, or in the refracted light at dawn or dusk. Or in both together: no contradiction is involved.
There is a shadow of clouds over our backyards. People speak softly and seriously. The twilight is beginning earlier, and its glow is more subdued than usual, more fantastic, a poet might add more desperate, a kind of bitter enthusiasm like a last act of love, which is full of wild abandon because it is the last and there is no more to come. At the end of the twilight, you can see a column of gray light over the western mountains and splashes of fire on the windowpanes, the towers, and the domes, and some water tank or other on a rooftop may go crazy and flare up. After this fire, the mountains are swathed in smoke. And a miracle: suddenly there is even a smell of smoke in Jerusalem.
So the lazy summer sunsets are over and gone. There is a new seriousness in the air. It is even cool outside in the early evening. Occasionally I have the feeling that there are fewer birds around. I must check this latest detail carefully, though, because common sense would indicate that autumn brings back the migrating birds.
So here I am, Mina, writing this letter to you slowly, on these small, smooth sheets of paper with my name printed at the top in Hebrew and German, which I used to use for writing prescriptions. You used to call these letters of mine "schoolboy notes." The difference is that this time, apparently, I shall not be brief. Or witty, either.
I am sitting at a table on the balcony, wearing a gray pullover but still with the peasant sandals you bought me in the Old City more than a year ago. Between the fingers that are writing to you and the toes in these sandals there seems to be a great distance now, not because I have suddenly grown taller, but because of the diseased organs in between. Dear Mina, the evening is still light enough for me to write, but I can sense the light beginning to fade. The whole city will be swathed, enfolded, district after district will attach itself to the cavalcade of night. The towers on top of the hills to the east will lead the procession, and the entire city will fall in behind, and march down into the enclosing desert. The nightly routine of Jerusalem. You have heard me say this before, and you called it all "poetic fantasy." There is nothing new. A particular pain has just started up and is almost tormenting me, as if a man like me is unlikely to take a mere hint. Very well. I shall swallow my pride and stifle the pain with an injection. Presently.
I should like to come back to the balcony and go on writing even when it is dark. The cool air is gentle and almost stimulating. I shall switch the lights on inside and try to bring the desk lamp out from the study. Will the extension cord reach? We shall see. I doubt it.
From the balcony opposite, across the neglected yard, my neighbor Mrs. Grill is questioning me:
"How are you feeling today, Dr. Emanuel, what does the radio say this evening, and when will your car be arriving?" My radio is the only one in the immediate neighborhood. Sometimes I serve as the link between the neighbors and what they call the outside world. The neighbors' boy Uri has taken to dropping in because I have permitted him to come and listen to the news, and so it was that he discovered my laboratory. As for the car, everyone here is saying that I shall soon have one of my own. The source of this rumor is apparently the boys, Uri's enemies. They know that I have stopped working as a doctor, they have somehow heard that I am doing some work for the Jewish Agency, and they have already invested me with a private car. I deny it gently. I apologize, as though I have been accused of doing something improper. Meanwhile, Mrs. Grill chuckles at me:
"Don't worry, Dr. Emanuel, we're used to keeping secrets. My husband's a veteran of the Trade Union, and as for me, I lost all my family in Lodz. You can count on us. We're not the sort to gossip."
"Perish the thought," I mutter. "It never entered my head to suggest that you… But the fact of the matter is that…" But she's already vanished: rushed back to her kitchen to save a pan of milk from boiling over or disappeared behind the linens she hangs out to dry on her balcony, among the crates and washtubs and suitcases. I am alone once more.
Let me tell you, in passing, about the Jewish Agency. I have a little cubbyhole tucked away behind my study, a storage room, a home laboratory, a darkroom. You complained once about the chemical smells that came from there and spread all over the apartment. I expect you remember. Well, I haven't given up my modest experiments. Some time ago I drew up a kind of memorandum about the possible military uses of a certain chemical of which we have relatively plentiful supplies. As a result, three weeks ago an engineer from the Jewish Agency or the Hagganah arrived in a great flurry to ask whether I would be willing to draw up an inventory of explosives that are legally stored in the Solel Boneh quarries in the mountains, and also of other explosives that are dispersed in various places in Jerusalem. And also to make a card index of useful chemicals held in Jewish factories in the city. And also to suggest all sorts of combinations and to work out what we have and what we would be short of in case of a prolonged war. We'd be short of everything, I replied; we wouldn't even have enough bread or water. My visitor smiled: he had decided I was possessed of a morbid sense of humor. "Dr. Nussbaum," he said, still smiling as he turned to leave, "everything will be all right. Just you compile the inventory. And leave the rest to us. We'll be prepared to try out any reasonable idea that occurs to you. Dushkin himself considers you one of the most brilliant minds in the field. We'll be in touch. Good-bye."