Only Yesterday (21 page)
things that were determined in his heart before the quarrel, but he lacked that joy that made him happy at first when he wanted to in-form his father. Instead, the imaginary picture was much stronger than at first.
Isaac decided to talk with her about the main purpose, and in his naïveté, he thought he would make her happy. In those days, when Isaac decided to tell her to enter the bond of marriage, he didn’t find Sonya. And if he did find her, he didn’t find an opening to talk to her, either her face was sealed or her lips were clenched, and a face like that and lips like those block the tongue and suppress speech, especially in a matter that needs an open face and smiling lips. Nevertheless, Isaac was sure that someday things would change for the better. With his common sense, he didn’t grasp that his affairs with Sonya were finished. His trust in the future was the trust of logic, for since everyone saw them as a couple, how is it possible that they would go their separate ways as if there was nothing between them?
Attempts
I
Isaac began neglecting his work. And when he started neglecting he went on neglecting. Yesterday he found his brushes frayed and today he forgot where he was wanted. If he bought a new brush and recalled where he was wanted, he postponed his work for other reasons. All the time that Sonya came to him, he worked; when she stopped coming, he stopped working. One day he bought himself some new clothes and went to Sonya’s. Sonya wasn’t impressed with his clothes, for Sonya’s views changed and even if he was wearing blue socks, she didn’t care.
Sonya’s views changed. And if there were fellows who didn’t take their mind off her, Sonya took her mind off them. Just because she wears a woman’s dress, isn’t she better than some of her male comrades? And because sometimes nature overcame her and she was drawn to somebody, was she condemned never to get rid of him? Sonya had already managed to uproot a lot of things from her heart, and if she recalled them they didn’t rouse her very much. She even went to the barber and cut her hair. How amazed the barber was at her when she stood on her long upright legs like a lad and ran her hand over her head. And we were also amazed at her for she started treating herself like those women with bobbed hair whose feminine grace was removed by their Creator.
I
A few years Sonya had lived in the Land. A thousand things Sonya had tried to do and hadn’t succeeded in anything. Before she came to the Land of Israel, like some of her classmates at the Gymnasium,
I
157she had been caught up in ideas that were anathema to the monar-chy. Once, the secret police found forbidden writings at the home of one of her friends, among them a letter Sonya wrote containing harsh things about the government. Her father was scared and sent her to the Land of Israel to keep her out of prison.
Sonya ascended to the Land of Israel, and her father, Mr. Barukh Zweiering, a veteran Zionist, expected that, since she was in Jaffa, she would enter the Hebrew Gymnasium in Jaffa and finish school in a Hebrew atmosphere, the wish and desire of a Hebrew Zionist. She came to Jaffa and didn’t enter the Gymnasium. We thought that all the teachers would be vying for her, since she came from a Russian Gymnasium, which was better than that Hebrew Gymnasium in Jaffa, whose founders had never seen a Gymnasium in their life. When she took an exam, it turned out that she didn’t know Hebrew. For the next year, she acquired some Hebrew and took the exam. It turned out that she had forgotten most of her learning. They wanted to put her in a low grade, but that was beneath Sonya’s dignity. She gave up the Gymnasium and turned her mind to nurs-ing. Mr. Orgelbrand intervened with the treasurer of the hospital, Mr. Simon Rokeah, and with Dr. Pikhin the physician, and they accepted her. In those days, girls weren’t yet serving the patients, ex-cept for Mrs. Tempelman, the head nurse, who was sent to us from Hamburg. Mrs. Tempelman trained her and devoted a lot of attention to her, for as Mrs. Templemen said, sick people need consoling hands, and there are no consoling hands like the hands of a woman, who from the beginning of her creation was made for those who need help. Sonya would walk among the beds wrapped in white clothes with a white cap on her head and a thermometer in her hand, with her eyes on the patients, and it was as if the Creator had created her for the sake of those garments. And we also imagined that a nurse had sprung up among our women friends. Everyone was pleased with Sonya. Especially Dr. Pikhin, who always regretted everyone who was idle, and expected her girlfriends to follow her example. Within seven or eight days, she began to slack off in her work. She said, A hospital was created only to make sick people healthy and healthy people sick. She left the hospital and went to Rehovoth to work in
the vineyards. There she did as much as she did and didn’t do anything, and except for a song written about her by the poet Pizmoni, she didn’t achieve anything. So she ascended to Jerusalem to enter the art school, Bezalel. All the young artists were happy she came. Some wanted to paint her as Ruth, others wanted to paint her as Helen. And she could surely serve as a model for both of them. Even though she looked more like a Northern type. But on the other hand, it can be assumed that Ruth the Moabite also had something north-ern in her, for the redhaired David came from her, and the anti-Semite Chamberlain wrote that King David was an Aryan type. Sonya strolled with the young artists on the walls of Jerusalem at night, as the students of the Teachers’ College gazed at her with love and longing, for in their lives they never had the good fortune to stroll with a girl at night. Sonya spent a month and two months in Jerusalem and came back to Jaffa. She said the nights were beautiful in Jerusalem, but the days were tedious. The sun burns like fire and the dung smells and the city is drenched with sadness and the sticks in the road trip your feet, and you jump over the hills and leap over the rocks like those goats that smell, and the water is rationed, and whatever corner you turn it’s either garbage and dirt or a beard and sidelocks. And when you turn to one of them, he flees from a woman as from a demon. And everyplace in Jerusalem is called Moshe, ei-ther Ohel Moshe or Zikhron Moshe or Yemin Moshe or Mizkeret Moshe. If you want to get to one of those places, you forget which word is attached to Moshe, and you go from Moshe to Moshe and don’t get to the Moshe you wanted. While Jaffa is full of gardens and vineyards and citrus groves, and there’s the sea and cafés, and young people, and every day new faces, some who come on ships from Outside the Land and some who come from the settlements, some you want to see and some who want to see you, some you chance to meet at assemblies and some you stroll with on the beach and on the Hill of Love with and they don’t talk about Apollo and Venus and Bea-trice and other creatures who have been dead for thousands of years, but talk about living people, whether you love them or hate them, they’re close to you in time and place. Even Doctor Schimmelman in his lectures on the Holy Scriptures adapts his words to the time
and place. And when the people of Jerusalem talk to you, they don’t call you by your name and don’t address you directly in the second person, but say She, Madame, Lady, Her Honor. And when you call a man by his name and address him in the second person, he turns scared eyes on you as if you had violated good manners. So Sonya came back to Jaffa. One day she had to get her teeth fixed. When she was at the dentist, she decided to study for that profession. When she saw how hard it was, she changed her mind.
Sonya lived in Jaffa like the other girls from good families who got a monthly allowance from their father. She attended assemblies and heard speeches, listened to the lectures of Doctor Schimmelman and engaged in public works, and when the print-shop workers in Jerusalem went on strike, she went with our comrades to collect money for the strikers’ fund and she did her mission well, for even bourgeois people who complained about the strikers gave generously. Some gave anonymously and some gave because Sonya persuaded them. To make a long story short, Sonya lived in Jaffa and ate from what her father sent her.
But her father’s business was destroyed and his livelihood suffered. He sent her money every month and attached letters of grief to it. Mr. Barukh Zweiering, father of Sonya Zweiering, wrote, My dear daughter, I sent you your share of money this month too, but God knows if I shall send you anything next month, for time treats me rudely and the ways of trade are desolate, and big merchants, dignitaries, whose sun of success had shone upon them, had gone down nine degrees backward, let alone me, a poor man, who brings my bread with my very soul, for I am only a middleman, and my advantage is that I stand between the big merchants and the small shopkeepers who bring their merchandise through me, and when the oaks fall, all the trees of the forest shake. Won’t your fine talents stand you in good stead to find some job, big or small, to provide you with a sufficient livelihood? For all those who come to us from Palestine to win souls for Zionism, they all testify that the sun of success shines in the Land and the whole Land is flourishing, and those who won’t hide their hands in their pockets will find a hundredfold return in their work. And you, my dear daughter, hasn’t God graced you with a good
mind, and if you work, you’ll succeed, for the God of Zion will be with you and will help you find the life of your soul as is the wish of your father who does not know what tomorrow will bring.
Harder than the letters of her father were the letters of her mother. Sonya’s mother didn’t praise her or mention her sublime talents, but complained about her and about her brothers and sisters. Oh God, has such a thing ever been heard that grown children make an old and infirm father support them and don’t lift a finger to ease his load? For if your father falls under his burden, you will all fall with him. And you, Sonya, are adding distress to our distress, for whenever the time comes to send you your share of money, I see your father’s face fill with sorrow and suffering, for he doesn’t have any ready cash. And the money he sent you today he took from the IOUs entrusted to him. God willing, he will succeed in repaying them before they hold him and choke him, saying Pay Up. And Sonya, you sit in the chosen Land like the birds of the field who don’t toil and don’t know want. But what will you do when the hail comes down, and strikes the bird until it has no strength to fly?
Sonya took these things to heart and was sad. In a month or two, she might not have a penny and might not be able to pay her rent and buy food, not to mention to make a dress or shoes for herself. There was nothing left but to throw herself on the sea. Yet she loved life, and life demands money, and there is no money because her father can’t send her any, and she’s not used to earning her keep. Sonya had a friend who was a kindergarten teacher who worked in Madame Hofenstein’s kindergarten. Once that kindergarten teacher got sick. Sonya went to the kindergarten and told the principal that her assistant couldn’t come. Madame. Hofenstein clasped her hands and shrieked, What shall I do with all the children, I’ve only got two eyes. Can one pair of eyes watch over three dozen snotnoses? Sonya saw her grief and took pity on her. She told her she’d help her a lit-tle. And she immediately started taking care of the children. She endeared herself to them and they didn’t let go of her until she promised them to come always. The principal saw it and said to her, Miss Zweiering, a great task and a holy task and a sublime task is entrusted to you. I’m amazed that you haven’t yet realized your task. Perhaps
the lady would like to work with me, if not for my sake, then for the darling, dear tots. Sonya listened and accepted. And even after her friend recovered, Sonya came to the kindergarten every day. She divided her day, half to the children and half to studies, to learn Ger-man to go to Berlin and study that profession. And since she was busy all day, her heart wasn’t free for love affairs.
Sonya immersed herself in studies that didn’t stick in her head. The years she had spent in idleness made her hands too proud to hold a textbook. But Sonya is resolute and when the book falls from her hand she picks it up even seven times, even ten times. Too bad that Sonya doesn’t see a blessing in her study. Harder than that is the German language. Good God, to chatter a little Hebrew with a Jewish tot in the Land of Israel, does a kindergarten teacher need to go from the Land of Israel to Berlin to study German? But in everything else, Sonya is a great success. Everyone who sees Sonya playing with the tots says, Blessed are the tots in the care of that kindergarten teacher, especially when they see the toys she makes for them. Not in vain did Sonya want to enter Bezalel. Sonya has hands that every kindergarten teacher can envy. The kindergarten teachers en-vied Sonya and intrigued against her, and if she hadn’t been clever, she couldn’t have foiled them. Sonya is a clever girl and knows the time for everything, knows how to bring somebody close and how to keep them far away, and whatever she does she does with common sense and taste, so that everyone who is hurt by her places the blame on himself and scrutinizes his own deeds, and wants to get close to her again, and the more he wants to get close to her, the farther away she keeps him even though she doesn’t mean him any harm.
I
The rainy days passed and the heatwave strikes. The sun stands in the firmament and roasts itself in its fire, and the earth is yellow and hot, and between heaven and earth lies a yellow air like a polished copper mirror heated in an oven, and a voice seems to whisper in the space of the world, lulling a person’s bones. The city is tired and the sea lies like a corpse. Anyone who can sits in his house, drinks something hot and something cold, and wipes his sweat. But Isaac goes
his way between the kindergarten and Sonya’s house, in case he might find Sonya on the road.
The roads are full of piles on piles of dry sand and a yellow sun dwells on them. A glazier walks and calls out, Glazier Glazier, and tablets of light come from the glass in his arm and walk with him, and Yemenite kiddies run after those shining tablets to grab them. Loaded camels lying on the ground raise their necks and stand erect on their long legs. Arabs come, some with fruit and some with vegetables, and shout at the top of their lungs. And women come out of their houses to buy fruit and vegetables. The donkeys bray at them and a stray dog barks. Across from them stands a child blowing up a glove he found, slapping his jaws with it and laughing.
Isaac walks around and makes guesses about Sonya. Sometimes they’re in his favor and sometimes not. Isaac grumbles, Who cares whether I find her? And he looks to see if she’s coming. Suddenly, the shriek of the train sounds. Isaac shakes himself and thinks, The train from Jerusalem is coming already. And he’s amazed at himself that he recalled Jerusalem, and is amazed at himself that all the years that he has been in the Land of Israel, he hasn’t ascended to Jerusalem even once. And once again he makes guesses about Sonya. Sometimes things look good for him and sometimes not. Said Isaac, Won’t I see her now either? He gazed and saw Doctor Pikhin. His lit-tle pipe is in his mouth and his doctor’s bag is in his hand. Isaac is ashamed of himself for being idle. He turns and goes off. And as he walked, he came to Bostros Street. He walked the whole street to the clothing store where Rabinovitch worked before he left the Land. Isaac glanced into the store and entered.
The two storeowners were going over their ledgers. The younger one raised his eyes and greeted Isaac. But from the greeting it was as obvious as if he hinted to him, Even though I know you’re a friend of Rabinovitch, you don’t have the right to come here for no good reason. Isaac held his hand out toward a pile of clothes and said, I want a suit. And he repeated, I want a suit, to show him that he had come to buy some clothes. The younger one took a suit out of a heap of clothes and said, Try it on. When he wanted to put the pants on, the older one said, No need. They’re certainly not short. And if
they’re long, you can fold the hems, and when they tear, you can make yourself patches from the leftovers. After he bought the suit, it turned out that it wasn’t ugly. He went and bought himself an ironed shirt like the one he had worn the day he entered the Land. The shirt made him sweat and he had to change it, which is the way of superfluous things, it’s not enough that they’re superfluous, but they en-tail other superfluous things. Isaac’s other clothes aren’t comfortable either. The new ones haven’t got used to him, but are likely to make an impression. And for that reason, he doesn’t take them off. And as he walks, he goes into Sonya’s house and doesn’t find her. Since he doesn’t find Sonya at home, he goes to the kindergarten. The kindergarten teacher sees him and nods to him, and a child calls him Uncle. Isaac doesn’t notice them because his heart is busy with Sonya.
Even at night, Sonya doesn’t come to Isaac, for in those days Sonya was accepted into the dramatic guild and is preparing for her role in “The Weavers” by Hauptmann, and has no time for idle matters. But Isaac in his fine clothes isn’t working at all, for you don’t work in fine clothes. And he doesn’t come to the Laborers’ Club, for if he went in there in his new clothes, he would be astonishing, and he doesn’t sit with Sweet Foot, whose hut is full of junk and old tools. But since he is a political person by nature and can’t exist without company, he began to visit Mr. Orgelbrand.