B002FB6BZK EBOK (28 page)

A young Arab woman from the village of Marar cooked and laundered in
Nehemiah's house. His fields flourished because of the help of his experienced friend Nathan. He now had a small dairy, a chicken coop, a vegetable garden, there was a quarry whose profits the farmers shared. In the
nearby settlement bigger houses were built. The women played piano. The
men drank tea or coffee and smoked cigarettes. The officials vanished,
replaced by various committees and representatives of institutions. In
the Jerusalem newspaper with a circulation of five thousand readers, they
called the nearby settlement Little Paris. At night the girls sang a Puccini
opera and an eminent man from Poland applauded so enthusiastically that
everybody refused to join him for fear of offending him. He contributed
money to the settlers to buy gramophones. The disease of music increased
the appetite of the cows the Arabs milked in the nearby barns. Nehemiah's
comrades, who heard him talk about the new "Hellenizers" in the nearby
settlement, envied the inhabitants of the settlement and the delightful
girls in splendid clothes and secretly brought fine fabrics from Jaffa, gorgeous abbiyas from Damascus, silk from Tadmor, carpets from Aleppo, and
kerosene lamps from Gaza, and the mosquitoes, said Nehemiah contemptuously, now had to stick to choice silk, because they didn't like the sacks
anymore. There were more Arab settlers who came from Egypt to spread
rumors of the Jews' gold. As the way became harder, Nehemiah's love for
that Land grew greater. Logic and facts of life had no place in his considerations. He grew roots at an alarming rate, and Nehemiah would give
speeches that were not forgotten many years later. He would swallow quinine against malaria and see visions: behold, Rebecca stopped weeping and is
bringing up an ancient Hebrew shepherd for him. Every week he would
examine Ebenezer to be sure he didn't look like Joseph. Rachel Brin, who
went to America with her son Secret Glory, wrote Rebecca a long remorseful letter. She told that she had divorced, married a shirt dealer from Long
Island, moved to a place called Connecticut, and Secret Glory, now called
Lionel, would go to an American school next year. Rebecca wept more bitterly when she read the letter and then she crumpled it up and rubbed her
son's face in it.

Ebenezer didn't understand what was said to him. Because of the Hebrew, the Yiddish, and the Arabic that were spoken in the house, he seemed
to doubt whether there really was any language that suited him and was silent in all three languages.

One night Nathan was arrested and nobody knew why. Nehemiah defended him and later, when he came back home, Rebecca had to take
care of him. He said: Kiss your son, and she said: In America love your son,
Nehemiah, and then Horowitz's brother returned from some distant village
where they grew silkworms, and when he tried to interest Nehemiah in the
big silk production that could be developed here with the ancient mulberry
trees in the grove near the big cave, he was bitten by a sneaky snake and
died, and then Nehemiah spoke in Roots about silk production. Rosy
dreams of those who buy damascene silk, he said, and even spoke again
about distress and hope, but because of Rebecca they expelled him and
because of Ebenezer they pitied him and the child who grew up without
a language would wallow in the fields, murmuring vague words that weren't
like a human language, and Nehemiah kept fading while his love for his son
grew with Rebecca's tears. An Arab woman raised his son. A screen of tears
separated him and Rebecca. Nehemiah, who now spoke of a Jewish church
and of masses of Jews coming on big ships, had to see his son grow up like
an Arab dog with a cropped tail and mute. And then new Pioneers came to
the settlement, whose coming Nehemiah wished for. They were quarried
from a different rock, strong, desperate, and focused in their belief. They
established two labor parties, and sought positions for their war. Since the
only capitalist they could find who was even willing to wrestle with them
was Nehemiah Schneerson, they went to foment the revolution in front of
his house. Since they believed that the future was in their pocket, their obstinacy was dismal and deadly serious. In their eyes the Arab woman who
worked in Nehemiah's yard was an exploited proletarian. When they yelled
at his house: "Death to capitalism," "Long live the world revolution," and
"Long live Hebrew labor," he came out to them in his tattered clothes,
tried to stir yearnings in them for what he yearned for, and they thought
he was trying to divert them from their righteous opinion. Rebecca, who
never looked at them, had to drive them away because her Arab woman
wanted to sleep, and in the nearby settlement a woman still stood with a
parasol, but the official who had been under the parasol had gone. And the
laborers tried to engage the Arab woman in conversation and explain to her
in excited Russian how exploited she was.

When he went into first grade, Ebenezer was the worst student in the
class. He refused to read and was bored with the books his father read him
with desperate assiduousness. He'd chomp on vine leaves and gaze at the
trees and fields for a long time and find a small measure of solace in them.
Only when he started playing with the logs in the yard did the desolation
vanish from his face. Then he started carving. He was eight years old. He
carved a bird and suddenly he was quiet and happy. He learned to carve
human faces and birds before he knew how to write the words bird and
man. The Hebrew hero who would grow here on his native land found tranquility. He'll be a carpenter like that fool from Jaffa, said Rebecca between
one tear and another.

Tape / -

One night, after Ebenezer sat all day in the yard and carved a bird and
sang, Nehemiah thought: Maybe my whole life was a mistake, Rebecca is
weeping, my son is carving birds and can't tell the difference between see
and sea. He put on his clothes, went outside, saw his son bent over a piece
of wood, kissed him, hitched up a cart, and went to Jaffa. There he bought
a plow and returned in the morning. Two laborers arguing fervently about
Plekhanov's theory were sitting in his yard and eating grapes. Rebecca sat
in a chair and tears covered her like a curtain. Nehemiah was covered with
warts and sunburned and his hands were suddenly weak. Ebenezer was
sleeping with his mouth gaping and looked like a bird he had carved the
day before. Nehemiah walked in the fields and a full moon was hung in the
sky and an intoxicating aroma of citrus blossoms filled him, he saw his mare and stroked her and let her gallop home and went on walking along the
hedges of prickly pears and acacias. Suddenly he heard a rustling, saw his
friend Nathan dressed in tatters and looking like a madman. In his hand he
held a bottle of wine, which he offered to Nehemiah. Nathan was distraught,
his mouth sprayed foam, and when he tried to talk he couldn't. Nehemiah
didn't know what to do with the bottle in his hands and so he started drinking from it. When he drank he started thinking of Joseph Rayna, his songs,
his hatred for him even before he knew who Rebecca was, he thought of
the fifty-two sons Joseph begat with women he chanced upon. He thought
about his love for Rebecca and more than he understood it, he felt for her
that feeling like the beloved moth in the kerosene lamp. He thought he
was thinking of Joseph out of loathing, but he also felt some admiration of
a man betrayed and despised. Rebecca will never be mine here, he said to
himself, this land is foreign to her and as long as they sing Joseph's songs
here, she'll remain the lover of that noble pampered rogue and because of
that I'll never be able to let her leave me, he said, and he understood the
labyrinth of his torments as a circle with no exit.

Some time later, Nathan managed to say something that had been
swallowed in his mouth a long time. He vilified himself, the settlement,
Ebenezer, Rebecca, Nehemiah, the Zionist Committee, the Lovers of Zion,
the new laborers, he looked at Nehemiah as if he had only now discovered
him, kissed his face and vanished into the night. Nehemiah returned home.
Rebecca stood tied to the mare, alarm on her face. When she saw him she
went back to weeping the tears that had previously stopped on her cheeks.
He went down on his knees and told her how much he loved her. He
grabbed her by the waist, dragged her home with a force she didn't know
was in him and she yelled: I thought you went to America without me! And
then he locked the door and lay with her furiously, and the delicate man
who was Nehemiah saw hostility in Rebecca's eyes, got up and started
beating her and from her tears she burst out laughing. But she also loved
the suddenly strong hands and his desperate embrace and they lay together in silence and he stroked her and penetrated her like preservative
and kindled in her some spark of children she had once buried in suitcases.
Afterward, he sat naked and asked forgiveness and she said: In love there
is no forgiveness, Nehemiah, I'm yours, and that's it, just let's leave here,
and she stroked his face and kissed him and then they lay like two young people who didn't know what love was and talked and Nehemiah said to
Rebecca: Our strange child, I love. And she said: Maybe you'll tell him, and
Nehemiah said he couldn't. And she remembered how Joseph Rayna waited
for his father who didn't come and in her heart she wept for the awful days
in store for her son she couldn't love and her husband couldn't understand
and couldn't get up and tell him how much he loved him. After he fell
asleep, Rebecca looked at him and said to herself: We will leave here, my
love, we'll build a life in a place where you can make a future and not only
a made-up past.

His love for Rebecca intensified so much in those days that he had to
scrunch up his face to recall the reason for the eternal quarrel between
them that had made Rebecca weep for seven whole years now. Nehemiah
almost stopped giving speeches, spent less time in the community center,
wrote fewer letters to Zionist leaders, and didn't stop trying to seduce his
wife, who looked at him with a delight that once alarmed her when she discovered it herself. Nehemiah would look at his son and think that maybe his
son was happy in his ignorance and that shamed him. He was now working
a few hours a day for a Hungarian who built wine barrels and was an expert
in sawing trees, polishing them, and cutting them and mixing lacquer and
other preservatives. Ebenezer was willing to lie around his place all day,
refused to go to school, and the Hungarian would look at him through his
pince-nez, laugh, and say: They want educated Jews, but only ignoramuses
will build them a land! And he laughed. And at that time, after the Arab
pogroms and the great theft of the Bedouins who emptied the barns came
the Wondrous One on a noble white mare, with thin legs and a long delicate neck. He sat on a tufted saddle built like a kind of dwelling and was
dressed like a high priest with a breastplate and emeralds and a silk gown
and a sky blue kaffiyeh, he was girt with a sword and two rifles and belts
of rifle bullets, and everybody was sure a distinguished Arab robber had
come to the settlement. As they stood in tribute to his impressive appearance, the Wondrous One got off the mare, who whinnied and stroked his
supple back with her head, and he said in an ancient Hebrew accent:
Hear 0 Israel the Lord our God the Lord is One. And when everybody
was stunned and even awestruck, the man said: Joshua conquered Canaan
by sword and storm, you won't conquer it by planting vineyards. I live in the
Arabian Desert. Who I am doesn't matter, I heard about Jews who came to renew a kingdom and I said to myself, I'll teach them war against the Arabs, you see the Bedouins and you don't know their dignity and malice and
cunning, you fight the wrong enemy with sticks.

He pitched a tent for himself on the edge of the settlement and would
cook his meals with his own hands. Women from all around came in carts
to see the prince of the Jews. A new wind started blowing in the settlement, backs that had been bowed for years suddenly straightened up. Even
Ebenezer's wood carvings stopped interesting folks. The Wondrous One
taught them savagery and speed and surprise and night raids and aggressive defense and outflanking maneuvers. He taught smells and winds and
seeing in the dark and how to tell an enemy horse from one that isn't by
its droppings and how it creases the leaves and branches, and everybody
became eager for war. And once again a light shone in the beautiful faces
of the men who had come to the Land to build. The Wondrous One was
cruel, fast, mysterious, and decisive, but after the training and fabulous
nocturnal sorties he would close himself in his tent in silence. One night,
when the men stayed in the fields on a test sortie beyond the settlement,
only he and the women were left, the Wondrous One entered Rebecca's
house, sat on the mat, politely dismissed the Arab woman, and the Arab
woman fell on her face and wept to hear the flowery Arabic in his mouth
and said that was the Jewish messiah, and left, and then the Wondrous One
drank a cup of coffee Rebecca served him and told her she was a beautiful
woman and belonged to the desert. And for the first time in seven years,
Rebecca stopped weeping. Long afterward, Boaz, Rebecca Schneerson's
grandson and son sat, and his yellow-green devil eyes will stare at her
with a wicked smile and will scold her serenely for reciting Psalms in the war
and saving him from the death he deserved more than Menahem Henkin,
Yoske, the naked Nahazia, and Yashka, and would ask again as before what
the Wondrous One said that night the old people had been telling about for
fifty years now, and she will say: Nothing, Boaz, it's all legends, he wanted
me to come with him to the desert, they're all like Joseph Rayna, words,
words.

After he left Rebecca's house, the Wondrous One went to his tent. And
after the men returned, he blessed them, spoke of future wars, tried to
hint at the essential missions, packed up his tent, and at night he vanished
and nobody knew when or where. The next night, the Bedouin herds came onto the fields that had just been planted. On the Sabbath morning a man
came to the synagogue and yelled: Herds in the fields! The rabbi wasn't in
the settlement that Sabbath and an argument broke out about whether
war against the Bedouins was a life-saving act that canceled the Sabbath.
Nehemiah jumped up, mounted his mare, and started galloping. When
the others saw him, they also mounted their mares and donkeys and still
wrapped in prayer shawls, they dealt the Bedouins a crushing blow, as
they had learned from the Wondrous One. After that, Nehemiah never
went back to the synagogue. Then Rebecca started coming to the synagogue. Malicious rumors spread, but Rebecca sat in the women's section
and smiled at the Ark of the Covenant as if she were conversing with the
Holy One Blessed Be He. The tears were seen again in her eyes. She didn't
pray but sat and stared at God in the Ark of the Covenant and was silent.
After she returned from the synagogue she saw Nehemiah pulling up crabgrass. Bitterness filled her. Nehemiah tried to kiss her but she slipped away
from him. So beautiful she was in the morning light! Ebenezer sat in the corner of the yard and carved a bird's face. And then the sound of the locusts
was heard. Everybody ran to the fields and made bonfires. Some tried to get
rid of the locusts with prayers and others by banging on cans. One of the
bonfires spread and burst into a conflagration that reached Nathan's cowshed. Rebecca, who saw the fire, ran and stumbled into a pothole. An Arab
galloping by her whipped her. She tried to pull the whip and bring him down
from the horse, but the whip slipped out of her hand. She was hit in the face
and covered with blood. There were no paved roads and water flooded from
the gutter. The roof of Nehemiah and Rebecca's house burst and a week
later, when the first rains of the season began, the strongest the Land had
ever known, the roof Nehemiah tried in vain all night long to reinforce with
a pole collapsed. The clothes in valises in mothballs, waiting to go to America,
were flooded, everything turned into pulp in one downpour and Rebecca saw
all the tears she had hidden among the clothes and they melted right before
her eyes. Your tears have brought destruction upon us, said Nehemiah bitterly, but she didn't think he deserved a reply. The cows were terrified
by the torches, the horses whinnied, and Nathan's donkey burst into the
house and crushed the ladder Nehemiah was standing on and holding up
the roof. The Arab woman fled in panic and five days later the cracks took
on a brown-yellow tone and Rebecca sat and looked at the destroyed house and at Nehemiah, whose body and spirit were broken and then suddenly,
he turned pale, dropped, and shut his eyes. A few days later, the doctor was
called from the nearby settlement. He examined Nehemiah and brought
another expert from Jaffa who came riding on a brown horse and the two
of them told Rebecca that Nehemiah wasn't suffering from any disease
they knew. Rebecca knew what Nehemiah's disease was, but didn't think
the doctor would understand. As far as she was concerned, her husband's
shriveled face, his shut eyes, his burned skin, and his broad forehead constituted authentic proof of the disease of despairing love that Rebecca, as
somebody who had never loved except through somebody else, knew well.
For many days, Rebecca sat at Nehemiah's bed and nursed him in his illness. And Ebenezer, the first Sabra in the settlement, would carve wood
and be silent and Nehemiah woke up one day, stared wearily and dully at
his son and his wife and whispered: Stop weeping; extinguish the tears,
you won. We'll do what you want!