My Michael (21 page)

Housewives in the shops said that the Arab Legion was installing gun batteries around Jerusalem. Canned foods, candles, and paraffin lamps vanished from the shops. I bought a large box of cookies.

In the district of Sanhedriya sentries fired at night. Artillery units were stationed in the woods at Tel Arza. I watched reservists spreading camouflage nets in a field behind the Biblical Zoo. My best friend Hadassah came round to tell me that according to her husband the Cabinet had sat in conference till dawn, and that when they came out the ministers had seemed agitated. By night trainloads of soldiers were coming up to Jerusalem. In Cafe Allenby in King George Street I saw four handsome French officers. They were wearing peaked caps, and purple stripes gleamed on their epaulettes. Only in films had I seen such a sight before.

In David Yelin Street, as I was staggering home with my shopping, I passed three paratroopers in mottled battle dress. Submachine guns hung from their shoulders. They were waiting at the Number 15 bus stop. One of them, dark and lean, called after me, "Sweetheart." His comrades joined in his laughter. I reveled in their laughter.

At first light on Wednesday an icy breeze swept through the house, colder than anything we had had that winter. I got up barefoot to cover Yair. I enjoyed the biting cold under the soles of my feet. Michael sighed heavily in his sleep. The table and armchairs were blocks of shadow. I stood at the window. I remembered fondly the attack of diphtheria I had suffered as a child of nine. The power to make my dreams carry me over the line that divides sleeping from waking. The cool mastery. The interplay of shapes in an expanse ranging in color from light to dark gray.

I stood at the window shivering with joy and expectation. Through the shutters I watched the sun, swathed in reddish clouds, struggling to penetrate a fine layer of bright mist. After a while the sun burst through, setting the treetops ablaze and flaming on tin basins hung out on rear balconies. I was enthralled. Barefoot I stood in my nightdress pressing my forehead to the glass. Frost patterns flowered on the windowpane. A woman in a dressing gown came out to empty her garbage can. Her hair, like mine, was unkempt.

The alarm clock rang.

Michael pulled down the bedclothes. His eyelids were gummed together. His face looked rumpled. He spoke to himself in a cracked voice.

"It's cold. What a foul day."

Then, as his eyes opened, he caught sight of me in amazement.

"Have you gone out of your mind, Hannah?"

I turned to face him, but was unable to speak. I had lost my voice again. I tried to say so, but all my throat would yield was agonizing pain. Michael seized my arm and pulled me forcefully onto the bed.

"You've gone out of your mind, Hannah," he repeated in horror. "You're not well."

Gently his lips touched my forehead, and he added:

"Your hands are like ice and your forehead's burning. You're not well, Hannah."

Under the covers I continued to shiver violently. But I was also on fire with a fervid excitement I had not felt since I was a child. I was gripped by a fever of joy. I laughed and laughed without producing a sound.

Michael dressed. He tied his checkered tie and secured it with a small clip. He went out to the kitchen to heat me a cup of milk. He sweetened it with two spoonfuls of honey. I could not swallow. My throat was on fire. The pain was a new one. I savored the new pain as it grew stronger.

Michael put the milk down on a stool by my bed. My lips smiled at him. I visualized myself as a squirrel throwing pine cones at a dirty bear. The new pain was mine and I tried it on.

Michael stood and shaved. He turned the radio up so as to be able to hear the news headlines over the buzz of the electric razor. Then he blew into the razor to clean it and switched on the radio. He went out to the drugstore to phone our doctor, Dr. Urbach of Alfandari Street. When he came in again he hurriedly dressed Yair and sent him off to kindergarten. His movements were as precise as those of a well-drilled soldier. He said:

"It's terribly cold outside. Please don't get out of bed. I rang Hadassah, too. She promised to send her maid round to look after you and do the cooking. Dr. Urbach promised to call at nine or half past. Hannah, do please try just once more to drink your milk before it gets cold."

My husband stood stiffly before me like a young waiter, and the cup was steady in his hand. I pushed away the cup and took hold of Michael's other hand. I kissed his fingers. I didn't want to stop laughing inwardly. Michael suggested I take an aspirin. I shook my head. He shrugged his shoulders—such a studied movement. Now he had put his hat and coat on. As he went out he said:

"Remember, Hannah, you're to stay in bed till Dr. Urbach comes. I'll try to come home early. You must keep quiet. You've caught cold, Hannah, that's all. It's cold in this house. I'll bring the heater nearer the bed."

No sooner had my husband shut the door behind him than I leaped barefoot out of bed and across to the window again. I was a wild, disobedient child. I strained my vocal cords like a drunkard, singing and shouting. The pain and the pleasure enflamed each other. The pain was delicious and exhilarating. I filled my lungs with air. I roared, I howled, I mimicked birds and animals as Emanuel and I had adored doing as children. But still not a sound could be heard. It was pure magic. I was simply swept away by the violent floods of pleasure and pain. I was cold but my forehead was burning. Barefoot I stood and naked in the bath like a child on a stifling hot day. I turned the tap full on. I wallowed in the icy water. I splashed water all around, on the glazed tiles on the walls on the ceiling and the towels and on Michael's bathrobe hanging on a hook on the back of the door. I filled my mouth full of water and squirted jet after jet at my face reflected in the mirror. I turned blue with cold. The warm pain spread down my back, trickled down my spine. My nipples stiffened. My toes turned to stone. Only my head was burning, and I never stopped singing without making a sound. A violent yearning spread deep down in the caverns of my body, in my most sensitive joints and recesses which are mine even though I can never see them till the day I die. I had a body and it was mine and it throbbed and thrilled and was alive. Like a madwoman I roamed from room to room to the kitchen to the vestibule and the water dripped and dripped. Naked and wet I fell on the bed and hugged the pillows and bedclothes with my arms and knees. Crowds of friendly people reached out gently to touch me. As their fingers touched my skin I was washed by a blazing wave. Silently the twins clasped my arms to tie them behind my back. The poet Saul leaned over to intoxicate me with his mustache and his warm odor. Rahamim Rahamimov the handsome taxi driver came too and clasped me round the waist like a wild man. In the frenzy of the dance he lifted my body high in the air. The distant music blared and roared. Hands pressed my body. Kneaded. Pounded. Probed. I laughed and screamed with all my strength. Soundlessly. The soldiers thronged and closed round me in their mottled battle dress. A furious masculine smell exuded from them in waves. I was all theirs. I was Yvonne Azulai. Yvonne Azulai, the opposite of Hannah Gonen. I was cold. Flooded. Men are born for water, to flood cold and violent in the depths on the plains on snowy open steppes and among the stars. Men are born for snow. To be and not to rest to shout and not to whisper to touch and not to watch to flood and not to yearn. I am made of ice, my city is made of ice, and my subjects too shall be of ice. Every one. The Princess has spoken. There will be a hailstorm in Danzig which will smite the whole city, violent, crystalline, and clear. Down, rebellious subjects, down, rub your noses in the snow. You shall all be clear, you shall all be white for I am a white princess. We must all be white and clear and cold else we shall crumble away. All the city will turn to crystal. Not a leaf shall fall not a bird shall soar not a woman tremble. I have spoken.

It was night in Danzig. Tel Arza and its woods stood in the snow. A great steppe stretched over Mahane Yehuda, Agrippa, Sheikh Bader, Rehavia, Beit Hakerem, Kiryat Shmuel, Talpiot, Givat Shaul to the slopes of Kfar Lifta. Steppe fog and darkness. This was my Danzig. An islet sprouted in the middle of the pool at the end of Mamillah Road. Upon it stood the statue of the Princess. Inside the stone was I.

***

But inside the walls of Schneller Barracks a secret plot was being hatched. Subdued rebellion was in the air. The two dark destroyers
Dragon
and
Tigress
weighed anchor. Their noble prows sliced through the crust of ice. A muffled sailor stood in the crow's nest atop the swaying mast. His body was made of snow like the High Commissioner of snow we made, Halil, Hannah and Aziz, in the great snow in the winter of '41.

Squat tanks rolled heavily in the darkness down the icy slope of Geula Street towards the quarter of Mea Shearim. At the gate of Schneller Barracks a group of officers in rough windbreakers conspired in whispers. It was not I who had ordered this movement. My orders were to freeze. This was a plot. Urgent commands were communicated in strained whispers. Light snowflakes drifted in the black air. Short, sharp bursts of gunfire sounded. And at the tips of thick mustaches glistened icicles.

Massive and efficient, the squat tanks penetrated the outskirts of my sleeping city. I was alone. The moment had come for the twins to steal into the Russian Compound. Barefoot and silent they came. Noiselessly they crawled the last part of their way. To stab from behind the watchmen I had posted to guard the prison. All the scum of the city was set loose, and a violent shout erupted from their throats. Floods seethed into the narrow streets. The heavy breathing of a brooding evil.

Meanwhile the last pockets of resistance were broken. Key points were occupied. My faithful Strogoff was taken. But in the outlying sections the discipline of the rebellion was slacker. Burly, drunken soldiers, loyal and mutinous, burst into the homes of citizens and merchants. Their eyes were suffused with blood. Leather-gloved hands reached out to rape and pillage. Vile forces overran the city. The poet Saul was incarcerated in the cellar of the broadcasting station in Melisanda Street. He was abused by the rabble. I could not bear it. I wept.

Gun carriages rolled on silent rubber wheels beyond the city's elevated areas. I saw a bareheaded rebel climb up and silently change the flag on top of the Terra Sancta building. His locks were disheveled. He was a handsome, exultant rebel.

The freed prisoners laughed yellow laughter. They dispersed through the city in their prison uniforms. Knives were produced. They spread into outlying areas to settle a cruel score. Eminent scholars were imprisoned in their place. Still half-asleep, bewildered, and indignant, they protested in my name. Mentioned their good connections. Stood on their dignity. Already some of them fawned, and swore to their long-standing hatred of me. Gun butts in their backs urged them on or silenced them. A new, base power ruled the city.

The tanks surrounded the Princess's palace in accordance with a secretly prearranged plan. They carved deep scars in the smooth snow. The Princess stood at the window and called with all her might on Strogoff and Captain Nemo, but her voice was taken away and only her lips moved mechanically, as if she were trying to entertain the cheering troops. I could not guess the thoughts of the officers of my bodyguard. Perhaps they too were involved in the plot. They kept glancing at their watches. Were they waiting for a time fixed in advance?

Dragon
and
Tigress
were at the gates of the palace. Their guns revolved slowly on their massive mountings. Like a monster's fingers the guns pointed at my window. At me. I am unwell, the Princess tried to whisper. She could see reddish flickers in the east beyond Mount Zion, towards the Judean Desert. The first sparks of a celebration which was not in her honor. Eagerly the two assassins leaned over her. The Princess saw pity, desire, and mockery in their eyes. They were both so young. Swarthy and dangerously handsome. Proudly and silently I tried to stand and face them, but my body, too, betrayed me. In her flimsy nightdress the Princess groveled on the icy tiles. She was exposed to their feverish glances. Twin smiled to twin. Their teeth shone white. A shudder which boded no good passed through their bodies. Like the twisted smiles of youths watching a woman's skirt lift suddenly in the wind.

On the outskirts of the city an armored car patrolled with a loudspeaker. A clear, calm voice announced a summary of the orders of the new regime. It warned of lightning trials and merciless executions. Anyone who resisted would be shot like a dog. The rule of the lunatic Ice Princess was over forever. Not even the white whale would escape. A new era had dawned in the city.

I only half-hear; the assassins' hands are already reaching out towards me. They both grunt hoarsely like a trussed animal's groaning. Their eyes are flashing with lust. The thrill of the pain shivers, sluices, scalds down my back to the tips of my toes, sending searing sparks and sensual shudders across my back, to my neck, my shoulders, everywhere. The scream bursts inward silently. My husband's fingers half-touch my face. He wants me to open my eyes. Can't he see how wide open they are? He wants me to listen to him. Who could be more attentive than I am? He shakes and shakes my shoulders. Touches my forehead with his lips. I still belong to the ice, yet already an alien power clutches.

O
UR DOCTOR
, Dr. Urbach of Alfandari Street, was tiny and delicately sculpted like a china figurine. He had high cheekbones, and the look in his eyes was sad and sympathetic. During his examination he was in the habit of delivering a little speech.

"We will be well again in another week. Perfectly well again. We have simply caught cold and done what we should not have done. The body is trying to get well, the mind perhaps is causing us delay. The relations of the mind and the body is not like the driver in the automobile but like, for instance, the vitamins in the food, so to say. My dear Mrs. Gonen, remember you are a mother already. Please to take into consideration also the young child. Mr. Gonen, we need complete rest for the body, and for the nerves and the mind too. That is first of all. We must also take an aspirin three times daily. For the throat honey is good. And also to keep warm the room where we sleep. And we must not argue with the lady. Only to say yes, yes, and again yes. We need rest. Relaxation. All talking is causing complications and mental sufferings. Please to talk as little as possible. Only to use neutral and elementary words. We are not calm, not calm at all. You can call me on the telephone at once if there is any complications. But if there is signs of hysterics then it is necessary to keep quiet and wait with patience. Not to increase the drama. A passive audience kills the drama just like antibiotics kills the virus. We need complete calm, inner calm. I wish you better. Please."