Scenes from Village Life Page 13

  He got up from the bench and walked across the Memorial Garden. The gravel path crunched under his sandals. A night bird made a ragged sound, and far away at the edge of the village a dog barked insistently. He had eaten nothing since lunchtime, and he felt hungry and thirsty, but the thought of the house where his parents and his sisters were probably glued to the blaring television put him off. True, if he went home nobody would say anything to him or ask him anything; he could grab something to eat from the refrigerator and shut himself up in his room. But what would he do in his room, with his abandoned aquarium where a dead fish had been floating for a week, and his stained mattress? Better to stay out and maybe spend the whole night roaming the empty streets. Maybe the best thing would be to go back to that bench and lie down on it, and sleep dreamlessly till morning.

  Suddenly he got the idea of going to her house: if the diesel tanker was parked outside, he would climb onto it and throw a lighted match inside so everything would explode, forever. He felt in his pockets for matches, but he knew he didn't have any. Then his feet took him to the water tower that stood on its three concrete legs. He decided to climb the tower, to be closer to the half moon that was floating now over the eastern hills. The rungs of the iron ladder were cold and damp; he climbed quickly and soon found himself at the top of the tower. Here there was an old concrete lookout post from the War of Independence, with broken sandbags and loopholes. He went inside and looked out through one of the holes. The place smelled of stale urine. The night stretched out before him in a wide, empty expanse. The sky was bright and the stars sparkled, strangers to each other and to themselves. From the depth of the darkness two shots rang out in swift succession. From here they sounded hollow. There were still lights on in the windows of the houses. Here and there he could see the bluish flicker of a TV screen through an open window. Two cars passed beneath him along Vine Street, their headlights illuminating for a moment the avenue of dark cypresses. Kobi looked for the windows of her house, and because he couldn't be sure, he chose to concentrate on one that was more or less in the right direction and decided that it was hers. A yellow light was shining there, through the drawn curtain. From now on, he knew, he and she would pass each other in the street like two strangers. He would never dare say a single word to her. She would probably avoid him, too. If someday he had to go to the post office for something, she would look up from the counter behind the grill and say in a flat tone of voice:

  "Yes? What can I do for you?"

  Singing

  1

  THE FRONT DOOR was open and cold, damp winter air blew into the hall. When I arrived, between twenty and twenty-five people were already there, some of whom were still helping each other off with their coats. I was greeted by a buzz of conversation and a smell of burning logs, wet wool and hot food. Almoslino, a big man wearing glasses attached by a cord, was bending over Dr. Gili Steiner and kissing her on both cheeks. Slipping his hand around her waist, he said:

  "You're looking splendid tonight, Gili."

  "Look who's talking," she replied.

  Plump Kormann, who had one shoulder higher than the other, gave Gili Steiner a big hug, then he hugged Almoslino and me. "It's good to see you all," he said. "Raining hard out there?" By the coat hooks I bumped into Edna and Yoel Rieback, a pair of dentists in their mid-fifties who had grown so alike over the years they seemed like twins; they both had short gray hair, wrinkled necks and pursed lips. Edna Rieback was saying:

  "Some people won't come today because of the rain. We nearly stayed at home ourselves."

  Her husband Yoel added: "What is there to do at home? The winter dampens your soul."

  It was a wintry Friday evening in the village of Tel Ilan. The tall cypresses were shrouded in mist. Visitors were gathering at Dalia and Avraham Levin's for an evening of communal singing. Their house stood on a hill in a narrow lane called Pumphouse Rise. It had a tile roof and a chimney, two stories and a cellar. In the garden, which was lit by electric lights, stood some soggy fruit trees, olive and almond trees. In front of the house was a lawn bordered with beds of cyclamen. There was also a little rockery from which an artificial waterfall gurgled into an ornamental pond, where some lethargic goldfish swam to and fro, lit by a light fixed in the bottom of the pool. The rain ruffled the surface of the water.

  I left my coat on top of a heap of others on a sofa in a side room and made my way into the living room. Every month or so about thirty people, mostly over fifty, gathered at the Levins'. Every couple brought a quiche or a salad or a hot dish, and they sat in the spacious living room, filling the air with old Hebrew and Russian songs that had a melancholy, sentimental air. Yohai Blum would accompany the singing on his accordion, while three middle-aged women sat around him playing recorders.

  Above the hubbub that filled the room rose the voice of Gili Steiner, the doctor, who announced:

  "Sit down, everybody, please, we want to begin."

  But the guests were in no hurry to sit down; they were busy chatting, laughing and slapping each other on the shoulder. Tall, bearded Yossi Sasson cornered me by the bookcase.

  "How are you, what's up, what's new?"

  "No news," I said. "How about you?"

  "Same as usual," he replied, adding, "Not great."

  "Where's Etty?" I asked.

  "That's it," he said. "She's not too good. The thing is, they found some kind of nasty tumor this week. But she doesn't want anyone to talk about it. And apart from that ..." He stopped.

  "Apart from that, what?"

  "Nothing," he said. "It's not important. Did you see how it's raining? Real winter weather."

  Dalia went around the room and handed each of her guests a photocopied songbook. Her husband Avraham had his back to the room: he was putting more wood in the wood-burning stove. Many years ago Avraham Levin was my commanding officer in the army. Dalia studied history with me at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Avraham was a withdrawn, silent man, while Dalia was the gushing type. I was friends with them separately before they knew each other. Our friendship continued after they married. It was a quiet, steady friendship that did not need constant proof of affection, nor did it depend on how often we met. Sometimes a year or more would go by between meetings, yet they still greeted me warmly. But for some reason I had never stayed the night in their house.

  Some twenty years ago Dalia and Avraham had an only son, Yaniv. He was a somewhat solitary child, and as he grew older he became the kind of teenager who is always shut up in his room. When he was little, and I came to visit, he liked to press his head against my stomach and make himself a little lair under my pullover. Once I brought him a tortoise as a present. Four years ago, when he was sixteen or so, the boy went into his parents' bedroom, crawled under their bed and blew his brains out with his father's pistol. They searched for him all over the village for a day and a half, not realizing that he was lying under his parents' bed. Dalia and Avraham even slept in the bed without realizing that their son's body was right underneath them. The next day, when the cleaner came in to do the room, she found him there, curled up as if he were asleep. He did not leave a note, so various theories circulated among their friends. Some said one thing, others another. Dalia and Avraham set up a small scholarship fund for students of singing, because Yaniv had sometimes sung in the village choir.

  2

  A YEAR OR TWO after the boy's death, Dalia Levin became interested in Far Eastern spirituality. She was head of the village library council, and it was on her initiative that a meditation group was started there. Every six weeks she had a community singing evening in her home. I used to attend these evenings occasionally, and because they accepted that I was a confirmed bachelor, whenever I brought a girlfriend along with me they greeted her warmly. This evening I had come on my own, with a bottle of Merlot for my hosts and the intention of sitting in my usual place, between the bookcase and the aquarium.

  Dalia threw herself into those evenings in her home: she organized, phoned around, inv
ited, greeted, seated, directed the singing from the songbooks that she had photocopied herself. Ever since the tragedy, she had given herself over to frenetic activity. Besides the library council and the meditation and the musical evenings, she had all kinds of committees and councils, yoga classes, study days, conferences, workshops, meetings, lectures, courses and excursions.

  As for Avraham Levin, he became quite reclusive. Every morning at six-thirty precisely he started his car and drove to work at the Aerospace Research Center, where he specialized in the development of various systems. After work, at five-thirty or six, he came straight home. In summer he changed into an undershirt and shorts and worked in the garden for an hour or so. Then he showered, had a light supper on his own, fed the cat and the goldfish, and settled down to read while listening to music and waiting for his wife to come home. He generally preferred baroque music, but sometimes he listened to Fauré or Debussy, or to jazz of the introspective variety.

  In winter, when it was dark by the time he got home, he would lie down fully dressed on the rug next to the sofa in the living room, listening to music and waiting for Dalia to come home from her meeting or class. At ten o'clock he went up to his room. They had abandoned their shared bedroom after the tragedy, and now slept in separate rooms at opposite ends of the house. No one went into the old bedroom: its shutters were permanently closed.

  On Saturdays, summer and winter alike, Avraham went for a long walk shortly before sunset. He skirted the village from the south, crossing fields and orchards, and reentered it from the north. He would go briskly past the water tower on its three concrete legs, walk the whole length of Founders Street, turn left into Synagogue Street, cross the Pioneers' Garden, cross Tribes of Israel Street and return home along Pumphouse Rise. If he passed anyone he knew, he would nod a greeting without stopping or slowing down. Sometimes he did not even acknowledge the passerby, but kept on walking in a straight line, too deep in thought to notice.

  3

  AS I WAS SITTING down in my usual corner, between the aquarium and the bookcase, somebody called my name. I looked around but could not see who it was. On my right sat a woman in her fifties with her hair tied back in a little bun. I didn't know her. Opposite me, just the window, with the darkness and rain beyond. To my left the tropical fish swam behind the glass of the aquarium. Who could have called me? Maybe I had imagined it. Meanwhile, the sounds of conversation had died down and Dalia Levin was making announcements about the evening's program. There would be a break at ten o'clock, when a buffet supper would be served. Wine and cheese would be served at midnight precisely. She also announced the dates of the next meetings of the group.

  I turned to the woman sitting next to me and introduced myself in a whisper, asking if she played an instrument. She whispered that her name was Dafna Katz and that she used to play the recorder but had given it up long ago. She said no more. She was tall and very thin, with glasses, and her hands seemed long and thin too.

  Meanwhile, the whole group had begun to sing Sabbath Eve songs: "The sun on the treetops no longer is seen," "In Ginosar Valley the Sabbath comes down," "Peace be with you, angels of peace." As I joined in, a pleasant warmth spread through my body, as though I had been drinking wine. I looked around the room, trying to work out who had called my name, but everyone was busy singing. Some sang shrilly, others deeply, and some had beatific smiles on their lips. Dalia Levin, the hostess, held her body with her arms as if hugging herself. Yohai Blum began to play his accordion and the three women accompanied him on the recorder. One of them let out a loud, discordant note, but she quickly corrected herself and played on in tune.

  After the Sabbath songs, it was time for four or five pioneer songs about the Galilee and the Kinneret, followed by some songs about winter and rain, since rain was still beating on the windows and occasional rolls of thunder shook the panes, and the lights stuttered because of the storm.

  Avraham Levin sat, as usual, on a stool by the door leading to the kitchen. He was not confident of his voice, so he did not join in the singing but sat listening with his eyes closed, as if it were his task to pick up any wrong note. From time to time he tiptoed out to the kitchen to check on the soups and quiches that were being kept warm for the buffet supper to be served during the break. Then he would check the stove and sit down again, with bowed head, on his stool, and close his eyes once more.

  4

  THEN DALIA SILENCED us all. "Now," she said, "Almoslino will sing us a solo." Almoslino, the big, heavy man with his glasses on a black cord around his neck, got to his feet and sang "Laugh, oh laugh at all my dreams." He was endowed with a deep, warm bass voice, and when he got to the line "Never have I lost faith in people," it sounded as though he were in pain, singing to us from the depths of his soul and expressing through the words of the song some new, heart-wrenching thought that none of us had ever heard before.

  As the applause died down, Edna and Yoel Rieback stood up, this pair of dentists who looked like twins, with their short gray hair, pursed lips and the ironic lines that had become etched around their mouths. They sang a duet, "Spread your wings, O evening," and as they sang, their voices intertwined like a pair of dancers clinging to each other. They followed this with "Enfold me under your wing." I reflected that if in this song Bialik, our national poet, asks what love is, who are we, those of us who are not poets, to boast of knowing the answer to this question? Edna and Yoel Rieback finished singing and bowed together to left and right, and we all applauded.

  There was a short pause because Rachel Franco and Arieh Zelnik arrived late, and while they were taking off their coats they announced that, according to the news on the radio, air force planes had bombed enemy targets and returned safely to their base. Yohai Blum put his accordion down and said, "At last." Gili Steiner answered him angrily that it was nothing to celebrate; violence only begot more violence, and vengeance pursued vengeance. Yossi Sasson, the tall, bearded real estate agent, said mockingly:

  "So what are you suggesting, Gili? That we do nothing? Turn the other cheek?"

  "A normal government," Almoslino intervened in his deep bass voice, "should act calmly and rationally in such situations, whereas ours, as usual, has a knee-jerk and superficial response..."

  Just then Dalia Levin, our hostess, suggested that instead of arguing about politics we should get on with the singing, which was why we were all there.

  Arieh Zelnik had removed his coat by now. He could not find a chair, so he sat down on the rug at the Riebacks' feet, while Rachel Franco pulled up a stool she found near the coat hooks in the hall and sat down just outside the open door, so as not to add to the crush in the room and because she had to leave in an hour to check on her old father, whom she had left alone at home. I wanted to say something about the bombing raid, about which I had ambivalent views, but I was too late, because the argument had died down and Yohai Blum was striking up on his accordion again. Dalia Levin suggested we continue with some love songs. She suited action to words and launched into a song: "Once upon a time there were two roses, two roses." Everybody joined in.

  At that instant I had a sudden feeling that I had to go at once to the room where I had left my coat on the pile of other coats and get something from one of the pockets. It seemed to be very urgent, but I couldn't remember what it was. Nor could I make out who was apparently calling me again: the thin woman sitting next to me was busy singing, while Avraham, on his stool by the kitchen door, had closed his eyes and was leaning against the wall, not joining in the singing.

  My thoughts strayed to the empty streets of the village lashed by the rain, the dark cypresses swaying in the wind, the lights going out in the little houses, the drenched fields and bare orchards. I had the sensation at that moment that something was going on in some darkened yard and that it concerned me and I ought to be involved with it. But what it was I had no idea.

  The group was now singing "If you want me to show you the city in gray," and Yohai Blum had stopped playing his accordion
to make way for the three recorders, which played in unison now and without any dissonance. Then we sang "Where has your beloved gone, O most beautiful among women?" What was it that I had wanted to check so urgently in the pocket of my overcoat? I could not find an answer, so I suppressed the urge to go to the other room and joined in the singing of "The pomegranate wafts its scent" and "My white-throated beloved." In the interval before the next song I leaned over and in a whisper asked Dafna Katz, with the thin hands, who was sitting next to me, what these songs reminded her of. She seemed surprised by my question, and answered, "Nothing in particular." Then she thought again and said, "They remind me of all sorts of things." I leaned toward her again and was about to say something about memories, but Gili Steiner shot us a dirty look to stop us whispering, so I gave up and went on singing. Dafna Katz had a pleasant alto voice. Dalia Levin was an alto, too. Rachel Franco was a soprano. And from across the room burst Almoslino's low, warm bass. Yohai Blum played his accordion and the three recorders wound round his playing like climbing plants. We felt good sitting in a circle on a rainy, stormy night singing old songs from the days when everything had seemed so clear and bright.