Chapter 2 A Tale of Love and Darkness (2)

We have had regular phone calls with our family in Tel Aviv for many years.We call them every three or four months, even though neither we nor they have phones installed.First, we wrote to Aunt Haya and Uncle Tsvi, saying that on Wednesday, the 19th of this month (Tsvi leaves work from the health clinic at three o'clock on Wednesday), at five o'clock we will start from our small pharmacy. Call their little pharmacy.The letter was sent long in advance and we awaited a reply.Aunt Haya and Uncle Tsvi reassured us that Wednesday the 19th of this month would be perfect for them, and of course they would be waiting in the little pharmacy before five o'clock, so don't worry if we don't make a phone call at five o'clock , they won't go away.I don't remember if we put on our best clothes to go to the little drugstore and call Tel Aviv, but it wouldn't be a surprise if we did.That was a grand mission.Back on Sunday, Dad said to Mom: Fania, do you remember calling Tel Aviv this week?On Monday Mom would say, Ariel, don't come home late the day after tomorrow, don't screw things up.On Tuesday, the two of them said to me, Amos, don't let us do anything unexpected, you heard, don't get sick, you heard, don't freeze, don't fall until tomorrow afternoon.They would say to me the night before: go to bed early so you'll have the strength to call tomorrow, I don't want you to sound like you haven't had enough to eat.That's how the feelings are born.We lived on Amos Street, five minutes from the little pharmacy on Zepheniah Street, but at three o'clock Pa said to Mama: "Now don't start any new jobs, so you won't Make time tight."

"I'm fine, but you, you're reading, don't forget everything." "Me? I forget? I'll check my watch in a minute. Amos will remind me." You see, I Only five or six years old, he has assumed historical responsibility.I don't have a watch, and I can't possibly have one, so every once in a while I run to the kitchen to look at the wall clock, and I'll announce, like a countdown to a spaceship launch: twenty-five minutes, twenty minutes, and Fifteen minutes, ten and a half minutes—and then we'd get up, lock the front door carefully, and walk out.The three of us turned left to Mr. Oster's grocery store, turned right to Zekariya Street, left to Malahay Street, right to Zephenia Street, went straight into the little pharmacy and said: "Hi, Mr. Heinemann, how are you? We are here to call." Of course he knew that on Wednesday we would call Tel Aviv in the distance, and he also knew that Tsvey was working at the health clinic and Haya was working Women's League held important positions, Igor was to grow up to be an athlete, and they were close friends of Golda Meyerson (later Golda Meir) and Misha Korodney, who was here Called Moses Kuhler, but we would remind him: "We're calling our relatives in Tel Aviv." Mr. Heinemann would say: Yes, of course.please sit down. ’ Next, he’ll tell us one of his usual jokes about the phone: “Once, at a Zionist Congress in Zurich, there was a deafeningly frightening noise in a side room.Burr Locke asked Hartsfield what was the matter, and Hartsfield explained that Comrade Rubashev was addressing Ben-Gurion in Jerusalem. 'Speak to Jerusalem,' Burr Locke said, why doesn't he use the phone? ’” Dad would say: I’m dialing now.” Mom said: It’s still early, Ariel.There are still a few minutes left before the appointed time. "He'd say, yeah, but it takes time to get through." (There were no direct dial phones back then.) Mom said, "Yeah, but what if we get through right away, and they haven't arrived yet?" Dad replied: "If that's the case, let's try again later." "My mother said: No, they will be worried, and they will think they didn't get my call."

While they were arguing, it was almost five o'clock.Dad picked up the receiver, stood there, and said to the operator: Good afternoon, ma'am.Please take Tel Aviv 648. ’ (Or something like that, we’re still in a three-digit world.) Sometimes the operator would say, ‘Wait a few minutes, sir, the postmaster is on the phone. "Either it was Mr. Seton or Mr. Nashashvi. We were a little nervous because we didn't know what was going to happen. What would they think over there? I can imagine that such a single line connects Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. together, and connected to the world through Tel Aviv. If the single line is busy, as it always is, we are cut off from the world. The line winds its way through wilderness and rock, through hills and canyons, I thought it was a great miracle. I shuddered—what if the beast came and bit the wire at night? What if the bad guy cut the telephone line? What if the rain seeped in? What if it caught fire God knows. The line is crooked, so fragile, unguarded, sunburnt, God knows. I'm so grateful to the man who erected it, so brave, so dexterous, from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, It's not easy. I know how difficult it is from my own experience: once we pulled a line from my room to Elijahu Friedman's house, only two houses in between and a garden, what a project that was, passing trees, neighbours, sheds, fences, steps, shrubs. After waiting a while, Papa was convinced that either the Postmaster or Mr. Nashashvi must have finished speaking, so Then I picked up the receiver again and said to the operator: "Excuse me, ma'am, please connect me to Tel Aviv 648 again. ’ She’d say, ‘I’ve made a note, sir.please wait. (Or: "Please be patient.") Dad said: I'm waiting, ma'am, it's normal to wait, but someone else is waiting on the phone. Cultural people, but our patience is also limited.We are very cultured, but we are not easy to bully.We are not lambs to be slaughtered.The idea that anyone can do whatever they want to a Jew is over.Then suddenly the phone in the pharmacy rang, and it always sounded so exciting, it was a magical moment, and the conversation basically went like this: "Hi, Tsvi?" "Speak." "This is Ariyah, from Jerusalem .”

"Yes, Arieh, I'm Tsvi, how are you?" "We're all fine. We'll call you from the pharmacy." "So are we. Anything new?" "Nothing new. You guys What's going on over there, Tsvi? What's going on?" "Everything's fine. Nothing special. That's it." "No news is good news. We have nothing new here. We're all fine. What about you?" "Fine too." "Great. Now Fanya's going to talk to you." Same thing: How are you?What's new?Next: Now Amos has a few words to say. "That's the whole conversation. How are you? Great! If so, we'll chat again soon. Nice to talk to you guys. We're happy too. We'll write and set up a time for the next call. We'll talk again. OK Ah. Definitely gotta talk. Goodbye. Hope not too long ago. Goodbye. Take care of yourself. All the best. You too. But this is no joke: life is held together by a thin thread. I understand now that they have no idea if Really talk again, maybe for the last time, because God knows what's going to happen, there might be riots, massacres, bloodbaths, the Arabs might rise up and kill us all, there might be wars, there might be massacres Disaster, after all, Hitler's tanks, attacking from both sides of North Africa and the Caucasus, were almost at our doorstep, and who knows what awaited us. The empty talk was not empty, it was just clumsy. Those talks now show me It was just how hard it was for them—everyone, not just my parents—to express personal emotions. They had no difficulty expressing public emotions—they were lovers, and they knew how to talk. Aha, what a talker they are! They can talk about Nietzsche, Stalin, Freud, Jabotinsky in passionate tones for three or four hours straight, pour out everything they know, and sympathize Tears, flat-toned arguments for colonialism, anti-Semitism, justice, "agricultural issues," "women's issues," "art-to-life issues," but when it comes to expressing personal feelings, they always make things tense Xi, dry, even trembling, ① Jabotinsky (1880-1940), born in Odessa, Ukraine, is one of the representatives of early Zionism.

This is the result of generations of repression and denial.In fact, it is double negation and double restraint, just like the behavior of the European bourgeoisie strengthens and restricts the religious Jewish community.It seems that everything is denied by "imprisonment", or "shall not be so", or "indecent".In addition, there is a huge lack of words.Hebrew is still not a natural enough language, it's certainly not an intimate language, and when you speak Hebrew, it's hard to know what you really mean when you say it.They can never be sure that what they say is not ridiculous, which is what they fear day and night.Afraid of being ridiculous is really afraid of death.Even people who are as good at Hebrew as my parents can't say they have mastered Hebrew completely.In pursuit of accuracy, they can't let go when they speak.They often change their minds and formulate again what has just been said.Probably myopic drivers feel this way, driving a raw car late at night trying to get out of a winding road in a strange city.One Saturday (Sabbath) we were visited by a friend of my mother, a teacher named Lilia Bassamha.Whenever a guest says "I'm timid" or "He's in a timid state" during a conversation, I laugh out loud.In everyday Hebrew slang, the word she uses for timidity means "to fart".They didn't know why I was laughing, maybe they knew, but they pretended not to.The same goes for Dad when he talks about an "arms race" or protests the NATO countries' decision to rearm Germany to deter Stalin.He didn't know that the written word "armament" he used meant "fucking" in current Hebrew slang.Dad always looks down when I say "get it," a perfectly innocent word, and I never understand why it makes him so nervous.He certainly never explained it, and it was impossible for me to ask.How many years have passed, and I know that in the 1930s, before I was born, "get it done" means getting a woman pregnant without marrying her.Sometimes the idiom "fix her" seems to mean sleeping her. "Late at night in the warehouse, he got her done, and in the morning so-and-so knew he didn't know her." So if I said, "Sister Uri got it done" or something, Dad would pucker his lips, Shrug your nose.Of course he wouldn't explain anything to me—how could he?They never spoke Hebrew in private.Probably in their most private moments, they said nothing.Not saying a word for fear of looking or sounding ridiculous clouded everything.

On the face of it, in those days the pioneers stood at the top of the ladder of prestige, yet the pioneers lived very far from Jerusalem, in the valleys, in Galilee, and in the wilderness by the Dead Sea.We admire their hard-working, worried images on the Jewish National Foundation poster, standing calmly among tractors and plowed fields.Standing on the ladder one step below the pioneers are its "affiliated members", who read the socialist newspaper "Davar" on the summer balcony in vests, members of the Workers' Union, the Vanguard and the Health Foundation, wearing Khaki clothing, voluntary contributions to public funds, scrambled eggs and yogurt for salad, strict self-discipline, a sense of responsibility, a down-to-earth lifestyle, a homegrown product, working class, strict observance of party discipline, unique in In a can of products, there are mild olives, "Upper blue, lower blue, we build a harbor here, build a harbor".Rivaling this established group are the "non-affiliates", alias terrorists, and the devout Jewish, Zionophobic ultra-Orthodox who live in Mae Sharim; and a motley mob including eccentric intellectuals, careerists, and self-centered well-informed wanderers; and outcasts of all kinds, individualists and hesitant nihilists, who never managed to restore Germany The German Jew of the lifestyle, the Anglophile snob, the wealthy French Levantine with the bombastic ways we see as the cocky butler.Then there are Yemenis, Georgians, North Africans, Kurds and Thessaloniki, they are definitely our brothers, they are definitely a promising human resource, but what can you do, you need to invest a lot in them patience and hard work.Apart from these, there are also refugees and survivors, whom we treat with both pity and a certain revulsion.Is it our fault for these unfortunate wretches who chose to sit and wait for Hitler rather than come here when time permits?Why are they sent to slaughter like lambs and not organized to rise up against it?If only they would stop whining in Yiddish, and stop telling us what happened to them over there, because what happened over there is no honor to them or to us thing.In any case, we are dealing here with the future, not with the past, and if we revisit the past, we certainly have enough inspiring Hebrew history from the Bible and Hasmonean times, no Needs to taint it with depressing Jewish history.Jewish history is nothing but a burden. (They always use the Yiddish word Tsores, with a look of disgust on their faces, and the child realizes that these Tsores are some kind of malady, theirs, not ours.) Among the survivors, Mr. Licht, Known to the kids around him as "Million Kid," he rented a tiny house on Malahay Street, slept on mattresses at night, and rolled up his bedding during the day as a "dry-cleaning and steaming business," The corners of his mouth are always drooping, showing contempt and disgust.He habitually sat at the door of the small shop and waited for customers to come. Whenever the neighbor's children passed by, he would always spit aside and squeeze out a few words between his pursed lips: "Millions of children were killed by them." Yes! You little bastards! Slaughter them!" When he said this, it was not with sadness, but with hatred, hatred, as if he was cursing us.