On Tuesday Ramona sent Nahumik to the photographer, with two small family pictures that she wanted to extend and elaborate. Now Elkano had an argument to visit her at home: ‘She’s alone now. Her son has just said that he was going to his Rabbi’s synagogue, studying ‘Gemorah-Talmud’- with him.’
Elkano combed his nice hair, and rushed to Ramona. Having arrived, he gazed at the kitchen’s wall; it was wet and grey.
“How long haven’t you whitewashed these walls?” asked Elkano.
“Oh, more than four years”, answered Ramona. “But it doesn’t matter for me. Since the day I heard about my husband’s death, I haven’t renewed here anything. On the first days I even hadn’t cleaned the floor, so shocked I was.”
“Life must continue. That’s nature’s Law,” said Elkano, “my late mother had told me that – before she’d died.”
“It was as if I wanted that nothing would move here,” mentioned Ramona, “It was awful for me. I have no relatives here, in the country, except my son. My husband had also lost all his family in Shoah. We came here two years before the world war. We had been lucky to escape from Europe before all the trouble happened. He decided to mobilized here, in Israel- to the British Army, thinking he would go to Europe to rescue our families. Afterward I’ve heard that no one remained alive.”
“So you have remained alone– to raise Nahumik,” said Elkano, ”and with these hens’ coops… Did you agree with full heart, that your husband would leave you, and become a soldier? Mainly- bachelors used to volunteer and be mobilized.”
“What a question is this? Many married men did like my husband, Judah! It was self understandable in those days. We had known that the Jews in Europe were in great danger. The whole thing suddenly seems to be far, but all happened only three-four years ago. His military command-car was mined in Italy. He was killed with two others. I don’t know how I had the strength to continue. I was weeping for hours, fulfilling my duty in this small farm like automatically. I had to feed the chicken. It was good for my soul – to be working hard. If you don’t take care of the small animals they’ll die; and you know you like them to be living. But in the first days it was difficult, as everything in this courtyard had reminded my husband to me.”
“My father had known your husband. ‘t was in the good old days,” said Elkano, “He told me that. Once he invited him to take a photo of him while cultivating the orchard, in which he was working.”
“I have never told Nahumik, that his father had another job. I mean: except our hens’ coops,” said Ramona.
“One work,”Elkano said, “could not afford for feeding a family.”
“It was a part time work of my husband. Most of his time and effort he devoted to taking care of the chickens, and of the small fruits trees in our garden. Every tree and flower- reminded me his good, caring, strong hands. Yes, I hoped he would return…”
“Let’s stop talking about the past,” said Elkano, almost whispering, “I invite you to watch a film with me, in the local cinema house. Yes – still this evening.”
“O‘key. I’ll place a note to the boy, that I have gone there with a woman friend.”
“we’ll go out and watch the first show, that is early- at seven p.m.,” said Elkano.
“We’ll intentionally miss the Moviton Fox News Journal,”said Ramona, ”Because if we show ourselves in the cinema light- everybody will soon gossip.”
“Quite reasonable,” said Elkano, smiling.
“I’ll just cut a few vegetables and prepare dinner for Nahumik.”
In the theater’s darkness – Elkano didn’t touch her, but their eyes met many times. It was when Olivia De Havilland was kissing with some man on the screen. They were inside a carriage, chased by Indian horse riders, shooting arrows and screaming. The Indians had colored feathures on their heads, and tatoos were drawn on their bodies. The Sheriff of a small town was riding a horseback with one of them, his hands tied with ropes. Suddenly this Indian captor galloped his horse aside, stabbed the Sheriif in his back, and threw out his corpse, down a hill. The sight of blood was frightening some young women within the watchers, and they were grabbing their husband’s or boyfriend’s hands in awe. Then came white horseriders of Tyron Power to the help of the imprisoned girl. A fight was taking place between them and the Indians.
“It would end with a victory of the guns and canons of the joyfull white men – over the primitive Indians.” said Ramona.
In the movie’s intermission – the couple went out to the small smoking square. An acquaintance of Ramona looked at her in suspect, discerning she’s alone; Elkano was not standing far away and she was gazing toward him. He was smoking, looking around, and not approaching any one he had known. When the bell rang for the screening renewal- both were rushing to their seats; it was again in the darkness.
On their way home, Elkano asked how the boy had reacted to his father’s death. “He was a little child,” said Ramona. “But he was conscious that he would have a special responsibility to help me in whatever he could. And he knew how difficult was my mental condition.” She added that the boy caught her weeping, three times. “Once I vomitted near the hens-coops,” she told Elkano, “and Nahumik came thereby. He asked me- why I had I cried. By that he caused me to restrain myself”.
“What did he say to you?” asked Elkano.
“That he should be be considerate with my weeping… ‘Please try to… do it less’ he said, and I smoothed his hair, and kissed him by his cheeks…And he found an argument to stop me crying: ‘The hens are also listening to you’, he said. ‘they will stop to lay eggs, discerning that their lady-owner is sad.”
Elakno’s eyes also became quite wet, and Ramona discerned that. “Your face has changed to be sad, because of me.”- she rebuked, looking at his eyes in the pale light of the street lamps.
“You are not a child,” she said, “Aren’t you? Forget my stories.”
They were going back to her home, trying to pass in darkness and under trees’ pale shadows. Children or youths were strolling around in that warm evening. She said: “Hopefully – nobody will gossip”, and their stealing succeeded. They felt no one had seen them. They were sitting again in Ramona’s kitchen, after she had peeped to the boy’s room, discerning he was asleep. Nahumik was dressed with his sportive shorts and upper Tricko T-shirt... But he was not really asleep; he looked with half open eyes at his Mom, and only after being sure he’s seen her – he soon fell fully asleep.
While Ramona was with her son, Elkano remained in the kitchen and ‘checked his behavior to his grown up lady-friend’, as he was calling Ramona, while speaking to himself. ‘She had been even more charming while she was talking about her suffer. Another woman would have been ‘folding down’ in her situation, but she had been strong. So I feel. Now she is already baking two green apples in her oven, and while we’ll eat it with suger cubes, she’ll be talking about the movies she had used to watch.’
“With my late husband,” Ramona said, “I was hardly attending theater. But since he went to the Jewish Brigade of the British Army- I‘ve wanted to disconnect from the daily difficulties for some hours. I have become almost addicted to the movies… Long live America of the Gangsters and Cowboys. Bravo, France of the secret love affairs… What level of forgetfulness you would reach by watching a kissing couple? Your affection is swept with the Post Carriage being kidnapped – and you become happy while the girl there is almost being rescued by her strong father, but no! He leaves the abductors’ chasing, as he is now searching her sweetheart, who has disappeared. At the end it becomes clear, that the girl wasn’t held by the Indians whop were paid by a professional abductor, demanding ransom! So complicated… ”
As she was talking, she saw on Elkano’s face he had become tired. “Oh, you are yawning,” she said. Maybe her talk was boring him, while she had been quite complaining about her past.
“If it’s comfortable for you,” she said, “you can visit me tomorrow, at nine or ten in the morning. You’ll watch me
feeding the chicken and collecting the eggs. Please take care not to be seen, you understand? You are welcome!”
“I would like to kiss your hand, like gentlemen in Europe. I watched that in many films,” he said. “Adieu,” he added. His heart was pounding like galloping horses hooves…
Next morning Elkano told Ramona about his hesitations, regarding the illegal underground youths that he had met. She said she won’t consult him, as she honored her husband’s joining the army – to save the Jews in Europe. There were very few married men among them, but she didn’t try to hold Judah at home. Yes – from time to time she was angry he had made her become a widow too early.
Elkano and Ramona were standing at the hens’coops, and he was helping her to fill the drinking troughs. Soon the hens were coming close, putting their beaks into the water. Then they raised their heads, while lifting their nice cocks’ combs, to slip the liquid smoothly into their stomach. And again they were drinking a few drops- and walking further on, strolling around on the ground.
“They are attracted to the water – like me, a young man , to a girl-woman like you,” remarked Elkano, waving to a hen.
As he was smiling, his white teeth flickered in the sun that was beaming on the sky. Ramona put down the hen by her hand, and soon entered her house with Elkano. They were seated on the sofa in the living room, gave hands and advanced their faces to each other. Then they caressed one the face of the other and began kissing. His face have beamed and she noticed it. She told him – she did not believe it had been his first kiss. So why he is reddening?…And if he would chose to become a photographer in Holywood – he will have to kiss many women. They’ll behave like her. He is a man of well shaped body and handsome face. He could be also an actor, if he wanted. A protagonist like Tyron Power or Erol Flynn or Johnny Weissmuller. Yes, in her opinion he’s young and not less handsome than these films’ stars.
“You laugh at me,” he said. “You know I’ll be fit for going abroad and try to be a star – only after the war, that will be here.”
“What?” asked Ramona, ”Why would you think about a war?”
“You read the newspapers like me,” he said.
“Yes,I also listen to the radio. But I don’t think about fighting”
“We have many signs,” he said, “that a war will come within a few months. I have a dreadful feeling. Maybe it’s my own personal problem, that I feel so bad. Horror is hanging over my head. Maybe my father has to be blamed for that. He is pessimistic.”
“I don’t believe it has come to you from him, this gloomy feeling.” Ramona said, “Maybe it’s since your mother’s death.”
“I don’t know,” said Elkano, “It has been within me many years. But I am strong, just facing a realistic view.”
They kissed with enormous desire. He pulled out her shirt and bra. Her fingers were removing the belt of her skirt and underwear, and he felt she couldn’t hold herself any more. Her eyes were shut and her legs were open to him in a joyful move. His strong hands were caressing her hair, and his palms smoothly touched her breasts and then dropped to her pudenda and she moaned in a pain of bliss. “You enter me smoothly”, she said with a short laugh, “like a sharp nail to a soft piece of wood. Then we’ll be moving around in a wonderland and travelling in an unknown and unsurpassed time”.
She felt his tongue licking her spinal column, and she wondered how he had known that it was causing her such an orgastic joy…
He is so young, she thought. Maybe he had women lovers in his past. Could it be that they were experienced in sex? If not- maybe he had read about it in books, or saw it in phornographic pictures, that a photographer may hold in his drawers.
Afterwards Elkano was lying beside Ramona on her sofa, caressing her hair. ‘She does not have a long braid, like most of the young women around. She attracts me by her whole existence and well structured figure and her wise smile, by her fine hair and smooth skin. And maybe I’m morbidly attracted by her optimistic sadness, I would call it… Her body is so nice in its innocent nakedness, and it should not be wasted without rendering a man like me full enjoyment. My presence makes her have some minutes of ‘pure hapiness of trying to escape from the grey existance’ so she says.”
She heard him saying something like: ‘your femininity is so beaming out from your talking and chatting and laughing and joking about yourself’.
Then he asked about her the source of name. Where does it come from?- They were rising from the sofa, after love making.
“The word ‘Rimon’ is mentioned in the Holy Bible,” she said,
“it’s a pomegranate. It is stated in Song Of Solomon: ‘Your temple is nice as a pomegranate’- so says the young man to his lover mistress. My papa, who was a Rabbi, gave this name to me, interpreting it as the Old wise Talmudists had taught: Pomegranate is a metaphor for Torah and wisdom, and not for something erotic like a breast or a woman’s head. The Songs of King Solomon’s book is full of Love metaphors and has erotic descriptions and images in its poetry, but the old Jewish interperters have explained the physical desire described in it, as the tight connection – like sexual intercourse- between God and his beloved one, the ‘Israeli maiden’.”
“The pomegranade for me is a woman’s breast, even not a head’s temple,” laughed Elkano, “but I accept also the Rabinical interpretation… Now I understand: You’ve sent Nahumik to study with that Rabbi, so that the traditional culture won’t be forgotten in your family”…
Ramona noded, and said: ”You have a literary style – while talking to me, Elkano. I like it.”
“By the way: This Rabbi would persuade Nahumik to believe in Providence, in God’d taking care of everybody. D’you believe?”
“Not so much,” answered Ramona, “But sometime I believe that He did not intend to kill my husband… It means, that in my case – I am embarassed by God’s behavior. Maybe God wanted to keep him alive- but failed. And then He, The Almighty, was weeping shortly, so I believe. But soon he passed to weep about the other millions of the war’s victims. So, He has left only me to continue weeping about my dead husband.” Tears filled her eyes, but she strengthened immediately. She went to her bedroom and returned with a good smelling perfume. She appologized of not doing that before, and stretched her hand to Elkano, to part. He looked at her finger nails, that were not made, nor colored, and he knew that her hard working with the hens would not permit her a lot of time for caring about her body. But it doesn’t matter… Then he asked if she had known the perfume’s name. It should be of a well known Firm.
Ramona said: “It’s Poesie, like Poetry in English. My husband had bought it in the NAFI, the British Army subsidized stores for the soldiers’ families. It’s bottle was hiding somewhere; and only this week, after you’ve come, I discerned it again. I have decided to use it daily. It would partly reject the smell of hens’ excreta from my body.”
“You don’t like the hens so much,” he said, “but you depend on them for your earning.”
“I was used to work with them, but sometimes I say: enough; and suddenly I hate to feel the dirt, while holding or touching them… Let’s forget that, Elkano. I cannot change my life style now. I am not a lady from the movies, young man. D’you understand that?”
“I well understand,” he said. “As I understand, that you can’t believe me we’ll be soon facing a war here.”
“You see a black picture – without a justification. It’s so negative to think like this, and become Mister Walking Apocalipse!” She thought he did not quite understand what it had meant. He just looked at her for a moment, but then commented:
“The one who does not understand what I’ve told you – is hiding the truth, Ramona. My Pa thinks that the worst will come. He tries to tell me, that he had lost all his family in the world war. So he wouldn’t like to lose me also… Once he wept, while looking at me. ‘It will be like hell here’ – he said.”
“Please, stop talking about that,” said Ramona, “I’m afraid the words hav
e a power to make events happen.”
She saw that a tear was hanging on his left eye. He is sad, she said to herself. Two young human beings that were wondering about the pleasure that has just wrapped them together, and now everyone is wrapped again by his solitude. But maybe it’s only because he is pitying my condition – of a young woman with a child.
“This situation will pass,” she said suddenly, to herself and to him as well, “I mean: my sadness, and yours, and the inability to move life further on, and change it.”
“I thank you for all your love, Ramona,” he said, “And I thank you for talking with me so wisely and sincerely. We reveal the truth together.”
“Thousand words or their substitutes,” he said, “won’t tell how I have felt today with you.”
“You talk about substitute words,” she mentioned, ”and yesterday my son asked me what did the word ‘substitute’ exactly mean. His Rabbi had told him that ‘everything in the world has its substitute- except a Wise Rabbi that had died’. So, he warned his pupils not to mourn too much and not to be too sad – about the current or coming political and national events. The Rabbi’s elder boys, so told her son, read the news that were published in the Jewish newspapers – about the so called ‘underground Israeli youths’, that were sentenced to death by the British. A cycle of bloody killings is impending.
CHAPTER 11