Nahumik mounted the horse without the help of his older friend, the youth Elkano, who praised him for that.. He also permitted the boy to ride a few steps by himself, while he, Elkano, was walking beside the horse and still holding the reins in his hands, leading it straight forward. The boy said he was not afraid at all and asked to let him drive slowly by himself. But the guy suddenly said, that they should report about their voyages to Nahumik’s mother. She must know about these riding lessons and approve it. Elkano reckoned that also he himself should see her, having an errand from his father, photographer Kaplansky. The man recollected that Ramona, Nahumik’s Mom, had requested him to produce for her an extended picture of her family, who had been killed by the Nazis in Europe…
“If your mother is still interested in that,” said the guy Elkano, “She’ll hand you the original photos, and my father can also elaborate them a little bit. He has his skill for that: It’s called ‘an artistic extension’ of a picture.”
In that evening Ramona was standing at the window of the boy’s room. She was wrapped in her flowers’ gown and was looking at her courtyard gate- as her son and his grown up friend enterd it. She wondered. Hardly she could identify who was the guy, and did not understand what was his connection to her son Nahumik, who has just knocked at the door.
“Hello, Mom,” said the boy, when she opened.
Ramona gazed at Elkano quite a long time, surveying his figure from face to feet. She only turned to her son, when he said:
“This is Elkano, the son of Photographer Kaplansky.”
“Have you found more photos, that I’ve forgotten to take?” Ramona asked Elkano.
“No,” answered Nahumik instead of the guy, ”We have both arrived to tell you, that he teaches me riding his horse.”
“I’ve also arrived to ask something.” interfered Elkano, ”My Pa told me, that once you had wanted to extend your late parents’ photos; but he hasn’t yet received those.”
“Oh, thank you for asking. First, however, I have to organize the stuff in my old album. I haven’t yet found the time for that. You need nerves for looking back to the sad past.”
“I can understand that.” said Elkano. After a short intermission he added: ”So, We’ll find another time for that.”
“Thank you for trying to teach Nahumik. But maybe it’s too early? He’s ten years only”.
“I learned to ride in this age, too,” Elkano smiled; that brought a smile to Ramona’s face too. He remembered that she was just as beautiful as he saw her in the photo that his father had sent before to her with Nahumik. Since that day, Elkano has decided he would like to see her in real life and talk to her. And here she is, Interesting and fascinating. He doesn’t know why. He is almost eighteen. Well, he doesn’t like the idea that… young girls in his age know only to laugh. ‘I would testify about myself’, thought Elkano, ‘that I’m quite a serious fellow, maybe too serious for those joyful girls. Or I haven’t yet got acquainted with too many.’
“Let’s sit in the kitchen,” he heard Ramona telling him. She pointed on the low table, made of simple rough wood. It was covered with a small flowered coversheet and surrounded by three chairs.
“you’ll be able to talk about books,” said the boy, while they were sitting to chat. ”Ma, I’ve told Elkano that you read a lot, borrowing books in the public library.”
“I was doing that myself,” told her Elkano,”till a year ago.”
“I also go to see movies in our theater here,” remarked Ramona, “with woman friends. One is a widow like me.”
Elkano asked a cup of water and she brought him.
“a few months ago,” he said. ”I watched a lot of movies. I was mobilized to a group of guys, having volunteered to work in a Kibbutz for a while. But… I was soon fed up. We saw many cowboy movies, once a week at least. At first I thought that to be in a kibbutz would be O’key for me, but soon I realized that I like my privacy. When I’m within a group- something is convulsing inside my stomach. So I returned to be my papa’s assistant.”
“It seems like photographing is interesting you,” she said.
“Yes, sometimes I dare to imagine that one day I’ll produce and create a film by myself. I have yet to learn a lot about that… But it’s so far. You’ve to do it in America- and I am living here, in a small and far country. Once I’ve sent a postcard to actor Clark Geible. He had sent me his autograph, which enjoyed me very much!”
Nahumik felt that Elkano’s breath has become short. Elkano was looking at Nahumik’s mother, and it seemed like he was a little embarassed.
“Have you really practiced riding today?” Ramona asked her son, warmly touching his hair.
“We did not gallop,” said Elkano, ”but we were feeling very well up there, on the horseback. Was it so?” Elkano turned his face to Nahumik, who nodded.
Ramona was looking at her son and then at the visitor. She suddenly felt a strange sweetness in her mouth and heart. If she re-reckons this feeling, maybe she should forget meeting the guy. Why has he won her heart? She won’t permit this to happen. He is acting in quite a ‘hutzpa’, he’s an audacious guy! But without that quality- not much will occur in humankind. And Elkano is playing with her sentiments quite sensitively, even cunningly.
“You can’t bring the dead to resurrection,” he said, reminding her about the Photos for which he had come, “but to remember them is our duty. Isn’t it so?”
When Elkano went home, Nahumik was lying on the sofa, and Ramona reckoned to herself that she had behaved properly with Elkano. She will become friendly with anybody she would like. No man or woman has the right to criticize her steps and motives… She was feeling the blood pressure in her veins. Why has she suddenly become irritated? Is it embarassment, or hidden fear? Now, in her bed at night, thoughts are sawing her soul. In order to relax for a while, she will stretch her hand and bring from the small chest of drawers – a new Russian novel that she has bought. The cold landscapes described there, are cooling the fire in her soul…
Next morning Ramona woke up later than usual. Her son went to school without waking her. She recalled about Elkano’s visit. It may be interesting what the guy was feeling about her.
‘Maybe he, like me now- is thinking about the moments that we have passed together. Is he trying to understand my sadness and wandering soul, that was looking from my eyes? His young body is attracted by a female like me. And I know, that there is no man who is over thirty – in this small town, that will be fit for me. I know them all: they’re simple people, that I can’t have any smart and intelligent talk with. And very few non-married are there at all: Efry the gardener, or the lame Tishby…In comparison with other men that I know – Elkano is one, though so young- who I could have loved… No, I hesitate to say that…
Elkano thought about her very kindly indeed. If the bad events of her past had not happened, of course she wouldn’t even look at me. But now…Her big disaster has not decreased her beauty and womanish manners. She is keeping her figure, though the skin of her cheeks has lost some softness… She’s about thirty. But what did you want? That she would become seventeen years old again? You don’t have now any girl who will be your sweetheart, and you miss a mother! Your Mom had died in your younghood, of an acute sickness. It has given you strength to appreciate life…and love every passing away moment. This is what you are, Elkano Kaplansky. ‘I haven’t yet seen Ramona in my dream,’ he added to himself. ‘But since the first moment I saw her in the photo, that my pa had shown me, I remembered her. She was coming with her husband to our shop some years ago. My father took a photo of both together, and the background to it was the big picture of a blooming almond tree, set up in our store. I was still a teenager then. Now I’m not so shy. I have to dare Hopefully I may get an interesting experience with this fascinating woman.
CHAPTER 10