And we, of course, are with Aaron. This is the small contribution that his family can make, and it goes without saying that we’ll give him all the conditions he needs for his work. If Aaron decides afterward to mention that he began writing the book here with us in Jerusalem, fine, we’re not hiding and we’ve got nothing to hide. A family has to be prepared to stand together even when there’s a huge scandal, and we’re not going to ask Uncle Aaron to hide anything either.
The excited anticipation improved my mother’s health to no end. People quite often used to say to me “You have a beautiful mother”—and when I was very small I thought so too. By the time I was in grade school she already seemed to me embarrassingly affected—but shortly before Aaron’s arrival I remember hearing such admiring remarks again. And I also remember my father saying: “Did you see how beautiful your mother looks today?”
The excitement took her almost every morning into the dining room, away from the account books, and from keeping account of expenses altogether. New glasses were purchased, both for cold drinks and for tea. And somehow she managed to persuade Jamilla to polish the ornamental samovar on the counter. In the evenings I know that she lingered to chat to the guests, smoking a slender cigarette, only one—she was permitted one little indulgence, who could deny her, life was short anyway—tapping off the ash with a finger freshly tipped with scarlet, gracefully inclining her chin, and waiting for another opportunity to insert Uncle Aaron into the conversation.
What was this special angle on history about which the professor was writing? To this Erica had no reply, and from the sly expression on her face it was hard to tell if she didn’t know the answer or if she had promised to keep the secret. Only the subject may perhaps be revealed, revealed but not elaborated on: Aaron had taken it upon himself to write about Hitler. Yes, Hitler. Imagine the strength of mind required to tackle such a subject. A historian, and moreover a Jew, and with Aaron’s personal background too, where did he get the courage? You’ll agree, said my mother, that his strength of mind must be tremendous.
He arrived in December and extended his stay beyond what my parents had dared to hope, but more than three weeks passed before I saw him. It was morning, and I was standing in the little kitchen cutting up vegetables: cucumbers and tomatoes for a salad. Breakfast was served to the guests at seven o’clock. It wasn’t yet seven, and he was already sitting in the dining room.
My father had gone out early to do some chores or other. My mother promised that she would finish getting dressed in a minute and come down to help me. Elisheva complained of stomachache, and I drew the curtains in our room and left her to rest in bed.
I stood and sliced vegetables; the tomatoes were a problem. My father was in the habit of buying crates of cheap vegetables, and the vegetables he bought were often too ripe or not ripe enough. Green tomatoes were easier to bury in a salad than those close to rotting, and that morning, I remember, the slices of tomato drowned in the juices on the board.
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The tomato. From the point of view of its botanical classification a fruit, and not a vegetable: a flower-bearing dicotyledon, perennial plant of the family Solanaceae, native to tropical America. Thought to have been cultivated already in ancient Peru, but considered poisonous by Europeans who encountered it.
I have a lot more to say on the subject of tomatoes. I even know a song written in their honor, with a refrain which goes: Tomato, tomato / sing high, sing low / the song of the tomato / oh, the song of the tomato.”
I am prepared to sing the song of the tomato. It needs to be sung from the depths of the chest, taking a lot of air. I am also prepared to provide information on the nutritional value of this vegetable-fruit, which would no doubt be of interest to the reader and contribute to the public health.
I’m ready to do a lot of things—to sing, to investigate, to lecture, but apparently I am not yet ready to introduce the serpent. I knew that I would have to prepare myself for his introduction, and now that the time has come, I am not prepared.
Because what I am supposed to say about him—what? And how am I supposed to do it? Should I focus on his body and describe his appearance, so that he’ll come across as a “real person?” Should I mention, to make it more authentic, the cartilage of his gigantic ears? Let’s say this: he was very tall, his long legs were stretched out in front of him, feet clad in moccasins, his one ankle rested on the lower calf of the other leg. He was tall and quite broad-shouldered, and although I thought of him as old, he looked a little like a movie star or some important politician. Not somebody in particular, but somebody. A persona. A persona on vacation, in a jacket with leather elbow patches.
Is that enough? For me it’s definitely enough, and even if it isn’t enough, how the hell am I supposed to remember exactly how he looked to me then, when all my memories are colored by what happened afterward? Am I supposed to fabricate a description of Satan in order to convince you that he exists?
He came. He was there, he sat there in the dining room—all these are facts. And I wondered in my embarrassment whether to wait for my mother or to go up to him and introduce myself, or not to introduce myself and simply to ask in a professional manner if he wanted tea or coffee. In any case the water hadn’t boiled yet.
Is that important? What’s important?
It’s important that he stayed with us for almost six months, and that during this time he raped my sister consistently.
It’s important that after he got her pregnant, he arranged for her to have an abortion and, immediately afterward, when she was still bleeding, he raped her again. He was turned on by the blood. And by her pain. Do I have to go into detail about that too? And why, exactly? In order to justify myself and what I did years later? In order to justify myself do I have to paint a close-up picture of my sister with a tear trickling down her round baby face? Or perhaps I should paint her holding a teddy bear, like in the pictures they publish in the papers to illustrate a story about child abuse? Elisheva didn’t have a teddy bear. She collected make-up and little scent bottles, empty ones too, and she’d left her toys behind her a long time ago.
She actually had chubby cheeks, but at the time in question she suffered from adolescent pimples, which my mother forbade her to squeeze. She never had a lot of pimples, only a few, but for people like Alice it only takes a hint of that yellow pus to spoil the whole picture.
This story can be briefly told, the facts can be summed up as follows: he raped her consistently, but two years passed before she broke down. It happened when she was already in boot camp, and more time passed before she spoke about it, first to her psychologist in the mental hospital, and afterward to us. But up till then her weight gain and all the other symptoms of depression were attributed to her difficulties in school and her fear of the few matriculation exams that she sat for. We found this explanation convenient, and even when the psychologist invited my parents to come in for a joint session, they refused to believe it, at first anyway: my sister was crazy, and crazy people invent all kinds of things. To the important psychologist they said nothing, of course, they only made shocked noises, but I understood that they didn’t believe it and I was the one who had to make them believe.
That’s it, that’s the whole story. Except that after I made them believe it, my mother took off with Digoxin, my father got on a plane to Italy, and I stayed with my sister until I couldn’t stay with her another minute. And that’s really everything.
Really everything?
When my mother came into the dining room, perfectly made up, she introduced me to my uncle immediately: “You haven’t yet met our clever Elinor.”
“Elinor and Elisheva,” he said in his strange accent. “Two daughters. Eli and Eli.” And
