The Blue Mountain(153)

‘I am not jealous,’ I said, evening out the sides of the grave. ‘And I doubt that your country-boy tricks would get me very far with her.’





When I awoke in the morning he was leaning out of the cabin window in his underwear.

‘Quick,’ he said, ‘get up and take a look. What a sight!’

I got out of bed and looked out at the street. The Weissbergs were on their way from our yard to the synagogue, mother and daughter with coifs on their heads, the cantor in a shiny bright gown and huge skullcap. All had new white canvas shoes on their feet instead of the leather ones that were forbidden on the fast day.

‘Don’t they look athletic,’ grinned Uri. ‘Come on, team!’ he called out to them.

They turned to look at him. His head and shoulders were out of the window, dappled sunlight falling through the casuarina tree onto his bare skin. Weissberg uttered a single syllable. The two gorgeous eyes stared back down at the ground, and the stockinged legs beneath the dress resumed their motion.

‘Come on, let’s eat something,’ said Uri. ‘Make me the Grandfather Special. Just – no colostrum, please.’



After breakfast he announced that he was going to the synagogue.

‘They invited me yesterday,’ he explained.

‘I doubt they’ll be thrilled to see you there after that crack of yours this morning.’

‘It’s not their private synagogue.’ He left the cabin.

A long, boring day stretched out ahead of me. There was no special work to be done in the cemetery. I had no one to ask for forgiveness, and Uri’s behaviour had annoyed me. After doing the dishes I walked around the yard for a while and then climbed the steps to Avraham and Rivka’s house, crouching low as I tiptoed barefoot in the hope that some of the Weissbergs had returned to rest from the long service.

It was quiet. I opened the door and stepped inside, plunging into the unfamiliar smell that had already sunk into the walls. In Uri and Yosi’s room the twins’ clothes were neatly arranged on the backs of chairs. A white sheet had been hung over the bookcase to hide its forbidden books from sight. Two stern-looking suitcases stood in Avraham and Rivka’s room, where the two beds had been moved apart. All the pictures in the living room had been turned around to face the wall. The impenetrable dark blue dress lay quietly folded on the cantor’s daughter’s bed. I knelt and buried my face in the thick weave, six yards of heavy blue fabric, until the horrid screech of a bluejay startled me and I ran back down the stairs and to the village centre.

The street was full of tractors as usual. No one ever made a fuss about the High Holy Days in our village.

‘The hens do not stop laying on Yom Kippur, nor do the cows’ udders go on strike,’ Eliezer Liberson had written in the newsletter years before I was born.

Leaning against the wall of the synagogue, I listened to the supplicatory murmur of the prayer, which was interrupted by the merry shouts of playing children, the sharp whistles of swifts, and the purr of the refrigerator in the dairy.

I peered through the window. Weissberg was rocking back and forth like a huge owl. His wife and daughter were in the women’s gallery along with some other unfamiliar females who were visiting relatives in the village. A few softly giggling girls walked in and out to stare at my cousin, whose handsome looks were enhanced by the embroidered skullcap on his head. The two little Weissbergs sat on either side of him, singing in thin, piercing voices. Uri followed their soft fingers, which led him over the sombre furrows of the prayer-book, helping him past the obstacles of the age-old words.

‘For the sins we have sinned before Thee without knowing. For the sins we have sinned before Thee by our prurience. For the sins we have sinned before Thee by profligacy. For the sins we have sinned before Thee by our foolish utterance. For the sins we have sinned before Thee by our evil urge.’

Weissberg shut his eyes and crooned lamentingly, like Grandfather when he was bitten by the hyena.

‘For all of these, O Lord of Forgiveness, forgive us, excuse us, absolve us.’

The sun dipped towards the blue mountain amid the last clam- our of the youngsters splashing in the nearby swimming pool.

The clear, pleasant voice of the cantor carried through the synagogue windows. ‘Open Thy gate as the gates are shut, for the day has passed, the sun will set and will pass, let us come unto Thy gates.’ And the small congregation joined in. ‘O Lord, we pray you, forgive us, excuse us, pardon us, absolve us, have mercy on us, atone for us, forget our sin and iniquity.’

The air was warm and still. There was not a breath of wind. Clear, round, and unblemished, the words went forth on their great flight.