The Blue Mountain(98)

‘Why didn’t you call me?’ I burst out. ‘I would have caught you if you had fallen.’

Pinness smiled sadly. ‘This isn’t a story, Baruch. We’re talking about real life. And besides, you may be as strong as your father, but I weigh more than your mother.’

He steadied himself and remounted the ladder, since it was easier to climb up than down, then lay on the wet concrete of the tower while recovering his wits and his breath.

Half an hour had yet to go by when Pinness, who was ready to try another descent, heard quick hands and merry pants on the ladder rungs. He peered down and saw two dark, agile forms climbing limberly toward him. There was no way out. Feeling ridiculous, he crouched behind the old lookout post and tried to make himself small as the two figures drew closer.

Although he was unable to make out their faces in the dark, he could tell from their movements that they were young, sure of themselves and their bodies. ‘They had the confidence of youth that its limbs would not betray it.’

The two hurriedly threw themselves down on the bed of sacks. From his hiding place, Pinness heard the soft rustle of fabric over skin as clothes were peeled off, followed by whispered moans of pleasure and the long-forgotten squish of moist membranes coming together. The fumes of love given off by the warm bodies condensed in the cold air and trickled into his nostrils. Trapped in the sinful magic of the moment, the old teacher felt a flicker of excitement in the most deadened parts of his body until he saw the handsome head of the young lover rise above the guardrail, a curly silhouette against the dark sky.

The brazen cry now sounded right beside him.

‘I’m screwing Ya’akovi’s wife!’ it rang out.

Pinness cringed like a frightened mole in its burrow, his head pounding so hard from desire and shame that he thought it would burst. Ya’akovi was the village’s successful young Committee head, and Pinness had known his wife since the days when she was his pupil.

‘Ben-Ya’akov’s granddaughter – the same Ben-Ya’akov who was killed in the Arab riots. A bright, lovely girl: I saw her grow into a fine, hardworking young woman right under my eyes! She was always so shy-looking.’

The cry burst in the wind, its syllables drifting down over the village like the white petals of almond blossoms, waking the sleeping women with dreamy smiles. In the silence that descended again on the water tower Pinness heard only the thumping of his own heart and a soft groan of laughter from the nearby throat of Ya’akovi’s wife as she sought to silence her lover by burying his head in her breasts.

They lay there quietly. Slowly the blood in the old man’s legs stopped its mad race. He felt the cold creeping over his body, but there was nothing to do but endure it until the two rose, put on their clothes, and started back down the ladder.

Pinness decided to wait a few more minutes to make sure he didn’t give himself away. Then, gripping the guardrail tightly, he started down just in time to see several men charge out of the dark bushes and hurl themselves on the couple ‘like wild beasts’.

The woman was dragged aside by the hair, while the young man was ‘knocked down, beaten, kicked, and pummelled with fists and work boots’ in the most horrible of silences, as methodically as if by a machine. The only sounds in the cold air were grunts and groans and the thud of blows on the squirming body.

When the men were gone, Pinness climbed down the ladder and went to have a look at the boy’s bloodied face. The minced flesh gleaming like a crushed pomegranate in all shades of scarlet broke the old teacher’s palpitating heart.



‘He was lying face down. When I turned him over gently, he groaned with pain. It was Uri Mirkin. Your cousin Uri.’





            33



To this day I feel guilty for not having been there that night to come to my cousin’s rescue. Hoping to overhear something about Grandfather’s condition in the days before his death, I was outside the village doctor’s house, where the health director of the old folk’s home was giving one of his periodic reports to the physicians of the area.

‘If only I had been there!’ I wept to Pinness. ‘If only I had been there! I would have saved Uri. I would have killed every one of them.’ My hands clenched and opened, the sweat running down my neck.

Pinness told me the whole story after Uri had been made to leave the village. Everyone knew what had happened, but only I heard the old teacher confess that he had been on the water tower that night. When questioned by the Committee members, he had merely said that he was unable to fall asleep, went for a walk, and found my cousin lying senseless by the tower, ‘and started cursing at the top of my voice at those gangsters, those Cossacks, those evildoers’.