And the Rat Laughed - By Nava Semel Page 0,14

lay there all night, but in the morning, by some miracle, he was his old self again.

There was a long line outside the confessional, but still the priest waited for the old woman.

Finally she spoke, asking: What happens to all the sinners for whom no confession has been said, the ones still buried in the dark?

The priest at St Anthony’s in Jaffa asked her to switch places. He himself sat behind the screen as a repentant instead of the woman who was wrought. His head came lower than hers, with its hair which had been whitened by old age, not peroxide.

Yigdal Elohim Chai ve-Yishtabach

The living God O magnify and bless,

Transcending time and here eternally.

One Being, yet unique in unity;

A mystery of Oneness, measureless.

Lo! Form or body He has none, and man

No semblance of His holiness can frame.

The priest repeated after her the Jewish confession, recited before death, and begged for forgiveness.

***

Downstairs, above the old bomb-shelter, the granddaughter had the impression that the old woman had said something more.

Stash.

What’s Stash, Grandma?

The old woman fingered the necklace she was wearing and shouted from upstairs: It was just your imagination.

The granddaughter dismissed it, never mind, it really must be her grandma’s old age, and closed the open notebook she’d been holding.

***

The story has subplots and untold portions, but since the afternoon has lost the final vestiges of daylight and darkness is falling over Tel Aviv, the old woman leaves the untold portions suspended in the twilight. This was the hour when she would, if she could, have chosen to die.

There are stories which, like human beings, have a tendency to spill over. This story too contains so many feelings that every tilt, no matter how delicate the angle, is liable to cause it to overflow.

To make sure it doesn’t spill over, the old woman does everything she can to contain herself. She doesn’t want to be left with nothing, after finally managing to have whatever she has.

***

Should I turn on the light, Grandma?

Not yet.

But it’s dark already.

Almost.

Where are you? I can’t see you. Give me your hand.

I need you, Grandma.

***

Someone ought to intervene and tell the old woman: Hug your granddaughter. Don’t ever forget who she is, so you don’t get confused. In darkness which is darkness, and in light which is also darkness. Born of you. This is the right sequence. And as for the timing, there is no other. Face to face, hug her. Don’t turn your back.

And this too is a possible ending to the story.

Part Two

The Legend

Notebook

40 sheets

60 grams

14.8cm x 20.8cm

Front cover: Angel

Detail from The Sistine Madonna by Raphael

c.1512-1513

Gemäldegalerie, Dresden, Germany

The following day: Tel Aviv, late 1999

I don’t have a story, Miri. I’m so sorry. You can flunk me. I know your intentions were good. And besides, I’m the one who put my hand up in class and said that she’d been there. And I admit it, maybe I was kind of trying to make an impression, and you figured there had to be a story there, but I didn’t find it, and I swear to you I really tried. I deserve a passing grade for doing that much, don’t I? I spent the whole afternoon with her, till evening, and here’s the notebook, you can see for yourself, and I was all prepared to take down her story, just like you said, and maybe, much as I hate to say this because you’re my teacher, maybe there simply is no story.

She won’t even let me call her a “Holocaust survivor”. She said survivors are just the ones who’ve had some miracle happen to them, and my grandmother doesn’t believe in stuff like that. And now I don’t know what to call her. A Little Holocaust, that’s what she said. I swear those were her words, even though for some reason, I really don’t know why, I didn’t actually write them down.

I told her: But you did survive, you stayed alive, and I even stressed the word “alive”, like you told me to, but she answered right away that it wasn’t a miracle, though I suspect she really did expect a miracle back then. And I tried, I swear to you that I tried to get her to start from the beginning so I could get it all down, and I did just what you said to do, because even though you’re our history teacher, I know you’ve studied psychology too, but she just kept mixing things up and getting all confused, even though it isn’t like her to