From Cambridge to Jerusalem
I am eight years old, in my room in my Uncle David’s home. I love peering through the window to the garden below, where apple and pear trees and blackberry bushes grow on either side of a narrow path. My eyes follow this path. I find the path more interesting than the surrounding fruit trees or bushes, for at its end stands a shed, and beyond the shed, lie the railway tracks. The path, the shed, the railway tracks all stretch forth below my window, as steps in a process. In the morning, about 9.00, I wait for a train to rumble past, and enjoy hearing its whistle. I hear it again, at 4.00 in the afternoon. I love to see these trains racing by, a cloud of smoke erupting from their steam engine. I enjoy the soft rattle of the windowpane as if in reply to the train’s heavy clatter.
I have my own chest of drawers, wide and deep. In one of my drawers I keep my stamp album. Uncle David, a professor at the University, receives mail from all over the world. The envelopes, many large brown ones, some regular-sized white ones, are all addressed to Dr. David Diringer. Uncle David shows me how to take the stamps from these envelopes, how to soak them in water, dry them on a towel, sort them into countries and arrange them in the album. Great Britain, he explains, is the only country that doesn’t have its name on its stamps.
In a second drawer, my dolls sleep. I have the twins, Rachel and Devorah, exactly the same but for their dresses: Rachel wears a blue dress, Devorah a green one. I have Shoshana, the giant baby-doll with long, white lacy robe. She came to me from my Aunt Sybil in America, while my Uncle David brought me my other dolls. Rivka, a similar size to Rachel and Devorah, enjoys playing with the twins, and likes to sit with them. Irit, a small doll with rubber hair in a ponytail and a retrousse nose, and Orli are named after my Israeli friends. Orli, a year older than I, is the daughter of Yigael Yadin; when her father visits my Uncle David, Orli and I play together. Of course, all my dolls have Hebrew names – these are the only names I would call my dolls, or my children. At the age of eight, living in Israel and having Hebrew-speaking children is an unclear dream. I cannot know that my dream will become indeed become a reality.
I love my Uncle David’s bright study, its large windows facing the street, its walls filled with books and its huge oak table, also filled with neat stacks of books, letters and other papers. Sometimes, Uncle David gives me a stack of plain paper and a pencil, makes sure I have room at his giant table, and I draw. I love drawing prehistoric monsters – such as you’ll never find in books. I make up my own version of these monsters, with fat legs, long noses and big, sharp teeth.
Even more than my love of Uncle David’s study, with the street lamp beneath the window, is my love of the shed at the end of the garden. Now, this is no ordinary shed. My Uncle David has transformed an old garden shed into a Museum of the Alphabet. Uncle David is a world authority on the origins of writing, and my mother assists him in his work. When I will grow up, I will realize that much of her assistance lies in primary editing of his books, before they reach the publishing house. But for now, all I know about publishing houses is that these are large offices with carpeted floors in London, with long names such as Hutchinson, to which Uncle David takes me when he has meetings there.
I take my dolls to this museum, place them in a row on a bench near the entrance, and give them their daily lessons. We start with the Alef Bet, chanting the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. On the far wall, my Uncle David, with the help of Tony, the graphic artist, has created an Alphabet Tree. On this tree, which stretches from floor to ceiling, there are brown leaves that indicate dead writing systems, such as hieroglyphics and cuneiform, the ancient precursors of alphabets, purple leaves, that indicate non-alphabetic forms of writing, such as Chinese, and green leaves which indicate living alphabets. I listen carefully whenever Uncle David explains the tree to his guests, and then I repeat this information to my pupils. Knowing the history of writing is part of their curriculum.
One day, my Uncle David and my mother bring in a special guest, Father Grech, from Malta.
“You have stamps from Father Grech, ” Uncle David reminds me.
“This is the Pope’s Private Confessor,” my mother tells me.
Uncle David explains the tree, and shows him the large laminated sheets of illuminated manuscripts that are strung on riders on the sides of the walls. To make space for all the material, these riders are four rows thick, and these large laminated sheets slide across to left or right, revealing the one underneath.
“Come on, Ruthie, you can point out the Hebrew letters to Father Grech,” Uncle David calls me over.
I point out the thick Alef, with a gargoyle-like head at its top left corner. I point out the Bet, with lion-like paws. I read out some of the words to him, and go on to explain another of the laminated sheets that Uncle David has not yet explained.
“And that’s Boustravadon – that means ‘oxen plowing the field.’” I love curling my tongue around that long word. I place my finger along the line of writing from left to right, curl my finger around to the right to the line below, like an ox with its plow, and continue on that line from right to left, demonstrating the direction of the second row of writing.
On the opposite wall are graphs depicting the development of Greek and Latin scripts from Ancient Hebrew, through Aramaic Square Hebrew, each a slow outgrowth of the other. I have followed Uncle David’s explanations numerous times and I point out each column to Father Grech. Uncle David looks on and nods his head in approval, but I feel his approval more than consciously notice it.
“Ruthie, Father Grech knows Hebrew. Sing him some Hebrew songs,” my mother urges me.
Only because I have already taken a liking to this tall, slim man who shows great interest in what I have to say, I agree. I sing “Hava Nagila,” and he joins in with me. I sing “Eretz Zavat Halav U’dvash,” and he claps his hands whenever I do in the song.
Neither Father Grech nor I know that we will meet again after almost forty years in my mother’s home when he will visit Jerusalem, and he will remind me of our singing together in Uncle David’s backyard Museum in Cambridge.
My mother, too, has no inkling at this time, that one day she will uproot herself, after her family’s four centuries in England and move to Jerusalem in the wake of her grandchildren.
And my Uncle David? Maybe he alone has an idea that I shall some day leave England for the Land of Israel.
This story first appeared in Poetica, January 2004