A Tale of Love and Darkness - Amos Oz [26]
We turned right into Kore Hadorot Street as far as the pine wood, then left, and there we were outside Uncle's house. Mother would say: It's only ten to four, they may still be resting. Why don't we sit down quietly on the bench in the garden and wait for a few minutes? Or else: We're a little late today, it's a quarter past four, the samovar must be bubbling away and Aunt Zippora will have put the fruit out.
Two Washingtonias stood like sentries on either side of the gate, and beyond them was a paved path flanked on either side by a thuja hedge that led from the gate to the wide steps, up which we went to the front porch and the door, above which was engraved on a fine brass plate Uncle Joseph's motto:
JUDAISM AND HUMANISM
On the door itself was a smaller, shinier copper plate on which was engraved both in Hebrew and Roman letters:
PROFESSOR DR. JOSEPH KLAUSNER
And underneath, in Aunt Zippora's rounded handwriting, on a small card fixed with a thumbtack, was written:
Please refrain from calling between two and four o'clock. Thank you.
8
ALREADY IN the entrance hall I was seized by respectful awe, as though even my heart had been asked to remove its shoes and walk in stockinged feet, on tiptoe, breathing politely with mouth closed, as was fitting.
In this entrance hall, apart from a brown wooden hat tree with curling branches that stood near the front door, a small wall mirror, and a dark woven rug, there was not an inch of space that was not covered with rows of books: shelves upon shelves rose from the floor to the high ceiling, full of books in languages whose alphabets I could not identify, books standing up and other books lying down on top of them; plump, resplendent foreign books stretching themselves comfortably, and other wretched books that peered at you from cramped and crowded conditions, lying like illegal immigrants crowded on bunks aboard ship. Heavy, respectable books in gold-tooled leather bindings, and thin books bound in flimsy paper, splendid portly gentlemen and ragged, shabby beggars, and all around and among and behind them was a sweaty mass of booklets, leaflets, pamphlets, offprints, periodicals, journals, and magazines, that noisy crowd that always congregates around any public square or marketplace.
A single window in this entrance hall looked out, through iron bars reminiscent of a hermit's cell, at the melancholy foliage of the garden. Aunt Zippora received us here, as she received all her guests. She was a pleasant elderly woman, bright of face and broad of beam, in a gray dress with a black shawl around her shoulders, very Russian, with her white hair pulled back and arranged in a small, neat bun, her two cheeks proffered in turn for a kiss, her kindly round face smiling at you in welcome. She was always the first to ask how you were, and usually didn't wait for your answer but launched straight into news of our dear Joseph, who hadn't slept a wink again all night, or whose stomach was back to normal again after protracted problems, or who had just had a wonderful letter from a very famous professor in Pennsylvania, or whose gallstones were tormenting him again, or who had to finish an important long article by tomorrow for Ravidovitch's Metsuda, or who had decided to ignore yet another insult from Eisig Silberschlag, or who had finally decided to deliver a crushing response to the abuse issuing from one of those leaders of the Brit Shalom gang.
After this news bulletin Aunt Zippora would smile sweetly and lead us into the presence of the uncle himself.
"Joseph is waiting for you in his drawing room," she would announce with a peal of laughter, or "Joseph is in the living room already, with Mr. Krupnik and the Netanyahus and Mr. Jonitchman and the Schochtmans, and there are some more honored guests on their way." And sometimes she said: "He's been cooped up in his study since six o'clock this morning, I've even had