A Wall of Light - Edeet Ravel [59]
I could touch them too if I wanted. I’m not afraid because they’re not poisonous. But in the end I don’t.
Our First Year
4 December 1949. The tourists and visitors have been so thick we could start an Eldar branch of ambulatory Brooklyn Jewry. A very difficult problem is handling our guests appropriately. They pop in, stay for a few moments or an hour, and then push off, and in the brief interlude we want to give them some sort of understanding of Eldar. We often feel the futility of the process.
Yesterday I spent a precious two hours showing the place to a young couple from Baltimore. They were, it must be said, very sophisticated and very uninformed.
I tried to answer all their frequently very impolite questions, but it was obvious that they were envisioning everything in terms of certain streets and department stores and factories in Baltimore. “Friends,” I wanted to shout at them, “you are touring a country which has been outside the stream of progressing civilisation for two thousand years, forget Baltimore!”
When they were standing near their 1949 Chrysler, ready to drive off, the young lady remembered a stock question that is asked in exams on Roman history, and sweetly inquired what “form of government” prevails here. This was the last straw. “Democratic anarchy,” I said and went back to digging our new latrine.
Dori
I’m playing cards with Simon on his bed and he’s losing. He looks so sad that I decide to give him the wild card. I put it face down on the bed so he can pick it up. He picks it up and he wins.
Then he starts boasting I won I won! He boasts to everyone.
Now I’m sorry I let him win.
It’s Passover next week. The children Mummy teaches are putting on a play about Moses and Pharaoh. My brother David is going to be a slave.
Diary of a Young Man
25 September 1923. Departure! Today eleven members left at one go.
The unintelligent, as they proudly call themselves. They were constantly fuming, and in private discussions tried to prove that our commune was full of intellectual loafers, deluded dreamers, and that there’s no room here for simple, hale workers with a positive attitude to labour.
Some say it’s good they have left, as they didn’t belong.
The commune lives on. There is a strong desire to overcome all obstacles. The weak will leave and the strong will stay.
1 January 1924. No work. The swamp-clearing was stopped and the stone-clearing has resulted in piles of stones that have no purpose.
We are cold and hungry. There’s no work and no money. The wind rips our tents apart, leaving us exposed to the downpours and the mud. We spend the night at the bakery, where they make bread with flour that gets delivered from Haifa during the night. Homeless and tentless, felled by the wind, everyone comes to the warm bakery to enjoy a pita and a glass of black coffee without sugar. We stay all night. In the morning we put the tents back up.
Still, one by one, members are departing.
But what are these difficulties next to our celebrations? Our faith in the future of our commune has not diminished.
14 January 1924. Today, at the clothing stockpile, I was amazed to see a childcare worker taking underpants and undershirts into the Children’s House. The woman explained that there are not enough diapers and underwear for the children, so they use those of the adults.
Dori
A magazine came in the mail from Mummy’s friend in Canada. It has a booklet inside it with pictures of jewels on a black background. Pages and pages of pearls and rubies and diamonds on gold and on silver.
I don’t know why Mummy’s friend sent us this booklet. We can’t buy any of these things and we also don’t want to buy them because we don’t believe in jewellery.63
I can’t decide if I like the jewellery.