A Local Affair
Published in Issue #9 Translated from Hebrew by Sondra Silverston(Excerpt from a Novel)
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Dinna
He bent over the grapevines. If, from the far end of the garden he heard the small gate creak on its hinges, he didn’t move. Like an animal frozen where it stands in the hope no one will see it or approach it, Dinna thought.
It’s me, she called, waving at him, and her father put down the dripper and slowly turned his thick nape, crimson-brown in contrast to the gray shock of hair. His eyes lingered on her for a moment, then shifted back to the vines. In the first row were the young vines he had planted several years ago, cuttings from the family vineyards in Zichron that the bank had forced him to sell. Dinna asked if they would bear fruit this year and he showed her the grapes, still hard and sulphurized.
Don’t stop talking, keep asking about the vines, Dinna told herself. If she mentioned the meeting with Ibrahim Mahdi now, she didn’t have a chance, her father would ignore it, simply not answer her just as he doesn’t answer most of the questions put to him, so she asked what species the young vines were. Muscat Alexandroni, he replied, and Dinna noted that the mature vines he’d planted here were the same species. They’re what we’ve always grown, he said, and she wondered if those vines were still there on the slopes of the hills east of the village. The present owner of the vineyard had most likely planted the new seedless species in...
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