Alexandrian Summer
Published in Issue #16 Translated from Hebrew by Yardenne Greenspan(Excerpt from a Novel)
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Siesta in Alexandria. An hour of siesta in the midst of an Alexandrian summer, a Mediterranean summer, a summer of the early 1950s. An hour in which everybody floats above ground, in which every word is uttered as a whisper, so as not to desecrate the serenity of the moment. Only the antique grandfather clock in the darkened hall keeps swinging its pendulum patiently, and every fifteen minutes it erupts in sounds from a faraway world, laden with yearning: doyng-doyng-doyng!
“Finally!” says Robby, who is not among the sleepers.
Meaning, finally, it’s three o’clock. “Kudjoocome! Kudjoocome!” the voice echoes throughout the apartment.
“Kudjoocome”—a mispronunciation of “Could you come?” and in Robby’s family, a sacred ceremony not to be missed, an hour of pure happiness, caressed by the afternoon sun.
They emerge from every corner of the house and convene in the parents’ bedroom, around the wide bed with its rumpled summer comforters. A ceremony of familial privacy. No guest shall dare enter this holy place. Once, Victor Hamdi-Ali tried to sneak into the room, and was immediately pushed out shamefully by Grandma and Robby.
Robby’s father is already sitting on the bed, reclined against an abundance of pillows, leisurely and distractedly flipping through an Émile Zola novel. It’s a 1925 edition, and the pages are already yellowing, their edges crumbling.
Robby’s mother is in the room too, wearing a robe over her nightgown, her straight black hair running along her pure ivory face, tainted only by its rosy cheeks.
Robby puts away his coin collection, inherited from his brothers who migrated to Israel a year ago,...
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