Hotel Malta
Published in Issue #19 Translated from Hebrew by Charles S. Kamen(Excerpt from a Novel)
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Each morning in the spring of 1945, from the day the war ended and the trains began bringing them home, her father awakened in the empty house that was sodden with silence. Only the loud ticking of the valuable Swiss clock which hung on the wall opposite his bed conferred a rhythm to the endless days. This ticking, he thought, and the daily walk to the train station, were the rhythm of his life. After dressing he carefully wound the spring of his Schaffhausen, the wristwatch he’d received as a gift from his wife on his birthday, focusing his gaze on the repetitive motion of thumb and finger, listening attentively for the brief click that signals he’s to stop winding. Then he placed his round eyeglasses on the bridge of his nose and combed his hair impatiently and, alone, in the narrow dining corner of the hushed kitchen, ate a slice of bread spread with goose fat. He sipped murky, tasteless coffee, his expression stern, and thought: perhaps today. If not both of them, perhaps one. One is his wife, Elizabeth; the other is Eva, his daughter, and he rose and gave Dorex a half-filled bowl of milk mixed with water. Dorex lapped the milk quickly, his body tense, his ears and tail erect, until the dish was empty, until the small, empty bowl gleamed. Her father bent down to the dog and fastened the worn leather collar around his neck.
“Maybe I’ll have bones for you soon,” he told him,...
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