Milk and Honey
Published in Issue #24 Translated from Hebrew by Yardenne Greenspan subscribe to unlock the full storyThe first thing he got to know was her milky hand: white, slender, soft as velvet. Long fingers topped by clean, pink, virginal fingernails that had never known a day of hard labor in their lives. Sweet fingernails born to be kissed, as if they belonged to a baby. She had a delicate gold ring on her middle finger and a bracelet wrapped around her fragile wrist, from which hung a medallion shaped like a rose. Perhaps a month or two had passed since the hand began reaching out to him in the morning; since a new family moved into house number 18 and the man—meaning, the husband—stepped outside to talk to him. They agreed he’d leave one bottle on the windowsill every day, and that on Fridays the wife would come out to pay their weekly bill.
The men shook on it. She was not part of this conversation, did not speak to him at all, but from the way her hand reached out he knew something about his routine was about to change. He’d been the neighborhood milkman for the past two years, starting in 1961. Two years since the day his father had faltered due to early old age and retired to his bed. Two years since he, his son, was forced to cease his Torah studies to take over the job, lest they lose their Jerusalem neighborhood permit.
Every morning he woke up before dawn, said a quick prayer, and rushed off to get the...
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