Silence
Published in Issue #12 Translated from Hebrew by Chaya Galai(Excerpt from a Novel)
subscribe to unlock the full story
Since the day I learned to read and write, I have never written a word of my own. I have merely copied what others have written. When I was a small child, I used to copy out excerpts from books. Then I began copying the manuscripts of the writer who lived in our village, so that he could send them off for publication. I remember the day the writer invited me to his house to copy out his manuscript for him. I was ten or eleven, I don’t recall exactly how old. But I remember the day and the hour. This is the way the writer described them in a paragraph I found in his book “The forbidden village” while I was copying it:
“It was a hot summer day. Afternoon. The air was motionless, swooning in the heat. The little village houses lay, shuttered in on themselves and on the people within who were seeking some refuge from the heat. Silence prevailed everywhere. Not a cow was mooing, not a cock crowing, not a bird was twittering, and even the donkeys had ceased braying. The dogs too were sleeping, routed, in the patches of shade cast by the trees on the soft sand. The gang of children was the sole indication that life was going on here. They were clustered around their leader under the ancient carob tree atop of the limestone hill overlooking the sea, busily plotting some mischief, or perhaps absorbed in some mysterious affair.”
I remember them. Many...
Subscribe now to keep reading
Please enter your email to log in or create a new account.