Read Rhyming Life and Death for Free Online Page A

Schuldenfrei. Bumek. We just called him Uncle Bumek. Once my mother replaced the actress who always read for him, because she had sinusitis, so my mother read at an evening in honour of Uncle Bumek in Kiryat Chayim. And even that night, although I wasn’t a little girl any more, I was already in the army by then, he pinched my cheeks limply every five minutes, and once he pinched me somewhere else too. He was vaguely related to us – I’m not sure exactly how. He wasn’t a real uncle, maybe he was an uncle of one of my parents’ in-laws. Or their great-uncle, perhaps. At family gatherings when I was little they used to say to me, look over there, you see that man shaking hands and smiling left and right, the one who looks like an overgrown podgy baby, that’s our Uncle Bumek, who’s also the famous poet Tsefania Beit-Halachmi.
    And to a question from the Author she replies: I don’t know. I’m not sure. I haven’t heard anything about him for ages. It’s possible he’s still alive. But I may be wrong, no, he can’t be, becauseif he were still alive he’d have to be about a hundred.
    *
    Giving her a sidelong glance, the Author notices that her front teeth are slightly protruding and rather widely spaced, like a squirrel whose attention is fixed on something but whose fur is already rippling with fear: any moment now she will run off to her rooftop room and her jealous cat.
    Casually, lightly, he puts his arm round her waist, as though here too there are stairs she may trip and fall on, Come on, don’t be frightened, Rochele. Shall we take a peep into the yard at the back? Maybe that little back room still exists. Maybe there’s a window, let’s take a look and see what’s still there, if anything? Clumsily she pulls herself free of his embrace, and at once, as though regretting this, she says boldly, Yes, I’ll come, show me.
    But in the backyard lit faintly by yellowish light from kitchens there is only broken furniture, an abandoned pram, some cardboard boxes, smells of cooking and rubbish, twisted blinds, the sound of flushing cisterns, shrieks and laughter blaring fromTVs, groaning air-conditioning units and the scampering of a startled cat.
    The Author mutters a few confused sentences about the fog of passing time and the maze of memory, while absent-mindedly stroking her hair, down to the base of her plait, then takes her by the shoulders and draws her gently towards him. But his new book, wrapped in brown paper secured by two rubber bands, separates him from her flat chest like a shield. Suddenly, in a high, girlish, quivering voice, like a baby bird’s, so different from the warm voice she read in earlier, she says: I’m a little scared.
    At once he lets go of her, he remembers that she is not that young and that she’s not really attractive, what’s got into him all of a sudden, he mumbles an apology, lights another cigarette and walks her back to her home opposite the cultural centre. On the way he tries to make amends for what almost didn’t happen by telling her amusing stories, one after another. Like the story of the woman who rang his doorbell one day. She was a short woman with broad shoulders, wearing heavy glasses and a green-and-white-striped trouser suit. She was clutching, almost violently, the arm of a child of about nine who kepttrying to break free from her grasp. Excuse me for ringing your bell like this, sir, and disturbing you, the fact is we don’t really know each other – that is, everyone knows you of course, but not us, come on, Sagiv, say hallo nicely to the famous writer. We really don’t want to disturb you, it won’t take a moment, I’m a professional dietician, and many years ago I managed to speak to the famous poet Mrs Lea Goldberg at the grocer’s, but Sagiv here has never seen a real live writer. It’s very important for him to see a writer, because one day