Rhyming Life and Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

doesn’t indicate, and after all the biblical prophets too, etc., and also earlier modern writers like Bialik or Brenner, Uri Tsvi Greenberg or S. Yizhar, etc., etc.
    The Author generously allows the boy with the pebble lenses, Yuval Dahan or Dotan, to send him some of his poems. Send them, yes do, but please be patient and don’t expect a reply in a day or two, you must understand that loads of people send me their stuff and ask my opinion of it, but sadly my time, etc., etc.
    Then with a wink he shakes hands firmly with Yakir Bar-Orian Zhitomirski, the expert on literature, he thanks Yerucham Shdemati, the cultural administrator, who thanks him in turn for agreeing to come and speak, No thanks, there’s really no need to call a taxi, I’m staying nearby tonight, I’d rather walk back, it’ll refresh me, maybe a sea breeze has started to blow and it may get cooler soon?
    *
    Outside on the stairs the Author lights a cigarette and devotes his attention to Rochele Reznik. He thanks her warmly, and praises the sensitivity of her reading and her pleasant voice. She, for her part, gives an embarrassed smile, as if instead of being complimented she has been unfairly reprimanded, and in a choked voice she thanks him for his kind words: it is not she who deserves the praise, but the book she has read from.
    When the Author stands aside to let her pass she murmurs repeatedly, It’s nothing, thank you, really, it’s nothing. Then, as though she has offended him, she says sadly, No thank you, I don’t smoke, I’m sorry, thank you anyway, no really. And she holds the book she has read from in front of her like a breastplate, wrapped in brown paper kept in place by two rubber bands.
    You know, the Author says, the truth is that I would have been very happy if instead of all the talking this evening they had just let you read, I mean if the whole evening had just been a reading, instead of all the nitpicking, the exposition and analysis, and even my own wisecracks at the end. You really read my words from the inside, as though you were insidethe book and not just holding it open in front of you. When you read, the book itself begins to speak.
    Don’t mention it, Rochele Reznik mumbles, it’s nothing, thank you, really, it’s nothing. Then it suddenly dawns on her that that was not the right way to reply, and she apologises in a voice close to tears.
    At this moment the light on the staircase goes out, and the Author tries to hold her arm to steady her, while feeling with his other hand for the light button, but in the darkness his fingers alight for a moment on the warmth of her breast, before encountering the banister. Meanwhile someone on another floor has turned the light on. The Author apologises and Rochele Reznik, somewhat surprised, replies in a tremulous voice, Don’t mention it, it’s nothing, thank you, really, thank you very much. I’m sorry if I’m a bit emotional. The Author continues: Besides which, your voice really sounds to me so much like the inner voice of the character as I heard it while I was writing.
    Rochele Reznik receives this in silence, her lips trembling. Eventually she says, with downcast eyes, that she has to admit she was very nervous beforethis evening, she was frankly terrified, after all, reading extracts from an author’s work in his presence is a bit like playing Schubert when Schubert is sitting in the hall.
    *
    The Author offers to walk Rochele Reznik home: he feels like taking a stroll anyway, and breathing the night air, and they could chat on the way or maybe sit down somewhere and have a hot or cold drink. Or even something stronger?
    Now she is thrown completely off balance, she blushes from her ears to her neck, as if her dress has suddenly come unzipped, she apologises, confused, unfortunately there’s really nowhere to walk her, because she happens to live right here, opposite the community centre, just up there, under