The Blue Mountain Read Online Free PDF Page B

earth in such menial jobs as spraying insecticide, thinning corn, hoeing weeds, and picking fruit, the village postman heard the hyena laughing in the fields, lost his mind, bought a black crayon, and appointed himself censor of outgoing mail. The Committee fired him and gave his job and donkey to Busquilla. Busquilla planted Moroccan herbs around the post office, brewed spicy tea that had a maddening aroma, and won general approval by introducing home mail pick-up, thus saving the inhabitants the bother of betaking themselves to the village centre.
       
    I opened the envelope. Since Shulamit’s arrival from Russia, there had been no letters from abroad.
    ‘What’s in it, Baruch?’ asked Busquilla discreetly.
    ‘It’s private,’ I told him.
    He backed off a few steps and leaned against Shulamit’s gravestone, waiting to be asked to translate the letter.
    ‘It’s from some old lady in America,’ he informed me after a glance at it. ‘Her name is Rosa Munkin. She’s from your grandfather’s hometown. She was here many years ago, worked with him in Rishon-le-Tsiyyon and Rehovot, and thought the world of him. Someone wrote to her that you buried him at home, and she wants to be buried here too when she dies, right next to him.’
    He handed me back the envelope. ‘There’s more in it,’ he said.
    Inside was a cheque made out to me for ten thousand dollars.
    ‘This is just the down payment,’ Busquilla said. ‘She’s a very sick woman and won’t live much longer. Her lawyer will bring the rest of the money with her.’
    ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’ I asked, confused. ‘It isn’t even real money.’

    ‘You’ll need help, Baruch,’ said Busquilla softly. ‘We’re talking big money. We’re talking foreigners. We’re talking English. We’re talking lawyers and the Committee and income tax. You’ll never manage it by yourself.’
    With ten thousand dollars, I thought, I could plant the most fabulous trees around Grandfather’s grave, Judas trees, flame trees, white oleanders. I could lay a path of red gravel from Grandfather to Shulamit. I could go looking for my lost uncle Efrayim or pay to have old Zeitser’s stomach complaints taken care of.
    ‘Don’t breathe a word of this to anyone, Baruch,’ said Busquilla. ‘Not a soul. Not even your cousin Uri.’
    That evening Busquilla came to the cabin with a black typewriter and wrote a letter for me in English. Rosa Munkin answered it, and three months later, in the middle of the night, she arrived personally in a shiny coffin, chaperoned by a lawyer with a headful of hair, a slick suit, and a smell of aftershave lotion such as had never perfumed the air of our village before. Vile and elegant, he stood watching me dig the grave.
    ‘Just look at him,’ Busquilla whispered. ‘I know the type. This isn’t the first corpse he’s buried in the middle of the night.’
    The lawyer sat in the dark on Grandfather’s grave, dangled his polished shoes, and chewed on a blade of straw while disgustedly sniffing the odours of the village that came wafting on the warm night air from the cowsheds and chicken coops.
    We lowered Rosa Munkin into the soil of the Valley. The American took a slip of paper and a skullcap from his pocket, recited a brief prayer in an incomprehensible Hebrew, instructed me to make a square concrete base for the headstone, and reached for a black attaché case in the back of his huge estate car. Busquilla counted the banknotes with a quick, moistened finger and made out a receipt.
    A few days later the lawyer returned with a fancy stone of polished pink marble. To this day, among the grey and white stones chiselled out of local rock, Rosa Munkin’s grave resembles a big box of candy.
    I stashed the money away in the cowshed. Zeister was asleepthere, covered by the old army blanket that had been in his possession since the Great War, dead to the world. Then I returned with Busquilla to the cabin, where we sat at