Two She-Bears Read Online Free PDF

same Ze’ev Tavori you’re so interested in, was born and grew up. He put it in the wall so it would be seen from both sides. By us on the inside, so we would always know and feel who we were and where we came from. And by other people from the outside, so they would all know and remember whom they were dealing with.
    Varda: It’s a little scary.
    Ruta: Yes. He was pretty scary too.
    Varda: I was told he had a patch on his eye, like a pirate.
    Ruta: That’s right.
    Varda: How did he lose his eye?
    Ruta: It happened long before I was born and was less heroic than he would have wanted. No big deal, he chased after thieves in the orchard, galloping on the horse, and a branch from a tree hit him in the eye.
    Varda: That’s terrible.
    Ruta: We got used to it. To the black eye patch on his face, and also to his black stone in the wall, and also to him in general. That stone, by the way, was sent to him by his parents and delivered by his older brother, Dov. One day he showed up here, driving a cart drawn by a magnificent ox, that’s how the story always went, magnificent, no less, and besides this stone he also brought—pay attention—a rifle, a cow, a tree, and a woman. That’s what his parents sent him from the Galilee, because in those days people thought and said that was what a man needed to start out. I see you are beginning to take notes, so write them down in the order I told you: rifle, cow, tree, and woman. This is important. You have no idea how many times I heard that story, and always in that order. Why not tree, woman, rifle, and cow? Or woman, cow, tree, and rifle? It’s logical to think that this is about priorities, which are important and relevant to your research, but it’s also a narrative decision. Every series like that creates a different music and also a different plot. In our plot the rifle is first and the woman last, and Grandma Ruth actually said that the rifle was not only the hero of this plot, it was also the one who wrote it. Who knew better than she did, having arrived in that oxcart. She was the woman who was last on the list, and in that same cart was this basalt stone.
    So the rifle, we were talking about the rifle. I was old enough to see Grandpa Ze’ev shooting it. Not at people but at jaybirds. He couldn’t stand that bird; I have no idea why. Once, years ago, the whole family took the rifle for target practice in the hills, and my first husband, who was a great marksman, praised the two old guys—Grandpa and his Mauser. But he has an even longer past. The rifle, I mean. It surely killed a few people in the First World War and maybe also in the Arab riots and for sure in the War of Independence and who knows when else. I once wrote a story about it, but I only show my stories to the family, and not all of them even to them.
    Varda: People didn’t tell me that you write.
    Ruta: That’s because not everyone knows. I write because there are stories that are better to write than to tell, because it’s unpleasant to feel their words in the mouth. Instead of being like scorpions and centipedes on the tongue, better they should crawl on the paper and drip their venom there. There’s another reason for writing—for a long time I didn’t really have anyone to talk to. For that reason, by the way, I haven’t shut up since you walked in. But the truth is I started with children’s stories. When my son, Neta, was two years old, he was always asking me to read him books and stories. I quickly discovered that I was editing and improving them while reading and therefore realized that I could write just as well as the geniuses who wrote them, and I began to write for him myself. I wrote him a story about the magnificent ox that belonged to my grandfather and about his mulberry tree, and I wrote him a story about the caveman and the fire and about a boy who liked to wear costumes, like he did, and wanted to masquerade as the Angel of Death. And later on I also wrote for myself, all sorts