Two She-Bears Read Online Free PDF Page B

of stories about our family, which are also in a certain sense about a magnificent ox and the Angel of Death and the caveman.
    True stories?
    Of course they’re true. If I don’t show them to anyone, then who is there for me to hide the truth from? From myself? In any case, you are a historian and I am a Bible teacher, so we don’t need to be told that the truth isn’t true, and we of all people know that over time only what is written becomes true, and what is spoken doesn’t.
    Once I showed a story like this to my older brother, his name is Dovik, and he got upset: “Why write those stories about us? You forgot what Grandpa Ze’ev told us. There are certain matters that should not be talked about. Certainly not written.”
    I said to him, “I’m not telling anyone, and I’m writing because words look different from the way they sound.” And I also told him something I read somewhere, that Tolstoy and his wife would talk by writing, exchanging sentences in a notebook they had at home, left open on a table. I told him this and said that it filled me with envy: whole conversations in writing. What courage, what intimacy, not to mention the theatrics! But later I understood: maybe there are couples who speak in writing because on paper they don’t have to see the other one’s face, and they don’t hear the shouting. Written words may be more binding, but they are also quieter. And in my case, it’s true that I never corresponded that way with my husband, not the first one or the second one. But there are stories that I tell and there are stories that I write, and stories that I show and stories that I don’t, and they are very different.
    Dovik, as you surely figured out, was named for Uncle Dov, the older brother of Grandpa Ze’ev, the one who brought him the wagon with the rifle, the cow, the tree, and the woman. Dov was killed in the War of Independence, he stepped on a land mine, he was one of the oldest fighters and casualties of 1948, and Dovik was named for him. Grandpa Ze’ev also fought in the War of Independence, but he wasn’t killed or wounded. He died at the age of ninety-two a few years ago during a hike in the Carmel mountain range. And they had another brother, called Arieh, who died in a nursing home. Have you paid attention to their names? You should write them down, because it’s relevant to your research: their father gave his three sons the names of predatory animals. “We’re done with all the Yankels and Shmerels and Mottels,” he said. “From now on we’ll have bears and wolves and lions.”

FOUR
    Varda: Forgive me for interrupting, but I ask you to return to the topic if you can, and if possible to conduct the conversation in a more focused manner.
    Ruta: Focused? It seems you’ve really come to the wrong person. You can focus your questions all you like, but I will answer the way I want to answer. That’s how it is. The history of settling the Land of Israel, with all due respect, is not only committees and disputes and values and the status of women and the attitude toward Arabs and Ben-Gurion. First and foremost, it’s about stories—the loves and hates and the births and deaths and the acts of revenge—and about families, father and mother and brother and sister and bridegroom and bride and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and not in a golden chain but in a wagon made of wood, with a rifle and a cow and a tree and a woman; that’s what made history everywhere and that’s what made it here.
    Varda: You seem to leave me no choice.
    Ruta: You came to me, not I to you.
    Varda: If I remember right, you said I could record you.
    Ruta: Free, on the house. Record away, and I’m sorry about my tone of voice, and I promise to try and stick more to the topic. You know what? I’ll even start with personal details, to get into a practical mood. ID card, please. Here. First name, family name, identification number, you see? I introduced myself as Ruta, but my name on my ID