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Tikkun Chutzot

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Page 1: Tikkun Chutzot
Page 2: Tikkun Chutzot

TIKKUN

CHUTZOT

Copyright © 2010 by Iliya Ansky

[email protected]

Page 3: Tikkun Chutzot

Table of Contents

Shtreimels aren’t Furry Cakes .................................................................................................................. 6

SH ................................................................................................................................................................. 7

Step Up ........................................................................................................................................................ 8

Scaffolds ...................................................................................................................................................... 9

Guidebook Footnote ................................................................................................................................ 10

Gilad Shalit ................................................................................................................................................ 11

Ashqelon.................................................................................................................................................... 12

Fieldtrip ..................................................................................................................................................... 13

Panacea ...................................................................................................................................................... 14

Corner ........................................................................................................................................................ 15

Yom Kippur .............................................................................................................................................. 16

Before the Sea ............................................................................................................................................ 18

Bomberman ............................................................................................................................................... 19

After Hearing About the Explosion ...................................................................................................... 21

J. .................................................................................................................................................................. 23

Kfar Qara ................................................................................................................................................... 24

Swimming ................................................................................................................................................. 26

Rite of Return ............................................................................................................................................ 27

Communion .............................................................................................................................................. 28

Dilemma .................................................................................................................................................... 29

Golgotha Walk .......................................................................................................................................... 30

Click-Clackers ........................................................................................................................................... 31

A thing in Common ................................................................................................................................. 32

Khamsin..................................................................................................................................................... 33

The Principal ............................................................................................................................................. 35

Shoelaces ................................................................................................................................................... 36

Antwerp..................................................................................................................................................... 37

LAB I .......................................................................................................................................................... 38

13 ................................................................................................................................................................ 40

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Construction on Ein Rogel Street ........................................................................................................... 41

The Rabbi’s Counsel ................................................................................................................................ 42

Orchard ...................................................................................................................................................... 43

10.30pm, damascus .................................................................................................................................. 43

let-in ........................................................................................................................................................... 45

Prophets ..................................................................................................................................................... 46

Grandpa in Jaffa ....................................................................................................................................... 47

Reception & Sorting ................................................................................................................................. 48

Shlomo’s Sand .......................................................................................................................................... 49

Sasha .......................................................................................................................................................... 50

Megillah Fragment ................................................................................................................................... 51

Reef ............................................................................................................................................................. 52

aryan excursions ....................................................................................................................................... 53

Dreydlekh .................................................................................................................................................. 54

Monologue ................................................................................................................................................ 55

Lifeguards ................................................................................................................................................. 56

T- ................................................................................................................................................................. 57

Shift: Square I ............................................................................................................................................ 59

Shift: Square II .......................................................................................................................................... 60

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“Have you ever experienced the perfect day? You're now thinking of what it would take to give yourself

that perfect day. To me, that day would be one six months from now where we're enjoying that day

together and you look back and think about this moment being when all this started.” – Basic NLP

“And obscure as that heaven of the Jews” – Hart Crane

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Shtreimels aren’t Furry Cakes1

When I was in the habit of carelessly fictionalizing that which was around me, I could find a clear image of sheer uncertainty, never quite coming of age – the image of our neighbor’s face, the face of a widowed wife, for one, in the strictly orthodox part of town: charcoal mascara beyond the pale next to a salt-and-pepper policeman overplaying his part in an early procedure; the unexpected hour to say Kaddish2; and the ringed fat palms dangling out from the stretcher’s blanket with porcine fingers of ghostful inspiration. Among the rest of the tenants, hearsay dwelt in the department of mariticide, and for a good reason too. She strangled him before dawn. He was snoring, and she had a bad dream. Snoring worse than a hog that she dreamt of snuggling up to her under the nuptial tracery of her mother. Not a good thing to wake up to, given the circumstances. So she did it.

1 Shtreimel is a traditional fur hat worn by many Orthodox Jews.

2 A type of prayer, often recited during burial and mourning.

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SH

Moses Some say black Had over a gram left On him from The burning bush Didn't get A visa Let alone Dual citizenship Couldn't go back

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Step Up

Jerusalem a primitive answer in ruins to Cape Canaveral too many launch pads for saints and not only stick a command line on a piece of paper in cursive between what grows on the wall of control

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Scaffolds

My hours are naked in heat,

the Arab worker, with his lofi

violins wailing hesitantly

from a dusty boombox

& due hammering,

has been

rising for the past

few days to my window.

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Guidebook Footnote

Not many wish to lament adventurism by self- discovering that you might as well spread a picnic blanket in Gehenna3 without a metaphor, and that hermetic goggles are not required to go Dead-Sea dipping for a piece of Sodom on your mind.

3 Valley of (the Son of) Hinnom – erstwhile Canaanite sacrificial grounds (of children), to Ba’al and Moloch. Now a

green picnic site near the Old City , in Jerusalem.

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Gilad Shalit4

the tenants fight for the right to have balconies with each other and a loudspeaker on a pickup truck rallies everyone to watermelons yesterday was a clawfoot sofa

4 Israeli soldier, kidnapped by Hamas militants.

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Ashqelon5

Friday we went to visit grandma & grandpa with a rumour of a fallen rocket still in the evening air somewhere it’s hard to think of where they live differently than seeing a retirement home by the dozy prattle of sundown on the benches at the entrance even though it isn’t exactly a retirement home we constantly find ourselves having 2 elevators to choose from both big enough to fit a gurney dad sighs with fingers in my hair fixing it as we’re at the door already looking forward to the usual with cheesecake and tea

5 A coastal city in the south of Israel, about 13km north of Gaza.

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Fieldtrip

3 scarecrows. The habitual

type, not very

talkative,

where it’s arid.

3 coordinates of lassitude.

What are they

up against, if not

a movable recollection?

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Panacea

At the allergy clinic, I had A B C D

penned on my wrists to see how

reactionary I am.

There was no disclosure

of components, and I had 20

quiet minutes to itch in the hallway

before the nurse could give my arms

a conclusive jerk.

It was early

and I communed with stickmen

charted on the wall to escape disaster in case

of an emergency. My thoughts

were with tourettes and pillboxes,

meditating on an umlaut.

Youth is in the slogans

and there is no waste

for poetry.

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Corner

In childhood I was advised Not to sleep With my head In the corner The cat sleeps there Mum said But we never had A cat So I slept With my feet In the corner Where walls Keep tryst

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Yom Kippur6

Not that it was Hot as usual but quite Hot as one would expect it To be where things wouldn’t Stay out for too long where Everybody took To the streets strolling Rollerskating riding bicycles Where I had one too 10 gears of unmistakable exhilaration Up and down macadam slopes Empty of vehicles I had no intention of going Too fast but I zapped past Parking lot and schoolyard Fences melting into a single blur Under the sun of high Noon above tree tops I remember a T in the road Still far ahead with nothing On the left nor on the right As I was going downhill Something impressed me At the time when I didn’t Need to be impressed A speck in the omniscient Glare of day or its audible counterpart

6 Also known as the Day of Atonement, a holy 24-hour period of fasting and prayer. Usually there are only a few to

no cars passing in the streets on that day.

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I daresay it had Ordinary handlebars like mine Extending into a silly outline Holding them for a brief instant Before the scathing branches of the bush Where I found myself Dusty with no sign But a crankset And training wheels And that was it

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Before the Sea

In the evening at the Marina The reluctant breeze beats Against a signpost With metronomic subterfuge The horny sound of a car Approaching at a curved angle And the faucetless water pump Staring hunchbacked at the dunes A parent van picks up a surfer Son from the side of the road The naked foot of the latter Sinewously tense under The door of the passenger seat at twilight Before the sea

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Bomberman7

Seventeen years ago Bomberman much like Pacman Runs on the small TV screen Looking like a tiny ninja with a white Ski mask and light-blue overalls Made out of pixels in low-resolution He runs around a stony maze of gray Brick walls and reinforced concrete Where he is pursued by totem-looking Enemies (some of whom happen To be ghosts) and where he lays his cartoonish Black bombs that throb like hearts prior to Detonation to set himself free from The above that make funny low-res Pixel faces when they Go kaboom and instantly disappear My thumbs on the joypad already start To ache but there are only 2 more levels To go yet Bomberman can only Go vertically or horizontally and never Both ways all at once Elated and pensive that the game has Come to an end and that it’s time for me to Hit the books and learn a few things By heart for tomorrow’s quiz I remove The game’s cartridge as the TV goes black And stays like that until I run A channel-scan to get a signal

7 A famous video game.

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The reporter stands crowded by haphazard Bystanders paramedics wearing Yarmulkes and police-officers that huddle Around empty gurneys and stretchers Carrying them in and out of ambulances Some of the eyes that catch sight Of the camera are vacant as well but you Also don’t get to see what happened Only the faces the hearsay that constitute the after Is what you get and you don’t have to Believe them if you don’t want to Because you haven’t really seen the kaboom Just the blackened hull of another bus Already picked clean for the scrap yard

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After Hearing About the Explosion Gall breaks onto his heart and he sweats out God. Getting presents every year has got to be friendship’s sharpest acumen. But the knowledge of the old French bard who knew how to give himself to others in parts is lost. There is madness for sale in this town. On the bus, the sun filigrees her sleep through the dirty window. The flea market seller disarms fate for me because I recognize a passage from Invisible Cities in the seller’s collage work. Looking around, she asks me if I have found any of the cities here. The world would stop for lack of lies. Would not persist in breaking as a wave breaks sibilantly on a rock. A sunset rests on the old city’s mullions; the skyline is yet to be lit by dyslexic company logos. One-off, unknowingly specializing in disappearance. The sunset is on me, she says with Doric columns and a cup of hot chocolate in the dark of her glasses.

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Alalia8

I can already spot barbed wire And other barriers Flickering hazily in her brown eyes Language remains one of them I juggle invisible voluptuousness Flinging arms about neutral semantemes In the hot air of evening To a mosquito violin Backwaters tremolo Keeping the image of her forefathers Fornicating in clay I don’t know her It hasn’t come to that Her sentences, once written are Springs coiling out of an old mattress I barely hear them in the streets Limestone and hawking and heckling On the curb Your words make my tongue Grow hair Alalia

8 A complete inability to speak.

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J.

That night He had the total absence Of a silvery gleam behind his back Yet he had the unmistakable need To embrace and nuzzle up You couldn’t tell if it was a greeting Or a goodbye That he had on his mind He just seemed to be happy Being of service Soft-spoken He lacked coarseness But had some strong opinions Which he did seldom communicate Curtly and confidently Baying them loud and clear Yet he remained loyal That night His master couldn’t see it coming He couldn’t see And he, himself Leading the other Was black as coal in the night On that gravel road By the olive groves It just happened too quickly His own keen senses failed Both of them

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Kfar Qara

It almost felt like a school trip Kfar Qara (כפר קרע) Was the full name in Hebrew In Arabic it meant “Pumpkin Village” (كفر قرع )

But we didn’t know it at the time Cuz we knew fuck-all Arabic Or at least I didn’t Except for “Salam” And how to count to 5 Or “Hamsa” We were 18 with M-16s Scared, lanky, wide, confused and Prematurely tired On a boot-camp exercise In the middle of nowhere Somewhere up north Yes, and I had heard of the name before But couldn’t connect the dots On the map, until it occurred to me That a family friend Doing his reserve service Some 10 to 12 years ago Once said that he had avoided Getting axed there cuz he was on sick leave And that the rest of his tent-mates Were dead It occurred to me on our first night At some pitch-black hour, out of a cold & Drab-olive tent for 2 That I had left my clip behind So I went down on my knees And fumbled for it in my sleeping bag like a mole Accidentally nudging my ginger tent-mate Who couldn’t keep still on the soggy ground Before our watch

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But I was out already Feeling my way in the dark again with a Perforated muzzle that caught turf and pebbles On its obscure path around the camp It had to be dismantled and cleaned in the morning I think I also bumped into a big jerrican And heard the water spill and spill As I went on, clockwise While my tent-mate went the other way around It made perfect sense back then in the night Why we should be doing everything that We were ordered to do But in the following hours of dawn When the call of the muezzin & school bells Reasserted civilization It didn’t Then, however, we were hungry And guzzled down tuna cans And made strawberry-jam sandwiches In the wilderness from provision boxes Which used to contain gas masks On other occasions We had not a single outhouse at our disposal So we perched ourselves like eagles On the rocky mounds and stared into the distance At Kfar Qara with its stumpy minaret and little dome Squinting in the rising sun and somewhat relieved

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Swimming

We jump into the water Rising chloride vapors To the see-through roof of the pool As dew gathers there in cloudy isles We splash ourselves into motion by crawl Awkward waterlogged barrels with loose staves While the rippling figure of the coach is upon us It’s not very clear what he’s up to Whether he wants somebody’s attention or not You would be risking your feet Getting pummeled childishly By the next person behind you And even getting hold of the lane rope Won’t save you if you stop You stay focused on your strokes Trying to keep your elbows at right angles Before you know what a right angle is And make sure to scissor-cut or squat froggishly Or wave your ruddering legs fiercely And appropriately leaving backwash crests Foaming behind Because that’s what the coach asks of you That’s what the coach wants you to do As you gulp for air and try to make hasty eye contact With his towering figure And swallow a cold foamy mouthful Yourself locked in that circular fray

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Rite of Return

“Revenant n. One who returns after a lengthy absence.” It was late June9 When they invaded, there was No sign of warning As they came with the tide Yet they were expected Some even managed To see them coming From stunted deckchairs And beach blankets As they drifted tenaciously like Inert sea mines without ebb The slate breakers polished The thick skin of their heads Into glittering knobs And strewn upon the shore From Ashqelon to Acre They lay under the sun for days Some remained densely White and glittery Others turned veiny aquamarine Then putrefied deep blue They were no longer Biting and noxious Troubled by disembarkation And their exodus10 Was fulfilled

9 June-July is jellyfish season in Israel. Jellyfish lie strewn all along the Mediterranean coast.

10 The book of Exodus; SS Exodus, a ship that was carrying Jewish immigrants to British-Mandate Palestine in 1947

from Europe, whose passengers were deported back to Europe.

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Communion

Two men stand in the sea Almost rubbing elbows Almost placidly petrified Their fishing rods Are getting an elastic hard-on At the sight of a free horizon And the waves make conversation On their behalf There One of them caught something There How the line stretches and trembles As the rod flexes And droops They collect their tackle Next to a trashcan And wipe the sand off their bronze feet As if by coercion I bet that at least one of them Is sorry for things to be over So soon and prematurely

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Dilemma

We are standing by the conveyor belt Eager to claim our own baggage As the overwrought a/c persistently blows Agreeable weather upon our heads In this non-smoking terminal hall I instinctively ask myself Who are those gung-ho pale tourists Going to get possessed by Once they are out there In the melon-white heat A dybbuk or a djinny11?

11

Dybbuk – a demonic spirit of Jewish folklore; Djinny – a demonic spirit of Arabic folklore.

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Golgotha Walk12

One eye squints One gets used to The fixed walk Of the head Askew in the sun Strabismally Absorbing Adopting A path Sliding along An invisible Crooked foosball Spoke of destiny Here comes The guide

12

After Mount Golgotha, where Jesus was allegedly crucified.

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Click-Clackers

It steps Hesitantly Splayfooted With its furry forepaws Stifling the rustle & breaking Of sprigs and dry leaves In the tall grass That grows Obliquely up As every step Slowly Re-gains ground Until Another grass That grows From left to right From right to left Is visible as well At times That grass is shiny Even more With dew on it It barely bends It’s taut and thorny It is inhabited by Round click-clackers Burrowed In the ground

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A thing in Common

They share a thing in common He The metal detector And the X-Ray machine The three of them They wait And anticipate For the right moment That might never come Learning to be Like the other They are the contracted Lodgers Of a stone cabin That belongs To a foreign country On foreign soil Where they accept Strangers, visitors One by one Testing each For what they want them To be Part of the target group Which ultimately gives Him The metal detector And the X-Ray machine A thing in common

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Khamsin13

In class, eons ago, when that wind Which long-dead Bulgakov might have spoken of Descended far ahead On the chalky multistoried stubs Putting this and that and here and there In Martian-yellow perspective With a viscid taste of sand in the open In class, she wrote: ‘comment ça va? / un deux trois!’ With a chalk bit, flaking and powdering Her fingertips and the saturnine back of her hand On the wide palimpsest of a blackboard That dress, plaid-skirt opaqueness of a peasant girl Flouncing bulkily against khamsin logic And the age-difference thing, hers, neo-romanticism? Mine, throbby in all the right and wrong places Fourteen to twenty plus Made me do it I tore out a piece of paper, loud enough for her To hear my bawdy thoughts, may be But I did not give up, just tarried, biding time Until somebody in the front row asked a question Then, surreptitiously, I started outlining The bulgy and the incurved The knobby and the hidden To snorts and giggles from behind Parental conscience pounding in my chest Let it not quiver, let it not quiver, pulsated In my mind, as I forced a white-knuckle grip On the hormonally unbalanced pen I was caught Her chalk, stoically boring through the blackboard And her ravenous hazel-rimmed pupils – through me What would become of me? Oh, woe is me, oy vey iz mir A garbageman, granny’s portentous “eivarhbootle”… She drew closer, a step, another step, another one I pretty much convinced myself That nothing happened Of being nonexistent Her hand extended, chalk-powdered, pointing at My undoing, and showed me her lined palm As though to be extra clairvoyant

13

A dry, hot and dusty local wind, blowing in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

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And read a future of my own in it Half-folded, the paper sticking out from mucky fingers Smeared with blue ink, was snapped, or plucked And instantly perused I couldn’t see her palms, but on her face Stoic, serene and unperturbed I read no punishment ahead

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The Principal

The principal, his staff, even some parents, present at the glumwhite ceremonies, were saying: ‘it’s important’; or had that look of ‘importance’ on their bronzed and unctuous faces. I guess that some of us definitely heard it back home. Maybe had a ‘numbered relative’ somewhere. I’ve seen a couple myself. Our 3rd-grade gym teacher, for instance, was ‘numbered’. Right on her hairy forearm. At first, I thought that you could dial it; and tried and got strange tones. She wore T-shirts and sweatpants, and had an ear-piercing whistle. We were a little wary of her. Then, at the ceremonies, dressed in penitential hues of white, I remember holding back an inexplicable need to laugh, biting my lip till it bled a little saltily, while leering at the tense and puffy chins of others. After that, I went home and sat in the living room to the drone of a siren – mum and dad at work – curiously surveying the street through thick blinds for stock-still passers-by playing Statues with memory and conscience as ‘curators’.

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Shoelaces

I used to stare at sigils Triangles, squares and dashes On the blackboard that was Green, attempting to get used To high, indifferent tones Of grade-school teachers Comparing them to those Of mother and the songs I knew before the plane And Budapest and railways Of people wading through I was then asked to count To calculate the sigils As high indifferent tones Were rising higher then By helpful surprise The answers came along They came from a small boy My age, back then, right next To me, to calculated sigils And how to tie shoelaces To double knots, the mysteries Of double dashes and the rest They came from this small kid While twelve years after In olive uniform, at midnight With everybody rushing out And wading through, another Boy stared frantically at me And briskly slapped my hand Away, to tie my shoes

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Antwerp

From the notes of a diamond trader: Chaim, Don’t question the provenance of an olive that is already in your mouth. The olive has a stone, or it can be pitted. The latter holds on well and well on a swizzle stick in a martini. The liquid line breaking every straight thing you insert into it, if you look from the side of the glass. Don’t suppose a pebble, because it probably wouldn’t do you harm if it were one. Yes, right there. Don’t assume. Suck on it. It can’t suppose you, while you can make it into something else. Through its crudeness, you make your progress. Even if it means having it in somebody’s forehead first. It will remain with you. A mugshot from Gath14. I have time for you, which I would humbly give you. But this here window in my schedule is too inviting, so I’ll leap through it.

14

An ancient Philistine city, home of Goliath.

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LAB I

It’s October on the corner of Zikova and Technicka15. My index finger and thumb soften wincingly on the pliable contact which is on my side, where the inscribed abbreviations, dashes and slashes at the plugs don’t make much sense yet, as this is only our first seminar, and from his note-taking by the other side of the switchbox, starting right-to-left with resistance times current to get the electric tension that we shall be referring to as voltage – conscientious about equation sides, even though it’s an equation, but it’s not the way the lab assistant writes it on the whiteboard – I gather that he shares my predicament. “3ai g’ess dat d’is16 dat d’is is not mmm” he says to wind up with a headshake of “7-7ow yoo meen?”17 at the end of the tentative paraphrases of my calibrating hands, which have no feel of the subject. But I look at the way he’s holding his pen, at the way he’s holding a pen and not a pencil, which would hint at a certain confidence of results, the results that he would later fudge in the empty rectangles intended for results, in the textbook that, much like our predicament, we share as well. I don’t have to suspect him of anything here, and I surely don’t know 7ow 3ai meen,

15

Zikova and Technicka are streets in the Dejvice area of Prague. 16

An instance (‘3a’) of Arabic modern transliteration, widely used across the Internet. 17

Another such instance (‘7’).

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in this country to which, like him, I’m equally new, and where, unlike it is in the east of my birth, the official ‘yes’ already takes longer to say than the official ‘no’, when all I know is that somewhere between 5 to 7 hours from now, some foreign students will get hammered and one of them might streak through the heart of the party, mummifying everyone in TP, if it would ever come to that. “Do yoo no wot we 3are working on heer?” he asks me with a clear Arabic accent, suspecting that I might have the answer at the tips of my fingers among the lettered dials and knobs. But, here, in this country to which both of us are foreigners, he doesn’t need to suspect me of anything – in spite of us more or less hailing from the same place – as this is only our first seminar, and neither of us has the answer yet.

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13

Fat Slava (combed slick to the side, in his plaid shirt, khaki shorts and sandals, only missing a couple of pens in his breast pocket to complete his upbringing, ready to buck his Cheshire smile up for a curse, with eyes precociously squinting the mischievous squint of drunkards, waiting to brag about it once he’s convinced that he had any part in it, knowing better) gets on the little red carousel and blurs himself out.

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Construction on Ein Rogel Street18

often begins when the trees are still singing not a word, and should you find yourself passing a loose gathering of hardhats, you will see how their tools crudely address the ground, speaking for them and leaving only the expletives unsubstituted with actions. But their words, their gutturals of spit against the sandridden curb, would hardly make a difference to anybody seeing them at work. Even their parched gestures convey imperatives muddled by supplication. And there goes a yellow bulldozer coughing up the road from the east, with its earthcrusted loader like a rugged palm. It doesn’t stop where they continue their work, but one of them is driving it, salaam-less, to another part of town, as it seems, while the trees are singing not a word.

18

Ein Rogel Street overlooks East Jerusalem, where the majority of the population is Muslim.

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The Rabbi’s Counsel

If you want to find the perfect woman, you have to invent several and speak of them in past simple, recalling their one critical failure out loud like a non-committal incantation to each perfect woman at a time – from Rabbi Lev Katzir’s19 diary, 1933.

19

‘Lev’ is a Hebrew name, meaning ‘Heart’. ‘Katzir’ is a surname, meaning ‘Harvest’ in Hebrew.

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Orchard

The house greets bootstomp with commendable rasp, and shudders with a few objects delineated by fitful flashlights, hungry for faces. One of those who are inside sticks his tongue out within a hairbreadth of a clothesline, stretching across the murk of the room, and gets relieved to realize the absurdity of his own face at the sight of pegs – but no clothes – which hold his tension agape. He feels like he has been here before, which is also absurd, but he feels like it. He recognizes the dishes and the toys, the letters on cereal boxes and empty bread packages, scattered in what appears to be the kitchen, but he can’t yet fully recognize the chopper lullaby, the gushing heat and the abdominal breeze to follow.

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10.30pm, damascus the house has become like the house of asterion, where borges’ aleph sits in a drawer, with the house of asterion story inside. the person who can bring you there can take down an engine and put it together in less than an hour. he can take down people and put them together in even less time. his reflexes are more than what pavlov had ever dreamed of. calibrated. calibanned. for him chance does nothing, his life is anything but chance, determined to be predetermined by what goes into his head. he has inherited from chance the ability to engender monsters in himself as in others, the freedom of movement. and if he ever got to a line of water, walked on sand, you would never know if his footprints would be that of a hooved animal under the stars. he does not have time for the house of asterion, where he happens to be staying, with all his senses geared up to carve a niche of redemption for himself in those whom he executes. for him the house is already burning, he does not have the time to read it, nor learn of the drawer that contains it, he cannot cope with such humble offerings, for he fears the outburst of another language.

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let-in

I wouldn’t say it’s June, but it must be, since we have just arrived, and it’s been May, how long has it been May. One of the relatives, whom I’d call uncle, if they told me about fictive kinship, gave me a boxed Phantom to glue by myself, but I couldn’t do it because the little parts either stuck or fell off, and the Phantom was in those little parts. My first and last, smelling of carton and plastic. It had to be disposed of once it caught mould from the shelf where it stood uselessly proud, stiff with airplane glue. Our checkered suitcases too were dusting by the big window in the living room. There was a heap of stuff by the big window, but it didn’t belong to us, and nobody could tell how long the checkered suitcases were going to stay there, unpacked and ready. May was probably hot back then, yet I thought of it differently, and so did the others whom I’d see outside, perpetually dressed the same for a strange costume party, in black. I was waiting for mom and dad to come back from another language class, stately beneficial for immigrants, all the while aunt Sonya was at the door.

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Prophets Here and there, they show up in line, looks wisened by staff in hand, seeing only the blurry uniform muddle, right ahead.

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Grandpa in Jaffa20

For 10 years there’s roadwork here. Tikkun Chutzot21. They dig and they lay and they put dirt on it. It’s old news. Ask anyone, anyone in a car, on the bus, anyone crossing the road. They’ve got pipes and barriers full of sand. Some palms. Yellow dry fronds. No dates. See that lady going to the bunker bank where they stop by to do laundry, near the falafel stand with the big Baba Sali22? Even she is well aware of how things work around here. Dig out, dig in. Ask anyone. Benches do they replace? Put a new fence for the little ones there? Look how close it is to the road. Look, one step out and they’re already excavating and boring and cementing to go through it again next month. Archeology! Maybe they’ll unearth a mosaic with a nice picture and put it together in New York or London in a museum for the kids there, where they don’t have to eat gefiltefish23. Ah, give me a minute to peel myself off, there’s Moti with the newspapers. What? Who’s Moti24? Why do I call him Moti? Why are you asking me? I don’t know, you tell me how to call him and I’ll call him what you tell me, this is how it works. For 10 years he brings these newspapers. 10 years, for anybody who gets stuck in this jam because of the roadwork. Even us who sit here all day, talking to complain and complaining to talk. I don’t read his newspaper. He can walk a few blocks up the street. Maybe somebody else like me, peeling himself off a bench, will read it. I don’t know. I need it to trim my beard.

20

An old quarter in Tel Aviv, previously an ancient port city. 21

‘Tikkun Chutzut’ is a play on the name of a Jewish prayer called Tikkun Chatzot, recited at midnight as a lamentation for the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem . ‘Tikkun’ means ‘fixing’, ‘Chutzut’ means outdoors, and ‘Chatzot’ means midnight. 22

A leading Sephardic rabbi and kabbalist of Moroccan descent. 23

A traditional Jewish dish made out of fish. 24

A typical Hebrew/Israeli name.

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Reception & Sorting

As my shoulder was led and my arm bared for IV vaccinations when I was enlisted, I wasn’t exactly perspiring because it stung, or because I had the premonition of fever, but because of the nauseating clarity of repetition, the acuteness of standards, injected to settle the first differences on the agenda by a touch of my own painlessness.

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Shlomo’s Sand25

I can’t go by the book because I lost my place in it for having pulled out too early, in the middle of historical extrapolation. Today’s an avaricious echo on cue, as my attention spans toward a weedy aspect in the shade, convincingly, I do believe, all in the name of being left alone. I had no idea that first, sparrows possess the innate capacity to pick on one’s wits so fast, and that second, there’s no such thing as being a Jew, in accord with the book.

25

Shlomo Sand is the author of the controversial book The Invention of the Jewish People.

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Sasha

Game for what I’m about to get, I’d insert a floppy and look at him. Red = stripes on his white shirt. Seethrough pink paleness of Ashkenazi boys. It was tough in 94. A personal changeover from 3½” to 5¼” cropping up as blocks of bad sectors and no money. Blue screens every other day. And him. Up the street. The floppy scrounging for jammed data, like meat without slosh on a chopping board. Candid hospitality blooming in the schizophrenia of his mother. His grandma baking Tadjik pastry while his grandpa walking the family dog. The hurried rustling of serviettes & the soiled shine of our hands, as careful as if they were crippled, on the keyboard.

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Megillah Fragment26

Two brothers. One was 5, the other 2.5, let’s say. The latter was bought a tiger costume for Purim, and cowered from wearing it. The parents tried convincing him that it was only a costume, but he wouldn’t have it, not until the older brother showed him that, and how, he needs to growl and roar, wearing such a costume, after which the younger brother found it likable, and didn’t spare anyone for a whole day.

26

Megillah is ‘scroll’ in Hebrew (e.g. The Scroll of Esther/’Megillat Esther’, related to the Jewish holiday of Purim).

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Reef27

15 for a sunbed urchins that you don’t notice at your feet striped buoys nodding or refuting red from the blue Aqaba at first sight as an option ahead stiff haze & carroty snorkels for dipping face- down here prostrate bulks in rippled stillness looking for thick clues among fish colluding to steer clear of formal dehydration

27

The Gulf of Aqaba/Eilat.

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aryan excursions

weltanschauung stretches on the page lonely as travel as a diorama in a neatly shut compartment. next is a film about u boats. one color treacheries and loyalties. followed by a full stop with slot machines that don’t give you maps as clerks at the i desk do. for lack of better words, commercial panes in stations flip at the sight of you to northern valhallas as if from bay windows, where oil provides the picturesque. yiddish is dead germanic for the talkative. families and friends in espadrilles, espadrilles bought in places with lungfuls of runner’s air – tickling with cold chest hurt and aurora borealis. places where espadrilles sell the most. they go down to the red sea, properly visiting the we should be here and not there. beached and red with families and friends and espadrilled toes. some taxis take them to egypt. some don’t, and some go. rarely depending on the weather.

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Dreydlekh28

In hindsight, he’d come forth in such a way that there was no way to settle on whether he’d go hassidic or grunge, in the age to simulate like no other, as though introduced to some arcane amalgamation that would perish upon description. He was from a good stock. His mother a seamstress, his father an axle in a community. His grandma was in the habit of converting schmetterlings to papillons29. He also had a dog that could growl his name in 3rd person and a hidden poster of Chelsea Girls with the tree of life obscurely embedded into the b&w depressions of a fine looking shiksa30.

28

From ‘dreidel’ (i.e. spinning top), related to klezmer music. 29

Butterflies, in German and French, respectively. 30

An (attractive) woman who is not Jewish.

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Monologue

(For Y. Amichai) Every Jewish mother wants her son to be an engineer or a doctor, and I happen to have started – though it might be late – measuring with my eyes the diameter of the bag that a very becoming man had put on my left, saying he will be back in a minute, as I now try hard to bring his complexion to mind for a few more. The jet of his curls, the fair brown outer rings of his pupils, the shape of the pendant on his neck and the state of his tan suit. Every Jewish mother wants her son to be an engineer or a doctor, inuring him to never wean from the fact that practice makes perfect example, which I follow, wait, and measure.

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Lifeguards

The label stuck out of me saying that I was one hundred percent polyester tight and the lifeguards were doing their job saying go to Ashqelon and go to the south for the lifeguards have set their black flags cozily by the shore in a penlike formation so that they could count and keep a lazy eye on but some were wading north through the scummy boisterousness in the direction of the nearest port or Haifa where the black flags were no more. A stunted family of masorti31 jews in their trunks tshirts and thick long dresses sticking glisteningly to their skin in the water.

31

Jews that follow only particular traditions of Judaism.

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T-

Smudged borders of green destination

signs, followed by

a twinkling suspension

bridge ahead, connecting invisible

boroughs at night.

In principle, these streets go

in parallel, not streets, dividing

East and West. If we can get through.

Skyscraping dark glass. Lanes. Park Avenue.

Hello, I’m listening, yes. Monichka, let’s get in

touch tomorrow, if anything.

The shady back of a beige van on 57th.

People live here, listen, people live here,

but overall.

I’ll show it. I’ll be driving. Yes,

but I’d like us to get out and take a walk.

Worst case, if I won’t find ‘Parking’,

you two can have a walk.

Please show him where I work.

But, on average, Israeli girls are good girls.

What do you mean?

No company will have any business with you,

won’t have any business with you, if your company

is large, and you allegedly get

federal grants.

Greyhound across windshield.

The government won’t

have any business with you,

no business whatsoever, if.

How’s it called? I’ll try to park.

You see, you understand, I’m telling you.

I’ll try to park now.

Who sit there for years, and will sit there for years,

and nobody is going to shoo them.

Retinue, I guess. Left blinker.

It’s going to be late.

Can’t get the street sax in focus.

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Do you like it here?

You see, when you don’t like.

They are closed. Escalators. Exit.

Let’s get inside, it’s cold.

Nave. It’s better to have young parents. Nave.

You know, I’m mostly surprised by the people.

A fragment of a known scenario in stone.

Parapet.

Static noise.

Fireworks above palm trees

from last year in May.

Elsewhere.

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Shift: Square I [thermometer] 3. Where to Stay Moderately ELעלALאל roughtout Jerusalem: in the Old City, BOARDING PASS כרטיס עליה למטוס st Jerusalem, up the slopes of the Mo PASSENGERשם הנוסע ods farther from the center of town. E / lso has at least few inexpensive hoste he traveler in search of plain but clea TO s for the four – and five-star luxury h salem except for the Intercontinental, FLIGHTטיסהCLASSמחלקהDATEתאריךTIMEשעה LY Y CT How does or lieval ambience with modern facilities, GATE BOARDING TIME SEAT in the Old City, then find a room ther מושב זמן עליה למטוס שער set, Israel Museum, Jerusalem Theate PCS WT AGNT ence and activity, or if you need many West Jerusalem. As for East Jerusale o the Old City than West Jerusalem’ lity. East Jerusalem boasts the best many consider the tastiest food in t . The streets of East Jerusalem aboun the sunlit hours, but are fairly quiet at basis you choose for your decision, d eli. All visitors, of whatever race or ll treated, and equal- ly safe no matter [hairclip]

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Shift: Square II There are cases of persons who in their whole lives have never had a dream, while others dream when considerably advanced in years, having never dreamed before. Aristotle [saucerspace] [saucerspace][coffee][saucerspace] [saucerspace] [sugar] Prague (Praha) B 0278698 B ly regarded as one of the most beauti Dopravní podnik hl. m. Prahy, a.s al periods as revealed in the architect The very setting grew up in the basin of the longest B e to cover the sur- rounding hill-slo w streets of the historic centre, along th Nepřestupní he lively pedestrian zone offers ever new jízdenka Prague had 1 21 Platí na všech per cent of the entire republic, the lar linkách Pražské ovaika. On its area of 495.8 sq. km, th integrované sq. km. Prague is the political, comm dopravy mimo the country and the seat of the Presiden 15min nočni linky a Federal Assembly. On its territory are lanovou dráhu plants, especially engineering wo na Petřín. , whose output repre- sents 9 per cent Použiti jízdenky ne in the centre of bank- ing, the seat of se řidi tarifem PID. in road, rail and air transport juncti ague is home to the best-known the art galleries. It is the centre of scien ------------------------------------------------ Sciences), and educa- tion (Charles U 6, Kč DATUM ČAS ). The ancient core of Prague has bee 6525 01700 19 VI 98 14:52 ere also modern Buildings and e n of the town. The new System of trans has provided easy access to even remote parts of the city.

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About the Author

Iliya Ansky (b. 1983), having lived in Israel, now lives in Prague, Czech Republic. His poetry,

translations, essays and short fiction have appeared, or are forthcoming, in various online

journals and print.


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