Death of Lysanda by Yitzhak Orpaz

Author:Yitzhak Orpaz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2013-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter II

Daily routine—Rachel and Bilha amuse themselves—Strange noise.

Nothing special happened the next day. I worked harder, and I made my gang work harder, too, carried along by the exciting idea that it was our house I would be building—mine and Rachel’s. Neither of us mentioned the visit to the rabbi. Actually we didn’t talk much at all. Only once, almost incidentally, I hinted about the house I was going to build, and then I saw her eyes widening a little and the olive-green brown of her irises grew deeper.

This is how things went that day. I came home from work at half past four, and Rachel wasn’t there. She was probably with her girlfriend—our neighbor Bilha. We have an unspoken agreement: when I come home from work, Rachel is at Bilha’s. Pulling off boots, peeling off socks, rubbing sweat-caked feet, rolling my work clothes into a bundle of sour-salty smells—Rachel does not like to watch this. To tell the truth—I can’t bear this routine either, not when Rachel is standing in front of me, all pure and clean. In our new house I’ll have a special, screened-off corner for getting out of my work clothes. But for now, Rachel is at Bilha’s, and I shave, shower, and lie down to sleep till about six.

That day, when I woke up from my siesta, a small chunk of mortar the size of a beetle was lying under my nose, exactly at the center of my moustache. This is Rachel’s way telling me off for having accidentally carried two grains of sand or a little lump of mortar home from the scaffolding. I smiled. I didn’t know which smell to concentrate on first in this little chunk of matter, that of Rachel’s hand or of moist cement. I haven’t said yet that on the way home, I had picked up the groceries, as I did every day, according to a list my wife had written.

Then supper, washing the dishes, a couple of chores around the house, a pipe—and the ledger. I am careful with my accounts, for my own wages depend on it, and those of the boys in my gang, too. Generally, Saturday morning is enough time for this. But now, since I have to keep my eyes wide open, so that I don’t get too deep into debt, so that I can take on the expenses of building our new house, I have started looking it over on weekday evenings as well. Not that I have anything to enter or delete; everything was entered last Saturday. But I really had nothing else to do. Read the Book, you’ll say; but that was something I couldn’t do while Bilha was in our home. And Bilha was with us that evening (what evening wasn’t she with us?)—very much with us.

They’re laughing, the two of them. I am sitting at my desk in the hall and the door is open—and they’re laughing. My wife Rachel’s laughter is very fine, almost inaudible; Bilha’s is heavy and dull.

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