The Blue Mountain by Shalev Meir

Author:Shalev, Meir [Meir Shalev]
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9781847677259
Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd
Published: 2009-03-30T16:00:00+00:00

After school I had lunch with Grandfather. Sometimes, though, if he had work to do or was feeling below par, I ate in Rachel Levin’s house. Her thick, tight curls were already streaked with grey. All day long she went about in a green work smock.

I was fascinated by the bottoms of her feet gliding soundlessly across the floor.

‘Would you like to learn to walk quietly?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ I said enthusiastically. I had heard stories about my uncle Efrayim and had already begun my own prowling.

‘Come, I’ll show you how it’s done.’

She took me out to her garden. The Levins kept a few chickens and a rabbit hutch near their house, beside rows of vegetables and spices. Levin had tried growing vegetables on his own when he first came to the village, but he possessed a grey thumb that made plants wilt on the spot. He ate his sallow tomatoes and pallid peppers with relish and even tried convincing the experts that they were new varieties he had developed, yet it was only after his marriage, when Rachel took over the garden, that Levin, who had always dreamed of being a farmer, enjoyed the fruits of his land at last. Rachel Levin planted vegetables and flowers and brought boxes and cans of basil plants from her parents, and at night man and beast came to stand outside her fence and imbibe the good smell.

Rachel broke a few dry twigs from the hedge and scattered them over the path.

‘Watch carefully, Baruch,’ she said, stepping soundlessly over them. ‘Now you do it.’

The twigs popped beneath my feet. Rachel laughed.

‘At your age Efrayim was as quiet as a flannel cloth on a table. When you put down your foot, make sure it’s soft and flat. And breathe from the stomach, not from the chest.’

She laid down some more twigs, but with the same results.

‘You walk like an old cow,’ she sighed. ‘We’ll have to wait for Efrayim to return.’

Levin came home for lunch. He didn’t look like Grandmother’s photograph at all. He was always pale and weak, and dragged his legs instead of walking quietly.

And yet, I thought, perhaps all the Levins were like that, which was why Grandmother had died young.

Sometimes Avraham invited me to eat with him. Because of Rivka, however, that was something I preferred not to do. Best of all I liked eating with Grandfather, even if all he could cook was baked potatoes. After lunch I stole over to the paved path beneath Avraham and Rivka’s window to listen in on their table talk.

Uri, a curious and cynical thrill-seeker even then, had no trouble spoiling his parents’ appetite.

‘What did Grandmother die of?’ he asked all of a sudden.

I could hear Avraham frown. ‘She was ill.’

‘What with?’

‘Stop being a pest, Uri.’

‘Nira Liberson says she wasn’t ill.’

‘Why don’t you tell Liberson’s granddaughters to mind their own business.’

It was quiet for a while. Then I heard Rivka say: ‘She was killed by the grandfather you all adore. Didn’t you know?’

I stood up and peeked over the windowsill.

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