Imagine, Professor Osef says to his eleven year old niece, imagine if Jerusalem were to be turned into an amusement park, a Disney land for Jews and Christians and Moslems. The Temple Mount would be crowned with a rainbow-hued roller coaster; fireworks near David’s Citadel; a Lover’s Lane boat ride by the Western Wall. This is how Professor Osef imagines Jerusalem that his niece would enjoy, not the dour stones paced by dour men. Osef is about to leave the City he once loved. Join him as he does last rounds at the King David, the kosher burger spot, the send-offs by faculty colleagues. But, this is Israel and Death lurks in the shuk nearby.A Dying Affair: Mr. Osef’s Jerusalem
N. Szajnberg
(Excerpt from JerusaLand: An Insignificant Death)
How will this affair end, this one-sided, dying passion between Mr. Osef
and Jerusalem? How does one take leave of a disappointing love, when it
is a city, Ir. For one can have an affair with a city; this city. The Hebrew
word “city” is gendered, feminine, almost. In singular, Ir, or plural, Arim, it
sounds masculine; she unveils her femininity when decorated with
gendered adjectives such as “beautiful,” or “holy.” Androgynous Jerusalem
is a city too loved – too ravished, ravaged, savaged by too many over
centuries. Ignored by most for almost a millennium, Jews popped back at
the turn of the twentieth century, then in ‘48 the Jordanians desired and
ravaged her, turning Jewish cemeteries into dung hills, ash heaps;
tombstones were used as toilet seats. In ’67, Jews reentered and rebuilt,
and built. She is a city too desired. Osef had fallen under her passionate
spell, a spell now broken. This affair must end. How?
Osef was a watcher, an observer, a noticer, a sense collector. Born into
this. His father, an early Hebraicist had transformed their Eastern European
moniker from Zamler — collector — to the Hebrew Osef. Zamler came from
the family business — rag picking, metal col- lecting, savior of the thrownaway,
nowadays, glorified as recycler. Yes, Osef was a recycler of
impressions, senses, momentary fragrances, tones or visions.
Powdered dead — a stony-bony dust, a fine mist — circulates in Jerusalem’s
dryness. Inhale. Her dusty fragrance inspires with each breath, often unfelt.
Yet, this stone-bone dust has an idiosyncratic intoxicating effect; depends
on the receptive state of mind. If one’s inclined, this powdered mist induces
vapors of holiness, or transposes one back centuries – if Islamically
inclined, only a few centuries; if Christly inclined, two millennia; if
Jewistically inclined, there are multi- ple eras up to Abrahamic times. Pick
an era, any era: Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, Solomonic … she’ll work her
magic, like some Salome lifting centuries of translucent veils.
Mr. Osef had learned from a pulmonologist friend about a lung ailment
among miners, something like silicosis, or the onomatopoeic,
Pneumoconiosis. Also, stonecutters, sandblasters get this, first found in the
1700’s, when hand tools were replaced by pneumatic tools. The coal or
such dust imbricates, inhabits the interstices of the lung’s alveoli, stiffens
the lungs, slowly suffocates the owner of these two sacs. A leatherizing of
the lungs takes place with this dust, a slow fossilizing of the living being.
Lungs become sandpaper. Such matters may take place with those who
breath the stoned-boned dust air of Jerusalem, but rather than fossilizing
the lungs, it appears to rigidify the heart, has a lapidary effect, making it
stonish…or the soul.
Osef had a theory, completely uninformed, very unscientific, about the
formation of this stone-bone mixture, this dusty alchemy. He believed this
was created by the eons of rubbing and knocking and shifting of stone
against stone, of bone against bone. And, as the Jews are said to be not
only stiff-necked but also hard-headed, Osef liked to think that Jew skull
bones would match their strength against Jerusalem stone, also creating a
dustiness that mixed the dead living skeleton (or skull-eton, he liked to say)
against the living dead mineral stones of this city. As if nothing stays dead
in this city, nothing can fully rest in peace. Arid breezes create eddies of
this mixture of whitish or ecru stone-bone dust, small toronados one may
occasionally see, aris- ing from the earth, ascending and dispersing before
reaching heaven. Even here, even in Holy Jerusalem, ain’t so easy to
ascend heaven- ward.
Heavenward. Reminded Osef of a joke from Clinton’s era, the era before
Bill’s vaginal cigar (Was it a robusta, a Coronado; Just how did this Prez
size himself up?) and “I did not have sex with.” Bill visits Rome and sees a
red phone on the Pope’s desk, like Clinton’s direct line to Moscow in case
of nuclear war. Asks the pope, who silently
points heavenward, with a benedictory forefinger. Asks again to use it; the
Pope charges fifty grand. Clinton turns to his Jewish Secretary of Treasury
for a loan and lifts the receiver. Next, in Jerusalem, he spies such a red
phone on Olmert’s desk, the old Olmert, the one who took bribes as mayor
of Jerusalem to build the unholy, ungodly, unaesthetic Holyland Towers, a
Babyl of ugly. Clinton asks to make a call. Olmert shoulder shrugs (need
visuals here: a ghetto-like image of the shrugging, head-tilting Jew) and
nods yes; charges fifty cents. Clinton, surprised, says it was $50K in Rome.
Olmert, another shrug, a rightward head tilt, responds, “Local call.”
Even with local calls, hard to really get up there from here, thought Osef.
He was finishing his year teaching at the University. Guest professor, a
polite way of saying he could teach, write, think, but had no say in any
matter of significance to the faculty. He could be ignored. And was. By his
colleagues, not the students. A year of think- ing. A year of writing and
rubbing shoulders with fine thinkers outside his department. Osef’s official
field was sociology of the early Renais- sance – Dante’s turf, Carravagio’s
lair. His field, his true discipline, Osef’s, was as an eyeballer, a thingabsorber.
Like some unipod coelentrate fixed to an Ocean bottom — an
Ocean of beings — the currents of sensations, of ideas, of incidentals swept
through him and he grabbed, absorbed, assimilated these microcosmic
ocean tides of senses. A sponge-nator. In America, he was close with the
great Simon Truman, a fine watcher of faces, of gestures. While not
calibrated as finely as Truman, Osef, awash with humanity, inhumanity and
the arroyo of stone-bone dust, got affected. Occasionally, Osef advanced
up the phylogenetic scale, from coelenterate to amphibian, when, like some
frog’s tongue, his senses flicked out and returned laden with flies or insects
of senses or ideas or a tune that buzzed too closely. At
times, he could not control this: something fleeted by, or buzzed about his
snout and the sense-tongue flicked out and snapped back, tasted, swished
it about his mouth, savored what this was. Truman, a kind friend, didn’t care
for Osef’s froggish self-representation. Instead, Tru- man said that Osef
was built like the Viola d’Amore, that fourteen-string instrument: seven
above the fingerboard are played; seven below resonate in harmony.
Puccinni used the Viola d’Amore in Butterfly, the humming scene, as
Madame Butterfly enters. Yes, Osef resonated below; pluck one nervestring
and others vibrate in harmony, sometimes in dis- harmony.
Being a close friend of Truman meant being candid, truthful. A face reader
— a watcher of muscle flickers over the brow, corrugator tweaks between
the eyes, orbiculoris oris choreography, the alar muscles’ asymmetry of
disgust — Truman read feelings in real time, had written about deceit. Being
a close friend meant honesty, even painful honesty. At a Truman cocktail
party, Osef meandered about mentally preoccupied with a lady friend he
had left home; she had moved in a few days earlier, ate bonbons in bed
and ensconced herself, burrowed in like a hermit crab. Truman, unaware of
Osef’s new guest, but a no- ticer of something awry in Osef’s face, took
photos at the party, with one of his mini-spy digital cameras. Then, he
showed Osef a shot of himself. Truman said nothing. Osef could see the
tense anxious muscle grimace lying beneath his fixed social smile. Without
details re- vealed, Osef unloaded the freeloader. That was Truman’s
friendship: quiet observation, balanced with boundaries for privacy.
When they first met, the two men, they had dined in Berkeley — under the
elevated roadway in a restaurant open only four evenings a week, fixed
menu, yet privacy for tables, an eatery picked by Truman who knew the
good deals with good food — Osef was put to the test. Truman sitting back,
asked, “So what do you think of this town, the people?” Osef vaguely
recalls a flicker of thought, later articulated to him- self that went like this:
“Do I say the socially polite thing, or do I tell him what I think?” Out loud this
translated as, “Well, Bay Area people are superficially pleasant, confusingly
so, as it seems as if they want to be friends. They are like those waterskeeters,
flitting upon the pond sur- face, only their spider-like feet dimpling
the water. But, no depth to these pleasantries.” Truman, a bear-like fellow,
chest like a Mack Truck, head too massive even for those shoulders (like
the bulldog hood ornament on Macks), receded hairline opening the face
further, presented much frontality with this wide face, broad chest and plaid
shirt buttoned to the neck, leaned over the now-diminutive table and
barked, ” You’re right! Pleasant characters here. No depth. But no one
wants to leave. Too many stay at dead-end academic jobs in State and City
Colleges. Won’t leave.” No word-waster, Truman.
The ancient Romans had two theories of sight, both physical a Chicago
literary scholar, Shadi Barsch, had written. Either particles the shape of the
object — a tree particle, a star particle, an elephant particle — bombarded
the perceiver’s eyeball, who “feels” the thing. Or, the perceiver sends out
invisible feelers from the eyeball, cops a feel of the object, then retracts
eyeward with a picture of the thing. In both theories, the “evil eye,” was a
physical ailment. Truman was of the feeler type: when he eyeballed you,
you felt felt.
But, that was then and there, and this is now. Osef tried to be now, with-it
as his American students put it. Yet, for many Jerusale- mites, the now is
but a scrim for different thens; they live in eras long past (past, not dead,
for them); this death-scrim gives the appearance of living in the present.
They are bone-dust affected. “Jerusalem is…” Those two words he has
heard over and over again the past year. They are used to introduce
definitive pronouncements, a rain of error. What believers really mean is
“Jerusalem should be…” followed by declarations, either with fierce facies
or wistful heavenward glances.
Osef played with this “Jerusalem is…” It’s a museum/synagogue, where the
exhibits come alive, mostly to argue, to fight, to pronounce. It’s Sturbridge
Village without smiles, except on faces of tourists or the one Bratislaver
Hassid who dance-hops in the crowded shuk on Fri- days, a white, spitzed
beanie on his skull, full-throated boombox and an upturned cap for groshen
donations. Osef, encased in an El Al to Israel for twelve hours, watched this
Night at the Museum film: the ex- hibits come alive at night; released from
their vitrine cages, the Mongolian herds battle the cowboys, who battle the
Romans, who battle the Indians and such. That’s Jerusalem, except the
exhibits roam the streets day and night. In America, they would charge
admission for this, unionize the workers, hire actors, make this into
pretense, rather than real animosity. You know, like Universal Studios’
Western backlot town, with showdowns and shootouts every day on the
hour, then ice cream or cotton candy for the kids after.
Eleven year-old Elisheva, who monikered Osef “Uncle,” comes for a
goodbye visit, another “last.” She enjoys his stories, asks him to tell a
made-up story about Jerusalem. Elisheva is taking a break from her single
mother, a Parisian escapee who was on the lam from her pedophilic,
needle-addict French boyfriend and hoped to find refuge in Jerusalem.
Mother, like the accused of old, hoped to burst into the Temple, slide into
home base, hang onto the horns of its sacrifice altar and be called “Safe!”
by some God umpire. Osef obliges Elisheva and they set of on a lengthy
stroll with her through the Sherover/Haas Promenades. South of and facing
the Old City, separated from it by
the Kidrun and Gehinnum Valleys, these landscaped terraces face north
towards David’s City and Solomon’s mount and Herod’s Wall.
The once barren hill was handsomely rebuilt by landscape architects with
monies half donated by mother Sherover, mourning the death of her only
son from some unspeakable ailment, the Hass half donated
by San Franciscans, converting Levi jeans’ dough into Jerusalem
stonework and a Lego-hued playground monopolized by Arab kids who
kicked in the footlights along the stonework or spat on memorials to
soldiers as their parents applauded. “Uncle” Osef obliges a bit lengthily as
she eggs him on with enthusiasm. Elisheva who bounces, twirls, tumbles
and cartwheels along the way, encourages the ancient Osef as he converts
Jerusalem into a Disney Land right before Elisheva’s ears. She –- wallskipper,
cartwheeler, tumbler doing the splits with pigtails helicoptering like
Pipi Longstocking — enjoys the idea of Mickey Mousing through this
otherwise dour town…..
Click Here to buy: The novel on Amazon.