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Show 223 eyes are losing their hold on me as I lose hold of the rope, I have to let go, and she has only the sudden weight of the bucket, the unexpected yank, the pull and jerk of a heavy bucket full of mud, earth, soil, the load of Jerusalem, her balance is lost, her eyes blink, and she is falling. Talma Levy is falling, I am stepping back, Chaim is our witness. I did not go to the hospital, afraid of what I might find there. I quit work at the dig and hung around the hotel, playing cards and running up a bill with Mohammed who was grateful for my company. After a week my daily phone call to the nurse's station indicated she had been released. I went to see her at home. At the door her father shook his head and stared at the floor to show I wasn't welcome, but Talma's voice, recognizing me, got me in. She was resting in the room where before I had heard her mother moving about behind the blankets; was propped up with pillows on one of the two beds in that small dark place. "I am not hurt bad," she said. She could be dead, I thought. I had made the bus trip to Kiryat Hayovel feeling strange and empty, sure that my body was preparing itself for some emotional assault when I got there. But that afternoon, with the distant sun filtering in through the one small window in Talma's bedroom, I only |
