Candy for Saturday• Continuation of the book ‘Bat Number 4’ ○ Lili Milat
There is a saying that has been circulating for several years in the world that in order for a change we chose to make in our lives to be assimilated, we need to make it 21 days in a row. I don’t know how it is for you, but it never worked for me. I tried all kinds of variations on the time to instill good habits and my personal conclusion, which of course is correct for me and you will have to check for yourself, is – a year. 365 days, four seasons, nature completes a cycle and so does the same habit – for a daily walk, for writing a short story every day, for family dinner table conversations, to write something good before bed – things work for me and are assimilated after a year.
In the course of a year the earth will circle the sun, we will prepare the ground, sow and plant, water, we will be happy when a bud sprouts, we will marvel at the vine’s flesh, in the spring we will pick the leaves to make yabra (stuffed vine leaves in Arabic), we will eat muscat grapes in the summer, we will let it wither in the fall and at the end We will prune her to a skeleton and let the rain do its thing until she wakes up from her sleep for a new year.
“Like nature, the heart also has four seasons” wrote and sang Aviv Gefen and this is how I saw Hila Saban’s healing process in my book, Daughter number four. The book begins in winter, this was the first article in which we met here and now a season changes in the story and we are in spring. Each season begins with a new background for what is to come. A total of four seasons in the book in 1972.
In the change of seasons in the book you will see that I chose to write them in the first person, to try to dive into the depths of Hila’s voice and feel the power of the inner speech. In the spring season, Hila reveals to us many truths that open a window to her difficult past at home, to the shame she feels regarding what happened to her and what she is today – a broken vessel who has no control over her soul and its expression in broken cries during the cold nights in the Carmelite monastery. Every now and then a little hope flashes, a guitar sound caressing the darkness.
Pleasant reading.
You are welcome to read, comment, write to me. After all, a book comes to life only in the eyes of its readers.
Pleasant reading.
Spring 1972
More than I was afraid to fall asleep, I was afraid to stay awake in the darkness of this cold place. The ancient monastery is like a dark palace from the land of fairy tales. And yet there are the people here, the good-hearted nuns. really. Except for one who makes a face all the time, but I don’t think it has anything to do with me, she looks like that all the time. Everything else is simply God’s angels. What patience they have. All these nights they suffer. me. I’m so so uncomfortable.
After the first night, when my mouth became independent in a dream and screamed out my secrets, I couldn’t look them in the face the next morning. And somehow, it didn’t seem like they were pretending when they gave me a bright smile, as if I hadn’t wandered off with my sleep. I wish it was just insomnia. I wish I was just awake, without howling like a trampled cat, and waking up the whole monastery. God. I became like those crazy women in the movies, the sleepwalkers or the ghosts. Yes, a ghost of the Carmelite monastery, that’s what I am.
And maybe it would be good if I were a ghost. If only I had succeeded then. If Yiffite had not stopped me. If only I knew how to do it right so that even if she stopped me when she did, it would be too late. Even on nights when I manage to sleep for several hours in a row, I wake up drenched in sweat. Every day my sheets have to be changed. it’s embarrassing.
And maybe the fact that I have more shame, more embarrassment, maybe it’s good. Maybe I still feel. Because there are other people, few, but still there are some for whom I feel love. that they are important to me. Like Yaphith, like Father Francis, like Sister Mary and Sister Catherine. four people Four reasons to live for their sake and for their efforts to keep me alive.
I do not want. don’t want to sleep I’m exhausted. The shadows in the window shorten as my lips are magnetized to each other.
I wear three pairs of underwear and two pairs of pants. I hope this time it will be enough.
He pulls them down at once.
For once I want to be able to bite his hand. dislodge her from her place like the beasts of prey.
And here she flies from me and I scream. But I can’t make a sound.
And here she comes, I breathe a little easier,
But then she disappears,
from mom,
No.
I’m frantic, trying to free my hands but it’s like he has more than two hands and he grabs one and ties it, and there are people helping him. Why are they tying me up?
I just want to be free
With the rest of my strength I make noises
Maybe this time someone will hear
I’m in the middle of nowhere
To the howls I manage to send
I hear another voice
And he doesn’t speak Hebrew
And not Spanish either.
“Here comes the sun. Little darling.”
English. And it’s pleasant. His voice is pleasant. He stops and I cry again. he goes on.
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I wake up and feel that I am being released from the straps that tie me to the bed. Usually it’s Sister Catherine or Mary, but this time it’s him. I already know there is a doctor here. English. I heard them talking by my bed at night. He said he would stay with me. I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t. Not at all, on the contrary. Something in his voice, in English. My dream is to reach England and it came when I dreamed of the house that was mine, of Argentina and Spanish, of something I didn’t want to remember. He came and took me with him, with the song, to another country.
I opened one eye to peek at him. He was busy untying the strap from my right leg and didn’t see me examining him. His hands caught my attention. Long long fingers. I couldn’t see his face clearly. Only a faint light came in from outside the door. He gently untied the strap, sighed and covered my legs with the blanket before moving to the other side of the bed. There I couldn’t look without moving my head and betraying the fact that I was awake. He sat down on the chair far from the bed and again I couldn’t see him. So I closed my eyes.
No, don’t tie her up, Sister Catherine.
I cry again and she disappears again. from mom
He catches me. It’s not him, but I know I can’t give up. I look at him, his face changes to another face. Never mind, I’m scared. Not afraid of death. I wish I was dead. I’m scared of life. Life is death in my agony. Please, I beg him with my eyes. Maybe this time he will let me.
To my surprise he leaves me immediately. But the fear doesn’t let me go, I have to run away from here, but I can’t get up from this bed. from side to side and again. You forget how to get up.
Guitar sounds startle me. No, not tango. I don’t want to dance with him ever.
But this guitar doesn’t sound like a tango. She reminds me of another song. I’m trying to identify. It’s pleasant and I can’t guess. It’s on the tip of the tongue. Then he sings, assuring me that the sun is already coming and everything is fine. And even if I know that everything is wrong, I listen to him. During this time he sings I can pretend the sun is already here, comforting my pain. As long as he sings, as long as he is here, Amit will not come.
