Sigal shapira Translated to english: Shirley Ganor THE ORCHARD "הבוסתן" סיפור מאת סיגל שפירא. תרגמה שירלי גנור

Sigal shapira    THE ORCHARD                                                    Translated to english: Shirley Ganor      The skies granted her their best and kept nothing from her.  Her life went along under the protection of her husband, a respected businessman, calmly and quietly as the waters of the well gurgle in the brook - in the orchard next to her home.  Like the orchard, she too bore fruit.  However, she didn’t give birth to sons, only daughters, three indications for sons, but also these have some benefit as no person is eligible for the next world without them.  “Mother-Dahud” they called her, on the name of the son who will be born.  This nickname given to her by her friends, gave her an aura of respect and gave her confidence, but was also another added measure erasing her personality and independence.  If her mother hadn’t been careful and always used the name given her at birth, as was appropriate for mother-daughter relations, then Mother-Dahud” would probably have forgotten her original name. From the very beginning her mother had prepared her to become a man’s wife, and to manage a household.  When she married, Mother-Dahud knew well what was expected of her.  Her first concern was her husband, the axis around which her life revolved, and she constantly made sure to oil that axis: she cooked him the finest foods known in the community, watched at his table (looking into his face to catch the hints of satisfaction), took care of his clothing, prepared whatever he might need, and spread her legs when he so desired.  She never stopped working to think about her own desires, her consciousness was clean of any philosophical questions about where she came from and where she was going to, and therefore she never pondered her very existence, never searched for herself, and didn’t want “self fulfillment” as customary in our times, but rather opened her home to the poor and the rich alike, because she received all from heaven and had no qualms about sharing her wealth with others.  Those reciprocated and bore her name in the city as an example of a woman of valor. Mother-Dahud did not allow her satisfaction to turn into pride.  On the contrary, she opened her windows wide – “breathe the smell of the garden” she smiled to those who came to her home – “also the garden cannot keep for itself all that God gave it”.  So her life continued to flow until another wind began to blow, a bad wind, which shut the windows of Mother-Dahud with a noisy bang.  Slowly people changed their taste and began to whisper her name in private.  She felt and also knew that she was supplying the content for the housewives’ free hours, and breaking their daily monotony.  People who had eaten in her home, now began to drink her blood.  “Yes” - they said – “Her husband should not be blamed for going astray.  A woman who gives birth only to girls, something is wrong with her.  The soul of a husband cries out for a male child, and why shouldn’t he try his seed in fertile ground which would produce exceptionally well?   This wife has dried up and she can only provide him with empty fruit”.  And in general, the prosecutors added, what is the fault of a man that all of his sexual intercourse is dreariness and protruding bones?  No tender full breasts bubbling in his embrace and fullness radiating warmth to treat his body. Fear took hold of those who were used to her delicacies and the foods were still in their mouths, they were afraid lest the source of their meals dry up.  They filled their mouths with praise and spoke to the prosecutors of her generosity, her devotion to her husband and to God, and mainly the agility of her fingers and her expertise in the secrets of the kitchen.  “Praise and glory for the work of her hands”; they defended her, but their words which came from their desire for the pot of meat, were insufficient to remove the cloud which threatened to darken her name.  At first Mother-Dahud tried to ignore the talk.  What has a diligent ant to fear from a rainy day?  In fact she did all that was required of her as a wife, exactly as her mother taught her, she skipped nothing and even added out of love for her husband.    And yet, she thought, if she tries hard and goes to study from the women who were great at their households, she would surely find the way to please him and to restrain the people so they would stop their tongues from sending fire into her home.  Don’t stop, keep going.  Keep going like the flowing water in the garden, who, if they didn’t continue to flow, would not maintain their rights. And people?  They didn’t let up and continue to come to her home to whisper to her that her husband is after a non-Jewish woman, a young deer, who undoubtedly put a spell on him as the non-Jews do, as someone like him wouldn’t cross boundaries just like that, and go after her, bound by the bonds of desire until he anchored their relationship at the lawyer’s.  “You must strike against the spell while it is still       “ , they counseled her and put in her hands the address of a Muslim Sheik who was well versed in the ways of the world and the secrets of magic spells. Their words worked their way to her heart and threatened to destroy her sanity and still she didn’t listen to their advice, but continued to manage her home with the loyalty of a trained animal.  In order to distance bad thoughts which destroy body and soul, Mother-Dahud would occasionally go up on the roof of her house, hang laundry and dry fruits of the season.  When she was up there, she looked towards heaven and felt how close she was to God, she could not longer contain herself and like the palm tree in the garden with its palms to heaven, she raised her palms, only she didn’t stand as straight, but rather bent in silent pleading...  God who knows the secrets of the heart, would see her there on the roof, all prayer and love, perhaps for a moment would leave his tasks in matters of the world – to defeat tyrants, to destroy countries like cards, to repair the wrongdoings of nations and bring peace – and spread peace also on her home and purity the heart of her husband, Eliyahu, for love.  She dried so much fruit there on the roof until God answered her prayers, so she believed, and he opened the heavenly gates for her.  Those were the gates of immigration, through which her husband and daughters and the whole community, young and old, would come, and that same woman, the fox who was getting at her garden, would remain out of bounds.  The hope and believe pushed her to sign up on the list of immigrants, to prepare suitcases and to be born again. It was a festive morning.  Mother-Dahud, her daughters, and her mother, in their best cloths, marched towards the Synagogue where the registration took place.  She arranged with her husband to meet there.  When she saw from a distance the old building, well worn by the years, her step quickened, she wondered about the source of her strength, what pushed her to such an initiative and to bring such a bold proposal before her husband.  The heavy door opened before the great crowd wanting to get in.  Her husband was nowhere in sight.  She stood in the crowd wrapped in anticipation for the fulfillment of her dream – her husband would come and put his name on the list next to hers, and then the umbilical cord that was tying him to this land and his foreign love would be severed. Time passed and her husband did not appear, her mother urged her to go in “he will be here soon” – she said – “don’t waste the time” and her daughters, strengthened by their grandmother’s words, pulled her inside. Inside she found herself standing opposite the clerk, pushed by the large crowd around her and drawn as a speck onto the grindstone.  Two thousand years they had waited patiently and now the way was opened for them to the Land of Israel and they were impatient.  “Register, or let us register”, they shouted at her.  Mother-Dahud registered her daughters under the name of her mother, she wrote another name there slowly, as if she couldn’t remember their names.  Occasionally she would stop, look behind her to the end of the line.  She wrote the third name and almost regretted that she had no more daughters to continue and register before she signed also her name to the list of no return.  Yes, she thought, “there is no return”. She glanced one last time towards the doorway, perhaps the large image would fill the dorroway, and then she could add also her name alongside his name, but other people streamed into the entrance, bodies, heads… Mother-Dahud ped the pen and felt her way outside.  He stood there, looked at her, lowered his head and turned towards his home and she dragged along after him, empty.  She knew – the entire community was in the midst of a difficult process of waiting citizenship, property, roots.  Also she was ready to give us all of the good that God had granted her, but it was beyond her understanding how she could give up a part of it, on the flesh of her flesh, on her daughters and she did it with her own hands.  From now on they would be in the custody of their grandmother, the custody of her mother who undertook to take them to the new country, while her place would stay planted beside her husband.  She continued to hang around him without a word, and the pains of her motherhood she packed in the suitcase she prepared for them. The excitement that took hold of the community, took hold of her daughters as well, and they began to understand the significance of the separation only when they were beyond the fence in the airport.  The gate that closed behind them, closed also before their mother.  She managed to mumble in their ears a few broken sentences, but because of their age and their fears they were not able to understand their meaning:  “The twigs shall take root and blossom in the holy earth… and the tree shall remain here, its roots intertwined in the earth of the fertile orchard until…” and tears flooded her eyes and choked her throat.  סיפור זה מופיע במקור שלו בעברית כתבה אותו: סיגל שפירא סיפור זה תורגם גם לערבית על-ידי סמיר נקאש  המקור והתרגום לערבית מופיעים בספר דו-לשוני "הבוסתן" הספר יצא לאור ב- 2007 בהוצאת המרכז האקדמאי של יוצאי עיראק בישראל