The Ascent of Eli Israel Read Free Page A

hitting their targets squarely on top of their heads. Two shells can win the war, he thought, and pictured himself riding along King George V Avenue in an open car with Hannah at his side. His reverie was interrupted by the thump of shelling from the east.
    Hannah lived in the next apartment house with her mother and stepfather who were Communists. She was the first girl his own age Pirkl had ever thought was pretty, with her long almond-shaped face, spinning green eyes, and brandnew breasts. He liked her for that, but he also liked the fact that her parents let her do as she wished. Sometimes in the evenings, during the bombing, she would throw rocks at Pirkl’s window and he would meet her in the stairwell where they would kiss in the thick darkness. She promised soon that Pirkl could touch her there.
    He gathered up the cans of soup, the potatoes and the beans, the chocolate spread, some dried fruit, and even the sweet halvah, and left them on the doorstep outside her flat. She had gotten so skinny, Pirkl thought, so light, he could have carried her on his back all the way to the Old City. He heard her stepfather behind the door glumly singing the “Internationale.” Pirkl ran off to gather his satchel humming “Hatikvah,” The Hope, the nation’s anthem.
    Skipping over shell craters and tangled telephone wires, counting broken windows and garbage piles, Pirkl continued humming as he went. He counted in Hebrew, and then English, then in Russian. Sometimes he mixed the three together.
    Farther on down the road Pirkl could see the barricade, and behind that no-man’s-land. A high nasal voice called to him from behind a low stone wall, “Hey, boy. Curlyhead! Come here.” Pirkl stopped beneath an almond tree and adjusted the heavy bag on his back, about to move on.
    â€œBoy, you are going to the Ancient City?”
    â€œWho wants to know?” Pirkl asked.
    â€œI know,” the voice said. “I know.”
    And then, the oldest man Pirkl had ever seen stood up from behind the wall. He was barefoot and dressed entirely in black, with a black felt hat tilted back on his giant head. He had a wild white beard, wispy like dry grass, and his eyes were pale and glassy.
    â€œCome here, boy,” the holy man said, holding out his long bony hand.
    Pirkl could see the veins in his hand so clearly they might have been above the skin. His back was hunched and he smelled of old books and damp soil. And then he spoke and his breath smelled of fish bones that had been almost picked clean.
    â€œYou are going to the Ancient City.”
    Pirkl put his bag down. “Do you live there?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œBut you ran?” Pirkl said.
    The holy man laughed, but instead of a laugh it was a breath and not a breath, as if he had one of those fish bones caught in his throat. “I ran?”
    â€œHow long did you live there?”
    â€œFive hundred years,” the man answered, then wheezed and laughed again. “Your name, boy.”
    Pirkl told him. He could not stop looking into the man’s glassy cataracted eyes, dreamy like cracked crystal balls.
    â€œYour mother?”
    He could hear heavy machine-gunning in the distance and the savage boom, boom, boom of the bigger guns.
    â€œRosa,” Pirkl said.
    â€œTake this,” the holy man said, slipping a small silver amulet into Pirkl’s hand. He gripped his arm tight and did not let go. Pirkl closed his eyes and began to sway. He thought he felt the old man reach into his overall pockets, but he ignored it, thinking the poor man was simply searching for hidden food. The old man’s pink tongue rolled around in his toothless mouth trying to form words, his voice high-pitched and broken: “In the name of Shaddai who created heaven and earth and in the name of the angel . . .” He was shaking faster and Pirkl felt an ache in his groin and a vibration down his spine. “In the name of Pirkl son of