Muck Read online

  Jeremiah stared at him as he left. Mattaniah, yes, that was his name. His poems had been accepted for publication under every shady tree and in every cultural and literary supplement; the fact that he was the current King Jehoiakim’s younger brother and the son of the former, deceased King Josiah probably didn’t hurt his acceptance rate. After his father’s death in Megiddo—tales were told of his heroic deeds, but Mattaniah would discover in the days to come that Pharaoh Neco, who was on his way to assist the Assyrian army in the waging of its war against the Babylonians, simply gave an order to shoot his father, Josiah, and that no battle to speak of had taken place but, rather, an incidental death sentence—he became all the more determined to build up his life from scratch, to prove to the world the worth of his poems independent of his family pedigree. After all, what sort of pedigree are we talking about here? His father was more absent than present in his life, and dealt in national matters, and in the Book of the Law he’d discovered, which he couldn’t stop reading and talking about as though who-knows-what, and in the never-ending intrigues against Egypt and Assyria. When his father passed away, it was for Mattaniah as though a distant cousin had died, or maybe a brother-in-law. Great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers did not obey the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us, his father once told him, in his old-timer’s Hebrew. Mattaniah said, But you said that today we were going to go sailing in the canal, and his father said: Mattaniah, didn’t you hear what I just said? Great is the wrath of the Lord. The canal won’t dry up; sailing isn’t going to go away. But sailing did go away, and the canal would indeed dry up in the years to come, and Josiah, Mattaniah’s father, wouldn’t be around to see it. A year later, Egyptian archers pierced him through; Pharaoh himself shot the first arrow, and to his own surprise got a bull’s-eye, and they brought the wounded king back to Jerusalem in a chariot, but by the time he arrived all his blood had spilled onto the upholstery, leaving his body drained, and the king said to his servants, Take me away, for I am badly wounded. So Mattaniah was orphaned, and grew up without a father after his father’s death just as he’d grown without a father before his death. Mattaniah once read a new book of poems and wanted to please his father and tell him how he’d fathomed something in one of the verses, and even started describing to him the strange new music that the poem had opened up to him, but his father only glanced at the book and said, Listen, Mattaniah, this doesn’t interest anybody one bit apart from you.

  * * *

  AFTER THE DEATH OF JOSIAH, no one raised the possibility, even for a second, that Mattaniah might receive the crown, it goes without saying. They’d have crowned a jenny ass before Mattaniah, they’d have imported the King of Sidon rather than crown him, and they told him so quite bluntly. And so he retreated, rejoicing, it seemed, in his own affairs—that is, in poetry and all that revolved around it, the little magazines and the publications and the galleys and the prizes and the intrigues and the festivals—and every now and then he invented a whole new past for himself in order to cleanse himself of his kingly origins and be a no-frills poet, a bare-bones poet, in his own words. He colored his reddish hair and beard black and told everyone—and even wrote in the bio for his marginally renowned cycle of poems, Nineveh Palms—that his mother was Assyrian and that he didn’t have the slightest idea who his father was. He grew Assyrian curls and a groomed shovel-beard, and he pumped iron in the gym in order to make himself match the wall reliefs in which the Assyrian kings were always depicted with bulging arms and calves.

  In time, Mattaniah began to believe in his invented half-Assyrian origins, which were supposed to blot out all traces of the kingly pedigree that only wearied him and stood as an obstacle, in his eyes, to the objective recognition of his literary achievements. He wanted to be important, that’s all. For what’s the opposite of important? he asked. The opposite of importance is nonexistence. To exist is to be important; I want to be important, important to somebody, it doesn’t matter to whom. At first, after his father’s death, his younger brother, Jehoahaz, was crowned king, and his kingship was celebrated with great fanfare, it was the month of Tammuz, but after three months Jehoahaz disappeared, literally. Four skinheads arrived in a black minivan, shoved him into the back at three in the morning, and drove him down to Egypt, and since then there hasn’t been a peep from him—he was simply rubbed out—and so the Egyptians crowned Elyakim, his older brother. Pharaoh changed his name to Jehoiakim in order to humiliate him, but the name was actually pretty nice, Mattaniah thought; after all, they could have given him a revolting Egyptian name such as Ahmose or Merneptah. Like everybody else in high school, Mattaniah had memorized the names of the Egyptian kings of the New Kingdom as part of the mandatory curriculum for his matriculation exams in Egyptian culture and language. The disappearance of his younger and much-loved brother, Jehoahaz, greatly distressed him, and for many months he went on hoping for and expecting Jehoahaz’s return from Egypt. But, then, he also believed that at any given moment he, too, would be whisked away, and he avoided minivans as though they were monsters, forever seeing his brother Jehoahaz, head covered in a burlap sack, being forced into a black minivan, its sliding door slammed shut after him. And he decided that he had to distance himself from all this political turmoil, and from all ties to the royal family—in other words, from his own family—in order to protect his life and safeguard his soul, because to be a major poet—or even just any old poet—in the incessant bustling of the royal court was impossible.

  So he gradually drifted from the court to rentals in Rehavia and Talbiyeh, and adopted a mastiff to protect him on the day they showed up to take him to Egypt. The dog calmed him down somewhat and made him feel more secure. But it also reminded him that he needed it, as a bodyguard; hence the watchdog caused him to remember that he was in danger, just as a humming electric security fence reminds the person defending himself of his prospective assailants. And Mattaniah dyed his hair and his beard, and he tattooed his arms and also his back and his chest and his legs with wise Assyrian sayings and poems written in cuneiform, and he started working out in the gym even before the tats, in order to firm up his body, make it into a solid writing tablet. After getting tattooed, he made sure to keep working out, but every now and then his spirits would break and his barely concealed apprehension of Egyptian kidnappers would return, and he was seized with horror, his heart frozen by the old thought of his younger brother being snatched away in a minivan, his head covered in a burlap sack. When overcome by his fear, he’d quit working out in the gym and building up his body for months, since he knew it would be of no use when the Egyptians showed up in the middle of the night to take him away and rub him out, and all the wise Assyrian sayings faded and his flesh sagged, until he pulled himself together and returned with renewed vigor to the barbells and the elliptical machines and the isotonic protein drink and the morning jogs, and the cuneiform on his skin—which he barely knew how to read, much as he admired its shapes—would regain its recognizable contours.

  Now Mattaniah sat himself down next to his four poet friends. They all had smartphones in their hands and were taking pictures of one another, as well as of the other customers sitting in the café or browsing its bookshelves. They hardly exchanged a word, for the most part snapping their pictures in silence, and then they’d show one another the photos they’d taken, or they’d upload them to their social media accounts and silently write comments beside the snapshots and hit like under their own pics. Suddenly all five of them turned in Jeremiah’s direction and photographed him and Noa. And Mattaniah leaned forward, spilling a handful of yellow soup nuts he’d dug out of his pocket, and took pictures of the lake and the Old City above it, and then added some filters to the shot when he posted it on Instagram in order to create a more romantic atmosphere, and then he uploaded the same picture on Facebook, and then he also e-mailed it to himself and opened his incoming message. Jeremiah caught snippets of their conversation. Th
e five had recently founded a new literary journal and were engaged in deciding who could and could not participate and publish in the journal. They wielded a pen of iron and wrote down who was a yes and who a no. You want to publish Gunkel? Gunkel the graphomaniac? Over my dead body. When you get right down to it, his poems are, at best, the immature overflow spilling out of a starving yeshiva student’s pen, and at worst they’re megalomaniacal spasms at the level of a religious secondary-school girl. Gunkel? We’ve set up a literary mag for him? After all, he was formed out of the dirt between the fingers of Pinchas Sadeh, who, entre nous, was no beacon in exile, either. Perhaps, while we’re at it, you’d like us to print the kitsch of, what’s his name, that grade-C poet, the Cohen, and the guy stood up and recited with pathos, A voice is heard in Ramah / Lamentation, and bitter weeping / Rachel weeping for her children / She refuses to be comforted—for her children are gone. Gone, they’re simply gone! They’re gone, so I guess I’d better sit right down and dash off a limerick about it!

  It took Jeremiah a fraction of a second to grasp that they were quoting his old poem, his own poem, from the book of poems he had sent to Broch. They were quoting it, or so it appeared, guilelessly, as if they didn’t know that he, the poet, was sitting at a distance of several tables. And a second poet said, Rachel weeping for her children—forgive me, but that is without question stylistic scum, a sort of precooked cornstarch quiche warmed in a microwave until it turns all rheumy. Nothing easier to squeeze out than tears. Here’s a surefire recipe: take a historical figure—Rachel, Leah, Dinah, say—and let her shed some tears in a poem, and, rest assured, your book’s bound to go through three print runs. Why not Rachel weeping for her deputies, this poet suggested, trying his hand at improvising a witty parody. Surely she had deputies, too, no? And if she didn’t, why not, is it so hard to deputize people? And a third poet raised the stakes and said: I suggest A broomstick sweeping its underling, and then a fourth said, Nice, but whose underling? And they shot back, Rachel’s, what d’ya mean, whose? But she didn’t have underlings, one of them insisted. And his friend asked, She can have deputies but not underlings? And they laughed and laughed, and Mattaniah, who hadn’t joined in so far, took courage and said, The Lord licking her stamps. The other four stared at him and said: What? Mattaniah, what’s the connection? Where did you get that one from? This isn’t a post office, and anyway there were no stamps in our forebears’ time. Look, one isn’t obliged to write and talk at all costs …

  Noa, who had no idea that all this banter revolved around the man sitting next to her—his poker face betraying the faintest hint of his discomfort—was browsing through the latest edition of one of the newspapers’ literary supplements. There was a review of the new journal edited by the five poets over at the other table, with further details provided by Broch, a literary critic whose name she’d undoubtedly never heard before. The write-up in the supplement was the reason for their get-together, even though they hadn’t dared open the journal as yet, and couldn’t bring themselves to read the critique; in the meantime, they were steeling their hearts against what must surely be—so their instincts and experiences told them—a death blow. Noa drew Jeremiah’s attention to the write-up, and he was surprised to see them there, a photo of the five poet-editors of the new literary journal Muscle (the original name that Mattaniah proposed, No, had been unanimously rejected by a show of hands). In the picture, their ever-present smartphones and cups of coffee and strong tea were visible, and Noa saw that the headline heaped praise on the review and mentioned the five by name.

  One of the poets raised his hand, and the blind waitress sensed something in the air and came over. The poet asked for a glass of water, and the waitress, her arm stretched out in front of her, brought him a glass of water with a floating slice of lemon. The poet, short and adept at mimicking the cries of rats—his day job was actually doing this routine at birthday parties and stag nights—winked at his friends, poured the water into a vase, and after a moment again called the blind waitress and said: Waitress, what about my water? There are thirsty customers here, can’t you see? And he pointed to his empty glass. The waitress, with her sightless, embarrassed eyes staring over his head, apologized and fetched him another glass, her arm again thrust forward and her fingers fumbling at the empty space ahead of her, and he silently poured this glass, too, into the vase and winked at his friends, who were on the verge of cracking up, though he was making sure to keep a straight face. Once again he called the waitress: Waitress, what happened? What about my water? And the waitress again approached the table, this time with a carafe balanced on a round tray and filled with bits of lemon and ice cubes, which melted inaudibly save to her own ears.

  The rat poet called out to the blind waitress, Say, come over here a minute, I’ve got a question for you. She turned around and looked a little over their heads. You can’t see us, he said, right? She smiled apologetically. The poet said: What’s intriguing is that we can’t see you, either. Can you see her? he asked, and his friends said, No, no, there’s no one there. I can’t see anyone, they can’t see anyone. And so, the poet said, squealing for a moment like a rat, and so it seems to me there’s been some mistake here; it looks to me like you, in fact, don’t exist. Someone who doesn’t see and can’t be seen—well, she’s empty, nothing, zilch. No? I must be speaking to myself right now; maybe you’re only a thought in my head, in which case, you should know, my thoughts replace each other pretty fast, so soon enough you’ll be replaced, too. But where’s our waitress, the real waitress? one of the friends asked—this sounded like Mattaniah. And the rat poet answered: Excellent question. Our waitress is at home; there’s no one here. So there’s no point, then, the rat poet told the waitress, in your going home today. Imagine going home and seeing yourself—or, rather, not seeing yourself. Imagine letting yourself find out that you’re blind! She’ll get the shivers there at home—what a pity. But no harm done, since we’ve agreed you don’t exist, he finished up. Best if you simply stay put here, and she there. And now bring us something sweet.

  Jeremiah buried his face in his hands. He picked up and held on to the jug with his eyes closed, and then opened them wide and looked at the people sitting in the café. There was a microphone hooked to a ring on the wall near his seat, intended for literary readings; he picked it up, switched it on, and said, One-two. Ah … Oh that I were in the desert in a travelers’ lodging place. That I might leave my people and go away from them, for they are all adulterers, a band of traitors. And they bend their tongues like bows of falsehood, Jeremiah said, and they have grown strong in the land, but not for truth, for they advance from evil to evil, and they do not know me, says the Lord, Jeremiah said. He couldn’t bring himself to establish eye contact with his audience. Beware of your neighbors, he hissed, and put no trust in kith and kin, for they are all double-dealers, and every friend goes about spreading lies. They deceive their neighbor and no one speaks the truth, they have taught their tongues to speak falsehoods, they wear themselves out acting vilely. He slurped some cold tea, for his mouth had gone completely dry. You dwell in the midst of deceit, Jeremiah said, through deceit they refuse to know me, says the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will smelt them, and try them, for what else can I do with my poor people? Their tongue is a deadly arrow, it mouths lies, they speak kindly to their neighbors, but in their hearts they ready an ambush. Jeremiah mumbled this in a monotone, speaking practically to himself, his mouth not properly aligned with the mike, which every once and a while whistled shrilly. He looked around at the customers lounging in the Bookworm; some were staring back at him, but most were busy with their own affairs, reading or writing or browsing through newspapers or eating or sipping their hot drinks, as was the practice at the frequent poetry-reading evenings that took place there. Shall I not punish them for these things? says the Lord; shall not my soul be avenged on a nation such as this? Jeremiah whispered: For the mountains will I take up a weeping and a wailing and a lamentation fo
r the pastures of the wilderness because they are laid waste so that no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard, both fowl of the air and beasts have fled and gone. And I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a lair of jackals, and I will make the towns of Judah a desolation without inhabitant, Jeremiah added hoarsely, gasping for air, his throat parched. And he raised his head as though rising from the deep, and stared at the mike like someone who suddenly discovers he’s holding a serpent.