Apples from the Desert. Savyon Liebrecht

      THE FEMINIST PRESS

      AT THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK

      NEW YORK

      Published in the United States and Canada by

      The Feminist Press at The City University of New York

      Wingate Hall, City College

      Convent Avenue at 138th Street

      New York, NY 10031

      Published simultaneously in Great Britain by Loki Books Ltd.

      38 Chalcot Crescent, London NW1 8YD

      First English-language edition, 1998

      02 01 00 99 98 6 5 4 3 2

      Copyright © 1986, 1988, 1992 by Savyon Liebrecht.

      Compilation and worldwide translation copyright © 1998 by The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature, with the exception of the following stories: “A Room on the Roof,” English translation copyright © by Ariel: The Israeli Review of Arts and Letters; “Apples from the Desert,” English translation copyright © by Barbara Harshav; “Compassion,” English translation copyright © by Riva Rubin.

      Introduction copyright ©1998 by Lily Rattok; English translation copyright © 1998 by The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature.

      Foreword copyright ©1998 by Grace Paley.

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced or used, stored in any information retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission from The Feminist Press at The City University of New York, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Liebrecht, Savyon, 1948-

       [Short stories. English. Selections.]

      Apples from the desert : selected stories / by Savyon Liebrecht ; translated from the Hebrew by Marganit Weinberger-Rotman . . . [et al.] under the director of The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature ; foreword by Grace Paley ; introduction by Lily Rattok.

       p. cm.— (The Helen Rose Scheuer Jewish women’s series)

       Includes bibliographical references.

       ISBN 978-1-55861-644-8

      1. Liebrecht, Savyon, 1948- —Translations into English. I. Weinberger-Rotman, Marganit. II. Makhon le-tirgum sifrut ‘Ivrit (Israel). III. Title. IV. Series.

      Steven H. Scheuer, in memory of his mother and in celebration of her life and the 100th anniversary of her birth (1995), has been pleased to endow the Helen Rose Scheuer Jewish Women’s Series. Apples from the Desert is the fourth named book in the series.

      Text design by Dayna Navaro

      R.R. Donnelley and Sons

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      Contents

Foreword by Grace Paley

Introduction by Lily Rattok

       From Apples from the Desert

1. A Room on the Roof

       2. Apples from the Desert

       3. A Married Woman

       4. Hayuta’s Engagement Party

       From Horses on the Highway

       5. Excision

       6. Written in Stone

       7. The Road to Cedar City

       From “What Am I Speaking, Chinese?” She Said to Him

       8. “What Am I Speaking, Chinese?” She Said to Him

       9. Mother’s Photo Album

       10. Morning in the Park Among the Nannies

       11. Compassion

       12. The Homesick Scientist

       For Aba

Foreword

      SEVERAL YEARS AGO I was one of about fifteen Jewish writers who met in Switzerland. Some were from Israel; others were from the diaspora—the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Brazil, Argentina. Our parents, grandparents, a few of us as babies, had probably spoken Russian, Yiddish, Polish, German.

      We had those languages in our ears—those tones, inflections, accents—as we wrote in English, Portuguese, Spanish, Hebrew.

      It was a wonderful meeting. But when I looked at the six Israeli participants—including Yehuda Amichai and Aharon Appelfield, whose work I loved and knew well—I couldn’t help asking,” But where are my Israeli sisters?”

      The men, suddenly looking like my Russian-Jewish uncles caught in a not-so-terrible but embarrassing mistake, looked at one another, startled, and said, “Yes, yes, of course, we should . . . Yes, What about Celia? Dahlia?”

      I am writing this perhaps ten years later. I am in Vietnam at a meeting with Vietnamese writers, editors,