A Thief IN THE Night

by Joanna Yehiel

i’d had my eyes on that little house for some years — ever since I’d come to that small Tel Aviv square, hidden behind larger boulevards which the mayor was constantly digging up to lay electric wires or water pipes, or merely to further annoy the residents of the town who saw their ability to drive as fast as possible as a divine right. In our small square, an oval really, a little grass, a great deal of concrete and some scraggy trees gave it privileged access to the word kikar on the signs. It boasted a swing or two, almost always broken. And numberless piles of drying dog deposit, despite the carefully placed dispenser post with free plastic bags to gather up the animal garnish.

The house, that’s where I wished to be. It was hidden behind tall hedges, drowned out by its four-floor neighbors on both sides, a one storey, one story affair. Whose story? The elderly lady who lived there with her Filipina caregiver was not one for telling tales, unlike my immediate neighbor, who will tell all and sundry (I, the sundry) every excruciating detail of her life until this moment, and much of the awful future that awaits her when she is finally put into a home by her undeserving family.

No, this lady rarely spoke. I saw her, carefully, meticulously dressed, in her garden. Yes, a garden! In the center of town! With some trees – a jacaranda, overflowing with blue flowers in May. A lemon, for no Israeli garden ever omits that. And, masses and masses of flowers, higgledy-piggledy, no order, no color ranging, no design of small at front, medium in the center, large at the rear. Just flowers, flowers, all the year around, even in quixotic January and arid August.

I saw her, gently pushing a geranium back into its place, attacking the huge blooms of a tall hollyhock as it flew way over her head, snipping off the rose hips of the huge overblown orange-pink-yellow Gloire de Dijon roses, so gluttonously, ravenously enveloping the hedges. And the sweet peas, in April overwhelmingly riotously colorful, blues, pinks, whites, so easy to grow, so easy to cut and cut again: they call them the cut and-come-again flower in England, and that’s what they need, constant pruning, otherwise, they die.

Watering? Of course, she did it herself. By hand. With a heavy old grey metal watering can, and then, there was a lighter weight bright green plastic can in her hand, as I gazed at her, over the small white garden gate, the only visual access to the multi-hued heaven she’d created.

More recently, it was the caregiver who was doing the watering by hand each day, as the summer days grew hotter and longer and more and more unbearable.

In September, I expected to see her back out there again, tending to the new autumn blooms, readying the space for new life after the summer heat, but she rarely appeared and I decided that the summer had taken its toll on her, too, as it does here in the dusty fusty city, where pollution encases the tall residential towers each morning in its own glow of grey and pink gaseous fog and stink.

By October, I was growing uneasy. No relationship had ever grown between us, she too naturally reticent, I too English to start a conversation. But clearly, her garden was suffering, and that I couldn’t stand, again an English obsession.

So, one night, I stole out with my own watering can, steadily dripping water over the top of its grey aluminum lip, and reaching into the garden, I sprinkled drops as far as I could reach. Not far. Not nearly enough.

A few days later, I could see the flowers I’d watered were thriving, but those I’d not come in contact with, and they were so many, were drooping, dreary and neglected. The rose’s huge blossoms were now trailing on the ground, its petals a mass of burnt orange and brown.

That night, I stole out (yes, I felt as if I were a thief!) and quietly opened the gate, and watered the whole garden in the dark. I found the tap, just inside on the right of the gate, turned on the water, filled the watering can, filled it a dozen times, and hastily threw the water on to the bushes, the trees, the shrubs, the patch of grass, like a criminal looking over my shoulder in case anyone should see me at my task.
But no one came, the house was shuttered and still, the neighbors lost in sleep or TV, and home I stole again, the empty can dripping its last few drops on my shoes, wet with moisture, my breath heavy with stealth.

Each night, it became easier, until I found that this regular watering expedition was part of my evening ritual. I never saw her and her caregiver again. One day in December, when watering was becoming unnecessary and I had begun, instead, to bring my secateurs, to cut back the roses (how else would they survive?), a black-bordered notice was affixed to the white garden gate, and I understood she would not be coming back.
I found her family, named in the notice. I actually rang her sons, two brothers, and asked how much they wanted for the house. I’m a kibbutznik, I don’t understand money, said one son; ring my brother. His brother certainly understood money: 12 million he said. I didn’t bother to ask in what currency, once I heard the word million, my ears glazed over.

When the demolition trucks came, to destroy the one-storey house, and build another four or five stories, I was ready:
I’d dug up each plant from the garden (it had taken me most of a week’s worth of nights) and transferred each plant to a pot on my balcony. The trees, I left, of course, maybe the new neighbors would appreciate some shade or a lemon or two. But on my small balcony (crowded is not the word: I can hardly find space to sit anymore) I have geraniums, sweet peas, hollyhocks, and a wonderful blowsy yellow Gloire de Dijon rose, buoyant, welcoming, a pool of yellow sunshine, right there in the midst of winter.

Joanna Yehiel was daily news desk editor and then daily features and weekend magazine editor of The Jerusalem Post for more than 20 years. She edited the Week’s End section of Haaretz in English since its inception 10 years ago until her retirement last year. She has three stories in the “Tel Aviv: Short Stories” collection “and dozens more in my head.”

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