Apples from the Desert
THE HELEN ROSE SCHEUER JEWISH WOMEN’S SERIES
STREETS
A Memoir of the Lower East Side
by Bella Spewack
THE MAIMIE PAPERS
Letters of an Ex-Prostitute
by Maimie Pinzer
edited by Ruth Rosen and Sue Davidson
A CROSS AND A STAR
Memoirs of a Jewish Girl in Chile
by Marjorie Agosín
APPLES FROM THE DESERT
Selected Stories
by Savyon Liebrecht
ALWAYS FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE
A Memoir of My Chilean Jewish Father
by Marjorie Agosín
THE HOUSE OF MEMORY
Stories by Jewish Women Writers of Latin America
edited by Marjorie Agosín
Apples
from the
Desert
SELECTED STORIES
BY SAVYON LIEBRECHT
Translated from the Hebrew
by Marganit Weinberger-Rotman,
Jeffrey M. Green, Barbara Harshav, Gilead Morahg,
and Riva Rubin under the direction of
The Institute for Translation of Hebrew Literature
FOREWORD BY GRACE PALEY
INTRODUCTION BY LILY RATTOK
THE HELEN ROSE SCHEUER JEWISH WOMEN’S SERIES
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.
| PJ5054.L444T3613 1998 | 892.4’36—dc21 |
| CIP |
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
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
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,