‘Say Mama!’

‘Mama,’ echoed the little one.

A dozen times he repeated the word. A hundred times Deborah repeated it. Not in vain had been her prayers. Menuchim spoke. And this one word of the deformed child was sublime as a revelation, mighty as thunder, warm as love, gracious as Heaven, wide as the earth, fertile as a field, sweet as a sweet fruit. It was more than the health of the healthy children. It meant that Menuchim would be strong and big, wise and good, as the words of the blessing had promised.

To be sure no other understandable sounds issued from Menuchim’s throat. For a long time this one word, which he had brought out after such a terrible silence, meant food and drink, sleep and love, pleasure and pain, heaven and earth. Although he used this word for every situation, he seemed to his mother as loquacious as a preacher and as rich in expression as a poet. She understood all the words which were buried in this single one. She neglected the older children. She turned away from them. She had but one son, an only son: Menuchim.

III

PERHAPS BLESSINGS NEED a longer time for their fulfilment than curses. Ten years had passed since Menuchim had spoken his first and only word. He could still say nothing else.

Sometimes when Deborah is alone in the house with her sick son, she bolts the door, sits down beside Menuchim on the floor, and stares into the little one’s face. Then she remembers the dreadful day in summer when the Countess drove before the church. She sees the open door of the church. A golden gleam from a thousand candles, from coloured pictures wreathed in light, from three priests in robes who stand far back near the altar, with black beards and white, hovering hands, shines out into the sunny, dusty square. Deborah is in the third month; Menuchim stirs in her body; she holds delicate little Miriam fast by the hand. Suddenly there is shouting. It drowns out the chant of the prayerful in the church. There is heard the clacking trample of horses; a cloud of dust whirls up; the dark-blue equipage of the Countess stops before the church. The peasant children hurrah. The beggars on the steps hobble towards the carriage to kiss the hand of the Countess. Suddenly Miriam breaks loose. In no time she has disappeared. Deborah trembles; she freezes, in the midst of the heat.