And The Rat Laughed By Nava Semel Translated From Hebrew by Miriam Shlesinger Copyright Page from the Original Book This optimized ReadHowYouWant edition contains the complete, unabridged text of the original publisher's edition. Other aspects of the book may vary from the original edition. Published in 2008 in the US and world markets by ReadHowYouWant. Copyright © 2008 The text in this edition has been formatted and typeset to make reading easier and more enjoyable for ALL kinds of readers. In addition the text has been formatted to the specifications indicated on the title page. The formatting of this edition is the copyright of Objective Systems Pty Ltd. ReadHowYouWant partners with publishers to provide books for ALL Kinds of Readers. For more information about Becoming A RHYW Registered Reader and to find more titles in your preferred format, visit: www.readhowyouwant.com And the Rat Laughed Nava Semel (b. 1954, Tel Aviv, Israel) holds an MA in Art History and is an art critic. Semel has worked as a TV, radio and recording producer and as a journalist. She has written poetry, prose for children and adults, television scripts and opera libretti, in addition to translating plays. Semel has received several literary prizes, including the American National Jewish Book Award for children’s literature (1990), the Women Writers of the Mediterranean Award (1994), the Austrian Best Radio Drama Award (1996), the Israeli Prime Minister’s Award (1996) and Tel Aviv Woman of the Year in Literature Award (2007). Professor Miriam Shlesinger was born in the United States and has been living in Israel since 1964. She completed her BA at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in musicology and linguistics in 1968, her postgraduate diploma in translation and interpreting at Bar-Ilan University in 1978, her MA in the Department of Literary Studies at Tel Aviv University in 1989, and her Ph.D. at Bar-Ilan University in 2000. She is currently chair of the Department of Translation and Interpreting Studies at Bar-Ilan University. Professor Shlesinger is also a practising translator of plays, novels and short stories from Hebrew into English, as well as a conference interpreter. Also by Nava Semel (in translation) Becoming Gershona Flying Lessons Bride on Paper Hat of Glass Love for Beginners Who Stole the Show? The Child Behind the Eyes To my family Contents And the Rat Laughed Part One The Story Part Two The Legend Part Three The Poems Part Four The Dream Part Four The Diary Part One The Story A day in Tel Aviv, late 1999 1 How to tell this story? Things that had been locked inside her have begun showing through lately. But maybe there’s no need to tell it. The old woman keeps trying to defend her unswerving resolve, and to stick to her silence. For so many years she’s kept the story within her. And now, the question refuses to be muted any longer. It rises out of its grave, egging her on, intrusive. How should the story be told? But maybe it’s been told already. Leaking through in moments of distraction, forcing its way to the surface whenever she loosened her grip. And since the thought of that story being jostled about, unattended and vulnerable without her, is too unsettling, it’s as if she has no choice but to assume the role of storyteller. But she doesn’t know how. And just as she has repressed the story, so too does she now repress the very question of how to tell it. Because if she were to give it a voice, the story would burst through without her being able to contain it, and its severed limbs would scatter in all directions, unfamiliar even to her. Insofar as it depends on her, she’s not going to tell the story in full. *** I was their little girl. Father’s and Mother’s. I loved them. That could be the beginning. No. That would put an end to the story even before it began. *** Even when she pent it up inside her, the story would stab its way through, jabbing its spikes into her. Other spikes dissolved or fell off, and she’d hoped that time would do a good job of covering things up, obliterating whatever should not be remembered, should not be retold even to herself. On rare occasions, when she did manage to summon one particular spike, memory would turn against her, refusing to play along. It was only in distraction, when she had abandoned control, that the unsummoned spike would jab into her, foisting itself on her and dragging her deep into the entrails of the story. *** I was a little girl. I did not choose to be born. I suppose I must have been happy. Not that the question ever arose, of course. Children are not in the habit of wondering about their own happiness. What would you like to know? What good will it do? Why now? The old woman’s barrage of questions tries to ward off the inevitable. But her granddaughter won’t let up. She insists on getting some answers. The old woman is having trouble finding a sensible place to begin the story, one that won’t jeopardize the rest of it. *** As far as she’s concerned, the story isn’t that important to her, and at this late date it doesn’t seem to be important to anyone else either. There are many others like this story, including some that have already been told. She doesn’t think that hers is any more worthy. On the contrary, she’s convinced that the story will resist her, will become incoherent, and in an effort to disguise its own ugliness will turn into something completely different. And yet, she is the only one who can tell it. If not all of it or most of it, then at least some parts. A strange sense of urgency overtakes her. Maybe it’s old age. She cannot afford to let the story disappear as if it never happened. *** I had a mother. I had a father. Won’t you make do with that? I loved and I lost. That’s the end of the story. The beginning too. The old woman keeps on grappling to the last minute, when the doorbell rings, causing the walls to shake. *** It’s not one of those stories that audiences love. Old Woman, give them something airy, upbeat, with an engrossing plot. The hero ought to be larger than life, that’s what her granddaughter tells her. Glamorous, sort of famous, like someone from TV. Despite her age, the old woman knows the new stories, how a story does well precisely when it removes its addressees from their own bleak and compliant place. People have enough on their plate without stories like hers. The recipients of the new millennium’s stories are quick to pass judgment. They’ve heard enough, so they declare. This story, that story, the world is filled with so many stories. Even those without a story to tell insist on their own snippet. And as long as it’s being told, they want the snippet to ring true. But her story, rotting away in its drawn-out darkness, couldn’t possibly sound familiar. Which is why its chances of finding a receptive addressee are all the more slim. Deep inside, the old woman is hoping for a hostile reaction that will wipe out the story once and for all. But to undo it completely would be impossible. Besides, she knows that in her case just telling it will take a supreme effort. To try not to undermine it. To continue loving even in those places where the story is devoid of love. Because once she lets go of it, it will be told differently. People will add things, leave things out, twist it out of shape. And all she has to go by is her own version, her own inadequate best. Deliberately, cautiously, the old woman will pry out spikes from the body of her story, hoping for it to work its way to the surface carefully and discreetly. As for the brutality of it, she’d better just let that be. For now. *** The girl sits facing her. Her hands are unclenched. Grandma, tell me. The old woman says nothing. Grandma, it’s me. She’s still prying out those spikes. *** She’s not as old as she seems. But since her granddaughter sees her as planted in a world which can hardly have existed, let’s just call her “the old woman”, though age, at least in her case, is an elusive notion. In her case, in fact, it is her childhood that is fixated. And not out of nostalgia. The old woman is the little girl who once was. True, it would take a daring leap of the imagination to connect pudgy little hands to the body as it is now, or to visualize the dimples and the baby teeth. But since the reflection of the little-girl-who-once-was has none of that wistful sweetness to it, we will not refer to her as “that little girl”. Whenever the old woman stands in front of the mirror, she searches – and she keeps searching – in the hope of not finding. *** I lost it. I lost everything. Not everything. Almost everything. *** Patience, Child. Every storyteller has trouble finding the right words, and this particular storyteller is finding it especially hard, since her spikes and the sudden jabs have never before been translated into storytelling language.