Leivick in Israel 1957, Part 9

Days and Nights in a Jerusalem Hospital

Part 8 is here. The series begins here.

Days and Nights in a Jerusalem Hospital

Regarding a hospital and the sick in a hospital, there is much to tell — particularly when you, yourself, become one of them — but you don’t always wish to talk about it. I ought to deliberate whether or not I should skip over the number of days which I spent in the ‘Ziv’ Hospital in Jerusalem during my current visit to Israel. But I do not deliberate. I do not skip over them. I cannot compare my days in hospital in Jerusalem to hospital days in other places where, in the course of my life, I have come to spend time. The hospital in Jerusalem affected me not only factually, but symbolically: It added me to the great (historical) operation that our entire people underwent in the State of Israel. It happened to me as I prepared myself to lie on the operating table on which the people lie and undergo examination. I should sample at least a portion of that, as well as a portion of the joy that one operated upon experiences and they rise from bed, newly healthy.

This feeling didn’t dominate me immediately when I was brought to Ziv Hospital, but later, on the following day, or the day after that. The first moment, the first instant upon arrival, distinguished itself with nothing particular, apart from that mood of panic which accompanies each who has suddenly become ill and is suddenly brought to hospital when they don’t know what their fate will be in a few hours’ time. The symbolic illumination, if it comes, comes much later. I will tell about it a bit later. And because of it, incidentally, I now recount the first hours — the purely disconcerting ones, when you don’t know at all what will become of you. But without them, without their panicked darkness, there cannot come the higher, symbolic illumination.

I don’t know if the word symbolic properly conveys what I mean to say. I do not, though, at the moment, want to use any complicated, overly-confounding terms. The hospital atmosphere is so charged with pain, with bodily sensation, with crying out of the senses, it would be a sin against them if you went over them too much — wanted too much to transform them into an abstraction. It is enough — and I expect that is it correct — if you elevate pain and, in particular, your pain — to the level of a higher meaning. And certainly, but certainly, if you do, in that case, mingle together the pain of a single Jew with the pain of all Jews and the longing of all Jews for complete healing on the ground of Jerusalem.

The magic which lies in the name Jerusalem and in the bodily struggle in a hospital of the State of Israel, I indeed felt in the hospital itself.

And it still follows me today and still wakens chords in me today — night and day, I cannot forget it and cannot avoid it.

***

When the hospital sister takes me from the ground floor, after all the x-ray examinations and treatments, to the upper floors, where she needed to take me into a room — she doesn’t know if there will already be a bed for me somewhere in whichever room on the floor which is designated for those operated upon and candidates for surgery. She leads the way, I behind her with wavering step, and right beside me — my wife, who accompanies me. Her step is no less wavering than mine, though she takes courage so as not to weaken my own courage. I have one desire: To lie down quickly on a bed to rest. Wherever it may be and on whichever bed it may be.

Being taken from the lowest floor up and then — past limitless rooms, rooms filled with those operated on, I take a glance, as much as my state of fatigue permits me, into the interiors of the rooms (most of the doors are open). I see the sick laid out, and above them — the familiar tall, erect form with the container of glucose solution; most of all, I want to catch a momentary impression of the faces of the people lying there. I catch, though, only passing shadows, passing illusions. One thing I do catch clearly: Quick movements of the young hospital sisters around the sick. They stand over them and around them and weave with their hands quick, pain-stilling webs.  Through one door and a second there carry moans and calls which float by.

From all the floating by, shadowy moments, there remains in me one decided, certain, and strangely cheering thought: All those lying, all the operated on, all those awaiting operation, are Jews in their home hospital, and all the doctors hurrying past are Jews from the home hospital, and all the hard-working sisters running around in their hospital uniforms are Jewish girls, daughters of Israel, and I am also a Jew here, one amongst all in the home hospital.

I say to my wife half-jokingly:

Nu, you see, the full Jewish state, the real one.

My wife is not accustomed to hearing me joke very often, not even half-joking. She looks at me, astonished. I don’t know why I say it myself. Perhaps in order to strengthen her courage. But she is just as willing to strengthen my courage, she says:

— You just feel better here than in another hospital.

— Certainly better, certainly, — I say, — I’m not joking. Soon I will lie on a bed and I will rest and it will be fine, even if certain things aren’t, from a sanitary standpoint, like in New York Mount Sinai, for example.¹

The sister, who goes ahead, comes to a room where through the door, one sees, a bed is being moved in. She stops. I see as from the room comes Z. Shazar and Baruch Zuckerman and his wife. They come to meet us with worried faces, as if guilty of something.

— Impossible to have a room to yourself. Impossible. The hospital is over-crowded. Only just had the possibility of putting a bed here in this room for you. A room where there should be only one bed, now holds three. Two — already occupied.

Since I had become unwell, dear friends Z. Shazar and the Zuckermans showed limitless devotion both to me and my wife. All day, since I had been taken to the hospital, they did not give up seeking a comfortable place for me, and this was the most comfortable place which was possible to organise. Apart from that, they were in communication with the medical personnel of the hospital all day, confirming what was the matter with me and what needed to be done.

The bed is installed in the room, right beside the door. The bed is fenced off from the other two beds with an improvised linen partition, in order to create a bit of an illusion of privacy for me. Behind the partition, in the other two beds, huddled almost against one another, lay two men only just brought from operating rooms. The improvised partition concealed them from me. I feel, though, their nearness to my bed, hear every movement and the quiet voice of the sisters and the doctors around them, who go in and out every minute. Around me, as well, the sisters and young doctors begin to occupy themselves, instituting a regime for me and also noting down all the necessary information about me. I see as beside my bed, there is arranged a glucose apparatus, a stand with a container of sweet liquid, for subcutaneous feeding. This must be, it seems, to prepare for an operation.

My friends and my wife must leave me until the chief doctor of Ziv, Professor Melvitzski, whether alone or through a consultation with more doctors, decides my further fate. The decision must be taken no later than through the evening, at latest — through the night.

I remain alone in my isolated corner of the room. I lie dressed in a blue-striped, not-overly-soft, hospital gown, and wait for the decision of the doctors who must come together somewhere in the hospital building here. And perhaps they have already come together and are holding their consultation now.

Whatever they should decide will be fine, I say to myself. At the moment, nothing concerns me apart from rest. I want nothing, but to lay as I lie fenced off in a corner and so lying and lying do I feel pain and nausea as I felt it through the previous night and through the first half of the day? — No, not as sharply as before. From time to time there pass through me and in me rushings and cramps. But I bear them. They pass through and it becomes peaceful inside me. If not for the thirst, which makes my mouth, my palate and my tongue truly parched, I would be able to close my eyes and fall asleep. But I cannot prove to do it.

A nurse comes in. She takes, yet again, my pulse, my temperature. I ask her if she can give me a bit of water.

— No, — she says, — a strict order not to give you anything. I’m sorry, — she says, — but I can’t do it. For your own good.

— How long will the order be in effect? — I ask.

— Until the doctors decide what to do with you. They’re deciding now.

— Why are you speaking to me in English? — I ask — I see it’s difficult for you to speak English.

— You come from America, — she says, — we know who you are. They told us that you’re a Yiddish writer, a poet.

She says it gracefully, almost teasingly. She is beautiful, child-like. She must be all of eighteen, no more.

— Why, then, don’t you speak with me in Yiddish?

— And why don’t you speak with me in Hebrew?

— I’m used to Yiddish, — I say.

— And I’m used to Hebrew.

— Why, then, does it immediately occur to you to speak with me in English? — I ask.

— Because I’m not sure if you speak Hebrew and because you come from America…

— I know Hebrew, — I say, — but speaking is hard for me. I’m not used to it. It would be pleasant to me if you would speak Yiddish with me, even if we can understand each other in English. Here, in a Jerusalem hospital, it would be particularly pleasant to me.²

— Why would it be pleasant for you if I should speak bad Yiddish?

— It would be more familiar to me, — I say.

— Nu, tov, — she says. Tov. Is it true that you’re the author of The Golem?

— Yes, it’s true. You’ve seen it?

— Ken, ken, at Habima.  It’ll be good if you don’t need to be operated on.

— Do you like your work here in the hospital?

— Ken. So many Jews from so many different countries lie here. Undergo difficult examinations and become healthy. Good to see how they become well. A pity that it is crowded here and you must lie three to a room and your bed must be beside the door.

— Who are my two neighbours?

— They were operated in this morning. One had a lung removed. The other, who lies beside you, had a heart operation. One of them even half-American, the other — from Morocco. If you can sleep a bit, sleep. It’s already night. I’ll go to them. They need watching. Lilah tov.

— Todah rabah, — I say, — but I can’t sleep anyhow.

— The doctors will probably come to you soon. Let’s hope it’ll be good, — she says, and disappears behind the curtain which separates me from my two operated-upon neighbours.

H. Leivick, Tog, 4 January, 1958

Onward to Part 10

Ziv Hospital at centre.

1. There’s at least two poems explicitly written in Mount Sinai Hospital from June, 1942: ‘An Extraordinary Ball’ and ‘The Moon Lives Still?’

2. There is a rather lovely series of poems which date particularly to Leivick’s time in Ziv Hospital (formerly the German Deaconnesses Hospital, part of Bikur Cholim until recently) which can be found in his last collection, Lider Tsum Eybikn (Songs to the Eternal, 1959). They include one where a nurse speaks half-Hebrew, half-Yiddish to the patient in her charge, telling him to go to sleep. Which might sound a bit familiar now. The book, one of those beautiful editions by Der Kval in black, gold and blood-red, is unfortunately not digitised — as far as I am aware — but can be easily and relatively cheaply purchased secondhand.