Three Women

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Catherine Kidwell, creative writing, garage sale, Lincoln Nebraska

 Almost thirty years ago, together with my family, I spent a year in Lincoln, Nebraska. The Experimental Physics Department there was considered one of the best in the world, and we went there for Yigal’s post-doctoral work.

It was a very interesting year. We were living with real American people, in a real American suburb, and getting a taste of real American life. I’m not sure how real it was, actually, because the Mid-West, where Nebraska is situated, is typical of neither the east coast nor the west coast. It is typical only of itself, which is Middle America.

Apart from the catastrophic climate (baking hot summer, freezing winter, with temperatures down to minus forty or more with the wind-chill, and the roads covered thigh-high in snow and ice for months on end) our family enjoyed the experience. Our neighbours and colleagues were friendly, the small local Jewish community was warm and welcoming, and our children were well-treated at their various schools.

The only problem was: what was I to do with myself while we were there? I had worked as a free-lance translator in Israel, but there wasn’t much call for translating work in Lincoln. Don’t forget, this was 1984, when computers and the internet hadn’t taken over our lives as they do now.

Since I intended to correspond with friends and relations in Israel, I decided that I needed to acquire a typewriter. We duly attended a garage sale in a nearby house and managed to buy one for a song. Just a few days later I passed a much larger one that had been set out on the sidewalk for anyone to take, and lugged that one home, too. They both served me very well during the year.

Reading the local paper one day, I came across a notice for a creative writing class in the local community college. For years I had longed to engage in creative writing of one kind or another but when you are translating to tight deadlines as well as bringing up three healthy children it’s difficult to fit creativity into your schedule.

I enrolled in the class, run by a very kind lady, Catherine Kidwell, who had actually had a novel published. Her book, a love story, made for light reading but was certainly a good example of its genre. Our group of aspiring writers would meet once a week, produce an exercise or listen as the students read out their work, and then discuss what we had heard. Ms. Kidwell had a ‘set book’ which set out guidelines for writing fiction, it had a title something like ‘Story and Structure,’ and was very helpful in clarifying our ideas. It certainly helped Ms. Kidwell to teach her class.

When the course ended I decided to implement what I had learned, and set out to write my first novel. They say you should write about what you know, so I decided to write about life in Israel, or more precisely in Jerusalem, and to describe the lives of people I knew, or more precisely, three women friends of mine, their identities heavily disguised, of course.

I brought the 354 typewritten pages plus two carbon copies back to Israel with me, and they have been gathering dust on my shelves ever since. However, at the beginning of this year, when trying to clear some space in my study, I came across the yellowing pages once more, and decided that it was time I got rid of some of my old junk. But before doing so, I said, I’ll just type the text I wrote then into my computer.

And that is what I’ve been doing in my spare time since then. It is extremely tedious, on the one hand, but intriguing on the other. I pity anyone who does copy-typing for a living, but to come across my neophyte attempts at breathing life into semi-fictional characters, and reliving events as they occurred then, is quite an eye-opener.

I don’t know if the novel will ever see the light of day. After all, I have grown as a writer since those days, and now have several other finished novels in my computer waiting to be edited and prepared for publication. The work of typing up the yellowing pages is only two-thirds finished, but one day I will get to the end, I hope, and then I’ll have to decide what to do with it.

 

 

 

Handel’s ‘Messiah’

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abu ghosh, Christmas, Festival Hall, Kilburn, Lincoln Nebraska, South Bank, Thames

I’m not quite sure how far back the family tradition goes, but I know that when my father was a child in Hamburg, Germany, he was taken to concerts there, and that music, and especially choral music, played an important part in the family’s life. I, too, was taken to concerts in my childhood in London, primarily to hear a performance of Handel’s ‘Messiah.’

In England, and indeed all over the world, it is customary to perform the oratorio at Christmas time. Going to hear that wonderful oratorio as a child brought me into contact with a world that was very different from the one in which I lived ordinarily. From the modest neighbourhood of Kilburn I was transported to a glittering scene of light and warmth on London’s South Bank, to the Festival Hall, where every brightly-lit window was reflected in the dark waters of the Thames that flowed beside it.

And after the long journey by public transport across London, what a delight it was to find my childhood self surrounded by well-spoken people in elegant clothes, to walk with my father on soft carpets to our appointed places, and to listen to the sublime music that emanated from the huge orchestra and choir, and the lavishly-dressed soloists at the front of the stage. The fact that most of the words were taken from the Old Testament, the words of the Prophet Isaiah and the Psalms, dawned on me only at a much later stage.

Over the years I became very familiar with the oratorio, knowing which aria followed which chorus, and being able to sing them to myself as I fell asleep. The excitement that enveloped the audience as the introduction to the Hallelujah Chorus was played and everyone stood up (only in England, as I later found out), was also part of the theatrical nature of the event.

Since living in Israel I have tried to go to a performance of the Messiah whenever possible, and in recent years it has become an annual event at Christmas-time. It is performed by an Israeli choir, orchestra and soloists in the church at Abu Ghosh, and although the pronunciation of the English words is not always quite as it should be, the notes are definitely the same.

In 1984 we spent a year in Lincoln, Nebraska, and were able to participate in a public performance of the work. To do this one had to buy the book containing the music and words so that one could sing along in the choral parts. The conductor, orchestra, choir and soloists were on the stage, and the audience was invited to join in the choir. An attempt was made to divide us up into sopranos, altos, tenors and basses, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this did not always work as it should. All the same, everyone had a good time, and did their best to sing along.

Part of the fun in Abu Ghosh is being able to join in the singing of the Hallelujah Chorus by the audience, together with the entire ensemble, once the performance is over. It is a heartwarming moment when the conductor (Ron Zarhi at last week’s performance) turns round and encourages everyone to join in.

One year I even managed to attend a performance in a church in France. There, too, the pronunciation of the English text was occasionally slightly quirky (‘The trompette shall sound,’ for example), but to hear it sung in all its glory, with the additional bonus of a grand, newly-installed organ, was out of this world.

Just as my father took me to performances in my childhood, I have endeavoured to take my children, and later my grandchildren, to hear this splendid work. So it was a particular pleasure last week to be able to take our youngest granddaughter, 12-year-old Lihi, to hear it for the first time. She said she enjoyed it, and sat transfixed throughout the two-hour performance. Many performers and members of the audience subsequent enjoyed lunch at one of the nearby restaurants, adding to the enjoyment of the event.

I don’t believe in cutting oneself off from all the cultural bounty the world has to offer simply because it is associated with a religion that is not one’s own. And I’m happy and proud of the fact that not only my own parents, who were observant Jews, but their parents, too, seem to have shared this enlightened view. And that is part of the heritage I hope to be able to pass on to my own offspring.