A Tale of Love and Darkness

THE BUILDING down Zechariah Street had four apartments. The Nahlielis' apartment was on the first floor, at the back. Its windows overlooked a neglected backyard, partly paved and the other part overgrown with weeds in winter and thistles in summer. The yard also housed washing lines, garbage cans, traces of a bonfire, an old suitcase, a corrugated iron lean-to, and the wooden remains of a ruined sukkah. Pale blue passionflowers bloomed on the wall.

The apartment contained a kitchen, a bathroom, an entrance passage, two rooms, and eight or nine cats. After lunch Isabella, who was a teacher, and her husband Nahlieli the cashier used the first room as their living room, and at night they and their army of cats slept in the tiny second room. They got up early every morning and pushed all the furniture out into the passage and set out three or four school desks in each of the rooms, with three or four benches, each of which could seat two children.