Rachel Eytan
READING FEVER
When I was young, I came down with reading fever.
Bibliomania , in scientific language . I was the Dona Juana of the
bookshelf, swallowing up everything that came in reach: thick or
thin, new or dog-eared, every pamphlet and catalogue, manifesto
and handbill.
It
wasn't so long ago that they diagnosed books and reading as
a disease to be cauterized. Book-burning was common wherever this
disease appeared.
The disease was common in the Tel Aviv of my childhood,
judging by the long lines of youngsters that used to snake up to the
basement door of Barzilai Library on Brenner Street during the heat
of summer vacation. Their fevered eyes exchanged looks of studied
reserve as they boasted of acquaintances like Quasimodo or the
Headless Horseman.
The mark of true class distinction in that society was, "Oh, I
read that a long time ago . . . . "
And for the select few who could become intoxicated on a mere
dictionary, what temptation there was in the infinite possibilities of
words ... .
At the age of eleven I found myself in a place called Aunt
Hasya's Children's Home, in a village outside Tel Aviv. Aunt
Hasya's charges were orphans and children of soldiers off fighting
the World War in Europe. I was the only "big kid." I quickly found
out that Aunt Hasya, a gigantic widow who used to keep her found–
lings clean with a carpet beater, regarded reading as a deadly sin,
akin to sloth.
"Look at this animal always lying around and reading!" she
would roar. "Go do something! Milk the goat!"
The institution was apparently supported by a skinny,
humorless nanny goat that used to go out to graze every morning
with the sheep of Abdallah from Kfar J amussin. In the evenings her
milk would be drawn, and then cut with fifty percent water until it
turned bluish and poisonous-looking.
One evening, after it had become clear that I was inured to the
carpet beater, Aunt Hasya grabbed
Les Miserables
from me and
