Manchester Diary. Ариель Давидович Абарбанель

come in! We’ll listen to the music, or we’ll take a walk somewhere and walk around the city.

      – Of course! I'll definitely come! – Levy sends her words already from the bottom of the stairs, standing in front of the barred elevator car. The old box on iron cables lazily and creakily lowers it down to the first floor, which pours Levi with the musty smell of the old building, the smells of cheap cooked food, escaping from several apartments at once and mixing with each other on the ground floor. Levy tries to hold his breath and goes towards the light and a clean stream of air, seeping through the ajar front door. He jerks it open, and is surrounded by the walls of a stone gray well. A hole gapes from above, from which the same gray as the walls of houses looks, the sky, from the torn slits of which golden azure flows, which is like a precious the hiding place is hidden behind the clouds. Levi inhales deeply and lightly this fresh, fertile air of the street:

      – Glory to Gd! The important visit of the day is over! Keeps them all Gd!

      February 7th. Manchester

      Levy woke up, and immediately felt himself on the ship in an iron safe and in time close to six, the rise time. He felt the switch on the wall of the safe and pressed it. He gurgled, blinked, and white neon light flashed.

      – I thank you for the fact that through your great mercy you have returned my soul to me. Your confidence in me is great, ”Levy whispered, feeling alive and realizing that he had been given a new day. So he began a new day: the seventh day of February.

      The safe-cabin is so small, without windows, that there was no question of at least somehow pushing it out and invigorating the half-awakened body with charging. It was possible to take a shower, and Levy used this opportunity to the maximum, enjoying first hot and then cold jets of water. He dressed quickly and went upstairs to the wardroom while the fenders were still sleeping. He never saw them again. Velvet darkness enveloped the ship. Levy stood at the sheathed table and asked, whispering the wish for a good day, a good road. He finished and looked around: the shops were already shining with lamps and the sluggish movement of staff and customers, trying to sell their goods even more before arriving at the port. Levy went over to the Dutch-speaking receptionist and asked in her language:

      “Madam, excuse me when we arrive?”

      “Already approached,” the lady replied, “we must wait for the immigration authorities.” Coming soon. The authorities really did not keep themselves waiting while Levi sat in the children's room and looked at the sweet love story of brown Pocahontas. A signal sounded, and a voice in four languages invited me to the deck to my cars.

      At the same steep and winding exit as during the arrival, Levy drove along with other motorists to a wide pier and stood in one of the rows. These rows lined up on a large platform awaiting entry into this island country called Great Britain.

      The engines hummed and the movement began. At the exit gate stood people in jackets with yellow reflective stripes. Near them it was necessary to slow down and show the passport so that you could leave the port. Here an anthracite tape of a high-speed road – Motor way – was tangled between low, but noble mountains. On the right, every now and then, peered gray, shrouded in light gray furs, fogs restless sea. It was possible to understand the frequent fogs by special signs located in the middle of the road. In their black frames, bulbs burned in the three-letter word “FOG”. A very long distance, almost to Manchester itself, Levy accompanied these “FOG”. The road was completely confusing, it went straight to Leed, and through it to Manchester. One hundred eighty kilometers from the port. Nonsense, by European standards. Here is the congress and highways, and immediately the right area – Salford. This is a good sign. But how to find the right Brun Lane street now, because there is no map, no navigation. Levy looks in the dictionary: broome – broom, lane – track. It is necessary, therefore, to search for the “path”. Only, in order not to search too long, it is better to ask, Levy decides and enters the first large store with his own parking and a sign on the roof of the Kopi. There are few customers in the basement. Behind the cash register are nosy women in wigs. Levy shows them a piece of paper with an address.

      “Everything is straight and straight, and at the Net store to the left, and there again to the left – you will find or ask again,” the women instruct.

      Lancaster Street repeatedly rose and fell, raising and lowering Levy, rocking him in his typewriter. He had to repeatedly ask passers-by to understand at what turn this “Panic Path” would be. That's the number you need. Mezuzah on the door jamb. Levy pressed the bell button. A short, round, like a barrel, woman with a straw-colored wig on her head opened the door:

      – Who you are?

      “Hello, my last name is Taube,” said Levy, “your spouse and I agreed on my arrival by phone before the Shabbat.”

      – Ah. Now the husband is not at home, – the woman was about to close the door.

      “And when will he be back?”

      “An hour later,” the woman thought for a moment, “Taube, Taube … Yeah!” Come inside. You really agreed.

      Levy entered the house. The usual house. Not small, but could have been bigger. The woman was bustling funny:

      – Follow me.

      She, often breathing, climbed a rather steep staircase, upholstered by the carpet.

      “Here, your little room,” she opened the door to a small but bright booth.

      “It's not an iron safe,” Levy thought, but said out loud:

      – Fine. Very lovely.

      The woman went out, and Levy laid out his things on the bed and went down after her into the kitchen. Out of the kitchen window, he saw a large nine hundred and forty Volvo carriage entering. A bearded man in a hat and glasses came out and entered the house. He held out his hand to Levy, and he – to him, and they shook them together, at the same time introducing themselves.

      “I already gave him the keys to the house,” the woman in a straw wig grated.

      “Good, good,” her husband only said.

      After a little standing, everyone sat down at the table together. They took and ate a piece of bread, anointing it with some kind of yellow paste from a can with a large seal and the inscription “Kosher”. After such a short meal, they all began to read “Thanksgiving for food and for the earth” together, and when finished, they said together and in chorus “Amen ve Amen” – so be it. They said “Amen” and all, as if by magic, disappeared. Mr. Lightner ran to his job, and Mrs. returned to her endless economy. Levy, tired of the road, left to himself. But how can one sit still and lose time when everything around is so exciting and interesting?!

      For the sake of chronology and justice, it should be mentioned that before the mini-meal Mr. Lightner Levy drove to the nearest yeshiva, where he and many youth students prayed the afternoon prayer of Minch.

      The yeshiva’s building was like a palace, and it struck Levi’s imagination, as did the service. At the entrance to the yeshiva building, on the windows of the right and left wing, white drying shirts hung in clusters. Until this day, Levy has never been in such a huge room, crowded with young men in black suits and hats, in snow-white shirts. Everyone swayed to the beat of prayer and repeated in chorus: “Baruch – Blessed” and “Amen, amen.”

      The impression from this action was much stronger than from the sight of the wizard students in black caps at school in the Harry Potter book.

      And so, only after this episode was followed by a yellow paste-grease for bread, after the meal of which Levy was left alone.

      – I'm going to walk. I’ll inspect this nearest street, thought Levy, dressed, went out the door and went. He walked and walked along this bouncing road up and down, but he never met any sights. Only a few wretched Jewish shops and a couple of flocks of “peysatiks” in glossy komzols, like evening shadows, sailed past. There were women in wigs, pushing huge strollers and pulling one or two or three children. Levy moved, as if drawn by an invisible magnet, to the center of the city. He had completely passed Lancaster Street and ran into another street. He turned right,