One cloudy January night, more than thirty-five years ago, I was awakened by a strange whirring sound out on our roof-deck which leads off our bedroom in our home in Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter. In those days, I slept lightly because one ear was always open to hear my baby waking up. I opened my eyes. Yonatan was still sleeping peacefully in his crib next to me. But I saw movement outside, and then flames filled the roof-deck.
“Yakov, Yakov! Wake up!” I gently shook my husband.
With a loud snore, he turned over onto his stomach.
I was filled with fear and especially that the fire on the roof-deck might somehow reach into our bedroom.
“Yakov! Wake up!”
Pulling on a pair of shoes and a sweater over my pajamas, I went out to the study to call the Fire Department. But the line was dead. I ran downstairs to see if I could call from the phone there; the line was still dead. I raced back upstairs to the bathroom to fill a bucket of water to quench the flames.
I unlocked the glass door to the roof-deck, pail in hand and trying to overcome my terror, I walked out to the deck.
“Ah! There you are!” The flames vanished and I saw the outline of a large creature before me but could not clearly see what he looked like in the darkness.
“What took you so long to come outside?”
“W-what – who are you?” I stammered, no less terrified. “D-did those flames come from you?”
“Yes, and my name is Swiftwing.”
“Swiftwing? I’ve read about you, but I thought you were a creature from ancient mythology!”
“Ha! You see, I’m right here on your patio! Now, since you’ve read about me, you know that I insist on good manners, right?”
I curtsied to Swiftwing, in the manner I had read.
“Now, Ruthie, we need your help. I’ve been sent to fetch you.”
“In the middle of the night? I can’t leave my baby!”
“No, no, don’t worry. You’ll be back home by the hour of the pigeons’ first coo.”
“But he sometimes wakes up to nurse in the middle of the night.”
“Not tonight. I managed to slip some sleeping-powder under your door. I do hope that you didn’t step in it on your way outside.”
“Sleeping-powder? On the floor? What on earth are you talking about?”
“Yes, that’s right. Your baby is sensitive – he’ll inhale it and continue sleeping until you come home and at any rate, your husband generally wakes up much later, right?”
How does this creature know that, I wondered, but was still too shocked to ask before it continued, “Come now, we need to have enough time. Just climb onto my back…. Go on!”
I quietly closed the glass door behind me, leaving the pail of water on the roof-deck, and climbed onto the crouching Swiftwing’s back. “Where are you taking me?”
“You’ll see, you have nothing to fear. My boss promises everything is in order, and your dreams, too, will be fulfilled tonight. But the boss needs your help.”
How do you know it’s me you want I wanted to ask, but with a loud whirr, the creature spread its huge wings and I had to hold on tightly to its neck as it rose up to the heavens. Within seconds, we flew above the illuminated golden dome of the Dome of the Rock and two seconds after that, above the illuminated Seven Arches Hotel (at that time known as the Intercontinental) on the top of the Mount of Olives.
We flew in the same direction for another two minutes or so. There were no lights beneath us. We descended and landed gently – I’ve no idea where, somewhere east of Jerusalem.
“Get down, now. Walk over to that door in front of you and say, ‘Hineni – Here I am.’”
I hesitated. I slowly made out the outline of a cottage but could not tell where the door was.
“Just walk forward. You won’t fall. There are no steps here and no uneven cobblestones as there are in the Jewish Quarter.”
I had even more questions now, but I was following directions instead. It seemed unreal, even absurd.
Clouds covered the moon and stars and I gingerly walked forward, still not seeing more than the cottage’s outline. No light came through the windows. I stretched out my hands to make sure I would not bump into anything and suddenly found myself at the cottage. I touched the chiselled stone walls and slid my hands to the right in search of the door. It opened and in the candlelight I saw a person’s silhouette before me.
“Hineni – here I am.”
“Ah, come in, come in, Ruthie! I’m so glad you have come! How was your trip here? A little unexpected, I do believe. Now, as Swiftwing, I’m sure, has told you, I’d like a little help with two things, one, I would like you to translate some paragraphs into Modern English for me, and then I would appreciate it if you could write a short poem on Jerusalem in English. Come, come and sit down.”
He led me to a dimly-lit room with bookcases from floor to ceiling and with pale drawn curtains. “And what is your name, sir?” I asked the silver-bearded gentleman whose half-moon, metal-rimmed spectacles rested on the tip of his nose and whose white hair was drawn into a ponytail at the nape of his neck.
“Uriel. Here’s the book that I’d like you to translate from. I know you can do it without a problem.” He placed a lamp in front of me on the table and handed me a volume of Pirkei Avot – Ethics of the Fathers. The yellow pages were opened to the fifth chapter. I had studied Pirkei Avot the previous summer and understood it pretty well. He gave me a fountain pen filled with turquoise ink and three sheets of foolscap paper.
I wrote out the chapter in English without difficulty.
With ten utterances the world was created….
“And now,” Uriel said when I had finished, “if you would be so kind, please write a short poem on Jerusalem,” and he handed me a fourth sheet of paper.
I closed my eyes for a few moments, and maybe inspired by my recent flight, these are the words I wrote:
Jerusalem twirls
in a circle dance
at midnight.
Jerusalem sings
in a glow
of golden light.
(Decades later, I published them in my book, What Color are Your Dreams?)
“Where are we, sir?”
“Oh, sorry, I forgot to mention it. This is a new town that is being built east of Jerusalem. Most of the area is a building site at present, but one day, this town will thrive. Its name is Ma’alei Adumim. You have a friend who lives in one of the first buildings that’s ready. We know you’ve been dreaming of visiting her, and now is your chance.”
“You mean Henrietta? But I can’t go knocking on her door in the middle of the night!”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. Henrietta is quite a night bird! Doubtless, she’ll be overjoyed to see you! Swiftwing will take you over.”
Uriel walked me to the front door and emitted a three-tone whistle, like that of birds.
Swiftwing was instantly at the door and crouched down for me to mount its back.
“Goodnight, Ruthie, and thank you for your lovely poem and your tremendous help!”
“Goodnight sir,” I returned.
Within seconds, Swiftwing descended behind a tall building.
“Just walk around the building to the entrance. I’m staying here, at the back so no-one will notice me. I’ll whirr at the window when it’s time for you to leave. Henrietta is up on the eighth floor. Don’t worry, there’s an elevator.”
I looked up and saw a light in an upper window. Maybe this was Yetta’s? I walked around the building. Now, I had even more questions and found it so strange that I was the one taking directions here… from this winged creature that I could not even properly see and from Uriel. How come they know so much about me and about Yetta?
The entrance to the building was well-lit and I easily found the elevator, rode up to the eighth floor and knocked lightly on Henrietta’s door.
She opened it immediately, gave me a huge hug and we sat down in her living-room. She did not ask me what I was doing in Ma’alei Adumim in the middle of the night, and I was too embarrassed to tell her the impossible things that had brought me there. Instead, Yetta being Yetta, we talked about writing and she told me about her travels as a journalist and about some of her interesting interviews. We chatted about music and about musical events in Jerusalem and I admired her collection of ceramic cats on the shelf above her bookshelves. That started her telling me the story of each cat! She showed me around her apartment and in a basket at the foot of her bed I saw her tabby cat and noticed the rhythmic movement of its breathing while it slept.
I recognized Swiftwing’s whirr. “I really must get going, Yetta. I need to get back before Yonatan wakes up.”
“I’ll call a cab for you.”
“No, no, don’t bother. Someone’s coming to pick me up.”
We hugged again, I took the elevator back to the ground floor and walked behind the building.
I bowed my head towards Swiftwing. “May I mount, please?”
The creature crouched down for me and I climbed onto its back. We rose above the clouds for a few minutes. An orange halo surrounded the shining moon and the stars seemed brighter than usual. Within minutes we had flown across the Mount of Olives.
“Swiftwing, what’s that singing I hear?”
“Don’t you recognize it? That’s King David, accompanied by the Heavenly Hosts. Don’t you remember, he wrote, in the middle of the night I will rise to thank You….”
Yes, I knew the psalm – 119.
“So his soul never stops singing in the middle of the night. You just have to fly above the City of David and open your ears. Actually, we’re returning by a different route, slightly north now, over the City of David. It’s only two seconds away from the route we flew before.”
I wished Swiftwing could stop so I could listen longer, but knew it could not stop mid-flight, and a second later, we were flying across the Old City walls, and two seconds after that, Swiftwing was swooping down to our roof-deck.