Baby Hermes typewriter

The Baby Hermes typewriter is Alexander Gideon’s portable writing instrument at the restored family house. It is introduced as the practical means by which he writes to Michel Sommo, carrying a tense, questioning act of communication; later, moved with Gideon’s bed and furniture to another room, it gathers dust while the household’s exchanges take other forms.

A writing instrument in the house

While staying in the house occupied by Boaz Brandstetter’s small commune, Gideon asks for a table on which to place the Baby Hermes and write a letter. His request is shaped by the limits of his mobility: the rope ladder to the roof is beyond his strength, he becomes dizzy easily, and even moving between bed and window is difficult. The typewriter therefore belongs not to an abstract study but to the constrained space of his bed and window.

Boaz answers the request with an improvised piece of furniture, making the table from packing boxes and eucalyptus branches and giving it a slanting footrest. He also buys Gideon an electric fan on his own initiative. The typewriter’s arrival in this makeshift arrangement links writing to the daily labor of care: Boaz rarely talks with Gideon, but responds concretely to what he needs.

The letter to Michel Sommo

The Baby Hermes is the instrument for a letter in which Gideon addresses Michel Sommo with both intimacy and challenge. Writing pauses as the sea breeze stirs the chimes; Gideon leaves the machine alone and asks himself why he is pouring himself out to Sommo, whether he wants to appear ridiculous or receive absolution. He presses Sommo to justify his confidence in divine providence, atonement, reward, punishment, and grace, even demanding proof in the form of a miracle. The letter turns the typewriter into a means of testing another man’s faith as well as confessing Gideon’s own uncertainty.

The questions widen into a search for the meaning of holiness and purpose. Gideon reflects that years of trying to define holiness have brought him no satisfactory answer, and wonders whether Sommo can help him understand redemption. The letter bears Gideon’s initials at its close. In this passage, the typewriter enables a sustained address to someone from whom Gideon wants an answer, even as the letter exposes how little certainty he can claim for himself.

From writing to dust

Later, the typewriter is carried upstairs with Gideon’s bed of planks, table, and chair to his mother’s old room, which has a window and a small balcony facing the coastal strip and sea. The change of room does not renew its use. Gideon writes nothing and dictates nothing; the Baby Hermes gathers dust. Books he had asked Boaz to buy in the shop in Zikhron Yaakov stand on a shelf arranged by height, but he does not touch them either.

The room nevertheless remains a place of exchange. The Hebrew dictionary and grammar are open on the table, and during Gideon’s lucid hours he teaches Boaz spelling and basic syntax. Ilana Sommo brings food and drink and tells Gideon stories, which he is content to hear. The typewriter is thus present among tools of language without being used: written composition has fallen silent, while teaching and listening continue around it.

Significance

The object’s course is a quiet reversal. At first the Baby Hermes makes an addressed, searching letter possible; later, beside books left unopened, it becomes a visible record of writing that has stopped. Its significance rests in this contrast rather than in any stated explanation for the change: the instrument remains in the room, but the household’s communication proceeds through Boaz’s lessons and Ilana Sommo’s stories instead.