Late 1950s to early 1960s

Late 1950s to early 1960s is the novel’s present-day period, joining an intimate Jerusalem story to a landscape of poverty, illness, and current political tensions. Its quiet, unsettled atmosphere is visible both in the shuttered lanes of Yemin Moshe and in Gershom Wald’s gradual return to his evening routine.

Jerusalem at Night

During this period, Yemin Moshe remains a poor neighborhood of low stone houses, some with tiled roofs and others with flat rooftops. Small courtyards hold Turkish-era wells covered with iron lids; geraniums, edible herbs, and aromatic plants grow in rusty brass pots. At night, the houses are dark behind barred windows, and a single pale streetlamp scatters yellowish light over the pavements.

Shmuel and Atalia descend through the empty lanes toward the road circling the Gai Ben Hinom valley. A stray dog follows them at a distance, its tail between its legs. The walk passes through named Jerusalem streets and landmarks before reaching the older, poorer quarter, so the city’s different districts become part of the scene’s movement. Shmuel calls the valley Gehinom, giving the descent a stark biblical resonance without displacing the material details of the neighborhood around them.

Daily Life and Public Events

The same period appears through Gershom Wald’s recovery in February. His dry, persistent cough remains, but at five each afternoon he again limps on crutches from his bedroom to the library. Shmuel keeps him company there until ten or eleven at night. Their repeated evening hours give the period a domestic rhythm shaped by Wald’s limited mobility and Shmuel’s presence.

The two men listen to the news together. Their topics include France’s first atomic bomb, freedom of navigation through the Suez Canal, and David Ben-Gurion’s statement that Nasser’s threats are unfounded. These reports place their private conversations amid international and regional tensions; the novel presents public affairs not as a separate historical survey but as part of the news heard in a room shared by an old man and his young companion.

Recovery and a Changed Household

After their evening conversations, Shmuel goes up to his attic, while Wald stays awake with his books and papers until five or six in the morning. In the mornings Wald sleeps in his room. Shmuel is now occasionally allowed to enter it, for practical reasons such as retrieving glasses left beside the bed or switching off a radio that Wald has left on.

The shift follows the evening when Wald, burning with fever, told Shmuel about his son’s death. Afterward, Wald speaks less feverishly than before. He still makes jibes and puns, mocks and distorts biblical verses, and delivers elaborate lectures, including on the Uganda controversy and the differences between old age and youth. He sometimes spends half an hour on the telephone with unseen correspondents. Yet his old habit of continuous talk gives way at times to an hour or two of silence, as he sits by his desk or lies on a wicker divan beneath a plaid blanket, reading through thick glasses. The period thus marks not a neat resolution but a changed intimacy: conversation and silence coexist in the household after grief has been spoken aloud.

Narrative Significance

The period’s two glimpses of Jerusalem are linked by contrasts between exposure and shelter. In Yemin Moshe, closed houses and empty lanes frame a walk in which a stray dog seeks affection; in the Wald household, evening companionship continues under the pressure of illness, bereavement, and political news. The historical present is made tangible through such routines and settings rather than through dates alone.

The novel also holds several scales of time together. The Turkish-era wells remain embedded in the neighborhood, while contemporary reports carry the characters toward the urgent politics of their own moment. At home, Wald’s altered speech registers the lasting consequence of a disclosure about his son. The late 1950s and early 1960s therefore supply a present in which old histories, current affairs, and private grief meet without collapsing into one another.