fox-headed cane

The fox-headed cane is a black, elegant walking stick with a snarling fox carved into its handle, its sharp teeth catching the light. Discovered beneath Shmuel Ash’s bed several days after he moves into the attic, it has no practical use that he can identify; instead, it becomes a conspicuous companion in his private rituals of watching, imagining, and walking. The cane’s fox gives his isolation an emblem: a predator poised to spring, and a fanciful partner in Shmuel’s hope of being noticed and rescued.

Discovery in the Attic

Shmuel finds the cane by accident, not while unpacking but four or five days and nights into his stay. He bends beneath the bed to retrieve a runaway sock, and from the darkness comes the gleam of sharp fangs in the jaws of a wicked fox carved on the handle. The delayed discovery turns an ordinary lost object into a small revelation in the attic’s hidden space. The cane is handsome and strange, but Shmuel cannot see what purpose it serves.

Its surroundings sharpen that uncertainty. The attic already contains a metal cart carefully arranged with pens, pencils, notebooks, folders, clips, erasers, and a sharpener, as though Shmuel were expected to copy sacred books or undertake research. The cane belongs to no such orderly program. It emerges from under the bed, where the sock has disappeared, and remains an object whose meaning must be made through use rather than assigned in advance.

A Companion at the Window

In the morning, Shmuel takes his coffee in his right hand and the fox-headed cane from its corner, returning to the window to look out with the fox for company. If a cat passes through the fog among the frozen hedges, he strikes the glass with the cane. The gesture imagines the carved animal being urged out after its prey; at the same time, Shmuel imagines himself and the fox sending distress signals to the outside world, asking someone to notice them and free them from the attic-prison. The cane thus serves two opposing fantasies: it is a weapon-like extension of pursuit, and an instrument in an appeal for rescue.

That play takes place alongside memories of Yardena. Watching from his confinement, Shmuel pictures her laughing in the university café, while he remains alone with the fox and the window. The cane does not dispel his grief; it gives the grief an outward gesture, turning a silent vigil into a repeated performance addressed to a world that may not answer.

On the Streets of Jerusalem

At midday, when the rain lets up, Shmuel sometimes takes the cane on walks through Jerusalem. He circles the new Bet Haam building or continues east along Shmuel Hanaguid Street, past the stone wall of the Ratisbonne monastery and Yeshurun synagogue, then returns toward Shaarei Hesed by way of Keren Kayemet and Ussishkin streets. He does not always ask Atalia’s permission to take it. As he walks, he taps the paving stones or iron gates with the stick.

The cane makes his disappearance from student life visible rather than explaining it. Shmuel fears meeting an acquaintance who might ask where he has gone, what he is doing, and why he wanders the winter streets dressed like a ghost. The fox-headed handle is part of that incongruous appearance, an elegant but arresting object carried by someone who has no account to offer and has signed a paper promising not to disclose his new place of work.

A later walk fixes the image in a clear winter morning. At eleven-thirty, Shmuel sets out in his worn coat and shapka, carrying the cane as he climbs Rabbi Elbaz Lane toward Ussishkin Street and passes Bet Haam. His forward-leaning, hurried gait seems to carry him toward a place where someone has been waiting for him, but may not wait forever. The cane accompanies him through a city where he feels himself merely wandering, while his thoughts return to Yardena and the life from which he has been left behind.

Meaning and Motif

The cane’s carved fox is both image and imagined actor: Shmuel treats it as a creature that might chase a cat, yet also as a fellow prisoner beside him at the window. That double use reflects the object’s larger role. It lends Shmuel a semblance of agency in a life marked by withdrawal, while its tapping and display expose how little power he has to alter his circumstances. The striking handle can attract attention, but the walks it accompanies remain solitary.

The cane also links the attic’s enclosed world to the streets outside. First it lies in darkness under the bed; then it stands at the window, directed toward a passing cat and an imagined rescuer; finally it travels through familiar Jerusalem lanes as a distinctive feature of Shmuel’s public appearance. Across these settings, it remains an object without a settled practical purpose. Its significance comes from the meanings Shmuel projects onto it: companion, pursuer, signal, and visible trace of his estrangement.