I spent the summer following high school graduation painting faux stone onto the walls of foyers in northern Virginia mini mansions, and I promised Anton I wouldn’t mess up the project. I even know how to spackle! So I changed into some ratty clothes and a bandana and showed up at the guesthouse at our appointed meeting time. Anton showed up 30 minutes later and we got to work scraping off peeling and mildewed paint, then moving along the walls, me painting what I could reach from the floor and Anton scooting the ladder around to top off between my work and the ceiling. We got about 30 minutes into the job before Anton called for a coffee break. I said I’d keep going, which Anton thought was an awful idea. “Easy easy, Margit. You work too much, get tired.” So I let him pour me a cup of juice before he headed outside for a slow cig and a mug of Nescafe. Another 30 minutes of work, and it was time for another break. “Shwai shwai, slowly slowly. Tomorrow, your arm it hurts. Must rest.” After every return from every break Anton would marvel at my progress, my strength, my precision, and the fact that I was a much better worker than his assistant. “Anything need paint? I call you. Big boss,” he said. (I’m also the Big Boss on toilet repairs, another project I tagged along on a while ago.) The third coffee break was followed, about 15 minutes later, by lunch break. We agreed at that point that I would do the rest of the first coat and he would come back for the second.
Such skill! Such speed! Anton was amazed to find my part done when he returned an hour or two later. “You? Ly grambo,” he said. “Grambo? I don’t know that word.” “Not Arabic, English,” said Anton. “Rambo. You. Like Rambo.” Now he flexes a bicep every time I pass him on the campus.
There’s been a fantastic free concert series around Jerusalem, two weeks of chamber music by top-notch musicians in locations all around the city. Lots of fledgling musicians are doing camps with the musicians and then their own little recital at the end. This concert was at the Austrian Hospice. The boy at the window I think is one of the young cellists, watching a Canadian grandmaster on the piano.
