46
Many years ago, when I was a soldier, we were sent out on a long, hard navigation exercise in the Negev desert. We walked all night, and continued the next day, and in the afternoon we passed a throng of white broom, whose dense white blooms create the illusion that they are covered in snow. I moved aside, thrust my nose into one of them, opened my arms for a hug, and pressed myself against the branches. Then I shut my eyes, inhaled deeply, and a miracle occurred—the wonderful fragrance of white broom in blossom infused me with vitality and strength. It did not turn my feet into those of a deer, but it sustained and helped me. In the desert there are plants like this, whose lovely perfume or generous shade revives the wanderer as much as a rock pool full of good cold water.
To my sorrow, no white broom blossoms in my garden. To my delight, I am no longer in the military and only navigate in the desert when hiking. Even today, when I come across white broom there, I hasten to it, thrust my face into it, and inhale its fragrance with eyes closed. By the way, the same enjoyment can be derived on the dunes of the Plain of Sharon, where white broom blooms along the sides of the coastal road around the Alexander Stream, between Caesarea and Pardes Hanna, and also south of there, between Rishon LeZion and Ashdod. But the scent of white broom as it blooms in the desert is more intense, and the contradiction between this scent and the harsh environment is sharper.
A relative of the white broom flowers in my garden, a large bush by the name of rush broom that boasts fragrant yellow flowers. There are a few other wild plants that also exude an alluring fragrance: the Madonna lily, gladiolus, crocus, honeysuckle, styrax, spiny broom, sea daffodil, and sweet virgin’s bower. In summer this last one blooms in a number of the wadis it is especially fond of in the Upper Galilee, and where it is particularly prevalent. The sweet virgin’s bower is a vine. If it cannot find a tree to climb, the virgin bower creeps along the ground, climbs up itself, and creates a huge clump of blossoms. But if there is a tree, it climbs up, covering a great deal of the treetop, and, because these are summer days, the thousands of white flowers appear as snow at harvesttime.
The virgin’s bower blossoms not only in nature but also in a nice story written by S. Yizhar, “Oh Oh Virgin’s Bower.” In reality, the virgin’s bower only blossoms in season, but art is not obligated to laws of nature, and in Yizhar’s story it blossoms whenever you read it, whatever the season. And there is but one important fact I cannot ignore, that Yizhar’s bower is, in fact, simply virgin’s bower, whereas the one that grows in my garden is sweet virgin’s bower. I know this because Yizhar described a flower whose blossoms are yellowish and incline downward in order to protect against rain, whereas sweet virgin’s bower has whitish blossoms that do not provide shelter against rain, since it flowers in the summer.
Yizhar first heard the cry “Oh Oh Virgin’s Bower” from his nature studies teacher, Yehoshua Avizohar, who taught Yizhar and numerous others at the teacher’s seminar in Bet Hakerem in Jerusalem. My father was also a student of his. He told me a nice story about Avizohar, who used to walk along the street, one foot on the sidewalk and the other on the road, wondering why he was limping. And indeed, Avizohar was known not only for his enthusiasm and his erudition but also for his absentmindedness. The story about his limp and similar episodes also appear in the story Yizhar wrote about Avizohar, but I will focus on the virgin’s bower and the description he gave of the teacher’s enthusiasm at the sight of the vine’s blossoming in the wadi, where he was hiking with his students:
Our teacher, Avizohar, stopped, spread his arms out like Elijah the Prophet, and his blue eyes were as the brightness of the firmament as he shouted out from the depths of his heart, “Oh Oh,” and we all stopped, and he continued to cry out there at the top of the hill, “Oh Oh Virgin’s Bower,” and we held our breath. “Oh Oh Virgin’s Bower,” our teacher Avizohar cried, his arms spread from one horizon to another toward the Temple of Jerusalem, “Oh Oh Virgin’s Bower.”
It is easy to distinguish a certain amount of ridicule in Yizhar’s description of his teacher, a ridicule that stems both from Avizohar’s mannerisms but also from the ridiculous name this flower goes by in the Hebrew language, zalzelet, which means “degradation,” and which he utters here with such pathos. But there is also love and admiration for Avizohar’s enthusiasm at the blossoms. He was, in fact, referring to virgin’s bower and personally I prefer the sweet variety, because it flowers in summer, when flowers are few and far between, and its blossoming has a wonderful fragrance.
I always wanted a virgin’s bower like this in the garden but did not know how to find one. And then one day, while hiking near Hurfeish, I saw a Druze farmer tilling his olive grove. There were a few vines of virgin’s bower that had climbed and blossomed on the stone wall of the grove, and I stopped to look at them and smell their blossoms. Lying close by on the ground was a small virgin’s bower that had been uprooted by the blades of the plow.
I asked the farmer if I could take it. “Do as you please, but it’ll die,” the farmer replied. He showed me that the root had been severed before it had time to branch out and spread through the soil. I decided to cut short the hike. I wrapped the torn root in a rag soaked in water, turned the ambulance siren on, and drove home. Once there, I hospitalized the virgin’s bower in a large plant pot and then watered it copiously.
After several days the branches wilted and dried up, but I did not give up. I pruned it and continued watering. A few more days passed and the stalk—I do not know if this is the correct term here, but it certainly cannot be called a trunk—completely withered. I cut it to a height of about eight inches above the soil and continued watering the cutting.
For three whole months I watered this dead thing twice a week. I had already begun to poke fun at myself and even to question my own mental health, when one day a green bud burst forth from this dried-up virgin’s bower! I could hardly believe my eyes, but a few days later another bud appeared. The buds became leaves, and then new vines appeared and sprouted more leaves, and the virgin’s bower, like the rod of Aaron HaCohen—which “brought forth buds and bloomed blossoms”—was resurrected!
I transplanted the plant to a bigger pot, and the next summer Madame Virgin’s Bower was already climbing up the trellis I had fixed for her—and blossoming! If there were punctuation marks for pride and happiness, I would have used them here. But because there are none, I have used what I can, an exclamation mark.
There is a nice ending to Yizhar’s story of Avizohar and the virgin’s bower, in which he describes the positive influence upon those who utter the cry of “Oh Oh Virgin’s bower,” even if this person is not a teacher of nature studies nor standing in front of such a plant.
He even urged the reader to try it. “Try for a moment and you will be convinced,” he writes in the story. “Arise, stand up wherever you are, arise and stand up and stretch out your arms to your sides, and try calling out in a loud voice and with all your heart like this: Oh Oh Virgin’s bower—and see what happens.”
I chuckled when first reading this. But a few days later, when my spirits were in need of uplifting and I was alone in the house, I got to my feet and stood by the large window that faces the Carmel. I stood up, stretched my arms out to my sides, and called out: “Oh Oh Virgin’s bower!”—and it happened. Yizhar’s recommendation-observation came true. Since then, every time I feel the need, I get up and stand with my arms outstretched and call out in a loud voice and with all my heart: “Oh! Oh! Virgin’s bower!” I do so most of the year by the window, and in the flowering season—facing the virgin’s bower itself. Either way—it happens. It really does.
Try it for yourself. When your heart is overflowing or, on the contrary, your heart is struggling and cringing—you, too, should call out in a loud voice and with all your heart like this: “Oh! Oh! Virgin’s bower!”—and just see what happens.
