Mr Mani     by Abraham B Yehoshua, Translated by H Halkin Original title: Mar Mani Published by Harvest Books Pub. Date: May 1993 Format: Paperback Dimensions: 0.91 x 7.98 x 5.38 in. ISBN: 0156627698 List Price: $14.00, £9.99 Buy online from Amazon.co.uk for £9.99 Buy online from Amazon.com for $11.20 Publisher Unknown List Price: £15.99 Not available for ordering Publisher Unknown List Price: £6.99 Not available for ordering Published by Doubleday Not available for ordering Published by Doubleday Pub. Date: 1992 Not available for ordering

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A.B Yehoshua has created a masterpiece here on several levels. The format alone is exciting and innovative as the author pursues the lives of the Mani family over five generations. They are a Sephardi* Jewish family, and their origins are revealed leading backwards from the opening section in modern-day Israel, to Crete during the Second World War, returning to Jerusalem during the British mandate*, immediately after World War One. Earlier the link in the Mani chain is found in Basel, and the final chapter, or novella, representing the earliest scenario, takes place in Ottoman times.

First, we have the presentation of protagonists — brief but pointed background to the drama. Then follows the development through a ’mono-dialogue’, i.e. only one side is reported. This system, although artificial of course, allows Yehoshua to explore both the nature of dialogue, using language and jargon pertinent to each specific generation, and the psychological nuance of awareness or concealment that comes through this extended ’conversation’.

The reader becomes a participant in each of these dialogues, as he needs to recreate the missing speaker, and certainly plays a far more active role than he would in a traditional novel. Yehoshua explores not only the Sephardi background of the Mani families but also the environment of those who relate to them.

The development of each of these scenarios is what makes them essentially Jewish, with the emphasis on the family and its various ramifications, including loyalty, conflict and remorse. Since the book is dedicated to Yehoshua’s father; ’a man of Jerusalem and a lover of its past’, we can understand that this work is a written in homage to a very dear person and place.

Spinning a web of history and personal interconnections, Yehoshua subtly reveals facts, feelings and understanding. He examines the points in everyday life when pivotal events occur, when something changes forever in both perception and actuality, leading to an entirely different and unexpected outcome. There is Hagar, child of a kibbutz, living in Tel Aviv, who meets and connects with her boyfriend’s father, Mr Mani. Egon Bruner, fairly disinterested German soldier on duty in Crete during the German occupation, whose encounter with the Mani family awakens all his sensibilities and alters the course of many lives. The middle section involves Lieutenant Horowitz, military advocate serving with the British forces during the early years of the mandate and Jewish himself. His professional interaction with the mysterious spy/infiltrator/secret agent Yosef Mani rouses inner emotions relating to his own Jewishness, and to the role of occupying power. This section was published independently in A.B Yehoshua’s collection of short stories The Continuing Silence of the Poet, and must be seen as a response to Israeli occupation of the territories won in the Six Day War.

The fourth ’telling’ recounts the confrontation of Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jew, set in Poland at the end of the nineteenth century, but concerns events at the Third Zionist Congress in Basel in 1899. Here Dr Mani encourages brother and sister, Ephraim and Linka Shapiro from Poland to travel on with him to Palestine. Once in Jerusalem another series of associations and relationships impact on all their lives with profound effect. The final section further explores the interconnected relationships between father and child, surrogate parents, and unrequited, unresolved love. It is set in the exotic multicultural cities of the Ottoman Empire, Athens, Constantinople and Jerusalem. Rather than tying up all the loose ends in a simple fashion, this ’telling’ confirms the environment of intrigue and mystery, of intuition and premonition. The lingering sensation is the desire to read the entire book again.

’Indeed, sir. You know what we military advocates generally have to deal with: desertions, brawls, petty thefts, drunkenness, insubordination — in a word thirty- and sixty-day sentences and one guinea fines. And here was a real investigation, something to get to the bottom of, where possibly lurked a man’s death. I was so beside myself that I left the club directly and went straight to the divisional guardhouse by the Jaffa Gate, under the assumption that that’s where this Mani was being held. Of course, I had no idea at the time what his name was, but I was determined not to be elbowed aside, and soon I found myself standing out in the cold night across from the place called David’s Tower which is a sort of miniature version of the tower of London, with my mind racing ahead. Just then I noticed a Jew dressed in black, hanging back by a little lane that ran into the empty square — and I knew directly that he was connected to the spy and had come to see what was being done with him; which meant that word had already reached the concerned parties in Jerusalem, who had sent a first scout to reconnoitre; and a most clandestine-looking, eternal-looking, metaphysical-looking scout he was... only later did I discover that he was not the least bit different from his scoutmasters...’ p159-160