Aunt Eva – His Nights and Days

Jerusalem in the 1950s. In a small cramped house, a boy whose mother has died lives huddled with his father and a family of Holocaust survivors, haunted by their memories. One night, a frightened young woman with a bruised face and buried secrets knocks on the door and moves in with them. But it soon becomes clear that beneath her makeup and elegant clothes is a man on the run. He stays in his room most of the time, writing romantic novels for a living and listening eagerly to the boy – who calls him Aunt Eva – describe films he has seen. The only thing he never talks about is the past.

It does not take long for the household to suspect dreadful motives behind Aunt Eva`s closeness to the boy, or for Jerusalem to rise up in horror against it. But the bond between these two lonely characters survives in its purity. Both long for what seems unattainable: inner peace, understanding and a mother`s arms around them. Alongside the dramatic plot, the book gives us a wonderful portrait of Jerusalem, its complicated characters and special atmosphere shortly after the establishment of the state.