The Falafel King Is Dead

by Sara Shilo

  You’re running away already, Mas’ud? That’s it? You saw Kobi in your bed and now it’s the end of the world? Come here. Lie down with me in the goal of the football pitch. That’s right. Don’t go back to the apartment. It’s too hard for you to return to a home you left six years ago. I still need to talk to you. When Itzik came out, you thought it was the end of the world, and it wasn’t. For an hour and a half I lay there alone, my legs on iron stirrups. Why was I alone? I’ll tell you. Because after the baby came out the way it did, everyone ran away from me, and they took him, too. They didn’t tell me a thing. The nurse screamed when she saw his fingers and toes, and everyone came running. They grabbed hold of the baby and left me lying on my back, my legs in the air. They didn’t sew me up or anything. They just got the placenta out, then disappeared. They took my baby. They didn’t let me see him. If I’d given birth to a monster with three heads, they shouldn’t have run away like that. I lay there like a dog. In fact, if I was a dog, I’d have quietly licked his head clean. No one would have screamed in my face. And what did you do while I was lying there? You went crying to your mama. That’s it! Mas’ud says it’s the end of the world! You didn’t think to ask me how I was. Now you can listen to me. The blood gathered behind my knees. I was cold. I was thirsty. I screamed. I cried. No one heard me. Just the bare walls as my baby was taken from me.

  I thought it was the end of the world, too. I thought I was going to die right there, with my legs wide open. Who came to my rescue? A cleaner. She came and gave me a drink, then went to find someone to sew me up.

  For a year you wouldn’t say kiddush at home. You wouldn’t look at the baby and say kiddush on Sabbath. I dressed him in big shirts, the sleeves covering his hands so you didn’t have to look at them. Nothing helped. You’d look at him then turn away. I had to take you by the hand again and show you that the world hadn’t come to an end. Quickly, very quickly, I got pregnant with Dudi. That was just for you, another child to bring the colour back to your face. In less than a year, I gave you a healthy child. It was lucky I had a boy. A gift from God.

  Every time you ran to your mother’s, I’d die of shame.

  You’d say, ‘Simi, I’m just popping over to Mama’s to see if she needs help with the chicken coop.’ As if she really needed help from her strong boy. But I knew what you really meant was: Simona didn’t make your life good enough, so off you run to Mama’s. Fifteen minutes on the bus to her house. You’d sit there half the day: eating, reading the paper, drinking, sleeping. You wouldn’t come home. I used to go to the moshav to see you sitting in her kitchen; two little turtle doves with full bellies, and me the cat in the middle.

  When I got there, you wouldn’t look at me. You’d take Kobi or Etti or Itzik, whoever I’d brought with me, and your mother would get up to make me tea. She’d turn her back to me, her mouth closed, her eyes like ice; I knew what she was thinking. The words she wanted to say seemed to stand behind her teeth, like the children stand behind the nursery fence to watch a bulldozer working outside. ‘You’ve taken my boy away from me, Simona. I put honey on his tongue, but you should be spreading it. You didn’t see what he looked like when he came home today. He was as white as a corpse. Look at his colour now!’ After five minutes she’d come back with a cup of tea, her manner changed, looking me in the eye: ‘What can you do? All men are like children. That’s the world, binti. Always be patient, and life will be good.’

  My sisters-in-law, Shoshana, Yaffa and Rachel, are all made from the same mould. They’d come in, kiss me, talk to me about all kinds of things: ‘What a pretty dress, Simona, where’d you buy it?’; ‘Kobi’s such a cute kid’; ‘How Etti’s grown. What a pretty girl – and no evil eye, either.’ Their words were like sugar. But as they opened their mouths, their twisted laughs escaped, showing in their eyes: ‘Is that how you keep him? Like that? What’s the use of your beauty and your dresses if you have to follow him all the way here?’ I’d suffer it so I could buy you back from your mother.

  They didn’t think that in town. I know what they used to say about me: ‘Look how she keeps him twisted around her little finger.’ When I went to the cinema, Shushan talked about me behind my back: ‘Mas’ud Dadon? He has to ask his wife’s permission to pass wind.’

  Mas’ud’s gone. He just came and went, without leaving me a memory of his face. He turned it away, didn’t look at me, so he didn’t see what has happened to me in six years. And he didn’t even try to find out how I was coping. He escaped to his grave all alone. And if a Katyusha won’t come for me, I can’t go with him. I don’t have his back, his hand or his smell to lead me.

  7

  If I could, I’d take the netting of the goal and wrap it around myself. But how can I get it off the goalpost? I haven’t got anything to cut it. Just Our Simona’s handbag, which I haven’t opened in six years. Maybe she left nail scissors in it? What is inside Our Simona’s bag?

  I can’t open it. I still can’t do it.

  I put my head back inside my dress, hoping for sleep.

  I’m at the cemetery, looking for Mas’ud’s grave. I can’t find it. It has disappeared. In its place is a patch of dirt with six tall thorns growing there. I don’t understand it. I touch the solid dirt. They haven’t yet dug the grave. My fingernails are blood-red among the thorns. On the other side of the cemetery our rabbi is saying psalms. How didn’t I notice there was another memorial happening? I quickly check I’m wearing my headscarf, and my finger brushes a hairpin. I don’t understand. My hair is the way it was for Kobi’s bar mitzvah. I look up to see whose memorial it is. But instead of the rabbi I see it’s a bee whose humming sounds like a prayer.

  Now I’m in the middle of town, with my bar mitzvah hairdo and my yellow cloche skirt and the black blouse with the yellow collar. I go to Mas’ud’s falafel shop. Again, he turns his back, and I say, ‘Quick, Mas’ud, leave everything and come with me now!’ He doesn’t reply. Someone behind me is laughing. It’s his father, and he’s saying, ‘Shim’ona, Shim’ona, what’ll we hear from Shim’ona today?’ It’s just how he used to laugh at me when he was alive. I turn. He’s sitting on a crate, which Etti used to sit on when she helped Mas’ud, and playing with the till like a kid. ‘Look at me, Shim’ona, look at me!’ He pushes a button, and the till rings and opens up. He laughs and closes it with a bang, then presses the button again. I turn back to Mas’ud and walk into the shop. He stands with his back to me, cutting vegetables. I tell him to come home, to leave everything, but he just points at a big bowl with his knife. ‘Behayat, Simona, look how much houmous I’ve ground today. There’s six thousand shekels in houmous here. It’d be a terrible waste. And what about all the people who are coming into town today because of Rabbi Kahane? They’re checking the loudspeakers right now. He will be here soon. It’d be a crying shame to lose all that money. I’ll make at least half of what I make on Independence Day.’ I cry, ‘Mas’ud, I’m hungry, make me some falafels.’ He turns to his father, saying he doesn’t know what’s wrong with her, that she’s never touched one of his falafels in her whole life, that she’s never even visited the shop. He sounds like someone who’s won millions in the lottery but doesn’t quite believe it yet. In a little girl voice, I ask him for falafels. He says, ‘Just a minute, I’ll get some for you. How many do you want, Simi? Four?’ He’s so happy that he starts to dance, his hands spinning the falafel balls. I tell him I want lots and lots, but he still doesn’t look me in the eye, so I tell him I want everything he’s got, that he should make all the falafels just for me. I don’t know how I’ll get through them, but I say, ‘Tell everyone the shop’s closed. I’ll finish every last mouthful you make, but we have to go home now, quickly. We don’t have any time.’ And then his father calls out, ‘Shim’ona, come and look at this big heap of money. I’ve made piles. I did it all by myself. Look, the notes are nice and neat; the hundreds and fifties and tens all separated out for you.’

  I don’t want to look at him because he died of a heart attack before we
opened the falafel shop, and Mas’ud is still alive. Mas’ud turns to me, and on each of his fingers is a falafel ball. I fall on his fingers. The falafel burn my mouth, but I finish them all and ask for more. But he doesn’t make any more, just looks at me steadily, his eyes not moving, as if they are stuck. ‘Eat for your health, Simi. Eat as much as you want. Eat and eat.’ Then he lowers his eyes to the floor. Now he sounds like someone who has realised the lottery money is counterfeit, spoiled like sour milk: ‘I’m not coming home today, Simona. As soon as I finish the houmous I’m leaving with my father. I’m leaving, Simi, I’m leaving.’

  I start to hit him, punching him in the face. I hit him a thousand times. In a minute I’ll knock him onto the burning pot of oil. He shouts, but doesn’t hit back, just tries to stop himself from falling, then he starts to shrink under the weight of my punches, becoming smaller and smaller, until he’s the size of a child, the height of my waist. I grab him, pick him up like a baby, with one hand behind his knees, the other on his back. How heavy he is. He’s smaller but he weighs just the same. I put my back into it, pulling him off the floor. I straighten up and turn to go, holding him in my arms. I’ve got to get him home, so he doesn’t leave with his father. His smell is killing me – the oil, the coriander on his clothes – but what do I do? I bury my face further into his shirt. Now I can’t see. I move forward in the direction of the door, and just as I think I’ve managed to get him out his father grabs me, taking him from me, laughing all the time. Shim’ona, Shim’ona, what do we hear from Shi’mona today? Then he stops laughing and grips my hand. ‘Come on, take the money. We won’t need it where we’re going. Take it, take it. Why not? Don’t be ashamed, Simona. Come on, we’ll open the till together.’ Then he pushes my finger onto the button that opens the till, but it doesn’t open, just rings and rings and rings.

  I open my eyes. It’s a dream. Dawn is beginning. My mouth is dry. The grass of the football pitch is covered with dew, as if it was listening to me all night, as if it was crying for me. I turn onto my stomach, pressing my mouth against the grass. Dew is the cleanest water there is. I sit up and open my handbag. The smell inside is the smell of Our Simona, of perfume and powder. It’s as if everything is looking up at me: the round brush, the makeup kit – dried up over six years – the compact mirror and the tweezers. The bottles of nail varnish and perfume, and the white headscarf for the bar mitzvah Sabbath. Spare nylon stockings in case I had a ladder in the middle of the party. My hand delves in. What’s at the bottom? I have no idea what it is. I take it out. It’s a knife wrapped in a napkin; a souvenir from the bar mitzvah.

  I unzip the side pocket, take out the box I put there, open it. Inside is the ring Mas’ud gave me at our wedding, lying on a bed of cotton as though suffering from a terminal illness. I don’t put it on my finger. Instead I put it in my mouth, holding it with my teeth. I close the handbag. I want to stand but I can’t move my legs. Holding on to the goalpost with two hands, I pull myself up. I’ve got pins and needles in my feet.

  The sun is rising from behind the little hill of the cemetery. The trees shade half of the sun’s rays, the other half creeps to my legs like an unrolling carpet. From here it’s no more than fifteen minutes to his grave. I won’t pray for him today, as I have done every year. I’ll come alone, dig a small hole in the ground next to his grave. Then I’ll put his ring into it, next to him, fill in the hole with the earth and divorce him.

  I want to step away from the goalpost but I can’t. A picture comes to mind. A day of first steps at the nursery. It’s a day none of us have forgotten, when the crawlers gave us the best present: seeing them walk for the first time. What a day! Almost all the crawlers walked. Shlomi started it. He took two steps, grabbed a table, then took a piece of banana from a plate as if it was nothing, as if he’d been walking for a hundred years. Then it was Ziva’s turn. She’d been crawling with her knees off the floor. Suddenly she picked herself up, slowly, slowly, and stood in the middle of the room, her legs spread, wobbling until she fell. Twice more and she learned how to stand with her feet closed up a little. Then she took her first step and fell on her bottom. She was quite old to start walking, a year and five months. After Ziva, others started to walk, too. We laughed and laughed. We forgot to put them to bed, forgot to clean, forgot everything. Instead we picked them up and kissed them all over their faces, on their legs, and put them in the middle of the room so they’d walk. And then Avi got up. Avi! He was just ten months old. He stood on the side, watching the others, holding on to a table, rocking and making happy noises. I wasn’t looking at him, was looking at myself in the mirror for a minute, then suddenly I saw him in the mirror, taking a step, then getting scared and falling onto the other table and bursting into tears. After half an hour he was walking just like the older ones. We thought it was a miracle, to be walking when he was so little. When the mothers arrived at pick-up time, they didn’t believe us. All we heard was: ‘Come to me! Come to me!’ Then they saw we were telling the truth, and they started to laugh, too.

  I leave the goalpost and start to walk, holding the wedding ring in my mouth and breathing through my nose. In the air is the smell of a new morning, and it gives me the strength to walk.

  When I get close to the cemetery, I have to stop myself from running. I don’t want to put my ring there, after all. I don’t want to make a grave for it, sit shiva for it, and say prayers for it for the rest of my life.

  I sit down where I have stopped, take out the bar mitzvah knife and dig a little hole. Then I open my mouth, watch the ring fall into its grave, and cover it up.

  I get up and walk towards the cemetery. After five or six steps, I turn back. I can still see the place. I walk forward again, then turn back once more. The sun is behind me. I look. Maybe it’s here, or maybe it’s there. I think I know. Yes, I’m almost sure.

  I walk further, look back again. The sun is in my eyes now. I can’t see a thing. The ring is gone. Even if I want to go back, I don’t know where it is any more.

  When I turn to go, I hear voices in the cemetery. It’s my children. Who’s there? Is that Etti? And Itzik or Dudi? Maybe it’s Kobi. Now I’m sure I can hear Chaim and Oshri. How can it be? It’s only five o’clock in the morning, five-thirty at the earliest. The loudspeaker hasn’t announced the all-clear. Who would have thought they’d get up so early to say prayers for their father?

  DUDI AND ITZIK DADON

  Dudi and Itzik

  ‘Bring her over here. Come on. Watch how you’re holding her. You’re strangling her! Give her to me. Look what you’ve done. Another minute and she’d have lost a wing. She’s delicate, you know. Get it?’

  ‘But Itzik, you said she was strong, really strong. You’re changing your story again. You’re always changing things.’

  ‘Of course she’s strong, but she’s delicate, too. You have to be careful with her! Think before you act. When we got her, we had to work out how to get her down, remember? So we still have to do that – to look at her from all sides and angles. Get it?’

  ‘Watch out! She’s shitting on your hand!’

  ‘Let her shit. It doesn’t bother me. Even her shits are beautiful. Everything about her is beautiful. Nothing’s disgusting. She’s like a queen, this one, queen of all the birds. Have you ever seen her piss?’

  ‘She can’t piss.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘’Cause I’m always looking at her. She only does white shits. Let me have her back. I’m not giving in to you again. You promised we’d have her fifty-fifty.’

  ‘Go on, then, take her. But be careful, OK? Look how I’m holding her. I’m not afraid to let her use the whole of my hand.’

  ‘I can’t do it. I can’t have her on my hand. You keep her, Itzik. Your hands were made for her. You don’t have any feeling in them, so you can keep them open for her. When she pecks your hand, you don’t feel the pain. You just laugh, like she was kissing you.’

  ‘OK, OK, give her back, then. You need to wear gloves, li
ke the ones the disabled JNF guys wear when they’re weeding thorns. Then we can sort out the other thing. Now take out some meat for her, just a little so she doesn’t get used to too much. We’ll need it for her training. Cut it up for her. Don’t forget she eats like a queen – little bits at a time. I have to think what to do next. I need some leather cord to tie around her foot.’

  ‘Wouldn’t shoelaces be good enough? I thought we could tie some laces together. I’ve already bought some.’

  ‘Shoelaces? She’s a queen, Dudi. You don’t use shoelaces for a queen. Anyway, they’d just rip her leg. As I said, she’s strong but delicate. I’m going to guard her with my life. There’s nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for her. I’ll get her everything we saw in that film Kes, everything. She’ll never want to leave the palace I’m going to make for her. Get it? Why are you making faces?’

  ‘What do you mean? I’m in pain. I bet I broke a finger when I fell.’

  ‘Where’d you fall? You can’t have fallen that badly.’