The Falafel King Is Dead

by Sara Shilo

  ‘They got no nose, neither.’

  ‘No, because they never catch a cold!’

  They were both laughing now, so I went on. ‘I’ll tell you what happened,’ I said. ‘The witch now had the heart of a good woman.’

  They looked at me with huge, surprised eyes.

  ‘She stopped being a witch?’

  ‘She turned into a good woman!’

  ‘I said it first, didn’t I, Etti?’

  ‘So the witch tried to laugh her evil laugh, but she couldn’t do it. Instead, a nice laugh came out. She tried to fly on her broom, but she couldn’t do that, either. She got on, and the broomstick fell down and broke. Her heart was already soft, like … like …’

  ‘Like butter!’

  ‘Like a banana!’

  ‘Her heart was as soft as a really ripe banana, and all she wanted to do was help everyone. It was all she could think about. The woman didn’t believe it at first. She thought the witch was pretending again. But then she saw it was true, that the witch really had become a good woman. So she asked for her body back, because she missed it terribly and was sorry she had given it away. She didn’t need to ask twice: the witch agreed immediately. And because she was really good, she returned everything: her hair, her body, her legs. Finally, the woman said to the witch, “Would you mind giving me back my heart?”

  I stopped, waiting for them to say something, but they clung to me more tightly than before. Maybe they thought a frightening bit was coming up, something they hadn’t heard before that would spoil everything.

  ‘And the witch’, I said, ‘was so good now that she gave the woman her heart and died on the spot.’

  ‘Boom, dead!’

  ‘She deserved it!’

  ‘For what she did to the woman!’

  ‘Is that the happy end, Etti? No more witches are going to come for her?’

  ‘Of course not! And that one’s in her grave.’

  ‘You can’t come out of your grave, can you, Etti?’

  As I hugged them I sensed something about the new end was still worrying them.

  ‘But who’ll do the woman’s work now, Etti?’

  ‘Yes, who will do it?’

  ‘The woman’s children will help her,’ I replied. ‘Even her twins can help with the housework. They’re both very good boys, and they’re big enough.’

  ‘Like us? Like when we helped you bring in the rubbish bin?’

  ‘What do you mean “like us”? You’re talking nonsense. We didn’t get a visit from a witch, did we, Etti?’

  ‘And no one’s died, have they, Etti? It’s only in the story that he died, her husband.’

  ‘Why are you crying, Etti?’

  ‘I’m scared when you cry, Etti. You said it was a happy end, so why are you crying?’

  ‘Don’t cry, Etti. The witch is dead. The minute you took out her heart. Boom, she died.’

  ‘Look – I’m the witch dying. Look, Etti, you’re not looking.’

  ‘Look at me, too, Etti. Move over – you don’t know how to die. I’m a better dead person!’

  ‘Now you’re laughing.’

  8

  What happened next? We drank tea with shiba, and they dunked their cookies the way they like to. I can still see the pieces of cookie tangled in the shiba leaves, then sinking to the bottom, and the bright sesame seeds floating on the top. It was already getting dark outside, and Oshri dragged a chair over and stood on it to turn on the light, and then all I remember is the boom and running alone in the dark, running in the street as I’ve never run before, thinking I’d found my building, pushing with everyone else on the locked door of the shelter when the second Katyusha fell and I was in the middle of the big scream, just a throat and nothing else.

  I can’t seem to remember why I went down to the street and where the twins were. Every day when I was their age, I ran straight from school to the falafel shop, saying ‘Papa-Papa’ all the way. It didn’t hurt to say it then.

  I was his helper from the age of seven. When I went into the shop, I’d see him standing behind the low wall that hid the stove. I could only see his hair, but I knew that, in a minute, I’d see all of him. I liked the anticipation.

  I never went around the wall. Instead I’d take off my schoolbag and throw it onto the floor. I’d drag over a wooden vegetable crate, lifting it onto one side and putting it down over my schoolbag like a cage, pushing in the bag’s straps. Then I’d pull over another crate, lift it onto the first one, and make it secure. On tip-toe, I’d push the little pillow into place. Papa would hear me, and, before turning around, he’d say his seven words: ‘Watch out for the metal, Etti binti!’ He was worried I’d get cut on the sharp, rusty crates. I’d go back out of the door, climb up onto an empty pickle can and from there climb to the window. I’d go in through the window, turn and come down, bottom first, onto the flowered pillow, ready for work. When I turned my head, I’d see all of Papa, and he could see me. His forehead was ironed free of wrinkles, and he looked full of happiness, like orange juice being poured into a cup, the orange line getting higher and higher. That’s the face I used to see when he discovered me on my crates every afternoon.

  I’d open the till, jiggling it to the right and left, because it always got stuck. The drawer was divided into squares. I’d open the little bags with the coins and pour them into the compartments, and I’d straighten and arrange the notes. The bills were quiet and serious like the faces painted on them, and the coins were like mischievous children, rolling around and making noise.

  The other children would come a little later. Everyone who passed our falafel shop had to stop themselves from buying something. The smell drove everyone crazy because Papa started frying before there were customers. He didn’t care if he had to throw some out. He knew the smell would do its work for him, that the smell of falafel is stronger than all the smells in the centre of town. It attracts people. That was his first trade secret. For that alone he deserved to be the king. All day long he flooded the town centre with the smell of falafel. It made everyone hungry, and he never sold old or cold balls.

  The year he died, I’d learned everything, even how to make the portions. I was eleven. I wanted to explain it all to my uncles, Papa’s brothers from the moshav – Morris and Avram and Pinchas and Shimi and Eli – but they didn’t ask me. They’d agreed with Mama that they’d manage the falafel shop and give us some of the profits every month.

  They took over the shop the day after the shiva and they all agreed it was impossible to continue running that place in the same way, that there was an urgent need for renovation, that everyone would put in some money, and that they would do all the work themselves. They changed the floor and painted the walls and made a plaster ceiling with white stalactites hanging down. They bought a new deep-fryer, shining stainless steel and a big fridge, ordered a neon sign, ‘Falafel of the North – Always First’, hung a huge mirror on the entrance wall, brought in an aquarium with goldfish and plastic plants to stand in the corner, made the entrance wider so people could help themselves to salads from the bar, and added three new lights. And people passed by and said, ‘Very beautiful!’ and ‘You’ve done a great job!’ But they didn’t buy falafel.

  Their whole approach was wrong. The five brothers thought it would be enough if each of them worked a day in the falafel shop. On Fridays they decided not to open, because it was a short day. They didn’t know that Friday at noon was as busy as the rest of the week put together, and that if you feel like falafel on Friday but see the door closed, you’ll get used to buying somewhere else.

  After Papa died, my legs still ran to the falafel shop after school. I couldn’t stop them. The sign, ‘Falafel of the North – Always First’, used to stick in my throat, and I’d turn away and run and cry in the bushes with the yellow flowers that were near the town centre. I’d sit in the middle of the bushes, put my head on my schoolbag, and cry quietly until I fell asleep. Once I managed not to run away, and got so close I could see the
crack in the sign. It had only been there a month. And as I got closer still, I could see there was only one fish left in the aquarium. It was Uncle Avram’s day on the stand, and it was obvious he didn’t know a thing. After that, I came back again, day after day. I stood there and I could see none of them knew what they were doing. My uncles thought a portion of falafel meant throwing a few balls into a pitta, and then letting people add what they wanted. How could I explain to them that Papa would make portions individual? He’d say, ‘This one likes a thick pitta’, and we’d sift around to find an especially thick one. Or he’d say, ‘This woman doesn’t like it to drip’, and he’d cushion the bottom of the pitta with the piece he’d cut from the top, and wrap it in two napkins. And there were people who would snack on a ball while they were waiting for their portion, and he’d add an extra one on the top. One person wanted the whole thing to taste of tahini, even if it tore, another liked the falafel a little burned, someone else liked them very light, almost raw. And the cheapskates who ordered half a portion when they were hungry got a big half from Papa which was really two-thirds, and he’d throw away the leftovers. People didn’t realise how well he knew them. He didn’t talk much, but if he managed to surprise them, he’d look at me and his chin would dance a little, like a small victory celebration.

  And then there were the ones who put on airs and graces and threw instructions at him from a distance: ‘Make my portion for me.’ They felt like only children, the only ones to get a special portion, and yet he would only ever make them an ordinary portion. And we had six or seven taxi drivers who would give a little toot from the highway. By the time they arrived, Papa would have prepared a really spicy portion, wrapped in a bag, with a drink, and I would go and give it to them through the taxi window.

  9

  I was eleven when he died. I was sitting next to the till on a high chair, with my new hairstyle from Kobi’s bar mitzvah. I didn’t like it or my dress. I wanted to forget the whole party: the people who pinched my cheeks as if I was still a little girl, the others who, in contrast, saw I was developing and weren’t shy about staring, and especially the false smiles flashing in the mirrors around us.

  That day masses of people squeezed into the falafel shop and competed with each other to shower praise on Papa for the bar mitzvah – there had never been one like it in the town. I didn’t move away from the till for a long time. I took money and added it up and gave people change until Dudi came in with his friend. He opened the fridge and said that Kobi had sent him to fetch some drinks for Rabbi Kahane’s people. Papa heard him and said, ‘They’re not free. Why would they be free?’ Then Kobi came. I was cleaning at the back of the shop, to keep the cats away, and I heard Kobi say, ‘Why can’t you give them away? They’re important people!’ Papa answered, ‘In my place, nothing’s free. If Begin himself came, he’d have to pay.’ And Kobi said to him, ‘You know what, you’ll end up in the falafel shop all your life!’

  When I went back into the room, Kobi had already taken at least ten bottles out of the fridge. He gave me some, and I didn’t know what to do. I looked at Papa, but he turned to face the wall and carried on frying. He didn’t say a word. Kobi went out, shouting for me to follow him. Suddenly he seemed grown-up. When we got to the square, he opened the bottles for Kahane’s men, and sat down to talk. I stood next to him, listening to them quoting and praising their rabbi. ‘He’s like a father,’ they said, ‘one with mercy in his heart who thinks of all Jews as his children.’

  They told us that on their journey here the car had a flat tyre. So they all got out and found themselves looking at a wonderful view of Jericho. ‘You see,’ the rabbi said to them, ‘right here is the place where Elijah the Prophet went to Heaven. It’s a scandal that there are no Jewish settlements here.’ He went on to say that when they came back he’d do everything he could to encourage building of a yeshiva there. Everyone else was worried about the flat tyre but not the rabbi. Oh no. For him, everything is an opportunity to show his love for the Jewish people. He never thinks of himself, just the Jews.

  Soon afterwards they left Kobi to mingle in the crowd, chanting ‘Long Live the Jewish People’, raising clenched fists to Heaven. There was a fist on their yellow shirts, too, yellow in a black puddle. No one was taking them seriously. I left the square and walked back to the falafel shop in the shade, next to the shops, with a finger in each of the empty bottles. I had almost reached the falafel shop when the loudspeaker started. I turned and went back. The rabbi spoke strange Hebrew, American Hebrew, and he was stuttering. With his black beard and yarmulke, he just looked like an ordinary person. He began quietly, with a verse in every sentence, so only Siso the sailor and his friends stood and listened to him. Everyone else in the centre carried on with what they were doing, until, suddenly, Kahane called out in a loud, imploring, chastising voice: ‘Jews! Daughters of Israel are defiling themselves with Arabs! They’re taking away our livelihood, our daughters, our State …’ People began to come out of the shops, and those already in the square stood still with their baskets, bags or strollers, as he raised a hand to Heaven. ‘I’m saying what you’re all thinking,’ he said into the loudspeaker. ‘And everyone else is a hypocrite and a coward. Fellow Jews, we have to clean the State of our enemies!’ Clapping was heard here and there, and the crowd waited for him to continue. Kahane was quiet for a minute, then threw the name of the neighbouring village into the air, repeating it twice. ‘Is that an Arab village?’ he asked, stroking his beard. ‘It’s not an Arab village! It’s a Jewish village where Arabs live temporarily.’ The crowd laughed and lots more people clapped. The empty bottles clinked against each other, but I didn’t care if they broke my fingers. More and more people were streaming into the square now, filling it. They squeezed together, looking up at him, and some started chanting, ‘Kahane! Kahane!’

  Mama was at home. She was sitting in the living room, her hair up, wearing blusher and mascara, as if she was still at the bar mitzvah. She was surrounded by admirers and didn’t hear me come in. I went to the room where we all slept then – Itzik, Dudi, Kobi and I. I got into bed, pulled the covers up to my neck, still listening to Rabbi Kahane and wondering what he meant when he spoke about daughters of Israel defiling themselves.

  The screaming woke me. I got up and rushed into the living room in time to see Mama bursting out of the door. I heard her bump into the empty bottles I had left by the door, then shout, ‘Mas’ud, Mas’ud.’ She ran down the stairs and into the street, still shouting, and I ran after her, barefoot.

  Papa had stayed in the falafel shop when the square began to fill with people and when it emptied again, and when he collapsed there, the whole town was left with a riddle to solve: how did he die? For a year everyone tried to understand what had killed him, what had happened first: The oil or the bee?

  The knife or the fall?

  The heart or the burn?

  The blood or the sting? Like the Passover song ‘Chad Gadya’, with its mixed-up verses, there was no way of knowing how the angel of death came to my father as he was working. All the clues were on the floor of the falafel shop for people to build or mix up as they wished. Mama said it was the evil eye that killed him. Kobi said angrily that it was the oil. Dudi and Itzik, who were six and seven, saw the knife in his hand, the wound and the bee-sting.

  The doctor said that apparently his heart stopped. I was a girl then, and I imagined that Papa’s heart stopped just so it would not be drawn to the square, to the hearts that merged into the one common heart of the together-monster. The heart stopped and left my father lying dead on the floor of the falafel stand.

  I left the shelter and walked in the pitch-darkness to our building. I climbed the stairs. I didn’t want to go back into the shelter. The Cohens’ door was wide open, and so were all the other doors. It was dark and the open doors were like the yawning mouths of caves, each with its own smell. Our door was open, too.

  I went straight to the kitchen. I groped around on the counter, found match
es and lit the stove. I took a Sabbath candle out of the drawer and lit that, too, putting it on a little plate. Papa’s picture, cropped across his chest and imprisoned in a carved, gilt frame, still hung in the hall, along with the photo of us all at Kobi’s bar mitzvah. ‘I wish someone would take down that picture,’ Mama begged. ‘I can’t stand looking at that stupid, laughing woman. She has no idea what’s going to happen to her in two days, how her world will fall apart.’ I took the picture off the wall. On the table, dishes were heaped with the Tuesday couscous. I tasted them all: too spicy, too salty, lukewarm, cold, repulsive. I shielded the candle with my hand, looking into the flame, at the orange surrounding it. Let it burn, I thought. Let everything burn. I got up from the chair suddenly – it fell with a bang, and then I heard something else. By the light of the candle I walked down the hallway to the old apartment, towards the terrorists’ cupboard, then I slipped. Oil.

  The candle flickered and almost went out.

  Everything happened at once. The door of the cupboard opened, the electricity came back on, and I was standing, swaying, in front of Oshri and Chaim’s little faces inside the cupboard. ‘Who should we be afraid of now, Etti?’ they asked together.

  I put out the candle and took a step forward. I slipped off my sandals and got into the cupboard with them. I closed both doors from inside, leaving a crack of light, feeling as though I might burst into tears. But instead of tears, something else burst out: a story.

  What hadn’t they brought with them? Inside were two pillows, their water gun, a loaf of bread with the middle hollowed out and only the crust left. The three of us mingled together in the womb of the cupboard, and they showered me with all that had happened in the last few hours: how there was a huge boom and it got dark and they ran straight to the cupboard like Kobi had told them to do, and how they heard the second boom and shouts in the building because people didn’t know they were supposed to go into the cupboard.