by Sayed Kashua
LIQUID FOOD
I took the jar of food out of the fridge and placed it on the bedside table. Pressing the button, I raised Yonatan’s bed to what I thought was a suitable angle. His expression never wavered, and his stare, which had been set on the ceiling, was now leveled at the desk opposite his bed. I brought a chair over to the side of the bed and looked at the clock. In a minute it would be eight p.m.
The procedure sounded so simple and natural when Osnat explained it. But when I touched his inert body, a shiver went through me. Maybe it really would have been easier if I had spoken to him, as Osnat had recommended, but back then I was not able to relate to that thing at all. I wasn’t sure if he could even hear or see. While pulling down his blanket I tried to avoid all bodily contact. I stretched my arms to their full length, keeping my distance, and with unsteady hands tried to tuck the paper napkin into the neck of his pajamas. I felt the heat of his body and my hands jerked back as if I’d touched a poisonous snake.
“You can’t know what they know,” Osnat had told me. “You can’t know what he feels. But we have to be as humane as possible and treat him as though he were fully aware of everything around him. You shouldn’t mention his condition and you shouldn’t say things like ‘poor thing’ or ‘he’ll never get better.’” I reminded myself to act naturally and, inhaling through my mouth, I straightened the napkin under his chin.
I scooped up a flat teaspoon of the gelatinous purple food, just as Osnat had shown me, and tried putting the spoon into his mouth. Nothing. He did not open his mouth at all and I wound up smearing the food across his lips and down his chin. I took a napkin from the drawer and cleaned his face. Then I put some more food on the spoon and tried to pry his mouth open with my other hand, using a thumb and finger on either side of his jaw, feeling his teeth through his skin, but his mouth remained shut. I was scared that he’d suddenly open his mouth and clamp down on my fingers but I reminded myself that if he bit me it would be considered a medical miracle and that everyone would be glad.
Using a lot more strength than I had anticipated, I finally managed to open his mouth and guide the spoon inside, but nothing happened. The food stayed on the spoon. I turned it over in his mouth and shook the food off onto his tongue. “Slide it all the way back,” Osnat had said. There was no movement whatsoever, no sign of swallowing. I pried his mouth farther open and looked inside. Just as I had thought. All the food remained exactly where I had left it. Nothing had been swallowed. What do you do with this thing?
I knew this was not for me. I should have refused the job. But I hadn’t, and now I had no choice. I was alone and there were tasks that had to be done. I slid the long spoon back into his mouth and moved the food back toward his throat. With my other hand I raised his chin in the air, forcing his head back in a movement that reminded me of my grandmother and the way she used to feed her chicks. I wondered if something had gone wrong, if his situation had somehow changed since I had arrived. Otherwise Osnat and Ayub would have told me that feeding him is one of the most difficult chores. I tried my system again—squeeze open his mouth, insert the spoon, deposit the food, raise his chin—and then again. It wasn’t easy or fast, but it worked. When the food was consumed, I moved on to the water substitute, employing the same technique. By the time the meal was over I realized that I had touched him without so much as a second thought and that a full hour had passed.
I removed the napkin and wiped his face with two wet cloths. Then I used the button on his bed to return him to a prone position. That was it. All I had left to do was to rotate him every few hours and to watch him fall asleep. “He goes to sleep right after the meal,” Osnat had said, “and he stays asleep till morning.”
But Yonatan did not fall asleep. His eyes remained open and fixed on the ceiling. I decided to flip him onto his side. It wasn’t difficult: with one hand on his shoulder and another on his hip, I tugged once and he was on his side, staring me in the face. I should have flipped him the other way, I thought, so that I wouldn’t have that incomprehensible look staring me in the face. I could have moved my chair over to the other side of the bed, but that wouldn’t have looked good. You have to be mindful of his feelings, I reminded myself. I stayed put, doing whatever I could to avoid his gaze. Every once in a while I looked back at him to see whether his eyes were still open. They were, hauntingly so, but more than anything else they simply testified to the fact that he was not asleep.
A sharp smell filled the room. It was nothing like the unventilated, medicinal scent I had encountered when I first came up to the attic. No one had mentioned this to me. Not Osnat and definitely not Ayub, that son of a bitch. I went over to the window and opened it all the way, trying to overcome my nausea and cursing myself and Wassim and Ayub and Osnat. Yonatan, there was no longer any doubt, had defecated in his bed. I considered calling Osnat and telling her that I was very sorry but that I would be leaving right away. Instead I found myself on the phone apologizing for bothering her at this hour and asking all too politely how I should handle the situation. “It’s very simple,” she said. “You take off the diaper, clean him up with some wipes, and put on a new diaper. Strange, that almost never happens at night.”
I tried to work on autopilot. I marched over to the bed and pulled down his blanket. His body was surprisingly robust and athletic, considering, and he wore what looked like rather expensive pajamas. I decided on two things: I would get this done, and I would quit. This would be a one-time thing. I’d stay through till the end of this awful night and then go back to my life in Beit Hanina. At this hour, Majdi and Wassim were probably home. What I wouldn’t give to be with them.
The excrement had stained the waistband of his pajamas. Without thinking, I pulled his pajama pants down. It was worse than I had imagined. The excrement was smeared across his back and legs. I tried not to breathe. I flipped him on his back, undid the diaper tabs, and pulled. Then his bottom half was bare and for a moment I felt sorry for him, wondering if he could tell what I was doing and how it made him feel, if he felt anything at all. The situation was ghastly: most of his body and the bedding were covered in shit. Wipes were not going to be of any use. I remembered what Osnat had said about showering him, even though, as she put it, “this is hardly relevant because I give him a shower in the morning,” and I decided to put him in the special showering wheelchair, the one with the hole in the seat. I decided that there was no other way. A shower was what he needed.
I raised Yonatan’s head and tucked my arms under his armpits. He was far heavier than I had anticipated. My hands were wrapped across his chest. The special wheelchair was positioned alongside the bed. I pulled him as hard as I could and smeared shit all across the sheets. With considerable effort, I managed to get his uncooperative body into the wheelchair. According to the explanations I had received, this was all supposed to be relatively simple. He was to be placed in the chair and then tied in for support. Only there was no way to keep him steady and tie him in at the same time. Each time I took one hand off him he started to slide out of the chair.
You have to act as though you’re under fire, I told myself. I summoned every ounce of strength I had and in the end was able to press his heavy body into the chair and tie the straps around him. I took the sheets off the bed and threw them into the washing machine in the bathroom. Then I pushed the wheelchair into the bathroom and turned on the shower, waiting for it to get warm. What does this person, this thing, even know? If he felt anything at all, it must be hatred for me. Yonatan probably hates me more than anything else in the world, I thought. I’ll get this over with, deal with the rest of the night, and never see him again.
Later that night I wasn’t able to fall asleep. I lay down on the sofa, closed my eyes, and tried to think of soccer moves, a drill that usually put me to sleep. Instead I found myself practicing my conversation with Osnat, accusing her of lying about the nature of the job, and telling her that I would not be contin
uing. “By eight he’s usually asleep” . . . Is that right? Well, why was he wide awake till midnight then? And yes, this was after I’d showered him, washed his hair, and wrestled him into his new diaper and pajamas.
In the morning I was supposed to take a shower myself, change clothes, and go straight to the office, “feeling fresh and well-rested,” as Ayub put it. I passed on the shower. It made me nauseous to think that I might have to stand naked and barefoot in the exact spot where the filth had poured off Yonatan the previous night. All thoughts of the previous night were revolting. I had washed my face, brushed my teeth, and used a towel from the staff closet, but I had been sorry that I had not brought my own.
Osnat arrived at five past seven. She had her own key.
“Good morning,” she whispered. Yonatan was still asleep.
“Good morning.”
“So, is everything all right? He seems to be sleeping nicely,” she said, yawning.
“Everything’s all right,” I heard myself say.
I took the undershirt, the T-shirt, and the pants I was supposed to wear that day and stashed them in the staff closet. I moved my toiletries kit there, too. “Have a good shift,” I told Osnat and hurried down the stairs. Why hadn’t I said anything? What am I going to do now? I thought. I was angry with myself and I felt my face flush.
Waiting at the bus stop on Herzl Boulevard, I imagined Wassim making coffee and hurrying Majdi out of bed. This was my first time leaving for work without them. Why the hell had I not said anything to Osnat? Maybe I’ll just disappear, I thought, without saying anything. What could possibly happen if I don’t show up tonight at seven? It would be a little awkward, and Osnat would definitely talk to Ayub, who would talk to Wassim, but all of that could easily be explained. I could also call her as soon as I got to the office and tell her that I would not be coming back. Some things have to be handled in that way. A clean cut. I decided that’s what I would do. So I’d lose a shirt and a pair of pants. It was a small price to pay.
The 23 bus was stuck at a red light before the stop. It didn’t run often but it was the best bus for me, as it went straight to the courthouse and from there it was just a two-minute walk to work. I counted the coins in my hand. I always tried to have exact change because I hated making the drivers do the extra work. A white car veered into the bus stop. I hated drivers who pulled in to bus stops.
“Excuse me,” I heard a voice call out. I swiveled my head. “I’m Ruchaleh, Yonatan’s mother. Where are you headed?”
I leaned forward and looked through the open window at the driver of the car.
“Wadi Joz.”
“Okay, get in, it’s on my way.”
I looked back one more time at the 23, which was pulling up to the stop, and then opened the car door and hurried in.
I made sure to look straight ahead and tried to breathe quietly.
“I’m headed to Mount Scopus. Wadi Joz is on my way,” she said in a tone that reminded me of her son’s expressionless stare.
“Thank you very much.”
“I saw you on the way down the stairs this morning. I was sitting in the kitchen.”
I nodded in silence and only then realized that there had been someone else in the house during that night of sleeplessness. At no point did I feel or hear her presence, there had been no shutting of doors and no footfalls. No sign of life at all.
“It was a rough night last night,” she said, and I wasn’t sure if she was asking or telling. “I came upstairs to say hi when I got home but I saw that you were busy with Yonatan in the shower and I didn’t want to bother you.”
I nodded bashfully. She had been there, and she knew what I had been through.
“I know this will sound strange to you,” she said, “but he was testing you last night. That’s why I didn’t get involved.”
I didn’t respond, and the two of us stayed silent. The roads were full of traffic and we moved along slowly from light to light. I looked over at the cars trapped beside us and tried to guess where they were all headed.
“Where do you need to go in Wadi Joz?” she asked when we reached Route 1.
“Right by the district court would be perfect,” I said, because I knew that it was on her way to the university and that most Jews didn’t like driving deep into Arab neighborhoods.
“That’s where you live?”
“No, that’s where I work, at the bureau of social services.”
“But that’s not near the courthouse,” she said.
“No, but it’s a two-minute walk from there.”
She drove past the courthouse, turned right, and then left into Wadi Joz, stopping right in front of the office.
“See you tonight,” she said, without a trace of a question mark.
MARLBORO LIGHT
Daud Abu-Ramila, my only active case, was waiting for me outside the office. He sat on the floor, hugging a big bag. “I’m clean today,” he said, adding with a laugh, “got the rehab started already.” This was the day I was to take him to the clinic in Lifta. He had already been through the committee, met all the requirements, and been told that the bed for the Arab residents was now available.
I punched in and made coffee for the two of us. He was excited, his movements sharp and quick. “I won’t let you down, you’ll see. I’m dying to get there already,” he said. “I’ll never forget what you did for me. Never. You saved me.” Once we’d finished our coffees, I called a cab and we prepared to head out to wait for the driver.
“Is this the outpatient center?” a woman’s voice breathed behind me as I was shutting the door.
“Yes.” I turned around and looked at the skinny, curly-haired girl before me. She was chewing gum and trying to catch her breath at the same time.
“Hi,” she said, extending a hand. “I’m Leila, the new intern. Sorry I’m late, I got a little lost. Walid told you I was coming, right?”
The cab driver announced himself with a honk. “Tell him to wait a second,” I told Daud, who pulled his eyes off Leila and set off at a run.
“Walid’s my supervisor for this internship and he asked that I accompany you to Lifta. He didn’t tell you?”
Walid hadn’t told me a thing about a new intern and certainly not about her accompanying me anywhere.
“All right, let’s go,” I said, shutting the door and leading her toward the taxi. Abu-Ramila had already taken the front seat. Leila and I sat in the back.
“Daud, meet . . . Leila?” I said, making sure I had the name right. She nodded, “Leila.”
Without turning around Daud began to sing my praises. “He’s the best guy here, I’m telling you, this is the man that saved my life. I would do anything in the world for him.” His comments irritated me and drew the early signs of a smile on Leila’s face.
Why had Walid told her to join me on the trip to Lifta? What was I, her supervisor? Why didn’t he do it himself? I remembered that Walid had said he wasn’t going to mentor any student-interns this year. Of course he was going to dump her on me. I was the only one in the office with an active case.
“Did you hear what happened in the southern district office?” Leila asked.
“No.”
“You don’t know? The whole world’s talking about it.”
“Yeah, Allah istor,” Daud’s voice came from the front seat. “How many got killed there, three?”
“Two, and several injured,” Leila said.
Only then did I remember that I had heard something about the incident a few days earlier, either in the office or over the radio while on the bus, but I hadn’t really paid it any attention. In those days I didn’t follow the news, didn’t listen to the radio, and didn’t read the papers, aside from the old magazines that Majdi brought back from the hotel.
Leila said that one of the addicts came i
n one day and just started stabbing people. A secretary and a social worker were killed on the spot. One of the wounded was Leila’s previous supervisor. She couldn’t believe it when she heard the story. It was so awful, terrifying. Luckily it hadn’t happened on a day that she went into the office. After the incident, the social work department decided to repost her to a different bureau, to Walid, even though she didn’t want to work in the Arab sector—not because she had anything against her own kind, God forbid, but because of the budget constraints. “I wanted to do a real internship, not one of these half-baked ones,” she said. At any rate, she was happy they found her an alternative because there was no way she was going back to the southern district and she definitely didn’t want to waste a whole year.
At the clinic we pushed the intercom and waited for the director, who said he would be right down. “This place is nice,” Leila said. “What is it?” She looked over at the abandoned stone houses clustered at the foot of the hill.
“You never heard of Lifta?” Daud asked, getting more and more agitated, shifting his bag from hand to hand, waiting for the door to be opened. There were several addicts on the balcony, Styrofoam cups of coffee in their hands, sucking on their cigarettes. They had to be the veterans. The newcomers spent the first few days of rehab in their rooms, confined to their beds.
The director introduced himself to Daud and shook hands with everyone. I introduced him to Leila and he gave us a tour of the building, proudly showing her the office, the group therapy room, the inpatient rooms, the kitchen, and the dining area. He offered us coffee but we declined. I put a hand out to part with Daud but he pulled me in for a hug. Tears spilled out of his eyes. I told him again that I would come visit and that if he needed anything he should tell the social worker and that she would pass it on to me.
