The Lover

by A. B. Yehoshua

  We climbed the steps to his house, he rang the bell and the girl opened the door and he said:

  “This is …”

  “Na’im,” I said, just moving my lips, The girl looked at me in surprise. And again I was stunned by her beauty. And the woman came out straightaway to meet us and when she saw me she took the flowers and the bread from me and said, “Why didn’t you come in before? Why did you wait outside all the time?” Adam was amazed. “You waited outside? In all this rain? You must be crazy.” I didn’t say anything, just wiping my feet all the time on the brown mat beside the door. And they said, “It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, come inside,” but I went on wiping my feet, staring at the floor. In the end Adam took hold of my arm and pushed me into the house like he’d only just realized how wet I was. And I went inside and maybe they were sorry they’d said it didn’t matter because straightaway I made their carpet all dirty with mud. Then I took my shoes off and that made things worse because my socks were wet and torn and my feet were black, there was a black puddle under my feet and wherever I went in the house the puddle went with me. It was only then they began to realize how much water I’d absorbed during the day. And so frozen and trembling before the girl’s stares, I started messing up their nice clean house.

  There was nothing to do but shove me into the bathroom. It was the woman who realized the state I was in. She went and filled the bath with hot water and insisted on me getting in. The three of them started fussing around me, fetching towels, shifting the laundry out of the way. The woman was the most friendly, more than him, he was horrified at the dirt I’d brought into the house and maybe he was even sorry he’d asked me to help him with his job.

  Before long I was alone, lying there in the hot bath with scented bubbles. In the hot water I slowly warmed up. It was nice lying in the Jews’ bath, in a little room full of coloured towels and all kinds of bottles. I don’t think anybody from the village has ever had a bubble bath like this in a Jewish house. Meanwhile they were looking around for clothes for me in place of the wet things that I’d taken off, but they didn’t find anything because they’d never had a son of my age, only a daughter, and they didn’t want to put me in a dress. In the end the woman, who was standing all the time on the other side of the door talking to me, suggested I put my pyjamas on while my clothes were drying on the radiator. I said, “Fine,” what else could I say, but I was so ashamed I could have drowned myself in the bath and to hell with this night job. I went on lying in the water, washing and scrubbing myself, at last I pulled out the plug and started cleaning the bath that I’d made very dirty. I dried it with a towel and I cleaned the floor as well and I even polished the sink, and I cleaned other things that I hadn’t made dirty but I didn’t know if they’d remember it wasn’t me. Already it was dark and I couldn’t find the light switch and so in the dark I put on the pyjamas, which were really crazy, and I thought of escaping through the window but there wasn’t a proper window there. I was scared to go out and I just sat there quietly in the dark. But they were getting worried about me and Adam opened the door and saw me in my pyjamas and burst out laughing, and the girl came running in to see me and she burst out laughing and the woman started laughing too, even though she came and took me by the hand and led me out of the bathroom. And I tried to laugh too so they wouldn’t be embarrassed because they were laughing but somehow the laughing changed to tears. This was the end. I broke out sobbing. It was awful. It was all the weariness, all the excitement, I cried bitterly, it was years since I’d wept like that, not even when they buried Adnan. I couldn’t stop, like a baby, like an idiot, tears pouring out like the rain was still inside me, weeping and weeping before three strange Jews, before the girl I love who’ll never be my love.

  DAFI

  Mommy and Daddy both said at once, “It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, come inside,” but he was scared and confused, so serious, all the time wiping his feet on the door mat. A little Arab, one of Daddy’s workers, just think, Daddy’s got thirty workers like this and they’re all afraid of him. The poor kid had been waiting outside in the rain. But suddenly I recognized him, I’d seen him before, the boy who came here once to fetch Daddy’s briefcase. A nice kid. At last they got him inside, almost by force, they suggested he take his shoes off and he took them off, standing there in his torn black socks, still spreading dirt all around him. Such a silly boy, why did he have to wait outside in the rain? It isn’t a very nice thing to say but I was reminded suddenly of something that happened a few years ago. One day Daddy brought me a puppy that had been wandering around in the rain near the garage, it came rushing inside in high spirits (it didn’t think of wiping its feet outside) and immediately dirtied the floor and the carpet. And we washed it and combed it and fed it chopped meat, and we even bought it a leash and took it to the vet for injections, and the puppy was in the house for a month maybe until we saw he was growing fast and getting hard to control and somebody who knew about dogs told us “You’re rearing a donkey here, not a dog” and Mommy got scared and decided to give him away, even though I wanted to see how big he’d grow in the end.

  And this time – it’s a boy, that is, a young man. Daddy’s brought him here to supper because he needs him tonight to break into the house of that man who disappeared.

  Mommy took charge of him straightaway, took him under her wing, because Daddy didn’t know what to do with him. Helpless ones like this are right up her alley, she waves a red flag and charges into battle. She took him by the hand and led him to the bathroom, he took off his wet clothes, she put them on the radiator to dry and sent him straight in to have a bath.

  It seemed so strange having a guest in the house on a Sabbath eve in winter. It’s always so quiet here. We hardly ever have guests. Sometimes in the summer there’s some distant relative from Jerusalem who stays overnight but these last few years there hasn’t even been that.

  Meanwhile, Mommy started looking around for clothes for him. But where do we have clothes for a boy of that age? You could put three of him in Daddy’s clothes. But Mommy went on looking, she even came into my room and started rummaging about in the wardrobe. I said to her, “Why don’t you give him a skirt? Why not, in Scotland they wear skirts.” But she got really angry, didn’t think it was funny at all. She began yelling at me, “You be quiet now, how dare you laugh at an unfortunate Arab? Keep your jokes to yourself.”

  So what if he was an Arab, and why was he unfortunate all of a sudden? Not because he was an Arab. Just like that … even if he was a Jew, and what’s the difference? Hell … she really offended me. Meanwhile, Daddy found a solution, he could put on the pyjamas that he brought with him, because Daddy gave him money this morning to buy pyjamas (what a weird idea!) and they didn’t even ask him if he was ready to put pyjamas on in the late afternoon, they just threw the pyjamas into the bathroom and now we were all waiting for him to come out. But he didn’t come out, five minutes passed, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour and he still didn’t come out. He must be preening himself like some grand duchess. It seems he didn’t realize we have only one bathroom and Daddy would need a shower before supper. At last Daddy opened the door and we saw him sitting there in the dark on the edge of the bath like a frightened animal, wearing pyjamas like I never saw before in my life. The bastard, to think Mommy was worried about him. He went and chose something really special, and expensive too I’ll bet, elegantly trimmed, with wide sleeves and a sash and shining buttons.

  We were stunned, and looked at one another in amazement. And then I began to smile, and such a silly embarrassed grin appeared on Daddy’s face I felt I was starting to shake inside, for some reason it struck me as awfully funny. My famous laugh that breaks out like a clap of thunder followed by a trail of hee … hee … hee … and it’s always infectious because anyone who’s nearby, whether he likes it or not, starts laughing and can’t stop, he’s carried along by it. And Daddy started laughing and Mommy with a solemn face started to cackle and I broke out with
another thunderclap, not laughing at the pyjamas any longer but at their silly laughter. And the little Arab was blushing bright red, he tried to smile but suddenly, all at once, without warning, he began to cry. So bitterly, so deeply, an ancient Arab moan. Suddenly I stopped laughing. Honestly, I felt heartbroken. I knew how he felt. How could he stand it? In his place I’d have been wailing long ago.

  NA’IM

  But in the end I stopped crying because they were so embarrassed. And I let them take me into the living room and sit me down in an armchair and so there I was talking to them quietly, actually only to the woman, who began talking to me and asking questions right away to take my mind off what had just happened. And I’d never spoken to a woman like her. Not young at all, with a sharp face, chain-smoking but very friendly and clever too, knowing how to get on with people. Sitting facing me, her legs crossed, and behind her the sunset through the window, the sea spread out and the rain falling on the horizon like a rosy fan. It was nice and warm in the room, all around it was clean and tidy. And they didn’t know that I’d been there before, I knew all the little objects on the shelves. My bare feet on the carpet, sitting on the edge of the chair and answering questions. She asked me so many questions you’d think she worked for the Secret Service. What does my father do and what does my mother do and what exactly is Faiz doing in England and what do we think about it, and what did we learn in school, how many hours of Arabic, how many hours of Hebrew, how many hours of maths, how many hours of history and what kind of history. How long has my family lived in this country, for how many generations that is, how many people live in the village, how many go outside to work and how many work in the village. And what do I know about Jews, have I heard of Zionism and what do I think it means. All the time she’s so serious and friendly like it’s really important to her. Looks like this is the first time she’s spoken to an Arab about things like this because till now she’s talked only to Arabs bringing her things from the supermarket or cleaning the steps.

  And I answer her quietly, the tears are already dry. Making a great effort. Not moving from my seat, afraid of breaking something. I’ve done enough damage already. I tell her everything I know, everything I haven’t forgotten, careful not to annoy her. Looking only at the woman, not daring to look at the girl, who now I know is called Dafi not Dafna. She sits beside me all the time, staring at me hard, her eyes covering me like a hot wind, sitting and listening and smiling a bit. And so the conversation goes on and on and I see they really know nothing about us, they don’t know that we learn a lot of things about them. They don’t realize that we really are taught Bialik and Tchernikhovski and other saints and we know all about the Bet Midrash and the destiny of the Jews and the burning shtetl and all that.

  “Poor things,” said the girl suddenly, “what have they done to deserve that?”

  But the woman told her to shut up and laughed and I didn’t know if I was allowed to laugh as well so I just smiled a little twisted smile and kept my eyes on the floor. And suddenly it was quiet and I was afraid there’d be nothing more to talk about so I went on in a low voice without even being asked.

  “We learned poetry by heart as well and I can remember … would you like to hear?”

  And quietly I began to recite – “No pride of young lions shall hide there the eye of the desert nor the glory of Bashan and his choicest oaks fallen in splendour by the sombre tents sprawl angry giants amid the golden desert sands.”

  And they were so impressed they nearly fell off their chairs. I knew they’d be surprised, I don’t know myself why I suddenly had to start reciting. I just felt like it. I wanted them to know that I’m really not stupid. And Dafi jumped up out of her seat and ran to call her father to come and hear and he came straight out of the bathroom in a dressing gown with his beard wet and stood there staring with his mouth open like I’d grown another head.

  Because I carried on, all excited – “We are heroes! The last generation to bondage and the first to deliverance our hand alone our mighty hand did cast off from our neck the heavy yoke and we raised our heads to the heavens and they were narrowed in our eyes … and who shall be our master?”

  And the girl Dafi shook with laughter, running to her room to fetch the book to check if I’d got it right. Then in a cracked voice I went on a bit further – “In spite of heaven and its wrath see we have risen in the storm.”

  Already it was dark outside, and in the room it was warm and quiet. I saw now how quietly they lived. And they played with me like I was a toy. And I can tell when people like me just by the way they look at me. I’m not exactly ugly and the girls in the village sometimes look at me for no special reason, thinking that I don’t see them looking. But in those red pyjamas with the tassels and the imitation gold buttons I didn’t know if I was just weird or a bit cute as well.

  The girl fetched her slippers and put them down beside my bare feet. And they all smiled at me happily.

  “What did you say your name was?” the girl asked suddenly. She hadn’t caught it the first time.

  “Na’im,” I said.

  DAFI

  Mommy of course could’ve killed me even though she was laughing herself but she quickly turned serious and took him into the living room, the tears still streaming down his face, made him sit in a chair and started asking him questions to distract him, an old trick from the days when I used to cry. Asking him about his village and his family, about his school and what he’d learned there and he answered seriously, his head bent, sitting on the edge of the chair.

  I sat behind him and didn’t take my eyes off him. This little Arab really took my fancy. Daddy had brought us some entertainment for the Sabbath, Friday nights in our house are usually so boring with all the heaps of newspapers. Sitting there in his pyjamas, combed and clean and fragrant, his cheeks rosy. Suddenly he looked small, reminding me of someone, not ugly, there’s lots of boys uglier than him.

  Mommy frowned at me, because when she saw me staring at his face like that she was afraid I might be trying to annoy him or make fun of him, like sometimes when I sit and stare at one of the old women who come to visit us. But I didn’t mean to do anything like that, this Arab really interested me. He soon recovered himself and started giving clear answers, talking about himself, about his village, his family, about what he’d learned in school, they’d taught him Bialik and Tchernikhovski and all that boring stuff of ours, how strange, the swine, inflicting that crap on them as well.

  Then I said quietly, “Poor things … what have they done to deserve it?”

  And Mommy scolded me and the Arab was a bit puzzled too, because it seemed he really enjoyed Bialik, and straightaway, without anyone asking him, he began to recite some lines from Bialik’s Dead of the Desert. I nearly fell off my chair. A young Arab, an assistant in Daddy’s garage, reciting Bialik, unbelievable. If that’s the general standard in the garage no wonder business is booming.

  I ran to my room to fetch the poems of Bialik to see if he was reciting it properly or just making it up. I called to Daddy too to come out from the bathroom and listen, maybe he’ll give him a raise. And Mommy was impressed too. All three of us stared at him. And he decided to impress us some more and quietly and without a mistake he began reciting that bit that Shwartzy’s crazy about and sneaks in at every opportunity whether it’s appropriate or not. “We are heroes, the last generation to bondage and the first to deliverance, our hand alone …” sitting on the edge of the chair with head bowed, still not looking at us straight, in a low voice. And I watched Mommy and Daddy seeing how they stared at him open-mouthed and suddenly it hit me, it came to me in a flash. Of course. This boy looks a bit like Yigal, there’s something about him, some similarity, and they don’t realize it, they don’t understand. They don’t see what it is that draws them to him. Daddy doesn’t know why of all his workers he decided to send this boy here to fetch the briefcase, or why he chose him for the job tonight. And if I tell them they’ll say, “Nonsense, what do you know abou
t Yigal, you never saw him.”

  And so in the stillness and the darkness of early evening I watched the quiet little Arab, his eyes bright with happiness. Now we were the ones who bowed our heads, seeing his swarthy bare feet on the carpet. And suddenly I felt like giving him something and I went and fetched my bedroom slippers and put them down beside him. Just for one evening let him wear a girl’s slippers. Then I realized that I didn’t actually know his name and I asked him and he looked at me straight, no longer evasive, and told me.

  I didn’t know they have such simple names.

  NA’IM

  At last we sat down to eat. Since morning I hadn’t eaten anything and I was weak with hunger and maybe that was why I got a bit mixed up in the poem as well. And there was a white cloth on the table and two candles and a bottle of wine. I didn’t know they were religious. But they didn’t even pray, just started eating right away. I sat beside the girl, being very careful not to touch her, and the woman brought in the food. To start with it was sort of grey meatballs, so sweet they made me feel sick. Looks like this woman doesn’t know how to cook, she puts in sugar instead of salt, but nobody else noticed or maybe they thought it wasn’t polite to mention it. And I forced myself to eat it too so she wouldn’t be offended like my mother, who’s offended if you don’t eat everything. I just ate a lot of bread with it to try and kill the sweetness. And that Adam ate so fast, I hadn’t had time to look at the food and he’d already finished it all. They brought him some more and he gobbled that up too. And I was eating slowly because I had to be careful to eat with my mouth closed and luckily the girl was eating slowly too so the grownups didn’t have to wait only for me.