The Lover

by A. B. Yehoshua

  At last I finished those disgusting meatballs. I’ve never eaten anything like them before and I hope I never will again. I asked them what they were called so I could avoid them if ever I fell into a Jewish house again. They smiled and said, “It’s called gefilte fish. Would you like some more?” I said, “No thank you,” in a hurry. And the woman said, “Don’t be shy, there’s plenty more,” but again I said quickly, “No thank you, I’ve had enough,” but she’d already got up and gone to the kitchen and fetched a full plate and again I said, as firmly as I could without offending her, “No, really, I’m full, no more, please.”

  And she gave up and took away all the plates and I thought that was the end of the meal but since I was still hungry I quietly ate more and more slices of bread, too damn sweet also. And the woman was in the kitchen busy with the dishes and the girl was watching television, it was an Egyptian film with belly dancers, she was interested but she didn’t understand what they were saying, and Adam was reading a paper and I was eating slice after slice of bread and suddenly I saw that I’d eaten all their bread.

  And then the woman came in with new plates and a dish of meat and potatoes. So the meal wasn’t finished after all, but what a mixed-up way, every man for himself. And I’d noticed that Adam and his wife, who now I knew was called Asya, never really looked at each other when they were talking.

  So we sat down to eat again and this time the food was better, there weren’t enough spices in it but at least it wasn’t sweet, and there was brown bread as well. The girl ate only a little bit and her mother said something to her. Adam filled his plate and started eating in such a hurry you’d think he hadn’t eaten anything all week, taking a look every now and then at the newspaper that was folded on the table. This silence at meals. Such loneliness.

  Suddenly he remembered something and turned to me.

  “Tell me, somebody was saying in the garage that one of the terrorists in the attack on the university was your brother, or something like that …”

  The woman and Dafi put down their knives and forks looking like they were really shocked. I blushed bright red, trembled, now everything was going to be ruined.

  “What terrorist?” I pretended I didn’t quite understand. “The one who killed himself at the university?”

  And they smiled a bit at the idea that Adnan might really have gone to the university just to do away with himself quietly.

  “He was a distant cousin of mine,” I lied. “I hardly knew him, he was a bit sick, crazy I mean.” I smiled at them but they didn’t smile.

  I picked up my knife and fork again and began to eat, staring down at the plate, suddenly seeing Adnan lying under the ground with his eyes closed in the rain. The other three looked at one another and went back to their food. The meal went on. Dafi said something about a friend of hers and her parents and what the maths teacher said to her today. And again the plates were changed and they brought in little dishes of ice cream, left over from the summer maybe. I ate this too, what the hell, with a slice of bread.

  And then the meal was over and Dafi sat down in front of the television and they sat me down too in one of the armchairs in my pyjamas and the girl’s slippers. I’d already forgotten to be shy. I felt like one of the family. I even went to the bathroom and came back on my own. Now it was Jewish programmes on the television, first they sang songs and after that there was a discussion and then more songs, songs for old people this time. And still I didn’t know anything about the job tonight, you could say I’d forgotten about it, maybe he’d forgotten about it too. That’s the way it seemed. Adam was watching television and reading the paper, actually he wasn’t doing either, he was dozing a bit. And the girl was talking on the phone, she’d already been there half an hour and the woman was in the kitchen washing dishes and so there was just me sitting by myself in my pyjamas in front of the television that was playing old songs from the Second Aliyah, there was one of them I knew the words to.

  I could hardly keep my eyes open, in the end I dropped off to sleep, I was so tired after this strange and wonderful day. At eleven o’clock I saw their smiling faces in front of me and the television was already dark and the lights in the house had been turned down. They helped me up and led me like in a dream to a room full of books, put me in a soft white bed and Adam said, “Soon I shall wake you and we’ll be off,” and he covered me with a blanket.

  So there is a job tonight after all, I thought, and went back to sleep.

  At about two o’clock he woke me. The house was all dark. At first I was so confused I spoke to him in Arabic. He laughed and said, “Wake up, wake up,” and he gave me my clothes, which were dry and stiff. And I got dressed in the dark while he watched me. He wasn’t wearing his working clothes but clean clothes and he had a woolly hat on his head and a big fur coat, he looked just like a bear. We left the dark house where there were just the two candles still there on the empty table and even then I began to suspect there was going to be something criminal about the job.

  The street was empty and it was a cold night, a light rain was falling and I didn’t know where he was driving to but I guessed we were going down all the time towards the lower city. In the end he pulled up in a little side street, stopped the engine and got out of the car telling me to wait inside, he disappeared for a moment and then came back and told me to get out. I followed him and he seemed tense now, looking from side to side like a thief or something, I didn’t know he went breaking into houses at night, I thought he made enough profit from the garage, and then we went into a little deadend street and he stopped opposite an old Arab house that was all dark, then he grabbed hold of me, pointed to a window on the second floor and whispered, “Climb up there and open the shutter and get inside the apartment, don’t put a light on, go to the outside door and open it for me.”

  So this is what it was all for, the meal and the pyjamas and all the nice talk. I could have wept from misery, if my father could see me now. One son abroad, the other a terrorist and the youngest a housebreaker. A fine family. But I didn’t say anything, what could I say? Too late now. He gave me a big screwdriver to bend back the bolt of the shutter and said, “If anyone comes I’ll whistle and you must try to escape.”

  “What will you whistle?”

  “Some little tune … what do you know?”

  “‘Jerusalem of Gold.’”

  He laughed. But I was serious, standing there rooted to the spot and not saying anything, watching him nervously. Then he said, “Don’t be afraid, there’s nobody here, this is the house of a friend of a friend of mine who went to fight in the war and I must find some papers of his …”

  Still I didn’t say anything because the lie was so stupid I felt really embarrassed. Then he said sternly, “Go on …”

  And I went. He stood on the other side of the street watching. I started searching the wall for crevices for my hands and feet. The wall was wet and slimy. A crumbling old Arab house. After I’d gone a little way I caught hold of a rusty old drain pipe and began to climb it, slipping back a bit but making progress. It wasn’t easy at all, I could have slipped and fallen and broken something and the rain was getting heavier but after yesterday rain won’t ever scare me again. And so at last I reached the window and stood up on a little ledge. I looked down at him and he was watching me. I thought maybe he’d call it off at the last moment but he signalled to me to carry on. I tried to open the shutter that was the same kind as the ones in our house. I pushed in the screwdriver and easily lifted the bolt but as soon as I started moving the shutter there was a loud creaking noise, like an alarm going off, maybe it was a thousand years since they’d oiled the hinges. Slowly the shutter opened. The window was closed but not locked, looked like they’d closed it in a hurry. Another second and I was inside the dark apartment. I looked down into the street but there was no sign of him.

  The stink of a place that hasn’t been aired for years, spiders’ webs tickled my face. Slowly my eyes got used to the dark. A man’s clothes
were scattered on the bed, there was a heap of old socks in a corner. The door of the room was closed. I opened it and found myself in a little corridor. I opened another door and went into a kitchen that was big but dirty, full of pans and sacks. Something was cooking on a low flame. I began to panic. There was somebody here. I went out of the kitchen in a hurry and opened another door, it was a storeroom, I opened another door that was the toilet, another door that was the bathroom, another door led onto the balcony, bringing me out again into the night, the sea was close by, quite a different view.

  I was baffled. Everything looked old and neglected. There wouldn’t be much loot here. I tried another door and it was a big room with a bed in the middle and on the bed there was something wrapped in a blanket, like an old woman lying there. I went out of there and at last I found the main door. The lock was broken. Somebody had beaten us to it. The bolts were fastened. I pulled them back. Adam was waiting outside, smiling, he came in quickly, closed the door behind him and switched on the lights.

  “The bolts were fastened.”

  “The bolts?” He couldn’t believe his ears.

  “It looks like your friend has come back.”

  “What?”

  But at that moment one of the doors opened and an old lady, small and plump and wearing a nightdress even crazier than my pyjamas, came out, looking at us. She stood there not saying anything, not a bit frightened. I saw right away that she could tell I was an Arab.

  Now I really wanted to run away. I’d had enough of this night job that still might end in murder. I’m only a kid, I wanted to shout, even if I have finished school, he just doesn’t see that.

  But the strange thing is that neither of them was a bit scared. The opposite, they smiled pleasantly.

  “I see you have begun collaborating in housebreaking.”

  He bowed.

  “Mrs. Ermozo … grandmother of Gabriel Arditi … correct?”

  “That being so, are you the bearded man?”

  “The bearded man?” He was so surprised you’d think he’d never had a beard.

  “Where is Gabriel?”

  “I am always looking for him.”

  “Then he really has come back.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Where is he?”

  “That’s the question I ask myself all the time.”

  They talked quietly, without fear. There was a silence. They were both excited. Suddenly they both spoke at once.

  She said, “But why on earth should you be looking for him?”

  He said, “When did you come back from the hospital?”

  “I came home yesterday.”

  “But I thought you had lost consciousness.”

  “I found it again.”

  VEDUCHA

  And how did this begin? With the smell of a market. Yes, with the smell of a market. A long time now I have been saying, what do you smell? What is it? And then I understand, the smell of the market in the Old City. Smell of Arabs, smell of tomatoes, green onions and eggplants, smell of roast meat spluttering over the fire and smell of baskets, fresh hay, smell of rain too. And after the smells come the voices, little sounds, muffled, but I’m dragging myself up out of the well, clutching at Grandma’s skirt, Grandma Veducha, wrapped in a black scarf, erect and tall, walking about the dim alleys tapping with a long cane, her face white and mist floating among the domes. I jump from puddle to puddle looking up into the faces of the Arabs with their brown cloaks. On the churches, mosques and synagogues is a layer of white wool, a fall of snow, and I want to show myself to Grandma but she takes no notice, her face very pale, looking for something all the time, her basket still empty, but not stopping. I tug at her cane, wanting to stop her beside a sweet seller, but she pushes me away, walks on, from alley to alley, passing by the Western Wall as it used to be, old and small, the houses closing it in, climbing up to the Jewish quarter by steep and twisting steps, this must be before the War of Independence and I am full of wonder, for even when I was small I had the mind of an old woman. Everything isn’t in ruins yet. But Grandma pays no attention to me, it’s as if by chance that I come to be clinging at her skirt. From time to time she goes to one of the stalls, to finger a small tomato, to sniff an eggplant, grumbling in Arabic to the traders who laugh. Asking questions but buying nothing. Suddenly I understand, it’s not vegetables she’s looking for but a person. Arab? Jew? Armenian? And then I start to cry, from weariness, from the cold, from the mist, I’m very thirsty but Grandma doesn’t hear me, or if she hears me she doesn’t care, it’s like walking with a corpse. I’ve irritated her with my crying. And the bells start to ring and there’s a light rain falling, the sound of gunfire, people running, Grandma is hurrying too, laying about her with the cane to clear a path, striking at the heads of the Arabs who run before her shouting, and in the confusion she slips away from me, her dress slips out of my hand, and I’m still whimpering, not in the alley but in the corridor of a house, weeping softly, not the weeping of a child but the stifled weeping of an old woman, melting in tears. But I’m not unhappy, on the contrary, such pleasure, through my tears I am free of something from which I should have parted long ago, the world becomes lighter. Then I open my eyes, seeing the window beside the bed a little open, a black night and rain falling outside, heavy rain but very quiet, as if it doesn’t reach the ground but just hovers. And it’s cold but the mist has gone, I notice this at once, the mist that all the time has covered everything – gone.

  I rose from the bed and drank a cup of water.

  Still weeping –

  Later they told me that for a day and a half I had wept without pause and the people around me were most concerned, they held my hand, caressed me, did not understand. This is how it began, this how consciousness returned. Only consciousness? More. The light itself. More light than I thought existed. Still consciousness without knowledge. Illumined consciousness, slowly breaking out, opening up. At noon on the second day I stopped crying as if the crying machine had broken. And when the nurse brought my lunch I knew already what they did not yet know. I have returned. I am here. I can remember it all. Everything is ready. All that is missing is my name. Someone has only to remind me of my name and the rest will fall into place. I smiled at the dusky nurse and she smiled back, a little scared and a little astonished to find me smiling now and no longer weeping.

  I said to her, “What is your name, my child?” and she told me. “And what is my name?” I asked. “Your name?” She was utterly bewildered, thought I was playing games with her. “Your name …?” and she came closer to the bed, searching for a piece of paper down there among the latticework, glancing at it and saying in a shy whisper, “It says here Veducha Ermozo.”

  That was all that was missing, I heard the name and at once my head opened. The card with my name had been hanging there on the bed all the time and I, foolish woman, had not seen it. Now I knew who I was and I remembered other things too. All at once I understood everything. I felt dizzy with all the knowledge returning to me. Mother, Father, Hemdah and Gabriel, the State of Israel, Golda, the house, the bay, Galilee, Nixon. My neighbour Mrs. Goldberg, Yediot Aharonot, my little Morris, the Jewish people. It all flooded over me. One thing only I did not know, what is this lovely place in which I am lying, the white room and the beds, the orchard outside, and who are these charming girls who walk around me? Surely I’m not dead, this isn’t the world to come.

  Quickly I got out of bed and asked for my clothes and a little nurse brought them. And two old women in gowns came into the room and when they saw me dressing they almost screamed. I frightened them. They realized that something had happened to me. Later they described the change – the light had returned to my eyes. Every look of mine was different.

  How happy I was! Freedom and joy, I was dressing myself and singing. And everything around me interested me. The names of the old ladies who introduced themselves. An old copy of Ma’ariv lying on the chair. I wanted to devour it. At once I began to read. For I am well
known as an avid reader of newspapers. I saw new and wonderful things, the world has not been slumbering in the meantime.

  My head was spinning –

  The news of my awakening had spread quickly. The matron and the secretary came hurrying into the room, very excited, they hugged me, led me straight to the matron’s office. They called the doctor to come and examine me. They were laughing and I laughed too. “That’s it, I’ve woken up,” I said. “Now tell me everything.”

  And they told me, a frightening story. How they brought me here nearly a year ago, unconscious, they lost all hope for me. For ten months perhaps I had been lying there like a stone, like a vegetable, like a mindless animal, not knowing anyone, not even myself. Talking like a baby, nonsense, dreams, all meaningless.

  On the table there was a pack of cigarettes and I remembered that I used to smoke and that I used to enjoy it very much and I asked permission to take a cigarette and so I sat facing them in the armchair, smoking cigarette after cigarette, a real resurrection from the dead. Hearing the confused stories about myself and the country. First of all – the war. I did not know that there had been another war and that the bastards surprised us on Yom Kippur. And they enjoyed telling me about the war, one interrupting the other and the doctor too adding his bit. Describing the suffering, terrible things, the treacherous government too, to think that all this happened while I lay senseless in bed. More stories, more sorrows, more deaths, I take them all in. Not yet satisfied, and the smell of cigarettes blending with the smell of gunpowder. The news that I had come to life had taken wing. Nurses, cleaners and clerks peered at me through the door, smiling at me pleasantly, some of them introducing themselves, shaking hands like old friends. People who had known me all the time, who had washed me, who had fed me, I knew nothing about them. Friendly and devoted people. And I all the time discovering more facts, even though they were beginning to tire of me. Now I was asking them about prices. How much had prices risen. How much did a kilo of tomatoes cost, for example, how much must you pay for good eggplants. What the war did to the market.