The Lover

by A. B. Yehoshua

  And I ate with my mouth closed, slowly. Sometimes refusing what she offered me and sometimes not. And she watching me closely like I was a baby or a puppy being fed. And I just now and then looked at her straight, seeing her all fresh, so different from yesterday, sort of brisk, not dreamy. Her hair tied up on top of her head, her eyes darting about, wide awake. She didn’t touch the food.

  “Aren’t you eating?” I asked.

  “No … I’m fat enough already.”

  “Are you fat?”

  “A bit.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  And again she burst out laughing. Really frightening the weird noises she can make, like a mare in heat. Something about me makes her laugh. Laughing and going quiet again. Getting serious. And then again, smiling a bit and without warning and for no reason breaking out into a great shriek of laughter.

  And I eat and eat and as I eat I fall deeper and deeper in love, falling in love for real with all my heart and soul, I could kiss that white foot of hers that’s swinging there in front of me all the time.

  “The food wasn’t too sweet for you?”

  “No … it was fine,” I go red all over.

  “But you drink coffee with sugar?”

  “Coffee, yes.”

  And she goes out to make coffee for me.

  Such a clear day, it’s like the winter’s over. Music on the radio now, waiting for the new talkers to come and take over from the old talkers who’ve gone away for a rest. And I’m head over heels in love already. No longer any need even to look at her. She’s there in my heart. Drinking coffee. A crazy life. Like it’s not me. And she watching me and watching me like she’s never seen a man eating before.

  “Do you hate us very much?” I suddenly heard her say.

  “Hate who?”

  Of course I knew what she meant but it was weird, her of all people starting to talk politics.

  “Us, the Israelis.”

  “We are Israelis too.”

  “No … I mean the Jews.”

  “Not so much now.” I tried to give her a straight answer, seeing her pretty face, her fair hair. “Since the war, after they beat you a bit, we don’t hate you so much now …”

  And she laughed, she liked what I said.

  “But that cousin of yours … that terrorist …”

  “But he was a little crazy …” I interrupted her in a hurry, I just didn’t want her to talk about Adnan.

  “And do you hate us?”

  “Me? No … never.” It was a lie because sometimes the Jews do get on my nerves, they never pick you up when you’re hitchhiking, they pass you by even in the rain when you’re alone on the roadside.

  And then the phone rang. She ran to answer it. Must have been a friend of hers because she stood there talking for maybe half an hour. Laughing and talking, she suddenly started talking in English so I wouldn’t understand, talking dirty maybe. I heard her too, “A sweet little Arab” she said, and she said more things about me that I didn’t catch. And I sat still in my chair, not moving. Eating some more salted fish and chocolate, staring at the empty candlesticks, wondering if it was all right to get up. Looking at the furniture, at a newspaper lying on a chair, reading the headlines.

  At last she came back, surprised to find me still sitting there.

  “Have you finished?”

  “A long time ago.”

  “Then you can go. Daddy said he wouldn’t need you any more. He said you should have a meal and go home. He’ll see you at the garage.”

  So, that’s it, all over. Give the labourer a meal and send him home. I stood up quickly, took my pyjamas and went to the door. “Have you got money for the bus?”

  “Yes”– though I hadn’t.

  “Do you know where the bus station is?”

  “Yes. But I’ll walk.”

  I felt so sorry it was all over, even though I had no idea how it could go on.

  “Would you like me to walk with you?”

  As if she understood, as if she was sorry too.

  “If you like,” I said casually, though I could’ve fallen at her feet and kissed them.

  “Then wait a moment.”

  And she went to put her shoes on. And we set off together, a really strange pair. People turned to look at us, because she was pretty and nicely dressed and I was in my working clothes, all dirty and crumpled by the rain. Walking fast and not talking much. We started going down the hill. She showed me some steps going down the hill in the middle between flowers and trees and bushes and grass like a path in the Garden of Eden. She went down first and I followed. We hardly talked. Just once she stopped me and asked me when we Arabs get married, that is, at what age. And I said, “The same as you,” and we carried on walking. But halfway down the hill she met two boys, friends of hers who were really pleased to see her. She told them, “This is Na’im.” And they didn’t understand who I was but they told me their names, which I didn’t catch, and it was like she realized only then how different I was, all dirty, and she said, “You can find your own way from here.”

  “That’s O.K.,” I said.

  And I left her chatting with her friends, and I remembered I hadn’t thanked her for the meal but I didn’t go back, just looked up and saw her still talking to them and they turned and she started climbing back with them. They disappeared. The air all around full of scents. A spring Sabbath, people in their best clothes and little children running about.

  There was no bus at the bus station. A van from the next village took me to within a few kilometres of my village. I walked the rest of the way, waving to the men working in the fields as usual. Where we live, they work all the time, they never rest. And suddenly I felt a lump in my throat, from happiness or misery I don’t know which and I started to cry, out loud, like an engine switched on. So much excitement the last two days. I cried on the empty road, collapsing on the wet earth like I was sorry I was an Arab and even if I’d been a Jew still nothing would have come of it.

  DAFI

  He’s fast asleep and here I am, stuck in the house because of him. A beautiful day outside. I phoned Tali and Osnat in the morning, telling them not to come around, they might have found him entertaining but I didn’t want him to be bothered by a lot of girls all at once. Mommy and Daddy got up early and went off somewhere leaving me here, to give him his breakfast and send him home. It’s all ready, I’ve taken everything out of the fridge and put it on the table and I’ve opened a can of sardines too and a can of beans so he can choose what he wants and not grimace like he did yesterday when they gave him gefilte fish. I don’t want any trouble with him and I don’t want him to think he’s being kept without food because he’s an Arab. The pan on the stove, oil, matches, two eggs, water in the kettle. He’s only got to place his order, I’ll light the stove and the meal will be there, like a short-order service. If Mommy saw how good I am at organizing things she’d make me cook breakfast every Sabbath. But he just goes on and on sleeping, does he think this is a hotel? I’m getting all worked up. I’ve changed my clothes twice. First I put on a dress but I’m never sure if it makes me look fat from behind. Then I put on my long kaftan but then I took it off because it really looked a bit much, and I put on the jeans that I wore yesterday with a thin sweater, no point in trying to hide what can’t be hidden anyway. I switched on the radio at full volume, maybe the music quiz will wake him up. But he’s about as lively as a corpse. I’m not going to sit at home all day. At eleven o’clock I knocked softly on the study door a few times and in the end I decided to go in as if I was looking for a book. There he was, sleeping peacefully, in his wonderful pyjamas, dead to the world. He’s had quite long enough, I decided. He can catch up on his sleep at his mother’s house. I went to him and touched him, right there on the face. Why not? After all he’s one of Daddy’s workers and I too have a bit of authority here. At last he opened his eyes.

  “Mommy and Daddy have gone out and they told me to make breakfast for you. How do you like your eggs?” I
said in a hurry.

  And he lying there with his head still on the pillow, I was already wishing I hadn’t made that offer. In the end I persuaded him to eat a scrambled egg because that’s what I cook best. And the little bastard, still lying there in bed, asked me not to put sugar in it, because it seems yesterday the gefilte fish was too sweet for him. He made me mad.

  What can I say? People get used to anything. He didn’t seem a bit impressed when he came out of the bathroom and saw the table covered with good things, all for him. Yesterday he was crying and wailing like a stray dog and now he sits there upright and proud, eating like a gentleman with his mouth closed. Congratulations. Taking this and refusing that. He’s got a mind of his own. And I fuss around him, buttering his bread for him, changing the dishes. I don’t know why I’m doing all this. I don’t know any other person who’s had service like this from me and it’s not going to happen again either. I feel tense as hell. I’ve already forgotten the resemblance to Yigal. That really was an absurd idea. Now in his dirty overalls he looks older, there’s even the first signs of a moustache and a beard on his face. Eating at great speed, it’s all right for him because he’s so thin. There’s something relaxed about him, even though he blushes every two minutes for no reason. Saying “Very nice, thank you” but really hating us of course, like all of them. Buy why? Hell, what have we done to them? Surely things can’t be that bad. So suddenly I asked him, to his face, how much they hate us. He didn’t know what to say, started to mumble, explaining that since the war, after they beat us a bit, it wasn’t so bad. Beat us a bit? They must be out of their minds.

  But I decided I wasn’t going to be content with a general answer. It was important to me to know if he personally hated us and what he was really thinking. Then he said he didn’t hate us at all, and he looked me straight in the eye, blushing bright red.

  Of course I believed him –

  The phone rang. It was Osnat. She was worried because I told her she couldn’t come around to our house. She started asking questions and in the end she dragged the whole story out of me, and she was really surprised when she heard I had a little Arab in the house, one of Daddy’s workers, even though I told her he was really sweet.

  In the meantime he’d finished his breakfast and he was sitting there motionless in his chair. I’d noticed before that he always stays wherever you put him until you move him to somewhere else. Now it’s about time he started moving by himself and taking on some personal responsibility, as Shwartzy’s always telling us. I said to him, “You can go now, Daddy doesn’t need you anymore. Go home now and he’ll see you in the garage.”

  He jumped up from his seat in a hurry, grabbed the bag with his pyjamas in it and was about to go, I didn’t mean for him to rush off so fast. I was sorry I hadn’t invited Osnat along to hear him recite poetry. I asked him if he knew where the bus station was but he said he’d walk. Suddenly, I don’t know why, I felt sorry for him, he looked so forlorn in his dirty overalls, having to walk alone down Carmel on the Sabbath, on the way back to his village, wherever that is. Suddenly I was sorry he was going and I’d never see him again, he’d turn into a big stupid Arab like all the Arab workers that you see around the place and he’d marry some stupid Arab woman. So I said to him, “Just a moment, I’ll come with you,” because I wanted to show him how to get down Carmel by the steps in the middle of the hill, where it’s nice to walk on a day like this.

  A bit strange walking with a labourer on the Sabbath in Carmel Centre beside the busy cafes and the people in their best clothes, my luck that he was taller than me. I showed the steps going down and even went a little way with him. Suddenly I got the crazy idea that maybe he was married after all, who knows when they get married. I asked him, indirectly, and I understood that he wasn’t. We carried on walking down among the bushes and the flowers till we met Yigal Rabinovitz and Zaki coming up the hill. They were a bit surprised to find me with him. And then I thought, how far am I going to walk with him? To his village? And I parted from him. He could look after himself now. And he disappeared down the slope straightaway, into the wadi. I stood there for a while chatting to them and we went back up the hill. I thought maybe they’d like to come to a café with me but they were on their way to a basketball game. Such babies. I went to Tali’s house but she wasn’t in and her mom as usual didn’t know where she was and didn’t care. I went from there to Osnat’s house but there the whole crowd were just sitting down to their lunch. I wouldn’t have minded being invited to eat with them, but they didn’t invite me. I went home and the house was suddenly terribly quiet, his sheets and blankets folded in the study, everything still in its place. People just don’t realize how depressing it is to be an only daughter. I felt exhausted and miserable. All my energy had gone into that ridiculous breakfast. Outside it was starting to cloud over, the brightness of the day had gone and it was getting darker. I sat down at the table and ate all the chocolate that was left, looking at the huge pile of dirty plates and pans. I went out of the kitchen in a hurry so as not to make my depression worse. I wanted to read something, something real and not the depressing newspapers again. I remembered how yesterday he sat on the edge of the armchair in the dark and quietly recited Dead of the Desert. I looked for a poetry book to read. I used to have Alterman’s Stars Outside always on the desk but for a few weeks now it’s been missing. So I picked up the Bialik, what else could I do, the book was open at Dead of the Desert, maybe at last I’ll understand why it’s so important.

  I heard Daddy and Mommy coming in, I took off my shoes in a hurry and got into bed with the book, covering myself with the blanket so they wouldn’t bother me. They were tired and irritable, they’d found nothing. Mommy saw the mess in the kitchen and came right to my room.

  “Why did you leave all those dishes in the kitchen! Couldn’t you have washed them?”

  “Nothing to do with me. That Arab boy of yours …”

  “Did he need that many plates for his breakfast?”

  “Picture to yourself … he’s a growing boy, you know, you were there last night.”

  She looked at me with hatred but I held up the book to cover my face, and went on reading.

  And silence returns as before and barren the desert stands.

  ADAM

  I was full of hope. I felt that I was finding him, that I was now on his trail. I didn’t want to lose a moment. Asya got dressed, Na’im was still asleep, when Dafi woke up I told her what to say to him and what to do with him, and the two of us set off for Dimona to look for his uncle. It was a bright Sabbath day, the roads full of traffic. It was five years perhaps since we’d been down in the Negev and it was pleasant to discover new roads, unfamiliar settlements. I had no address in Dimona, just the name – Gabriel Arditi. The same name that the army computer stubbornly kept producing all the time – not without reason, it now appeared. This man was his uncle, perhaps he was hiding in his house. I had always thought of Dimona as a small town and here it was, a booming desert city. We didn’t know where to start, we could see no end to the blocks of apartment houses. But the inhabitants turned out to be friendly and co-operative and they took the trouble to help us. This man knew one Arditi and that man knew another. They took us from one to another until at last we found him. He was in the middle of lunch and he opened the door with a fork in his hand. It was a disappointment. I told the story briefly. He looked at us suspiciously. First of all he didn’t believe that the grandmother was still alive. “You’re mistaken,” he insisted, “Gabriel’s grandmother, his mother’s mother, died just after independence.” He was certain of that. Even then she was a very old woman. We must be thinking of another grandmother, or an old aunt. About Gabriel he knew very little. He had heard that he went away to join his father in Paris. He hadn’t heard that he’d come back.

  “Are you part of the family too? Surely you are Ashkenazim …”

  In vain. He didn’t even invite us into his house. He just gave us the name of another relative, Gabriel
’s father’s cousin, who had kept in touch with that side of the family, perhaps he would know.

  It was too late now to drive to Jerusalem. The sky was beginning to cloud over, we returned to Haifa. Na’im had already gone, Dafi was in a foul mood. For some reason I was worried about the old lady so I drove to her house, told her about my visit to Dimona, of course I didn’t mention what he’d said about her supposed death, I mentioned the new name that I’d been given, that cousin of Gabriel’s father. She remembered him. “Oh, that silly old man. Try him, why not?”

  The next day at noon I drove to Jerusalem to look for him. This time I had a clear address. But a different family was living there. They told me that the old man used to live there but he had gone to live with his daughter in Ramat Gan. It wasn’t easy to find him because his daughter and her husband had changed houses three times in the last few years, each time moving to a more luxurious apartment. Eventually I found the right address. He wasn’t at home, he’d gone out to an old people’s club. I waited a long time, in the meantime I talked to his grandchildren. From my conversation with them it soon became clear to me that there’d been no sign of Gabriel here. Even so I wanted to talk to the old man. He arrived at last and he was delighted to find somebody waiting for him. I began to tell him the story, he too insisted that I was wrong about the grandmother being alive. The information that she’d gone into a coma and recovered made no impression on him. He argued with me, I was confused, I was mistaken, he was positive that she’d died back in ’48, just a few days before the Declaration of Independence. He even thought he remembered attending her funeral in Jerusalem during the siege. He was convinced, there was no persuading him. I said, “I can take you to her right now,” but he laughed hysterically – “No thank you, at my age I don’t go visiting corpses at night.”