Once when I was walking arm in arm with Tali in the corridor (I was so tired I had to lean on her during break) we came to the little sign by the entrance to the Physics Department and stopped to read the writing. The sign had already got tarnished and dirty. I went up to Shwartzy right there in the corridor and told him the sign needed cleaning, it wasn’t to the credit of the school, and he was so surprised, he thought I was making fiin of him but he couldn’t think of anything to say and he really did send the janitor to polish the sign.
Baby Face knew exactly what I was worth in maths but even so he wouldn’t leave me alone, and when he needed some victim to amuse himself with he used to call me up to the blackboard. I’d stand up and say, “I don’t know why you bother, you can give me a bad report right now if you like,” but he forced me to go up to the blackboard and I was so angry I made silly mistakes that had the class in fits of laughter, and I was on the verge of tears but I just smiled a stupid smile.
Once I couldn’t resist asking him what was the point of learning how to do all these sums when there are those little pocket calculators that you can take around with you anywhere, even to the desert, and he got mad, as if I were trying to do him out of a job, and he gave a long and complicated answer, not an answer at all.
And today I wasn’t in a fit state for anything because last night we towed in a car in which a child had been killed and we saw the blood and the little shoe lying on the seat. I thought of skipping the maths lesson to avoid any unnecessary trouble but Shwartzy was on patrol outside and in the first-aid room they were giving injections. So in the end I stayed in the classroom and Baby Face arrived, as arrogant as usual, and attacked me straightaway, as if there weren’t another forty children that he could have picked on. Sometimes I think Tali’s right, maybe he’s a bit in love with me and he just doesn’t know how to handle it. I went up to the blackboard and the trouble started. And suddenly I saw him take a familiar notebook out of his briefcase, the notebook of the teacher who was killed, with all the names and the marks written in it, they must have passed it on to him so he could compare notes. I recognized the dead man’s handwriting, faint handwriting, very slanted. I felt weak, leaned against the blackboard. Terrible feelings of pity swept over me.
And Baby Face said, “I can’t understand how the last teacher gave you a ‘fairly good’ in your report …”
I interrupted him.
“Don’t you dare talk about him like that.”
He blushed bright red, shocked. There was a deathly silence in the classroom. I should’ve stopped there, if I’d stopped there nothing would’ve happened. But I didn’t stop, I rather liked the silence all around me. If I ever get to be a teacher like Mommy, there’ll always be silence like this in my classes.
“Anyway, it’s a pity you weren’t killed instead of him …”
The class held its breath.
Then the silence scared me, I burst into tears and fled from the classroom, ran straight home. And they told me that Baby Face was so stunned he could hardly carry on with the lesson, he started making stupid mistakes himself. In the end he couldn’t stand it any longer, he stopped the lesson before the bell and ran to the headmaster and told him everything, and the headmaster sent for Mommy at once, and then at last Baby Face found out the connection between us, and maybe he regretted being so hasty, but it was too late for regrets, both for him and for me.
NA’IM
It’s great, I’m so lucky. So free. I’m not sorry anymore that I didn’t stay on at school. Things couldn’t be better. I’m doing real work at night, getting to be a professional. Dafi looks at me with respect when I operate the winch. Already we’re real friends.
Coming back in the morning, washing, putting on my pyjamas, and the old woman brings me my breakfast, waits on me like I’m a king, then going into my room and looking at the marvellous view of the bay coming to life, lying down, can’t sleep for happiness and lust, jerking off and then going to sleep, I get up at midday fresh for new adventures.
Money in my pocket and I’m as free as a bird. First of all I go to a movie, a good Western, to wake me up properly. Going to look in the shops, wandering in and out looking at the goods, the prices. Sometimes buying something, a big penknife or an umbrella. Buying nuts and drinking fruit juice to build up my appetite. Coming back for supper, sitting down and making a clean plate so she won’t think the food she cooks isn’t good, because it is good.
I read her a bit out of Ma’ariv, a bit out of Yediot Aharonot, about how everything’s getting worse, and go to bed. But lately I haven’t been able to sleep in the evenings, I need less and less sleep. So what I do is take the rubbish out, leave the bin in the hall and go out to the movies again, looking for a film with less shooting and more music, and love. I’m tall enough to get into films barred to the under-sixteens without any problem, the only ones I don’t manage to see are the ones where you have to be over eighteen, I get turned away by the manager or the cashier. At nine-thirty I’ve had enough wandering around and go home. She’s already worried about me. Taking off my shoes and lying down on the bed in my clothes, waiting for the phone that I never manage to get to first, she always beats me to it.
And so I lie there in the dark, half asleep, looking out of the window and seeing the city quiet down. Even in the bay the lights go dim, there’re fewer cars. The old woman peeps in at me and I close my eyes so she won’t think there’s something the matter. Sometimes I have a dream, like yesterday, for example, when I dreamed I was walking into the university. I’d never been there but I knew it was the university. Big lecture halls and students sitting there in white coats like in a hospital. I asked where the registrar’s office was and they showed me, it was like Erlich’s office only a hundred times bigger, it was huge and there were maybe a hundred Erlichs sitting at little tables busy with bills. And I walk around quietly, examining the walls, noticing that where the bullets hit them there aren’t holes but swellings, like wounds that’ve healed over and swelled up a bit. One of the clerks looks up at me, like he’s asking me who I am and I answer him confidently, even though I haven’t heard the question.
“I’m a Jew as well.” And I go on wandering about, touching the little swellings, like I’ve been sent by the security forces to check the place out. More people come into the hall and I’m beginning to feel nervous, because one of them’s an Arab and he winks at me and says in Arabic, “Wake up, Na’im, the telephone has rung, they’re coming, enough dreaming.”
The old woman –
ADAM
The weariness gets worse. How much longer? I ask myself. Sometimes when we arrive home the dawn is already breaking. The nights are growing shorter. I get hardly an hour or two hours’ sleep before Asya wakes me gently. She sees how hard it is for me to wake up and she asks, “Why don’t you sleep a little longer?” but I’ve always been an early riser and I can’t lie in bed in the morning. Strange that she never says anything about these expeditions by night, as if they’re none of her business, she doesn’t seem bothered by the thought of Dafi joining in the search for her mother’s lover.
At first Dafi used to share with her the details of what had happened at night, and Asya listened with a frozen face. Whose car we’d towed in, what we’d seen, conversations we’d had, but after a while Dafi stopped doing this and now she just sits beside me, her head in her hands. I arrive at the garage late and everything’s in chaos. I too have work to do now. The owners of the cars that we towed in during the night are waiting for me, agents from the insurance companies, sometimes the police as well. I have to fill in forms, give evidence, answer the phone, give instructions for continuing the repair work that was begun during the night. My head droops, my eyes are sore, I get confused, hurrying between the office and the workshops, my hands covered in grease and oil, explaining things to the workers. And business is booming, Erlich looks at me with love, in the repairs department we shall have to take on more workers. Night customers arrive and they refuse to speak to a
nyone but me, and I see the workers looking at me with awe, as if I did the towing by hand. And I’m tired and dizzy, I’ve split open a volcano and the lava is pouring out. What’s it all for? Sometimes I go to see the old lady and she trembles, thinking I’ve got news for her. But there’s no sign of him. Sometimes I think perhaps he never existed, it’s all a delusion. I see that even she knows very little about him.
“Where’s Na’im?”
“He’s gone to the movies.”
“Is he helping you here?”
“He’s all right … he’s all right …”
And the weariness grows, already I’m getting only a few hours’ sleep a day. At night the phone starts ringing at ten o’clock, there are some people who phone me on their own account, they’ve heard from their friends about the night tow man and they approach me directly.
Must put an end to all this –
This morning I arrive at the garage exhausted. Last night we towed in a car smashed up in an accident. A child was killed in it. I’ve hardly got inside the garage when the foreman comes running up to me, all excited. He’s had a wonderful idea. He shows me the smashed car that’s already hanging on a sling in one of the workshops. He wants to cut it in half and join the half of it that’s still intact with half of another car of the same model that we bought for scrap some time ago on his advice. A crazy and daring idea for producing a whole new car. He talks and talks, leading me around the car and showing me the possible cutting points, explaining how from two halves of two wrecked cars he’ll make a new car, he’ll paint it and polish it and nobody will know the difference. His eyes sparkle, there’s something a bit shady about the project but a lot of imagination and clear profit, he’s already had a quiet word with the insurance company, all he needs is the go-ahead from me. And I stand and listen, I can hardly keep my eyes open. The weather has suddenly turned warm, the workers walk about in T-shirts, I’m the only one still wearing an overcoat, as if I’m in another world.
I run my fingers over the wrecked car, seeing the broken windows, the bloodstains on the seats, a child’s shoe and beside it a toy car of the same model and colour. My head spins, my stomach turns over, I nearly faint. “Do whatever you like,” I say and get into my car and drive home.
It’s ten o’clock. The house is quiet. I pull down the blinds, strip to my underclothes, get into bed and try to sleep. A dim memory of a distant childhood disease stirs in me. Me, who never indulged myself this way. I lie there, my eyes closed, feeling feverish. Outside I hear the singing of children from a distant garden, the beating of carpets, somebody playing a guitar, a woman laughing. An Israeli morning. Desire growing slowly, dim, unclear, unwittingly. Outside the smell of blossoms. Something is happening to me, the exhaustion of the last few weeks is breaking something inside me, dissolving the strain of many years. I throw off the blanket, strip naked, studying my heavy body in the mirror. The front door opens. Dafi. She’s on my trail too, the last few nights have turned her into an insomniac. She goes into the kitchen, opens the door of the fridge, walks about the house, comes into my room. I’m naked under the blanket.
“Daddy? You startled me. What’s happened? Are you ill?”
“No, I’m just very tired.”
She sinks down on the bed. Just like a little girl. Her face is sad, drawn, her eyes red as if she’s been crying. I must put an end to these night trips.
“School finished already?”
“No, I just came home … I had an argument with the maths teacher.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing important. It doesn’t matter.”
“We aren’t going out at night anymore.”
“Why?” Her voice is feeble but she looks surprised.
“Enough. It’s over. No point in searching anymore.”
“Have you given up hope of finding him?”
“Almost.”
“And Mommy?”
“She’ll give up in the end too.”
The seriousness and maturity of her questions –
She’s silent, thoughtful. Something is troubling her very much.
“The car that we towed in last night … that child who was killed … do you know yet what happened exactly? Who it was?”
“I don’t know.”
She’s very tense, staring into space. A new wrinkle at the corner of her mouth. Hiding something. Lately she’s been getting more and more like Asya.
“Go and get some sleep.”
“I can’t. Too tired …”
“Then do some homework … What happened with the maths teacher?”
She smiles sadly, doesn’t answer, goes out of the room. I phone the towing firm and cancel our contract. “As from when?”
“As from tonight.”
I phone the old lady.
“Where is Na’im?”
“He’s gone to the movies.”
“Good. When he comes back tell him he can go back to his village and come to the garage tomorrow as usual. I don’t need him at night any more, I’ve finished with that.”
Silence –
“Mrs. Ermozo?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll tell him …?”
Silence again. Suddenly I feel sorry for her. Her last hope. She starts to mumble.
I understand at once.
“If you’d like him to stay at your house I can leave him with you and there’s no need for him to come to the garage, he can carry on helping you …”
Like handing over a piece of property –
Her voice shakes, as if she’s about to cry.
“Thank you, thank you, let him stay a little longer, until I’m used to being alone again …”
“As long as you like …”
“Thank you, thank you, it won’t be for long. God bless you. You really are a wonderful man.”
ASYA
Late at night. Everyone’s asleep. The house is dark. Rain and high winds outside, the wind beating at the shutters. I’m in the kitchen, cooking busily, preparing fish. Cutting off the heads, scraping off the scales, slicing the white bodies to remove the inner organs, my hands covered with blood and guts. And the fish are unusually revolting, wild fish, big fish, their dead eyes yellow, scales like feathers, hard and sharp, greenish. The pan is on the stove and the water is boiling. I must hurry.
Someone is sitting behind me at the table, I know who it is. I turn around slowly, the knife in my hand, he’s reading a newspaper and eating a thin slice of bread, he’s in army uniform, on his face the bristles of a black beard.
“What happened, Gabriel? Where have you been?”
He doesn’t look up from the paper, turns the pages.
“But the war isn’t over yet. You sent me away …”
“What isn’t over?” I cry desperately. “It’s all over and you gave us no sign. Adam searches for you at night.”
“Where is he searching?”
“Look, listen …”
And we are silent, hearing him, hearing the heavy footsteps of someone moving about the house, opening the doors of cupboards, moving drawers.
Gabriel smiles ironically, something in his face has matured, become riper, more self-assured. He folds the paper and comes towards me, looks into the bubbling pot, turns up the flame.
“What are you cooking here?”
“Fish.”
“Fish?” He’s surprised. “Fish?”
I tremble, hoping perhaps he’ll touch me. Should I embrace him? But he’s already turning to go.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going back.”
“But the war is over …” I’m almost shouting.
“What’s over?” he says angrily. “Look at the calendar.”
And on the wall calendar the date really is still the tenth of October. “But that’s a mistake, we forgot to change it.” I’m laughing now. I go to the calendar and with my bloodstained hands wildly tear off the pages, crushing them savagely in my fist, but he’s already gone.
Suddenly I feel restless and I go down to the centre of town to look for a swimsuit for the summer. And sitting next to me in the bus is a man with a familiar face. At first I drive myself crazy trying to identify him, it’s as if he’s come out of one of my dreams, a huge man with long unruly hair, forty perhaps, eagerly leafing through an evening paper. At last I get it – the man who types at night, across the wadi, he and no other.
He gets off at a bus stop and I follow at once. At last I shall find out something about him. The man who types, my night accomplice, in rumpled clothes and faded jeans, walking slowly, looking in the shop windows, the paper tucked in his back pocket. He goes into a bank and I follow, I stand in a corner and fill in some forms, depositing a million and drawing out two million. Waiting while he draws out some money (only two hundred), dropping the paper in the rubbish basket and following in his tracks. He goes into a stationery shop and I follow him, he stands there, eyes sparkling, examining wads of paper. The saleswoman asks, “Yes, young lady?” “This gentleman is before me,” I reply. He looks at me kindly. “The younger generation. What manners! It’s quite all right, you can go first.”
The Lover Page 29
