But he couldn't come to any agreement with himself. He kept imagining the younger, pretty scoundrel walking to and fro past her sister's bed for four days and four nights... Those shifty little eyes... She served coffee to the doctor who was treating her father. And all that time she was waiting for her liberation—observant, rapacious, lively, steeped in anticipation of her new life. The scoundrel! Most likely her hand had already been asked for in marriage.
When Nadya, after guffawing to her heart's content with Yulka over Pierre Richard's naked rear end, came into the bedroom to take off her housecoat and put on her pajamas to go to sleep, she found her husband lying dressed on the bed, crimson from the heat, with cruel, half-closed eyes. He was muttering something, either in a dream or a delirium...
"Arka, are you sick or what?" she asked anxiously, leaning over him.
He ground his teeth and said distinctly:
"The scoundrel!"
* * *
After languishing for five days or so with a ferocious flu, such as he hadn't suffered since third grade, when the Hong Kong virus had begun to ravage the world, he received notice that he'd been called up for training in the reserves; and, as always, he didn't exactly rejoice, but he did experience some mild excitement, as he did before a vacation. Though being with the armored troops, where he'd served until becoming platoon commander, was by no means a restful stay in a sanatorium.
Last year the training took place in Elyakim—right here, not far from home. They lived in tents, slept in their tanks for three or four hours, were dog-tired, but—strange to say—he always returned home as if he'd had a vacation—sun-tanned, feeling tranquil, and madly in love with Nadezhda.
In the morning, Arkady went to the office, received his form and "Galil" assault rifle, and an hour and a half later he was having dinner in Elyakim...
Just before dawn, he finally fell asleep for about fifteen minutes—more likely, it only seemed that he slept... on a bend in a dusky village street, a soldier could be glimpsed, and then he disappeared behind the café window in clouds of fog... Oh, yes, a soldier... What does a soldier have to do with it? Nobody has any need for him...
When the alarm clock started chirping, he was still lying on his back, covering his eyes with his elbow.
Trees were already racing each other to bloom; here and there the white breath of almonds was floating through the air. On the steep slope where a flock of spotted chocolate-brown and white goats was grazing, the purple lining of the damp earth peeking out from under the grass. After the series of rains, the grassy hills, with their outcroppings of black basalt, seemed to have been coated with egg-yolk, forming little islands of yellow gorse and small lakes of yellow clover... In these large platters of fried eggs, the poppies looked like sprinkles of red pepper.
A moist wind brought the sharp fragrances of newborn herbs from everywhere—thyme, mint and basil; all of this uneasy abundance was joined with the odor of food from the large tent where the dining area was located.
In the transparent air, distant mountain ridges were arranged in layers, one after another, with such graphic precision of line, it was as if the fog of the previous days was merely cleansing powder that some meticulous housewife had used to scour the sky, mountains, roads and houses; yesterday, all muddy traces had been washed away by the plentiful rain; and today, wherever you looked, everything was spick-and-span, sparkling all around.
Arkady tossed his head back and gazed up at the sky where, for some five minutes, he followed a loose ribbon stretched across the fresh thick layer of blue enamel behind the barely visible dragonfly of an airplane.
When he lowered his head, temporarily blinded by the bright sun and the blue sky, the first thing his cleared eyes beheld was his Salakh, the one who was under investigation. Standing not far off, in front of the next tent, in uniform, with the same "Galil" in his hands, he was staring at the investigator with a sullen, sarcastic glance.
Well, yes, Arkady suddenly remembered, during the interrogation he mentioned that, a year ago, he'd been released from the army, where he'd served in an armored unit.
For several moments Arkady looked into the slits of Salakh's squinting green eyes, turned away, and went into his own tent.
About ten minutes later he was summoned to the commander at headquarters, a little house standing on pylons. The commander was sitting at the table and dejectedly crunching a biscuit from his rations.
"Arkad... sit down." He was silent for a minute, carefully examining under the light a plastic container with tehina. "Listen," he said at last. "So, this Salakh... is it true he's someone you're investigating?"
Arkady turned away from the commander, toward the window—there on the shining smooth surface of ultramarine, the remaining feathery vapor trail from the fighter plane was still fading away. Or maybe it was new clouds already gathering again?
"Yes," he replied. "So?"
"He just came to see me and said that he couldn't vouch for himself, that's what... He said, you understand, I've got a weapon in hand... Moreover, he looks like the type who... What do you think?"
"What am I supposed to think?" Arkady burst out.
The commander opened the container, took a little tehina on his knife, placed it on his tongue, and concentrated on tasting it.
"Why does their tehina always taste so sour to me?" he said pensively. "I understand they don't serve my mother's tehina out here, but at least it could be fresh!"
He sighed, put aside the knife and container, got up from the table, and began to dig in the cardboard carton in the corner, bending over it and breathing heavily...
Over the last few years Gaby had sprouted a sizable belly. A long time ago, he and Arkady, standing side-by-side, had successfully completed two difficult operations in Lebanon, but, after the army, Gaby re-enlisted for additional service, completed officer's training, and now he was a major.
"You know," he muttered, without turning and continuing to rustle the wrapping paper, "perhaps I'll send both of you home, out of my fucking sight, just to be safe... It'll be more peaceful that way."
"How?" Arkady was dumbstruck. "When?"
Gaby straightened up; the large, protruding whites of his gray eyes shone brightly on his reddened face, just as they did in his youth, some fifteen years ago.
"Right now," he said. "Shlomy over there is leaving for the base in half an hour. He'll drop you off. Hand in your weapon and uniform... I've released that maniac already..."
The bus to Safed didn't leave for another forty minutes or so. So they waited, both of them: the investigator and the man under investigation. They sat on wooden benches opposite each other, holding identical cans of Goldstar beer, tucking their legs under the benches identically. They even seemed to be wearing identical jeans.
The central bus station was spinning, its bustling merry-go-round pouring forth streams of eastern songs from every hawker's stand: trading, wailing, bargaining, deceiving, offering weed in a whisper; copper coins were ringing in beggars' cups, threatening God's vengeance on the stingy.
The scum of the town, our contingent...
As in many countries, it wasn't the well-to-do classes of the population who used public transportation.
In those few hours, when they were handing in their uniforms and weapons, and as they were making their way, each on his own, to the bus station in Haifa, the weather had once again started to turn sour. Apparently, this endless February fog hadn't run its course. The sky soon clouded over with grey, and the dark mass kept growing thicker and heavier, as if some sort of excavation work was going on above...
They were sitting and glancing at each other. Salakh, outwardly serene, relaxed, was clearly satisfied with how things had turned out. Taking a sip of beer from his can and tossing his head back to swallow, he stared intently from under his half-closed eyelids at the investigator, even smiling. Even so, it was impossible for Arkady to get up and walk away, to wait somewhere else until the bus arrived.
But the main thing, it was impos
sible to explain to anyone who's not from around here why that was so impossible! Why his own humiliating significance held a can of beer in his hand and how Salakh tossed back his head to swallow, and how he was staring... It's simply that here, my dear West-is-West, one has only to live as little as half one's life in order to make sense of even the first thing about this unspoken language of glances, gestures and signs.
After the beer, Arkady wanted to pee before setting out, but here, too, he waited until Salakh couldn't hold it in, and then followed him. So they both stood over the urinals not far from each other...
Salakh chose a seat not too far towards the back of the bus, and Arkady forced himself not to turn around even once, sensing the stern, venomous gaze behind the back of his head.
Salakh got off at his village. He walked jauntily through the bus to the front door, and, as he got out, hesitated briefly on the steps, as if unexpectedly, cast a swift, slashing glance at the investigator's face, and grinned broadly... Once more Arkady forced himself to look directly into those grass-green eyes for two or three endless seconds.
That's all... What can you do here? Nevertheless, again and again he sorted obsessively through scenarios in which he could prove Salakh's guilt. Why, as a matter of fact, only his guilt? What about the father, the sister-hyena, silently watching over the last sigh of that one, the other one, with traces of rust-red death on her neck? Well, he said to himself, in that case, one third of the local population should be serving time in jail... Leave it, leave it alone, he moaned in Nadezhda's muted voice, they've lived like that for centuries. Have mercy on your own soul, fried in a saucepan of constant heartburn!
After getting off in Safed at the last station, he exhaled a little cloud of steam and looked around.
Three young Hasidim followed him out of the bus, all tall, slim, in black coats and black hats with cylindrical crowns. Each one held a covered black umbrella with a semicircular handle. Two were leaning on them, using them as canes.
Conversing softly in English, the young men looked around and set off up the road, circling around the unprepossessing box of the bus station. The hilly road crossed through a young wooded grove. And for several moments, as they climbed in a line into the smoke-blue, opal clouds, these detached and tangential figures reminded him of a drawing by Daumier.
The last things to vanish into the little gray lake of fog were their hats.
And these people are foreign to me... Everyone's foreign to each other in this foggy world here...
He felt like a drink.
As a matter of fact, he felt like getting drunk.
It was not often that he resorted to that strong and fast-acting treatment for desperate rage. All right then. Right he was... It's a good thing, Nadezhda thinks he's now somewhere in training, supervised, and well cared for.
He took a taxi to the center of town...
The fog prevailed here, too; mountains shrouded the town in a black wave, the highest ridge, by the mountain Meron, threatening to swallow and carry off into the infinite all the pitiful rubbish of human habitation: houses under tiled and flat roofs, with remains of rusty fittings and satellite dishes; remnants of stone walls and fences; shops shuttered by corrugated metal vandal screens, cars, bikes...
On Montefiore Street, winding down the hill, streetlights shone through murky halos. In the violet mist, the minaret of the former mosque, with its tiny little balcony encircling the cone, was barely visible.
Arkady settled with the taxi driver, walked through the arc and went down the stairs into the large, tiled inner courtyard of the Permanent Art Exhibition. Doors of various galleries and all sorts of drinking nooks led from here, large and small. At the moment, only one bar was open; he went in and ordered a drink and some nuts—many drinks and lots of nuts. He settled in, steadily downing his cognac and observing through the glass wall infrequent figures fording the well of the courtyard. Wading into thick clouds, a passerby stood rooted to the spot in confusion, as if trying to locate a reliable tussock in the middle of a swamp, then set off with uncertainty, as if swimming, unintentionally sweeping the air with his arms.
In the winter all the inhabitants of this town were transformed into sleepwalkers.
Well, it's time to go home. Ask the bartender to call a cab...
Didn't you get plastered, like the last swine, you disgraced old man?
"Hey, pal," said the bartender, wiping the counter and aligning tall goblets made of dark red glass, which reminded him of the tall young Hasidim in the fog, "are you okay?"
"You bet I am!" Arkady replied distinctly, raising his right hand.
"I see," said the bartender. He was what people call a chubby fellow—so friendly, bustling, never sitting down, even for a minute, although, besides Arkady, there wasn't another soul in the bar in this filthy weather. "Have you loaded up for the night? You know, we're only open until one o'clock... So you can stay here another half hour if you like."
"Don't worry," said Arkady. "I won't cause any problems."
"God forbid!" cried the fatso. "That never occurred to me... If you like, I can show you another little place—and you'll remember me for a good long time."
Arkady smiled warmly and sarcastically:
"What sort of new place do you plan to show me in our village?"
"You'll see," he replied and spent the next twenty minutes or so puttering over the counter, rubbing it with some sort of polish, loading dishes in the lower drawers, cashing out the register, and jingling his keys.
At last, he took off his jacket emblazoned with the name of the bar, put on a long raincoat over his sweater, and turned into an elegant, middle-aged city-dweller.
"Let's go," he said and pushed open the glass door into the fog, after which, for ten minutes or so, he patiently secured the stubborn lock without hurling one word of abuse at it.
That's the sort of patient fellow he should have on his team of investigators, Arkady thought.
They climbed the stairs to the square, where buses carrying groups of tourists were usually parked during the day. The whole square seemed to be rushing about in an agitated whirl of clouds. In all this restless motion, the square first unveiled a stray tomcat wandering along the stone fence of someone's studio, then the roof of someone's Audi parked temporarily on the corner, or the pale, preoccupied face of a late pedestrian.
"Well, I turn to the right," said the bartender. "But you look here," he said and grabbed Arkady by the shoulder, turning him slightly in the direction of some small alleys sunk in fog and dimly lit by streetlamps. "You climb up as far as the Synagogue of the Sacred Ari... go a little further to the first street on the right. It's not even a street, just a little dead end... The third house from the end, it looks like it's all locked up, and the shutters are closed... It appears as if no one lives there, but next to the lemon tree there are some stairs leading down to the cellar. The door is blue, iron... Push it and go in. It's easy."
Arkady couldn't recall anything resembling a café or bar in that little dead end.
"What's there?" he asked.
"Well... it's something like a caravansery... Cabalists gather there, all sorts of amusing folks... Sometimes there're as many as five, and other nights, the place is empty. But you can ask for wine from the owner—he's a night owl. If you really need it. And the wine, let me tell you, is special; they make it themselves from grapes gathered at night during a full moon, while they sing their own sacred songs."
"Really? And by any chance will I turn into an angel while I'm there?" Arkady asked.
The bartender slapped him on the back and said amiably: "Not exactly... The owner's an old man. His name is Duvid Azis. He doesn't ask for recommendations. He'll see through you like an x-ray machine!" He laughed and waved him on: "You can send him regards from Avi, that'd be me."
Arkady dutifully proceeded up to the Synagogue of Rabbi Isaac Luria, a cabalist, merchant, philosopher and wizard, in popular memory—the Sacred Ari—who lived here during the sixteenth cen
tury, knew all about miracles, and was buried in the local cemetery.
Even though you'd learned the stone tangle of old Safed like the fingers of your hand, on a foggy winter night you could easily get lost in its loops and knots, its unexpected turns and dead ends, its insidious alleys. The fog fools you, mixes up and changes the location of houses and streetlamps; the customary topography of familiar streets slips away, dumbfounds you; turning at the corner of a building, instead of the usual staircase to the upper street, you come upon a stone well and a huge wooden tub that were never there before: and just you try to find it tomorrow! The fog, like a dream, opens doors slightly and allows you to glance into the endless space, but if you cross the threshold, the depth vanishes, a puddle squelches beneath your foot, and a blind wall rises up before your very eyes with traces of blue paint on stone joints. You see an arrow with a sign for "local Safed cheese" and you head off in the indicated direction to purchase some famous sheep or goat cheese with garlic, caraway or dill, and a few olives in the bargain, and three hundred grams of halvah with nuts... But after turning three times and winding up in a series of passages and courtyards four times, you find yourself back at the same sign with the arrow, now with its point pointed right at you.
After wandering in circles for about twenty minutes in search of the required dead end, and without finding anything like it, Arkady wound up in an enclosed courtyard with some sort of synagogue he couldn't identify; in his annoyance, he wanted to turn back already, but there in the corner he noticed some narrow—only half a meter wide—worn stone steps that certainly led to the lower tier of streets; he recalled that precisely here—yes, yes, of course—there was supposed to be an almost vertical passage down.
Descending the steep stairs, he stumbled into the courtyard of a small bar, long since closed, climbed over the gate, and found himself on the famous tourist street of galleries, shops and restaurants... needless to say, all locked up and ensconced in fog.
Life Stories Page 24