Limassol

by Yishai Sarid

  “It’s not the same thing.” He coughed. “With them, it comes with satellites and disguises and European scenery. You can liquidate a hundred terrorists in the Kasbah, nobody will notice that. But see what enormous headlines their liquidation will make. People pay money to see a matador finish off a dangerous bull, books are written about it, they decorate him with flowers, but nobody wants to buy tickets for a simple slaughterhouse.”

  What could one do with a comparison like that. Haim got out of the car and I turned up the radio. Freddie Mercury sang “Love of my Life” as a show tune. The thought of the trip excited me. I breathed easier, as if we were already in the good air of the mountains of Cyprus. I went to the hospital to meet Hani’s doctor. I knew Daphna would come to him before the trip, and I didn’t want him to dissuade her from it. I stopped on Ibn Gabirol Street to eat a shwarma; I had some free time now, all I had to do was get on a plane and be natural. The rest would be done by others.

  I waited outside the office of the department head. Through the door, I heard weeping, then a patient came out wailing into a handkerchief, a stunned and pale man was barely supporting her.

  “Oh, it’s you, the security forces have arrived.” The doctor took off his lab coat. “If you want to talk, walk with me,” he requested. “I’m late for a lecture at the university. Tragedies all the time. Once we wouldn’t have told them until the end, now it’s all a matter of lawyers and insurance, no place for sympathy.”

  I told him about the trip.

  “He may not hold out,” said the doctor. “He’s really at the very end. There’s not one healthy cell in his body. Is there someone who can pay to fly the body from Cyprus?”

  We entered the colorful shopping center next to the hospital, which was decorated for the holidays, you didn’t know where you were with that whole colorful carnival of merchandise and disease.

  “You’ll take care of him, right?” asked the doctor standing at the top of the escalator. “He’s my patient. Don’t come complaining to me afterwards. Who are you going to kill there?”

  My hands tensed to shut his mouth. Where else are people allowed to talk freely like that? Not even in America is such license allowed. I came very close to him. His eyes were frozen, mocking. There were a lot of people around us and the law also protected him. “Nobody will be hurt, all right, doctor? In the final analysis, we’re trying to make sure that floor of the shopping mall stays clean, without pieces of flesh, that it will be possible to shop in peace, buy new year’s gifts, children’s songs, you know . . . ”

  He put a hand on my shoulder, as if he were about to give me the tidings of Job, too, and said mildly: “Don’t get excited, I won’t talk. I know where I live. And you’ve got to calm down a little before the trip. Your nerves are shot. Go rest a little, my friend,” and he was swallowed up in the dark entrance of the parking lot.

  I really did feel washed out. I sat at the polished counter of a high-priced café, across from me was a big mirror I tried not to look into. Somebody behind me was riding on a scooter for old people, with messy gray hair and hospital pajamas. There was something familiar about him. I looked again, it was Shmulik Kraus, after “Golden Doll,” after the blows, after everything. Nobody was with him, I didn’t understand how he got here by himself. I almost said to him: Regards from Hani, you remember, the guy from Gaza, he met you several years ago in “Watermelon Café,” on the seashore, where you used to sit with the whole group. “That’s Shmulik Kraus,” I whispered to the young salesgirl, “ask him what he wants.” I got a vague look from her.

  I finished my espresso in one gulp which seared my belly. Since I was already there, I decided to go back to the hospital to visit Yotam. I went into the bookstore and bought him a new translation of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, and some chocolate; suddenly I felt sorry for him.

  Yotam was lying on his back, alone, in a blinding light streaming in from the window. When he saw me, the automatic, mocking smile appeared, looking like an open wound. That’s how he must have smiled at those who cut him, and they didn’t understand. I sat in the armchair next to the bed, gazing north toward the Reading power station; that city really cried for help from the deluge that had descended on it. A beautiful Russian nurse came in to record something on his chart, she looked at me suspiciously, asked if I was his brother or his father. Yotam asked her wearily to put more drugs into his IV, it was murderously painful, and she said she’d ask the doctor because he had already gotten a lot.

  The patient in the next bed was holding a transistor radio broadcasting news in a language I didn’t understand. His pajamas weren’t fastened properly and revealed all kinds of parts of his body.

  I gave Yotam the book, even offered to read a little of it to him, if he wanted. “Hemingway,” he chewed the syllables slowly. “How does she look, that bitch, can you imagine that drunken woman?”

  “I think she had brown hair,” I said. “And long legs. But a little full. And a great face. Maybe she was a blonde, I don’t know.”

  “I think she looked cruel,” said Yotam.

  I wanted to tell him he should go into rehab, that it was a shame to waste his life, but nothing came out of my mouth. I offered chocolate. He turned his head away from me, left his long thin back to me, his spine protruding, his shoulders withdrawn, a thin bulb of hair. I picked up the book and started reading, there were a lot of things in it that I didn’t remember. The young doctor came into the room, asked him to turn around, gently checked the dressing. “As far as I’m concerned, you can go home tomorrow morning,” she said. “The wounds have healed nicely. In the end, it wasn’t very deep. Only a slight scar will remain.”

  I offered to bring him soup or something, but he wasn’t hungry. I recalled that I hadn’t yet talked about Nukhi Azariya, hadn’t asked him for an account of the attack; you can’t leave something like that open. Mainly I wanted to prevent the negative molecules that carry inactivity to get into my brain in the form of bad thoughts. I got up to go and then he turned in my direction and opened enormous, frightened eyes, and looked without blinking, very deep inside. I put my hand on him to calm him, to feel that there was still a soul in that creature.

  I went from there to the final briefing. Afterward I went home to pack a small travel bag.

  We got to the airport in a taxi. I could feel that we had a tail all the way, there were all kinds of sensors stuck on me that turned me into a human antenna.

  I pushed Hani in a wheelchair in the marble halls. Daphna wanted coffee. I suggested we drink after we went through passport control. We advanced as a trio to the security check. Hani became a little nervous and asked what was going to happen here. I calmed him. Indeed, everyone had been properly briefed. The girl sent to us was polite and asked only a few questions, why he was traveling (Hani answered the truth: “a family meeting”), and she asked us only if we had packed our bags ourselves, as if it’s an everyday custom for two Jews to accompany a sick, old Arab to a family meeting in Cyprus.

  Summer vacation was over and the holiday season hadn’t yet begun, so the plane was small and half empty. Daphna sat between me and Hani and was in an excellent mood, as if we were going on a two-month vacation to the Caribbean and not for a day and a half in Limassol. Hani was excited, his hands shook and he was sweating, his face was awfully emaciated and you were afraid it would rip apart at every grimace of a smile. I was glad I was showing them a good time. Daphna had dressed him well, in a gentleman’s clothes, and combed his hair carefully. Somewhere, a few rows behind us, sat the people who were tailing us. I had to be careful of everything I said.

  Hani fell asleep, he was full of tranquilizers. The plane taxied down the runway and when it took off, I felt Daphna put her long, aristocratic hand in mine. I didn’t care if the people behind saw us. I felt that she was inside me now, and I was filled with warmth. That’s how we sat for thirty-five minutes until we landed in Limassol.

  I rented us a big, high car, almost a jeep, and the two of them s
at in the back seat. Now and then I looked at her in the rearview mirror. She was beaming, there was no hesitation in her, and every one of her looks tore me up inside. Hani was belted in and didn’t budge, his almost dead body would be held together by a thread of soul until the final meeting. Now she held Hani’s hand, and I was the driver in their last pleasure trip. The great summer heat had already passed here, there were wispy clouds in the sky hiding the sun now and then. We drove on the coast road between rows of palms with the sea sparkling behind them. Everything in Cyprus was clean and more airy, almost as beautiful as in Lebanon.

  Our hotel was at the end of the boardwalk, at the edge of the city, in a grove of conifers. They chose it well, for it suited the purpose of our stay. There were four stars on its wall, but neglect could be seen immediately, as if there hadn’t been any improvements and the furniture hadn’t been replaced since the seventies. Daphna liked that. She laughed when we entered. The clerk at the reception desk looked at us, trying to understand, who is the man here and who is the woman and what is the role of the emaciated man in the wheelchair, of the dying man. And maybe he knew everything from the start.

  We got two adjoining rooms on the third floor, with a view of the sea, one for her and Hani and the other one for me. Daphna opened the door to the balcony, pushed aside the curtain, and a great breeze came in. I rolled Hani onto the balcony. He shut his eyes and smiled. The blue bay was spread out before us, distant freighters honked in parting. We leaned on the banister and Daphna put her arm around my shoulders, as if she were my man. Beneath us was the hotel swimming pool, almost empty, because the big groups from the cold countries had already left. Around the hotel was a garden full of Mediterranean plants, and beyond it the modest houses of Limassol.

  “We’ll go there tomorrow,” said Daphna and pointed to the high mountains crowning the bay. “There are wonderful groves there.” I almost asked her: What are you talking about. There is no pastoral end to this tour, the whole thing is a delusion . . .

  Daphna gave Hani some water, patiently and gently, stroked his head, brought a blanket from inside to wrap him in and sat close to him. His eyes were open to the sun, his nose sniffed the air, his hand didn’t move from hers. I drank a beer from the mini bar and looked at the sea and the trees and Daphna, who looked like a French movie star in a Nouvelle Vague film. Hani said it was a good idea to meet his son here, in the hotel, very beautiful here and quiet.

  “Where is he coming from?” asked Daphna.

  “Syria, Syria. Tomorrow morning he’ll come.”

  “I’ve never seen him,” said Daphna and looked at the bay. The blue shirt she wore waved around her body in the sun. “Yotam doesn’t know him either.”

  “Maybe after tomorrow . . . ,” muttered Hani.

  I was silent and drank my beer. Daphna brought him the medicines and his head fell back in sleep. I have to keep him alive at least one more day, and then they’ll forgive me everything, I can go back to the cellars and the routine.

  “He’s awfully grateful to you,” said Daphna. “He’s a noble soul. So are you.”

  I looked at her uncomprehending. She does know who I am. She has to guess why we’re here.

  Time passed slowly. My eyes also closed, the sun charred the skin slowly and pleasantly. In the afternoon, the sea grew rough, and in the small jetty next to the hotel, the boats bobbled on the water. Daphna said she wanted to go down to the pool. “Fine, go,” I said. “I’ll stay with Hani.”

  I looked down at her when she took off the white hotel robe and put it on the chaise longue, bent over to check the warmth of the water, raised her head to look for me and waved. Then she stood on the edge of the pool, straightened up on tiptoe, the full purple bathing suit she wore stretched, she dove into the water as supple as a spring and left a long wake of smooth movements behind her. Hani was sleeping in the room, murmuring in his sleep all the time, God knows what he was dreaming about. One of the instruments connected to me beeped; a woman’s pleasant voice said the package would arrive tomorrow at nine in the morning, final.

  I looked far off into the sea, rows and rows of manes of foam, and I looked for Israel. I thought, what will happen afterward, when the ambulances arrive at the hotel parking lot, when Hani asks why his son is late and what’s all that noise all of a sudden. Maybe he won’t ask for an explanation because the whole drama will take place before his eyes. Whatever happens, that will be Daphna’s problem. She’ll have to explain to him, take care of him when he collapses. I won’t be here anymore.

  I followed the trail of the wind from the movement of the treetops. Cars turned on their headlights on the coast road. The air was perfumed with jasmine and a burnt smell. Downstairs, Daphna came out of the water, shook herself, wrapped herself in the robe, sat down on one of the chaises longues and stretched out her legs, fastening the belt of the terrycloth robe. I searched for tails on the balconies. On the second floor, a girl was sitting on the balcony with a newspaper and looking toward the pool. Now and then, she looked up, seemingly indifferent, and muttered something. I made sure Hani was sleeping and went out to the deserted corridor; I had to escape from the room for a little while. The elevator declared its arrival with a jarring beep, and when the door opened, there was the yachtsman, really sunburned, as if he had come here on a yacht. I was scared as if I was caught red-handed. “Good evening,” he smiled at me calmly, and I answered, “Good evening,” and almost turned around to go back to the room. Everything’s exposed to them, I said to myself, she’s swimming before them like a fish in an aquarium. How can they . . .

  “Have a nice evening,” the yachtsman parted from me when we got to the ground floor, and disappeared immediately.

  I nodded to the clerk at the reception desk, sat down across from him in a deep armchair and pretended to read The Nicosia Telegraph. When the area was secured, I went out to the square across from the hotel, which was lighted with some high street lamps but looked dark. The salty smell of the sea blended with the sweetness of the plants in the garden, and the waves sounded close. Here they’d meet him, apparently with a gun to his temple, at very close range, he’d be folded up quietly on the square covered with twigs, as soon as he got out of the cab. When that happens, I’ll be in the getaway car that will take me from there to the boat waiting in the harbor. I returned to the hotel and went down to the deserted pool, even the tail had disappeared from the balcony. I sat on a chaise longue and shut my eyes. I opened them when the sky was black and full of stars.

  “Where were you?” laughed Daphna when she opened their door to me, wearing a beautiful black dress, her hair gathered up. Hani waved to me from the armchair in back and he also looked ready to have some fun. I took a step back. This was not in the plans. “Come, come in,” Daphna invited me, and her gold earrings sparkled in my eyes. “We were waiting for you,” she said with a smile. “Let’s go out to eat. We’re starving to death.”

  It turned out that Daphna had already checked with the clerk at the reception desk, who recommended a restaurant on the boardwalk, within walking distance; they serve good fish there and play Greek music. She put a thin sweater on Hani and helped him sit in the wheelchair. “Go change clothes,” she urged me. “And don’t look so depressed. We’re here on vacation.”

  I hurried to my room and changed from gray trousers to brown trousers, and from a blue buttoned shirt to a light blue buttoned shirt. Those were the clothes I had planned to wear tomorrow, for the final act. I looked at myself in the mirror. I would have to take the tension and worry off my face immediately if I didn’t want to spoil the whole thing.

  We walked from the end of the boardwalk toward the center of town. The bay was open before us and the wind was clean. Daphna was gorgeous, statuesque; people looked at her as at a queen. I pushed Hani in the chair and Daphna walked close to us. “Go slowly,” she said quietly. “Let’s enjoy the walk.”

  The restaurant was almost empty. The owner was sitting at the entrance behind a wooden desk, and looked
bothered by something. In the pictures surrounding him, photographs of local celebrities, you could see the trail of his old age. Daphna requested a table on the balcony, overlooking the sea. I peeped through the door to see when my companions would come in; they didn’t plan in advance for this evening outing; they assumed that Hani would be too tired and weak to leave the hotel. The waiter came to offer drinks. I ordered a bottle of local white wine and some hors d’oeuvres. Below us dark, calm water came and went. Hani muttered something, I went close to him, he said in Arabic that it looked like Haifa here. I asked when he was in Haifa. “Ask her,” he said with a smile. I didn’t bring him back to Hebrew, it was more comfortable that way.

  “When were you in Haifa?” I asked Daphna in Hebrew.

  “In Haifa?” she laughed. “Oh, that was a long time ago.” Her face was beaming. “We went on a big tour of the Galilee, Hani wanted to see Israel. We traveled for a week. A friend lent us his Subaru, one of those old, small ones. We took it up to Mount Hermon. Remember how I vomited on the way up, Hani? We went into places nobody heard of, we saw antiquities, we walked in rivers, in water, it was spring then and the snow had melted, the fields were full of anemones . . . ”

  “She was the most beautiful woman in the world,” said Hani in Arabic. “Not even in my dreams did I meet a woman like that.” Somebody should have collected his words in a box of treasures and wrapped them in cotton, because they were the final words of a poet.

  “And on the last evening, we ate in Haifa, in a restaurant in Bat Galim, which must have gone out of business a long time ago,” said Daphna, and put her hand on his, two such different hands, both long and delicate. “We ate fish, then we went to sleep in some crappy sailors’ hotel in the lower city.”

  “We should have stayed together,” said Hani in Arabic, quietly.

  I poured the properly chilled wine. On the label was a vine on a rocky slope. The sea rolled to the stone wall beneath us and withdrew. I drank quickly because I had to lose myself.