"The boy is two, and the girl is five."
"Then don't be upset. My grandchildren were around those ages last year, and they only suffered through the stupid play."
"How do you know it's the same play?"
"How much originality can there be in the moonlighting of unemployed actors?"
"So there's nobody left here to meet with on this case?"
"The new deputy, she's here."
"Why? She has no kids?"
"Kids? No. A confirmed bachelorette. Go see her."
The deputy, a construction engineer with a Ph.D., is a woman of fifty or so, tall and cheerful. She welcomes Ya'ari with enthusiasm and locates the file, marked SECRET in red ink.
"This fifth elevator," Ya'ari begins, with a sigh, "which all of a sudden popped up after we finished the planning—tell me, is it really necessary?"
The deputy examines the file and sighs, too. "What can I do? We also get orders. It turns out that they need an extra elevator here, independent, which will go straight from the top floor to the lowest level of the garage without picking up any passengers in between. And in addition to an internal telephone, they want a screen and video hookup trained on the outside world. In other words, a very private elevator."
"All right, then we'll have to deal with it. But I hope you've taken into account that it will require a complete overhaul of the design of the shaft and will involve further payment."
"The redesign is only natural," the deputy admits, "but as for more money, we've already milked the ministry budget for this project down to the last penny."
"Thanks very much, but what does that mean? That I now have to subsidize the defense forces of the state of Israel?"
"Why not?" she asks, laughing. "They protect you too."
Ya'ari shrugs but doesn't argue. Budgets in any case are determined in a different department, and in that one he'll know how to hold his own. He's not sure whether to show the deputy the idea that came to him in the middle of the night and finally decides to risk it. A gracious woman, good looking and elegant in her own way, can't take it upon herself to kill a technical idea that's outside her area of expertise. Look, he explains with a cryptic smile, he's a grass widower whose wife flew off to Africa and he can't sleep well at night, so he came up with this idea, which might placate, even satisfy, all parties. A corner elevator, with perpendicular doors, squeezed into the south corner of the shaft and operated by independent control: this would require no significant appropriation of space at the expense of the four currently planned elevators, so the finished design won't need complete redoing. The deputy takes out a scale ruler and measures the diagram.
"This elevator of yours is very narrow, Mr. Ya'ari." She smiles ironically. "Our secret rider will have to lose weight in order to ride in it."
"You're right," Ya'ari admits, "it is very narrow. But don't forget it has another corner, for another person, presumably the wife of the secret rider."
"His wife?" remarks the deputy with surprise. "Well, it wasn't really her I pictured in your spartan elevator. But if his wife insists on chaperoning her husband everywhere, then she'll have to slim down, too."
10.
THE BIG KITCHEN at the farm is clean and quiet. The cooks have disappeared. Yirmiyahu opens one of the doors of the big refrigerator for his sister-in-law. What can I heat up for you? But the strong sun, and the memory of the African woman smearing her roof with cow manure, have dulled her appetite. No hurry, she tells him. First I'll go up and rest awhile, and then, if possible...
Yes, they can postpone lunch, but they will have to finish it by three, because then he must go out with the food to the excavation site and won't return till late at night.
"Is it far?"
"Not terribly, but the driving is very slow."
"So what about me?"
"Rest, read. After all, I didn't burn your novel."
"And who else will stay here?"
"There is always a security guard."
Suddenly she is seized with the fear of abandonment.
"Can I join you? Is there room for me?"
"Yes, but on condition that you don't wait like your sister till the last minute, but be ready down here by two-thirty, and we'll eat and hit the road. You want me to wake you?"
"No need," she says, suddenly a bit dejected. "I don't think I'll be able to sleep."
She slowly climbs the broad and easy stairs that spiral around the old elevator shaft. The room she left that morning now smells of Lysol, reminding her of the toilets at her school. In her absence the floor has been mopped, the bathroom cleaned, and her bed remade. She looks at the bluish haze of the summer sky. On a distant hill are two zebras, either fighting or copulating, not clear which. She thinks about her husband. Was Amotz in fact the source of the phrase friendly fire, which even during the week of mourning began to trip from Yirmi's tongue with a sarcasm that depressed and paralyzed her sister?
She pulls the wooden shutters closed and surrounds herself with darkness. The room is pleasant, but is missing a large mirror to reflect her full image. The small scratched mirror hanging over the sink can't satisfy her curiosity. She takes off her gym shoes and her dress. Remembering the appreciative looks of the locals, she is pleased that she took Amotz's advice to try out its bold colors on their native soil. For years she has worn only trousers, convinced that dresses make her look heavier. But here she is free and not compelled to look after her figure. The dress added a light touch to the morning call on the elephant.
She stretches out on the bed in her bra and panties, then after a few minutes undoes the bra and liberates her breasts. Then she wraps herself in a lightweight robe she found in Yirmi's closet. Amotz had too easily turned down the chance to come with her. True, she was concerned that on this trip he would be in the way, but for now she is not swept up in childhood memories or in sorrow, and who knows what might happen in the short week ahead? The detachment to which her brother-in-law is so fervently addicted is damaging the simple and natural bond she always had with him. And it is implausible that he's living here merely to build up his savings. Surely his intentions are more radical. As she leafs through the three volumes of anthropology and geology that she found in the room, she realizes that they are not there simply for reading or browsing. They are a clear statement on the part of a man whose bookshelves in Jerusalem were always filled to overflowing.
She gets up to make sure that she has locked the door. If she had gone with Amotz that day to the foreign ministry to bring the horrible news, he would have chosen his words more carefully and not blurted out "friendly fire," the words Yirmi has fallen in love with and is amplifying into a new religion. But she got to her sister's side in Jerusalem too late. Moran was so anxious about the heavy blow he was about to deal her that he hung around the school for a solid hour till she finished her lesson. Everyone knew about Eyali's death before she did.
The door is locked. Despite the heat she takes one of Yirmi's woolen blankets and curls up under it. For years she has been faithful to her afternoon nap and tries not to miss it even when traveling. And since in their first year of marriage it had already become clear to Amotz that afternoon napping enhanced her sexuality, he would loyally join her. Was it because of the mysterious power of the afternoon sun? Maybe this feeling of sexual awakening in the afternoon was tied to her teenage years, when every day after school she would be surrounded by several admiring boys who would tag along on her way home and dawdle in front of the apartment block while her mother waited upstairs to serve her lunch.
However it was, years after her mother's death, with her suitors long since happily united with other women, she still retains that afternoon flame, which Amotz won't allow to go to waste, even cutting meetings short and driving the long way home to their northern suburb to try his strength in the darkened bedroom, in which a teacher has fallen asleep after her long day in class.
11.
BUOYED BY THE fact that his nighttime sketch has been met, for no
w, with humor and not scorn, Ya'ari shuns his own elevator and skips down the stairs to the exit. The skies have cleared and a friendly winter sun caresses the passersby. The streets are calm, now that the Hall of Culture has swallowed up the children and their parents. But can it be that the Hanukkah show has also consumed his chief engineer and financial manager? The office is locked. The smell of tobacco is all that remains.
He phones Moran, but his son's sophisticated mobile device, paid for by the firm, is only taking messages. With low expectations he calls Efrat's cell, which his veteran bookkeeper has also managed to list as an office expense, and hears her phone's parrot recitation of its usual ingratiating but heartless recording. Everyone is shirking his duty. Is he the only one at his desk today? Taped to his computer screen is a note from the chief engineer: An elderly woman from Jerusalem, Dr. Devorah Bennett, wishes to speak with your father regarding a malfunction in the private elevator in her home. I intentionally did not take down her number, so that she won't expect us to call her back. But she will probably call again this afternoon. Should I give her your father's home number?
No, scribbles Ya'ari with a black marker, don't give her anybody's number. The tenant from Pinsker is enough for me. Just remember that we're a design firm and not a service center. And he pastes the note to the engineer's computer screen, locks up the office, and drives home. If he's not entitled to a ticket to a children's play, maybe he deserves a free dream in his double bed.
And so, desiring only to dream, he threads his car through crowded streets, marveling at the sight of the many ultra-Orthodox children who have been excused from Torah study and, lacking a show of their own to attend, are filling the playgrounds along the banks of the Yarkon River, sliding and swinging, despite the cold weather, the fringes of their ritual undershirts flapping in the breeze.
Before entering his building he clears the leaves the wind had amassed at the front door. The near perfect neatness of the apartment underscores the absence of his habitually messy wife. He restores to its place a red candle that has fallen from the menorah set up for the evening's lighting, heats his lunch, and eats it rapidly. Then he goes into his bedroom and gets undressed. Is dozing off alone, without making love, a good enough reason to disconnect from the world?
Without hesitation he unplugs the phone. Tomorrow afternoon Yirmiyahu will take Daniela to Dar es Salaam, as agreed, and place a call to Israel. So for now he can let things go. The Filipinos are looking after his father; the army has taken Moran, whose mother-in-law is supposed to deal with the children; and Efrat's good looks will excuse her failings. Nofar in any case is out of his control, even if she does show up this evening. He draws down the blinds, turns on the heater, gets into bed, and pulls the blanket over him. It's nice, this unaccustomed silence, undisturbed even by the rustling of newspapers by his side. Yes, out of love he should have offered to go with her, but the wiser love was not to insist on it. And he did make sure to warn Yirmiyahu to be extra vigilant in the face of her absent-mindedness and dreamy confusion, which have lately grown worse.
He knows that his brother-in-law would have preferred him to accompany her. But had he made the trip, he would have weighed down the visit with his polite silence, which would have been interpreted as ironic. Nor was another visit to Tanzania worth the expense and aggravation of travel. It was only three years ago that they were there. He remembers exploring a huge crater with Shuli and Yirmi, an enclosed nature preserve filled with predatory animals and rare plant life. Yes, sometimes he has pangs of longing for the soothing expanse of the savanna or the swirling colors of the sunsets, but just to indulge in nostalgia, would it have been worth neglecting his business for a whole week and instead sit mutely between his wife and brother-in-law? After Yirmi jumped on that "friendly fire," which he haplessly uttered at a terrible moment, and began to cling to it so absurdly, Ya'ari realized he should be wary of spontaneous conversation with him. Gottlieb is right. Bereaved fathers have a different agenda in their heads.
He gets up to draw the curtain and darken the room, and notices that his cell phone is on the bureau, live and breathing. Should he turn it off completely, or set it on silent vibration? He finally decides on vibration but also stuffs it under his pillow.
12.
SOON, ON THE African farm, it will be three P.M. From outside the locked door of his bedroom, Yirmiyahu calls to the sleeping woman: We're leaving! Why did you think I didn't need to wake you?
Daniela apologizes, even though she does not feel she is to blame. On trips abroad she always keeps her watch set on Israeli time, to stay in sync with her children and grandchildren. Amotz takes care of local time.
"But Amotz isn't here," her brother-in-law points out with mild annoyance and tells her to hurry up; otherwise he'll leave her here to finish her novel.
Though this is a woman who adheres to "her own pace," the threat of being left alone at the farm with an elderly African watchman gets her moving faster. Besides, there's no fussing over what to wear. Deftly she slips back into her African dress, not only because of its comfortable fabric but also out of the knowledge that only here, in Africa, can she get away with wearing anything so colorful.
In front of the farmhouse the vehicles stand ready for the journey. The food coolers are stacked one upon the other, and next to them are jugs of milk and water and small bags of flour and potatoes and white beans for individual cooking, a few big kettles of soup, and the freshly washed cooking pots and dinnerware. The goat, its slaughter apparently postponed, surveys the scene with interest. The cooks, who have removed their white uniforms and put on short gray sheepskins, finish the last bits of preparation for the trip, oiling the hunting rifles and poking around under the hoods of the old pickup trucks.
There is no one in the kitchen, except for Sijjin Kuang, wearing a greenish smock. She places a plate and cup for the visitor on one of the long tables.
"We'll heat up something for you," Yirmi tells Daniela, "but only on condition that you eat fast."
But the hungry guest will not degrade herself and eat alone before the eyes of strangers, and certainly not at a pace to which she is unaccustomed. No, she says, she'll hold out until it's time to have dinner with the diggers. That way their journey can begin right away. But the Sudanese nurse is not pleased by the guest's forgoing of food and expertly fixes her two sandwiches for the road. Nor does she stop at that; even as the pickups' engines sputter into activity, she vanishes into the building and returns with a windbreaker. Your dress is pretty, but at night you'll need something more against the cold, she tells Daniela, before taking her place behind the wheel of the Land Rover.
Yirmi has long legs, and therefore, apologizes to his sister-in-law, who has been relegated to the backseat, amid the luxury items designated for the researchers—bottles of whisky and cognac, packets of cigarettes and chocolate—and medical supplies for everyone. She places Sijjin Kuang's windbreaker on her lap and looks around her and nibbles at a sandwich. The Land Rover travels between the two pickup trucks, and in the lead truck ride the Africans with their hunting rifles.
"Why rifles?" wonders the visitor, and they tell her that sometimes animals and birds of prey are attracted by the traveling feast and need to be chased away.
The convoy first heads toward the small village they visited in the morning, where children are still congregating by the shed housing the elephant with the cyclops eye. From there, the road slopes gently down to the vast, silent savanna, where the air and the dry grass, patchy and scorched, shine golden in the western sun. The vehicles drive slowly, keeping their distance from one another to avoid the clouds of dust kicked up by the tires. Now and again they are stopped by a herd of plodding gnus or unhurried zebus, who take their time before deigning to move on and clear the road.
The great expanse before them stirs a feeling of respect in the visitor. Yirmiyahu directs her attention to a giant baobab with a trunk wider than his room at the farm and branches that look like thick roots shooting skywa
rd, as if the tree were growing upside down. On one branch crouches a golden beast of prey.
On this plain, the dead, animal and human, are not buried, says the Sudanese nurse, but rather left exposed in the wild, to be eaten by animals and birds, reabsorbed into the natural world that gave them life. Their bodies will not be resurrected, but a good soul may hope to find a strong wind that will agree to carry it.
Two hills stand out on the horizon: this might be their destination. For as soon as the hills appear, the convoy shifts its formation from single file to side by side with the brotherly freedom—or rivalry—of those whose goal is clear to them and who have no need for a defined pathway or any rules of the road. They advance under the sheltering sky, whose palette of colors deepens toward evening, and a dizzying swirl of ravening birds swoops toward the traveling food stores, undeterred by occasional gunfire. The Africans gaily wave from the pickup trucks at the Land Rover, especially at the Israeli visitor, who only yesterday morning took off from her homeland and whose country and husband and children and grandchildren already appear strangely distant to her. Yes, she muses, maybe it would have been a bit much to light Hanukkah candles in a place where one is seeking the primal ape who never anticipated that Jews, too, would spring from his loins.
The Sudanese and her brother-in-law exchange now and then a few words, muffled by the engine noise. She pulls the windbreaker lent her by Sijjin Kuang tightly across her lap and rubs it with her fingers, then lifts it to her face and inhales its smell. She gasps. As the Africans fire with cries of joy at a stubborn hawk and bring it down, she quietly taps Yirmi's broad back and holds up the wind-breaker. Before she can ask, he answers:
"Of course. It was Shuli's. Didn't I tell you that I'd have a warm coat for you here?"
13.
IN ISRAEL, IT'S still three o'clock. The pillow beneath the husband's head has stifled not one vibration but five, thanks either to the quality of the feathers or the soundness of his sleep. But each vibration has left in its wake a message, and now Ya'ari is on his feet, listening to all of them.
Friendly Fire Page 9