Friendly Fire

by A. B. Yehoshua

  "I think so."

  "If so, you'll recall that I didn't give the family many details. Shuli cut herself off entirely from the story even at the early stages, and rightly so. Whereas I kept chasing after more, digging here and digging there, with a recklessness that maybe fits a certain type of male bereavement. For example, the desire I had, later on, to find out who was the 'wanted man' on that wretched night, what made him so great that they honored him by bringing eight soldiers at night to Tulkarm."

  "Why was that important to you?"

  "That's exactly the question the officer from the General Security Service asked me. What's the point of telling you his name? Wanted men come and go, and the list endures forever. Soon the whole Palestinian people will be wanted by us. 'Even so,' I insisted, 'wanted for what? Wanted why?' 'Wanted for the heavenly tribunal,' the officer joked, and didn't reveal a single detail. And rightly so. Because one detail leads to another, and such information has no practical significance if the death has already occurred. But I was still in shock and I felt compelled to exhume the entire reality of that night. I asked the TV news for the tape of their coverage of the military funeral. It was a very short report, not even a minute long, and at night, when Shuli was sleeping, I played it over and over on the VCR, not to watch our own suffering, including the drama of Nofar, who seemed about to throw herself in the grave after him, but to study carefully the faces of the honor guard, who fired the three shots to which a soldier is entitled even if he caused his own death by mistake. Again and again I watched those soldiers, all of whose names and histories I knew, because I thought that maybe through facial expressions when they pulled the trigger I would discover the man behind the friendly fire."

  "Absurd..."

  "That's right, absurd. But that's how it was, then. What can I say? It's also normal and natural. The first months of mourning are a whirlwind of absurdity. On the outside you keep your cool, and inside you lurch from fantasy to madness, and until I came to a final, philosophical flash of recognition, at night on the rooftop of that house in Tulkarm, I was unable to get free of all that absurdity and begin the process of forgetting.

  "For you have to understand. His friends didn't abandon us. We aren't the Americans or Japanese, who send telegrams of condolence to parents in distant cities and say, Bye-bye and we won't be seeing you. With us there are established customs of bereavement, rules by which you don't abandon the soldier's family but instead maintain a connection. An institutional connection and a personal one. The soldiers from his company come to visit now and then and become a bit like relatives, inviting you to their family functions, talking about themselves, sharing their experiences. At first they come as a whole group, awkward strapping boys who barely fit into the living room and keep an eye on one another lest a careless word slip out. But after they have studied the nature of the bereaved parents and confirmed that these remain civilized people and that death has not eradicated the essence of their humanity, they let themselves come for more intimate visits—in threes, in pairs, even alone, and in this way they pass your suspicions from one to the next, back and forth, like a volleyball, and some of them are discharged and continue to visit you as civilians, and your presumptuous, pathetic, and pointless attempt to identify the shooter becomes harder and more complicated every day. The individual friendly fire is absorbed into the 'fire of our own forces,' a collective fire, and then slowly, slowly is transformed from army fire to civilian fire, and civilian fire to undefined fire, until the shooter himself is no longer sure whether one night he got up and shot his friend by mistake. And then I said to myself, if so, I need to shift direction, and instead of chasing after shadows to offer forgiveness to someone who doesn't need it or ask for it, let's demand that the army show me the place; let me go to the roof of this house in Tulkarm to understand what misled my son. But this is a story for another time. Now I want to sleep. What did you want to say?"

  "Please, Yirmi, don't say again that Nofar only seemed as if she wanted to throw herself ... because it was very real, Yirmi, believe me, the girl was in total despair at the funeral, and it still lingers."

  "Forgive me, Daniela," he says, distressed, "I didn't mean ... of course it was all real ... Nofar is a wonderful girl ... and her love for Eyal was wonderful too."

  11.

  IF INDEED HE intends to threaten Gottlieb, Amotz Ya'ari decides, it should be done carefully and politely, and not in the presence of his father, who out of romantic enthusiasm might just yank the phone from his hand in the middle of the call and wreck the subtlety of the threat with the indignant impatience of an old man who knows his time is up. He clears the taste of the seafood from his mouth with a Filipino cookie, pats Hilario on the head, and drives to the office.

  A drizzly Friday. Two in the afternoon. Throughout the neighborhood offices are already closed, but in the big room at Ya'ari's firm, a man and a woman are engaged in spirited conversation in front of a computer. The two young engineers each took a healthy chunk of time off during the week for their children's Hanukkah diversions, and now, on a free day, have abandoned their spouses to make up for lost time. Ya'ari is proud of the sense of duty he has instilled in his workers but does not join their discussion, lest they detain him with a question requiring a complicated answer. He smiles and waves, and without further ado sequesters himself in his office.

  Although he did not expect a second call from his wife, whose actual self he will embrace in another seventy-five hours, he is slightly disappointed by the silence. He dials Gottlieb's cell.

  It's urgent? It can't wait? grumbles the manufacturer. He's in a café, enjoying the company of fellow manufacturers; it's hard for him to talk and harder to hear. What is this? Because your wife isn't back yet from Africa, you have to bother me even on a Friday?

  "Very impressive of you to remember her schedule," Ya'ari says. "I see that over the years you've become one of the family."

  The maker of elevators lowers his defenses and is prepared to listen to a short speech, provided it is spoken loud and clearly. Ya'ari conveys the essence of his father's request: Gottlieb is to make new parts for a one-of-a-kind piston that grew old in a tiny ancient Jerusalem elevator. Why make them? Gottlieb wants to know. Why not replace the whole elevator, and at the same time widen it a little? It can't be widened, it's the narrow elevator of an old lady; it goes from a bedroom closet straight up to the roof. It's impossible to make it wider or to replace it. That's the situation.

  Gottlieb is in a hurry to rejoin his friends, whose gales of laughter are impeding the phone conversation, and so he promises that on Sunday he'll check out the capabilities of his old metal lathe, which for quite some years has been out of commission. You should know, he scolds Ya'ari, this is not for you, because you are a difficult person, but only because your old man is asking. What can I do, sighs the manufacturer. I have been attached to him for fifty years.

  Ya'ari now also requests the services of the woman technician who specializes in noises, to locate the source of the humming in the electrical system of this same elevator.

  "If you want to hire the musical ear of my expert," Gottlieb informs him with satisfaction, "you'll have to pay her separately. Not on my tab. She can take a formal day off, and you can play with her all you like."

  "But wait a minute, we also need her for the wind problem in the tower, and that's not on my account."

  "The wind complaint? Why does that keep coming back? We took that one off the docket. We agreed that we have no responsibility for anything that wails due to the failures of the construction company."

  "No, Gottlieb, listen, it's not that simple. I visited there this morning, and the wailing and roaring are really insufferable. And I also ran into that head of the committee, the bereaved tenant..."

  "What made you go there?" Gottlieb interrupts him angrily, "after I warned you not to go near the tower or that guy, who automatically makes you feel guilty over everything. They want us to incur major expenses, without our being at f
ault for anything. If they want to open up the elevators and examine the shaft, by all means—but on the condition that they pay for every minute of the technicians' time. Listen, Ya'ari, I'm warning you, if you're looking for trouble, go get mixed up in this by yourself. These winds do not interest me in any shape or form. I'm out of the whole deal."

  "You're not out of anything," Ya'ari answers evenly, "you have no choice. I promised this tenant, head of the committee, that the two of us, together with the architect and the construction company, will find the source of the problem. You can't let yourself off and just disappear. Because if you damage my credibility, in the future I'll cut you out of things that matter to you."

  "Like what, for example?"

  "For example, the new elevators for the Defense Ministry. Believe me, Gottlieb, if we order them from the Chinese, we'll save the state money."

  Now silence looms on the other side. Ya'ari hears the breathing of the maker of elevators, who feels a sharp wound to his pocketbook.

  "Now you're threatening me?"

  "If you like, call it a threat."

  "You know I can threaten you too."

  "Obviously, everyone in this country has someone he can threaten. Nobody has immunity."

  "You included."

  "Of course."

  "And this is how you threaten a man that a few minutes ago you said was a member of your family?"

  "It's because you're a member of the family," Ya'ari says, laughing.

  "Watch out, I'll complain about you to your father."

  "You watch out, he's the one who gave me the idea of threatening you."

  "So the two of you decided to ruin my weekend."

  "Nothing will get ruined, Gottlieb, my friend. For the time being we're talking not about money, just time. What do those winds wandering in the tower want from us, after all? That we track them down with patience and concentration. To provide them an honorable exit."

  12.

  OUTSIDE A HARD rain falls, a rapid downpour that began without warning, but the farm's great kitchen has been heated by cooking the dishes destined for the hungry band of scientists who will arrive tomorrow from the dig and stay for the weekend. Yirmiyahu's hand props up his head as if it might otherwise snap off from exhaustion and roll down the table between the greasy plates. His nighttime ride to the excavations—its purpose is still unclear to Daniela—was particularly fatiguing; Sijjin Kuang's friends, the stars and the moon, were hidden by heavy clouds, and she had to navigate by the trees and winds, which deceived her time after time. Now he can't keep his eyes open, and so he lumbers upstairs to his temporary room, while his sister-in-law stays at the big dining table and watches the chefs at work, smiling distractedly. The Africans are drawn to the mature white woman and are delighted to ask her to sample one newly cooked dish after another, until she, too, decides to go up to her room. The rain has ended as abruptly as it began, and a sparkling sun comes out to savor the world, but after her brother-in-law's scolding she dares not leave the compound by herself, even for a brief stroll.

  She wonders if her visit has gone on too long. Today there was a flight from Morogoro to Nairobi, and from there she could have reached Tel Aviv by dawn tomorrow, with one stopover in Amman. But yet another connection, and in Amman of all places, had frightened Amotz, and she herself had thought it not quite right to make a consolation visit all the way from Asia to Africa for only three nights. If only she had a Friday newspaper, she could even enjoy the time off from her husband and home, but there's not a shred of newsprint to be found in any language, and she can only hope that by the time she returns on Monday Amotz will not have thrown away everything worth reading.

  She asks the cooks if there might be a little transistor radio in the kitchen to link her to the wider world, and although they understand her request, they have no such device, but they promise her that the scientists arriving from the excavation site will be able to furnish her with up-to-date news. Out there in the canyon stands a big dish that collects stories of everything interesting and important in the world. However, in the meantime, she will have to do without connection to the world.

  But what she cannot ignore is a worsening headache. Is it just an ordinary headache, or a symptom of the high blood pressure that she first developed after her sister's death? The family doctor was not overly impressed and saw it mainly as an emotional reaction, so rather than prescribe a daily medicine he recommended a daily walk and weight loss, and instructed Amotz to monitor his wife's pressure now and then.

  A daily walk and losing weight do not much appeal to a woman disinclined to accept physical limitations on her free will. It's easier to roll up a sleeve and extend a bare arm to her husband, so he can strap the cuff around it and assure her that her sensations are harmless. But here on a remote farm in Africa, she must rely only on herself, and since two blood pressure pills are taped to her passport, there's no reason not to swallow one of them and bring the other back to Israel. She heads to her room, to her passport.

  But before taking the pill, she decides to have a few words with the Sudanese nurse. Surely Sijjin Kuang must have an instrument like her husband's. She returns to the kitchen, where the cooks direct her to the camp clinic, a small shack in back of the main building that in colonial days had been a stable for horses. There she finds the Sudanese asleep on the mat-covered floor, wrapped in a black robe, her long body folded like a giant bird's. Without waking her, Daniela glances around the modest infirmary, which reminds her of the one at the school where she teaches. A glassed-in cupboard holds rows of jars and bandages and adhesives, syringes and bottles of disinfectant. On a small table lie a stethoscope and a number of gleaming instruments for probing the orifices of the human body, and there in the corner hangs the blood-pressure machine.

  The sleeping nurse-driver is clearly recovering from her navigational adventures of the night before. Daniela quietly retreats to wait on a bench outside. Her headache has not let up; the little pill her husband gave her is tucked in her hand, and she wonders if she should just swallow it and do without the checkup. But she has the feeling that the touch of Sijjin's velvety desert fingers might do her even more good than the strong hand of her husband.

  She closes her eyes, allowing the peaceful hum of nature to ease her pain a bit. Aromas from the kitchen flow to her through the pure, clear air. Her distaste for kitchen work always rouses her dormant female guilt, so she changes position, lying down on the hard bench and folding her hands beneath her head as a pillow. It can't be that Shuli hid things from her. After the tragedy she would call her sister two or three times a day to give emotional support and have long heart-to-heart talks. Had Shuli known, found out even indirectly, that Yirmi had spent a night on the roof of a Palestinian house in Tulkarm, she would have told her immediately. But Shuli hadn't known. When the couple's sex life came to an end, so did the complete openness.

  Relaxation saturates her body, even on the hard bench. She grows drowsy, lulled by the rustle of native grasses. She believes she hears the faint sounds of a flute. Or maybe there is a radio here after all. A soft hand touches her. The Sudanese nurse, tall and serious, has placed a comforting hand on Daniela's shoulder and a finger to her own lips, warning her to keep silent. Don't budge, no sudden moves.

  About twenty meters away stands an unfamiliar black animal, like a giant cat, its thick bristly tail erect, raising two front paws with very long curly claws. Its sharp narrow mouth, like a small reptile's, is thrust toward a gold-colored snake, which rises from the grass with a quivering tongue and audibly exhales, as if into a silent flute.

  The two creatures are equally hypnotized, each wary of drawing nearer to the other. The black animal seems capable of subduing the snake with its jaws and claws, and might indeed be designed by nature to do so, yet it hesitates; perhaps it prefers to confront prey less audacious and dangerous. But how to back away from the snake without losing face? How to break off contact without damaging the dignity of its purposes? It therefore grow
ls more loudly and bares its jaws, so that the snake will stop cocking its flashy head and coiling its body with that whispering hiss. But the snake, too, has its pride, and though it cannot swallow or digest such a big black cat, it would at least like to shut it up.

  Sijjin Kuang silently leads Daniela into the clinic. It could take a while for those animals to find the courage to disengage, she tells her, keeping her voice down. Did you want me for something? And although Daniela's headache is gone, she asks her anyway to check her blood pressure and tell her if she should take the pill she has in her hand. The Sudanese nurse willingly complies. Unlike Amotz, she doesn't check her while seated, but has her lie down and asks her not merely to roll up her sleeve but also to remove her blouse.

  This is very pleasant for Daniela, and as she hoped and expected, the coal-black skin of the young woman's hands has a rich velvety touch. Sijjin Kuang also takes more care than her husband to strap the cuff properly around her upper arm. Does my white peeled flesh bother this sad young woman? Daniela asks herself. She is upset that Sijjin Kuang, now focused on the movement of the needle in the gauge, has seen only her aging belly and sagging arms, and not her breasts that have kept their youthful shape.