Friendly Fire

by A. B. Yehoshua

  "Your blood pressure is normal," Sijjin Kuang says in her good English, and helps Daniela get up and put her shirt back on. Beyond the open door it is quiet. During the examination the two animals outside must have mustered the courage to part, or else, who knows, maybe the black catlike animal is now dragging the golden snake, mangled, back to its lair.

  "I hear that you had a hard night," Daniela says sympathetically to the nurse as she puts away the instrument. "Yirmiyahu said you got lost a few times," she adds.

  Sijjin Kuang smiles, exposing perfect white teeth.

  "Your brother-in-law is a spoiled person," she says, astonishing Daniela with a remark that ignores her sympathy and instead casts an unexpected light on the man she has known since her childhood.

  13.

  FROM WITHIN THE elevator descending to the depths of the old Knesset, he wakes to the ring of his irate daughter-in-law reprimanding him: "What's with you, Grandpa? The kids are waiting for you to light candles."

  Agitated, he shakes off a deep, boundless sleep. When a man like him races between an old prune of eighty and an elderly father spoon-fed in a wheelchair, his sixty-one years seem light as air. But when he's alone in bed, in a dark room, he feels their full weight. Is it merely cumulative fatigue, or has the lack of the wife lying beside him greatly weakened his inherent readiness for the world?

  Guilt feelings about the two grandchildren waiting for him by the menorah spur him to action, and with amazing speed he throws on his clothes and, not pausing to wash his face, jumps into his car and races toward his son's house in the twilight of a slow Friday. As he sits at the Halacha junction in north Tel Aviv, a red light takes forever to change, and one scene from his dream returns, half-remembered. It was in the old Knesset. He had come dressed in a technician's uniform, tool box in hand, and a doorman in a visored cap and blue flannel suit let him through the inner door and ushered him into an old elevator, broad and well appointed, the kind he always liked. But instead of taking him up to the third floor, so he could look out at the roof of the apartment of his father's old lover, the doorman pushed the basement button and told him, be prepared for an endless descent, in Turkish times this was a deep cistern.

  He phones Efrat to find out whether to buy cake on the way, or ice cream, or something else to please her and the children. No, too late, his daughter-in-law scolds him, this time it's enough to just bring yourself, but hurry, the children are losing patience and will light the candles by themselves. What happened to you? You're usually so punctual.

  By now his blood is boiling. As it happens, Efrati, he mutters ironically, I actually work for a living. And he wants to persist and remind this indolent beauty of his sixty-one years, but he remembers his wife's warning to respect her pride, so he hastily hangs up, before a curse can slip from his lips. Yet to preserve his status in the eyes of his grandchildren he can't let himself show up empty-handed, so he stops in front of a brightly lit convenience store.

  There, amid a throng of teenagers, the sweet-toothed spirit of his wife descends upon him, and he extravagantly scoops up candies. Especially inviting are two ornate tubes shaped like canes and stuffed with colorful toffees, and two figurines, a boy and a girl, fashioned of dark chocolate.

  Neta and Nadi cling to him with love. The absence of a father automatically raises the grandfather's stock. He hugs and kisses them, then lightly hugs Efrat and brushes her cheek. He first felt free to give her a kiss only after Moran announced their engagement, and over the years, even after the two children, he has never dared show greater affection.

  "The candy only after dinner," he declares didactically, but too late. The detached head of the chocolate boy is already in Nadi's mouth. "You little cannibal," he says, planting a kiss on the toddler but forbidding him to keep eating the body of the headless boy.

  The menorah is ready, crowned by the shammash. Ya'ari turns over the box of candles in order to properly recite the blessings printed on the back. It would be poor form to garble the text in front of the children. But suddenly Neta insists that Grandpa say the blessings with a kippa on his head, just like her kindergarten teacher's husband.

  Efrat shuffles around in a shabby bathrobe, looking tired and wilted, her pretty face pale and her hair unkempt. Moran phoned in the morning and asked her and the kids to come visit tomorrow, she tells him as she searches for a kippa. Not easy to find one in this house, not even the paper kind they hand out at funerals. But clever Neta resourcefully cuts a skullcap of sorts from a sheet of red construction paper, fastening it into shape with staples. Ya'ari puts it on with a clownish smile and is about to light the candles when Nadi observes that he is a boy and not a girl and thus requires a kippa, too, so they wait for Neta to produce another cap, which almost covers her little brother's eyes.

  Now all is ready, and the excited children demand that the light be turned out so that the candles will banish the darkness, as the popular song goes. Efrat looks sad, sitting on the sofa in the dark, lost in thought. Is she pregnant again? Ya'ari wonders, excited, as he removes the shammash from its place and lights it, trying to read the first blessing by its glow and then the second. Mechanically, he starts singing "Maoz tsur," as he hands the candle to Neta, who lights the first candle and the second, then hesitantly hands the shammash over to Nadi, who is already standing on a little chair, poised to light the third and fourth. And when only the fifth is left, Ya'ari takes the shammash and turns to Efrat, Come, Efrati, you light a candle, too. She looks at him distantly and doesn't budge from her seat. I've already lit enough candles on this holiday, give it to Neta, and he gives the shammash to Neta, who lights the fifth candle; suddenly her brother goes berserk, first trying to knock over the burning menorah, and when his Grandpa stops him, he gets down on his knees like a Muslim at prayer and bangs his head against the floor, wailing furiously—why did his sister light the fifth candle and not he? And there is no way to quell his jealousy other than to extinguish the fifth candle and hand him the shammash. And he's still not satisfied: Why wasn't he the first to light the fifth candle?

  Over dinner Ya'ari tells his daughter-in-law and grandchildren about the little elevator that his father built for a Mrs. Bennett in Jerusalem, describing how it rose from the closet in the bedroom directly to the roof, and which part of the Old City you could still see from there. Afterward he talks about the woman herself, and jokes about the ancient love that was awakened between the builder and his client. His daughter-in-law is interested in the story. The possibility that Moran's grandfather had an adventure in Jerusalem in the 1950s tickles her imagination. She goes back and calculates the dates and years: when the elevator was built, when old Ya'ari's wife died, when the Parkinson's set in. With methodical nosiness she wants to reconstruct the whole picture, to ascertain how long during the life of Moran's grandmother, whom she'd known only in her last two years, did Moran's grandfather keep a secret lover in Jerusalem.

  Ya'ari attempts to protect his parents, with little success. Efrat cross-checks the dates and proves to him that his father is no saint. Why should he be a saint? asks Ya'ari. Because you and Daniela want to give the impression that you always do the right thing, that you're perfect people. Ya'ari chuckles. What do you mean, perfect? We have our faults. Of course, his daughter-in-law giggles, too, and her reddening face reassumes its wonderful sheen. But somehow, she insists, you manage to persuade all of us that your faults are actually virtues. Amotz laughs heartily and keeps his cool. Maybe Daniela, but not me. And he looks approvingly at the blush that has returned to his daughter-in-law's face.

  Nadi eats the limbs and body of the chocolate boy and wants to eat Neta's chocolate girl too. But she succeeds in moving it to higher ground, safe from his jaws.

  On television, standing beside a fighter jet, the Minister of Defense lights the Hanukkah candles and sings, in a pleasant voice, "He Who performed miracles for our forefathers." Nofar calls and chats affectionately with her sister-in-law and also asks her niece and nephew to kiss her over th
e phone. Ya'ari hesitantly takes the receiver, wondering with mild trepidation whether the landlords have revealed his impulsive visit to her room. It turns out they kept their promise, but Ya'ari's father did tell his granddaughter about her father's visit to an old client in Jerusalem, and she's disappointed that he didn't think to come visit her at the hospital. She would have taken him to the trauma unit, where she is now working at her own request, so he could start believing in the resurrection of the dead.

  Nadi has landed on the sofa, asleep. Ya'ari helps his granddaughter put on her pajamas, covers her with a blanket and reads her a story about a family that doesn't care that a mouse is roaming freely in their house. The dishes are piled in the sink, the tablecloth is stained, the Hanukkah candles dwindle. His restless daughter-in-law paces from room to room, making call after call to find a babysitter, but it turns out that on a Friday night at the height of the holiday no young girl is willing to pass up her friends' party. Listen, Efrati, he says kindly to the desperate woman, I'll stay here this evening with the kids. You also deserve a little joy in your life. She looks up with amazement, not knowing if he's being ironic or serious. But it could be till late, she warns her father-in-law. Whatever you want, he answers graciously. I caught up on my sleep this afternoon; staying up won't be a problem.

  Why stay up? his daughter-in-law says. She'll spread a sheet and blanket on the sofa and give him one of Moran's clean T-shirts and a pair of sweatpants, and he can sleep peacefully here till morning. Now he is taken aback. I don't understand—you're planning to come home only in the morning? No way to know, she says with a mysterious smile. It depends how things go at the party. What things is she talking about? Ya'ari wonders to himself. Maybe he ought to set a curfew for the mother of his grandchildren and get her back here by midnight. But it's too late for that. Efrat has come alive: in an instant the depressed and worn-out housewife has been transformed into a happy young woman, a radiant beauty, her heels clicking proudly about the apartment. She puts on a dress that fashionably exposes all that may and must be exposed of a woman, barring her nipples, which still belong to her husband, and on her unblemished skin she strews some sort of sparkling stardust, meant to ease the entry of a lovely woman into tonight's banquet of the gods.

  From the look she casts his way, it's clear she is waiting for a rave review for her performance, but Ya'ari prefers to keep quiet. Daniela has already warned him against giving his daughter-in-law the sort of compliments that a man gives a woman. You do not look at your daughter-in-law through the eyes of a man. Even what was permitted to her father is forbidden to you. Indeed she was right. For as she bends over her sleeping son, lying beside him on the sofa, to determine whether she ought to move him to his bed, the perfumed breasts that nearly brush his face, and in particular the tiny tattoo engraved above one of them, ignite a strange desire that for a brief moment takes his breath away.

  "Don't move him. Let him stay here with me. Even if he wakes up, I'll manage with him."

  "The main thing," she says, astonishing him, "is not to show signs of fear or weakness, because then he gets crazier."

  "Gets crazier? You're not exaggerating?"

  To be on the safe side, in case of an emergency, she puts Baby Mozart into the VCR. From Neta's infancy Ya'ari remembers fondly the little railway cars carrying adorable animals and the dancing of these animals, and the car that vanishes and then reappears and reconnects and disappears again, and the sea lions sliding and climbing and sliding and climbing, all of this to the masterful music of Mozart, which according to researchers calms the souls of toddlers and at the same time sharpens and broadens their minds. If such a video had been available in my day, Ya'ari likes to complain, I wouldn't be a mere engineer today, but rather a major scientist.

  Overriding his objections, the gorgeous mother insists on tiptoeing in her high heels into the children's bedroom to say good bye to her drowsy girl, and to allay any potential separation anxiety by telling her that her grandpa, strong and alert, will protect her from evil spirits and bad dreams. Half-asleep, the girl mews a little protest. For the life of me, Ya'ari protests, I don't see the point of all this frankness. But Efrat's beauty apparently obliges her to report her every movement, so that her husband's imagination will not torment him. Now she wraps herself in a thin blue shawl that matches the color of her eyes.

  "You won't be cold?"

  "It's fine, I'll be driven door to door."

  And before leaving, glowing with happiness and gratitude, she wants to kiss and hug tightly the available old babysitter, but he pulls away, lightly touching her hair, so that her flesh will not get too close to his.

  "Go ... go ... you're wasting time."

  The moment the door closes a heartrending cry bursts from the bedroom: Imma, Imma'leh, where are you? And when he hurries in and turns on the light, he finds his granddaughter, a darling duplicate of the vanished mother, standing in her bed and stubbornly wailing a lament: Imma, Imma, Imma'leh, where are you? Why did you go?

  Neta is considered a well-behaved and rational child, and compared with her wild brother is sometimes defined as an angel come down from heaven. Ya'ari is therefore certain he will easily be able to calm the crying that has left her anguished and shaking. But when he tries to take her in his arms, she only increases her shrieking, propping her head with her little hand as if it were about to fall off.

  He shuts the door to the children's room so that her cries will not wake her brother, but it's too late. The toddler is pounding on the closed door now with his little fist, and when he enters—barefoot, agitated, red-eyed—he climbs at once onto his bed and sits in a weird cross-legged position, coolly studying his blubbering sister, waving his little foot like a pendulum.

  "But I'm here, I'm with you, I'm taking care of you," Ya'ari tries to convince his granddaughter that she has not been abandoned, but her weeping has its own momentum now and nothing will stop it. She is still holding her head in her hand, as if she felt a stroke coming on, and out of that vertigo of lamentation, throttled now and then by deep internal sobbing, throbs the relentless dirge: Imma, Imma, Imma'leh, where are you? Where did you go?

  Ya'ari is desperate. He anticipated a battle with Nadi, but not with Neta, who is always willing to cooperate. And so, after unsuccessfully trying to calm her with promises, he decides on a new tactic.

  "But how can this be, Neta, my darling, a big girl like you, look how your little brother is sitting quietly."

  He instantly regrets his words, as a squawk of deep humiliation cuts into the weeping.

  So they sit, the three of them, trapped in a loop of lamentation and monotonous wailing whose immediate cause is by now forgotten, as if performing a ritual of ancient, prehistoric loss. And her brother sits on his bed, still waving his foot. He is only two years and a few months old, but his broad, strong face testifies that he is bound to grow into an aggressive man, if not a violent one. He reminds me of somebody. But who? It is a question Ya'ari has asked himself countless times. He smiles softly at his grandson and asks for advice: So what now, Nadi, how do we calm your sister down?

  "Nana wants her Imma," the toddler sums up the situation for his grandpa.

  14.

  "I WANTED THE feel of that roof at night, but the military would only approve a visit in the daytime. Finally we compromised on late afternoon, which extended a bit into darkness. The company commander was friendly and tried very hard to satisfy my curiosity and to help me understand. And because he was an experienced and serious officer who knew the local residents well and wasn't afraid of his shadow, he gave himself the authority to deviate slightly from the instructions of his superiors and allowed me to remain standing on the roof, on the spot where Eyali stood, until after sundown, when lights began to go on in the houses."

  At the African farm, evening is also not far off. Yirmi sits with his back to the open window, facing his bed, where his sister-in-law now lies with the novel she read slowly through the afternoon spread open at her side.r />
  Yirmi has obviously slept soundly, without interruption. His eyes are wide open, his face is free of anger, and he exudes a pleasant, freshly washed smell. He has exchanged the sweaty clothes of his nighttime trip for clean and ironed ones; he knocked delicately on the door to his room, and only after verifying that Daniela was not asleep and was quite willing for him to enter did he do so, and turned his desk chair toward the bed and sat down with the luminous African plain stretching behind him.

  "And of course it never occurred to Shuli that you were going there."

  "Of course not. You think I would scare her, let her worry that she might lose me too in the same place? Even after I went there I told her nothing, because I knew she would be sure, and rightly so, that I would want to go back."

  "And you did want to go back..."

  "I didn't only want to, I did. But alone, without any Israeli beside me."

  "And you didn't tell Amotz either."

  "That's right. Because I knew that there were no secrets between you two, and the minute you knew—you, who can't keep a shred of a secret—it would get to your sister at the speed of sound."

  Daniela tries to object, but she knows he is right: it is hard for her to keep a secret from her loved ones. She pulls at the blanket to cover her bare feet and suddenly longs for her mother, who died two years after Nofar was born.

  "But how could you get permission to go on that roof?" she asks testily.

  "It wasn't hard at all, amazingly enough. In the bereavement department of the Defense Ministry, there's this little office set up especially to deal with odd requests from parents, or children, or siblings who have lost a loved one. A middle-aged official sits there, who is himself a longtime bereaved father. He works as a volunteer alongside a woman officer who is very skilled and efficient. She makes the connections with army powers that be. A visit by parents to the place where their child fell is not unusual, provided that the area is no longer a war zone, such as Sinai or the Golan Heights or even the Lebanese border. But in the occupied territories, it's a complicated affair because there's no battlefield and yet the whole thing is a battlefield. But they still have enough flexibility to accommodate a parent, or even a brother or sister, who wants to experience the feel of the place where their loved one was killed, and perhaps also to understand why, for what. You get what I'm saying?"