"Every word."
"And my request received special attention. Because we're talking here about Israeli gunfire, where even after the official investigation is done there's always some hidden aftergrowth. So one could say that not only did the office move quickly to assist me, they were expecting me."
"What did you want to know?"
"I wanted to check."
"To check what?"
"Why for the soldiers lying in ambush he turned from a hunter into the hunted."
"But they explained it to you. He got the time wrong and came down too early from the roof."
"He did not get the time wrong, Daniela. I've already warned you more than once to drop that idea. Eyali was not a man who got the time wrong. The watch they returned to us, which was on his wrist when he was killed, showed the correct time."
"Maybe he got excited, maybe he was scared."
"No, he was not scared. Your Moran was a cowardly child, but not Eyali. Enough of your maybes, and don't try to teach me what I know better than you do. Just listen."
She reddens. But she can feel his inner torment, and without saying a word she nods, giving her full attention.
"I had never been in Tulkarm, even though the town is half an hour's drive from Netanya. We once dared to go to Hebron, and we visited the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. We went to eat at a restaurant in Ramallah, we drove through Jericho, and many years ago we might have also visited Nablus and Jenin. But not Tulkarm. What is there to do in a small border town? Just a town, not terribly neglected, rather clean, with wide streets, avenues, and groves and orchards here and there. And houses of all shapes and sizes. Private homes of one story, or two or even three. Also houses higher than that. And of course a little refugee camp on the side. But not so bad. It's livable. There are surely worse places in the land of Israel.
"And sometimes soldiers are assigned to the rooftops. As a lookout, for an ambush. For one night only, or a few nights. And there are some prominent rooftops, strategic ones, where a whole platoon sits for a month. And under those rooftops live people. Families with children, with loves and hatreds. Not so bad. The world does not collapse. The main thing is to live.
"Remember that our story took place before the second intifada, when the whole thing was a mess, when chaos reigned on both sides. And this officer—he was a successful lawyer who had returned to the army in search of adventure—Eyali's company commander, was altogether on the other side of town that same night, also staking out that notable wanted man, who came to what end I still have no idea. Maybe he's hanging out with the heavenly tribunal, which is what that clown from the security services said, or maybe they gave up looking for him. And this officer, he knows everything, and tools me around Tulkarm as if he were in Ramat-Gan, in a fancy jeep, heavy and armored, with a silent soldier sitting in it with a machine gun. And he shows me the place where Eyali was shot, near a pile of building material, standing by a water faucet, and he points out to me the doorway of the building he rushed out of and explains where the ambush was, and with his two hands he demonstrates the angle from which the bullets were fired, one and then another. I've still got my agenda of identifying the shooter, so I ask him, By the way, if that's where the shots came from, who was the soldier that fired them? And the officer, an intelligent man, winks at me and says, Why do you care? After all, you've gotten to know them all; they're all good guys. Why should we incriminate one of them?
"All right, I say to him, then at least let's go up on the roof. It was five o'clock in the afternoon, and I, Daniela, remember every detail. I climb the stairs, and some of the flights have no banister, and here and there the wall isn't plastered either, and I pass open doorways and nod shalom to entire families, children and adults, old men and women, cooking, sewing, doing homework—whole lives in this building, three actual floors, though not completely finished, but with this wide roof in place at the top, full of laundry hanging to dry, colorful sheets flapping in the wind. And the tenants did not seem surprised that again the Jews wanted to see the world from the Palestinian rooftop, and if they are bringing along an elderly civilian, it must mean something important."
"When was this exactly?"
"In the autumn. Three months after he was killed. The weather was getting cooler. That mute soldier, with the machine gun, was a Druze, and they picked him in particular so he could translate into Arabic who I was and what I wanted. But there was no need for an interpreter, because among the locals there is always someone who knows Hebrew. For example, a pregnant woman, a lovely young lady studying history at Ruppin College, near Netanya. The soldier who was killed, no, she doesn't remember him, but her father will be home soon from the orchard, and he perhaps knows more about the 'work accident.'"
"Work accident?"
"That's the expression we use when they get killed by their own mistakes—for instance, while preparing a bomb—so they pay us back with the same language; why not? Okay, we're now on the roof, and the Druze soldier leans his machine gun on the railing, and the officer describes the sector for me, and I'm walking around from one side to the other; maybe I'll find some clue, some sign of whatever caused Eyal to come down from the roof in a suspicious manner. And evening starts falling with sort of a blue mist, and the pregnant student, who came up after us, asks if she should take down any laundry, and the officer says there's no need, and he points out to the west, where Israeli lights are going on in the coastal plain, so close, close enough to touch."
"You could see the sea from there?"
"Apparently at one time you could, but today, the new tall buildings block the view. That's what the officer told me. And in his opinion, it's a good thing."
"Why good?"
"So they wouldn't desire the sea as well."
"That's what he said? Disgraceful..."
"It was maybe because his patience was running out. The father, who was supposed to arrive any minute from the orchard, never showed up. Someone apparently told him that Jews were waiting for him on the roof of his house, so he preferred to visit some sick uncle and not undergo another interrogation, where he'd have to repeat everything he already told the army, that is, nothing of importance. Does this old story interest you at all?"
"Every word."
He gets up and takes a long look out the window. Then he paces the room for a moment, picks up her novel, has a look inside, and replaces it facedown, the way it was.
"What's it about?"
"Not now. If you want, I'll try to finish it before I go home and I'll leave it for you."
"God forbid ... you insist on not understanding. Don't you dare leave behind one letter of Hebrew."
She gives him a piercing look.
"So the father didn't come. And this pregnant student, who spoke Hebrew quite elegantly and gently, saw that we were getting impatient, so she called in her mother, a woman in traditional Arab dress, chubby, knowing not a word of Hebrew, and with a mischievous spirit. The mother did remember the soldier. She didn't see him, but she had heard something from her husband. In the middle of the night, on his own initiative, he brought Eyali some strong coffee, and also a pail, which the soldier had asked him for."
"On his own he brought him coffee?"
"So he would stay awake. That's the way the daughter explained it. And when I asked her, what did your father care if he was asleep, he wasn't protecting you, but the other way around, the mother looked at me with her warm eyes, and even though she knew I was the father of the soldier who was killed, she said to me unabashedly that her husband was afraid that if the Israeli soldier fell asleep, he would have the urge to kill him. But a soldier who was awake would be able to defend himself. So he brought him strong coffee. And the pregnant student translated all this in her delicate accent, while exchanging mischievous smiles with her mother."
"A complicated Arab. Bringing coffee so he won't have the urge to kill?"
"That's how she translated it. Maybe in Arabic it wasn't exactly an urge but a slightly d
ifferent word. But so you don't misunderstand, this whole conversation on the roof was in a friendly spirit, everyone smiling. The officer was smiling too; only the Druze with the machine gun stayed serious."
"And then?"
"And then we really did have to get out of there, because by that time we had broken the rules completely, but I knew that this roof would continue to preoccupy me, that I would need to better understand the coffee, the bucket. Maybe that pregnant student, with her sweet lovely Hebrew, was also a factor—I mean, not she herself, but her pregnancy, or more precisely, the idea that the baby she would give birth to would also be crawling around on this rooftop. By the way, did you know that Efrat..." He hesitates.
"Efrat what?"
15.
GRADUALLY, NETA'S LAMENT over her treacherous mother subsides. The choked-up cries are quieter, the duration between them grows longer, and the intensity of the anger and anxiety they express diminishes, though as if to preserve their honor they do not cease at once but instead die down slowly. Neta no longer has the strength to stand and hold her head theatrically, and she slowly slides down to sit on her bed. Finally, her reedy body folds up into the fetal position. The grandfather does not intervene in this process, but sits patiently, not moving, not uttering a word. From time to time he closes his eyes to lend encouragement to the girl's drowsiness. Nadi watches sternly, then suddenly gets off his bed and leaves the room, and Ya'ari motions with a finger for him to be quiet, so as not to interfere with his sister's collapse into slumber. He waits a while, until sleep has overtaken her entirely, then turns out the light and covers her with a blanket.
In the living room the candles have long since gone out. The only light comes from the kitchen. He looks for the boy but cannot find him. The exterior door is locked, and so is the door to the terrace. He looks in the bathroom, but the child isn't there. He calls, Nadi, Nadi, but there is no reply. For a moment he is seized with panic, but since his son's apartment is not large, he quickly checks the clothes closets and behind the washing machine, until he remembers the child's favorite hiding place, under his parents' bed. And there indeed lies the boy, like a gray sack. The grandfather turns on the light, but the child screams, Turn it off, turn it off, Nadi isn't here. So then Ya'ari tries to play a game in the dark and pretend to be someone who can't find his grandchild, but this time, safe under his parents' bed, the boy refuses to cooperate with the familiar game and starts screaming. Ya'ari tries to crawl under and get to him, but the child pushes him away, scratches his hand, crawls out the other side, stamps over to the locked door, and begins to kick it with his bare foot.
He doesn't want his mother or his father. His anger goes back to the fifth candle that his sister lit before him. Ya'ari therefore tries to undo the insult by cleaning the remnants of wax from the menorah and replacing all five candles. At first Nadi can hardly believe that his grandfather would go to such lengths to compensate him, but when he sees Grandpa turning on the lights, putting the kippa back on, reciting the blessings again, and placing the burning shammash in his little hand so he can light all five candles, his wrath is soothed and a little smile quivers on his tormented face.
But the smile turns out to be transitory. The spirited toddler, complicated and uncompromising, suddenly decides that a second lighting of candles on the same evening is not the real thing, that it is a ruse on his grandfather's part to pacify his jealousy of his elder sister's birthright. For a minute or two he studies with hostility the five colorful candles and the shammash burning quietly in the menorah, then suddenly blows them out like candles on a birthday cake, knocks the smoking menorah over and shoves it to the ground, then bursts into a scream and runs to the front door and kicks it hard, and calls his father's name.
Now he understands that Efrat's warning was not an exaggeration. Moran, apparently out of embarrassment, generally reports to his parents only his little boy's health problems. Ya'ari grabs the child forcefully, rips him away from the door, lifts him up and holds him tight in his arms. Nadi thrashes wildly, trying to get free, menacing his grandfather's hand with his teeth, trying to bite it. But Ya'ari, although surprised by the child's strength, won't let go his grip.
The toddler's resistance grows weaker, but when Ya'ari lays him down on the sofa and turns off the light, the boy springs up and runs to kick again at the front door, and the blow to his bare foot inspires more desperate howling. Ya'ari is again forced to grasp him in his arms. And to distract him, he puts on the Baby Mozart tape that Nadi has grown up with, which still works its magic.
And while he clasps the child in his arms in the dark, trains and ladders begin moving on the screen, and fountains and seesaws, cloth dolls of friendly animals, and the marvelously simple music of a composer who died in the prime of life reconcile a grandfather and his grandson.
The child's attention is focused on the sights and sounds so familiar to him; still, it's hard to tell whether he's still trying to break free of his grandfather or clinging to him tightly. Ya'ari remains on his feet, because when he tries to sit down on the sofa, the child bursts into a shriek of protest. And so they stand there, while delightful images flicker past them, conceived by well-meaning educators in tranquil California, and after the last note is played, and the screen goes dark, the child mumbles feebly, Again, Grandpa...
And Ya'ari has no choice but to rewind the tape.
Now, with his grandson's head on his shoulder, Ya'ari has a moment to study closely the contours of his face; he finally identifies the memory that eluded him, understanding why it escaped him before. Many years ago he also stood in the dark clutching a toddler in his arms, one who resembled this grandson. But that had been in silence, without musical accompaniment. It was on a visit to Jerusalem, before Moran was born, when he and Daniela had offered to babysit little Eyali so that Shuli and Yirmi could go out and enjoy themselves—and so he and Daniela would have a quiet hideaway for lengthy lovemaking.
The infant image of the nephew who was killed by friendly fire, flung out of the distant past and caught again in his arms, suffuses Ya'ari with a pain diluted by sweet nostalgia for his own youth. To the music of Mozart he hugs his little grandson tight, as if to inoculate him with the strong confidence he has acquired during his own life.
When the Mozart tape completes its second screening, and Nadi mumbles, half-asleep, More, Grandpa, he decides not to replay the pleasant tunes a third time but to try a fresh approach with a different video. And from the stack of tapes he grabs one from an unmarked box.
As soon as it starts to run he realizes that he has made a mistake, yet he does not stop it. This is not a tape for children, this is not even a tape for grown-ups, this is a tape that he would never have suspected his son and daughter-in-law of taking an interest in.
Although in recent years sex scenes even in mainstream films have become more brazenly explicit, they are brief—it always seems to Ya'ari that the actors are afraid they won't be up to the task when called upon to feign passion that is not their own. But this video has no story or plot, no hidden relationships among its characters: their sole purpose is to have sex, natural, open sex without impersonation or shame, accompanied by the thumping of an unseen drum.
His sleep-heavy grandson is straining his arms, and he extends a finger to stop the cassette, but the expression on the face of a young cropped-haired woman as an older man undresses her arrests him. Something in her embarrassed smile and her instinctive attempt to hide her breasts and shield her nakedness indicates that this pretty young woman is not accustomed to making love in front of the camera. It might well be the debut of a hard-up American student looking to finance her education.
The young woman closes her eyes, throws back her head, and opens her mouth wide, but her body keeps wrestling with the man who will soon demand everything from her, and this panic mixed with pleasure fascinates the viewer in the dark. Distant memories of his young wife in the days following the wedding stir his desire.
And then he hurries to sh
ut off the video; he snatches it from the player and returns it to its box, then sticks it into the middle of the stack of tapes. He carries the sleeping toddler to his bed, changes his diaper for the night, and covers him with a blanket.
16.
"WHAT DOES EFRAT have to do with this?" She again demands an answer.
Beyond the open window, at the horizon of the plain, the moon has shed the diaphanous haze and gleams sharp and bright.
"Efrat herself obviously has nothing to do with this," Yirmiyahu says finally. "By the way, when exactly was Nadi born? Do you know you almost didn't tell us about him?
"Nadi was born after I was here with Amotz, and at that point I didn't think Shuli was much interested in relatives."
Yirmi falls silent. He gets up from the chair and again walks around the room. Once more he distractedly picks up the novel, reads a few sentences, then puts it down. Daniela says nothing, waits.
"And still, her pregnancy turned out to be relevant. Because not long after your visit here, we got a letter from her, telling us that she was expecting."
"A letter from Efrat? Why did she write you? What did she want from you?"
"She asked our permission to call the boy she was expecting Eyal."
"Really?" Daniela is astounded. "I had no idea ... she didn't say a thing. She wrote in her own name, or Moran's too?"
"Only her own. She wrote that Moran didn't know of her wish. What surprised us was that at the end of the fourth or fifth month, she was already talking so confidently about her son and planning his name."
Friendly Fire Page 23