Friendly Fire

by A. B. Yehoshua

  "Yirmi, nowadays, not like in our time, the scanning they do of the embryo is so comprehensive and precise that you can know not only its sex but also the condition of every organ in its body. You can even predict if the developing child will be nice or not."

  "And if he won't be nice, what then?"

  "That depends on the parents." Her eyes smile, but a bit sadly, and her heart suddenly goes out to her daughter-in-law.

  "So how was the birth?"

  "Difficult. They had to get him out by Caesarian, he became tangled up and turned upside down. But how did you respond to her? I hope you didn't hurt her."

  "I don't know exactly what went through Shuli's mind when we got the letter, because I didn't even give her a chance to think it over. That very minute I wrote Efrat my absolute refusal. I thanked her warmly for her touching intentions, yes, definitely touching, but unthinkable. You think about it, too, Daniela: Why put the burden of the dead on a child not yet born? And if I was already starting to detach, the last thing I needed was to get entangled with a new human being. By the way, what kind of child did he turn into? Nice or not?"

  Sixth Candle

  1.

  WHEN SHE GETS home she is careful not to turn on any lights, so as not to call attention to the lateness of the hour, but when she sees her babysitter lying curled on the couch in his clothes and shoes, she nudges him gently. For a moment Ya'ari imagines that his wife has returned from Africa, and the thought of the end of the journey showers joy on his sleeping soul. But the voice of his daughter-in-law, imploring him to take off his shoes and put on Moran's T-shirt and sweatpants, dissolves his dream in a flash. The Hanukkah party has redoubled Efrat's radiance; luckily, her flimsy shawl is still draped around her shoulders, so he won't have to deal again in the dark with the perfumed cleavage of the young woman who is leaning over him at 2:15 in the morning and wondering why he didn't get himself better organized for bed.

  "Your children wore me out so much, that even your hard sofa managed to put me to sleep."

  Efrat is surprised that a technical expert like him didn't realize that this sofa can be folded out. She left him a sheet and blanket, after all, plus clean sweatpants, so why didn't he make himself a bed and go to sleep? Get up, get up, I'll teach you how the sofa opens ... it's really simple.

  "No, forget it, Efrati, I'm going home."

  But pangs of conscience over the delightful party that ran so late harden her in her refusal to accept the nighttime departure of the grandfather who executed his duty so faithfully. No, she will not let him drive on a holiday weekend night, when the drunks have begun to take to the road. Moran would not forgive her if something should happen to him. And she tugs his arm and stands him on his feet, and with uncharacteristic quickness opens the sofa, to prove to him that comfortable sleep is also possible at her house. She fits the sheet and spreads the blanket, and hands him the folded T-shirt and sweatpants. No, says her stern gaze, you are not as young and strong as you think. Lie down, and I'll close the blinds so the sun won't wake you. And in the morning I'll make sure the kids don't bother you.

  "Please, Amotz," she says, "do it for me, wait till it gets light."

  He cannot remember this beauty ever pleading, to him or to others. Maybe she is trying through him to expiate some guilt that's weighing on her.

  "The sun is unimportant," he mumbles as he sees her flipping the switch and lowering all the blinds. "In any case I get up before it does."

  And although it seems so easy and natural to go home, he surrenders to his daughter-in-law, who apparently turns into an efficient homemaker only in the dead of night. She drops the shawl from her shoulders and brings him another pillow, then bare-armed she slaps it again and again, as if it were the source of sin in her home, and gives him a clean towel and quickly departs, to enable him to change from his wrinkled clothes into his son's sleeping outfit.

  Although the sweatpants belong to the fruit of his own loins, he is reluctant to slip into them, not least for fear they'll be tight on him. He puts on only the T-shirt, and lifts the blinds a bit so the sun will not forget him. Then he lies down on his back on the wide sofa bed and covers himself with the blanket.

  In fact, he has never before spent a whole night at his son's home. In the early days after Nadi's Caesarian birth, when Daniela stayed to help Moran out, sometimes remaining all night, he would always go home to sleep. And now, for no reason, even though his own bed is only a few kilometers from here, he has agreed to stay with his grandchildren, lying close to where his daughter-in-law readies herself for sleep. She takes an endless shower, and even after the slit of light under her closed door has gone out, music is still playing in her room, soft and annoying.

  If he were to leave now, she couldn't stop him. But his fear that she will sleep through the morning while the children wander around the house neglected gets him to his feet only to knock on her door and whisper irritably: Efrati, if you want me to stay here, at least turn down that weird music.

  2.

  THAT SAME ANTICIPATED sun will rise too late to wake his wife in East Africa. Well before dawn, she is roused by the engine noise of the two pickup trucks delivering the scientific team to the base camp for their weekend break. From her high window, under a sky still swirling with stars, she can make out the silhouettes of a few of them as they alight from the vehicles, dragging knapsacks and duffels.

  Tonight, the head of the team, the Tanzanian Seloha Abu, and the Ugandan archaeologist, Dr. Kukiriza, are tired, silent, and lost in thought, like soldiers returning from a difficult mission or arduous training. They even had a casualty: the Tunisian woman, Zohara al-Ukbi, ill with malaria. They carefully lower her onto a stretcher. The circle of respect and concern that forms around her is soon joined by the white administrator and the Sudanese nurse, who lean in the dim light toward her suffering face, wish her well, and obtain her permission to house her in the infirmary.

  One after another the scientists disappear through the main doorway en route to their rooms on the first and second floors, leaving behind them cardboard boxes filled with fossils and fragments of rock. And the elderly groundskeeper, as Daniela's loyal friend and devoted chaperone, takes all these into the kitchen.

  Perhaps because of the old elevator shaft that never housed an elevator, echoes of the scientists' voices filter into her room, and the sound of a lively flow in the water pipes testifies that it's not sleep the exhausted diggers want most, but a quick return to a civilized condition.

  Although it is not yet four A.M., and she is entitled to go back to bed, Daniela realizes that the presence of the team will make it impossible for her to recover her interrupted sleep. And so when the first rays of light begin to pierce the big kitchen windows, the Israeli guest appears, washed and smiling and properly made up, and is greeted convivially by the two South African geologists, who have decided on a big breakfast before they shower or sleep. Because they still appreciatively remember the tourist's rapt attention to the comments of their colleague Kukiriza and have not forgotten their own silence on that occasion, they invite the white woman to join in their meal, so they can expand her understanding of the scientific purpose of the dig, this time from a geological standpoint.

  "We wanted to tell you," one of them says, "that Jeremy surprised us when he brought you along three days ago, and the interest you showed in the work of the team made us very happy. It is clear to us, of course, that this interest is only out of politeness, yet the way in which you asked and listened left a good taste with all of us, and when we heard you were still here, and we would meet you again, we had another reason to be glad about our weekend. Am I exaggerating?" He suddenly turns with concern to his friend, who has been nodding in spirited agreement while scrambling egg after egg and mixing in chopped vegetables and bits of sausage.

  "You see," the first geologist continues, "we work in total isolation. Our excavation site does not appear on any tourist route, and so visitors do not happen by, not even black people, so t
hat we may explain to them what we aim to achieve. The only two whites we've seen came to us one year ago, and they were representatives of UNESCO in Paris, financial people who were not here to take an interest and to learn but only to make sure that we were not needlessly wasting money. Our connection with universities and research institutes is only by correspondence, and before we get an answer so much time passes that we almost forget what the question was. Therefore all interest, even what comes by chance, we greatly appreciate. Your brother-in-law is an honest and efficient man, but he finds it hard to understand our intentions. The more we try to explain to him what we are looking for, the more he gets confused about periods, not by thousands of years but by millions. But of course dating is the heart of the matter, the main struggle we face. This is what gives importance to the stones that capture or encase the fossils; here is manifested the contribution of the geologist, without which no evolutionary conclusion may be drawn to explain who survived and why they survived, who became extinct and why, and what price was paid by the survivor, and who benefited from the extinction."

  Daniela flashes a pleasant smile at the exuberant young man, whose English is almost a mother tongue. And before the huge omelet bubbling in the skillet finishes capturing and encasing the vegetables and meat, he hastens to set on the table, as an appetizer, a fragment of rock to illustrate his lecture.

  Now, in the brightening light of day, she learns that the two young men are M.A. candidates from the University of Durban, Absalom Vilkazi and Sifu Sumana, and Daniela listens to their explanations appreciatively and patiently, with the mature serenity of a woman who in three years will be sixty but is unconcerned by her advancing age, trusting in the faithfulness of her husband.

  3.

  EVEN ON THIS gray, wintry Saturday morning, the children get up early. He senses the feathery footsteps of his granddaughter, who approaches the sofa to check whether Grandpa has been replaced in the middle of the night by a subcontractor; and she doesn't settle for the familiar head resting on the pillow but pulls down the blanket a little to confirm that the body is his as well. She does this cautiously and with restraint, despite the laughter which seems about to erupt from inside her, and Ya'ari clamps his eyelids tight and keeps his face toward the wall, curious to see how his granddaughter will handle his slumber. First she tries to tug lightly at his hair, and when there is no response, she tickles the back of his neck; she seems caught between a desire to wake him and reluctance to make outright contact with an old man's strange body. Ya'ari remains frozen, still and unmoving. I know, Grandpa, that you're not asleep, a sweet whisper wafts by his ear, but he, face to the wall, stubbornly refuses to respond. She hesitates, then climbs onto the sofa, hops over his body in her bare feet, and installs herself between him and the wall. With a small but determined hand she now tries to pry open his eyelids. But I know you're not asleep, she says with self-justification.

  Ya'ari pops open his eyes. See, she declares victoriously, I knew you weren't asleep. And then, without a word, he sweeps up the blanket and pulls it over his five-year-old granddaughter, carbon copy of her mother. He speaks straight into the blue eyes that dance with laughter, demanding an explanation:

  "Why did you cry last night, after Imma left? You know that I know how to take care of you just like Grandma Daniela. So tell me, why did you keep crying like that? Just to make me crazy?"

  The girl listens attentively, but she seems disinclined to answer. The laughter in her eyes subsides a bit, and still clutched in his embrace, she tries to evade the gaze that seeks to probe her hidden thoughts. Since she is his first grandchild, she has always received the royal treatment. From her earliest years she got used to climbing into their bed at their house, lying between him and Daniela and chatting about life. But now, instead of a forgiving and indulgent grandma, on her other side there is only a bare silent wall, and she seems to start feeling mildly anxious next to the grandfather who insists on an explanation for the crying marathon.

  "Do you remember how you held your head, as if it were going to fall off?"

  Her pupils contract with the effort of recollection, and she gives a little nod of confirmation.

  "And do you remember," Ya'ari persists, "how you wailed away for half the night, Imma, where are you? Why did you go? You remember?"

  The child nods slowly, shocked or scared by the grandpa who imitates her voice and her plaintive words.

  "Why couldn't you calm down? What was upsetting you? Why wasn't I enough for you? Explain it to me, darling Neta, you know how much I love you."

  She listens to him intensely, then sits upright, and with the quickness of a small animal throws off the blanket and jumps off the sofa bed.

  But he seizes her little arm.

  "If you love your mother so much, why are you waking me up this morning and not her?"

  Her eyes open wide with astonished humiliation, and Ya'ari senses that his facetious rebuke went too far and the girl might begin a new round of weeping, and so, before she can bolt for her parents' closed bedroom door, he smiles at her forgivingly and points at her little brother, just now darting in from the children's room, his big head of hair disheveled and his eyes red, squinting balefully at the light as he climbs automatically into his high chair, which stands alongside the dining table.

  "And here's your lovely little brother," he adds, trying to dampen her resentment, "who right after you stopped crying and went to sleep, began to cry and go wild. You remember, Nadi, how you went wild last night?"

  The child nods.

  "You remember how you kicked the door?"

  The toddler glances at the door.

  "What did the door do to you, that you kicked it like that?"

  Nadi tries to think what the door did to him, but his sister spares him the trouble of answering.

  "He always kicks the door after Imma leaves."

  Ya'ari is relieved.

  "Doesn't your foot hurt when you kick the door?"

  Nadi soberly examines his bare foot.

  "Yes," he whispers.

  "So is kicking a good idea?"

  The child has no answer, but the similarity to that other, faraway child still flickers in his face.

  "So tell me now, kids," says Ya'ari, trying to get at the root of the mystery, "am I right that you cried and acted wild because you miss your Abba who is gone to the army?"

  His suggestion seems reasonable enough to Neta, who despite everything wants to please her grandfather, but Nadi furrows his brow as if wondering whether this is the right answer, or if a deeper one lies behind it.

  "So today, if you'll be good children, we'll take you to see your Abba in the army, and now let's eat some cornflakes."

  And he pours the golden cereal into two colorful plastic bowls, adding milk according to each child's specific instructions.

  4.

  DANIELA TAKES A knife and fork and begins to eat the omelet, which is rosy with meat and vegetables, while studying the black concave basalt stone that sits between her plate and coffee cup. This is a meaningful stone, laden with history, placed there to serve as a useful accessory in clarifying for the courteous listener not only how one can tell when Australopithecus boisei—that "eating machine"—branched off the path, clearly leading from chimpanzees to Homo sapiens, but also whether the conventional assessment, which holds that this ape ran into an evolutionary dead end, is in fact correct.

  Because when we discover fossils from animals or creatures of a humanoid nature—a wisdom tooth, wrist bone, a solitary finger—embedded in ancient rock, the excavators must be religiously careful also to preserve the evidence of their surroundings. Especially the encasing rock, because that's where invaluable information is hidden that only a geologist can decipher, not merely regarding the date, which is determined by radioactive analysis, but also the question of whether this rock is a medium that just happened to capture a fragment of the prehistoric creature or whether it might also be a tool dropped from its hand. For if the ancient being
knew how to use this stone to crack open his nuts, he should be upgraded a rung on the human ladder. Here is where the paleoanthropologists are dependent upon the professional eye of the geologist, and two heads are better than one. Only geologists are trained to determine whether a simple stone, like this one on the table, which is about one million six hundred thousand years old, is carrying a fetus inside.

  "A fetus?"

  "A metaphorical fetus," explains the second geologist, Sifu Sumana, who till now has been quietly focused on eating the last of the giant omelet straight from the pan.

  "In other words," Absalom Vilkazi elaborates, "a stone that has swallowed up another, more ancient, stone, whose erosion in a particular spot indicates that it was not just any stone but rather served as an implement, a tool in the hands of an Australopithecus boisei. Even if he himself was removed from the chain of evolution en route to the great destination of the creation of man, his spirit has nonetheless not disappeared; it continues to exist."

  "His spirit?" she whispers.

  "Perhaps you have forgotten, dear lady," the South African geologist says in a triumphant tone, "that two and a half million years ago our Africa was naturally joined to Asia and Europe. No sea or ocean separated them. And our Australopithecus boisei, whose traces we are seeking—this great African ape who despaired of his future on this continent—traveled from Africa to Europe and contributed the genes of the bulimic 'eating machine' to the civilization that developed there."

  She looks closely into his eyes to see if there is a spark of humor.

  "Now you are joking."

  "Why?" the South African says innocently, even as mischievous laughter dances in his eyes.

  His youth, flowering in the morning light, appeals to her. His English sounds natural and fluent, even though with his parents he probably speaks Zulu or Sesotho. Without a doubt, Daniela thinks, the elimination of apartheid has made this black man stand taller, and now, as he is confident in his identity, he is trying to challenge smug and prosperous Europe as an equal. And suddenly her heart aches over Moran, confined by the army, who doesn't understand that the conflict that poisons his homeland also diminishes his stature and undermines his identity, and in her train of thought Nofar and Efrat and Neta and Nadav are linked with Moran, and with beloved former students, and with the youngsters she'll return to after the Hanukkah vacation. Here they are in her mind's eye, sitting in the classroom decorated with posters and newspaper clippings, and among them she can make out the heartbreaking shadow of her nephew, who has descended from Jerusalem to the coast and joined her class to claim his place in the tears now clouding her gaze.