Friendly Fire

by A. B. Yehoshua

  On Sunday nights, she tells the visitor, before departing for the new week of excavation, the members of the research team invite the tribal chiefs and heads of local clans to join in the farewell dinner, so they will feel they have a stake in the scientific work.

  Sijjin Kuang seats the Israeli woman in the first row of tables, leaving empty places to her right and left for Yirmiyahu and herself. The cooks, in white toques, place ceramic pots on the tables and distribute pitchers of a yellowish drink. Yirmiyahu enters, his bald pate shiny and his clothing fresh, and sits down beside her and says, Europe becomes important to them even as they sense its growing alienation.

  The old black man waves the branch, and the assembled rise to their feet. The scientists enter in a row, clad in black university gowns with sashes attached in the colors of their native countries' flags. Minus the North African paleontologist, the marchers are nine in number, led by the Tanzanian Seloha Abu, who assigns each member his place at the high table. And since the guests are very hungry and the food is piping hot, speeches are postponed till the meal's end and the eating begins, to be accompanied, in keeping with the British tradition that Dr. Kukiriza has brought with him from London, by small talk alone.

  "Tell me," Daniela says suddenly to her brother-in-law in Hebrew, "you're sure you won't come back to Israel slightly delirious from all this?"

  He puts down his fork.

  "And who told you I'm coming back? You've been here for six days, and you still insist on not understanding where I stand. Nothing will draw me back to a country that has turned into a recycling plant."

  "That's a novel definition."

  "Here there are no ancient graves and no floor tiles from a destroyed synagogue; no museum with a fragment of a burnt Torah; no testimonies about pogroms and the Holocaust. There's no exile here, no Diaspora. There was no Golden Age here, no community that contributed to global culture. They don't fuss about assimilation or extinction, self-hatred or pride, uniqueness or chosenness; no old grandmas pop up suddenly aware of their identity. There's no orthodoxy here or secularism or self-indulgent religiosity, and most of all no nostalgia for anything at all. There's no struggle between tradition and revolution. No rebellion against the forefathers and no new interpretations. No one feels compelled to decide if he is a Jew or an Israeli or maybe a Canaanite, or if the state is more democratic or more Jewish, if there's hope for it or if it's done for. The people around me are free and clear of that whole exhausting and confusing tangle. But life goes on. I am seventy years old, Daniela, and I am permitted to let go."

  And he takes up the fork and plunges it into the meat.

  Daniela wants to strike back indignantly, but stops herself. The flow of his words suggests that even if he has never performed this monologue for others, he has doubtless muttered it many times to himself.

  The old African sets fire to the big branch and waves it, and the Tanzanian team leader rises to deliver the traditional address. Yirmiyahu whispers to his sister-in-law that although the man speaks in the local vernacular, all the members know this speech and can understand the meaning of every sentence. He is speaking on a favorite topic: man's dominance over fire and his ability to understand it, and even Yirmiyahu is able to comprehend part of the speech and to fill in the rest:

  Fire is conceived of as a living thing. It moves about incessantly, changes its shape and color, eats, makes noises, provides heat. Man can create it or extinguish it, can blow on it to revive it or blow on it to put it out. Fire is the only thing in the world that man can kill and then bring back to life. Most of what man creates or produces depends on fire, and most destruction and ruin are connected with fire. Fire is a friend that brings life, that cleanses and purifies, and it is also a terrifying foe. Perhaps in the knowledge of fire is a key to the knowledge of death.

  Of all creatures in the world, only man is conscious of the phenomenon of death. It is strange, since all animals see death all around them, and some cause it every day. Nevertheless, recognition of death is unique to humans, and is expressed, for example, in the custom of burial, which first appeared about 100,000 years ago.

  The consciousness of humans differs from that of the animals in two main ways, knowing fire and knowing death. There is a connection between these two knowledges, one gives rise to the other. Fire made man into the being who controls the world but also into the miserable human who knows that his death is inevitable.

  The old African waves the burning branch during the entire speech.

  Eighth Candle

  1.

  HE WAS CONVINCED he would wake up on his own, but a dream that refused to end kept him sleeping. Fortunately, he had arranged a wake-up phone call. While hunting for a warm undershirt he thinks how happy Moran would be to chase after wind in the middle of the night, but for a grandfather hounded all day by a great-grandfather, a nighttime adventure like this is a bit much. And yet, having recognized his obligation in broad daylight, he will not shirk it at night. His own father gives a lifetime guarantee for a homemade elevator and stands by it honorably even as he shudders in a wheelchair, and should he, this man's son, evade responsibility for defects appearing in an apartment tower during its first year? True, a sharp lawyer could juggle these windy complaints, tossing them from one party to the next till the complainant's spirit broke, but here we have a bereaved father, and there is strong fellowship between him and a bereaved uncle, so the uncle is taking the trouble on a stormy night to instill team spirit in all those responsible to determine who among them is the guilty party.

  Tel Aviv calls itself the City that Never Rests. The epithet is more than just words, Ya'ari decides as he finds himself in a swirl of lights and traffic in the wee hours of a winter's night. Even in his youth he was never much of a night owl, and in recent years he has tried to convince Daniela to go to bed earlier. Tomorrow night, he knows, they won't hurry to get in bed. Neither will be able to fall asleep. There will be too much to tell and too much to hear. But he will not hint, even lightheartedly, at that "real desire" she promised at the airport. He knows he must prepare himself to be patient. For though she has been the traveler and he the abandoned one, she will still be angry about the separation, and anger, as it always does, will sabotage desire.

  The rain has stopped, but on the street puddles glimmer in the headlights. Again he drives around the former Kings of Israel Square, now renamed for Rabin, to find waiting beside the dark window of the Book Worm the same vaguely defined individual, who has added to her attire of the previous morning only a red scarf, wrapped about her neck.

  "Well," he teases her affectionately. "Now you can't complain that we overpaid you. Tonight we will all need your expertise. Let's just hope the wind will be sufficiently strong; it seems to be displaying symptoms of fatigue."

  "Don't worry, Ya'ari." The expert smiles at him with her big bright eyes. "Even a weak wind will do. When it's trapped in a shaft, I can easily make it talk."

  "Talk," he repeats, intrigued. Then he asks if tonight she might disclose her age.

  "No," she hastens to respond, "not yet."

  Once again, he and his car are swallowed up by the underground parking beneath the tower, but this time it's hard to find a spot. Can it be that even as the winds have grown worse, all the vacant apartments have found tenants? As he cruises the two floors of the garage, the gloomy voice of the tenants' spokesman blares from his car phone: Take my parking spot, Mr. Ya'ari. I left it open for you.

  On the elevator landing of the lower floor the groans can be heard at full volume, and the expert's childlike face radiates satisfaction. They go up to the lobby level, where the night watchman directs them to Mr. Kidron's flat on the twenty-fourth floor. Signs lettered with an ink marker and bordered with thick black lines are posted on the walls of the lobby and the doors of the elevators. On first glance they resemble formal death notices, but a second look reveals they are merely warnings: Between two and four A.M. all the elevators will be shut down to enable the search f
or the winds.

  The door marked kidron family is wide open, and all the lights are on inside. On the dining table, late-night snacks are laid out alongside carafes of black coffee. Gottlieb, who arrived earlier with a technician, is half-sprawled on a sofa, eating energetically while inquiring about the family connections of the lady of the house, a chubby, nervous woman clad in black and adorned with an engraved gold necklace. Her husband, too, is formally attired, in a dark suit and tie, as if dressed for battle with the representatives of the construction company, who are running late.

  "Representatives?" Ya'ari says with surprise. "In the middle of the night they're sending us more than one person?"

  Yes, both an engineer and a lawyer are on their way. These days no self-respecting company would come to such an investigation without an attorney, and since the country is flooded with lawyers the prices for nocturnal consultations have dropped precipitously.

  Ya'ari introduces himself to Gottlieb's technician, a powerfully built man of about fifty, who sits communing with himself in a corner by the balcony, toolbox at his feet, coffee mug gripped tightly in both hands.

  "Rafi." The man whispers his name with a downcast gaze.

  No family warmth is evident between Gottlieb and the expert. The little woman avoids her stepfather, puts a cookie on a plate, and sits down near the technician. Tomorrow morning, Gottlieb informs Ya'ari, the work I am doing for your father will be done. But he will still need the mercy of heaven for his piston to function again in Jerusalem.

  "Even if it doesn't work," Ya'ari responds coolly, "it's not the end of the world. Believe me, my father's tyranny has worn me out."

  "Your father's tyranny? You're complaining? Hey, it's the same tyranny that woke me up tonight for this bit of theater."

  "It's not worth it to you to get up in the middle of the night to clear yourself of blame and responsibility?"

  "Not if I'm bringing two technicians getting paid at the nighttime rate."

  "We're taking care of your young lady."

  But the young lady, her star-bright eyes attentive to the discussion, says, leave him alone, Gottlieb, I don't need any payment. I'm happy enough just to listen for them, the father and son.

  "Sure," Gottlieb waves her off sourly, "I know you both think I'm a miser, but you forget how much disability insurance I have to pay so we're covered if there's an accident. In my factory there are machines that can cut a man in half in two seconds, and then what? Who's going to pay for sewing him together? Me from my own pocket?"

  "Gottlieb, my friend, there are no machines here."

  "Yes, well, we're about to survey a dark shaft thirty stories high."

  Ya'ari wearies of the pettiness and wants to break off the conversation, so while his host phones the tardy representatives of the construction company, he asks the wife's permission to go through their apartment to see if any drafts can be felt through its walls. Follow me, says the nervous woman, and leads him first into the couple's bedroom, the scrupulous neatness of which betrays that they have not been in bed this night. A small terrace off the room faces the southeast part of the city, and Ya'ari invites himself out for a look and again stands above the urban vista he surveyed six days before from the tiny balcony of the tower's machine room. On that long-ago morning the sky was overcast; now sharp points of light sparkle in the night. Amid the downtown skyscrapers, the looming colossi of the Azrieli project, and the proud tower at the Diamond Exchange, multicolored advertisements and the latest headlines alternate on huge digital screens; cropped-haired, leggy women touting dishwashers and clothes dryers segue into reports of the Iranian nuclear threat.

  Plump, quiet Mrs. Kidron stands by his side, fondling her gold necklace and lifting her eyes toward a passenger plane that lowers its landing gear as it glides downward over the city. Ya'ari looks at his watch. Sixteen more hours until Daniela's arrival, provided that no wild beast has eaten her passport and ticket, and no arbitrary official has decided to change the flight schedule.

  "Your son ... the soldier," he mumbles, almost casually, his eyes still fixed on the plane, "did he get to know this new apartment?"

  "No. He was killed two months before we moved here. We wanted to cancel the purchase, but it was too late."

  "Why cancel it? Doesn't it make it a little easier, moving to a new place?"

  "So we hoped, but in the autumn these winds started up, and they only made us more depressed."

  "Depressed because of the winds? But it's purely a technical problem."

  She regards him with a fearful expression.

  "Is that what you believe?"

  "I don't believe it; I'm certain of it."

  Another passenger plane, a jumbo jet, zooms in from over the sea and prepares for landing. Ya'ari asks his hostess if he may have a look in the other rooms. She leads him through a small book-lined den into a children's room filled with toys, similar to the room Daniela set up at their house for the grandchildren. Ya'ari listens carefully. Yes, the groaning wind is only in the shaft and stairwell. The apartment itself is quiet. He feels a sudden need to see a photograph of her son, and he lightly touches the lady's hand and asks for one. But the mother refuses his request. All photos of their son are hidden deep in a closet, because the parents resolved to keep him with them not through photographs but through memory and, above all, imagination. Both of us, says the mother, agreed not to get stuck on an image fixed in time. We try to go back and connect through activity, take him to places he never saw and imagine how he would behave there. We want to keep him in perpetual motion, allow him to grow and even grow old, so he will not be forever frozen in pictures from childhood or the last photos from his military service.

  Ya'ari's heart skips a beat, and he nods silently. Then he asks to be directed to the lavatory. He is quick to lock the door, and when it turns out that the switch is outside he does without light. He pulls down his pants and sits in darkness, tense, angry, perhaps in pain, lost in thought.

  The wall behind him appears to be an exterior wall, and despite the late hour he can hear water flowing as well as the wailing wind. He feels a gathering sense of anxiety over Daniela's arrival. He is worried about malfunctions and delays on flights from Africa. But he still trusts the practical wisdom of his brother-in-law, who will know how to get his wife back to her homeland.

  New voices are heard in the apartment, young and laughing. The representatives of the construction company have arrived to grapple with their guilt.

  2.

  IN THE END they forgot to give me their bones, Daniela realizes, with disappointment, when she sees from her window that the two pickup trucks are ready to take to the road. But I won't run to remind them. Apparently it's not that important to them, or they don't trust me, or maybe this is another third world shortcoming, an inability to follow through. Yet not only was I not afraid to take the package with me, I was delighted to help them.

  This is her last night in Africa, and perhaps her final farewell to her brother-in-law. There will be no one to bring his ashes in an urn to be buried in Israel. Has she fulfilled the goal of her visit: to reconnect, with her brother-in-law's help, with old memories that in years to come will nourish the love her sister deserves? All in all, Yirmi avoided discussing his wife, preferring to toss twigs of wrath onto the pyre of friendly fire, which he will never allow to die down. And still he complains about the prophets' lust for anger. Even if he truly took pity on Shuli, hiding from her what he dared to reveal to her sister, it's impossible that Shuli was not burned by the fierce flame he stoked inside him against a world that she still loved in spite of the death of her son.

  The Israeli visitor, who generally excels at sound sleep, worries that she is in for a wearying bout of sleeplessness, which will burn itself out only as morning approaches, spoiling her good-byes as she takes leave of the place and its people. She could probably put herself to sleep with the unfinished pages of the novel, hoping that its artificiality will help her eyes to spin the first threads of
sleep. She is determined to stick to her decision to save it for the two-hour layover between her flights, however, and is already planning to tuck the book into the outside pocket of her rolling suitcase, for easy access in the cafeteria in Nairobi.

  Yirmi quickly disappeared after the festive meal and is clearly avoiding her. He is swept up in his idea of disengagement and is probably afraid that before leaving she will make him swear, on his love for her sister, to keep in touch with the family. Maybe he also understands that she will exploit the moment of the parting to speak up and rebut his arguments. Until now she has just listened to him, and with leading questions urged him on, and has been careful not to express any disrespect, lest he fall silent. As a high school teacher she has had to learn how to listen to the immature blather of teenagers. Which may be why she is so impatient with the adolescent rebellions of the elderly.

  Actually, not only should she demolish his arguments, she should also be angry over his disappearance. Because Shuli would have been disappointed had she known about her indifferent dismissal by someone who was always beloved by the family, who was thought of as a man to be relied on, and who is now losing himself in a godforsaken place and disconnecting from everything that was important and dear to her sister. But Daniela's anger is surprisingly deflected, blown sideways, and lands squarely on her husband, the weight of whose absence is especially heavy tonight. Although tomorrow evening he will again be at her side, she feels that if he had been wiser in his love, he would not have let her make this visit on her own. He was under an obligation, even if against her wishes, to drop everything and join her, to help her fight the despair of ideas that give hope only to a pregnant suicide bomber.