Second Person Singular

by Sayed Kashua

  “What?” Noa asked. I couldn’t hear her.

  “Nothing,” I mumbled, and I tried to return to her, to the pub, the music. “L’chaim,” I said, raising my glass, and she raised hers. “L’chaim,” I said again as I brought the glass to my lips and tried to remember that legendary hero from before the days of Islam, a-Zir, who was infamous for his love of women and alcohol. On the night that his father, the head of the tribe, was murdered, they came to the drunk poet and told him the news, to which he said, a pitcher of wine in his hand, “Ilyom hmar wa’ad amar.” Wine today, action tomorrow. The following day he embarked on one of the most brutal vengeance campaigns in the history of the Arabs.

  Beer today, I said to myself and looked around. Today I want to be like them. Today I want to be one of them, to go into the places they’re allowed to go, to laugh the way they laugh, to drink without having to think about God. I want to be like them. Free, loose, full of dreams, able to think about love. Like them. Like those who started to fill the dance floor with the knowledge that it was theirs, they who felt no need to apologize for their existence, no need to hide their identity. Like them. Those who never looked for suspicious glances, whose loyalty was never questioned, whose acceptance was always taken for granted. Today I want to be like them without feeling like I’m committing a crime. I want to drink with them, dance with them, without feeling as though I’m trespassing in a foreign culture. To feel like I belong, without feeling guilty or disloyal. And what exactly was I being disloyal to?

  “You coming?” Noa asked through the haze of house music.

  “I don’t know how to dance,” I said.

  She got out of her chair, leaned over the little table between us, and brought her mouth close to my ear.

  “Neither do I,” she whispered, and I could feel her breath penetrating my ear, bringing me back to life.

  PART

  SEVEN

  HOT WATER

  The lawyer couldn’t say definitively whether he was asleep or awake. He heard the morning noises of his wife and kids, as he did every morning, but they seemed to be coming from somewhere else, somewhere foreign and unfamiliar. He opened his eyes and hoped to see his daughter standing in front of him but she was not there. The lawyer tried, unsuccessfully, to put his mind in order, and then he gave up and went back to sleep. When he awoke again he wasn’t sure how much time had passed, seconds or hours, before the din of the house reached him again. This time he rose to a familiar world. He knew he was sleeping in a bed, in his daughter’s room, in his house, and he heard footfalls on the stairs, coming his way.

  “You still sleeping?” his wife asked in a soft voice, laying a hand on his forehead to see if he had a fever. “You’re a little warm,” she said, even though the lawyer knew he wasn’t sick. All he was was tired, exhausted. He had started reading The Kreutzer Sonata, sure he would never get past the first line, but he had found himself drawn into the plot, which involved a train, a young man, a woman, talk of love, and a character who murdered his wife and starts to tell his story.

  “Mommy,” his daughter said, her feet pattering behind her mother.

  “I asked you to watch your brother for a second,” his wife said, raising her voice.

  “I know,” the girl said. “But I’m tired, I don’t want to.”

  “So?” his wife said to him. “What do you want to do? You want to take it easy at home a little today?”

  “No,” he said, flipping the blanket off. “I have a hearing in court at eight thirty.”

  “Mommy,” the girl said. “When are you going to brush my hair?”

  “Give your hair a rest, okay? I’ll brush it in a minute. So, do you want me to make you some coffee before I go?”

  “No, no,” the lawyer said, sitting on the edge of the bed and trying to limit his movements to the bare minimum so as to stave off the headache that had already announced itself. He looked over at the rabbit-shaped alarm clock and said, “You guys should get going. You’re late. I’ll head out after you.”

  “Okay, take it easy,” his wife said and kissed him on the lips, a kiss the lawyer felt was genuine, not forced or apologetic or meant to conceal. “I really love you,” she said before leaving, and the lawyer gently nodded his head, to the extent that the headache allowed.

  Water, first of all water, the lawyer thought as he walked up the stairs. He drank straight from the bottle, as he always did when no one was around. Then he called Tarik, who was on his way to the office. “I have a hearing on the Marzuk case at eight thirty. Please go down to the courthouse and ask for a continuance on account of illness. I’ll be in the office at nine. I have to take care of something first. Oh, and Tarik, we’re interviewing the new interns this afternoon and I may need you there. Could be you’ll be the only one there. Interview them yourself and choose yourself a bride at the same time, okay?” the lawyer said, laughing.

  The lawyer made Turkish coffee and added milk and sugar. In the mornings he took his coffee with milk, which had an immediate effect on his bowels. He took the cup of coffee down to the study, lit a cigarette, and checked the Haaretz headlines online. Then checked to make sure that he had everything he needed, realized that he had forgotten The Kreutzer Sonata, left the cigarette in the ashtray, and went to his daughter’s room to get it. He was on page thirty and had been using the note as a bookmark.

  Mornings in Jerusalem are cold, even in summer, which is why the lawyer had a gas-operated water heater installed in the house, ensuring that the shower water was hot as soon as it was turned on. He found the right temperature and then stood beneath the wide veil of water cascading from the eight-inch shower head. He brushed his teeth, shaved his face, washed his hair. Looking up at the shower head, washing soap off his body, he was struck by a long-forgotten childhood memory. He saw his mother boiling water on a gas stove on a cold winter night and he saw his brothers, naked, freezing, and his mother approaching with a pot of warm water, ladling it over their heads with a brass cup, one at a time, and then scrubbing them hard, an expression of great suffering on her face. Her children had to be washed every day, they would go to school clean, even in winter, even if it meant suffering. When the boys were done they shared a single towel. Then came their little sister. His mother washed her in a little tub, supporting her neck with one hand and washing her with the other, shampooing the fine strands of baby hair.

  There were a dozen white shirts hanging in the closet, all starched and ironed, each paired with a tie of his wife’s choosing. His pants were hanging on special hangers. He picked out a pair of black slacks, chose a shirt, placed a tie around his neck, and decided he’d tie it later. Putting on his shoes, he called Samah.

  “Hi, Samah, good morning. I’m running a little late. Something came up. Yes, I know, I spoke with Tarik already. What else is on the agenda for today? Okay. I’ll be in by nine. Wait, just a second, that ID number you gave me yesterday, do you still have it on you? Yes, exactly, Amir Lahab. Send the number to our guy in the court system and ask him to find a current address, please. And tell him not to take his time this time. Be assertive with him. Tell him I don’t want to wait until tomorrow. Okay, great, can I bring you a cup of coffee? Oh, and Samah, do me a favor and keep this between us.”

  The lawyer’s carefully laid plans began to go awry as soon as he got into his car and fielded a telephone call from his wife.

  “Where are you?” he yelled toward the speakerphone.

  “At work. I just wanted to see how you’re doing. Did you leave for work already?”

  “Yes, sure, is everything okay? Is something wrong?”

  “No,” she said. “Everything’s fine. I took the kids in, everything went smoothly. I’m heading into a meeting now and I won’t be able to use the phone so I figured I’d give you a call before it started, see if you decided to stay home.”

  “No, no, I’m in the car.” />
  “You on the way to court?”

  “Court?”

  “You said you have a hearing at eight thirty, remember?”

  “Oh, right, sure. I’m on my way to the district court,” he said, and immediately felt that she was checking to see whether he was tied up and if he might beat her to the punch and file first.

  “Okay, so I’ll give you a call later?”

  “Yeah, yeah, ’bye.”

  The lawyer felt like he was choking. He cranked up the AC in the car and opened the window. Was it possible that his wife was smarter than he was? Craftier than he was? She had never before called him in the morning to see how he was doing, to find out where he was and whether he’d made it to court or not. He envisioned her standing outside the Israeli civil court for family matters, which opened at eight thirty, fully aware, as was he, that her financial future hung in the balance. “She’s never called me in the morning before,” the lawyer said out loud. “Never asked me about my fucking job. So why now? And the kiss? And the sweet talk in the morning? Since when does she touch my forehead to see if I’m running a fever?”

  The lawyer, waiting in traffic, cursed the car ahead of him. He had to stop himself from leaning on the horn. Maybe she was just trying to soothe him. Maybe she was just shaken by the fact that he’d found the letter, maybe she was afraid he didn’t believe her? And with good reason. He imagined her laughing out loud, in a voice that wasn’t even hers.

  “I just talked to him,” he heard her tell the man by her side. “He’s on the way to court, nothing to worry about. He bought the whole story, doesn’t suspect a thing.”

  The lawyer tried to find a shortcut and turned off Hebron Way toward Talpiot. He wasn’t sure where to go—to family court, to catch her in the act? But what would he do then? Laugh? Cry? What would he do when she tossed him that scornful look, proud for having beaten him? She’d be safe there. What could he do to her in front of all those policemen and courthouse security guards.

  And maybe the best thing was to simply go to the Sharia court this instant and file for divorce there. But that wouldn’t help either. If she was already at family court then it was over, the civil court system had jurisdiction. The lawyer decided to drive by her work to see if her car was parked outside. That way he could continue on with his plan. “Just a little wrinkle,” the lawyer mumbled to himself. “Just a little wrinkle.”

  He replayed the brief conversation with his wife. What were the noises he’d heard in the background? He wasn’t sure. Was there that kind of din in the family court already at this hour? Did he even hear much noise? Actually it had been completely quiet. Was her office completely quiet? Where did she work on Sunday morning anyway? At the clinic? Or the office? What an idiot. What an ass he’d been all these years. He didn’t so much as have his wife’s number at the office. Now he knew why she always called the office and not his cell: so she’d know exactly where he was at any given moment. “No,” he’d heard her say, “it’s because I never know when you’re available.”

  The lawyer tried calling her back on her cell. At the very least this time he would make a point of listening to the background noises. But what would he say? Would he ask her if she wanted to meet for lunch? That would be unprece­dented. What would he ask her: Where are you working today? Why did he want to know that? The lawyer couldn’t come up with a convincing reason and, at any rate, she didn’t pick up. A meeting; the lawyer smiled and told himself he had married someone with a superior mind. The first thing he would do was look for her car outside the social services office in Talpiot. She went in to that office at least twice a week, of that he was certain. If not, then he’d go to that fucking mental health clinic of hers. And if he didn’t find her car there, either? Well . . . He honked at the car in front of him.

  CORPSE

  Pushing the key into the lock, I hoped that nothing had changed. The weekend edition of the paper waited beside the door, wrapped in a plastic bag, covered in dew. I picked up the paper, shook off the drops, and opened the door.

  Ruchaleh was on the couch, awake, looking terrible. Her eyes were puffy, her gaze was fixed on the ceiling, and there were two empty bottles of red wine on the table. The sun had risen but the blinds were still shut and the only light in the room came in from the kitchen. I said nothing. I stood in the entryway and waited for her to turn toward me. There was no need for me to go up to the attic. Something clearly had changed. Moving slowly, Ruchaleh turned and looked at me. Then, making a great effort, she smiled and moved her head up and down, again and again.

  “Do me a favor,” she said, “and don’t stare at me with that pitying look.”

  I froze, even though what I wanted to do was run to her and hug her and tell her that I loved her. I wouldn’t care if she said something like, I can’t stand histrionic people, or What a pathetic Arab. I wanted to fall into her arms, console her, be consoled, receive a warm hug, and hear her whisper in my ear, “Don’t worry, Mommy’s here,” in a voice that would soothe all my fears.

  “What are you doing standing there like a golem?” she said. “It’s over, it’s done.”

  “It’s just beginning,” I found myself saying, completely unsure of what I meant.

  “I can’t stand,” she chuckled, and then she was quiet for a moment before adding, very softly, almost apologetically, “Come here, you little dunce.” I walked over to her and she hugged me harder than ever before and she wasn’t even taken aback when I lay my head on her chest. She hugged me as though I were hers, and I, on my knees, on the floor, burying my head in her chest, tightening my grip, tried to make myself more and more hers. I didn’t look up but I knew she was crying. She groaned in pain and her body shook. “What are you doing crying like a little kid?” she asked me in a wavering voice, stroking my hair. I knew she was silently saying, “Stay here, stay here with me.” I stayed until she fell asleep and only then did I break her embrace.

  “A’rib?” the man in charge of burials in Beit Safafa asked over the phone.

  “A’rib” I answered in Arabic. Stranger.

  “So then it will be a small funeral,” he said.

  “There will be no funeral,” I said.

  “You have permission for burial?”

  “Yes, I got it from the hospital.”

  “You know where to bring him?”

  “No.”

  “You know the small mosque near the cemetery?”

  “I’ll ask.”

  “Okay, bring him there,” he said. “Ask anyone in the village and he’ll direct you there. Everyone knows where the cemetery is.”

  “Okay, thank you very much.”

  “Allah Yirachmo,” God have mercy, said the man to whom death was a livelihood.

  Equipped with the signed certificate of death and the ID card, I set out in Ruchaleh’s car for the morgue at Shaare Zedek, where Yonatan’s body was being stored. An older nurse looked at my paperwork and made a feeble attempt at empathy.

  “How are you taking him?” she asked.

  “Ambulance,” I said right away, and she nodded.

  “Should I order one for you?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Okay, you can wait over there,” she said, pointing her chin in the direction of a small waiting room. Then she picked up the phone and began to dial.

  A small TV, resting on a metal arm that protruded from the wall, showed soundless footage from the government channel. Two stern-looking men spoke to one another. One, who looked like the guest, was religious, with a black yarmulke, a thick beard, a white shirt, and a black jacket. The man who looked like the host wore a knitted yarmulke and a blue dress shirt. His beard was trimmed and sculpted. Every once in a while a few passages from the Bible appeared on the screen and then disappeared. The two men were visibly excited, waving their fists, punctuating with their hands, mak
ing expansive gestures, smiling at the camera, twisting their faces into occasional grimaces, under­scoring again and again their wonder at the potency of Biblical verse.

  “Shalom,” the Arab ambulance driver said to me in halting Hebrew, perhaps on account of my clothes and perhaps on account of my physical appearance.

  “Shalom,” I responded, rising to my feet.

  “You’re accompanying the body, right?” he asked with no preamble and no superfluous attempts at commiseration.

  “Right.”

  “To Beit Safafa?”

  “Yes, to the small mosque near the . . .”

  “Yeah,” the driver said, handing me a copy of some paperwork, “I know the place. I’m from there. You going to follow me?”

  The driver lit a cigarette on the way to the ambulance, giving his younger assistant time to walk over to the stretcher and the enshrouded body and push it toward the ambulance. The driver opened the back doors and the younger man pushed a button on the stretcher and shoved it into the ambulance, the legs of the stretcher folding into the track.

  They drove slowly, and I followed. For some reason I felt a burning desire to take photographs. It seemed to me like the only reasonable way to pass the next few minutes, behind the lens of a camera. To press, swivel, document, hide, distance myself from the events. But even if I had brought the camera with me, I doubt I would have had the nerve to use it. On Army Radio a famous Israeli singer spoke about his experiences during the past week, softening his voice, making it sound thoughtful, trying to enliven the banal conclusions that he had reached regarding his life.

  “This next song has accompanied me during sad and happy days alike,” he said after he had finished his little speech and before he let the music speak for itself.

  The ambulance entered the village and immediately drew the attention of the locals. Kids on bikes trailed behind the ambulance and pedaled furiously in their attempts to overtake the two-car convoy. The driver opened his window and told them something, probably that nothing exciting was happening, that this was just the body of a stranger being brought to burial, not someone from the village. A crowd tumbled out of the small mosque near the cemetery. The men stopped and stared at the ambulance and waited to see what was going on. I berated myself for forgetting that there was this little thing called Friday prayers and that it was the absolute worst time for a clandestine burial. I parked behind the ambulance and stayed inside the car. The driver turned around and threw me a look. Three men, one of whom seemed like the man in charge and the other two his helpers, came up to the ambulance driver and shook his hand, smiling. They exchanged a few words and looked over at me. A few of the worshippers came over and spoke with the men, whispering, and once they realized that it was not a villager who was being brought for burial and their curiosity had been satisfied, they left and went to report back to their friends that there was nothing to see.