Second Person Singular

by Sayed Kashua

  The lawyer gestured to Meirav that he would like the phone. She said, “Just a second, the customer who found the money wants to talk to you. Just a second,” and she handed him the phone.

  The lawyer took a deep breath.

  “Hello, Yonatan?” he said, his voice rising at the end to form a question.

  “Hello,” said the voice on the other end of the line. The lawyer could hear noise all around him.

  “I bought The Kreutzer Sonata a little while ago and . . .” the lawyer’s voice wavered.

  “I know, it’s okay,” the other man said. “It’s fine. I don’t want the money. Do whatever you want with it. Give it away, take it, give it to the store, I don’t care.”

  “I understand,” the lawyer said, wondering what to say next. It sounded to him like the voice on the other end of the line had left the noise and was searching out a quieter place. “The thing is, aside from the money, I also found the note.”

  “What note?”

  “A note in Arabic, and that’s why I’m here.”

  “Sir,” the other man said impatiently, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I’m heading into a class so I’m going to hang up now.”

  “Do you know Arabic, Yonatan?” the lawyer asked, looking over at Meirav, who was starting to fidget, apparently regretting ever handing the phone to the lawyer.

  “Why do you ask, sir? Who are you?”

  The man’s response told the lawyer that he was on the right track.

  “Yonatan,” he said, this time more forcefully. “Do you know someone by the name of Amir Lahab?”

  “Who are you?” The lawyer could hear the fear in the man’s voice. “Can you please tell me who you are?” the man said, practically begging.

  The lawyer decided to end this part of his investigation. “So, should I bring you the money when we meet up?” he asked.

  “Why should we meet up? I just told you that I don’t want the money. What do you want from me?”

  “No problem,” the lawyer said, smiling at Meirav. “No problem. I’ll bring the note, too. Okay, have a good rest of the day. They have your address? Great, excellent. Okay, see you soon.” The lawyer hung up the phone without waiting for a response. He looked at Meirav and grinned. “What kind of person says no to cash?”

  “He wanted it?”

  “Of course,” the lawyer said. “He sounded really busy, though. He asked that I take it over to his house. Sounded like a nice guy. And he definitely has good taste in books.”

  “No doubt,” Meirav said. “There were some amazing books in there.”

  “Okay,” the lawyer said. “I’ll head over there. Could you tell me how to go? What’s the shortest way to get there?”

  “To 35 Scout Street?” she asked, looking at the computer screen. “The best thing to do is take Bezalel Street all the way to Herzl and then make a left.”

  “Great, thanks a million.”

  ASIGN AND A BELL

  The lawyer was feeling pleased. He’d taken care of everything he’d set out to do. His wife was at home with the kids. How could he have thought, only earlier that morning, that she had beaten him to the punch and filed first for divorce? The matter of her car and the five floors of the parking garage also brought a smile to his lips. True, he hadn’t yet found an intern. Only two out of three had shown up and neither had made a particularly good impression, especially not on Tarik.

  “Both goody two-shoes,” Tarik had said after the interviews. “So what, so they have good grades? They’re both spoiled little girls who’ve never seen anything outside a textbook and don’t know a thing about how the world works.”

  “So we’ll wait for next week, there’ll be more candidates,” the lawyer said, laughing. “And yes, they really weren’t very kind on the eyes.”

  He was also pleased that he was close to finding the answer to the riddle. And now, on his way to Beit Hakerem, that was all that remained of the whole sordid affair: the riddle, the challenge. He had seemingly forgotten about his wife’s involvement in the matter and now only sought to find out who Yonatan was, who Amir was, what the two had to do with each other, and how the whole thing had happened.

  It’s possible that the lawyer was tickled by the notion that Amir and Yonatan were actually a couple. If that turned out to be the case, he’d be delighted. If it turned out that his wife, before he had come along, had been in love with a gay man, it would make him the happiest person in the world. In his mind the old picture of the tough, tall, muscular Arab with the giant cock turned into one of a dainty little porcelain-faced faggot dancing with his wife at the party. It was true that in public the lawyer had never said anything against homosexuality and, in fact, took pains to publicly say that every person is free to choose whomever he or she wants to spend their lives with. He also railed against the persecution of homosexuals in Arab lands and in Iran and said that this type of treatment was a sure sign of social and cultural malaise, a fundamental lack of openness among the Arab and Islamic communities. And yet the notion of his wife dancing around with a gay man filled him with an undeniable giddiness.

  The lawyer slowed down and looked at the numbers on the houses. He parked his car outside of 34 and looked across the street for 35. A small gate led to a garden and a large house. There’s no way a social worker could afford this place, the lawyer thought as he waited outside the front door, thinking that the house looked a lot more like a family home than the pad of two young gay men. The neighborhood was quiet. No cars came down the narrow street and, other than the barking of dogs and the whirr of cars on the nearby avenue, the lawyer did not hear a thing. On the front door there was a wooden sign with the name Forschmidt.

  The lawyer knocked softly with his fist on the wooden door. In his hand he held The Kreutzer Sonata, his wife’s letter, and the two two-hundred-shekel bills. No matter who opened the door, the lawyer had decided to be straightforward. To tell the truth and to ask for answers. I bought a book that Yonatan sold, he rehearsed, and in the book I found a letter in my wife’s hand. I was wondering why that was. Just curious. What’s more, she said she had written that note to a colleague by the name of Amir Lahab. The lawyer knocked again but there was no response. He hit the bell, listened to its muffled ring inside the house, and waited for some time until the door opened.

  MEETING

  “Shalom,” I said to the man at the door, sure he was the real estate agent. “Please, come on in, you’re a little bit early but that’s fine.”

  “I think you might have me confused with someone else,” the man said, still standing at the door.

  “You’re not the real estate agent?” I asked.

  “No,” he said and a huge smile spread across his face. Now I started to notice the Arabness of his look and his accent, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was the voice from the bookstore earlier in the day. “You’re Yonatan,” he said, with only the trace of a question.

  “Excuse me,” I said, “but who’s asking?”

  “No one,” he answered, still smiling. “Just a lawyer who’s looking for Yonatan.”

  “Why, what did he do?”

  “Nothing,” the man said. “He didn’t do a thing. I believe, though, that I bought a book that he sold.” He raised The Kreutzer Sonata up to eye level as though it were an important piece of evidence. “I found a few hundred shekels inside and I said that I simply had to return them to him.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “If you’d like I can give them to him.”

  “So, then you’re not Yonatan?” he asked.

  “I don’t see why it matters, sir,” I said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” the lawyer said, pulling a folded white piece of paper from the book. “But I found a note in the book, too, and it seems to be a bit more personal than money, so I thought I would hand
it over to Yonatan in person.”

  “I’m Yonatan,” I said impatiently. By now I was sure that the unexpected guest was an Arab.

  “Please forgive my audacity,” he said, as though performing before a packed courthouse, “but could you please show me some ID?”

  “Sir, I have no idea who you are. You come to my house with an old book and some story about money. I don’t care about the money and I don’t care about the note. I don’t want to show you my ID and I don’t want to continue this conversation.” I held the door open and only a lifetime of good manners stopped me from slamming it in his face. I waited for him to leave, but perhaps I already knew that this was the first stage of what was going to be a long conversation.

  “Your name’s Amir,” he said sharply in Arabic.

  “What?” I said, trying to stick to Hebrew. “Who the hell are you? What do you want from me?”

  “I know who you are,” he went on in Arabic. “I visited with your mother in Jaljulia yesterday. I wonder what she’ll think when she discovers that her only son is dead.”

  I stood before the lawyer, said nothing, and watched as he produced a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

  “You smoke?” he asked in Arabic.

  I nodded and took a cigarette.

  “Tfadal,” be my guest, I said, and motioned him into the house, looking to see if anyone had witnessed our conversation. “You can smoke in here.”

  He lit my cigarette and kept his unlit, clenched between his lips.

  “Who are you?” I asked when he was seated on the couch. I had taken Ruchaleh’s usual spot and was feeling uncomfortable.

  The lawyer’s gaze flitted around the room, taking in the books. “You know what,” he said, “I’ve always dreamed of having this kind of book collection. You want to sell it?”

  “They’re not mine,” I said, trying to force him to get to the point, to stop gloating.

  “And what about this one,” he said, knocking on the table where he’d set down The Kreutzer Sonata. “Is this one yours?”

  “Please,” I said, “just tell me who you are and what you want.”

  “Like I said, I’m a lawyer, but I’m here not as a lawyer but as Leila’s husband.” He stopped and looked me right in the face.

  “Who’s Leila?” I asked, furrowing my brow, and I could tell immediately that he was relieved. His muscles seemed to slacken and he leaned back and lit his cigarette.

  “You once worked at the outpatient clinic in east Jerusalem, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well then,” he said, flattening the note out on the table, “the whole thing started with this.”

  I looked at the note, written in a very feminine and beautiful hand. “What is it? Where’s it from? That was in the book?”

  “Yes,” the lawyer said. “That was in the book.”

  “Okay,” I said, picking up the note, “what does that have to do with me?”

  “She wrote it to you, did she not?”

  “Who?”

  “Leila, my wife.”

  “Who’s Leila?” I said again, insisting that I did not remember.

  “She worked with you at the outpatient clinic in Wadi Joz. You remember?”

  “No, I don’t remember anyone by the name of Leila who worked there,” I said, traveling back to those days, to the clinic, to Wadi Joz, to the social worker I was supposed to be. “It was all boys there if I remember correctly, no?”

  “There was a Leila there, too. She was an intern.”

  “Ohhh,” I said, surprised, even though the lawyer did not seem convinced. “Yes, yes, I remember. You’re right. Wow, Leila. A student, right? We even once did a house call together in the Old City. How is she?”

  “She’s well,” the lawyer said. “The question is how are you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That means that I’m glad you were able to jump-start your memory and now I am going to need you to answer a few questions before I leave.”

  “What kind of questions?” I asked.

  “Questions like how did this note, written in my wife’s hand, which you claim not to remember, wind up between the pages of one of your books. And also, if you would, please enlighten me as to when all of this happened.” There was something firm and resolved in the lawyer’s look, something that showed me how distraught he was. He was sure I’d had a relationship with his wife and I knew I had to tell him the truth—otherwise everything I’d accomplished would go down the drain and I’d find myself answering the questions of real investigators, incriminating not only myself but those dear to me.

  I took a deep breath and started to tell the story.

  I don’t remember the note or how it made it into that book, but I do remember the book well. It’s one of the first books I read here, at Yonatan’s place.

  “When did you leave the clinic?” the lawyer asked.

  “Over seven years ago. And I didn’t leave, I fled.”

  “Do you have an exact date?” the lawyer asked.

  “No, not exact, but I’m pretty sure it was in January, seven years ago.” I could tell that the date I provided set him at ease, apparently because it added up with his own arithmetic.

  “You have to believe me that I really don’t know a thing about your wife. At the time I was struggling with a few different things. I didn’t know if she was married and I didn’t care. I was in a very different place then, you see.”

  “No, I don’t see,” the lawyer said, without even mentioning whether they were married at the time.

  “I don’t know what this note is about. I don’t even remember it. I don’t even know if she wrote it to me or it just ended up in my book. Maybe she wanted to thank me for the house call. I really don’t know. All I remember is that one day I left them a resignation letter and I fled the office. I ran away from everything. Maybe this note was in the incoming-mail box, maybe it was on the table, maybe I just shoved it into my bag by accident.”

  The lawyer began moving around in his seat, looking anxious. “What about the party? Or do you not remember that, either?”

  “I’m not exactly sure what you want to know or why you want to know it. What party?”

  “I want to know everything, Amir,” he growled. “And you want to know why? Because I found this note, which, as far as I’m concerned, is a love letter written by my wife, in a book that belonged to someone by the name of Yonatan. I want to know who this Yonatan is and how he’s connected to my wife and to you. Where is he, Amir?”

  He was not going to leave without the whole story. He’d stay until he heard the whole thing. And the truth is I already started to feel myself wanting to tell. I wanted to tell someone everything that I had been through during these past years—the lies, the impersonations. To tell all, from the day I graduated and arrived at the house on Scout Street. All the things I couldn’t tell my mother or Noa or anyone else in the world. And maybe I also felt that he would understand.

  I fought back the sob welling up inside me, took a deep breath, and started from the beginning.

  “Yonatan’s dead,” I said. “I buried him a week ago.”

  EPILOGUE

  The lawyer looked at his watch and saw that it was already five thirty. He left the office and walked down the stairs and out to King George Street. Would he make it to the bookstore today? It had been several weeks since he’d last been. The lawyer wavered for a moment and then decided not to take any chances and headed back to the parking lot. He didn’t want to be late for the Thursday salon and dinner. This evening, he was pretty sure, they were going to meet at the accountant’s house, or was it the civil lawyer’s turn? He could not remember what they were to discuss, only that the gynecologist’s wife had festively announced the topic at their last meeting. No harm done;
his wife probably knew. Of course she knew. Soon she would call to remind him to get a good bottle of red wine and some fine chocolate for the hosts’ kids.

  Not that the lawyer lacked reading material. He still hadn’t even had the chance to read through all of ­Yonatan’s books. Truth be told, he hadn’t read any of them aside from The Kreutzer Sonata. He praised the novella, told Tarik, ­Samah, and the rest of his Arab friends that it was “an amazing work of art,” knowing full well that there was no chance in hell that they’d read it. His next book was Life: A User’s Manual—a thick and impressive tome by some French author whose name the lawyer had forgotten, and even though he was never really able to focus or follow the plot, he forced himself to read a few lines before sleep, mostly because, from what he’d learned on the back cover, the Frenchman who’d written the book was so important that he’d had a planet named in his honor.

  The lawyer, promising himself a new book the following Thursday, hurried off to his car. He had to buy wine and chocolate and shower and get dressed for dinner, but before all that he had to make it to Bezalel. He wanted to see Yonatan’s show.

  Why was he going? the lawyer wondered as he lurched down the steep and narrow Hillel Street. He had not been invited to the graduating class’s year-end exhibition but Yonatan had mentioned it once or twice during their subsequent conversations and it seemed to the lawyer that he wanted him to come. But why did he want to go? In the morning, at Oved’s Café, he’d heard the art history professor telling a friend that he’d seen some “extremely compelling” works at Bezalel’s year-end exhibition, including one outstanding project by a graduating photography major. The lawyer, sure the professor was referring to Yonatan, felt the jealousy begin to bubble.