The Lover

by A. B. Yehoshua

  But sometimes he can spend the whole morning standing at the lathe cutting out some missing part. Consulting Hamid, who seems to be the only one he really respects.

  He doesn’t concern himself with the accounts. He goes into the office only when an argument starts there, when some customer gets a nasty shock because of the price they’re asking. He checks the bill again but he’s as stubborn as a mule and he doesn’t knock off a single cent. I sometimes sweep the office at the end of the day and I overhear the arguments. They say to him “You’re the most expensive in town.” And he answers “It’s up to you. Nobody’s forcing you to come back. Do you want me to show you the price list?” And he smiles, partly at them but mostly to himself.

  Once, just before work was over, when I was sweeping the garage for the second time I came to a place where he was standing talking to somebody and I waited quietly for him to move. The workers were already changing their clothes and washing their hands and the garage was nearly empty. He stood there talking and just didn’t notice me standing there with the broom. I’m sure he didn’t know who I was, or that I’d been working in his garage for more than a month.

  I stood there leaning on the broom and he stood on a pile of dirt listening to some important-looking guy who talked and talked. It’d been a crazy day and I’d already cleaned the garage maybe five times. All the time they’d been bringing in cars that wouldn’t start, cars that had been driven too fast and had skidded in the rain. There was no end to it. At last the important-looking guy in the suit who’d been talking about politics went away, but Adam stayed where he was, thinking hard. I was afraid to say anything to him. Suddenly he noticed me standing just a few feet away from him waiting with the broom. “What do you want?” I got all confused. He scared me staring at me like that.

  “Would you mind moving a bit? I must sweep under you …” And he smiled and moved a bit and I started sweeping where he’d been standing in a hurry so he could move back there if he wanted to. But now he was watching me, staring at me like I was some kind of freak. Suddenly he asked:

  “Who brought you here?”

  “My cousin, Hamid,” I said at once, trembling and blushing and not knowing why. What could he do to me anyway? After all he gives me only a tiny wage that one way or another goes straight to my father. And he doesn’t really scare me that much, it’s just that big bushy beard of his.

  “How old are you, boy?”

  Him too – “boy” – damn him.

  “Fourteen years and three months.”

  “How is this? Didn’t you want to stay on at school?”

  I couldn’t believe it. How was it he knew about the school? I started to mumble “Yes, of course … but my father didn’t want …”

  He was about to say something but he kept quiet, still staring at me. And I started carefully moving the broom and cleaning around him, piling up the dirt in a hurry. And suddenly I felt him touching me, laying his hand lightly on my head.

  “What’s your name?”

  I told him. My voice was shaky. No Jew had ever touched my head before. I could’ve recited a poem for him. Just like that. If he’d asked me to. He really hypnotized me. But he didn’t know such a thing was possible.

  And since then he’s smiled at me every time he sees me. Like he remembers me. And a week later they took me off sweeping and taught me another job, tightening brakes. Not too difficult. I started tightening brakes for them.

  DAFI

  So tired. What do you think? At night I lie awake, snatching maybe one hour of sleep in the morning when Mommy’s already dragging me out of bed. And until she sees me sitting at the table drinking my coffee she doesn’t leave the house. It’s odd, but at first the tiredness isn’t so bad and I’m not even late for school. In the first class I’m fairly lucid, anyway most of them are asleep, including the teacher. But the crunch always comes in the third class, just then, at around quarter past ten, I feel all empty inside, my heart sinks, my breathing gets heavy, I feel dead. At first I used to go outside by myself, to wash my face and try to sleep on a bench somewhere. Near the outhouse I found a sort of alcove and I tried to catch some sleep there, but it wasn’t safe because Shwartzy’s always snooping around (what the hell does he think he’s doing patrolling the girls’ toilets?) and once he caught me there, the sneaky bastard, and sent me back into class on the double. I started looking for other places to sleep but it wasn’t any use, the school wasn’t designed to furnish sleep for its pupils. It really was depressing, after all I needed only a quick doze, quarter of an hour maybe, to bring me back to life. At last I had a wonderful idea, I’d sleep in the class during the lesson, and I even found a suitable place, at the end of the fourth row a pillar sticks out and this makes an ideal hiding place, especially if you push the desk right up against the wall. That way you can escape the teacher’s notice, present but not present.

  Once during break when the classroom was empty I sat down there and Tali and Osnat came in looking for me and went out again without seeing me.

  Then I had to work on Yigal Rabinovitch to get him to change places with me, without telling him the real reason. But he didn’t want to change, it seemed he’d discovered the advantages of his place too. So I started buttering him up, smiling at him, chatting with him during break, walking home with him after school and even touching him as if by accident. He found all this a bit confusing, the dumb cluck, I saw it wouldn’t be long before he started falling in love with me. He took to waiting for me outside the house in the morning to walk with me to school, even skipping basketball practice before class. I didn’t want to overdo it, just enough to persuade him to change places. He refused and refused but in the end he gave in. Poor devil, his marks are so bad he could be in real trouble, he’s got a good reason too for not wanting to be too conspicuous. I really wanted to kiss him but I had to be careful not to give him the wrong idea. We went to the teacher and told her we were changing places and I brought in a cushion that I’d prepared especially, it fit into the corner nicely, in just the right position for keeping me out of sight, putting the cushion against the wall, laying my head on it and going to sleep, yes, really going to sleep. It’s winter now, the sky’s grey and it’s dark in the classroom, to save energy we’re not allowed to switch on the lights, and we sit there in our overcoats because Shwartzy’s taken the heaters away, he’s taking the energy crisis seriously and he thinks we must save fuel in the national interest.

  And this way I snatch some sleep. In Bible or Talmud or Citizenship. Of course not in maths, because I’m too scared of Baby Face, who stalks around like a fat cat, always picking on me. But in the subjects in which I’m strong I don’t care.

  Best are Arzi’s Talmud classes. For one thing, he’s shortsighted, and then, he hardly ever moves from his chair, he comes in and sits down and doesn’t get up until the bell rings, one of these days the chair will catch fire underneath him and he won’t budge, also, he talks in a sort of quiet drone that’s just great for sending you to sleep. Finally, and most important, in his lessons I don’t miss much by sleeping. Even if I sleep right through till the bell goes the class has only learned two lines in the meantime.

  The others in the class have got used to the idea of me catching up on my sleep like this, and Tali, who sits in front of me, is always having to wake me up if anyone comes near. But today there was bright sunlight and I was dead tired. I got into my corner, put the pillow in place and leaned against the wall (where the plaster had already peeled right off) and went to sleep straightaway. Suddenly Arzi stood up, something made him excited or maybe the sun went to his head, and he started walking about among the benches. He saw me at once and when Tali tried to warn me he said, “Sh … sh …” and the others all held their breath, grinning as they watched the little old man creeping towards me. He stood there beside me for a few seconds (so I was told later) and suddenly he began to sing, “Sleep, sleep little girl,” and the class started laughing. But I still didn’t wake up, I think I was ac
tually dreaming, I was that tired. In the end he touched me, thinking maybe I’d fainted or something, and I opened my eyes and saw his kindly, smiling face. Lucky that it was him. And he began to intone like a proper Talmudist, “And what do we learn from this?” And his answer: “That they are repairing the beds at your house!” The old man had a sense of humour. And everyone roared with laughter. What could I say? I just smiled back at him. Then he said, “Perhaps you should go home and sleep, Dafna.” And I really should have refused and told him I wanted to learn Talmud, but the idea of more sleep appealed to me so much that I stood up, shoved my books and note pads into my school bag and left, slipping away through the empty corridors before Shwartzy could get on my track. I walked home quickly.

  At first I was so bleary I thought I’d come to the wrong house, because when I opened the door I saw a boy I didn’t recognize standing in the kitchen trying to drink something. But it really was our house and the boy was just one of Daddy’s workers who’d come to collect a briefcase that Daddy had forgotten. I startled him, he picked up the briefcase and left in a hurry. I undressed, in midmorning, put on my pyjamas, pulled down the blinds and got into bed. Bless Arzi, a real teacher, so considerate. But this damn bed of mine. I just lay down, and closed my eyes and again sleep fled.

  NA’IM

  And one morning they pulled me out from under a car and said, “Go to him, he wants you.” So I went to this Adam. He looked at me and said, “What’s your name?” I told him again, “Na’im.”

  “Good, take this key and go to my house and on the little cabinet on the right in the hall you’ll find a black briefcase. Bring it here. Do you know Carmel?”

  “Yes,” I said, I didn’t really know it at all but I just felt like wandering around the city for a while. He wrote the address on a piece of paper, told me which bus to take, took out a fat wallet full of notes, gave me ten pounds and sent me off.

  And I found his house on my own without asking anyone. A three-storey house in a nice quiet neighbourhood, full of trees and gardens. And from everywhere you could see the sea, really beautiful, a slice of blue between the houses. I kept on stopping to take another look at it. I’d never seen the sea from so high up. Not many people in the streets, just a few old women with baby carriages, feeding the fat babies. These Jews spoil their children like hell and then send them off to war.

  I went into the building. The staircase was brightly polished, I went up to the second floor like he told me and found the name on the door. I rang the bell first so if there happened to be anyone at home I wouldn’t be accused of breaking in.

  I waited a moment and then opened the door myself. The apartment was a bit dark but very tidy. Chaos in the garage and here everything’s tidy, everything in its place except for his briefcase, which wasn’t on the cabinet on the right or on the cabinet on the left but was on the dining table. I picked it up and was about to go because this was all he’d asked me to do but suddenly I didn’t want to go, I liked the look of this dark apartment. I went into the living room, treading on the soft carpets. I looked out through the window and saw the sea again. I even sat down to rest for a moment in an armchair beside a green potted plant. I looked at some of the pictures on the wall. Beside the radio, in a black frame, there was a picture of a boy, about five I’d say, I could tell right away it was his son. I really ought to have gone, it isn’t nice to walk around like this, touching things, but suddenly I wanted to have a look inside their kitchen. What do the Jews eat? I’d never looked inside a Jewish fridge. The kitchen was very clean. The table sparkled. In the sink there was just one unwashed cup. I opened the fridge. There wasn’t much food in it. Some cheese, a few eggs, some yogurt, a bottle of fruit juice, a piece of cold chicken on a plate, a few medicines and about a dozen different kinds of chocolate. I guess they eat chocolate for lunch.

  That’s enough, I thought, I’d better go. But a big jug with a thick red drink in it looked interesting. I’d never seen a drink like that before. I decided to have a taste of it, though I wasn’t at all thirsty. I found a cup and poured out a little bit, and I was drinking it, it had a funny taste like turnips, when I heard a key turning in the lock. Quickly I emptied the cup into the sink, turned on the tap and washed the cup. A girl about the same age as me in school uniform came into the apartment and threw down her school bag inside the doorway. Suddenly she noticed me and stood there looking confused, like she thought she’d come into the wrong house. I walked a few steps towards her, feeling myself blushing, waving the black briefcase and before she could scream or anything like that I said, “Your father sent me to pick up this briefcase that he forgot and he gave me the key as well.” She didn’t answer but she gave me such a sweet smile. I knew straightaway that she was his daughter, she was very pretty with big black eyes and fair hair. A bit short but very pretty, a bit tat but very pretty. It’s a pity I’ve seen her because I won’t ever be able to forget her. She’s one of those girls that I only have to see and I know I loved them even before I saw them. And she said, “Would you like something to drink?” and I said, “No,” and walked past her taking care not to touch her, holding the briefcase tightly under my arm, and I fled.

  Half an hour later I was already downtown on the way to the garage. But suddenly I had an idea. I went into a hardware shop and got a copy of the key to the flat. I went back to the garage and personally gave him the briefcase and the key and the change from the ten pounds. And in my shoe I could feel the duplicate key against the sole of my foot.

  But of course he didn’t suspect anything, smiling at me like his daughter.

  “Thank you. That’s fine. And very quick.”

  And he let me keep the change.

  That was all.

  ADAM

  The end of December already. More than two months have passed since the end of the war. Every day I still hope for some sign of him, but there’s no sign. Did he just get tired of us? But where is he? Asya hardly ever mentions him but it seems to me that she thinks I should be out looking for him. I spend a lot of time driving around the streets, searching for the little Morris at least. How can a car disappear without a trace? Once I caught sight of a blue Morris and followed it through the streets until finally it stopped outside the Technion and a tall old man, smartly dressed, got out of it, looking at me angrily. Naturally hardly a day passes without my going down to the old house in the lower city to see if a shutter or a window has been opened there. But the apartment on the second floor is just as he left it on the first day of the war. Sometimes I’m not content with looking from the outside but I go inside and up the stairs to knock on the door itself. On the first floor there’s a clothing store. It’s always closed. And on the second floor, aside from the grandmother’s flat, there’s another apartment and an old widow living alone. She’s watched my investigations with great suspicion. I had only to walk up the stairs and the door of her flat would open a crack and she’d peer out at me, watching in silence as I knocked on the door, waited for a while and then went down again. At first I used to ignore her, after a while I decided to try getting some information out of her.

  She was very suspicious of me –

  Had she seen Gabriel Arditi? No. Did she know of any change in the old lady’s condition? She didn’t. Which hospital was she in, by the way? Why did I want to know? I explained that I was a friend of Gabriel and since the war I’d had no news of him.

  She thought for a moment, then gave me the name of the institution to which the old lady had been taken. A geriatric hospital not far from Hadera.

  She was a heavily built woman, with bright eyes, a little moustache sprouting from her lip. Still she looked at me dubiously.

  “Do you happen to have a key to the flat?”

  No, she had no key, she gave hers to Gabriel.

  “I suppose I shall have to break down the door,” I whispered to myself, thinking aloud.

  “In that case I think I’d better call the police at once,” she said without a moment’s hesitati
on.

  “Who?” I smiled.

  “The police.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do you mean coming here and breaking the door down? It’s not even your friend’s house.”

  She stood in her doorway immovable as a rock. There was no doubt she would call the police.

  I went away.