The Lover

by A. B. Yehoshua

  And the house fills up with people. All sitting quietly and waiting. What for? In the evening somebody switches on the television, no sound, just to see if they’ll show the corpses. But they show only the room where the hostages were kept, the files scattered on the floor, the mess and the wreckage. They sit there in silence. Nobody speaks. Just now and then somebody groans “O God.” And at midnight the security forces arrive. In their innocent-looking Escorts. Welcome back sweet little bird. More like dogs than birds. Fat, with black moustaches. They’re tired and unhappy too. No blame, no threats. Wishing peace on everybody. They know all of us by name, hell. Shaking hands. The strange Iraqi Arabic they speak. People make space for them in the middle of the room but they decline and go stand in a corner. Drinking coffee. In the end Father’s brought out to meet them, he looks a hundred years older. Bit by bit they start telling the true story of what happened. Silence in the room, they’re all holding their breath. And the village outside is hushed as well, like the whole village is listening to the story in the dark. They tell us the facts we don’t want to hear but must. Hearts beating fast eyes closed. We hear of the cruelty, the heroism, the madness. Already the bombers are roaring overhead.

  Father listens and listens. His eyes closed like he’s asleep. And when they finish he starts to speak. Softly, going around and around in circles. First about the fields, about the rain and what the Koran says about brotherhood and peace. And then he starts to curse. Weeping and cursing. Better that the boy had never been born.

  And they listen to the curses, the words of loyalty and abuse. Nodding their heads but not believing. Not believing that we believe in what we say, but not wanting to hear other things from us.

  Nobody goes to bed. All night we sit there in the big room and people come and go and in the morning the journalists arrive. With cameras and microphones. There’s no getting rid of them. They corner us and ask questions, they want photographs of him. Where did he go to school? Who were his teachers? How did he behave? Who were his friends? And Father with his Hebrew full of mistakes sits like a baby in a highchair, a microphone tied around his neck as they focus the lights on him, trying to smile. Again and again they ask him the same questions. And he says, “He was just mad, that’s all. Look at his little brother, he’s a good boy.” And he hugs me hard, hurting me. All this in front of the cameras. The shame. Adnan’s no longer his son. We’ve forgotten him. And that’s what we say, over and over again. The relations, the cousins, they all smile into the cameras. He was just crazy, off his rocker, even though we know he wasn’t.

  ADAM

  Rainy days. A heavy winter. I wake up as usual at five o’clock in the morning, a habit that I can’t change now. Lately I’ve been the first to go to sleep and I find a different house when I wake up in the morning. The leftovers of supper in the dining room. Pillows and blankets on the chairs. Dafi’s night struggles. Asya curled up beside me like a foetus. Her grey hair on the pillow. Wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Behind the lids her eyes are moving. Dreaming again. Dreaming all the time.

  “Asya,” I whisper, as if trying to penetrate her dream.

  She moans, turns over quickly.

  I drink coffee, eat a slice of bread, then drive through the empty streets, sometimes stopping by the seashore, parking the car and starting to walk along the wet beach. Very cold. The sky clouding over. A strong wind rising from the sea. But there’s always somebody there. An elderly couple in swimsuits running slowly hand in hand along the water line, chattering happily. A woman, not young, emerges from the stormy breakers and slowly walks towards me. She picks up a towel that was lying almost at my feet and covers herself with it. Taking off her bathing cap, shaking out her hair and spraying cold drops of water on my face. She smiles at me, perhaps she wants to start a conversation. Not a pretty face, but a superb figure. I stand beside her, wrapped in my big fur coat, watching her change her bathing suit for a dress, watching her white breasts in the freezing wind. Without interest. Deep in thought. Somebody touches my shoulder.

  My heart stops – Gabriel.

  But it’s Erlich, the old yeke, in swimming trunks, laughing, thin and strong, his silver body hair reeking of salt and sand.

  “Erlich! Do you still swim in the sea in the morning, even on days like this?”

  “For thirty years now. I used to swim with your father. Every day before work. Come on now, strip off and get into the water.”

  “I’m an old man …” I reply with a smile. We talk for a while, Erlich running on the spot to keep warm. Then he leaves me and goes running away to climb on some horizontal bars. A light rain falling. All kinds of weird people turning up. Friendly fishermen. It’s nearly seven o’clock. Time to go. Driving out towards the main road I see the woman who came out of the water, whose breasts I caught sight of for a moment, walking on the left-hand side, in a short coat, stopping and turning to look at me, slowly raising her hand. For a moment I think of stopping and picking her up, I hesitate, slow down, but then drive on, feeling defeated, a light nausea rising in me.

  On the way to the garage once again I pass by the old house. Although I know I won’t find anything I can’t resist stopping there, getting out of the car to look up at the closed shutters. It’s four months now since he disappeared.

  If only I could break into this house –

  I examine the pipes on the outside of the building. A long drainpipe leads up to the second floor, uneven bricks protrude on the outer wall, the shutter up there is still a tiny bit open.

  Whistles behind me. A girl traffic cop comes walking up to see what’s happening. I move, drive to the garage. Erlich’s already sitting over the accounts, looking fresh and invigorated. If he had been in my shoes he could have climbed that wall long ago. At night that alleyway’s deserted. Perhaps I could ask Hamid to find me somebody to break in there. If he had a terrorist among his relations, surely he could find me a professional housebreaker, but afterwards it might be tricky.

  No, I need to find a boy, some boy who can climb quickly, somebody who wouldn’t understand exactly what he was doing, a stranger, but not a complete stranger, somebody who trusts me a little, perhaps somebody employed temporarily in the garage.

  I watch the workers closely, moving about among them, they pretend not to notice me but I’m conscious that the chattering stops when I approach, the music is turned down slightly. I know very few names here. But there’s one fellow who looks up, staring back at me. It’s that boy again, the one who was hurt and has recovered now. Smiling a sincere understanding smile at me. He picks up a big screwdriver and swaggering like a veteran mechanic he walks over to a large plump woman standing beside a little Fiat with a raised hood. He says boldly, “Get in, lady, and start the engine. Keep your foot on the throttle and do exactly as I tell you.”

  And she smiles, looking around her with embarrassment, gets into the car and starts the engine. The boy climbs onto the bumper and starts tuning. Scandalous. Only two months ago he was sweeping the floor and now he’s got the nerve to tune engines. But I say nothing, I just stand there watching him, and he knows that I’m watching him and he carries on tuning, raising and lowering the revolutions of the engine, with no idea what he’s doing. In the end one of the Jewish mechanics comes along and shouts at him, pushing him aside. But the boy isn’t offended, watching me from a distance, with a smile as if to spite me.

  This, it comes to me in a flash, is the boy who’ll climb that wall, and perhaps he’ll keep quiet about it too.

  NA’IM

  It was like a dream that Friday. A sweet dream. Because I slept in her house and ate breakfast and supper with her, and even if I had maybe done something criminal still I was happy.

  As soon as I arrived at the garage that morning he grabbed me like he’d been waiting for me. He took me into a quiet corner and told me he needed me for a small job that night, if it was all right for me not going home to the village. I said that was all right, no problem, I didn’t mind sleeping at the garage
. He said, “No, you don’t need to sleep at the garage, you can sleep at my house. I’ll look after you.” I was so happy I thought I was going to faint. My head went fuzzy. But I just smiled at him. And he said, “Only don’t talk about it, can you keep a secret?” “Of course I can,” I said. “I’ll keep as quiet about it as you like.” He looked at me like he was checking some bit of machinery. “Can you climb?” “Climb on what?” I asked. “It’s not important.” He was embarrassed. “You’ll see. What have you got in that bag?” He didn’t give me a chance to reply but snatched it out of my hand and looked inside it, seeing the bread and the book of poems by Alterman. I thought I was going to die. He took out the book and asked me what it was. “It’s a book,” I said. “But whose is it?” “It’s mine, I’m reading it.” “You’re reading this?” He was surprised, he laughed and he put his hand on my head again like he did the first time. In the distance I saw the other workers watching us curiously. He flicked through the book but he didn’t look at the first page. He just asked, “Do you understand this stuff?” “Sometimes,” I said, and snatched it back in a hurry. He was thrilled, really impressed, and he touched me again, he was always so careful not to touch the other workers but it was like with me it was O.K. Then he took out his wallet again, the one that was always stuffed full of money like it was weighing him down and he wanted to get rid of it. He took out a hundred-pound note and said, “Go and buy yourself some pyjamas and a toothbrush and come back here at four o’clock after the others have gone and I’ll pick you up. I’ll tell Hamid you won’t be going back to the village tonight.” “But I can go straight to your house,” I said. He was surprised. “Do you know where it is?” I reminded him that he’d once sent me to his house to fetch a briefcase, he didn’t remember but he said, “All right, come straight to the house at four o’clock.” “O.K.,” I said, “but what kind of pyjamas do you want me to buy?” He laughed. “The pyjamas are for you, not for me.” I knew that but I only asked him because I was getting all mixed up I was so happy. How happy I was suddenly.

  And I went straight out into the city with the hundred pounds. At first I wandered around the streets, walking in the middle of the road and nearly getting run over. All the time feeling the hundred pounds in my pocket, stopping in the middle of the road and fingering it. I’d never had so much money all at once. And though it was a cold and rainy day I was free, like in holidays from school. And I walked among the people aimlessly, looking in the gloomy faces of the Jews, always so worried about their Jewish destiny. And though the sky was dark I was already sniffing the smell of spring. I wanted to shout out loud I was so happy. Because all the time I was thinking I’d be seeing that girl in a little while and I’d be able to fall in love properly and not just in my imagination. I walked and walked and nearly came out the other side of the city and turned back and this time started looking in the shops. Going in here and there to look at things, because aside from the pyjamas I wanted to buy a whole lot of things for myself. This time I wasn’t giving any change back. And they realized I was an Arab right away and they started looking in my bag, feeling the loaves of bread to check if there were bombs hidden inside them. So I ate some of the bread in a hurry and threw the rest away with the bag so they’d leave me alone and I just kept the book, tucking it under my arm. I felt lighter that way.

  In the end, after I’d looked in the windows of toy shops, bookshops, radio and TV shops, I began to look for a pyjama shop, but there weren’t any pyjamas in the windows and I didn’t know exactly which shop to enter. Anyway, why did he insist on pyjamas? I could sleep in my underwear and buy something more important with the money. Suddenly I saw a high-class clothes shop that had pyjamas in the window but didn’t show any prices. I went inside and wanted to go straight out again because it was dark in there and there was nobody about. But as soon as I turned to go a thin old man came out from a dark corner. “What do you want, boy?” I said, “Pyjamas.” He asked, “Have you got any money?” and I took out the blue bill and showed it to him.

  Then he grabbed my hand, he didn’t seem to mind that I was wearing dirty working clothes. He didn’t even realize I was an Arab. All he wanted was to get his hands on that little blue bill that I’d been stupid enough to show him and he did take it off me in the end. He started taking all kinds of pyjamas out of boxes, fine silk pyjamas with tassels and fancy embroidery. He showed me pair after pair, spreading them out in front of me. And I stood there and couldn’t say a word because they really were nice. In the end he came over to me, took my measurements and told me to undress. I took off my shirt and sweater and he put a pyjama top on me and turned me towards the mirror to see if it suited me. Then he took it off and tried another on me, and every set of pyjamas was crazier than the last one, gold buttons and coloured tassels. When he saw I was struck dumb he chose some red pyjamas for me and said, “Look, these suit you best,” and folded them up and packed them in a box and wrapped the box in soft paper and put it in a new plastic bag and then gently but firmly he took the blue bill that I still held in my fingers and said softly, “That’s it.” I saw he didn’t mean to give me any change and I asked him in a feeble voice, “Do these cost a hundred pounds?” He said, “More than that, I’ve given you a discount.” I didn’t move, I felt stunned. And he smiled at me and said, “Where are you from, boy?”

  And suddenly I was afraid he might be angry if he knew he’d been dealing with an Arab.

  “From here … from this neighbourhood.”

  “And your parents? Where are they from?”

  “From Poland,” I replied, without even thinking, because they’d told us in school that all the Zionists came from Poland.

  And I still didn’t move, weeping in my heart for the hundred pounds that had gone on just one pair of pyjamas. And still I didn’t touch my pyjamas, which were lying there before me in a bag. At last I said, “But I’ve still got to buy a toothbrush, I need a toothbrush as well, I can’t take such expensive pyjamas.” And then he went through a door into a back room and came back a few seconds later with a toothbrush, which was red and not exactly new. He put it into the bag and said, “There you are, boy, I’ve given you a toothbrush as well, I’ve made a deal with you.” But when he saw I was still rooted there, in a panic over the money I’d lost, he put the bag in my hand, took my arm and led me out into the street, closing the door behind him.

  And so I was left without a cent, just with a set of crazy pyjamas wrapped in a plastic bag. Heavy rain started falling. I still had five hours to go till four o’clock and I didn’t even have the money for the bus. I walked up to Carmel and arrived at his house, still with three hours to go before four o’clock. I didn’t want to wait on the stairs so I found a little shelter opposite and sat down there to wait, until somebody came along who didn’t even live there and said, “Move, get out of here.”

  So I moved. I circled the streets of the neighbourhood, which was nice even in the rain, and went back and sat under the shelter opposite the house and waited for the time to pass. And again two men came along and said, “What are you doing here? What are you waiting for?” I didn’t answer, just got up and started walking around again. I’ve noticed before that as long as we’re moving, working or walking they don’t take any notice of us, it’s only when we stand still in some place that they start getting suspicious. And so I walked about, very tired and completely wet and even though the sun came out now and then it couldn’t dry me because I was as wet as a rain cloud. And I went back again to my shelter and it was already halfpast two and the children were coming home from school, first the younger ones and then the older ones. And I saw her arriving, the last of all maybe, running along without a raincoat, without galoshes, just in a short coat, soaking wet. I watched her disappear into the house. The sun came out again.

  I threw Stars Outside, that Alterman book, into a dustbin, it was like dough it had got so wet. Then his wife arrived. I recognized her right away by her green Fiat 600. Once I’d tightened the brakes an
d changed the oil for her. And she took out a whole lot of baskets and then stood and fumbled for a long time in the letter box, though I’d already checked it out and I knew there wasn’t any mail for them. Ten minutes later she came out again and drove away and came back with some milk and after half an hour she drove away again and came back with bread.

  Slowly the street emptied and there was a strange sort of silence. People were arriving in their cars and disappearing into their houses with baskets, closing the shutters. And I was still sitting there opposite the house waiting for him to come. I was already sick of the whole thing. The door to the balcony was open and the girl came out to look at the sky. I tried to huddle up small so she wouldn’t see me, but she stared down at me like she was trying to remember something. And the rain started again. Her mother shouted something and she went back inside. And now it started raining really hard and I thought I was going to be swept away, off the pavement, down the hill and into the sea that you couldn’t see because of the mist.

  Already I was feeling miserable as hell, the rain was getting inside my head, driving me crazy. I was regretting the whole thing now, even love. Sitting alone in the street watching the sealed shutters, it was already after four o’clock and he hadn’t arrived yet and I was afraid I’d be stuck there all night in the street with the pyjamas. Perhaps he’d forgotten me and the job he wanted me for. But at last I heard his American car coming down the hill. Before he’d even had time to turn off the engine I’d opened the door for him. He smiled at me like we’d only just parted, and he asked, “Have you just arrived?” “Just now,” I lied. He said, “Good, come and give me a hand,” and he started unloading flowers and cakes and bread and nuts. Looks like everybody here cooks and eats his own food.