“Hello, everybody!” I said, looking round with a cheery smile. No one smiled back. The atmosphere was like curdled milk. Maybe we should start with Ms Baddiel’s breathing exercises, I thought, just to calm us all down.
Mrs Shapiro poured me a glass of water from a jug and introduced the newcomer to me as Chaim Shapiro, adding, “This is Georgine, my good neighbour.”
He pounced on me at once, demanding to know why I had invited these strangers into his house—I winced at the emphasis—“my house”—but before I could get a word out, Mrs Shapiro pounced back.
“Is not your house, Chaim. I been living here sixty year paying rets.”
“Shut up your mouth, Ella. You have no feet to stand on, letting Arabs come into your home.”
“You shut up the mouth,” Mrs Shapiro snapped. He ignored her.
“So, Miss Georgiana. Please, we are awaiting your explanation,” he rasped in a breathy voice not unlike Wonder Boy’s purr. “Speak up now or forever hold your pieces.”
I started to explain that the house needed repair and renovation and that’s why Mr Ali and his assistants had been called in. He gave a dubious sniff and rocked back in his chair. Then there was the issue of security, I told him, describing the stolen key and the turned-off water main and hinting at Mrs Goodney’s involvement. That made him sit up. The eyebrow above his glass eye started to twitch.
“That Goody with her young stick-up-the-hair-nik, they think I am made of short planks. They think I will sell them my house cheap so they can make some quick bucks out of me. But I have a different plan.”
“Is not your house, Chaim.”
“It is my father’s house. Father likes son.”
“My house.” hissed Mrs Shapiro. “When your father died, he give it me.”
“So what’s your plan, Mr Shapiro?” I interrupted, to move the conversation on.
“My plan is to undertake some major renovations here in my house.” There were sharp intakes of breath all around. Wonder Boy’s tail started to flick. “In fact I am something of a do-it-myself enthusiast. I have already purchased a tool kit.” He looked around the table, but nobody met his eye. I glanced across at Mr All, but his face was impassive.
“Chaim, darlink, your mother would be eating her own kishkes to hear you speaking like this. She was giving up everything to build the new Israel. Beautiful homeland for the Jews. Why you are not staying there? Why you are coming back now and putting me on to the street?” There was a wheedling note in her voice.
“Nobody is putting you on to any street Ella. You are putting yourself on to the street living with these Arabs.”
“These are my Attendents.”
“Ella, you have lost your screws. All Arabs are the same—they are only waiting for the opportunity to push Jews into the sea.”
Across the table, Mr Ali was leaning over and whispering something to Ishmail. The Attendents’ faces were sullen.
“Nobody is pushing me into the sea. The sea is a long way from here, Chaim. Sea is at Dover. I hefFbeen there mit Arti.” Her chin was sticking out defiantly.
“I know this Dover Beach. Where ignorant armies splash at night,” Chaim Shapiro tutted, taking little sips from his glass of water as if to cool himself down.
Mrs Shapiro stared at him. Then she leaned across and whispered to me, “What is he talking about, Georgine?”
“It’s a poem.”
“A poem? Is he med?”
“I am talking about terrorism, Ella. Look at my blinded eye. What I was doing? Nothing. Sitting minding my own businesses.” He was cracking his knuckles furiously as he talked, from nervousness or anger.
“We are in London now, Chaim. Not in Tel Aviv.”
“And you see they have commenced bombing here in London.”
Mr Ali leaned over and translated for Ishmail, who whispered to Nabeel. All three of them were scowling.
“We are already in the darkened plain.”
“Darlink Chaim, this is a house, not an aeroplane. Please, be a little calm. And these are my Attendents, not suicideniks. See, they are even animal lovers.”
Nabeel had reached across and was stroking Wonder Boy behind the ears, whose rhythmic purring was a soothing background to the fractious discussion. If only someone would stroke Chaim Shapiro behind the ears, I thought.
Now Mr Ali spoke, his voice splintering with anger. “Arabs, Christians, Jews been living side by side for many generations. Making businesses together. No broblem. No bogrom. No concentration camp. Even we selled you some of our land. But this is not enough. You want whole bloody lot.”
Chaim Shapiro ignored him and turning towards me explained in a teachery tone, “All Palestinians have the same story. They come along with some old key, saying this is the key to my house. You must move out immediately! But when my mother came to Israel nobody was living there. It was empty as a desert. Abandoned. All the inhabitants had scarpered.”
“Driven out with gunpoint!” Mr Ali tried to shout, but his voice was shaking and it ended in a little squeak. The last time I’d seen him so mad was when he was sitting on the wet grass at the bottom of the ladder.
“If you want to live alongside us in our land, all you must do is to stop attacking us. Is that not fair enough?” Chaim smirked and spread his hands theatrically.
In—two—three—four. Out- two—three—four.
“Look, we’re not going to solve all the world’s problems today,” I said cheerily. “But it’s quite a big house. Especially if we convert the penthouse suite. Maybe everyone can live here together.”
They all turned towards me, and I could feel myself turning crimson under their collective gaze. In fact everybody had gone a bit beetrooty, even Mr Ali. Wonder Boy was snarling like a dog, swinging his fat tail from side to side.
“I do not want to share my house with three Arabs,” Chaim Shapiro grouched.
“Chaim,” said Mrs Shapiro appeasingly, “the Peki is not living here. He is only a visitor.”
“You do not understand the Arab mentality, Ella. They will not let us in peace. Do you think Israel would exist today if half its population was Arab, and trying to destroy it from within?”
I felt a stab of anger, remembering the twin babies, heavy as watermelons, and the soldier with the number tattooed on his arm.
“But you can’t expect people to give up their homes and land and not fight back!”
Mr Ali translated for the benefit of the Attendents, who nodded fervently in my direction. Chaim Shapiro’s face was sweating, his good eye blinking rapidly.
“Ha! Then we have the right of self defence! Every time you strike Israel we will strike back harder. You give us homemade rocket-launchers, we give you US-made helicopter gun-ships. Bam bam bam!” He aimed his hands like a gun across the table. Then, turning to me, he added, “As your immortal bard William Shakespeare said, to do great right, we have to do a small wrong! It isn’t pretty, but it is necessary, Miss Georgiana.”
When I said nothing, he lurched forward and slapped the table suddenly like a volley of gunfire. “Bam bam bam! Bam bam bam!”
Wonder Boy, who was still sitting on the chair at the head of the table, pricked back his ears at the noise and hissed, showing his horrible fangs. Then he leapt up on to the table in fighting pose, his back arched, his tail puffed out, and with a yowl he flew at Chaim Shapiro, going at his face with his claws. Chaim Shapiro fought back, trying to pull the big cat off, but Wonder Boy clung tight, his tail thrashing, his claws lashing. Mrs Shapiro shrieked frenziedly at both of them.
“Halt! Chaim! Stop this smecking! Wonder Boy! Raus!”
The cat hissed and fled, knocking over the jug of water that trickled down on to our legs. Chaim Shapiro pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at his bleeding cheek. When he looked up, we saw that his glass eye had swivelled round grotesquely in its socket. Only the white was showing, staring out blankly like a boiled egg.
Everyone went quiet, as if shocked at how quickly the confrontation h
ad flared up, and a sudden thought lit up like a light bulb in my head: these people—they’re all completely mad. In another part of the house, we could hear a menacing yowl—Wonder Boy sizing up his next victim (feline, I suppose, for Mrs Shapiro’s slippers were on her feet). It was Mrs Shapiro who spoke first. I noticed an appraising look in her eyes as she leaned over to Chaim and patted his arm.
“Darlink Chaim, there is no need to fight. If you heff no home you can live here mit us. You can take any room what you like—except of mine, of course. You can make all your beautiful renovations, mit your tool kit. Build in kitchen units. Dishwashers. Meekrowaves. My Nicky has told me everything what is needed for the modern kitchen.” She took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “We will make dinner parties mit cultured conversations. Concerts in the evenings. Even we will heff poetry recitals if that is what you like.” I could see his face softening as he pictured these delectable scenes. “You are my Arti’s son, Chaim. This is always your home whenever you want. But my Attendents also must stay here mit me.”
Her voice was so seductive that I might almost have applied for residency myself, even though I knew, as Chaim did not, about the Phantom Pooer. Chaim, I could tell, was already seduced.
“Ella, I can see you are quite a little home-pigeon, and I will gladly accept your invitation to take up my residence with you. And if the Arabs must stay, maybe we can divide the house between us. They keep to the top part of the house, and we stay in our part.” He beamed magnanimously across the table.
“Hm! Next you will build a wall,” said Mr Ali drily. “Checkpoint on the stairs. Then you will steal some more rooms for settlements.”
Ishmail and Nabeel smiled confusedly.
“Have you got a sticking plaster, Mrs Shapiro?” I asked, to diffuse the tension.
Chaim’s cheek was bleeding badly—Wonder Boy had taken quite a swipe. She scuttled off to find one. Mr Ali and the Attendents had convened a separate meeting in the kitchen. I could hear the clink of the coffee pot, and soon after the smell of freshly brewed coffee drifted into the room. So for a few minutes, Chaim Shapiro and I were alone together. He took off his jacket, hung it on the back of his chair, and undid the top button of his white shirt. He was sweating profusely under the arms. Without the jacket he seemed to shrink in size. His bulk, I realised, was mainly shoulder pads.
The eye that looked at me—his good eye—was dark and sad, but it reminded me of the blazing brown eyes of the young woman in the photographs, and his round pudgy face ended in a little pointed chin like a crude copy of hers. I was still thinking that someone should stroke him behind the ears, but instead, I leaned forward and said, “You remind me of your mother.”
He turned towards me and his look changed entirely, lit up with a smile so sweet and childlike it seemed to have strayed on to the wrong face.
“You knew my mother?”
“I didn’t know her,” I said. “I’ve seen her photo. You look like her.”
“I wish you could have met her. Everybody who met her loved her.” He was smiling that same baby smile, his heavy cheeks dimpling with pleasure at the memory.
“And your father…”
“Yes, Artem Shapiro. The musician. She was always talking about him, like the legs of a donkey.”
“…why didn’t he join her in Israel?” I found myself holding my breath.
“He was too sick. Lungs kaput. Ella was looking after him. Here in this house.”
The death certificate had said lung cancer.
“And she never went back to him?”
“She wanted to build a garden in the desert. Can you imagine—with her naked hands? She would never leave until it was finished.” A shadow settled over him and he seemed to shrivel up even more inside the white polyester shirt. “Then she got sick. Blood sickness. She died when I was ten years old. A few months after my father.”
I remembered the date on the letter from Lydda. Chaim was born in 1950, so she must have died in 1960.
“I’m sorry. To lose your whole family…And then your injury…”
I wanted to ask how it had happened. I guessed he didn’t know without looking in a mirror that the glass eye was turned the wrong way in its socket.
“But my family was the moshav—father, mother, sister, brother. After she died I stayed there with them. Everybody was family in our new nation.”
It must have been the same moshav she wrote about in the letter, the stony hillside where she’d cradled her newborn baby in her arms, looking out to the west and waiting for her husband. I still had her photo at home in my bedroom. I’d bring it for him next time.
“Was she from Byelorussia too?”
“No, she came from Denmark. But they met in Sweden. They were married in London. And I was born in Israel.” He smiled that chubby dimply smile. “Naomi Shapiro. She was a person who knew how to dream.”
“She dreamed of a promised land?”
“Our homeland. Zion.” His cheeks dimpled again. “Home sweet home.”
But something was niggling me. Why does everyone go on about homeland? Surely what really matters is the people we’re attached to? Ben and Stella were my homeland—yes, and Rip. I tried to imagine what it would be like to love a country more than them. I thought about the woman in the photographs—those dark eyes blazing with conviction. She’d left her love behind to find the homeland of her dreams and someone else—another Naomi Shapiro—had stepped into her place.
“But isn’t it your homeland, too, Chaim? More so, because you were born there? Haven’t you got a family? Friends? Colleagues? I can’t understand why you want to make your life here.”
At your age, I meant to add, but didn’t want to seem rude.
“I was a teacher for thirty years. English language and literature.” He shuffled in his chair. “Now I am retired. Not married. What woman wants to marry a one-eyed man?”
“Oh, I don’t know…” Mrs Shapiro will soon sort you out, I was thinking.
She had reappeared with a rather grubby curling-at-the-corners sticking plaster, which she applied to his cheek with a little pat.
“Now your home is mit us, isn’t it?”
I noticed that there were a couple of cat hairs adhering underneath.
“Thank you, Ella. My mother told me you were very solicitous to my father in his illness. And encouraging him to go to Israel upon his recovery. She showed me the letter you wrote.”
I glanced across at Mrs Shapiro.
“It was very long ago,” she said. Some inscrutable emotion flitted across her face and she gave a little shrug. “Sometimes it’s better to let the past alone.”
“Yes, long ago.” He sat back heavily in his chair. “You know, Ella, this country, this Israel, it is not the same country she dreamed of. It should have been a beautiful country—prosperous, modern, democratic. Founded on justice and the rule of law. But they have spoiled it with their fanaticism.”
He gestured with his head towards the kitchen where Mr Ali and the Attendents were still chatting in Arabic. There was a clink of coffee being poured.
“You know, Miss Georgiana, no teacher wants to have blood of children on his hands. Not even of little stone-throwing Arab ratscallions.”
But I wasn’t really listening, my mind had drifted back to what he was saying before Wonder Boy had lashed out with his claws. To do a great right, do a little wrong. That was Bassanio, in The Merchant of Venice. I’d done it for ‘A’ level. But what was it that Portia had said? Something about the quality of mercy. When mercy seasons justice. That was it.
“So what do you think is the solution?” I asked.
“There is no solution. I can see no possibility of peace in my lifetime.” He sank lower in his chair, resting his chin on his hands. “So long as they continue with their attacks, we will continue our defences. We are trapped in tits for tats. It is impossible for someone so sensitive like myself to live life this way.”
“But…it’s never too late, is it? For peace? I mean,
if only the will is there I was thinking even as I spoke that the words sounded good, but they were probably tosh. The will for peace—Rip and I had still not managed to work it out, had we? Too late for me, Miss Georgiana.” He sighed. “For at my back I always hear time’s horse-drawn chariot galloping near.”
“Winged.” I couldn’t stop myself, but he was lost in his thoughts and didn’t hear. Maybe I should introduce him to Mark Diabello. They would have the same taste in poetry.
I noticed, as I walked home in the early evening, that the silver buds of the pussy willow had opened out, and flaunted golden flecks of pollen in their fur. The air was soft and moist. A fine spring rain dampened my face and settled like mist on my hair; it glistened on the leaves and fell in slow heavy drops from the overhanging branches. Everything was cool and green. It was a different world to that of Chaim Shapiro and Mustafa Ali—but it was the same world. We all had to learn to live here somehow.
I’d felt so full of pity when Mr Ali had told me his story, if I’d had a gun, I would have gone out myself to seek revenge for his lost home and violated family. Now I was beginning to feel sorry for this sad crumpled man, this one-eyed orphan of his mother’s broken dreams. My parents had taught me always to look out for the underdog, but even underdogs can snap and snarl. How could I know who’d started it? Whose fault it really was? Maybe that was the wrong question to ask in the first place. If you could just get the human bonding right, maybe the other details—laws, boundaries, constitution—would all fall into place. It was just a case of finding the right adhesive for the adherends. Mercy. Forgiveness. If only it came in tubes.
§
It wasn’t until I was almost at home that I remembered I’d never asked Chaim how he had lost his eye. Had he been caught up in the revenge attack at Lydda airport? I recalled my conversation with Ben a week or so ago—the ancient prophecy of the battle between Jesus and Antichrist at the gates of Lydda which was supposed to precede the end of the world. An airport is a kind of a gate to a city—isn’t it? But surely the terrorists wouldn’t have known the words of the prophets. I felt a small quake of dread in my guts. How could the present reach back into the past? What mysterious tendrils of causation could have brought about this connection? No wonder Ben was so rattled. And Dajjal, the devil with one eye? But Chaim Shapiro was no devil, he was a casualty, too—a stray soul who had lost his mother too young. Without his shoulder pads, he was just a sweaty middle-aged man in a polyester shirt. Still, I felt a shudder as if an ancient hand had tapped my shoulder and a voice from another world had whispered, “Armageddon.”
2009 - We Are All Made of Glue Page 30