Someone to Run With

by David Grossman

  ‘No.’ She had smoked once on that trip to Arad, and that was it. She never took it, even when she was offered it here and there. She had a hard time even explaining why. It had something to do with the connection between internal emotions and strange substances.

  ‘You’re lucky. Me neither. I have character. I don’t touch it. Some weed once a week, just to kind of cleanse my soul, and sometimes when it’s really, and I mean really, shitty, I’ll do a little crystal; but that’s it. Heroin? Never touch the stuff, not even if they put it here in front of me, not for a million bucks. I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. Nada! My life is fucked up enough – I’d rather be fully conscious of every step on my way down to the bottom.’

  Tamar wanted to ask about Shai – whether Sheli had seen him here, whether she knew what condition he was in these days, whether he was even alive. It took a lot of effort, but she stayed silent. Sheli was very nice, but Tamar was plagued by the thought that Pesach might have sent her here to discover who she was. It made no sense, it was disgusting to even suspect Sheli of that, but she had trained herself over the last month to suspect any person she met, so she wouldn’t make any mistakes. The worst part was that Tamar knew Sheli could easily sense this thin cover she was now using to protect herself.

  ‘There’s something I don’t understand,’ she said after a long silence. ‘Why does he run this place, Pesach? What does he get out of it?’

  ‘Art, of course.’ Sheli laughed, blowing a cloud of contempt toward the ceiling. ‘He’s running his own private producing company with his own artists. He organizes it, and books shows and drives around and holds the whole country in the palm of his hand, cell phones, big boss, tough guy, impresario de crapola. He really loves it. And don’t forget, he cuts coupons all day.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Money.’ Sheli started rubbing imaginary bills and drooling imaginary spittle. ‘Money . . . dinero . . . masari . . . gelt.’ She had the talent to squeeze humor out of every gesture, and Tamar, even in her bleak mood, couldn’t help laughing.

  ‘But it’s not . . . there’s got to be something else going on here, right? Otherwise, what is all this for?’ Tamar waved her hand, indicating the room, the whole abandoned hospital. ‘He can’t be doing all this just for the few shekels we earn on the street. Do you really think this is it?’ Because even if Pesach preferred to be just . . . a small-time, if successful, crook . . . one piece was still missing from the puzzle around her; she couldn’t figure out what it was. Something having to do with work and profit. Some counter-argument about the gap between the amount of effort that she felt went into this – all the organizing, running a huge home here, and transporting kids to different cities – versus the amount of money that this Pesach could earn from hats placed on sidewalks.

  Sheli fell silent for a moment. She curved her lips around the cigarette. ‘Now that you mention it . . .’ she murmured, and Tamar wasn’t sure she was being honest.

  ‘What? Don’t tell me you never thought of that.’

  ‘What do I know? I thought, I didn’t think. What does it matter? Perhaps at the beginning you think a lot, yes, your brain is working overtime. Later, I told you – you just get sucked in.’ She pulled her knees to her stomach, and her chest sank. ‘You get up in the morning, they take you to do a performance, two performances, ten performances. In one day you go from Tel Aviv to Holon, to Ashkelon, to Nes Tziyona, to Rishon Le Tziyyon; you try not to listen to the guy sitting in the front seat, his guard dog. Hearing his voice is enough to make you feel like calling Darwin up and telling him, ‘Hey, mister, bad call – man didn’t evolve from the monkeys, it’s the other way around.’ She instantly did a perfect imitation of a monkey scratching his chest, searching for lice, picking one out, looking at it, considering it for a second, and then crushing it between puffed-out lips. ‘Once or twice a day they give you something in a pita, and you eat – in the street, in some dirty yard, in the car – between the performances. You sleep, they wake you up, you perform. You don’t know if you’re in Bat-Yam or Netanya, it’s all the same shit, all the streets and squares look alike. All the audiences are the same: all the boys are named Din, and the girls, Ifat – unless it’s the Russians, and then it’s Yevgeny and Mashinka. All the rest are just cheap, nameless bastards. The day before yesterday, this one scumbag put a twenty-shekel bill in my hat and bent down and took fifteen back in change. Can you imagine? He was lucky I didn’t kick his ass. After a few days like that, you can’t tell morning from night, can’t tell if you’re coming or going, can’t remember your name, your rank, or your serial number. You finish a set, ah, very nice, applause; you collect the money and go to the rendezvous point, and the car is waiting for you. Or sometimes he’s waiting for someone else to finish in another city, so you have to bake in the sun for an hour –’ The longer she spoke, the more pinched and resentful her face became, making her look a lot older than her age. ‘Eventually, the car pulls up – your limousine, your Lamborghini! Ha! The fucked-up Subaru. You creep inside and fold yourself up as small as possible and sleep for another hour, so as to not get depressed by a conversation on the theory of relativity with the sausage in the driver’s seat. By the end of the day, you don’t remember where you went, or what you did, or what you’re called. When they bring you back at night, you barely have the energy to eat the mashed potatoes that Pesach’s mommy burned. And you crawl upstairs and go to sleep. You see?’ She flashed a wide, glamorous smile. ‘This is what I’ve been talking about: the fascinating lives of the megastars, the shining world of bohemia!’ She fluttered her lashes three times and gave a little curtsy, indicating the end of the performance.

  Tamar was silent for a long time. She felt her muscles stiffening, as if to absorb the blows of the days to come. ‘So how come you’re here today?’ she asked.

  ‘Today I had to meet with my juvy officer.’ Sheli laughed. ‘Some fart with a certificate who is sure she’s God’s greatest gift to the world since the toaster. But at least I get a day off once a month, so I can hear her say, “But, Sheli, tell me, why do you refuse to help us help you?”’

  ‘Why a juvy officer? What did you do?’

  ‘What did I do? What didn’t I do?’ She hesitated a little and laughed. ‘My God, it is so obvious you’re new – you don’t ask questions like that here. Here, you have to wait until they tell you themselves; if they don’t say anything – you don’t ask. But you asked, so I’ll tell you: I committed no murder, except on the few packs of Marlboros I transferred to my legal custody without proper compensation. Did you fall off your bed?’

  ‘No. You stole cigarettes?’

  ‘Someone stole my wallet the day I ran away; by the time I reached Holon Central Station, imagine! I was left with nothing. And, more than food, more than drink, if I don’t have my cigarettes, I go absolutely crazy. How did I know they had cameras and detectives and all that shit?’

  Dinka barked. A shadow fell over them. Pesach stood in the doorway, filling the entire space with his body. Tamar was terrified by the thought that he had been listening to them for a few minutes. He had to duck his head to get in through the door. His eyes resentfully scanned the two girls, sitting on their beds facing each other, their arms wrapped around their knees, hugging them close.

  ‘You’ve started a club here already?’ he growled.

  ‘Why, is it forbidden?’ Sheli taunted him.

  He sniffed the air. ‘You watch your mouth. And be careful not to burn the mattress.’

  ‘Why not? Do you need the fleas for something, too? Wait a minute! Maybe you’ll start a flea circus as well, like Charlie Chaplin!’ and she did an excellent imitation of a flea jumping from one hand to the other.

  ‘You . . .’ Pesach leaned on the wall and rubbed his back against it in an almost imperceptible motion that, for some reason, made Tamar’s stomach contract. ‘You never learn your lesson, do you?’ Again, he spoke very slowly, as if he were spelling out every word. ‘One day, honey, o
ne day you’ll cross the line, this much, just this much –’ he pinched his index and thumb together – ‘and suddenly you’ll be in a situation that you will most certainly find very, very unpleasant.’

  She saw it happening now, how without any outward change the fat teddy turned into a wild bear with long claws. His skin, she thought in amazement, it’s as if his skin has dried up on his face.

  ‘So why don’t you do it now and get it over with,’ Sheli snapped, and turned away from him – and received Tamar’s instant worship.

  ‘Believe me, you’re very close, very, very close. One day you’ll get on my nerves, and then we’ll see what happens to you, big hero, we’ll see you the way you were when you came back that one night, bloody and beaten up and crying for us to please, please, take you back. Do you remember that, or have you forgotten already?’

  Sheli concentrated on her cigarette and watched the smoke rings she blew toward the ceiling.

  III

  AFTER LUNCH WITH RHINO, Dinka walked him to a neighborhood he didn’t know, behind the market. They passed between little yards, with white-painted railings. Assaf peeked through a wooden gate and saw a huge geranium burning red, growing through an old pile of tin. He decided he would come back here sometime, when everything was finished: his experienced eye checked the flow between areas of light and shade, framing pictures, drawn to a black cat lying between fragments of orange glass, pointed like the scales of a dragon, on top of a wall. Here and there, in the yards against the walls, were old armchairs, mattresses, too. Big jars full of pickles sat on the windowsills. Assaf and Dinka passed by a synagogue, where people in work clothes were praying the Minkha to a tune he knew, the tune of his father and grandfather. They passed an ugly slab of concrete – a public shelter covered with colorful children’s murals – another synagogue, a very narrow alley covered by a weeping willow like a canopy –

  This was where Dinka stopped, sniffed the air, and looked at the sky like a man who wants to know what time it is and has no watch.

  Suddenly she decided. She sat by a bench under the willow, put her head on her paws, her eyes pointed forward. She was waiting for someone.

  Assaf sat on the bench. He waited. For whom, for what, he didn’t know, but he was already getting used to this kind of situation. Someone would come. Someone would appear. Something would happen. And he would discover a new thing about Tamar.

  He just didn’t know which of the two Tamars it would be – Theodora’s Tamar or the detective’s? Perhaps there was yet another Tamar, a third one.

  Long moments passed. A quarter of an hour, half an hour, and nothing happened. The sun began to sink, still generating the heat of late summer days. But a breeze blew through the narrow alley, and all of a sudden Assaf felt how tired he was. He had been on his feet since morning, and spent most of that time running; but the fatigue wasn’t only from running. Physical exertion never exhausted him in that way. There was something else, a constant excitement burning inside him, as if he had a fever (even though he wasn’t feeling sick; if anything, quite the opposite).

  ‘Dinka,’ he said quietly, not moving his lips. People were passing through the alley and he didn’t want them to think he was talking to himself. ‘Do you know what time it is? Close to six. Do you know what that means?’ Dinka’s ears pricked up. ‘It means Danokh closed his office two hours ago, and the veterinarian went home, too, and I’m not taking you back to that place tonight. So that means you’ll have to sleep over at my house.’ He started rejoicing over the idea as he was talking. ‘There’s only one problem: my mom is allergic to dog hair. Luckily, they’re abroad, my folks, so just be careful not to shed –’

  The dog barked and stood up. A very skinny young man, with a slight stoop, came out of the shadow of the weeping willow. Assaf stood up. The guy said in a high-pitched voice: ‘Dinka!’ and ran to her, dragging one leg. Something looked strange about the position of his head, as if he were tipping it back – or perhaps he could see only out of one eye. In his hand he held a heavy plastic bag with YEHUDA MATZOS printed on the side. When he saw Assaf, he stopped. They caught each other off guard.

  The guy stepped back, probably because he expected to see Tamar and got Assaf instead; Assaf, because he saw the young man’s face. The whole left side of his face was covered by a huge burn, red and purple, marking his entire cheek, his chin, and the left part of his forehead; his lips seemed unnatural as well, at least up to the middle, thin and a bit stretched out, and lighter than the other half, as if they had been reshaped with surgery.

  ‘Sorry,’ he muttered, and started to retreat quickly. ‘I could have sworn it was a dog I know.’ He limped away, his back to Assaf, his black yarmulke shining.

  ‘Wait!’ Assaf hurried after him with Dinka; the guy only sped up, not turning his face around. But Dinka passed him, leaped on him, and barked with joy, her tail wagging in excitement, and he had no choice. She was so happy that he had to stop and bend down to her; he grabbed her big head in his hands, and she licked him. His whole face. And he laughed in his strange, high-pitched, fractured voice.

  ‘But where is Tamar?’ he asked quietly, perhaps speaking to Dinka, perhaps to Assaf. Assaf, from behind him, said he was also looking for her; the man then stood and walked back to him, again standing in front of him with the same slightly tilted stance, and asked him what he meant.

  Assaf told him the story. Not the whole story, of course, only the little story of City Hall and Danokh and the kennels. The guy stood and listened. As Assaf spoke, he unconsciously turned his head even more, in tiny increments, until he stood completely in profile, his uninjured side toward Assaf. This is how he stood, as if he was looking unintentionally into the branches of the willow in front of him, trying to pull together some conclusions while also observing nature.

  ‘Why, it’s a real blow for her to lose that dog,’ he finally said with conviction. ‘What will she do without her dog? How will she manage?’

  ‘Yes,’ Assaf said, searching. ‘She must be very attached to her.’

  ‘Very attached?’ The guy laughed shortly, as if Assaf had said something nonsensical and outlandish. ‘What do you mean, attached? She can’t take a step without the dog!’

  Assaf asked, feigning indifference, if he had any idea where she could be found.

  ‘I? How should I know. She . . . she doesn’t talk, just listens.’ He kicked a stone by the curb. ‘She – how can I explain it to you – you talk to her and she hears, so what choice do you have? You pour out everything freely. She’s great.’ His voice, Assaf thought, he had such a thin voice, it was like a little boy’s, and there was something whiny about it. ‘You tell her things you never told anybody else. Why? Because she really wants to hear you, you know? She is interested in your life.’

  Assaf asked where he had met her.

  ‘Here. Where else would I meet?’ He gestured toward the bench. ‘She passed by with the dog, and I used to sit here, like this, at about this time. I always go out in the evening. It’s the best,’ he said, swallowing the words hastily. ‘I hate the heat.’

  Assaf was silent.

  ‘And before, sometime, maybe three months ago, I walk up, and I see her sitting, like, in my place, but she didn’t mean to. She still didn’t know about me. I’d already turned around to go, and then she called me. Saying –’ He hesitated. ‘Asking me something. She was looking for somebody –’ He hesitated again. ‘Whatever. It’s private. Anyway, we start to talk, and since then not a week goes by that she doesn’t come here, sometimes even twice a week. We sit, we talk, we eat something Mother makes.’ He showed Assaf the big plastic bag in his hand. ‘There’s food here for Dinka, too. I save it up all week. Can I give it to her?’

  Assaf thought Dinka wouldn’t want to eat any more after the restaurant, but he didn’t want to insult him. The young man took a smaller bag out of the big plastic one, and a good sturdy bowl, and poured a mixture of potatoes and bones into it. Dinka looked at the food, and looked at Assaf.
Assaf gave her an encouraging wink, and she lowered her head and started to eat. Assaf was convinced she took his hint.

  ‘Say, you want coffee?’

  It would be his third cup today, and he wasn’t used to drinking coffee, but he hoped that more conversation would come along with it. The guy pulled out a thermos and poured coffee into two plastic cups. Between them, on the bench, he spread a little cloth printed with flowers, laying down saucers of salty pastries and waffle cookies, and a plate of plums and nectarines.

  ‘I’m used to doing this, for her when she comes.’ He smiled apologetically.

  ‘Did she come here last week?’

  ‘No. And also not two weeks ago, and three, and a month. So I worry. Because she’s not just someone who disappears on you or dumps you without saying anything. You understand? I can’t stop thinking about it – wondering what could have happened to her.’

  ‘And you don’t have her address or anything?’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh. Not even her family name. I asked her a few times, sure, but she has her principles of privacy and all that. Well, you know how it is, they’re very sensitive about it.’

  Assaf didn’t understand. ‘Who’s “they”?’

  ‘They, people like her, in her state.’ The drugs, Assaf thought, and his heart sank as he imagined her in one of those situations that Rhino described. He bit into a salty pastry, trying to find comfort in it.

  ‘That’s funny.’ The man giggled with pleasure. ‘She also always starts to eat from the pastries first.’ Something about him was completely exposed; he was like a child who hadn’t yet learned how to maintain the appropriate distance from strangers. He hesitated a moment and stretched a skinny, weak hand to Assaf.