Someone to Run With

by David Grossman

  At the same time Assaf knew – he didn’t nurture any illusions on this score – that the storm she had unleashed on his life would end as soon as he met her, as soon as he faced the usual battery of tests, of his conversational skills, his wit, his cynicism and acidity, his ability to shine and be glib; and he knew – what he had known with utter sobriety, for years – that only one situation in the world, in the universe, existed in which anyone could fall in love with him: only if she, accidentally, happened to run the entire 5,000-meter course by his side. It struck him that perhaps he really should change his tactics now and give in to his teacher’s pleas and compete. Maybe he’d find a girlfriend among the long-distance runners.

  These thoughts filled him with anxiety. He stood up, drank three glasses of water, and absently checked the mail. Then he saw it: a green envelope from the Ministry of Education, Department of Exams – they had been waiting two months for this, and it arrived the moment his parents went abroad! His fingers shaking, he opened it: ‘Dear Student, we’re pleased to announce that you have successfully passed the Final Examination in English . . .’

  He shouted with joy, and the phone started ringing, joining in. For a moment he was afraid that it was Roi again, but it was his father. Shouting happily from Arizona, across continents and oceans: ‘Assafi, how are you?’

  ‘Dad! I was just thinking about you! What’s it like there? How was the flight? Could Mom open the handle in the –?’

  They spoke over each other as usual, and laughed and shouted. Every second costs a fortune, Assaf thought, and was angry that his enjoyment of this conversation had a limit – one of these minutes was probably a half day of work for his father – maybe . . . two ceiling fan installations and three toaster repairs, at least. Never mind, to hell with money – he wanted to hug them, smell them, take them in as much as he could. It’s probably Reli’s phone bill anyway, and Reli has a lot of money now, right? The thought freed him, and he laughed all the way to Arizona as his father described the wonders of the flight and the road. Assaf said everything was normal at home, don’t worry, I’m eating well, keeping the house clean. He suddenly felt the way he had a few years back, when he would still come to their bed on Saturday mornings to cuddle and play. ‘Dad, listen, the results from the Ministry of Education arrived today –’

  ‘One minute, Assafi, don’t say one word! You tell that straight to your mother!’

  The noise of setting the receiver down and steps walking away . . . it was probably a very large house, and quiet, with the silence of the sea in the middle of it . . . Assaf tried to guess what conversations were flowing along the parallel phone lines. Maybe someone in Alaska is proposing marriage to someone in Turkey . . . maybe Phil Jackson, at this moment, is offering Papi Turgeman from Ha’Poel an invitation to play for the Lakers next season . . . and then, suddenly, his mother was on the line, with the abundance of her body and soul, and her rolling laughter. ‘Assafi, my teddy bear, I miss you so much, how will I survive these two weeks?’

  ‘Mom, you passed the exam!’

  Silence, and after it, an explosion of screaming and cheering. ‘Has the letter arrived? An official letter? Did you check the signature? They said I passed? Shimon, did you hear that! I did it! I have my high school diploma!’

  And while they were there in Arizona, dancing and hugging each other and squandering half a year’s salary, little Muki sneaked over to the telephone. ‘Assafi?’ she said cautiously, making sure that the amazing distance she had traveled had not changed anything about him at least. ‘What country are you in?’

  And he explained to her that he hadn’t gone anywhere, it was she who had traveled. She started talking about the flight, and how her ears hurt, and the puzzle she got from the flight attendant, and what’s in America. There’s a squirrel in America, she said, and proceeded to describe it in detail. Actually, you could probably import herds of squirrels into Israel for the price of this conversation, but Reli was paying for it anyway, and maybe not just Reli. More about that in a minute. So Assaf sat back and listened to Muki talk about the Guatemalans they bought there for her, little fabric dolls that the children from the country of Guatemala put under their pillows at night, how they tell one problem they have to each doll, and in the morning, the problem is gone. Assaf, who would have gladly passed his problems on to such a magical Guatemalan doll, gently asks Muki to give the phone back to Mom, because there is one important topic left to discuss, and they still haven’t talked about it.

  ‘What can I tell you, Assafon?’ his mother said in a more cautious tone. ‘We met him.’ Silence. Assaf waited – but he already knew.

  ‘He’s wonderful, Assafon. He’s gentle, he’s charming, and I think his mother must be one of us – at least half. He’s everything Reli needs, and he’s got a huge house here, you should see it, with a real pool and a Jacuzzi, and a crazy Mexican woman who cooks for him. Reli’s already taught her to prepare our cholent. He’s very important in some computer company here . . .’

  Assaf folds up, sitting on the couch; his fingers cling to Dinka’s fur. How will he tell Rhino? How will Rhino stand it? Everyone betrayed him. Well, Rhino had suspected this the entire time, that the reason they went was to meet Reli’s new man.

  ‘Assafi? Are you there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Assafon, teddy bear, I know exactly what you’re thinking now, and how you feel, and what you wanted to happen, but it’s probably not going to happen. Are you there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t need to tell you how much we love Tzahi; he will always be like a son to us, really, our son, but Reli has made her decision. That’s it. It’s her life. And her choice. We have to accept that.’

  Assaf wanted to scream at Reli, and shake her, and remind her how Rhino had taken care of her through her bad spells, before she’d become such a hot shot; how he’d loved her with blind devotion from the first day of high school, and throughout the service, and for another two full years after that, through all her craziness and all the times she needed her space, how he had gradually become like a big brother in their family, helping Dad when he had too much work, helping Mom with everything she needed, from picking up her groceries to painting the house. That was what finally pushed Reli over the edge: she felt he was marrying her parents, not her. Well, Assaf thought bitterly, his parents certainly – well, you couldn’t say they used Rhino, but they were very nice about letting him help them with a thousand and one things. Rhino did all of it with love and by choice, and Assaf remembered how he had even given up a partnership in his father’s surveyor’s office. Instead, he decided to open a casting and foundry workshop, mainly for Reli, because of her initial excitement about it – work that was so manly and physical yet had such a strong connection to art. How could you negate ten years like these? Aside from that, Assaf was losing Reli now that she had finally made her decision. That wasn’t so bad. But losing Rhino hurt, because Rhino would certainly cut all his connections with the family; so as not to be reminded of her a hundred times a day, he would cut them out of his life. Assaf, too.

  Assaf didn’t remember how the conversation ended. Probably less joyfully than it had begun. Afterward, he unplugged the phone. He was scared Rhino would call back to check whether they’d called. Assaf didn’t know what he would say if that happened, how he would soften the blow. He wasn’t a good liar. He stood up, he sat down, he wandered through the apartment, a ball of nerves. Dinka watched him, puzzled.

  In situations like these, when he was this upset, his mother would come up to him or behind him, grab him, capture him in her thick arms, look deep into his eyes, and ask, ‘What are they seeing now, these beautiful eyes?’ When he avoided her gaze, she would say, ‘That bad, hmm?’ and order him to ‘report to HQ,’ and pull him into her little parlor and shut the door. She wouldn’t let him leave until he told her exactly what was bothering him. But even if she were here now, she would be playing a pretty suspicious role in this particular mess �
�� everything was so complicated and murky and troublesome. He had to do something, something that would change everything at once, something to fix, or at least balance – just a little bit – all that was rotten and screwed up in the world. Something that Tamar would do in such a situation, perhaps. Yes, an idea, à la Tamar.

  It came to him in a flash; he knew precisely what to do, discovered it, invented it: he climbed up to the attic and went inside, grabbed a bucket of white paint, the last remainder of their most recent house painting, and a big roller. He took a ladder from the pantry and settled it on his shoulder, whistled to Dinka, and walked out of the house. He walked briskly, avoiding people’s faces, until he reached his school. He crept into the yard through a hole in the fence by the water fountain.

  Last year they’d had a teacher, one Chaim Azrieli, an old man, gentle and childless, to whom they gave absolute hell. Roi was the ringleader of the gang, and Assaf tailed along behind him with the others. He never did anything especially mean, but he was part of the whole group, of the general mockery. And this teacher had been especially nice to him, too – when he discovered Assaf’s interest in Greek mythology, he brought him a book of myths Assaf hadn’t heard of and said that it was a present.

  Then, on the last day of school, they wrote graffiti about him on the school’s outer walls. They did it the night before the year-end party, a group of ten boys. Assaf was the ladder: Roi climbed up on his shoulders and wrote in black paint. Since then, every time he walked by the school during vacation, Assaf saw the graffiti. Everyone who passed by that way saw it – Chaim Azrieli, too, probably. He lived only two blocks away.

  Now Assaf mixed the paint, adding some more water, and climbed the ladder. The yard was empty, lit by one streetlamp. Dinka sat, her head following the brush as it covered the graffiti with a shiny white stripe, word by word: CHAIM AZRIELI: BRUSH YOUR TEETH!!

  The next morning, feeling purified and refreshed after a full night’s sleep, Assaf went on his way, with an easy heart and his bike.

  In the middle of the night, he had felt a big warm body – not the cleanest – tossing and cuddling up to him in bed. Without opening his eyes, as if it had always been like this, he hugged her, learning from her how she liked to sleep, curling over into a crescent, pushing her back into his stomach, her nose softly blowing into his open palm. Every once in a while she shivered, as if she were dreaming about a hunt. In the morning, the two of them opened their eyes and smiled at each other.

  ‘Is this how you sleep at home?’ he asked her, and didn’t wait for an answer. He got up happily, whistling to himself in the bathroom, combed his hair carefully, and did what he hadn’t in months (mostly because his mother was always nagging him about it), spread a huge amount of Oxy over his pimples.

  He had already taken the bike – an old Raleigh he had inherited from Rhino – out of the garage last night. He hadn’t ridden it in months – he had to pump the tires, oil the chain, and wipe a thick layer of dust off the front light and reflector. As he rode it through the clear early morning, Assaf was happy; he whistled to Dinka in his heart and sang out to her. She bounded along by his side, now close, now farther away, all the while giving loving looks. He had cut the rope off last night; and now the two enjoyed the new range of motion between them: she ran independent of him, she even disappeared for a moment behind a parked car, then returned of her own volition.

  He let her lead, of course. He had already learned it was the best thing. He pedaled and whistled, noted how well trained she was in running alongside a bicycle. In his imagination, he already saw her running between two bicycles along some distant path, through a wide green meadow, looking at the two riders with that same longing expression.

  Still, it seemed to him that she was running less purposefully this morning – trying one way, moving back the other way . . . not that he minded getting lost behind her – through the yawning streets as they woke up, between the milk crates and stacks of newspapers on the sidewalk, past the jets of water from shop owners hosing down the sidewalks in front of their stores, past a dog sitter who was walking five at a time with five leashes, all of whom barked jealously at Dinka.

  Little by little she drew him toward the city gates and outside. Assaf wondered if she was taking him to Tel Aviv, or what. She ran by his side, galloping lightly, amused, leaping from her back legs to her front legs like a horse on a merry-go-round – unlike those horses, she abruptly switched direction. Assaf saw how it happened to her: her nose received a particle of information, one of the thousands of smells and memories filling the air. One of them broadcast a message to her with a stronger signal than the others. She stopped, returned to the spot where she had sensed it, stood and inhaled it; she decoded it inside the dark cell of her nose. She then burst forward into a new direction, running with all her might.

  He didn’t know the area, and as usual he had no clue why she had brought him here. Sometimes, when he passed by here on the bus to Tel Aviv, he would see the valley spread out at the side of the road; it never occurred to him that anything – or anyone – was there. Now he was going down a steep path, walking his bike, a carefully packed little knapsack on his shoulders – because who knew when or where he would eat his next meal.

  Here Dinka seemed less sure of herself. She ran forward and came back, circling hesitantly and, it seemed, at random. She would pause and smell the four points indecisively. Once, she galloped enthusiastically up a sand dune covered with garbage and scrub brush only to stop at the crest, surprised, look right and left, then return to Assaf, her tail drooping between her legs.

  At one spot the path was blocked by a pile of stones. Assaf hid his bike behind a bush, underneath a big cardboard box he had noticed along the way. He climbed the stone heap and crossed a little meadow where the fennel grew so high and thick that Assaf nearly vanished and Dinka was no more than a running line of bushes splitting in two. The meadow ended, and he found himself in front of houses. Ruins.

  They were built of big, heavy stones; wild bushes grew thickly through the walls. Assaf walked quietly; the only sound was the twittering of birds. Grasshoppers hopped over his feet. He went up and down through little arched stairways connecting the houses and peeked into the houses themselves. He assumed it was a deserted Arab village, whose inhabitants had fled during the War of Independence (according to Rhino). Or were cruelly banished (Reli). The houses were made up of empty, cool, shady rooms – all filled with piles of refuse and filth. Each room had a hole in the ceiling and huge holes in the floor. Assaf looked closer and saw that another kind of room ran underneath, perhaps a water cistern of some sort.

  He walked through the ghost village, almost tiptoeing, as if he were paying his respects. People used to live here, he thought; they walked and talked here, along this path; their kids ran around and played, and they never in the world imagined to themselves that the world would turn them on their heads like this. Assaf always avoided thinking too deeply about this kind of thing, perhaps because of the duet that started playing in his mind whenever he came too close to political issues: those endless debates between Rhino and Reli. Even here they were with him in the blink of an eye, arguing. Reli muttered that every deserted village like this was an open wound in the heart of Israeli society; and Rhino would patiently respond that if it had been the other way around, then her house would look like this, and which did she prefer? As if standing in for his mother’s ritual, banal last word on their debate (her attempt to make peace), a dove flew over Assaf’s head, mottled and very fat. It landed on a porch railing, having cleared the height of a solitary wall without a house behind it. When its feet touched the railing, Assaf flinched: it seemed that her weight might make the entire porch collapse, and the whole wall with it.

  The camera, he thought, of course. Why didn’t I think of bringing it today!

  Outside one of the ruins, he saw a pair of sneakers hanging by its laces on a jutting piece of stone. He climbed the stairs, peeked inside, and saw two boys, asl
eep.

  He moved away immediately and stood outside for a moment, amazed: what were they doing here? How could anybody live in this filth?

  He walked two steps down; then climbed one step back up. He felt a little scared, and embarrassed as well, for peeking into their lives this way. He stopped in the doorway and looked. The two boys were very skinny; one was rolled up inside a blanket stained with white paint; the other, almost completely exposed. Both were sleeping on yellow foam mattresses burnt and charred around the edges. Empty bottles of Vodka Stopka rolled along the floor, and the air was thick with flies and their loud buzzing. Someone had overturned an iron bedstead in the middle of the room, over the big hole, probably so he wouldn’t fall into the pool of water underneath.

  The boys slept on either side of the hole, pressed against the wall; at first glance, they seemed younger than Assaf by at least three years. He thought it was impossible that kids could live this way.

  He turned again to go. He couldn’t bear it. Besides, what could he do for them? As he turned, he managed to step on a tin bowl on the ground, and it flipped over; when he tried to step lightly over it, he knocked down an iron hanger in the window – a chain of tiny accidents that made a lot of noise. The guy who slept closer to the doorway drowsily opened his eyes. He saw Assaf and shut his eyes again. After a time, he struggled to open them once more. His hand reached under the mattress and emerged with a knife.