Outside the soft wind licked at their faces, and the afternoon light stretched tautly over the mountains. “I wouldn’t advise it,” said the secretary as he started to lead the girl to his car. “It’s not a long way, but it’s muddy and rocky. Why not just follow the girl.”
The girl, however, had come to a halt and was arguing with the other children, who wanted to come with her. “She said just me,” she stated firmly. “He’s here to see my father. She said just me.” But the secretary was no longer there and the children were so adamant that, after trying briefly to fend them off, the girl turned to Molkho and said, “Let’s go.” They left the schoolyard through an opening in the fence and walked quickly along a muddy path, Molkho following behind her with his files, stepping on new tufts of bluish grass while watching her spindly legs and little buttocks, which bounced inside her black leotard like rubber balls. She bounded along like a fawn or, rather, like a bespectacled bunny, and it was all he could do to keep up with her, breathing the high mountain air while treading the winding path that circled behind the houses, cowsheds, and chicken coops over the terra rossa earth of the Galilee that turned even the rain puddles red.
Every now and then she stopped to let him catch up, though she failed to return his smile but simply stared at him somberly through her funny glasses. “What’s wrong with your father?” he asked, and when she did not understand him, “What’s he sick with?” “He’s got something in his blood. He was in the hospital,” she answered warily, continuing to lead him past old farm tools and rusting plows and cultivators half-buried in earth. They kept turning into new side paths and finally passed through a dark shed under the anxious eyes of a large cow and into the backyard of a little house standing on the hillside, falling straight into an ambush set by the children from school, who burst suddenly out of their hiding place. “We got here first!” they shouted merrily.
The girl ignored them. Proud and reproachful, she ushered Molkho into a kitchen, where dressed in pajamas stood a tall, young, dark-skinned Jew of Indian extraction, wearing glasses just like those worn by the girl, whose height and ebony fineness clearly derived from him. She ran to him and hugged him, while he gently patted her head, and Molkho had the eerie thought, this man is going to die and she doesn’t know that she knows. He felt drawn inside the house, as if Death, having parted from him in the autumn and run ahead like a mad dog to the far end of the Galilee, now lay drowsing there beneath a table. “So it’s you,” he whispered to it warmly, stepping into the kitchen and introducing himself to the lanky Indian, who seemed to blanch slightly, despite his dark skin. “I was told you were the treasurer,” he said.
“Treasurer?” The man smiled uncertainly. “Not exactly. I only help Ben-Ya’ish a bit with the accounts. But come in.” He whispered something to the girl and disappeared, and quickly clearing a pile of books from a chair, she led Molkho into a small, clean, simply furnished room and asked him to sit down. He did, his eyes glued to her lithe body with its black leotard and pink slippers, and the steel-rimmed glasses on her ebony face, wanting to reach out and touch her, to verify that she was real. “Where’s your mother?” he asked, and was told that she worked in a shoe factory in Kiryat Shmonah. “A shoe factory?” he murmured, watching her as, with an unchildlike assurance, she tidied up quietly. “Do you take ballet in school?” “Not everyone,” she said, “only me.” Just imagine, he thought, right here, in this country, at the far end of nowhere, are people like this, and we don’t even know they exist. Why, you never even hear about them.
The father returned to the room, still unshaven but wearing pants and a black sweater that made him look even darker. Like a stranger in his own home, he looked hesitantly around before sitting down stiffly. At once the girl sat protectively nearby him, unconsciously imitating his movements. She was slightly cross-eyed, Molkho realized, once again failing to get a response to his smile. With a glance out the window at the towering mountains, he opened his files and spread them out on a little table, suddenly feeling a great fatigue. “How old is this village?” he asked the thin Indian, who was observing him curiously. “Something tells me I’ve been here before, maybe on some army bivouac.” The village, the Indian told him, was first built for new immigrants back in the early 1950s but had twice been abandoned; the present population dated from several years later, when, in addition to some Jews from North Africa, several Indian families arrived. The girl, Molkho saw, was listening too, straight-backed and flat-chested, her head framed by the window against a background of mountains and clouds. She’s certainly a strange one, he thought, unless I just don’t know what little girls are like anymore.
“Who lives here now?” he asked the Indian. “Are they still traditional Jews?” Not as much as all that, he was told; on Sabbaths most people still attended synagogue, but some preferred to sleep or work. “And what sort of work,” he asked, “do they do?” Most used to raise laying hens, said the Indian, but in the egg glut of 1982 the coops were abandoned, and now the women worked in Kiryat Shmonah, while the men farmed as best they could, though some did nothing at all. In fact, times were so hard that the only thing keeping people in the village was their having nowhere else to go. “And were these financial statements drawn up by you?” inquired Molkho, spreading out his papers and leafing through them impatiently, afraid the man’s dirge was simply a cover-up for the faked accounts. No, they weren’t, said the Indian; he had only helped Ben Ya’ish with his arithmetic. That is, he was an arithmetic teacher not a treasurer, but since his illness, which had forced him to stop teaching, he had been employed by the council manager in a part-time capacity.
Yet, when Molkho inquired about the man’s illness, he answered quite apathetically and knew so little about it that even its name was a mystery. From time to time he went for treatments to Rambam Hospital in Haifa. “In what ward? With what doctors?” asked Molkho, now fully alert. But the Indian was unable to enlighten him: he arrived, he lay down on a bed, he had some blood taken, he was given a shot, and he went home again—that was all he knew. “I know that hospital well,” Molkho told him, fishing for more information. “My wife died of cancer six months ago.” Yet the Indian said nothing, forcing Molkho to keep talking about his wife, while the girl jiggled her thin, dark leg in wonder. Indeed, he couldn’t stop; it had been a while since he’d last shared his wife’s illness with anyone, so that he quite enjoyed telling about it now, right down to the drama of those final months and the little field hospital he had set up at home to ensure a comfortable death. “And she really died there?” asked the girl, staring hard at him. “Of course,” Molkho said. “It happened early in the morning. She hardly suffered at all.” Could he have met this child in the army thirty years ago too, he wondered, feeling the sense of déjà vu again. “How many children do you have?” he asked the Indian. “So far, only one,” said the man, hugging his daughter with a smile. “But we hope to give her a little brother or sister soon.”
Molkho gazed at them for a moment and asked for some water. “Gladly,” said the Indian. “Or would you prefer a glass of juice?” “Juice will be fine,” answered Molkho, and the girl glided out with dancelike steps to fetch it. “She’s a lovely child,” remarked Molkho. “How old is she?” “Eleven,” said the Indian. “That’s all?” marveled Molkho. “And she needs glasses already?” “Not exactly,” said her father. “She wants to wear them, because she is slightly cross-eyed, and thinks they hide it.”
The girl returned with a large glass of watery yellow liquid. “You forgot to stir it,” said her father. “Never mind,” Molkho told him, still wanting to touch her ebony skin, no matter how lightly, though she seemed too grown-up for him to risk a paternal pat. He took a sip of his drink, which was very bitter, and said to the Indian, who was sitting stock-still and ignoring the papers on the table, as if it were just a matter of time before they went away by themselves, “I’m afraid we’re going to make things difficult for you. You won’t get another penny of government money. We ca
n cut you off without a cent.” “But why?” asked the Indian innocently. “Because you haven’t done anything right here, that’s why,” said Molkho, quietly sifting the papers. “What isn’t right?” asked the Indian wearily. “Everything,” said Molkho. “Nothing is even close to being right. This looks like a criminal case to me, and it will end up with the police.” Although he knew he sounded angry, he felt perfectly calm inside. “Who does this Ben-Ya’ish of yours think he is? I came all the way up here to see him today, and he doesn’t even bother to show up!” “But he will,” said the Indian. “He has to. You can wait for him right here. You can see his house from this window. We’ll know the minute he gets home.” He pointed further up the rocky hillside to a gardenless hut that had not a single patch of green around it. “Maybe I should go talk to his wife,” suggested Molkho. “He doesn’t have any,” said the Indian. “No wife?” “No, he’s still young. He’s only twenty-three.” “Twenty-four,” corrected the girl, who had been listening to every word. “It’s his birthday soon.”
Her father smiled at her. “He has a way with kids. They’re very fond of him,” he explained, telling Molkho that the young man had arrived in the village two years ago as a substitute teacher, had taken a liking to the place, and had done such a good job as an organizer and fund-raiser that he was elected council manager. In fact, he obtained all kinds of things for next to nothing, or even for nothing at all, which was a great help, since everyone had debts and times were so hard that no one could have managed without him. “What kind of things?” Molkho asked. “Everything. Seed. Fodder for the animals and chickens. Cheap clothes.” “And food too,” the girl reminded her father. “Yes,” he nodded, “food too.” “Food?” queried Molkho. “What sort of food?” “Why, canned goods and meat.” “And cake and ice cream too,” said the girl, who appeared to love Ben-Ya’ish dearly. “But where does he get it all from?” asked Molkho anxiously. “From all kinds of organizations and agencies in Tel Aviv,” said the Indian. “He’s there all the time studying, because he’s still working on his BA.” “But not a word of that’s written down here!” exclaimed Molkho in exasperation. “That’s true,” explained the Indian. “It isn’t, but that’s only because it comes from outside funds, not from the village budget.” Molkho felt himself losing his temper. “All right, fine,” he declared, “outside funds are his own business; but here he lists a road that cost ten million shekels, and here he says he’s planted a park. Where is this park of his? I’d like to see it!” And when the Indian said nothing, casting a worried glance at his daughter, he continued sarcastically, “And here it says he bought himself a tractor! Where does he get off buying unauthorized tractors? Doesn’t he know he has to go through proper channels? Look here, the reason I’m here is to get your side of the story before we hand this over to the police.” But still the Indian was silent, his head bowed languidly. “Where’s the road?” demanded Molkho. “Where’s the park? Nothing in these accounts makes any sense!” “He’ll explain everything,” insisted the Indian with dogged obstinacy. “All I did was add up the figures for him. He’ll explain them to you himself.”
All at once, as if the mountain opposite the window had caved in on the house, the bright sunlight faded and Molkho felt as hungry as if he had not eaten all day. Gathering up his papers, he returned them to his briefcase. In the sudden gloom the girl looked as dark as if a black night were under her skin and he jumped to his feet with a start. “Where are you going?” asked the Indian. “Why don’t you wait? He should be here any minute.” “I’m going to have a look at the village,” said Molkho. “But won’t you have lunch with us?” asked the man. “No, thank you,” said Molkho, thinking of his expense-account meal. “If you’ll be so kind as to show me the bathroom first, I think I’ll have a look around.”
Yet, when the girl led him to a room that at first glance looked clean and comfortable, he was shocked to discover that it had no door, just a curtain over the entrance. He relieved himself as quietly as he could, his face toward the open window, through which there was a breathtaking view of a snowcapped Mount Hermon. So the snow is still after me, he thought with a smile, washing his hands. Controlling himself, he kept from peeking at the medicine cabinet and emerged with a friendly glance at the Indian, who, as though lost in thought, had not budged from his place. “If you’E just let your daughter show me the way back to my car,” Molkho told him, “I’ll have myself a little look around.”
And so, again he strode behind her, this time along the main street, her body, thin as a rail, growing longer in the soft, grayish light that seemed a throwback to winter. As they passed beneath a huge pylon that hummed electrically, apparently the relay of a regional grid that seemed to come from and continue to nowhere, he asked her for her name and the name of the cow in the shed, after which, his supply of questions exhausted, he continued to trail after her through the ghostly silence, falling a little behind. There was not a sign of human activity anywhere, let alone a paved road or park, not even the sound of a farm vehicle, though three workers were standing by a fire in a distant field, from which the moist scent of burning brush was wafted on the air. His hunger growing, he kept his eyes on the little bottom bouncing firmly in its tight leotard. What, he wondered, did he find so infatuating about her? Why, it was sheer madness! Suddenly, the horrendously funny, frightening, ghastly thought occurred to him that he could quite unsexually eat her like an animal, literally chew her flesh. Fortunately, she did not seem to guess what the wintry man lagging behind her with his briefcase was thinking and went on leading him with proud but fragile determination past the schoolhouse to his car, around which a crowd of children was swarming like flies, touching the shiny paint and sprawling on the ground to peer up at the chassis. Sternly he made his way among them, aided by the girl, who imperiously began driving them away, though soon she vanished in their midst.
Molkho opened the trunk, laid his briefcase in it, started to drive off, realized he did not know to where, and decided to stop in the little shopping center, where perhaps he could buy some expense-account groceries. He circled the square, which housed a wool store, an appliance store, a stationery store, a vegetable store, and a grocery, coming at last to a small café with a sign that featured a spit of shishkebab, his progress followed by every one of the shopkeepers. Apparently they had heard all about him, and the thought of his new prominence rather pleased him as he stepped out of the car.
He made his way past some scattered tables and entered the cafe, where he was greeted by an Indian even darker than the first. “Do you serve meals or just snacks?” Molkho asked him. “Meals too,” said the man. “And you’ll give me a receipt?” Molkho asked. “No problem,” said the man. “What do you have to eat?” Molkho asked. “What would you like?” asked the man. “But tell me what there is,” insisted Molkho, looking around to check if the place was clean. Someone sat in a far corner eating something out of a bowl. “What’s that?” Molkho asked. “Organs,” said the man. “Whose?” asked Molkho worriedly. “It’s a lung-and-liver stew,” replied the cafe owner quietly, looking deferentially at his new customer. “It’s real good.” “Do you have steak?” Molkho asked. “Whatever you like,” said the Indian. “Perhaps then,” said Molkho somewhat officiously, “you can show it to me.” Leading him into a dirty kitchen that Molkho’s wife would have fled from, the man passed a big pot simmering on a burner, opened a refrigerator, and took out a drooping piece of meat clotted with old, purplish blood. Molkho regarded it doubtfully; it was certainly not very hygienic-looking. In the end, they’ll poison me here, he told himself, still feeling a craving for meat. “Do you have sausages?” he asked. But the man did not. And so, after thinking it over, he ordered the organ stew, left the kitchen, and sat down irritably at a table, keeping an eye on his car while recalling the times his wife had made him go from restaurant to restaurant until she found one clean enough to suit her. But all that was past history. Now he would eat what and where he wanted. And his car seemed
quite safe. Most of the children had gone off somewhere else, and those remaining now sat by the front wheels, among them the Indian girl, who crouched licking a popsicle like a little grasshopper with folded wings.
A pickup truck pulled up in the square and a young man climbed out of it. Could that be Ben-Ya’ish? wondered Molkho—but the young man was an Arab and his thoughts returned to his wife. No, he hadn’t killed her—the idea was obscene and insane. He had simply helped her to die when she was ready. And yet, had he not perhaps been too quick to resign himself to her death? From the very beginning, bending down that spring night to kiss the nipple of her white breast and cautiously, tenderly saying, though the words cracked like a whip, “Yes, there’s some kind of a lump here,” he hadn’t believed in her chances. And now here he was, sitting in this unsavory spot in this God-forsaken Galilean village, watching the women shoppers—all of whom, even the young ones, still looked like immigrants—as they came and went, and thinking, How cold they all still leave me. A tractor emerged from an alleyway, tried climbing the steps of the shopping arcade, and came to a sudden halt. Some children passed by. Abandoning himself to the tranquillity, he let the cool breeze fan his appetite. The place did not look as if times were as hard as all that. It was just talk. If you believed half you heard, the whole country had been falling apart for years, and yet everything was still there. In fact, wherever you went, there was a tractor clearing new ground.
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