The hut is empty. Here and there are scattered blankets with tin plates on them. In the corner, ringed with black basalt stones, burns a purplish flame. Its smoke caresses the tufts of straw that protrude from the ceiling.
"They're not afraid the straw will catch fire and burn down the hut?"
"If a hut burns down, it's easy enough to put up a new one. That's an eternal flame, and from generation to generation they keep it burning, even in the heat of summer."
"Friendly fire," she whispers unthinkingly, as her eyes tear up from the smoke.
"Yes." He flinches in pain. "Friendly fire, indeed… Who the hell knows how we all got infected by that revolting expression. You know who first blurted that out?"
"No."
"Guess."
"I don't know.."
"Your favorite person…"
"Moran? No. Just don't tell me that Amotz…"
"Why not? Yes, Amotz, back in Jerusalem, at the Foreign Ministry, when the army officer and doctor came into my office. It was Amotz who brought them, because when Eyali filled out the forms, back in basic training, he listed you and Amotz to be notified in case of bad news. They could not conceal the fact that a soldier had been killed by our own forces, because this had already trickled into the media, and so, while I am standing there with the poisoned lance stuck in my heart, and this angel of death, in uniform, brings me the message that the gunfire came from our soldiers and he trembles as he explains what happened in the battle, as if there really had been a battle and not simply the killing of a soldier who was mistaken for the enemy, a wanted man, it somehow seemed to your Amotz, my Amotz, our Amotz, who had come from Tel Aviv with this bearer of bad news, that I didn't comprehend the explanations — or the opposite, maybe he was actually trying to console me, to loosen the rope that was wound around my neck, since being killed by our own forces is a hundred times crueler than 'enemy fire'—and then he grabs my hand and hugs me tight, and says to me, Yirmi, what they mean is friendly fire."
"Amotz?" she whispers.
"Yes, Amotz, and not only once, but several times, he repeated that wretched expression, and at first I wanted to rip him apart, but then suddenly, amid all the shock and anger, I also understood that inside this stupid oxymoron, this friendly fire, there was something more, some small spark of light that would help me navigate through the great darkness that awaited me and better identify the true sickness that afflicts all of us. And from then on I fell in love with this expression, and I started to use it a lot, relevantly and also irrelevantly, and to pass it on to others… See, even you, Little Sister, you walk into a crappy little hut in Africa and you say, totally naturally, friendly fire… right?"
THE MINISTRY OF Defense is walking distance from Ya'ari's office, but a river of parents and children milling toward Tel Aviv's Hall of Culture impedes his progress. Ya'ari inherited a security clearance from his father, who in his day also worked with the Defense Ministry, and his entry into the heavily guarded building therefore goes smoothly, with no unnecessary delays.
A few years ago they expanded the old structure, adding new floors and basements. Ya'ari's firm designed most of the elevators in the new wings, and there were periods when he participated in many meetings of the ministry's construction department to protect his plans from cost-cutting contractors. As someone familiar with the workings of the ministry, he now notices that it, too, is short many workers today. The computers are blank and the offices abandoned, including that of the division manager he is scheduled to meet. What's going on? He asks the veteran secretary, who is still at her post. Is the Defense Ministry upgrading the holiness of Hanukkah to give time off to its workers?
"Why not?" she answers, surprised that Ya'ari is unaware of the Hanukkah performance organized at the Hall of Culture for the children of ministry employees. Especially since his son, Moran, managed to cadge free tickets from her for the children of Ya'ari's firm.
"And he didn't bother to tell me, and even my daughter-in-law doesn't know. This morning he needed to go off for some clarification regarding his reserve duty, meaning that my two grandchildren are missing the show."
"How old are they?"
"The boy is two, and the girl is five."
"Then don't be upset. My grandchildren were around those ages last year, and they only suffered through the stupid play."
"How do you know it's the same play?"
"How much originality can there be in the moonlighting of unemployed actors?"
"So there's nobody left here to meet with on this case?"
"The new deputy, she's here."
"Why? She has no kids?"
"Kids? No. A confirmed bachelorette. Go see her."
The deputy, a construction engineer with a Ph.D., is a woman of fifty or so, tall and cheerful. She welcomes Ya'ari with enthusiasm and locates the file, marked SECRET in red ink.
"This fifth elevator," Ya'ari begins, with a sigh, "which all of a sudden popped up after we finished the planning — tell me, is it really necessary?"
The deputy examines the file and sighs, too. "What can I do? We also get orders. It turns out that they need an extra elevator here, independent, which will go straight from the top floor to the lowest level of the garage without picking up any passengers in between. And in addition to an internal telephone, they want a screen and video hookup trained on the outside world. In other words, a very private elevator."
"All right, then we'll have to deal with it. But I hope you've taken into account that it will require a complete overhaul of the design of the shaft and will involve further payment."
"The redesign is only natural," the deputy admits, "but as for more money, we've already milked the ministry budget for this project down to the last penny."
"Thanks very much, but what does that mean? That I now have to subsidize the defense forces of the state of Israel?"
"Why not?" she asks, laughing. "They protect you too."
Ya'ari shrugs but doesn't argue. Budgets in any case are determined in a different department, and in that one he'll know how to hold his own. He's not sure whether to show the deputy the idea that came to him in the middle of the night and finally decides to risk it. A gracious woman, good looking and elegant in her own way, can't take it upon herself to kill a technical idea that's outside her area of expertise. Look, he explains with a cryptic smile, he's a grass widower whose wife flew off to Africa and he can't sleep well at night, so he came up with this idea, which might placate, even satisfy, all parties. A corner elevator, with perpendicular doors, squeezed into the south corner of the shaft and operated by independent controclass="underline" this would require no significant appropriation of space at the expense of the four currently planned elevators, so the finished design won't need complete redoing. The deputy takes out a scale ruler and measures the diagram.
"This elevator of yours is very narrow, Mr. Ya'ari." She smiles ironically. "Our secret rider will have to lose weight in order to ride in it."
"You're right," Ya'ari admits, "it is very narrow. But don't forget it has another corner, for another person, presumably the wife of the secret rider."
"His wife?" remarks the deputy with surprise. "Well, it wasn't really her I pictured in your spartan elevator. But if his wife insists on chaperoning her husband everywhere, then she'll have to slim down, too."