And then they all went and stood beside a bronze plaque that had been put up by the entrance to the Physics Department. And there, too, somebody said a few words. But those we didn’t hear because we slipped away down the back steps.
Shwartzy was a quick worker. In Israel they hadn’t yet finished counting the dead, and he’d already got the memorials out of the way.
Meanwhile we not only forgot the maths teacher, we forgot the maths as well, because for two months we studied Bible instead of maths. We had eight hours of extra Bible studies every week and we went at such a pace that we did ten out of the twelve Prophets. The joke went around that there’d be nothing left of the Bible for us to study in the seventh and eighth grades, and we’d have to study the New Testament.
At last the replacement arrived. A young man, a student from the Technion, a bit fat, very nervous, a doubtful genius who decided to try the new maths on us. Right away I felt that what little I knew was fading fest because of him.
At first we tried to annoy him, at least until he came to know our names. I dubbed him Baby Face and everybody called him that because he really was a baby face, he hardly shaved at all. But he soon made a record of names and he used to put down marks all the time. We weren’t much impressed by this record, because usually the teachers themselves get tired of this stupid system long before they broke us. But for some reason he picked on me from the first moment. For almost every second lesson he called me up to the blackboard, and when I didn’t know the answers he kept me there and went on being cruel to me. I wasn’t particularly bothered, I have no great pretensions in maths, but suddenly he began being rude to me as well. He took my name right at the start but he didn’t seem to know my surname and he certainly didn’t realize that my mother taught history in the senior classes of the same school. Not that I expect any special treatment but I just like it to be known. Just that it be known. But he was determined not to grasp it, although I tried various hints at it.
Only towards the end of the year, when we were really at war with each other, when I said to him in front of the whole class “It’s a pity you weren’t killed instead of the last teacher” and he went running to the headmaster, only then did he grasp the fact, and then it was too late. Both for him, and for me.
ADAM
Where did I not wander in my quiet persistent search for him. One morning I even went to the Bureau of Missing Army Personnel. It was a bright morning, a spring-like winter’s day. Something about the garage was getting on my nerves. All those Arab workers sitting under the shade for their breakfast with their flat loaves of bread, joking, singing to the Arab music from the car radios. And in the morning paper I found an announcement about the bureau, how it functioned, the means at its disposal, its achievements. And before long I was there, sitting in the waiting room beside a silent old couple. I thought, it’ll take only a few minutes, to give his name, just to try.
This was after all the great confusion, the return of the prisoners, the notorious scandals. Lessons had been learned and a whole new machinery set up. Three large offices in a secluded suburb of Tel Aviv. Most of the clerks were officers. There was a first-aid room with a doctor and nurses. There were telephones on the desks and outside on the square there were at least a dozen army vehicles. I hadn’t waited long when an officer led me into a room that was furnished not like an office but like a room in a private house. Behind the desk sat a very attractive woman, a charming major. Beside her sat a young lieutenant. The entire team listened attentively to my story.
And my story was a little odd.
Of course, I couldn’t tell them that I was looking for my wife’s lover. I said, “A friend.”
“A friend?” They were a bit surprised, but it was as if it made it easier for them. “Just a friend?”
“A friend. A good friend.” They didn’t ask me what the hell I was doing looking for a friend here. By what right. The second lieutenant took out a fresh form and handed it to the major, there were already a number of forms there ready for use. Efficiency and sympathy and much patience.
I gave his name and address, told them how he’d come to Israel a few months ago, I mentioned the problem of the legacy and the grandmother lying in a coma in the hospital. They wrote down every word. But only ten lines were filled by the round, feminine handwriting. What more could I tell them, I had no photograph, I didn’t know his army number, nor his passport number, nor his father’s name, and of course I had no idea to which unit he’d been sent. I said again, “Perhaps he didn’t get to the front, perhaps he wasn’t even called up. It was us, actually, who sent him to the army. But since the second day of the war he’s disappeared. Can it be coincidence? Perhaps I’m wasting your time.”
“Oh no,” they protested. “We must investigate.”
The young officer was sent away with the details to the computer building, and the other two took out a special form for recording physical details and characteristics. Colour of hair, height, weight, colour of eyes, distinguishing marks. I began to describe him. Of course I’d never seen him naked. I was only a friend. I said something about his smile, his gestures, his manner of speech.
They listened. The major’s hair fell over her face, she was always brushing it away from her eyes with a delicate movement, she was radiant, very beautiful. Talking in a quiet voice, little computer cards in her hands, asking me strange questions. Did he have a scar on his right cheek perhaps, or a gold tooth in his lower jaw? Conferring in a whisper with the lieutenant, who supplied her with more computer cards. Suddenly I understood, they had particulars of unidentified corpses, they wanted to give me a corpse in his place.
But nothing fit.
I wanted to leave. It seemed madness to search for him here. But the process had been started, and there was no way of stopping it. Meanwhile the officer who had been sent to the computer returned with a long list of all the Arditis recorded by the computer as having served in the army in recent years. There was only one Gabriel Arditi, fifty-one years old, a citizen of Dimona, discharged from the army five years ago for health reasons.
Obviously they didn’t think he was the man I was looking for, but if I wanted to see him a vehicle and a driver would be immediately at my disposal to take me to Dimona.
I must get out of here –
Perhaps I should make inquiries at the hospital, perhaps his grandmother could tell me something.
They wouldn’t let me go.
Heavy rain falling outside. The brightness of the morning turned to heavy gloom. I sat sprawled in a comfortable armchair, three girl-officers listening to me attentively. Every word I said, every thought, was taken and written down. The empty file was not so empty now.
Voices rose from the next room. A man’s voice shook the partition between us. He was protesting, in a clear voice, with stubborn logic. He couldn’t accept the explanation, of course he had no illusions, but he knew for a fact that his son was never in sector (he gave a long number) nor in tank number (another number with a lot of figures). He repeated the numbers with speed, it seemed he’d been studying them for weeks, he knew them by heart. He’d spoken to his friends, he’d spoken to the officers, he had no illusions, he only wanted another sector and another tank number, that was all he wanted to know. He broke down and wept, and slowly, in the silence, embarrassed voices began to console him.