ASYA
I’m in a classroom, some bricks left over from the building are still on the floor, a pile of sand still in the corner. Most of the pupils aren’t in the classroom, though the bell has rung and a sort of echo is still ringing in my ears. I ask one of the pupils where the rest of the class is and he says, “They’re having a gym session, they’ll be here soon,” but they don’t come and I’m getting nervous, because I want to start on the lesson, the books and the notes are open in front of me. The subject is something to do with the Second World War, a subject that I’m not sure of, it’s always so difficult to explain it to the children.
The pupil who has spoken to me is sitting in the front row, an immigrant from Eastern Europe, with a sickly face and a heavy accent, sitting there all wrapped up in a heavy coat, a funny Siberian cap and a scarf, looking at me with such crafty eyes, testing me. In fact he’s the only one in the class, what I took to be the other pupils were just the shadows of chairs.
Angrily I ask him, “Are you that cold?”
“A little,” he replies.
“Then please take off your coat, you can’t sit like that in the classroom.”
He stands up, removes his hat, his coat, unwraps the scarf, takes off his gloves, pulls off his sweater, unfastens the buttons of his shirt, strips it off, sits down and takes off his shoes, his socks, he goes and stands in the corner, beside the little pile of sand, and takes down his trousers, his T-shirt and his underpants, quite calmly, without even blushing. Now he stands there in the corner, naked, a little plump, his body white as marble, he makes no attempt to hide his paltry member, the member of a growing boy. I catch my breath, feeling a mixture of repulsion and fierce desire. But I say not a word, flicking constantly through the notes in front of me. He walks past me and out of the room, walking slowly, his shoulders bent, his ass wagging. I want to say to him “Come here” but I’m left alone in the classroom that’s now completely empty, in the light of a strange twilight.
PART THREE
VEDUCHA
But which animal is it, a rabbit a frog an old bird? Perhaps something big a cow or a gorilla. They haven’t decided yet. A universal animal an animal of animals a sad monster lying beneath a blanket warming herself in a big bed rubbing her body on a crumpled sheet her soft tongue constantly licking the nose the pillow her eyes flitting about. Thinking animal thoughts about food and water that she will eat and drink about food and water that she has eaten and drunk whining a soft whine. They come and raise the blanket urging the animal to rise sitting her on a chair washing her skin with a sponge bringing a plate of gruel taking a spoon and feeding her.
Night. Darkness. An animal sniffing the world a sweet smell of rotting flesh. A big moon comes to the window and cries to the animal. The animal cries to the moon — ho … ho … oy … trying to remember something that she does not know that she only thinks she knows scratching at the wall tasting the peeling plaster. They come to silence the animal stroking her head quietly comforting her — sh … sh … sh … the animal grows quiet. Wants to weep and does not know how.
Strong light around and voices. Sun. The cattle shed the stable the hen coop rustle. The face of a creature before her a creature not an animal, a creature talking to the animal. She wants what does she want? She wants how does she want? Why? A creature that once was. A little pain waking within. Deep down inside the animal something stirs such a soft wind a breath without air without movement bride to the creature her soul her soul. She is here she has not vanished. She always was. The man talks. From a familiar distance. But what is he saying his speech is dark. Gives up and leaves. The animal begins to understand with surprise that she is also human.
ADAM
In fact it was I who found him, who brought him home to Asya. People put themselves in my hands sometimes, I’ve noticed, they throw themselves at me as if saying — “Take me,” and sometimes I take them –
At the beginning of last summer, in the quiet months before the war, I detached myself more and more from the general work of the garage, arriving in the morning, seeing everything working at a high pitch and after two or three hours getting into my car and driving around the shops looking for spare parts, driving to Tel Aviv, touring the automobile agencies, looking through catalogues, visiting other garages to pick up new ideas, driving back to Haifa by side roads leading up to the Carmel range, walking in the woods to pass the time, arriving at the garage before the end of working hours, chasing back into the workshops the men who thought they’d get away early, telling one of the boys to unpack the equipment that I’d bought, hearing reports from the foreman, glancing at an engine or two, deciding the fate of a car smashed up in a road accident and going into the office to sit with Erlich over the accounts, to sign cheques, to receive the keys of the safe and to hear the last of his explanations before he goes.
I used to enjoy counting on my fingers the bank notes accumulated during the day, but over the last year this has all changed into a pen and paper business, all calculations, studying bank balances, making decisions about shares, estimating future profits, a quiet assessment of the financial assets accruing to me, and all this while around me there’s silence, the garage empty, the work benches clean, the floor swept, the winches released, the generators switched off. My considerable kingdom into which the old night watchman now comes with his funny little lame dog, his big bundle jingling, locking the side entrances and leaving just the main gate open for me. He takes a kettle and fills it with water to make coffee, all the time staring intently towards the office, to catch my eye before bowing to me humbly, and then through the main gate a little car enters slowly, a very old Morris painted bright blue, rolling slowly into the garage without a driver, without a sound, like something out of a nightmare.
I straightened up in my seat.
And then I saw him for the first time, still through the window of the office, wearing a white shirt and sunglasses, a beret on his head, walking behind the car and pushing it like a baby carriage. The watchman in the corner by the tap hadn’t noticed him, but the dog started barking hoarsely, ran slowly towards the man and attacked him. The man stepped back from the car, which rolled on a few more metres and then stopped. The watchman dropped the kettle and ran after his dog shouting, “The garage is closed, get that car out of here.”
I looked at the car with great interest. A very old model, dating from the early fifties, perhaps even earlier. It was many years since I’d seen this little rectangular box, with the windows like lattices, on the roads. It seems they still exist, I thought to myself, but I didn’t go out of the office.
Meanwhile the dog had fallen silent. He’d found the strange old running board on the side of the car and was amusing himself jumping on and off it, but the watchman went on shouting at the man, who made no attempt to argue. He’d gone around to the front of the car and was trying to push it back, but he couldn’t do it, the car had settled into a dip in the garage floor.
The watchman went on shouting, acting as if he owned the place. I went out into the garage. The dog wagged his tail, the watchman turned to me and started to explain.
“What’s the trouble?” I asked the man. He began to explain — “Nothing serious, the engine won’t start, there’s a screw missing,” and he went and opened the hood.