He looked rather pale, as if he hadn’t been out in the sun for a long time, there was also something odd about his way of speaking, about his style, his manners were a little strange. For a moment I thought he was religious, a yeshiva student, but his head was already uncovered, the beret crumpled in his hand.
The little car fascinated me, it had been kept in good condition, it seemed incredible but it was possible that this was the original paintwork, the chassis was clean, without rust, there were spokes in the old-fashioned wheels, the windshield wipers shone. Drops of water fell from it. My hands instantly began to stroke it.
“What’s missing?”
“Just one screw … I think.”
“One screw?” I’m always scornful of such assurance. “Which screw?”
He doesn’t know what it’s called … it should be here … in this part … and he bent over the engine to find the place … there was always one screw that used to fall out here …
I looked at the engine, in contrast to the bodywork it was in a hideous state, all dry and dusty and parts of it were even gummed up with spiders’ webs.
“Look, I don’t understand, when did you last drive this car?”
“About twelve years ago.”
“What? And hasn’t it been touched since then?”
He smiled, a gentle, pleasant smile, no, it’s been used, he thinks it’s been used, perhaps not a lot … but not by him, because he hasn’t been here, in Israel that is … he only came back a few days ago … it had been left in storage at a garage not far away, he pushed it from there after cleaning it up a bit …
“Then why didn’t you look for the screw there?”
They didn’t want to have anything to do with the car … they don’t know … they don’t have spare parts … they sent him here … they told him this was a big garage with a stock of spare parts …
“For a 1950 Morris?”
“1947 … I think …” he corrected me cautiously.
“1947? Even better … do you think I run a museum here?”
He was embarrassed at first, then he laughed, taking off his sunglasses for a moment to see me better. He had bright eyes and a pleasant face, his body was thin with a bit of a stoop, and he had a slight accent that I couldn’t place.
“So there’s no chance of finding just one little screw so the engine will start?”
Either he’s a simpleton or he’s mocking me.
“It’s got nothing to do with a screw.” I began to feel irritable. “This engine, can’t you see, it’s ruined and rusted. Do you want to sell it?”
“Do you want to buy it?”
“Me?” I was astonished by his frankness. “What would I want with it. Twenty-five years ago I used to have a car exactly like it, it really wasn’t at all bad, but I don’t feel any great nostalgia for it. You might find some nut, some antique collector, who’d give you something for it …”
Right from the start I noticed that I was talking to him in the manner I usually reserve for customers, with him it was as if I was trying to establish a bond, and refusing to desist. Something about that old blue box fascinated me, as if I was looking at something from a distant dream.
“Anyway I can’t sell it now … it isn’t mine yet.”
“Well then, do you want me to restore it?”
As if I was short of work in the garage –
He thought for a moment, hesitated. “O.K., but …”
But I cut him short, afraid he might change his mind, and at that very moment an idea occurred to me, I thought of starting a new line in restoring old cars, in the general climate of affluence there’d surely be nuts interested in a new hobby.
“Come back in three days and collect it, it’ll be fit to drive again. Leave the keys inside and push it into a corner so it won’t be in the way. Help him,” I ordered the surprised watchman and went back to the office, wondering for a moment if I should say something about the cost of repairs, but I decided against it in case he would change his mind.
I sat down at the table, going over the last accounts, through the window I saw him and the watchman pushing the car into a corner. He paced around the car for a while, deep in thought, looked towards the office and disappeared.
Five minutes later I finished my work, stuffed a few thousand pounds in my wallet, locked away the rest in the safe and prepared to drive home. Before getting into my car I went again to the Morris, opened the hood and looked inside. Again I was astonished to see the tangle of spiders’ webs entwined around the engine. I took off the oilfiller cap and a big black spider crawled out of the dry rusty sump. Just one screw missing … I grinned to myself, squashing the spider with my fist. I closed the hood, got inside the car. I sat down at the wheel, which was completely loose, playing with it like a child, studying the primitive dashboard. The interior of the car was very clean, the seats were covered with hand-sewn flowered upholstery, on the back seat lay an old travelling hat with a long scarf attached to it, an old-fashioned lady’s hat. I looked in the mirror and saw the old watchman standing behind the car, watching me curiously.
I got out hurriedly, smiled at him, climbed into my own car, started the engine and left the garage, a hundred metres farther on I saw him standing at a bus stop, he couldn’t have known that the last bus had gone. This entire commercial district was deserted at that hour. I stopped. He didn’t recognize me at first. “You’ll have to wait till tomorrow for a bus.” He didn’t understand, turning his head with the winter cap towards me.
“Come on, get in, I’m driving to the city.”
He took off his cap and sat down beside me, thanked me politely, asked permission to pull down the sun shade.
“This awful sun, how can you stand it? I’d forgotten what it was like …”
“How long have you been abroad?”
“Twelve years, perhaps more, I’ve already lost count.”
“Where have you been?”
“In Paris.”
“And you suddenly decided to return?”
“No … why should I? I haven’t returned … I only came to pick up an inheritance from my grandmother.”
“The Morris … is that what you inherit?”
He blushed, embarrassed.
“No, I wouldn’t have come back for that load of junk, but there’s a house as well … an apartment actually … an apartment in an old Arab house in the lower city … and a few other things … old furniture …”
He spoke sincerely, with a pleasing candour, without apologies, without guilt for having left the country, without excuses, admitting that he’d come to collect a legacy and leave.
“You’ll be surprised, but that Morris isn’t a heap of junk at all … it’s basically quite sound …”
Yes, yes, he knows … he and his grandmother used to drive around in it in the fifties, they got a lot of good use out of it.
We drove slowly, joining a long line of traffic at the approaches to the city. He sat there beside me, with his big sunglasses, busily adjusting the shade, as if the sunlight might sting him. I couldn’t make him out, his Hebrew was good, admittedly, but he used all kinds of old-fashioned expressions. I carried on with the idle conversation.
“And your … your grandmother … she used to drive the Morris all the time … who used to look after the car for her?”
He didn’t know, to tell the truth he hadn’t been particularly close to her … he’d been ill … out of touch … for a few years he’d been in an institution in Paris.
“An institution?”
“For the mentally ill … that was several years ago … but now everything’s all right …”
He hastened to reassure me, looking at me with a smile. Suddenly it all became clear to me, the way he came into the garage, pushing the car, his search for one screw, the oddity of his speech, his hasty confessions. A lunatic who suddenly remembered an ancient legacy.