And he almost snatched them away from him, went into the office and put them down on the table. My first thought was, the car is staying with me.
We both went into the office.
“If you don’t pay within a month we shall have to sell it,” Erlich announced triumphantly.
“We can’t, Erlich,” I explained quietly. “The car doesn’t belong to him.”
“Doesn’t belong to him? What is this?”
The man began to tell his story again, the grandmother whose death he was awaiting …
To Erlich the whole business was a scandal, all this talk about an old woman dying. He stood there stiffly by the table, with his short khaki trousers and his army-style close-cropped hair, staring at him with disgust.
“How is she now?” I asked, taking an interest, retaining my composure. Suddenly I too depended on his grandmother’s death.
“She’s unconscious … no change … I don’t understand … the doctors can’t say how long it will go on like this …” He was desperately unhappy.
“But where the hell do you work?” yelled Erlich, losing his temper. “Don’t you work?”
“What for …?” The man was very pale, trembling, his hands shaking, Erlich had terrified him, and suddenly, I could hardly believe my eyes, he collapsed at our feet on the floor.
“He’s only acting,” hissed Erlich.
But at once I felt concerned for him and picked him up in my arms, a light warm body, sat him down on a chair, cleared space around him, opened his shirt buttons. He recovered immediately.
“It’s only hunger.” He covered his eyes. “I’ve eaten nothing for two days … I’ve got no money left … yes, I’m in a mess, I know.”
DAFI
Supper isn’t really over yet. Daddy’s drinking his coffee, Mommy’s already washing the dishes, in a hurry to get back to the study, and I’m standing in front of the big mirror with a little mirror in my hand examining my back and behind my legs, carefully touching the sunburned places, tasting the taste of salt. A week ago the long vacation began and because the Girl Scout camp was cancelled Tali and Osnat and I began going down to the beach every day, sitting there till evening, we want to be really black when school starts again, and suddenly Daddy says:
“I must phone Shwartzy …”
“What’s happened?”
“To ask him if he wants a French teacher at the school.”
“What on earth?”
And he starts to tell a strange story, to which I listen with half an ear, about a customer who fainted in the garage because he couldn’t pay a repair bill, someone who arrived in the country without a cent, a crank, an immigrant who’d lived many years in Paris and came here to pick up an inheritance and found that there wasn’t any …
“And you want them to give him a job as a teacher in our school,” I interrupt. “Aren’t there enough idiots there already?”
“That’s enough, Dafi!”
It’s very unusual for Daddy to tell stories about what goes on in the garage, sometimes you forget there are people there as well as cars.
But Mommy thinks it’s a strange idea too, asking Shwartzy to give a teacher’s job to some guy who left the country.
“All right then, not a real teacher … a temporary appointment … an assistant teacher … he needs help … he hasn’t got a job … he fainted of hunger in the garage.”
“Hunger? Is there still anyone who’s hungry in this country?”
“You’d be surprised, Dafi. What do you know about this country?” says Mommy coming out of the kitchen, her hands wet, taking off her apron.
“How much does he owe you?”
“More than four thousand pounds.”
“Four thousand?” We’re both astonished. “What did you do for him that cost four thousand pounds?”
He smiles, surprised at our excitement, he does repairs that cost much more than that.
“So what will you do?”
“What can I do? Erlich has confiscated the car, but that doesn’t help because the car isn’t his anyway … it can’t even be sold …”
“So what will you do?”
“I shall have to cancel the debt …”
Oh, I see, Daddy’s a public charity –
“A debt of four thousand pounds?” I feel really bitter. Just think what I could do with four thousand pounds.
“It’s none of your business, Dafi,” says Mommy.
But she too looks baffled, standing there in the doorway of the study, wondering how Daddy can throw away so much money so easily.
“Perhaps you could find him work in the garage …”
“What could he do there? It isn’t his kind of work … well, it doesn’t matter …” And Daddy turns to go.
“Bring him here,” I say.
“Here?”
“Yes, why not? He can wash the dishes and scrub the floor and that way he can gradually pay off the debt.”
Daddy bursts out laughing, “It’s an idea.”
“Why not? He can do the ironing, the laundry, tidy the rooms for us” — I’m getting carried away, as usual — “he can take out the rubbish …”
“That’s enough, Dafi,” says Mommy, but she’s smiling too. A strange family conference this, I in front of the mirror, half naked, Mommy with her hands wet at the study door, Daddy in the kitchen door with a coffee cup in his hand.
“When a man’s suddenly down on his luck” — Daddy tries to explain — “you feel sorry for him, and he really is a nice fellow, pleasant, educated, he even studied for a while at the university in Paris … perhaps you need somebody to copy, to translate for you … I know …”
“What on earth for?”
“I just thought … oh, it doesn’t matter.”
“But I could use a secretary” — I’m all excited again, trying to make them laugh — “someone to copy, to translate … to do my homework for me … I shall find work for him.”
Mommy laughed, at last, and perhaps this laughter meant that the idea didn’t seem so odd to her, or perhaps she really was upset over the loss of the money, because next day when I came back from the beach in the evening, suntanned and stained with oil and my hair in a mess, I found someone sitting in the living room with Mommy and Daddy. Maybe this was the first time they ever succeeded in surprising me. At first I thought he was just a guest, I didn’t realize he was the man they’d been talking about, they too were a bit confused and embarrassed, sitting there in the dark room, in the twilight, staring at the thin, pale man with the big bright eyes. He looked as if he’d once suffered from a severe illness, no wonder he fainted in the garage when he heard the price. He blushed when he saw me come in, jumped up from his seat and held out his hand. “Gabriel Arditi,” he said and shook hands with me. Why on earth did he want to shake hands with me, what kind of manners are these? Right from the start I didn’t like him, so I didn’t tell him my name, I fled to my room and undressed, hearing Mommy ask him about his studies, Daddy murmuring something and he talking about himself in a low voice, talking about Paris.
I went to have a shower, washed off the oil stains. When I came out he wasn’t in the living room, Mommy had disappeared too, only Daddy was still there, deep in thought.
“Is he still here?”
Daddy nods, pointing to the study door.
“When are we going to eat?”
He doesn’t answer.
I go back to my room, put on a blouse and shorts, return to the living room, find Daddy still sitting there motionless, as if he’s been turned to stone.
“What’s going on?”
“What do you want?”
“Has he gone?”
“Not yet.”
“What’s happening?”
“Nothing.”