ADAM
Everything’s upside down. The long vacation’s over, the house full of Dafi’s books and note pads, wrapping paper, new writing materials, and Dafi herself is an unhappy black woman, wandering about distracted, going from room to room, baffled by the masses of homework that she has to get through. In her room the light stays on after we’re asleep. Asya has gone back to work, and on Sunday, without consulting me, she cut off her hair, standing in front of the mirror, an ageing child looking at herself in despair. It looks like Gabriel has disappeared, but he hasn’t really, occasionally I find traces of him in the house, the beret, sunglasses, a cigarette stub in the bathroom, the imprint of his head in a cushion, a French magazine. Once I phoned home during working hours and he lifted the receiver. I didn’t say who I was, I just asked for her, he said, “She’s not at home, she’s at the school, she’ll be back soon.”
“Who is that, if I may ask …?”
“I’m just a friend of the family.”
Is he already a lover, how can I tell, it’s all a mystery, nothing is said openly, nor do I want things to be said, I know that I must make myself scarce, not show any special interest. I told them to move the Morris out of the storeroom, to clean it, to fit a new battery and fill the fuel tank. Erlich protested, “What about the bill?” “Tear it up,” I said. He didn’t tear it up. I found it in a new file, marked in red ink “Not paid, consult the tax people.”
I brought the car home, gave the keys to Asya and told her to hand it back to him, and I added a thousand pounds as payment for his work. She took the keys and the money and said nothing. The car stood outside the house for a few days and then disappeared.
Are they meeting all the while in secret? I still don’t know, the very idea rouses a sweet pain within, but those days were confused and moved quickly. The festivals were beginning, no, not exactly the festivals, just Yom Kippur. Nineteen hundred and seventy-three.
VEDUCHA
And if this is a human lying in the bed and humans passing by looking at him then why should he be silent? Let him say something he should speak and indeed he has begun to speak without pause hearing his voice a soft voice a broken voice the babbling of an old woman talking and talking perhaps she will grasp some thought. For in her is deep sorrow she has lost much perhaps she will find a little. Smiles all around but no understanding moving the pillow adjusting the blanket turning from side to side saying it’ll be all right. Soon. Sleep a little. But if she must sleep better to die and who is this walking about? Dear, familiar, important, going and coming, standing and disappearing. Where is this? Bring me this! Show me I want so much. This, this, crying from the pillow, the mouth hurts from the shrieks.
And this suddenly comes. Suddenly goes. Suddenly stands. Suddenly disappears. Staring darkly always in a hurry hands in pockets and it’s night.
He had one word to transform the world but the world is in hands in pockets pacing indifferently, forgetting everything, ready for nothing.
Stars at the window. This, she whispers a word, spits a word, throws off a blanket kicks the pillow rolls to the floor rises and falls crawls rises walks rolls, pushes a door and another door into the sky field orchard. Thorns in the feet and a chill in the head, pushing branches sinking to the ground digging to find a word that will open it all.
PART FOUR
NA’IM
They’re getting themselves killed again and when they get themselves killed we have to shrink and lower our voices and mind not to laugh even at some joke that’s got nothing to do with them. This morning on the bus when the news was coming over the radio Issam was talking in a loud voice and laughing and the Jews in the front of the bus turned around and gave us a dry sort of look, and at once Hamid, who’s always so serious, who reckons he’s responsible for us even though he’s not our boss officially, touched Issam, nudged him with his finger, and Issam shut up right away.
Knowing where to draw the line, that’s what matters, and whoever doesn’t want to know had better stay in the village and laugh alone in the fields or sit in the orchard and curse the Jews as long as he likes. Those of us who are with them all day have to be careful. No, they don’t hate us. Anyone who thinks they hate us is completely wrong. We’re beyond hatred, for them we’re like shadows. Take, fetch, hold, clean, lift, sweep, unload, move. That’s the way they think of us, but when they start getting killed they get tired and they slow down and they can’t concentrate and they suddenly get all worked up about nothing, just before the news or just after, news that we don’t exactly hear, for us it’s a kind of rustle but not exactly, we hear the words but we don’t want to understand. Not lies, exactly, but not the truth either, just like on Radio Damascus, Amman or Cairo. Half-truths and half-lies and a lot of bullshit. The cheerful music from Beirut is much better, lively modern Arab music that makes your heart pound, as if your blood’s flowing faster. When we’re working on the cars that they leave with us the first thing we do is switch off Radio Israel or the army wave bands and look for a decent station, not a lot of talking, just songs, new and attractive songs about love. A subject that never tires. The main thing is to have none of that endless chattering about the rotten conflict that’ll go on forever. When I lie under a car tightening brakes the music in the car sounds like somebody walking over my head. I tell you, sometimes my eyes are a bit wet.
I don’t exactly hate the work. The garage isn’t such a bad one, big enough not to be always tripping over one another and getting on everybody’s nerves. My cousin Hamid isn’t far away, he pretends to ignore me but he makes sure they don’t pester me too much. But how can I tell them, I wanted to go on studying, not work in a garage. I finished in primary school with very good marks. The young student teacher was very pleased with me. In Hebrew classes I even used to think in Hebrew. And I knew by heart maybe a dozen poems by Bialik, though nobody ever told me to learn them, something catchy about their rhythm. Once a party of Jewish teachers came to the school to check up on what we were doing and the teacher called me up in front of the class and I stood there and recited by heart two verses from In the City of Slaughter, they nearly dropped dead on the spot, they were that impressed and maybe that’s what the teacher intended, he wasn’t exactly a great lover of Jews. Anyway, I could have stayed on at school, the teacher even went to my father to try to persuade him, “It’s a pity about the boy, he’s got a good brain.” But my father was stubborn, “Two studious sons in the family are enough for me,” as if we’re tied together with a rope and if one goes to college it makes the others educated too. Faiz will be finishing medical school in England soon, he’s been studying there for ten years already, and Adnan’s going to the university next year, he’ll be studying medicine too, or electronics. And I’m the youngest so I have to work. Somebody’s got to earn a bit of money. Father’s decided to make me a master mechanic like Hamid, who earns lots of money.