On the way to the garage once again I pass by the old house. Although I know I won’t find anything I can’t resist stopping there, getting out of the car to look up at the closed shutters. It’s four months now since he disappeared.
If only I could break into this house –
I examine the pipes on the outside of the building. A long drainpipe leads up to the second floor, uneven bricks protrude on the outer wall, the shutter up there is still a tiny bit open.
Whistles behind me. A girl traffic cop comes walking up to see what’s happening. I move, drive to the garage. Erlich’s already sitting over the accounts, looking fresh and invigorated. If he had been in my shoes he could have climbed that wall long ago. At night that alleyway’s deserted. Perhaps I could ask Hamid to find me somebody to break in there. If he had a terrorist among his relations, surely he could find me a professional housebreaker, but afterwards it might be tricky.
No, I need to find a boy, some boy who can climb quickly, somebody who wouldn’t understand exactly what he was doing, a stranger, but not a complete stranger, somebody who trusts me a little, perhaps somebody employed temporarily in the garage.
I watch the workers closely, moving about among them, they pretend not to notice me but I’m conscious that the chattering stops when I approach, the music is turned down slightly. I know very few names here. But there’s one fellow who looks up, staring back at me. It’s that boy again, the one who was hurt and has recovered now. Smiling a sincere understanding smile at me. He picks up a big screwdriver and swaggering like a veteran mechanic he walks over to a large plump woman standing beside a little Fiat with a raised hood. He says boldly, “Get in, lady, and start the engine. Keep your foot on the throttle and do exactly as I tell you.”
And she smiles, looking around her with embarrassment, gets into the car and starts the engine. The boy climbs onto the bumper and starts tuning. Scandalous. Only two months ago he was sweeping the floor and now he’s got the nerve to tune engines. But I say nothing, I just stand there watching him, and he knows that I’m watching him and he carries on tuning, raising and lowering the revolutions of the engine, with no idea what he’s doing. In the end one of the Jewish mechanics comes along and shouts at him, pushing him aside. But the boy isn’t offended, watching me from a distance, with a smile as if to spite me.
This, it comes to me in a flash, is the boy who’ll climb that wall, and perhaps he’ll keep quiet about it too.
NA’IM
It was like a dream that Friday. A sweet dream. Because I slept in her house and ate breakfast and supper with her, and even if I had maybe done something criminal still I was happy.
As soon as I arrived at the garage that morning he grabbed me like he’d been waiting for me. He took me into a quiet corner and told me he needed me for a small job that night, if it was all right for me not going home to the village. I said that was all right, no problem, I didn’t mind sleeping at the garage. He said, “No, you don’t need to sleep at the garage, you can sleep at my house. I’ll look after you.” I was so happy I thought I was going to faint. My head went fuzzy. But I just smiled at him. And he said, “Only don’t talk about it, can you keep a secret?” “Of course I can,” I said. “I’ll keep as quiet about it as you like.” He looked at me like he was checking some bit of machinery. “Can you climb?” “Climb on what?” I asked. “It’s not important.” He was embarrassed. “You’ll see. What have you got in that bag?” He didn’t give me a chance to reply but snatched it out of my hand and looked inside it, seeing the bread and the book of poems by Alterman. I thought I was going to die. He took out the book and asked me what it was. “It’s a book,” I said. “But whose is it?” “It’s mine, I’m reading it.” “You’re reading this?” He was surprised, he laughed and he put his hand on my head again like he did the first time. In the distance I saw the other workers watching us curiously. He flicked through the book but he didn’t look at the first page. He just asked, “Do you understand this stuff?” “Sometimes,” I said, and snatched it back in a hurry. He was thrilled, really impressed, and he touched me again, he was always so careful not to touch the other workers but it was like with me it was O.K. Then he took out his wallet again, the one that was always stuffed full of money like it was weighing him down and he wanted to get rid of it. He took out a hundred-pound note and said, “Go and buy yourself some pyjamas and a toothbrush and come back here at four o’clock after the others have gone and I’ll pick you up. I’ll tell Hamid you won’t be going back to the village tonight.” “But I can go straight to your house,” I said. He was surprised. “Do you know where it is?” I reminded him that he’d once sent me to his house to fetch a briefcase, he didn’t remember but he said, “All right, come straight to the house at four o’clock.” “O.K.,” I said, “but what kind of pyjamas do you want me to buy?” He laughed. “The pyjamas are for you, not for me.” I knew that but I only asked him because I was getting all mixed up I was so happy. How happy I was suddenly.
And I went straight out into the city with the hundred pounds. At first I wandered around the streets, walking in the middle of the road and nearly getting run over. All the time feeling the hundred pounds in my pocket, stopping in the middle of the road and fingering it. I’d never had so much money all at once. And though it was a cold and rainy day I was free, like in holidays from school. And I walked among the people aimlessly, looking in the gloomy faces of the Jews, always so worried about their Jewish destiny. And though the sky was dark I was already sniffing the smell of spring. I wanted to shout out loud I was so happy. Because all the time I was thinking I’d be seeing that girl in a little while and I’d be able to fall in love properly and not just in my imagination. I walked and walked and nearly came out the other side of the city and turned back and this time started looking in the shops. Going in here and there to look at things, because aside from the pyjamas I wanted to buy a whole lot of things for myself. This time I wasn’t giving any change back. And they realized I was an Arab right away and they started looking in my bag, feeling the loaves of bread to check if there were bombs hidden inside them. So I ate some of the bread in a hurry and threw the rest away with the bag so they’d leave me alone and I just kept the book, tucking it under my arm. I felt lighter that way.
In the end, after I’d looked in the windows of toy shops, bookshops, radio and TV shops, I began to look for a pyjama shop, but there weren’t any pyjamas in the windows and I didn’t know exactly which shop to enter. Anyway, why did he insist on pyjamas? I could sleep in my underwear and buy something more important with the money. Suddenly I saw a high-class clothes shop that had pyjamas in the window but didn’t show any prices. I went inside and wanted to go straight out again because it was dark in there and there was nobody about. But as soon as I turned to go a thin old man came out from a dark corner. “What do you want, boy?” I said, “Pyjamas.” He asked, “Have you got any money?” and I took out the blue bill and showed it to him.
Then he grabbed my hand, he didn’t seem to mind that I was wearing dirty working clothes. He didn’t even realize I was an Arab. All he wanted was to get his hands on that little blue bill that I’d been stupid enough to show him and he did take it off me in the end. He started taking all kinds of pyjamas out of boxes, fine silk pyjamas with tassels and fancy embroidery. He showed me pair after pair, spreading them out in front of me. And I stood there and couldn’t say a word because they really were nice. In the end he came over to me, took my measurements and told me to undress. I took off my shirt and sweater and he put a pyjama top on me and turned me towards the mirror to see if it suited me. Then he took it off and tried another on me, and every set of pyjamas was crazier than the last one, gold buttons and coloured tassels. When he saw I was struck dumb he chose some red pyjamas for me and said, “Look, these suit you best,” and folded them up and packed them in a box and wrapped the box in soft paper and put it in a new plastic bag and then gently but firmly he took the blue bill that I still held in my fingers and said softly, “That’s it.” I saw he didn’t mean to give me any change and I asked him in a feeble voice, “Do these cost a hundred pounds?” He said, “More than that, I’ve given you a discount.” I didn’t move, I felt stunned. And he smiled at me and said, “Where are you from, boy?”