DAFI
Mommy and Daddy both said at once, “It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, come inside,” but he was scared and confused, so serious, all the time wiping his feet on the door mat. A little Arab, one of Daddy’s workers, just think, Daddy’s got thirty workers like this and they’re all afraid of him. The poor kid had been waiting outside in the rain. But suddenly I recognized him, I’d seen him before, the boy who came here once to fetch Daddy’s briefcase. A nice kid. At last they got him inside, almost by force, they suggested he take his shoes off and he took them off, standing there in his torn black socks, still spreading dirt all around him. Such a silly boy, why did he have to wait outside in the rain? It isn’t a very nice thing to say but I was reminded suddenly of something that happened a few years ago. One day Daddy brought me a puppy that had been wandering around in the rain near the garage, it came rushing inside in high spirits (it didn’t think of wiping its feet outside) and immediately dirtied the floor and the carpet. And we washed it and combed it and fed it chopped meat, and we even bought it a leash and took it to the vet for injections, and the puppy was in the house for a month maybe until we saw he was growing fast and getting hard to control and somebody who knew about dogs told us “You’re rearing a donkey here, not a dog” and Mommy got scared and decided to give him away, even though I wanted to see how big he’d grow in the end.
And this time — it’s a boy, that is, a young man. Daddy’s brought him here to supper because he needs him tonight to break into the house of that man who disappeared.
Mommy took charge of him straightaway, took him under her wing, because Daddy didn’t know what to do with him. Helpless ones like this are right up her alley, she waves a red flag and charges into battle. She took him by the hand and led him to the bathroom, he took off his wet clothes, she put them on the radiator to dry and sent him straight in to have a bath.
It seemed so strange having a guest in the house on a Sabbath eve in winter. It’s always so quiet here. We hardly ever have guests. Sometimes in the summer there’s some distant relative from Jerusalem who stays overnight but these last few years there hasn’t even been that.
Meanwhile, Mommy started looking around for clothes for him. But where do we have clothes for a boy of that age? You could put three of him in Daddy’s clothes. But Mommy went on looking, she even came into my room and started rummaging about in the wardrobe. I said to her, “Why don’t you give him a skirt? Why not, in Scotland they wear skirts.” But she got really angry, didn’t think it was funny at all. She began yelling at me, “You be quiet now, how dare you laugh at an unfortunate Arab? Keep your jokes to yourself.”
So what if he was an Arab, and why was he unfortunate all of a sudden? Not because he was an Arab. Just like that … even if he was a Jew, and what’s the difference? Hell … she really offended me. Meanwhile, Daddy found a solution, he could put on the pyjamas that he brought with him, because Daddy gave him money this morning to buy pyjamas (what a weird idea!) and they didn’t even ask him if he was ready to put pyjamas on in the late afternoon, they just threw the pyjamas into the bathroom and now we were all waiting for him to come out. But he didn’t come out, five minutes passed, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour and he still didn’t come out. He must be preening himself like some grand duchess. It seems he didn’t realize we have only one bathroom and Daddy would need a shower before supper. At last Daddy opened the door and we saw him sitting there in the dark on the edge of the bath like a frightened animal, wearing pyjamas like I never saw before in my life. The bastard, to think Mommy was worried about him. He went and chose something really special, and expensive too I’ll bet, elegantly trimmed, with wide sleeves and a sash and shining buttons.
We were stunned, and looked at one another in amazement. And then I began to smile, and such a silly embarrassed grin appeared on Daddy’s face I felt I was starting to shake inside, for some reason it struck me as awfully funny. My famous laugh that breaks out like a clap of thunder followed by a trail of hee … hee … hee … and it’s always infectious because anyone who’s nearby, whether he likes it or not, starts laughing and can’t stop, he’s carried along by it. And Daddy started laughing and Mommy with a solemn face started to cackle and I broke out with another thunderclap, not laughing at the pyjamas any longer but at their silly laughter. And the little Arab was blushing bright red, he tried to smile but suddenly, all at once, without warning, he began to cry. So bitterly, so deeply, an ancient Arab moan. Suddenly I stopped laughing. Honestly, I felt heartbroken. I knew how he felt. How could he stand it? In his place I’d have been wailing long ago.
NA’IM
But in the end I stopped crying because they were so embarrassed. And I let them take me into the living room and sit me down in an armchair and so there I was talking to them quietly, actually only to the woman, who began talking to me and asking questions right away to take my mind off what had just happened. And I’d never spoken to a woman like her. Not young at all, with a sharp face, chain-smoking but very friendly and clever too, knowing how to get on with people. Sitting facing me, her legs crossed, and behind her the sunset through the window, the sea spread out and the rain falling on the horizon like a rosy fan. It was nice and warm in the room, all around it was clean and tidy. And they didn’t know that I’d been there before, I knew all the little objects on the shelves. My bare feet on the carpet, sitting on the edge of the chair and answering questions. She asked me so many questions you’d think she worked for the Secret Service. What does my father do and what does my mother do and what exactly is Faiz doing in England and what do we think about it, and what did we learn in school, how many hours of Arabic, how many hours of Hebrew, how many hours of maths, how many hours of history and what kind of history. How long has my family lived in this country, for how many generations that is, how many people live in the village, how many go outside to work and how many work in the village. And what do I know about Jews, have I heard of Zionism and what do I think it means. All the time she’s so serious and friendly like it’s really important to her. Looks like this is the first time she’s spoken to an Arab about things like this because till now she’s talked only to Arabs bringing her things from the supermarket or cleaning the steps.