He grew quiet, as if he’d finished, but he hadn’t, it was only a pause, he only needed to get his wind back. You know, my son, he went on, you can go ahead and tell your memories to others, they’re eager to listen to your account and perhaps they get everything, even the smallest nuances, but that memory will still be yours and yours alone, it doesn’t become someone else’s memory just because you’ve told it to others, memories are told but not transmitted. And then, since it seemed like the right moment, he said: speaking of memory, Dad, the doctor told me you refuse to take your medicine, the nurse realized that you pretend to swallow the pills and then spit them out in the sink, why do you do that? These doctors I don’t like, murmured the old man, they don’t understand a thing, believe me, they are ignorant know-it-alls. I don’t think there’s much to understand, Dad, he replied, they’re only trying to help a person of your age, that’s all, besides, the diagnosis is encouraging, there is no serious pathology as we feared, if there were, your attitude would be understandable since it wouldn’t be an attitude but the indicator of a progressive pathology, in your case it’s an attitude, or rather a purely psychological fact, so the doctors say, that’s the reason they prescribed these pills for you, it’s a very light psychoactive drug, nothing much, just a little help. The old man looked at him with an expression that struck him as indulgent, perhaps his voice had an ironic tone. A helping hand, sure, a helping hand, those people think they can polish your memory like a mirror, this is the point, to make it function not the way it wants but the way they want, so it doesn’t obey itself anymore, its own nature, which has no geometric shape, you can’t represent memory with a nice geometric drawing, it takes the shape it wants according to the moment, to the time, to who knows what, and they, the big doctors, they want to make it trigonometrical, that’s the right word, so it’s easily measured, like dice, this is reassuring for them, a die has six sides, you turn it over and can see them all, does memory seem like a die to you? He waved as though whisking away a fly. He grew quiet. He’d stopped smoothing the creases of his pants. His eyes closed, his head on the pillow of the armchair, he seemed to have fallen asleep. Many years ago, he whispered, I had a recurring dream, I started having it when I was fifteen, in the lager, and I carried it with me for half my life. A night rarely passed without that dream, to tell the truth it wasn’t even a dream, because dreams, even the most disjointed dreams, have a story, and mine was only an image, like a photo, actually, my head was snapping that photo, if I can put it that way, because I was standing there looking at the fog and at a certain point, click, my brain snapped a photo, and in front of me a landscape would be displayed, or rather, there was no landscape at all, it was a landscape made of nothing, mainly there was a gate, a beautiful white gate, thrown open onto a landscape that wasn’t there, nothing other than that image, the dream was mostly what I felt while looking at that image my brain had photographed, because dreams aren’t so much what happens as the emotion one feels while living what happens, and I wouldn’t know how to tell you about the emotion I was feeling, because emotions aren’t explainable, to be explained they have to transform into feelings, as Baruch knew, but a dream isn’t the right place for transforming emotions into feelings, I can tell you this was real torment for me, because while I longed to take off running, go through that wide-open gate, and dive into the unknown beyond, fleeing toward I don’t know where, at the same time I also felt a sense of shame, like guilt for something I didn’t do, the fear of hearing my father’s voice scolding me, but there was no voice in that dream, it was a silent dream, with the fear of hearing a voice. That dream vanished the first night we got to this country. We slept in Jaffa at the house of some friends you never met, they died soon after, your mother couldn’t fit into her clothes anymore, we had only two suitcases and there was a feeling of war in the air, for that matter it’s always felt like war in this country, we slept on the terrace, on two makeshift beds, it was hot, you could hear sirens in the distance and noise coming from the streets, which wasn’t reassuring for people used to the silence of Bucharest nights, but even so, I slept like a child that night and never had that sort of dream again.
He broke off. Opened his eyes for a moment and then shut them again. Began talking in a voice so low that the son leaned forward to hear him. Last week the dream came back, he whispered, exactly the same, the same iron gate, really white, apparently dreams don’t rust, and neither do the emotions that go with them, exactly like what I used to feel, the same torment, the desire to take off running and cross over, to run in order to see what lies hidden beyond, but something holds me back, and it’s not my father’s voice, my film is silent like photos are silent, it’s not the voice of my father, if only I could hear his voice, it’s the fear of hearing it, but enough now.
He opened his eyes and in a firm voice asked: when are you leaving? On Wednesday, Dad, he answered, but I’ll come back to see you in a month. Don’t throw your money away, said the old man, I bet the airfare from Rome is really pricey. Dad, he said, getting ready to go, don’t be the cheap old Jewish man, please. I am a cheap old Jewish man, said the old man, what else could I be if not a cheap old Jewish man? Before you go, open the window, please, if the nurse smells the stink of smoke, she gets angry.
Fortunately he had only a carry-on bag, enough for a weekend, otherwise he’d have lost who knows how much time waiting at the luggage carousel, he knew that. When he emerged from the arrivals lounge into the main airport hall, he was hit by a glaring light much fiercer than the one in Rome, and above all he felt the heat, which was almost shocking to him, as though he’d forgotten that the end of April in Tel Aviv is practically summertime, and he sniffed some familiar scents that piqued his appetite. There must have been a cart nearby of some street vendor frying falafel, he looked around because he had the idea of buying a bagful to bring to his father, he knew well that he’d be told the falafel didn’t stand comparison with the Romanian covrigi his mother had cooked all her life, but at the Ben Gurion Airport one couldn’t expect to find covrigi, he could find them at a Romanian bistro near the Carmel Market, but who knows how much time he’d lose because of the traffic. He spotted the falafel vendor, bought a small bagful, and got in line for the taxi. A cab turned up, driven by a young Palestinian, a beardless guy with a tentative mustache on his upper lip, who at first sight didn’t even seem to be of age. He spoke to him in Arabic, so as not to force him to speak Hebrew. A driver’s license, d’you have one? he asked. The young guy looked at him, wide eyed. Do you think I’d like to get myself arrested, sir? he answered, these people arrest everybody, you go to jail for even less. The answer disturbed him: these people arrest everybody, these people who? His country, he thought, “these people” were his country. He gave his destination imprecisely. Around Ben Yehuda, he said, then I’ll tell you exactly where. An elegant place, observed the young guy with a shrewd smile. Very elegant, he answered, it’s a home for old people. The car had just slipped into the traffic when he had an idea. Do you know a good Palestinian bakery? The falafel he had, the covrigi he didn’t feel like looking for, why not bring his father a Palestinian specialty? All during his childhood he’d heard his father say that Romanian Jews were the other Palestinians of Israel. I know a great one, the young man answered enthusiastically, my brother works there, they even make a baklava like you can’t find anywhere these days. Baklava isn’t Palestinian, it’s Iraqi, he replied, sorry, it’s Iraqi, no offense intended. No way it’s Iraqi, said the young guy, that’s a good one.