Friendly Fire (21 page)

"I told the recruits at the gate that I am a bereaved uncle."

"Bereaved uncle?" the adjutant says, marveling. "What on earth is a bereaved uncle?"

Moran, surprised by his father's words, reminds his friend about his cousin who was killed seven years before.

"By friendly fire," Ya'ari quietly adds.

T
HE TRAIN ACCELERATES,
the cars emit a metallic rumble, and the three straw baskets, left in the corridor, embark on little independent journeys and need to be reined in. Sijjin Kuang rises from her seat, pulls them into the compartment, ties them together, and shoves them against the door, blocking the entry of any curious passengers strolling through the train. Then she takes a newspaper from one of the bags of food she bought at the station, gets down on her knees, and spreads the paper on the floor. Then she lays out the feast: brown eggs, smoked sardines, fried calamari, a wedge of hard white cheese veined with red, a few greenish bananas, moist dates, and a hairy coconut. With her long delicate fingers she takes a large smoked sardine and begins to gnaw at its flattened head.

Daniela watches with admiration as the tall and graceful Sudanese flexibly folds her legs to allow room for others on the floor of the compartment, and after hesitating a moment she gathers up the hem of her skirt and also assumes a kneeling position. Avoiding the smoked fish and seafood, she cuts herself a slice of the cheese with the blade of a penknife that Sijjin Kuang opens and offers her.
Yirmiyahu, without leaving his seat, fashions himself a cone out of newspaper and fills it with sardines and squid, and tears off a generous piece of pita bread. They lunch together in silence, as at a mourners' meal, but with a warm sense of conviviality in this compartment set apart by its wall of big baskets, which glow golden in the afternoon light.

Sijjin Kuang does not eat sweets and is content to offset her salty, spicy lunch with some coconut. Yirmiyahu happily tops off his meal with the Indian toffee procured by his sister-in-law, then tilts his head back next to the window and closes his eyes. Daniela finds that the candies she bought are too sweet and have an unfamiliar aftertaste, and makes do instead with a few dates. Since long silences are generally difficult for her, she tries to draw out Sijjin Kuang on the subject of rituals of fire and winds and trees and animals, and from the pagan's short answers gathers that among idolaters as well as monotheists, materiality carries less weight than metaphors and symbols. Indeed the Sudanese woman thought that when Yirmiyahu threw the candles in the fire, he was performing a religious rite.

There's no telling whether he is asleep or listening to their conversation with his eyes closed. Daniela helps the nurse gather up the food-stained newspapers, and when Sijjin Kuang slips out of the compartment, stepping over the baskets, to dispose of the bags of trash, Daniela resumes her seat by the window, opposite her brother-in-law. Yirmiyahu opens his eyes and smiles. Well, this is surely not how you imagined the visit, being hurried from place to place. But it's not so bad—in the remaining days you'll have a chance to rest.

"It's absolutely fine, this traveling. Resting I can do at home."

He nods.

"All in all, it's good that Amotz didn't come with you. He always wants to accomplish something clear and practical, and a trip like today's, back and forth just to see a window and a bed, would have driven him crazy."

His mildly critical tone makes her uneasy. The train suddenly speeds up and blows its whistle repeatedly. Yirmiyahu sticks his head out the window to see what the noise is about. They are riding through a sea of short yellow grass. Had her sister really told him about more successful suitors in her youth, or was that his own idea? When she was in high school, Yirmi and Shuli were already married and living in Jerusalem, only on Saturdays would they visit Tel Aviv. And who talked then about "more successful" anyway? Certainly not her parents. They never characterized her friends that way, but would only express an opinion about who seemed nice, and who less so. From the first, they found Amotz likeable and, most important, trustworthy.

Suddenly she has the desire to confront her brother-in-law and defend her husband. "It's strange," she turns to him with a serious look when the train's whistle blasts die down. "Strange that you mention boyfriends from more than forty years ago, as if you had actually known them."

"That's true, I didn't know a single one of them, but sometimes, years later, Shuli would recognize someone's name in the newspaper, someone who went far."

"Far where?"

"Do I know?" he says, uncomfortably. "For example, that guy who ended up becoming the attorney general."

"Why do you think I should have married the attorney general? I was never involved in any crime."

He laughs. "How about medical problems?"

"What's the connection?"

"I'm thinking about that chubby professor we ran into at a concert in Jerusalem a few years back, the famous heart surgeon, who was so excited to see you ... no regrets?"

"About what?"

"Don't get upset, I'm just making conversation. That you didn't pick him over Amotz?"

"He was a rather limited and boring man. Anyway, you're funny—what do you know about him?"

He places his hand on her shoulder. "Little Sister, don't mind my jabbering away here, at the end of the world, the end of life, about suitors you had forty years ago. I'm just curious. I would also ask Shuli sometimes, what is it about your sister that attracts the boys? I mean, you were never especially beautiful."

"Certainly not. There were always prettier girls around."

"But the men were drawn to you anyway, like bears to honey. Especially the intellectuals."

"You're exaggerating..."

"And in the end, out of all of them, you picked a technician..."

"He's not just a technician."

"And you picked him out so early, you were maybe twenty."

"What's this about?" she says indignantly. "What do you have against Amotz?"

"Who said I had anything against him? Why are you putting words in my mouth? When all those many years we've been not just brothers-in-law but also friends."

"So why does he suddenly make you uncomfortable?"

"Who said uncomfortable? What's the matter? Why can't we just chat about your youth? It's so rare that we're alone together, without Shuli or Amotz. So tell me why you picked him over everyone else?"

"He lived in our neighborhood but didn't go to our school. In his second to last year, he switched to a vocational high school."

"Why?"

"Because his father wanted to prepare him better for the technical side of his business. But afterward, you know, he became a certified engineer."

"Of course. I never doubted his abilities. Only..."

"Only what?"

From behind the straw baskets guarding the compartment
appears the beautifully sculpted ebony figure of Sijjin Kuang. She enters and remains standing in the middle of the floor, gazing out the window. All at once she turns with a big smile to Daniela, gesturing with her long arm for the white woman to look outside. From within the railway car shouts of joy can be heard, and the train seems to be slowing down.

Not far from the track, in the branches of a lone baobab tree in the open plain, perch lions and cubs, blinking peaceably at the passengers in the train.

But Daniela, unwilling to be distracted, is trying not to lose the thread of conversation.

"Why was Amotz in my eyes the best of all? Because from the start I not only felt but knew that this was the man who would be able to protect me from unnecessary suffering. He wasn't a doctor or a lawyer, and not an especially talented engineer either, and maybe he can be a little oppressive and tedious at times, but he is a person who has love and loyalty stamped in his soul, which is why he won't let despair near me."

"Despair?" Yirmiyahu says, recoiling. "What are you talking about?"

"Despair, despair," the word sears her mouth, and the Sudanese watches her, mesmerized. "The despair of pain, the kind that killed my sister. You know exactly what I am talking about."

"S
O IF THAT'S
the case," Ya'ari says to the adjutant, "at least let me consult with your prisoner about something urgent at work."

"What kind of work?"

"Elevators that we are designing for the Ministry of Defense."

"It can't wait till next week?"

"What's the problem? What am I asking for? For Moran to just have a glance at a sketch that I brought."

"Just a look, then. Not a full work session. Because dinner is beginning right now in the mess hall, and I promised the rabbi of the base that I would bring him some reservists for the recruits' candle-lighting."

Ya'ari pulls his son into a corner and anxiously takes his nocturnal sketch from his pocket. Don't look at the details, he warns, just get a general impression. I haven't shown this to anyone in the office yet, but I couldn't hold back and showed it to the new deputy director of the building department, who knows nothing about elevators.

Moran brings the drawing closer to the light.

"And what did the deputy say?"

"Nothing, really ... she made a joke that the rider would have to be very thin ... even though there's room here for two passengers."

Moran is immersed in the sketch. His father looks at him nervously, fearing that deep down his son is snickering at him.

"Strange. How did you get the idea for a corner elevator?"

"It came at night ... conceived in a dream ... maybe, because Imma isn't beside me now at night, I'm a bit less calm and more creative. And maybe I came across something similar in some old magazine. But why does the source matter to you, and who cares what inspired it? The main thing is, tell me frankly—does it look feasible, or did I draw something absurd? I don't want to look stupid, with a useless idea."

Moran moves the diagram from side to side. The adjutant straightens his uniform, puts on a battle jacket, sets a beret on his head, adjusts his epaulets and watches impatiently.

"I don't dismiss the idea."

"Really?" Ya'ari is flooded with joy. "It's feasible?"

"I don't know ... we have to check it out. But in principle, I don't dismiss the idea. Could be that this is the right direction. Because otherwise we'll be in trouble. You saw for yourself how the deviation in the shaft makes us already minus ten centimeters at this stage, so that when we get up to the roof and discover that they shaved half a meter in width from the shaft, we'll have another bone to pick with the contractor."

"That was exactly my reasoning," his father says with enthusiasm. "Instead of trying to squeeze together everything that's already been designed, we'll just shove the damn fifth one into the south corner."

"Has anyone at the Defense Ministry explained what it's intended for?"

"Nothing. Total secrecy. More than twenty years we've been working with them, and all of a sudden, a mystery. And over what? An elevator? In that case, we'll also be a bit mysterious in our design, and whoever insists on riding in it can please shrink and stand in the corner."

"Enough," calls the adjutant from the doorway. "Your quick glance has already turned into a full meeting, so please say goodbye now. The rabbi and the candles are waiting."

And he turns out the lights. In the sudden darkness Ya'ari hugs his son tight, and they go out into the night while the adjutant calls out to other people, officers from headquarters, female clerks, drivers, and maybe other soldiers who are confined to base.

Ya'ari, too, is drawn into the group advancing along a winding path marked by whitewashed stones. Really, why shouldn't he take part? The rabbi will be happy to show the recruits that even an old civilian has come to his candle-lighting, providing the soldiers with a feeling of brotherhood and deepening their identity and sense of belonging. Together with the group he enters a large dining hall packed with Ethiopians and Russians, blacks and whites, shaky new recruits battered by their first month of training. They sit crammed together at long tables where tin pots of tea are steaming alongside platters stacked with huge jelly doughnuts.

On a small stage stands a Hanukkah menorah fashioned of big copper shell casings from helicopter cannons. Four thick white candles stand at attention, dominated by their commandant, a giant red shammash.

The rabbi gestures for the reservists to come forward to the seats saved for them and asks them to silence their cell phones.
Ya'ari prefers to remain in the doorway, where his cell begins to play its tune, compelling him to retreat outside, into the dark.

Efrat has finally returned home and demands to know where he has disappeared to.

"You won't believe where I am," he proudly declares. "I'm with Moran in Karkur. I brought him undershirts and underpants. But he's not with me at the moment. They took him to the mess hall to light candles."

The army rabbi, an officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel, lights the shammash, but instead of proceeding immediately to intone the blessings, he takes the opportunity to begin with a sermon about the wonders and miracles of the holiday, waving the huge shammash like a torch.

"I don't get it. When did you leave the children?"

"About 4:30. That girl, your babysitter, didn't tell you?"

"But I don't understand why you decided to put Nadi to bed at such an hour."

"I didn't put him to bed. He fell asleep on the floor in front of the TV, and I just moved him to the bed."

"But why our bed and not his?"

"Because Neta was drawing in the children's room, and I didn't want the light to disturb him."

"If he's already asleep, nothing will disturb him," she scolds, "but what do you care if the light bothers him? Did you want to ruin my night on purpose?"

"To ruin your night on purpose?" Ya'ari is dumbfounded but tries to construct a logical response. "You just said a moment ago that no light would bother him, so even if I had put him in his own bed, he wouldn't have woken up."

"Be that as it may," she continues in the same angry, imperious tone, "why in our bed?"