Friendly Fire (47 page)

A
FEW MINUTES
after the departure of the handsome archaeologist, the visitor hears the engine of the vehicle that waited for him and hurries to her window, just in time to see how the beams of its headlights, piercing the fine rain, stripe the dirt road like a golden whip.

The bones sit among her toiletries, wrapped in their cloth bag, and for a moment she considers wrapping them in something more to insulate them from the odors of makeup and perfume, but he decides not to. If everything that has clung to these bones deep in the ground for millions of years hasn't impaired their identity, they won't be compromised by the scent of her toiletries.

In spite of her promise to inform her brother-in-law about her little mission, she would be in no hurry to see him, if she didn't also feel compelled to tell him a few pointed things that might get lost in the swirl of her departure in the morning. She puts on her gym shoes and—although the night is warm—her sister's old windbreaker, and goes down to his temporary quarters. But the door that opens at her touch reveals an empty room and bare bed. Disappointed, she continues on to the dining room. The high table is still on its lofty perch by the west window, and to her amazement it is still covered with the remains of the festive dinner, as are the other tables, and the sinks are filled with unwashed pots and pans. Yet despite the disorder and grime, she feels at home in this place and is not afraid to be alone in the cluttered darkness. And because she thinks Yirmiyahu will pass by en route to his room, she finds a seat by one of the tables and waits for him.

The silence is absolute. She thinks about the prehistoric bones that have settled in with her makeup and again feels bad about her loyal housekeeper, who will not be getting the lipstick she requested. Should she add pain to disappointment and tell her why and where this special and expensive lipstick was thrown away?

She brushes the crumbs off a section of the table and lays her head down and closes her eyes. She'll wait for him a little longer, but if he takes his headache as license to closet himself in the infirmary—perhaps with the added confidence that she wouldn't dare go there in the dark—she'll have to give up tonight and postpone her planned speech till the hour of parting.

As she rests her head on the big table, eyes closed, sleep flutters over her like a little bird, and for a few minutes she drifts off. And when she lifts her head heavily and opens her eyes in the dark, for a moment she doesn't know where she is, and in the faint light of the windowpane she sees the silhouette of a little elephant, its trunk lifted silently skyward and its wondrous eye floating alongside—an independent creature, flickering in all its blueness.

But the mirage quickly fades and again becomes the silhouette of the high table, the blackened skeleton of the giant branch that burned during the festive speech, left leaning there, and the glowing embers in the belly of the stove, whose door was left ajar.

Now, at last, her whole being is broken open by the pain of longing that she came to find in Africa; the loss of her sister finally batters her, here in the big kitchen, with a force she has never yet experienced. She gets up and lightly kicks shut the door of the stove to hide the dying fire, and lets her tears find release in a long, lingering sob that convulses her entire body.

Yes, perhaps her excessive devotion to her two grandchildren in the past year was also intended to muffle that longing, which is why she had to come alone to Africa to join in her brother-in-law's grief. But Yirmi, shackled by his attempt to find meaning in the fire that killed his son instead launched friendly fire at his wife and her family. Oh, Amotz, maybe your intentions were good, but you could not imagine the falsehood bound up in the phrase you blurted out when you brought the terrible news.

Tonight, following the monologue about separation and disengagement that Yirmiyahu subjected her to, it's natural and understandable that he would try to avoid her. He knows her well, and knows she can respond harshly and judgmentally even when she seems to be a cheerful and receptive listener. Therefore tomorrow morning he will be quick to send her on her way. You have to rush, he'll say, the rain overnight mucked up the dirt roads; Sijjin Kuang is a stickler for timetables and hates to be late.

But she is reluctant to leave the protected space of the main building and head in total darkness for the infirmary. She vividly remembers the afternoon when the snake sprang from the grass
near the infirmary and recoiled in fear before the jaws of the catlike beast.

Where, now, is the wizened African who assisted her in the mornings? She would follow him, eyes closed, through the wet grass while raindrops tapped her shoulders. But after he extinguished the burning branch and set it by the high table, he disappeared. Does he live at the farm, or does he come here from a hut in a neighboring village? She forgot to ask these things about him, just as for six days she never asked the way to Sijjin Kuang's room, another person she would follow anywhere with complete confidence. Although it's not yet midnight, she won't sully her reputation on the eve of her departure by knocking on unfamiliar doors.

A simple flashlight might have increased her self-assurance. Even a big candle would be fine. She remembers where matches are kept in the kitchen. Had not Yirmi destroyed her Hanukkah candles on the first night, she might have been able to combine the little candles into a sturdy source of fire and light whose flame would banish her fears. She opens the door and looks out at the dark universe. Out of the clouds emerges a sliver of moon, a Muslim crescent, that may illuminate the path somewhat. She zips up her sister's old windbreaker, covers her head with its furry hood, and without letting herself think twice walks out of the farmhouse to the path she knows, then begins to run, as if dodging the warm raindrops, in the belief that her quick movements will confuse any animal even if she steps on it by mistake.

If her grandchildren were to see her running like this in the middle of the night in Africa, they would surely laugh, but their laughter would not last long, because the distance to the infirmary is short. The front door is closed but unlocked, and she silently enters the treatment room, which is dimly lighted by a table lamp. Beside the stethoscope someone has left a tourist brochure of Tanzania. On the cover is a photograph of the Ngorongoro nature preserve, a huge, deep crater with walls the height of a two-hundred
story tower. The wildlife trapped in it, unable to climb out, have retained their prehistoric uniqueness. When she and Amotz visited three years ago, Yirmi and Shuli took them there, and the two couples went down to the bottom of the crater for a long tour. She hesitates for a moment, then turns off the lamp, and in the deepened darkness she goes to the door of the inner room, taps on it softly, her heart pounding, then opens it without waiting for an answer. And Yirmiyahu, waking with a start while she is still in the doorway, says, Have you lost your mind?

But it isn't madness that has brought her here, but rather a jolt of pity for the young soldier, who asks her to free him from the fierce grip of his father and let him rest. And so she enters the inner room and sits down not on the empty bed opposite, but right beside the man she has known since she was young, who flinches now as if in self-defense.

"What's going on?"

"I can't fall asleep, and I'm worried I won't be ready in the morning when Sijjin Kuang comes to take me to the flight."

"Why worry? If you don't wake up on your own, she'll come and get you up."

"Why her? Won't you be up early?"

"I'll be up. And if not, she'll wake me too."

"Be that as it may, perhaps it would make more sense for me to sleep here at the infirmary. It will make me feel calmer, more secure, and this way she can wake both of us. No, don't be alarmed. You remember how when my parents were away at night I would sometimes climb in bed with Shuli? She was always happy to have me."

"Not always." He grins. "You once showed up in the middle of the night when I was also in the bed, and we had to chase you away."

"But now, with Shuli gone, there's no need to get rid of me."

And she cannot believe that she has said such a thing, just like
that, so naturally. It seems to her that even in the dark she can see his astonishment. Perhaps to protect himself from her he grabs his trousers from the chair, takes out matches and a crushed packet of cigarettes, lights one, and the room fills with its strange smell.

"You started smoking again?"

"No. But sometimes at night it's good to see a little glowing ember between my eyes."

"Then give me one too."

"Better you should smoke your own. This is a plain African cigarette, very strong, that has some sort of wild grass in it along with the tobacco."

"Just what I need right now."

She pulls the pack from his fingers and lights herself a cigarette, takes a deep draw of the odd-smelling smoke, and tells Yirmi about the promise she made to get his consent to the transport of the bones already hidden among her cosmetics, adding that even if he objects, she is determined to take them with her. She feels the need to repay these scientists for their friendliness.

"Why would I object?" he says, surprised.

"Because they suggested this was illegal."

"So what if it's illegal?" he says, a note of hostility creeping into his voice. "If they catch you, they'll immediately forgive you, as always."

"What do you mean, as always?"

"Because you're an expert at saving yourself from pain and from blame, and you also chose, as you yourself admitted, a man willing to shield you from the world."

These hard words, delivered in an accusatory tone, add venom to the smoke seeping into her. She throws the cigarette to the floor and grinds it out with her shoe and stares at the family member she has known since childhood. Yirmi remains indifferent and self-absorbed as he pulls the wool blanket over his bare legs and takes another pleasurable drag at his cigarette.

Tears of hurt well in her eyes.

How can she be accused of protecting herself from pain if she came all the way to Africa to see him? And if he feels that she also knows how to enjoy the visit, there's no contradiction in that. She is a curious woman, always fascinated by people. But her true purpose was to be with him, to listen with patience and sympathy to his every word. And even when he aroused her anger and resistance, because of his blindness in the past and stubbornness in the present, never for a moment did she forget his misery.

His bent head moves slightly.

"Anger?" he mutters, but still does not look at her directly.

That's right, anger and defiance, she reiterates, her voice choking, rising to a kind of wail. Instead of hiding his wretched obsession with that roof from her sister, and instead of humiliating himself, and indirectly her too, in a fruitless attempt to win sympathy from a suicidal pregnant young woman just to give meaning to the friendly fire, which was no more than a random stupid absurdity, he should have reconciled himself to that absence of meaning, and his obligation should have been something else entirely.

"Something else?" His face is twisted with mockery.

Yes. Because even if Shuli suppressed her womanliness after the death of her son, his duty was to fight for it, and not to use her withdrawal as an excuse to wipe away his whole biography and identity and the world he grew up in, and the history that has been and the history that will be. His duty was to fight for Shuli, for her sexuality and her desire. To console her instead of helping her extinguish herself. So she could live and not die.

Yirmi looks up in horror at the tearful, wailing woman who continues to pour out accusations as if her mind had lost control of her lips. He surely never anticipated that his tolerant and attentive guest would rise up at the moment of departure and suggest that he was to blame for her sister's death.

Now she is trembling and sobbing with fright over her brazen
onslaught. He stands up, puts out the stub of his cigarette and crumbles it between his fingers, wary of getting nearer to her.

"Come on," he says heavily, "it's late, and you're tired. I'll take you back."

But Daniela refuses to budge. On the contrary, she defiantly takes off the windbreaker and also her shoes. Because just as the Palestinian roof had a magnetic effect on him, so, too, has this infirmary on her: a strange place, but not dangerous. For all his own suicidal illusions he had to know that a Palestinian woman who had brought him something to drink would let no harm come to him. Hospitality remains holier than revenge. And she trusts his hospitality and knows he will not touch her even if under cover of darkness she continues to remove before him all of her clothes, as she is now doing, item by item, until she is lying in his bed naked, covered with a blanket. Because this is how she wants to mourn the lost womanhood of her sister.

He recoils, agitated. For the first time since her arrival she thinks his self-control is about to give way. But she still trusts him even as he comes near her in the darkness and suddenly resembles a great terrifying ape, even when he lifts up the blanket and looks at her nakedness, the sheer nakedness of a weeping older woman and is perhaps reminded of what he abandoned and of his guilt about her sister. And then he closes his eyes, and as if bowing in obeisance, he flutters his lips on her bare breasts, then groans and bites her shoulder, and quickly, gently covers her up again. A moment later, he leaves the room.

Y
A'ARI IMMEDIATELY REMOVES
his hands from the controls, to prevent any accidental shifting of the elevator. Don't move, he calls to the trapped expert, we'll get you out of there. And you be careful too, he yells angrily at the young lawyer, who looks on in horror
at the little woman whose leg is caught somewhere between the counterweight and the separation bars, and don't you move either or touch anything.

Gottlieb apparently saw the flashlight tumble down the shaft, because as Ya'ari fumbles for his cell phone, the manufacturer's voice cries out from the depths, What is it, Ya'ari? Did the lawyer fall? But Ya'ari, who has found his phone, does not shout back so as not to frighten the residents. With quivering fingers he dials Gottlieb's cell and informs him that his stepdaughter is trapped in the shaft. And since he does not know her exact location, he orders that no elevator be moved and says to call the fire department. Not the fire department, Gottlieb objects immediately, they'll wake up the whole street with their sirens and cause mayhem in the building, for no reason. No, habibi, we're going to rescue the little one ourselves. My Nimer and I, and even you, have enough skill and experience to know what we can handle and what we can't. Forty years ago I myself stumbled into a shaft like this, and you can see with your own eyes that I got out safely. And so Gottlieb wants him now to be practical and logical as always, and determine his precise location so the technician won't have to climb any more stairs than necessary.