The Lover (15 page)

“When did she die, this old lady … your grandmother?”

An idle conversation in the heavy, slow, burning traffic.

“But she isn’t dead …”

“What?” He started to explain to me the “mishap” that had befallen him, with that same reckless sincerity. Two weeks ago he heard that his grandmother had died, he made arrangements, scraped together the money for the ticket and arrived here a few days ago to collect the inheritance, as he was the sole heir, her only grandson. But it turned out that the old lady was still dying, she’d lost consciousness and was in the hospital, but she was still alive … and in the meantime he was stuck here, waiting for her to die … that was why he’d tried to move the car, otherwise it wouldn’t have occurred to him to have anything to do with it … he knew as well as I did what it was worth … but if he had to wait a few more days perhaps he’d tour the country a little … see the new territories … Jerusalem … before going back to France …

Cynicism or just eccentricity, I wondered. But for some reason there was something charming, open, agreeable in his manner of speech. Meanwhile we were entering the centre of the town, going up towards Carmel, he still didn’t ask to be put down. As we climbed the hill, with the sun beating down on the windshield, dazzling me too, he really seemed to shrink, curling up in his seat as if he were being shot at.

“This Israeli sun … it’s impossible …” he complained. “How can you stand it?”

“We get used to it,” I replied solemnly. “Now you’ll have to do the same …”

“Not for long.” He hoped with a smile.

Conversations about the sun –

I was approaching central Carmel. He still showed no sign of wanting to get out.

“Where do you want to go?”

“To Haifa … I mean to the lower city.”

“You should’ve got out long ago.”

He didn’t know where we were.

I stopped at a corner, he thanked me, put on his cap, looked around him, not recognizing the place. “Everything here has changed,” he said very mildly.

Next morning I asked Hamid to dismantle the engine to see what could be done with it. It took him five hours just to shift the rusty screws, and they were ruined by the time he’d managed to free them.

“Is it really worth it, working on this heap of junk?” From the start Erlich had taken a violent dislike to the little car, which perhaps reminded him of the days of his unsuccessful partnership in the garage. To make matters worse he couldn’t even make out a work sheet because I’d forgotten to take the owner’s name and address and there were no documents in the car.

“Why should you care?” I said, but I knew he was right, was it really worth the effort of removing the engine, dismantling it to its smallest components, looking through old catalogues to find replacements for the rusted parts, testing the pressure of the pistons, drilling, cutting out new parts, welding, and all the while improvising with odd spares. Only an old lady could have put a vehicle into such a state. If instead of sewing covers for the seats she had once changed the oil …

We worked on that car for three full days, building it up from scratch, Hamid and I. Because for all his abilities, Hamid couldn’t manage the work on his own, he didn’t have enough
imagination
. Sometimes I used to find him standing motionless for half an hour with two little screws in his hand, trying to figure out where they belonged. Erlich paced around beside us like a restless dog, noting down the hours that we worked and the spare parts that we used, afraid that the owner of the car wouldn’t come back at all. “The repair will cost more than the car’s worth,” he grumbled, but it may be that deep down that’s what I intended. I wanted to get control of it.

On the third day we reassembled the engine and it worked. We discovered that the brakes were in a hopeless state and Hamid had to dismantle them too. At noon he appeared. I saw
his funny hat bobbing about in the crowd, among the moving cars and the whispering workers. I hid from him. He stood beside the car, unable to imagine the amount of work that had been put into it. Erlich pounced on him, wrote down his name and address, but as was his way made no mention of the bill. He was told to come back when the job was finished, the car had yet to be tested on the road, there were final adjustments to be made.

A few hours later he returned. I myself took him for a test drive, listening to the engine, which throbbed delicately but steadily, testing the brakes, the gears, explaining to him all the time the meaning of the various noises. He sat beside me, silent, with a strange weakness that was somehow endearing, worried about something, pale, unshaven, occasionally closing his eyes, without appreciating the miraculous resurrection of the ancient car. For a moment it occurred to me that he might already be in mourning.

“Well then, has your grandmother passed away?” I said softly.

He turned to me hurriedly.

“No, not yet, there’s no change in her condition … she’s still unconscious.”

“If she recovers she’ll enjoy riding in the car with you again …”

He looked at me in terror.

We returned to the garage, I gave him the keys and went out to talk to one of the mechanics. Erlich had been lying in wait for us and he came out at once with the bill, demanding payment immediately and in cash. The man looked dubious to him, not to be trusted with a bill sent through the mail. The cost of the repair amounted to four thousand pounds. A bit steep, but still reasonable in view of the amount of work put in. Erlich had decided to impose an especially high rate on work in which I was personally involved.

The man took the bill, glanced at it, he couldn’t understand the writing, Erlich explained it to him and he shook his head. Then Erlich left him. I stood to one side, deep in conversation but watching him with a sideways glance, watching him go to the car, starting to pace around it, glancing at the bill, his face growing dark, looking around for me, seeing me deep in conversation and drawing back. Erlich returned, he retreated,
muttering something, came to me. I finished my conversation and turned towards the office, he began to walk beside me, his face very pale, I noticed white hairs at his temples, although he couldn’t have been more than thirty years old. At the door of the office he began to speak, he didn’t understand, he was sorry, but he didn’t have the money to pay now, he was sure that a lot of work had been put into it, he didn’t deny it, but such a price …

I stood watching him, listening in silence, cheerfully, smiling to myself, I knew just how it would be, that I was involving him in a repair job beyond his means. I was calm. But Erlich, who came and stood beside me and also listened, was furious.

“Then why did you leave it here to be repaired?”

“I thought it was something trivial … a screw…”

That screw again –

He was very pale, confused, but nevertheless retaining something of his civilized manners, taking care in phrasing his answers.

“Then kindly borrow some money,” Erlich interrupted him.

“But from whom?”

“From relations, your family, anyone. Haven’t you any
relations
?”

Perhaps, but he didn’t know anything about them … he had no contact with them …

“Friends …” I suggested.

He had none … he’d been away for more than ten years … but he was prepared to sign a promissory note … he’d sign … and as soon as …

I was inclined to leave him alone, but Erlich was getting more and more angry.

“Of course, we can’t let you take the car. Give me the keys, please.”

And he almost snatched them away from him, went into the office and put them down on the table. My first thought was, the car is staying with me.

We both went into the office.

“If you don’t pay within a month we shall have to sell it,” Erlich announced triumphantly.

“We can’t, Erlich,” I explained quietly. “The car doesn’t belong to him.”

“Doesn’t belong to him? What is this?”

The man began to tell his story again, the grandmother whose death he was awaiting …

To Erlich the whole business was a scandal, all this talk about an old woman dying. He stood there stiffly by the table, with his short khaki trousers and his army-style close-cropped hair, staring at him with disgust.

“How is she now?” I asked, taking an interest, retaining my composure. Suddenly I too depended on his grandmother’s death.

“She’s unconscious … no change … I don’t understand … the doctors can’t say how long it will go on like this …” He was desperately unhappy.

“But where the hell do you work?” yelled Erlich, losing his temper. “Don’t you work?”

“What for …?” The man was very pale, trembling, his hands shaking, Erlich had terrified him, and suddenly, I could hardly believe my eyes, he collapsed at our feet on the floor.

“He’s only acting,” hissed Erlich.

But at once I felt concerned for him and picked him up in my arms, a light warm body, sat him down on a chair, cleared space around him, opened his shirt buttons. He recovered
immediately
.

“It’s only hunger.” He covered his eyes. “I’ve eaten nothing for two days … I’ve got no money left … yes, I’m in a mess, I know.”

Supper isn’t really over yet. Daddy’s drinking his coffee, Mommy’s already washing the dishes, in a hurry to get back to the study, and I’m standing in front of the big mirror with a little mirror in my hand examining my back and behind my legs, carefully touching the sunburned places, tasting the taste of salt. A week ago the long vacation began and because the Girl Scout camp was cancelled Tali and Osnat and I began going down to the beach every day, sitting there till evening, we want to be really black when school starts again, and suddenly Daddy says:

“I must phone Shwartzy …”

“What’s happened?”

“To ask him if he wants a French teacher at the school.”

“What on earth?”

And he starts to tell a strange story, to which I listen with half an ear, about a customer who fainted in the garage because he couldn’t pay a repair bill, someone who arrived in the country without a cent, a crank, an immigrant who’d lived many years in Paris and came here to pick up an inheritance and found that there wasn’t any …

“And you want them to give him a job as a teacher in our school,” I interrupt. “Aren’t there enough idiots there already?”

“That’s enough, Dafi!”

It’s very unusual for Daddy to tell stories about what goes on in the garage, sometimes you forget there are people there as well as cars.

But Mommy thinks it’s a strange idea too, asking Shwartzy to give a teacher’s job to some guy who left the country.

“All right then, not a real teacher … a temporary
appointment
… an assistant teacher … he needs help … he hasn’t got a job … he fainted of hunger in the garage.”

“Hunger? Is there still anyone who’s hungry in this country?”

“You’d be surprised, Dafi. What do you know about this country?” says Mommy coming out of the kitchen, her hands wet, taking off her apron.

“How much does he owe you?”

“More than four thousand pounds.”

“Four thousand?” We’re both astonished. “What did you do for him that cost four thousand pounds?”

He smiles, surprised at our excitement, he does repairs that cost much more than that.

“So what will you do?”

“What can I do? Erlich has confiscated the car, but that doesn’t help because the car isn’t his anyway … it can’t even be sold …”

“So what will you do?”

“I shall have to cancel the debt …”

Oh, I see, Daddy’s a public charity –

“A debt of four thousand pounds?” I feel really bitter. Just think what I could do with four thousand pounds.

“It’s none of your business, Dafi,” says Mommy.

But she too looks baffled, standing there in the doorway of the study, wondering how Daddy can throw away so much money so easily.

“Perhaps you could find him work in the garage …”

“What could he do there? It isn’t his kind of work … well, it doesn’t matter …” And Daddy turns to go.

“Bring him here,” I say.

“Here?”

“Yes, why not? He can wash the dishes and scrub the floor and that way he can gradually pay off the debt.”

Daddy bursts out laughing, “It’s an idea.”

“Why not? He can do the ironing, the laundry, tidy the rooms for us” – I’m getting carried away, as usual – “he can take out the rubbish …”

“That’s enough, Dafi,” says Mommy, but she’s smiling too. A strange family conference this, I in front of the mirror, half naked, Mommy with her hands wet at the study door, Daddy in the kitchen door with a coffee cup in his hand.

“When a man’s suddenly down on his luck” – Daddy tries to explain – “you feel sorry for him, and he really is a nice fellow, pleasant, educated, he even studied for a while at the university in Paris … perhaps you need somebody to copy, to translate for you … I know …”

“What on earth for?”

“I just thought … oh, it doesn’t matter.”

“But I could use a secretary” – I’m all excited again, trying to make them laugh – “someone to copy, to translate … to do my homework for me … I shall find work for him.”

Mommy laughed, at last, and perhaps this laughter meant that the idea didn’t seem so odd to her, or perhaps she really was upset over the loss of the money, because next day when I came back from the beach in the evening, suntanned and stained with oil and my hair in a mess, I found someone sitting in the living room with Mommy and Daddy. Maybe this was the first time they ever succeeded in surprising me. At first I thought he was just a guest, I didn’t realize he was the man they’d been talking about, they too were a bit confused and embarrassed, sitting there in the dark room, in the twilight, staring at the thin, pale man with the big bright eyes. He looked as if he’d once suffered
from a severe illness, no wonder he fainted in the garage when he heard the price. He blushed when he saw me come in, jumped up from his seat and held out his hand. “Gabriel Arditi,” he said and shook hands with me. Why on earth did he want to shake hands with me, what kind of manners are these? Right from the start I didn’t like him, so I didn’t tell him my name, I fled to my room and undressed, hearing Mommy ask him about his studies, Daddy murmuring something and he talking about himself in a low voice, talking about Paris.