The Lover (32 page)

“But who are you?”

“I’m his daughter, my name’s Dafi.”

“Dafi? What sort of a name is that?”

“Short for Dafna. Sorry, it’s so late. We’re on our way.”

“Who is
we
?”

“Daddy and I … please hurry … wake him up and tell him to wait outside.”

“All right, all right, no need to get excited, young lady.”

Daddy still doesn’t realize that I intend to go with him, he looks at the details written on a page torn from the notebook, his eyes half closed, you can tell it’s years since he’s seen what the world looks like at midnight. Drinking his coffee, smiling at me affectionately. Doesn’t realize that I’m sitting beside him in an overcoat, drinking coffee, ready to leave. He puts the dirty cup in the sink, bends down and kisses me hurriedly. “There now, I’m off. Thanks for the coffee.”

I stand up at once.

“I’m coming with you.”

“What?”

“What difference does it make to you? I can’t sleep. I’m coming with you. I want to see how the towing is done.”

He’s baffled.

“You’ve got school tomorrow. What is there to see? You want to see the towing? What are you, a baby?”

“Why should you care? Better that than wandering around the house. I won’t get in the way, I promise. I’ll be company for you too.”

He hesitates. I know how things are, they lost control of me years ago.

“At least let’s tell Mommy …”

“She won’t wake up, she won’t know.” He shrugs his shoulders, defeated.

“I warn you, we’ll be back very late.”

“What’s so terrible about that?”

We go down to the tow truck. It’s very cold outside, rain. He starts the engine, warming it up.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“No.” We drive down first to the lower city, going into a little side street in the heart of the deserted market. We see a shadowy figure in a funny long overcoat. Na’im the night owl. He hurries towards us, opens the door and climbs aboard, nearly falling out again when he sees me. Even in the dark I can see his face light up, his eyes opening wide.

“Hello,” I say.

“Hello,” he whispers.

And he sits down beside me. Silence. Daddy drives fast down the empty streets. The traffic lights are stuck, flickering on amber. Na’im curls up beside me, watching me furtively. Suddenly he whispers:

“How are you?”

“Fine. How’s Grandma?”

“She’s all right.”

And we drive on in silence, joining the Tel Aviv highway, Daddy turning his head now and then to look at the cars passing by. We pass the Atlit intersection. Daddy starts to slow down, a few kilometres farther on we see red lights beside the steel fence between the lanes and I see a car lying on its side. My heart thumps. We pull up on the roadside and climb out to look. I can’t believe my eyes – a blue car. It’s as if I’ve created this accident. The bumper and the front of the car are crushed. On the opposite side of the road two cars are parked, lights dimmed. A little crowd has gathered.

The people are surprised to see Na’im and me.

“What’s this, have you brought your children along?” somebody shouts but Daddy doesn’t answer.

The driver, a young man, some kind of student, starts to explain what happened, making excuses, he’s not entirely to blame, of course. Beside him a middle-aged woman in trousers paces around nervously, her eyes red. She’s involved in this too. “What matters is that nobody’s been hurt,” says the young man. “What matters is that we’re not hurt,” he repeats in a loud voice to the little crowd of onlookers, as if he wants us to confirm what he says and share in his happiness.

Daddy still says nothing, very grim, as usual, in fact he hardly looks at the car but watches the road, watches the cars passing by, looking for something else.

At last he sets to work. Getting back into the truck, driving forwards a few hundred metres till he finds a gap in the fence and crossing to the other side. Na’im strips off his coat, takes out triangles and a flashing lamp and sets them out on the road. Daddy starts giving instructions, Na’im gets out the tools and slowly they start unwinding the cable. The driver watches anxiously, the little crowd looks on with interest, I don’t know
why we don’t sell tickets for the show. From time to time somebody shouts out a piece of advice.

I go and stand beside the woman.

“Whose is the car?”

“Mine.”

“Yours? And is that your son?”

She looks at me angrily.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Just … I thought … where have you come from?”

“Why?”

“Just curious.”

“From Tel Aviv.”

She snaps out her answers, my questions irritate her.

“Have you been to see a play?”

“No.”

“Then where have you been?”

“We are returning from a protest meeting.”

“Protest against what?”

“Against all the lies.”

“Who’s been lying to you?”

She stares at me, can’t decide if I’m trying to provoke her or just being thick.

“What are you doing wandering about at night, at your age? Don’t you go to school?”

“I’ve skipped a grade,” I say quietly. “I can afford to wander about a bit.”

She doesn’t know what to say, she leaves me and goes to watch Daddy working on the car. I follow her. Very interesting. Na’im crawling on the road and Daddy playing out the cable, telling him how to make the connection. Now very, very slowly they start raising the car. Splinters of glass and fragments of buckled metal fall on the road. Terrific.

The young man covers his face.

“A real smack-up,” I say to the woman.

She’s furious.

Now Daddy climbs into the truck and starts the engine, dragging the car away from the fence and towing it to the side of the road. Meanwhile Na’im is picking up the tools, folding up the triangles, taking the flashing light and hanging it on the back
of the truck. Working quietly and energetically. Daddy wipes his oily hands, his face is covered in sweat, there’s a tear in his trousers. It’s a long time since I’ve seen him so out of breath. He tells me to take a piece of paper and write down the details. He asks them where they want the car to be towed. The woman asks his advice.

“I can tow it to my garage.”

“How much will the repair cost?”

“I shall have to examine it, I can’t tell you now. In the meantime there’s the towing charge.”

“How much?”

Daddy sends me to fetch the list of prices that the towing firm gave him, I crouch over it, lighting the pages with a flashlight. It has to be calculated according to the distances involved and the size of the damaged car. It takes me a while to work it out.

“A hundred and fifty pounds,” I announce triumphantly.

Daddy checks it and agrees.

The man starts to argue, Daddy listens in silence, chewing his beard. But I get impatient.

“It’s written right here, sir, what do you want us to do?”

“Shut up, girl,” the woman hisses.

But Daddy says, “There’s nothing you can do about it, she’s right.”

A police car pulls up. Two tired cops get out, start sniffing around, the man gets desperate, stops arguing. He just wants a receipt.

“Why not?” says Daddy and he tells me to write a receipt and take the money.

I take out a receipt at once, enjoying this work very much. Na’im has finished collecting the tools, he stands watching me with his mouth open. The young man holds out the money. I count it. Ten pounds short. The lady has to make it up. I’d love to know what’s between them. Now the cops are in charge. We leave them to it. The money’s in my coat pocket. Daddy switches on the flashing beacon on the roof of the cab and a red light flickers over the road like something supernatural. Na’im and I sit on the back seat of the truck bed, facing the hanging car, watching it and making sure we don’t lose it on the way. We
talk, I say something funny and he’s surprised and laughs, his eyes sparkling.

Daddy drives calmly, once he stops beside a car parked at the roadside, gets out to take a look at it and then drives on. We arrive at the garage. It’s huge, the cars are like horses in a stable, each one in its stall. Daddy and Na’im unhitch the damaged car, leaving it at the side. We drive on, putting Na’im down outside his house. When we get home it’s already four in the morning.

Daddy says, “I’m worn out.”

“I’ve never been more wide awake.”

“How are things going to work out with you?”

“It’ll be all right, don’t worry.”

He goes to take a shower because he’s very dirty, I go and peep at Mommy, who’s still lying there in the same position as when we left her, she’s got no idea how busy we’ve been these last four hours. From there I go to the kitchen to put the kettle on for tea. Through the window, across the wadi, I see the man who types, slumped in his chair, his head thrown back, he’s not usually still at it this late.

Daddy has put on his pyjamas, his face is pale, he’s worn out, he comes into the kitchen to put out the light and finds me sitting there, still dressed, quietly drinking tea.

“Come and drink some tea before you go to sleep,” I suggest. But for some reason he’s angry.

“This is the last time I take you with me. You have to make such a big party out of everything.”

“But that’s life – a party…”

Four in the morning philosophy –

He turns away and goes to bed. In the end I go to bed too, stripping off by the open window, watching the clouds, a thin stream of light showing through. I’m not cold, the opposite, I’m all boiling hot and low down in my stomach there are dull twinges of pain, it’s nearly time for my period. In the pocket of my coat, crushed, I find the money. I go quickly into Daddy’s bedroom, he’s under the blankets trying to sleep.

“Daddy, what shall I do with the money?”

“Put it in my wallet,” he mumbles, “and for God’s sake go to sleep … this is the last time …”

“All right … all right …”

I take the wallet out of his trouser pocket. It’s stuffed full of bills. I count them – two thousand one hundred pounds. Why does he drag so much money around with him? I put in the night’s takings, then think again, you shouldn’t exploit workers even if they are members of the family, and I take out thirty pounds for myself, secretarial fees. I go to take another look at the man who types and he’s disappeared. I put out the lights and disappear under the blanket, me too.

It isn’t me who answers the phone but her, she’s always awake, wandering around the house, dozing in armchairs. I’ve never seen her properly asleep. “How much longer do I have to live?” she says sometimes. “It’s a shame to sleep.”

She comes into the room and switches on the light and starts waking me up with her strange Arabic.

“Na’im, child, get up, on your feet, time to leave your dreams.” And I get up, I always keep my underwear on under my pyjamas because she doesn’t go out of the room while I’m dressing, you just can’t get her to budge. “Don’t be silly,” she said once when she saw me trying to get dressed hiding behind the wardrobe door, “I’ve seen it all before, why should you be shy or scared?”

How did I ever get mixed up with this old woman? But I’ve got used to it, a guy gets used to anything. I get dressed, clean my teeth, put some nice scent on my face, drink some coffee and grab a slice of bread and then run downstairs to wait for them. I don’t like hanging around too long in the street at night. Once I nearly got picked up by the cops, luckily Adam arrived just in time. I see the lights of the tow truck in the distance and run towards it, jump up as it’s still moving, climb up, open the door and crawl in, smiling at Dafi, who makes room for me. We’re like a trained team, like firemen or a tank crew. Every time I say to myself – tonight she won’t come, but she doesn’t miss a single night, she has such control over her father, she does what she wants.

But exactly what she wants I don’t think she knows herself.

I sit down beside her, always excited, always happy like it was the first evening when I opened the door and saw her and nearly fell back into the street.

Though the seat’s big and we’re both small we can’t help touching each other, I just pray it’ll be a long journey. She’s wrapped up in an overcoat, a woolly hat on her head, she’s all bright and fresh. But Adam sits there at the wheel all gloomy, his heavy beard hanging down in front of him, shining in the light from the dashboard, he’s tired, not saying a word, looking out at the cars passing by. Once he stopped and stared for a long time at a little Morris parked near the sea, stared and stared and in the end left it and drove on.

Dafi asks me about the old woman and what I do in the daytime and I tell her and she laughs, her mouth smells nice because she brushes her teeth before she leaves. And through her clothes I start to feel her body, I am sure to come wearing just a few clothes, trousers, a thin shirt and an open-necked sweater, so I’ll feel her.

Talking and chattering, sometimes about politics, I say something about the Arab problem and she starts to argue. Neither of us knows much about it but even so we argue until Adam says, “That’s enough, be quiet … don’t make so much noise … watch the road and look out for a little blue Morris.”

But there’s no such car, I know, it’s all a dream.

At last we get to the broken-down car. There were a few times when we didn’t find it, because it had towed itself away and left no traces behind. But we always found a substitute on the way, we weren’t short of work.

These nights I learned a lot about cars, I wouldn’t have learned so much in years at the garage. Because in the garage everybody does only one job and here every car is a different problem. How to treat a fuel blockage, change broken fan belts, fix a clutch that’s come loose, how to take out a thermostat that’s choking the engine, how to fix torn water lines. He’s got golden hands and he knows how to teach me. “Come here and see, look, come and take hold of this, tighten this, unscrew that.” And I get so interested in the job I even forget Dafi, who goes and stands at the side, chatting to the driver’s wife or playing with the children, entertaining them.

Sometimes I used to say to him, “Let me, I’ll do that,” and he let me, relying on me. Especially when it came to crawling under the car and fixing the cable, I saw that at his age this was an effort, he wasn’t a young man and I used to do the crawling instead of him, I’d already learned the places to fix the cables. The first few times he used to bend down to check if I’d joined it up properly, but then he started relying on me.