Yasmine (5 page)

“Here, son, clean clothes. Go on, shower and leave everything behind you,” Mother urged me and again clasped my neck. “Such days we’ve had, good God Almighty. The body’s here and the soul over there…You heard about Broshi? What a fine boy! My eyes dried up from crying. And about Zakkai and Shkrachi and Skhaik? I don’t know who to cry for first. You heard what Broshi did with the first money he earned from the hall? Bought his parents’ flat from the government! Tell me, is there
justice in this world? Why didn’t all his good deeds protect him? His mother is a saint, an angel. She cleans and looks after the synagogue, and comes to prayers, and helps the poor. Nobody can be more righteous. We were together in synagogue when the shells fell on the neighbourhood. I said, ‘Come down to the shelter,’ and she said, ‘Me, go down to the shelter when my son is at war? God forbid!’ And look what happened to her.”

“Enough crying, it’s bad for your eyes,” said Father.

“It’s not the eyes, it’s the heart. I remember his bar mitzvah as if it was yesterday. We were new in the neighbourhood, I didn’t know a soul, and his mother brought me refreshments with her own hands, a big platter. ‘Take it for the children.’ Suddenly he’s a soldier, and he’s gone…Oh my oh my…”

“Um Kabi, why are you wailing now? Your son is back, thank God, he brought good news from the boys, and you’re crying?” But his eyes were mournful too. So unlike his usual self, as if he’d lost all his vitality.

The carpet on the floor absorbed the feeble light. Mother had bought it in the market from an Iranian immigrant who was leaving the country. Two bus drivers refused to take her with the carpet, but the third one gave in when she shoved it in through the back door. Then she carried it a whole kilometre across the unpaved land between the last bus stop in Old Katamon and the housing estate. She came in, sweaty and proud, as if she’d recaptured the glory of the red Persian carpet in our home in Baghdad. Father had made a face.

I got into the shower, washed the dust off, shampooed my hair repeatedly to cleanse it from the sweat and dirt that stiffened it. The mirror showed me eyes that looked extinguished and a skinny face covered with black stubble. I threw my dirty underwear into the laundry basket, scraped the
water into the drain and wiped the concrete with a cloth. I opened the window to let out the steam and the smell of mildew: this mouldy housing estate does not get much sunlight. Then I went back to sit beside Father.

“Tell me, son, where were you? What happened? Is it true the Egyptians ran away?”

“No, in some places they fought like the devil. We took heavy casualties too…”

“So what do you think, will Nasser make peace?”

“That lot make peace?” Mother put in, “God damn them. They don’t know how to lose or how to compromise. Their honour! God save us from their famous honour.”

“But if Nasser compromises they’ll kill him,” Father argued.

“What then? ‘The old won’t become new and an enemy won’t become a friend.’ That’s the way it is,” she replied. “It was Arabs in Baghdad and it’s Arabs here. Where can we run away to now?”

“Um Kabi,” Father said soothingly, “we’ve beaten them and their fathers and grandfathers to hell – why should we run away?” He turned to me. “What did Kabi say to you? Will he go back to London?”

I nodded.

“Of course he will,” Mother said. “What can he do here? They ate his heart out, he was right to leave.” She was chopping parsley at top speed. I watched her like a child watching a magician. She scattered a pinch of it on the meatballs and a lot on the salad and the hot green-pepper relish.

“Give us a little glass, we’ll drink a toast,” Father said.

“You see what he’s like! You’re forbidden to drink,” she scolded him.

“You know anybody who was killed by a little shot of arrack?”

He went to the cupboard and took out the bottle. To please her, he said the prayer of thanks for having lived to the present and for God’s will. “To you, son, to you and Kabi and Moshi and Efraim. To peace,” he said and sipped the drink slowly, relishing the liquor. “The wars are finished, woman!” he said in a loud voice, then pronounced the blessing for bread, tore off a piece of pitta, wrapped it around some parsley, spring onion and pepper relish, just the way I liked it, and handed it to me. Only then did he lean back in his seat at the head of the table. The colour was returning to his face.

“Don’t eat the meat,” Mother commanded. “I cooked chicken breast for you.” He looked at me and raised his hands, as if to say, “You see what she’s doing to me?”

Mother ignored his silent protest. “You should recite the
HaGomel
for coming home safely, son. When Kabi and Moshi return we’ll celebrate all of you coming home safely, and your Father’s recovery, may God open the gate for us,” she concluded in the words of the prayer.

When I got up to leave she hugged me again. “Sit down, Nuri. Where are you off to already? You just got here. Let me get a sniff of you!”

“Another time, Mother. I have to be at work tomorrow and I haven’t any clothes here.”

“Already back to work? What’s so urgent?”

“
Al-wazir
, the Minister, has sent for me.”

“Aha,” Father said, impressed.

“Wait, wait! I’ll do a
ghasas
for you,” Mother said and right away set about preparing for the procedure – melting balls of lead over my head while rubbing my neck with water – a
time-honoured
protection against the evil eye. I sat in the kitchen on a low, cane-bottomed stool and waited patiently for the end of
the ritual, which included various muttered incantations. She also stuffed into my pocket a pinch of salt wrapped in a bit of cloth and the remains of the melted lead. I never told her that I always carried them with me – I even took them to war. I preferred to pretend that I regarded the whole thing as meaningless superstition.

Before I left, Mother gave me a basket full of delicacies and pastries. “I found your favourite halva in the market, first-rate stuff, and got you some Noumi Basra tea,” she said, following me to the stairs.

“Mother, tell me the truth. What did the doctors say?”

“He has to be careful, not get excited, not get worked up, not smoke, and he must diet, take pills and rest, that’s all.”

The moon lighting the night sky wore a pale halo. I was taking a shortcut across the stony field to Dostai Street when I remembered that I hadn’t asked Father for money. My wallet was lost – how was I going to get to work tomorrow morning? I jumped down the three steps to the path that led to the housing estate on Elazar Street and a moment later stood in front of my bursting mailbox, stuffed mainly with bills. My heart was thumping as I searched for something, just a note even, from Yardena. In the past she liked to surprise me with letters, or notes under the door, “I’m with you wherever you go,” that kind of thing. When we had a fight she’d send me colourful postcards with proverbs included, to signal that she wasn’t angry any more and love was on the menu again. But this time there was nothing. Feeling disappointed and lonely, I climbed up to my little flat on the fourth floor.

Grushka, my neighbour’s cat, came up to me on silent paws. How could I have forgotten her? A beautiful, thick-furred cat,
white with a black band, she always waited for me, was never annoyed with me. I picked her up and rubbed my cheek against hers.

There was a thick, heavy smell in the flat, the smell of dust accumulated in closed, unused rooms. I turned on the light by the front door and stood in the doorway, hesitant, as if I wasn’t really home. But Grushka leapt down and ran inside and drew me after her. She settled possessively on the worn green armchair that I’d sworn to throw out if I returned from the war. I put down my kitbag and Mother’s provisions, and for some reason went around turning on all the lights – in the bedroom, the kitchen, the bathroom, the balcony.

The pretty potted plant on the balcony had withered and died. The fridge held rotting fruit and vegetables, mouldy cheese, stale bread, and a jar of pickled herring in congealed oil. The bathroom walls had shed bits of plaster. The water in the toilet bowl had gone down and left rust marks. When I turned on the kitchen tap it coughed horribly, spitting out rusty splashes. I left the water running till it cleared.

I wanted to run away, but where to? I took a hefty swallow of slivowitz straight from the bottle. Sharp as a razor, it scorched my throat, lit a fuse and rolled like a ball of fire down my gullet. Now for a cigarette. I usually had packets lying around the room. I searched everywhere, turned out all the drawers – nothing.

While sorting out clothes for the next morning, I discovered a ten-lira note in a pocket, which cheered me up no end, as if I’d found a hoard of treasure. I turned on the radio and closed my eyes. I’d dreamed about this moment, about stretching out on the sofa, having a quiet drink and listening to music. Why then the sadness and emptiness?

The sound of the alarm clock pierced my brain like a harpoon striking a fish. With my eyes shut I fumbled for the button and thumbed it down furiously. I sat up trying to recall the dream, to figure out what Trabulsi had yelled in the tank, but all that came was the image of the flames.

The last stars were fading, clearing the sky for a new day. It seemed a long time since I’d heard these early morning sounds, the dawn chorus. Daylight revealed the red kestrels on the tiled roof opposite, boosting my spirits a little.

The Orthodox woman came out on to her balcony, and this time she smiled and waved to me. Her latest baby began his early morning caterwauling, and I remembered that I’d missed his cries during those days of waiting. His mother calmly began to hang up washing, taking piece after piece from a big tub, until there was no room left on the line. Only then did she go inside to suckle the little screamer. In the meantime the water boiled in the kettle, and I poured in the remains of the Noumi Basra. It tasted stale. I ought to keep it in a ceramic jar, I told myself for the umpteenth time. The sound of piano playing came from the radio, then the voice of Michael Ben-Hanan: “Good morning everyone! And if you’re in the mood for calisthenics, take your places, get ready…”

I cut myself shaving and bled. The face in the mirror looked weary, overhung by a thatch of hair in urgent need of the barber’s scissors. Cheer up, union-man, you’ve come back safely. You have an appointment with the Minister, and Levanah is sure to be there. Then I managed a smile, at last.

The door to the Minister’s office was open, Levanah was not in the waiting room, and before I could greet Shula, the secretary, the Minister gestured to me to come in, swung his legs off the desk, stood up and squeezed my hand hard, his lion’s mane shaking as he nodded vigorously.

The Minister in Charge was our cabinet minister, and this was our name for him because, though he didn’t have a specific portfolio, he was involved with everything and his office practically adjoined that of the Prime Minister.

“Welcome back. How was it?” he asked, as if I had been away on some kind of excursion.

I grinned uncomfortably, not knowing what to say.

“So, we went to sleep as a state and woke up as an empire! Now all of the Land of Israel is ours.” His eyes glittered under his bushy grey eyebrows. “This was the first war for your immigrant generation. I won’t deny that we were worried, wondering how it would go, how the immigrant settlements on the border would cope, and what would happen if the people abandoned them.” His frankness surprised me. “But I hear that you, the younger generation, proved yourselves in battle.”

My stomach tightened and I pressed it with both hands. I
wanted to tell him about the seventeen boys from Katamon who fell in battle, but kept my mouth shut.

“Tell me, since you know them, did you think that the Egyptians would run away, barefoot?” he laughed and glanced at a big photograph of a group of pioneers that hung on his wall.

“I don’t know…In my sector they fought honourably,” I mumbled.

“You’re tired. Well, it’s to be expected.” He told Shula to bring me a cup of coffee, but she didn’t know I don’t take it with milk. Levanah would have brought me coffee the way I like it. The Minister began to pace up and down. “It’s a new historical era for us,” he exclaimed, waving his arms. “Tremendous possibilities have opened up!”

“There is also the question of what the Arabs will do,” I put in, and felt right away it was the wrong thing to say.

“What can they do? Even if the era of wars is not yet over, it’s put off for many years, and we must take advantage of this time to build and develop. We’ll turn Jerusalem into a metropolis, Israel’s eternal capital,” he declared, settling in his armchair.

The Minister had embraced this settlement vision since he was a boy and had met the pioneers from Eastern Europe, enthusiastic young people with rumpled hair and open shirts who captivated him. He used to see them at their meeting place not far from his parents’ apartment, staying up till the small hours, and he adored them, brewing tea for them and washing their tin cups. He was filled with admiration for the way they ignored the conventions of appearance and property, content to live in tents and fortify their bodies and minds with the dream of an independent state. He wanted to be like them.

In his youth he worked in agriculture and construction and
developed a socialist world view. When he matured he dedicated himself to national objectives, acquired a style of leadership and became a popular speaker, aided by a powerful, far-reaching voice. His speeches, delivered in high-flown and even obscure Hebrew, were alive with Zionist fervour and as long as the road from Sinai to Jerusalem. Now he told me that he envisaged thousands of young people, successors of the pioneers he had known in his childhood, settling in the liberated territories and making the wilderness bloom.

“
Yungerman
,” he said, borrowing a typical Yiddish word from his friend Eshkol, “let’s get down to business.” As he talked he took a big paperclip, straightened it and began to clean his fingernails. Then he tried without success to restore the wire to its former shape. “Listen here. I was really impressed by the position papers you prepared for me that time. And incidentally, you displayed considerable long-term understanding in the big debate with Professor Kishinevsky, I can see it quite clearly now. Altogether I think a fellow with your background should be in Intelligence, and now I find that you’re in the Armoured Division,” he said in passing. “Well, I’ve decided to take advantage of your capabilities and appoint you advisor on Arab affairs and put you in charge of our office in East Jerusalem.” Seeing my surprise, he went on, “Sometimes we dive for pearls, and then discover them right under our noses. You combine two qualities – you’re a child of the East who commands both Hebrew and Arabic, and you’re also a product of our kibbutz movement, and had the privilege of serving the founding fathers.” He sipped from his mug of coffee. “So set up an office in East Jerusalem, sniff around to see what’s happening there, meet their effendis, and provide me with your evaluations.”

I stared at him in astonishment, trying to take in the idea of such an important position.

“The Prime Minister has asked me to help him formulate policy regarding the Arab sector and the liberated territories, and you’re the right person to help me carry out this mission,” he concluded, throwing the spoiled paperclip into the
waste-paper
basket and picking up the phone: “Shula, can you come in and take dictation?” There and then he dictated my official appointment, told her to send it to all the relevant parties, and then put him in touch with the sector commander and the Mayor. “I want them to introduce you to the job without delay and…Shula,” he added, “ask the Ministry spokesman to issue a communiqué to the press and radio today.” He stood up – and my appointment was established, without my being consulted or even asked if I wanted it.

“We’ll provide you with everything you need. Now, to work!” he urged me in a tone that reminded me of Shai Ophir’s satirical skits when we were on the outskirts of Gaza. He came up and put his arm around my shoulders.

“I have a request to make, if I may,” I said.

“I’m listening.”

“I have an uncle, my father’s brother, who was one of the leaders of the Zionist underground in Baghdad. He’s been in prison there for twenty years, with the threat of being hanged at any moment. Maybe now we can save him? His name is Hizkel Imari. The Mossad are familiar with his case.”

“Yes, yes, you told me about him. We tried at the time but without success. I promise you we’ll do whatever we can to rescue him,” he said and patted my shoulder. Suddenly his expression changed. “You heard about Levanah’s brother?” he asked in a low voice.

“No.”

“Fell in the battle for the Old City.” I gasped. “Go, go and comfort her.” Then, after a moment of gloomy silence, he said, “It is written in the Scrolls of Fire, ‘In war people kill and are killed, and we need to cry for the living and the dead.’” He closed the door behind me. I knew that he had lost his paratrooper son in the Suez war in 1956.

I sat down in the waiting room and watched Shula as she coped with a stream of phone calls. After a while her image was replaced by that of Levanah, my usual link with the Minister in Charge. In fact, it was thanks to her that I had come to work for him. Two years before, when I had an administrative job in the Ministry, I used to see her in the cafeteria, and one day I told her that Arabic was my mother tongue and that I had a degree in Arabic Studies. A few days later she came furtively into my office, holding in her small hands a number of letters that needed translating. The Minister in Charge had received them from the heads of Arab local councils, following a controversial speech he’d made in the Knesset. I translated them on the spot and even suggested how to reply to them. That’s how it started. Soon after, Levanah introduced me to the Minister in her typically gentle but businesslike manner: “This is the man who has been helping us with Arabic issues,” she said, and in effect made me an unofficial advisor to the Minister and his office. I enjoyed the opportunity to make use of my training and knowledge, even on a voluntary basis and without an official position. Ever since then I had felt committed to my additional employment, and Levanah saw to it that I received up-to-date reviews from various sources, including classified material. I liked her company: there was something reserved about her,
her measured gestures, her quiet footsteps. Sometimes I kept her hanging around by telling her Arabic stories, since she knew no Arabic and very few Arabs. But I didn’t want her to think that this was my entire world, so I made a point of talking to her about books, plays, concerts and exhibitions that I had enjoyed. She never stayed long, always apologising that she had to rush back to the Minister’s office. Her loyalty to him was absolute, so much so that I sometimes wondered about their relationship. But then I’d say to myself, nonsense, think of the age gap, the different backgrounds and the risks involved. And anyway, why should she? The Minister was a kibbutz member and family man – what could he offer her?

I sat facing Shula, deep in thought and absentmindedly taking apart and re-assembling a ballpoint pen that was on her desk.

When she had finished making all the necessary calls she went to the security officer and came back with an official document stating my new position. “Now give me your home number…What, you don’t have a phone? We’ll take care of it immediately.” She sat at the typewriter and wrote an official letter to the Director General of the Post Office, got the Minister to sign it and put it in the out tray.

I pondered the unexpected appointment, which had fallen like a fruit from a tree straight into my mouth. The Minister in Charge knew very little about me, we’d never had a general conversation that could have given him an idea what I was like. To his credit, he never asked if I was a party member or close to his political movement. Two years before, when I’d translated the letters from the heads of the Arab councils, he asked me to join him in a meeting with them, where I served as his
intepreter, and a few months later Levanah asked me to prepare a memorandum for him on the teaching of Arabic in schools and universities, and invited me to take part in a meeting with a large group of people. The Minister presented the subject briefly and put a few questions to the participants. The first to speak was the scientific advisor, Professor Kishinevsky, who favoured strengthening Israel’s Western orientation:

“You’re wasting your time, Minister,” he declared at the outset, and went on to argue that the Arabic language was petrified, inferior, lacking theoretical literature or any modern scientific and cultural terminology, that Arabic culture as a whole lacked the tools for abstract thought, and so on and so forth.

This was my first experience of attending a meeting of experts, whose knowledge seemed unchallengable, and I hadn’t intended to speak at all. Nevertheless, I found myself proposing a different approach: “Our great lexicographer Eliezer Ben-Yehuda considered Arabic to be a language which was engaged in a process of revival, dealing successfully with the modern world. He even introduced Arabic words into Hebrew.” The professor froze me with a glance.

I saw the Minister, himself an impressive and authoritative figure, rubbing his thick mane and listening uneasily. In the end he summed up by saying, “The issue is not ready for resolution.” When faced with irreconcilable positions, he always found a neutral formula that the opponents could not object to. After the meeting he told me to wait. “You didn’t stand up for your opinion as you should have,” he said reproachfully.

“There is an Arabic saying, ‘Who dares to tell the lion he has bad breath?’” I replied in my defence, and he laughed. “How can a person who doesn’t know any Arabic and knows nothing
about the Arab world make such statements about the language and the culture?” I added, saying what I hadn’t dared to say to the professor and his colleagues. “We need Arabic speakers as much as speakers of English and French. We live in the Middle East and our future is here. We still have Iraqi and Egyptian immigrants who know the language, but if we don’t take care there won’t be any in the next generation.”

“Don’t be so pessimistic, young man,” he said and stood up, and that was that.

A week later Levanah informed me that the Minister had decided to accept the scientific advisor’s position. She invited me to have coffee, her way of sweetening the pill. But this was ages ago, before the war.

“Shula, could you get in touch with the hospital in Ashkelon, please?” I asked. “My brother is there.”

She tried again and again but couldn’t get through. Then, without warning, a bearded man in a black suit and black hat came into the office. Without bothering to introduce himself, he said, “I have to see the Minister immediately!” Shula asked him who he was and what he wanted, but in reply he launched into a passionate sermon calling for the restoration of the Temple, with verses flowing from his mouth like lava, and all the time swaying back and forth as if praying: “Since the destruction of the Temple there has not been a day that was not cursed…” He took out a glossy pamphlet with impressive illustrations of the Temples, the First, the Second, and even the Third Temple, “which will be built soon in our lifetime and will not wait for the coming of the Messiah. At long last we have triumphed and Jerusalem the Holy has been delivered from the hands of the Gentiles, God damn them!” he intoned.

Shula looked at me, at a loss, and I stared helplessly at the eccentric who, taking advantage of our confusion, barged into the Minister’s office. She shot out of her seat to try to stop him and was stunned as the bearded one, smiling triumphantly, slammed the door in her face.

“What a nutter!” she exclaimed.

“The Minister told me about Levanah’s brother,” I said. “I’d like to visit her.” So Shula summoned Chaim, the Minister’s driver to take me there.

The entrance to Levanah’s parents’ house on Herzl Boulevard was white with pasted-up sympathy notices from friends and neighbours. I stood there a long time, uncertain about going in. How do you comfort the bereaved? Taking a deep breath, I pushed open the door. The living-room was packed. Levanah was surprised to see me and introduced me to her parents, her brother and two sisters. They were sitting on a low bed, not on the floor as we do. I mumbled something and sat down beside her. She passed me a photo album with pictures of a slim young man in his early twenties, smiling shyly.