Gina nodded admiringly. I started to nod too, automatically, but caught myself in the middle and stopped.
Won’t you be fine now? Hacham Yehieh asked Avram, to prove what he’d said. Avram nodded obediently. Now do you remember what happened to Nissan? Hacham Yehieh asked him, and we all tensed up. Avram didn’t say anything. The sunbeam, which had been getting shorter the last few minutes, made its final retreat from the room. I suddenly remembered that there’d been a time when all the kids in my Girl Guide troop used to talk about seances. None of them ever took part in one, but everyone knew someone who’d been to a seance and seen the glass move across the letters.
Nissan’s dead, Avram said, interrupting my nostalgia. Nissan’s dead, he repeated and gave Hacham Yehieh a puzzled look. What made you mention him now?
*
There’s a demon wandering around Maoz Ziyon. From nightfall till dawn. And he’s black, not white, like you picture a demon. And he’s all alone.
For the first few years he tried to be likeable, initiate a dialogue, squeeze through open doors. But everyone — men and women, old folks and children — screamed when they saw him and drew back. When he tried to compliment one woman on the aroma of her cooking, she promptly had a heart attack. They saved her in the end, but he decided: he wouldn’t try to be anyone’s friend any more. And that meant giving up the pleasure he held most dear: listening to the residents whispering to each other, the demon was there, the demon was here.
Sometimes, sitting on the park bench, the old people still talk about it: how a ghost used to wander around the Castel at night. And they start arguing, each one trying to convince the other that he’s right (while the demon listens with pleasure from a safe distance, behind a tree): I saw him myself, my eyes can still see. He’s something the women and children made up, so how could that be true? He’s a refugee from World War II. What are you talking about, he first showed up here in the fifties. What fifties? Your memory’s out of control. My memory’s out of control? Your memory’s like a fisherman’s net with an enormous hole. A fisherman’s net with an enormous hole? Nothing you say is true. You were born crazy, Simon, and you’ll be crazy when they bury you.
When the conversation collapses on its own (the old people are tired and the sun is glowing gold high in the sky), the demon withdraws. He disguises himself as a shadow and slips through the alleyways until he reaches the palace he calls home: the cage of used cartons behind Doga and Sons.
Only once or twice a year, when a gap opens in someone’s soul, does he take advantage of the opportunity and slip into it. Such a perfect place to hide. So warm and pleasant inside. He can play all sorts of pranks, make them all look like fools. Scramble memories. Break rules. And hope that stupid Hacham Yehieh is called upon. So he can trick him: retreat and come back again later on.
*
And while I’m trying to stop the Arab, to push him out, and Gina goes to the kitchen and comes back with a frying pan to hit him on the head with, and we’re both yelling terrorist! terrorist! so the whole neighbourhood can hear — Avram, who’s been snoring on the sofa all morning, stands up suddenly, looks at him, barks uskuto! at both of us and walks over to him. He touches his shoulders, his hands, then his face, moves his finger over his cheeks, his nose, his forehead. The Arab is so stunned, he doesn’t move. Just stands there with his certificate and his rusty key. Not breathing. Then Avram gives him two light slaps, the affectionate kind, and moves a little bit away from him, the way you move away to look at a painting, and then he moves back, looks at him with dreamy eyes and says, Nissan, ya ibni, my son, welcome, and hugs him tight. Over Avram’s shoulder, the Arab gives us a what’s-with-him look, and Avram squeezes him tighter and keeps on saying, ya ibni, ya ibni Nissan, and the worker, who’s starting to feel uncomfortable, hugs him back with one hand, and with the other, points at Avram and says, my name is Saddiq, not Nissan. I never heard of this Nissan, and what’s wrong with this old man? Gina recovers first, curses Yehieh under her breath and explains to the Arab: Nissan was our first child who died when he was two, the day we moved into this house, and Avram, he’s my husband, he has a demon inside him this week, he thinks Nissan’s alive and that we all know where Nissan is but we hide it from him on purpose, but Nissan’s dead. Avram, Gina says, putting her hand on his shoulder and trying to pull him gently out of the embrace, Avram, Nissan’s dead, kapparokh. Don’t you remember what you said to Yehieh? I didn’t say anything to Yehieh! Why are you lying?! Avram yells and pushes her hand away, Nissan’s here! This is Nissan! He moves away a little and points at the worker. Come in, ibni, he invites him with a sweeping gesture of his hand, sit down, we’ll get you something to eat, something to drink, we’ll make a place for you to sleep.
Avram, listen to me for a second, I say, trying a more direct approach, he’s not Nissan, he works for Madmoni, you know Madmoni, your neighbour, the one who’s adding on to his house now? This is his worker, and his name’s not Nissan, it’s Saddiq. Who’s she? Avram points at me with a surprised look, then asks Nissan-Saddiq, who’s this woman who talks so much? Do you know her, ya ibni? Did you ever see her before? The worker looks at me, embarrassed. Avram, that’s Sima, Moshe’s wife, Gina says trying to remind him, and she points at our wedding picture hanging on the wall. Avram stares at the picture. Little Moshiko? He has a wife already? How could that be? You know about this, Nissan? Avram asks the worker.
Halas, I tell them. With all due respect, like they say, enough is enough. I’m calling the police now. Let them come and take you out of here, Mr Saddiq. How can they take me out of here when it’s my house? Saddiq asks quietly and waves his certificate in the air again. I ignore him and go to the phone. Avram rushes over — just a few minutes ago he was lying on the sofa and couldn’t move a finger — and steps between me and the phone. You’re not calling anyone, he yells, no one is going to take my Nissan away from me, do you understand? No one! If you call now, I’ll grab a knife from the kitchen and cut you and myself, do you understand? I stand still and look at Gina. She signals me with her eyes to let it go. OK, I say to Avram, OK, you don’t need a knife, no one’s going to take Nissan away from you. Avram doesn’t calm down. He stands between me and the phone for a while to show that he doesn’t trust strangers. I don’t move. Gina doesn’t do anything either. Slowly, his eyes stop darting back and forth and he goes back to fussing around the worker. You want something to drink? Maybe black coffee? How many sugars do you take in your coffee? And Saddiq answers: no sugar, I like my coffee bitter. Avram gives him a big ear-to-ear grin and says, just like your father. The worker nods and says Aiwah, and starts walking around the house. He knows that we can’t do anything to him now, so he allows himself to touch the stones, to go in and out of the rooms, to open and close the windows. He touches the wall that separates the bedroom from the living room and says to Gina, this wall didn’t used to be here, right? Gina says yes, we built it twenty years ago, and he nods without enthusiasm and says, I knew it. Look, I’m starting to remember, there, where the television is, that’s where my mother’s cooking stove was, that’s where she cooked so the smoke would go out. Where you cook is no good, madam, the smoke stays inside. Gina doesn’t answer him, no one answer him, we all look at him, hypnotised, starting to understand that maybe he isn’t lying, maybe he really did live in this house once. He goes into the bedroom and the three of us follow him. He points: look, this is where my mattress was, and that’s where my big brother’s mattress was, and my little brother’s next to it. We slept very close to each other because it was cold at night, not like now with the heating you have. We only had a little coal heater, and sometimes the coal would get used up and we had to rub each other’s back and hands to get warm. My mother would go to the neighbours to get more blankets, but the door to the house wasn’t where it is now. It was on the other side, behind your sofa. It’s still there, an iron door, you know that, don’t you? Of course we do, Avram answered quickly in a voice full of pride, you remember everything, ya ibni, you remember, and you, Avram said, turning to me, you lunatic, aren’t you ashamed to say that to Nissan? Look at how well he knows the house! Only a child knows his house like that, isn’t that true, ibni? Yes, abui, the worker answers him, playing the game and calling him father, knowing that as long as he’s Avram’s son, no one can touch him. He takes a few sips of the black coffee Gina gives him with hands that shake from old age and says, thank you very much, really, thank you, and then he puts his bag down on the floor and pulls out a toolbox. He takes a hammer and a chisel out of it and explains to us while he works. Fifty years go, my mother left something in there, above the picture where you put that hamsa, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to take it out now.