Leila walked back to the office with her head bowed. She said nothing. When we got there, she asked me to remind her of the clerk’s name at the welfare bureau and before leaving the room she asked me which boarding school was considered the best for at-risk kids.
CORDUROYS
I recall the smell of Yonatan’s clothes. Somehow they held on to the good smell of the fabric softener and not the medicinal scent of the attic.
I showed up at Scout Street an hour before the beginning of my shift and hesitantly asked Osnat if it would be okay to come a little late the following evening.
“What time will you be able to come?” she asked.
“I’m not sure, but no later than midnight. Is that okay?”
She smiled. “It’s only okay if it’s because of a girl.”
I blushed and let a stupid grin creep across my face.
“Sakhtein,” she said, turning to Yonatan and raising her voice, “at long last our shy friend has found someone. See!” then she turned back to me and asked for details.
“An intern at the office,” I said.
“How old?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Name?”
“Leila.”
“Pretty?”
I nodded.
“You’re so cute. Where are you going?”
“To a party. . at the Hyatt. .”
“And what are you going to wear?”
I shrugged. “I’m going like this,” I said, pointing to the clothes I had on.
Osnat shook her head. “No, you’re not. I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re not going like that. You’ll scare her away.”
I had never thought about clothes before. I had never bought anything for myself aside from underwear and socks, and those I had gotten at the flea market outside Damascus Gate. Every once in a while I’d come home and find that my mother had bought me a new pair of jeans or a shirt or some sweatpants. Before I left for college, she bought me a new wardrobe, clothes that were suitable for the cold Jerusalem winters.
Osnat opened Yonatan’s closet and said, “Let’s see what we can find here for you,” and I was flabbergasted by the sheer volume of clothing. I had never opened that closet before and somehow I had figured that it held nothing but additional sets of pajamas. Instead, there were dozens of ironed, bright-colored shirts on hangers and alongside them a dozen pair of pants. The shelves were covered with stacks of T-shirts, arranged by color, and everything was clean and straight, not a single shirt out of place.
“You’re Yonatan’s size,” Osnat said. “He has so many beautiful clothes. Don’t you, Yonatan?” she continued, looking over toward his bed. “And you don’t mind loaning a few things to our friend here for a date with his girl, do you?” She’s not really my girl, I thought, all she did was invite me to come to the Arab students’ spring semester party. On the other hand, it was going to be the first time I would see her outside work. A part of me was excited by the prospect, but most of me was scared.
Osnat flipped through the shirts and chose a black one with a starched collar. “Black will work well with your pale skin,” she said. “Now, let’s see what else we need. . no, no jeans, I’m sure she’s pretty sick of seeing you in the same jeans every day. . Oh, here, this could work.” She pulled a pair of corduroy pants out of the closet. They were what she called “off-white” and they had a matching jacket with brown leather patches on the elbows.
“Come on,” she said, “try it on. I want to see how it fits.”
“No way!”
“Shut up and change. Go, put it on, I’m in a rush.”
The pants were a perfect fit. They were just right in the waist and length. I tucked the shirt in and put on the jacket. Osnat smiled from ear to ear when I came out in Yonatan’s clothes. She turned me this way and that, walked over to the closet, and returned with a brown leather belt with a wide rectangular buckle. I threaded it through the belt loops of the pants and while I did that, Osnat went back to the closet and pulled out a pair of brown leather shoes. I saw five pairs of dress shoes and three pairs of sneakers. “These are about a thousand times better than your white sneakers,” she said, pointing at the new-looking shoes. She looked me up and down and then pressed the tip of her thumb to the tip of her index finger, drawing a circle with her fingers and announcing, “Perfect.”
“This isn’t me,” I said. I felt like I’d been stuffed into a costume.
“It is totally you. This is what you’re wearing to the party. You look great. There’s no reason for you to put those work clothes back on.” I liked hearing that I looked good. The things Osnat said gave me some hope and for a moment I really did feel like someone else, just what I’d always wanted to be.
“You know,” she said, “it’s not just that you’re the same size as Yonatan. As soon as you came in with Ayub I felt this kind of tightening in my heart, felt at ease with you, as though I’d known you for years and only later did I realize why. You look like him, did you know that? The two of you are practically identical. Don’t you think, Yonatan?” She took her bag, wished me a good shift, and said good-bye to the two of us.
THE SOLES OF OUR SHOES
I got back early from the party. By about ten thirty I was on Scout Street, opening the door to the house and trying to walk on my tiptoes so that Yonatan’s thick-soled leather shoes wouldn’t make any noise. I froze when I saw Ruchaleh out of the corner of my eye. She was sitting in the dining room. Sometimes I forgot she even existed. My heart thumped wildly as I stood there, in an outfit that belonged, in its entirety, to her paralyzed son.
“Good evening,” I managed to say to her, stuck to my spot on the floor. She was sitting at the dining room table, surrounded by folders and papers and an open bottle of liquor. I saw her look me over from top to bottom. She nodded, said nothing, refilled her glass, and went back to her paperwork. I went up the stairs, still trying not to make noise, to Yonatan’s room.
Osnat was sitting on the couch reading a book. She looked at me and then back at her watch.
“What happened?” she whispered. Yonatan was asleep.
“Nothing,” I said. “Everything’s fine.”
“You sure? You don’t look so great.”
“Ruchaleh is downstairs. She saw me in Yonatan’s clothes.”
“So what,” Osnat said. “She doesn’t care. Besides, at this hour, with her drinking, she doesn’t notice a thing. Relax. And if it makes you feel better I’ll talk to her and tell her it was all my idea. Even though it’s totally unnecessary. Believe me. She’s a good person. She understands. Do you know how many years she spent protesting with the Women in Black?”
As soon as Osnat left, I took off the clothes, shoved them into the washing machine, and put on the T-shirt and sweatpants I’d left in the staff closet. I stood in front of Yonatan’s CD collection, which I had begun to enjoy more with each shift, and decided on Lou Reed’s Berlin. I slid the disc in and fast-forwarded to the song about the mother whose kids are taken away, the one that ends with the sound of wailing babies. I flipped Yonatan over on his side so that he was facing me. I lay down on the recliner and listened to the music. Then I took Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata off the shelf and tried to focus on the text. I didn’t want to remember any part of the party.