In vain. He didn’t even invite us into his house. He just gave us the name of another relative, Gabriel’s father’s cousin, who had kept in touch with that side of the family, perhaps he would know.
It was too late now to drive to Jerusalem. The sky was beginning to cloud over, we returned to Haifa. Na’im had already gone, Dafi was in a foul mood. For some reason I was worried about the old lady so I drove to her house, told her about my visit to Dimona, of course I didn’t mention what he’d said about her supposed death, I mentioned the new name that I’d been given, that cousin of Gabriel’s father. She remembered him. “Oh, that silly old man. Try him, why not?”
The next day at noon I drove to Jerusalem to look for him. This time I had a clear address. But a different family was living there. They told me that the old man used to live there but he had gone to live with his daughter in Ramat Gan. It wasn’t easy to find him because his daughter and her husband had changed houses three times in the last few years, each time moving to a more luxurious apartment. Eventually I found the right address. He wasn’t at home, he’d gone out to an old people’s club. I waited a long time, in the meantime I talked to his grandchildren. From my conversation with them it soon became clear to me that there’d been no sign of Gabriel here. Even so I wanted to talk to the old man. He arrived at last and he was delighted to find somebody waiting for him. I began to tell him the story, he too insisted that I was wrong about the grandmother being alive. The information that she’d gone into a coma and recovered made no impression on him. He argued with me, I was confused, I was mistaken, he was positive that she’d died back in ’48, just a few days before the Declaration of Independence. He even thought he remembered attending her funeral in Jerusalem during the siege. He was convinced, there was no persuading him. I said, “I can take you to her right now,” but he laughed hysterically — “No thank you, at my age I don’t go visiting corpses at night.”
He remembered Gabriel as a boy. Sometimes his father brought him to visit them. But then they went to Venezuela. They may have got only as far as Paris, but the intention was to go to Venezuela, to join a wealthy branch of the family that had settled there in the middle of the last century.
Anyway, he was very friendly and didn’t want to be parted from me. He insisted on me staying for supper and told me stories about the whole family, about his grandchildren.
It was late at night when I left his house. Although my efforts so far had been fruitless, I was more and more convinced that he hadn’t been killed, that he was alive, wandering about the land. The stories that I’d heard about this adventurous family convinced me that perhaps there was some truth in what the old lady had said and that I should try searching for him at night. I turned off the main highway and continued heading north by old side roads, looking around me, surprised to see so much traffic on the roads so late, nearly midnight. At one intersection I saw a little car parked at the roadside, its hood raised. My heart thumped wildly. I was sure it was the little Morris that I was looking for, but it was an Austin, a similar model, 1952. Somebody was pacing about beside it. Something in his profile caught my attention, I stopped at once, got out to have a look. No it wasn’t Gabriel, I must have been imagining things, but he was about the same age and something about him really did remind me of Gabriel. Coincidences like this increase my conviction that Gabriel is close by, that he is wandering about this very neighbourhood perhaps, that right here, on these little side roads in the night hours I shall find him.
I pulled up beside the parked car. “What’s the problem?” The boy explained, some kind of blockage in the engine, he doesn’t understand these things. He called for a tow truck and he’s been waiting for it three hours. I glanced at the engine. “Start it up,” I said. But he looked at me suspiciously, my heavy beard misled him.
“Do you know anything about engines?”
“A little … start it up.”
He started the engine. A fuel blockage. I took a small screwdriver out of my pocket and dismantled the carburettor, cleaned the cup and released the jammed needle. A ten-minute job. The young man looked on anxiously all the time, afraid I was damaging something.
“Start it up.”
The car sprang easily to life. He was amazed. “Is that all it was?” He was so grateful. At least he’d be able to drive to the nearest garage. “No need to drive to a garage,” I said. “It’s O.K. now.”
Midnight. Looking around me all the time. Cars passing by in an endless stream. I had no idea there was so much traffic about at night. He got back into his car, thanked me again and drove off. It seemed strange to me, doing a repair job and not getting paid for it.
I continued on my way, ten kilometres farther on, and then another vehicle parked at the roadside. This time it was a tow truck, presumably the one that went out for the Austin that I’d repaired. It had broken down itself. I was tired but I stopped nevertheless.
The driver was dozing on the seat, under a blanket. I roused him. “Do you need help?”
He woke up, confused, a heavy, bony man, his hair going white, his face wrinkled.
Oh, it doesn’t matter, he’ll wait till morning. There’s a fuel blockage that he can’t shift. One of the petrol stations in this area is clogging up everybody’s engines selling dirty fuel.
“Let me try.”
“You won’t do it.”
“Let me try, it can’t do any harm.”
He opened the hood, I probed in the dark at the dirty and neglected engine, unscrewing the fuel pump. It was years since I’d done jobs like this.
Meanwhile we talked. He told me about himself. He came originally from a moshav not far from here, after the Six Day War he got tired of working on the land, he sold his land and bought this tow truck, now he did towing jobs at night. But this work too was beginning to bore him. His eyesight wasn’t good, and he knew nothing about modern cars, he didn’t even try to identify the fault, he just used to hitch up straightaway and start towing. His boss had doubts about him.
“What goes on around here at night? Is there enough work for you?”
“Plenty of it. The Jews are always speeding.”
He watched me cleaning the fuel pump and fitting a new screw, giving me strange advice. His knowledge of mechanics was hopelessly vague.
“Have you perhaps in the last few months come across an old Morris, 1947, coloured bright blue?”
“You get them all here. Morris, Volvo, BMW, Volkswagen, Ford, Fiat. All the models there are. The more they raise the road tax, the more crowded the roads are.”
“But a little Morris, blue …”
“Morrises too, the lot.”
What a fool the man was.
I got his engine going for him. He was most impressed. He could go home now and sleep. Perhaps I’d like to work for him, he’d give me a percentage.
I smiled, the idea amused me.
“No, but I’d be prepared to buy this tow truck from you.”
“Buy it?”
“Yes, why should you be driving around at night at your age?” He scratched his head.
“How much would you give for it?”
“Bring it around to my garage tomorrow and we’ll make a deal.” At noon the next day Erlich said to me, “What’s going on, did you invite someone around here to sell you a tow truck?” I went out to meet him. He stood there, squat and heavy, an old farmer beside his tow truck. Something about the way he talked reminded me of my father, the same habits of pronunciation, the same way of putting his sentences together. He looked around him, astonished and impressed by the giant garage and the dozens of workers.
“Is all this yours?”