She groaned when she heard Gabriel’s name. “Come on, come inside … what’s he got in that suitcase?” And, again, to him in Arabic: “Come on, let’s have a look. You haven’t brought me any bugs, have you?”
He was still speechless and she bent over the suitcase, opened it and began examining the contents. On a heap of folded clothes there were eggs, peppers and eggplants.
“What’s this? The Turks left this country long ago.”
He was embarrassed, angry.
“I don’t know who put them in … maybe my mother.”
She started taking out the vegetables, examining the eggs by the light from the window.
“Very good. Fine eggs these. Take all these clothes out and hang them up to air. Thank your mother very much but tell her next time not to mix clothes with food, you’ll get egg yolks in your pockets …. Where did you steal these pyjamas from? … You won’t need the towel, put it in the laundry basket … we’ll look at these clothes later. In the meantime you go and have a wash. Do you hear? Off you go. The water will go cold. I lit the boiler this morning when I heard that you were coming, He should wash before he eats, not good to bathe on a full stomach … But don’t make a mess, this isn’t a hotel and I’m not cleaning up three times a day … I’ve prepared a separate room for him … a wardrobe … all for him … You’ll sleep on your own here, without donkeys and goats and chickens.”
And she led the bewildered Na’im into the bathroom, the poor fellow was getting used to being sent into the bathroom every time he entered a Jewish house. She sat me down in the big room and brought in plates full of biscuits, nuts and almonds. She made coffee and brought it to me.
“Don’t bother.”
“I’ve already bothered. I’m not going to throw it all away.”
The coffee was excellent and she charmed me with her courtesy, with her thin smile. I explained to her my intention of patrolling the roads at night, towing in cars and looking for Gabriel. I told her that of course she could make use of the boy, he could help with the cleaning, go shopping, do minor repairs if necessary. “A good boy,” I said. “You’ll see.”
“When they’re young, perhaps, before they join Fatah.”
I laughed.
Then she put on her reading glasses and picked up a heap of newspapers, most of them copies of Ma’ariv and Yediot Aharonot of the last few weeks, and she began leafing through them excitedly. After a while she took off her glasses and turned to me with a question.
“Perhaps you can help me?”
“By all means.”
“Tell me, what is this Kissinger?”
“What?”
“What is he? Who is he? Before I went into the hospital I’d never heard of him. Now that I’ve recovered the papers are full of him, they never mention anyone else. Why?”
I told her about him.
“A Jew?” She was amazed, didn’t believe it. “That’s impossible! An apostate, perhaps … how could they let him? What do you say? Isn’t he ashamed to make so much trouble?”
“It’s not so bad …” I tried to calm her.
“What’s not so bad?” she protested. “Read what the papers say about him. Somebody ought to talk to his father.”
Na’im came out of the bathroom, scowled at us.
“What’s this!” she said, in Arabic. “So quickly? You’ve just been playing with the water. Come here … let’s see how well you’ve washed … behind your ears, isn’t that part of you? Next time I shall wash you … Don’t look so surprised, I’ve washed bigger boys than you … now sit down and eat.”
She was a real live wire. Drowning in newspapers and politics, all the time pumping me for information about politics and parties, complaining that she’d missed the election, she’d never missed one before. Even unconscious she would have known how to vote.
“How would you have voted?” I asked with a smile.
“Not for the Communists anyway … perhaps for that slut … what’s her name? The one who sticks up for women … perhaps for someone else … but that should be a secret, shouldn’t it?” And she winked at me.
Na’im sat there in silence, eating biscuits and drinking coffee. I’d noticed before how relaxed he could be, he had an astonishing ability to adapt himself to new surroundings. Watching her suspiciously but calmly, picking up the paper that lay in front of him and starting to read it with deep concentration, trying to ignore us.
She looked at him in astonishment, whispering to me, “What’s this? Can he read Hebrew or is he just pretending?”
“He knows Hebrew yery well … he’s been to school … he knows poems by Bialik by heart …”
She was furious.
“What does he want with Bialik? What use is it to him? Oh, we’re ruining these Arabs of ours … they’ll stop working and write poetry instead … but if he can read then he can read to me a little … my eyes get tired so quickly. And there are so many interesting things in the newspapers …”
She took the paper from him, leafed through it and handed it back to him.
“Leave off the pictures now. Read the article by Rosenblum on the first page. He’s a wicked man but he knows the truth.”
I stood up from my seat. I was charmed by her.
“You see, Na’im, you’ll have interesting work here.” But he didn’t smile.
“Are you going already?” She was disappointed, didn’t want me to leave. “What’s the time? Drink some more coffee … eat some supper perhaps … your wife won’t have cooked anything for you yet … when should I put him to bed?”
I laughed again.
“Oh, he’ll go to bed by himself. He’ll be fifteen soon … he can look after himself.”
“But all the same … will you be coming to fetch him tonight?”
“Perhaps.”
And suddenly she clutched at me, unsteady, weeping.
“I wish I could come with you to search for him … so kind of you to care about me, not turning your back on me, like all the others.”
I put my hand on her shoulder, she smelled of baby soap.
And Na’im was sprawled in his chair, ignoring us, sipping his coffee, turning the pages of the newspaper one after the other.
NA’IM
I told Father and Mother, “He wants me again, the garage boss. I’ll be staying with an old woman because he wants me at night for special work, but he can’t say when he’ll be bringing me back.”
“Is his boiler out of order again?” Mother asked, because I’d told them too that I’d helped him repair his boiler that Friday night, not that I’d broken into the house of an old woman who turned out to be at home.
“No, he’s starting to tow in broken-down cars, he wants to catch new customers when their cars are smashed up, looks like he’s expanding the garage. And I’m helping him with the tools and things like that.”
And they were very impressed, really proud. And Father said right away, “You see, Na’im, you wanted to stay on at school, wasting your time, it’s not yet five months since you started working for him and already he can’t do without you.”
“He can do very well without me, he just wants me there.”
And Father went straightaway to Aunt Isha’s and came back with a big old suitcase, and Mother started folding up my clothes and putting them in, putting in more and more clothes like I was never coming back. But I don’t have that many clothes, the suitcase was still only a third full. Then Father looked inside the case and called Mother aside and they went into the room that used to be Adnan’s and whispered a bit, then they called me in and I went in and saw Adnan’s clothes lying there on the bed and they told me to undress and I undressed, and they tried some of his clothes on me, shirts and trousers and sweaters, and Mother marked with pins the places that needed shortening, and Father looked at me with tears in his eyes and started to moan, “Adnan, Adnan,” and Mother said, “Perhaps we shouldn’t do this,” but he said, “No, who else should we give his clothes to, the security police?” And so they put some of Adnan’s clothes into the case too, and they gave me his overcoat, which had once belonged to Faiz as well, and even then the suitcase wasn’t full so Mother went out into the fields and came back with peppers, eggplants and garlic and she even put some eggs in at the top — “These are for the old lady that you’re going to live with, so she looks after you properly and feeds you.”