He’s baffled.
“You’ve got school tomorrow. What is there to see? You want to see the towing? What are you, a baby?”
“Why should you care? Better that than wandering around the house. I won’t get in the way, I promise. I’ll be company for you too.”
He hesitates. I know how things are, they lost control of me years ago.
“At least let’s tell Mommy …”
“She won’t wake up, she won’t know.” He shrugs his shoulders, defeated.
“I warn you, we’ll be back very late.”
“What’s so terrible about that?”
We go down to the tow truck. It’s very cold outside, rain. He starts the engine, warming it up.
“Aren’t you cold?”
“No.” We drive down first to the lower city, going into a little side street in the heart of the deserted market. We see a shadowy figure in a funny long overcoat. Na’im the night owl. He hurries towards us, opens the door and climbs aboard, nearly falling out again when he sees me. Even in the dark I can see his face light up, his eyes opening wide.
“Hello,” I say.
“Hello,” he whispers.
And he sits down beside me. Silence. Daddy drives fast down the empty streets. The traffic lights are stuck, flickering on amber. Na’im curls up beside me, watching me furtively. Suddenly he whispers:
“How are you?”
“Fine. How’s Grandma?”
“She’s all right.”
And we drive on in silence, joining the Tel Aviv highway, Daddy turning his head now and then to look at the cars passing by. We pass the Atlit intersection. Daddy starts to slow down, a few kilometres farther on we see red lights beside the steel fence between the lanes and I see a car lying on its side. My heart thumps. We pull up on the roadside and climb out to look. I can’t believe my eyes — a blue car. It’s as if I’ve created this accident. The bumper and the front of the car are crushed. On the opposite side of the road two cars are parked, lights dimmed. A little crowd has gathered.
The people are surprised to see Na’im and me.
“What’s this, have you brought your children along?” somebody shouts but Daddy doesn’t answer.
The driver, a young man, some kind of student, starts to explain what happened, making excuses, he’s not entirely to blame, of course. Beside him a middle-aged woman in trousers paces around nervously, her eyes red. She’s involved in this too. “What matters is that nobody’s been hurt,” says the young man. “What matters is that we’re not hurt,” he repeats in a loud voice to the little crowd of onlookers, as if he wants us to confirm what he says and share in his happiness.
Daddy still says nothing, very grim, as usual, in fact he hardly looks at the car but watches the road, watches the cars passing by, looking for something else.
At last he sets to work. Getting back into the truck, driving forwards a few hundred metres till he finds a gap in the fence and crossing to the other side. Na’im strips off his coat, takes out triangles and a flashing lamp and sets them out on the road. Daddy starts giving instructions, Na’im gets out the tools and slowly they start unwinding the cable. The driver watches anxiously, the little crowd looks on with interest, I don’t know why we don’t sell tickets for the show. From time to time somebody shouts out a piece of advice.
I go and stand beside the woman.
“Whose is the car?”
“Mine.”
“Yours? And is that your son?”
She looks at me angrily.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Just … I thought … where have you come from?”
“Why?”
“Just curious.”
“From Tel Aviv.”
She snaps out her answers, my questions irritate her.
“Have you been to see a play?”
“No.”
“Then where have you been?”
“We are returning from a protest meeting.”
“Protest against what?”
“Against all the lies.”
“Who’s been lying to you?”
She stares at me, can’t decide if I’m trying to provoke her or just being thick.
“What are you doing wandering about at night, at your age? Don’t you go to school?”
“I’ve skipped a grade,” I say quietly. “I can afford to wander about a bit.”
She doesn’t know what to say, she leaves me and goes to watch Daddy working on the car. I follow her. Very interesting. Na’im crawling on the road and Daddy playing out the cable, telling him how to make the connection. Now very, very slowly they start raising the car. Splinters of glass and fragments of buckled metal fall on the road. Terrific.
The young man covers his face.
“A real smack-up,” I say to the woman.
She’s furious.
Now Daddy climbs into the truck and starts the engine, dragging the car away from the fence and towing it to the side of the road. Meanwhile Na’im is picking up the tools, folding up the triangles, taking the flashing light and hanging it on the back of the truck. Working quietly and energetically. Daddy wipes his oily hands, his face is covered in sweat, there’s a tear in his trousers. It’s a long time since I’ve seen him so out of breath. He tells me to take a piece of paper and write down the details. He asks them where they want the car to be towed. The woman asks his advice.
“I can tow it to my garage.”
“How much will the repair cost?”
“I shall have to examine it, I can’t tell you now. In the meantime there’s the towing charge.”
“How much?”
Daddy sends me to fetch the list of prices that the towing firm gave him, I crouch over it, lighting the pages with a flashlight. It has to be calculated according to the distances involved and the size of the damaged car. It takes me a while to work it out.
“A hundred and fifty pounds,” I announce triumphantly.
Daddy checks it and agrees.
The man starts to argue, Daddy listens in silence, chewing his beard. But I get impatient.
“It’s written right here, sir, what do you want us to do?”
“Shut up, girl,” the woman hisses.
But Daddy says, “There’s nothing you can do about it, she’s right.”
A police car pulls up. Two tired cops get out, start sniffing around, the man gets desperate, stops arguing. He just wants a receipt.
“Why not?” says Daddy and he tells me to write a receipt and take the money.
I take out a receipt at once, enjoying this work very much. Na’im has finished collecting the tools, he stands watching me with his mouth open. The young man holds out the money. I count it. Ten pounds short. The lady has to make it up. I’d love to know what’s between them. Now the cops are in charge. We leave them to it. The money’s in my coat pocket. Daddy switches on the flashing beacon on the roof of the cab and a red light flickers over the road like something supernatural. Na’im and I sit on the back seat of the truck bed, facing the hanging car, watching it and making sure we don’t lose it on the way. We talk, I say something funny and he’s surprised and laughs, his eyes sparkling.
Daddy drives calmly, once he stops beside a car parked at the roadside, gets out to take a look at it and then drives on. We arrive at the garage. It’s huge, the cars are like horses in a stable, each one in its stall. Daddy and Na’im unhitch the damaged car, leaving it at the side. We drive on, putting Na’im down outside his house. When we get home it’s already four in the morning.
Daddy says, “I’m worn out.”
“I’ve never been more wide awake.”
“How are things going to work out with you?”
“It’ll be all right, don’t worry.”
He goes to take a shower because he’s very dirty, I go and peep at Mommy, who’s still lying there in the same position as when we left her, she’s got no idea how busy we’ve been these last four hours. From there I go to the kitchen to put the kettle on for tea. Through the window, across the wadi, I see the man who types, slumped in his chair, his head thrown back, he’s not usually still at it this late.