He bursts out laughing.
Meanwhile Na’im goes to the truck and lifts down the box of tools, attends to the winch chains, lays out flashing lights on the road. There’s no need to tell him anything.
Two figures appear on the dust bank at the side of the road, lean white-haired Yemenites with rifles in their hands. The night watchmen of the moshav. The headmaster hastens to introduce them to me.
“These dear Jews, they looked after me until you arrived … we had a wonderful conversation … didn’t we? We talked about the Torah.”
He hugs and caresses them too. The two old men look a little dazed from their time spent with Mr. Shwartz. It seems he’s caused quite a stir in the moshav. Lights are on in some of the houses, other figures appear, watching us from a distance.
“What happened exactly?”
A strange story. He was returning from Jerusalem after a long conference on educational matters. Oh, these damned meetings, the endless chattering, all so depressing. At first he intended to stay in Jerusalem overnight, but in the morning there was to be another meeting in Haifa in the office of the city architect, about the new wing that they’re going to add to the school. He decided to return home. Everything was in order, the road was empty, he was quite wide awake. When he was young he used to drive for long hours at night without any problems. In England, before the war, when he was a student at Oxford. He was so engrossed in his memories of England that apparently without realizing it he began slowly straying towards the left. Suddenly a little old black car appeared in the opposite direction, with lights almost blacked out. At the last moment he recovered himself and swerved towards the right, but evidently he swung the wheels too far, and suddenly this tree, this unnecessary tree …
“What happened to the other car?”
Nothing, a light collision, a few scratches. If he had run into it rather than this damned tree the damage might have been less, for him that is, ha, ha, the other car would have been completely squashed, that little old tin box, to say nothing of the men within. And they turned out to be religious, these men, an old rabbi and a young man with side curls, dressed all in black, Naturei Karta or some sect like that. Like a hallucination. What were they doing driving about near the airport after midnight? They stopped, they both got out, they didn’t come too close. Just checked that he was alive and on his feet.
And the old man said softly, from a distance:
“You are aware, sir, that you are to blame …”
What could he say to that?
“Yes, I am to blame.”
Curse them. Anti-Zionists. They didn’t ask him if he needed help, as if they were afraid of getting involved with him.
Na’im is already playing out the cable. This tow is going to be very complicated. A light breeze passes over us. Better get rid of the headmaster so he won’t get in the way. I persuade him to go home. He’s easily persuaded, he’s quite exhausted. He goes to the two Yemenites, takes leave of them, writes down their names in a little notebook, promises to send them a book, his own book apparently, to continue their conversation. We flag down a car, bundle him into it and send him northwards.
Now Na’im and I start assessing the situation. One of the front wheels is really embedded in the tree, wrapped around it. Na’im crawls between the tree and the crushed hood to free the wheel, I pass him the tools. A good boy. What would I do without him? For a full hour he struggles there until he succeeds in freeing the wheel, comes out covered in sweat, takes the end of the cable, ties it to his belt and gets down on the ground again, crawling right underneath the car. It’s a wonder how the headmaster survived. Dafi wasn’t far wrong, he could easily have been killed. He himself doesn’t realize how lucky he was.
We start to move the car. Pieces fall off it, a headlight, a bumper, a door handle. Na’im explains to me how the truck must be positioned, at what angle, the boy’s already starting to give me instructions. But I don’t care, I just want to get the job done and go home. Na’im operates the winch and starts drawing the car away from the tree, but the tree doesn’t want to be parted from it, branches break off, clinging to the car. A small crowd watches us in silence. The dawn is breaking fast. Birds chirp. On the back of the tow truck hangs a wrecked car wearing a laurel of leaves. A strange sight. Cars passing on the road slow down, people stare curiously through their windows. Somebody stops. “How many killed?” he asks Na’im but he doesn’t answer.
His clothes are torn and dirty, his hands cut, his face oily, but there’s no denying he’s learned a lot in these night trips. Now he secures the car with extra ropes and I move the truck to the side of the road.
It’s already daylight. Na’im goes to collect the tools, switches off the flashing lights on the road and picks up the bits that have fallen off the car. I stand still, exhausted, smoking a cigarette, my clothes wet with dew. Na’im comes to me and shows me a piece of black metal. “Is this a part of it too?” I glance at it. “No, that looks like part of the other car.” He’s about to throw it away in the grass at the roadside but suddenly I stop him. Something in the shape of the metal reminds me of something. I snatch it from his hand. I recognize it at once. A piece of the bumper of a black Morris. The same model. Nobody can compete with me when it comes to an eye for car parts. I feel elated. Rapidly the light grows stronger. The morning mists have gone. A day of hamsin ahead of us. I stand at the roadside, a piece of bumper in my hand. Black, admittedly, but belonging to a 1947 Morris. Clear and living evidence. I examine it closely, turning it over in my hand, there are drops of dew on it. Na’im lies back on the bank beside me, looking at me angrily. He doesn’t understand what the delay is. I examine the paint, the paintwork is crude, an amateur job.
“A small screwdriver …” I whisper.
And the screwdriver is there in my hand. Carefully I scrape off the layer of black paint, blue shows through underneath, the colour of the Morris that I’ve been searching for desperately since the end of the war.
I trembled –
NA’IM
What’s with him? He’s got hold of a bit of metal and has fallen in love with it, doesn’t want to let it go. Has he gone soft in the head? And I used to think of him as a little god.
I’m so tired. He hasn’t done anything here. He doesn’t work now, he doesn’t bend down, doesn’t move, he’s even stopped giving advice. Already he’s sure I can do it all without him. The cables, the hitching up, the winch. Before he has time to tell me anything I already know what he’s thinking and I do it by myself. If he had to do the job by himself the car would still be hanging in the tree. His mind’s somewhere else, you can tell. All the time looking around for something like he’s waiting for something and he hasn’t decided yet what it is.
What is this, is he sick? Fingering that bit of metal like I’ve given him gold. It’s morning already, what does he think he’s doing? How much longer are we going to stand here? I’m nearly asleep on my feet. This is the hardest tow job we’ve had yet. That old man planted his car in the middle of that tree, smashed it up, I still don’t see how he got out of it alive. And I’ve got myself torn and scratched all over, crawling under the car. Who for? What for? If only Dafi was here. God, sometimes I miss her terribly. But she’s not here, she’s finished with me, no point in trying any more.
What does he want now? He’s off his head. What’s he thinking about? He might at least give me some money. He’s got so much money and I’ve done a real professional job for him here. He reckons if he gives me a hundred pounds now and then that’s enough. What’s a hundred pounds these days? I can spend twenty or thirty pounds in just one outing, quite easily. An average sort of meal, the movies, a few nuts and a pack of Kent and I’m on my way home with only coins in my pockets. Lucky I’m not smoking cigars yet or inviting some lady out to dinner. Give me some money at least. Once I used to take it carefully, shyly, now I just grab it off him and stuff it straight in my pocket. So what? I haven’t yet seen him empty his wallet for me.