I used to avoid morning prayers somehow or other. But I’d attend evening prayers, the prayer book open in my hands, my lips moving, watching them swaying and groaning, and sometimes as the sun went down they’d beat their breasts as if in pain or yearning for something, the devil knows what, exile perhaps, or the Messiah. And yet they couldn’t be called unhappy, far from it. No, they were free men, exempt from military service and affairs of the state, making their way with dignity through a united Jerusalem, looking down with scorn and strangeness on the secular people, who constituted for them a kind of framework and a means.
The winter was already at its height, and there was a lot of work to be done. The old rabbi was always rushing from place to place, he was lucky to have a car and a chauffeur at his service. I used to drive him from place to place, to deliver sermons, to mourn at funerals, to visit the sick or to meet members of his flock at the airport. Moving around Old and New Jerusalem, from west to east, north to south, I got to know all its nooks and crannies, growing ever more attached to this strange wonderful city, of which I still hadn’t yet had my fill.
When I drove him to some yeshiva to deliver a sermon, I wouldn’t stay to listen to him. I never could understand what he was getting at, he always seemed to me to be caught up in imaginary problems. I’d go back to the car and drive to a place of which I was growing increasingly fond, above Mount Scopus, near the church of Tora-Malka. From there not only was the entire city visible, but also the desert horizon and the Dead Sea. From there I could see all, perfectly.
I’d sit in the little car, still marked by the handprints of the Bedouin from Rafah, rain lashing the roof, flicking idly through Hamodia, a newspaper that was always finding its way into the car, as it was provided free by the yeshiva. And through partisan, religious eyes I learned of outbreaks of fighting, prolonged exchanges of fire, precarious truces, weeping and mourning, anger and arguments, as if the war that was over was still festering and fomenting and from its rotting remains a new war was emerging.
If so, what’s the rush –
At last the rain would stop, the skies would clear. I’d throw down the newspaper and leave the car, strolling by the wall of the church, between the puddles, through a cypress grove, the black hat from the desert tilted back on my head, tassels stirring in the breeze. Watching the scraps of fog drifting across the city, bowing slightly to the Arabs watching me from the dark interiors of their shops. I’d noticed that they showed less hostility towards us, the Jews in black, as if we were more naturally a part of their landscape, or maybe just less dangerous.
Bells ringing, monks hurrying by, nodding their heads in greeting. I too, so they think, am a servant of God, in my own way.
Arab children following in my footsteps, amused at the sight of the figure dressed in black. Silence all around. At my feet the grey, wet city. The black car lying at the roadside like a faithful dog.
So why should I make a move? Where should I go? To the ginger-haired girl, who has the list of equipment for which I signed and which I threw away in the desert? To the officer, still no doubt searching for me furiously? To my grandmother, lying in a coma? (Once I called the hospital to hear of any change in her condition.) Or perhaps to you? To hide in your house, not as a lover but as one of the family, living on your charity, a slave to mounting desires.
Yes, desire has not died. There have been some hard days. I haven’t ignored the stealthy glances of the girls of the community. I know that I have only to give a hint to the old rabbi and he’ll arrange a marriage for me. They’re waiting only for a clear sign on my part that I’ve linked my fate to theirs. But this sign I still withhold.
NA’IM
I’m getting out. I tell you I’ve had enough. I can’t take it any more. I’m splitting. Leaving me the whole morning with a tow truck in a gas station and running off to Jerusalem. What am I, a dog? No work no hours no life. He’s stuck me with an old woman who’s dying and when she dies they’ll say I killed her. It’s no good. I’m only a kid and he’s made a loner out of me. A real loner.
At eleven o’clock Hamid arrives and finds me curled up in the back of the truck. Even the great silent one takes pity on me.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“What’s the matter with me?”
“Why are you lying here like this?”
“What else can I do?”
“Where is he?”
“Gone to Jerusalem.”
“Why?”
“Just like that … he’s off his rocker.”
But Hamid won’t hear a word said against his boss.
“Have you started towing again?”
“Don’t know … this is the car of a friend of his … an old man who ran into a tree.”
Hamid looks at the car hanging there, checks the cables.
“Who fixed it like this?”
“I did.”
He doesn’t say anything, just operates the winch and lowers the car to the ground, unties the cables.
“What’s this?” I ask angrily. “What’s wrong with it?”
“It won’t hold like this.”
He works in silence, on his own. Thin and dark, looking for other ways to fix it. I stand and watch him like Adam watched me. Stubborn Arab.
In the end he finishes, we climb aboard and head north.
“What’s new in the village?” I ask.
“Nothing …”
“How’s Father?”
“All right.”
“Tell him I may be coming back to the village.”
“What will you do there?”
“Nothing …”
He doesn’t look at me, driving sort of dryly, easily, changing gears so quietly you’d think it was an automatic. There’s no mechanic like him.
“Is Father angry that I’m not sending him any money?”
“Don’t know …”
By the time I’ve dragged an answer out of him I’ll be dead.
Now and then I see him looking at me suspiciously, like he’s angry.
“What is it?”
Suddenly he says, “Why don’t you get a haircut?”
“This is how they all go around now.”
“All who? Only the Jews …”
“Arabs too …”
“The crazy ones maybe …”
“Why all the fuss?”
But he doesn’t answer. We drive into Haifa, I ask him to drop me off at the old woman’s house.
“You’re still living with her?”
“Yes.”
He smiles a nasty smile to himself, puts me down at the corner of the street and goes on to the garage.
I go up the stairs, ring the bell because she’s never given me a key. Is she asleep? Impossible, she’s always up waiting for me. I knock hard. No answer. Suddenly I get worried and start kicking the door. Silence. The neighbour comes out and looks at me, I want to ask her something but she closes the door straightaway. I start to get really nervous. Going down and seeing the windows open, up again, knocking, going down.
I start walking in the crowded street, beside the stalls in the market, tired and worried. Maybe she really is dead. I look up, maybe she’ll appear at the window. I must get into the house, into my room, sleep in my bed. I cross the street, go into the house opposite. And from the stairs I try to get a glimpse inside the old woman’s apartment. The windows are wide open, the curtains moving slightly in the breeze. There’s my room, the bed all messed up like I left it at night and on the chair in the living room I see her sitting … and from where I’m standing on the other side of the street it looks like she’s smiling to herself, or I’m so tired I’m seeing things.
I’m going nuts, I cross the street in a hurry, run up the stairs and knock, screaming out, “It’s me, Na’im, open up,” but the door doesn’t open.