A Wall of Light (15 page)

“I’ll get off here, thanks for the lift. You’d better go, you’ll be late for your class,” I told her. “I’ll be fine.”

She nodded with patronizing tact: she thought I wanted to assert my independence in spite of my deficiency, as she saw it. In fact, I just wanted to be alone.

“Thank you,” I repeated, and I jumped out of the car, waved good-bye, and walked toward the wall.

N
OAH’S DIARY
, J
ULY
5, 1986.

In the news: mayhem in the Shin Bet. Also, a
Palestinian was killed by a bomb he was handling.
I’m glad it was him and not me, but I must say
,
these Palestinians have no luck in anything.

J
ust back from Eilat, four days with Ilanit and her mother. Ilanit was heavily chaperoned during the day but managed to sneak out of her room at night while her mother slept. I don’t think her mother would have minded all that much. She’s a tiny, jumpy woman who seems to be expecting lightning to hit her at any moment. I’m surprised Ilanit’s father trusts his wife to keep an eye on us, but maybe it’s me he trusts. They’ve decided I’m an okay boyfriend for Ilanit. Actually, Ilanit’s father and brothers are not as old-fashioned as I thought. I think Ilanit exaggerated the danger. Her father is really nice, he just doesn’t want her to get pregnant, and neither do I! In fact, if you compare him to Dad, he’s probably
less
protective. Dad gave me about 600 safety rules to follow before we left.

I’ve thought about it long and hard, especially when we were down in Eilat, and I’ve come to the conclusion, even though I’m sad about it, that I don’t love Ilanit—and what’s worse, I know for sure that I never will. It’s the way she eats
leben
in the morning, with a spoon, scooping it out bit by bit in this irritating way. Or the way she looks at herself after she puts lipstick on. Or how mad she got at the waiter—it’s true he was hostile, but she just gets so mad. I mean, who cares? Why let things like that get to you? I never noticed her chin before she got mad at that waiter. Suddenly all I could think about was her chin, and the way it looked when she was telling him off. All day I couldn’t stop obsessing about it and I realized I would never be able to get past her chin, it’s just too pointy. Also I hate to say this, but she doesn’t really have a sense of humor. It’s not that she doesn’t get jokes. I mean she’s very sharp, she’s always correcting people’s Hebrew (a national pastime) and she writes really good poetry. She even corrected my Hebrew once or twice, and I’m good at stuff like that. But she just doesn’t find things funny. Probably none of this would matter if I loved her. They’re not the cause but the effect. Basically, I don’t know why I don’t love her. I tried to love her but I didn’t succeed.

But the terrible thing is that she loves me and I think if I leave her she’ll go crazy. She was a mess when Guy left her and she says she never really loved him—she says it’s only now that she knows what real love is. She says things like she would die for me and so on. It creeps me out a bit. It got me thinking who would I die for. I don’t mean like running through fire, which you might do even for strangers if they were trapped in a house or something. I mean, where you know for sure you’ll die if you save someone else. But I couldn’t think of any situation where I’d have to make that choice in real life. If someone started shooting, for example, I might cover Ilanit with my body, but not because I love her. It would just be instinct. In fact, even though I’d cover her with my body, I’m going to have to leave her sooner or later. It would only make her unhappy if I stayed with her out of pity, and I can’t ruin my life just to avoid hurting her.

Maybe she means that she’d feel like dying if I died. The only people I feel that way about are Oren and Sonya and Mom and Dad. That’s it. I’ll be sad when Gran dies but not as much because she’s old and also getting very confused. Lately she’s been leaving the house and getting lost. Dad hopes she can go on living with us. He’s put a loud bell on the door so we can hear her if she wanders out in the middle of the night. During the day the Fireman from Ilanit’s building comes over and looks after her.

Another thing I’ve been wondering about lately is whether Dad and Mom are thinking about divorcing. They haven’t said anything but it’s really tense in the house. Dad wanted us to go on a family vacation to Italy and Greece, but Mom said she couldn’t leave her work. He won’t go without her and everyone’s in a bad mood now, except for Sonya. She’s aware of what’s going on, of course, but it doesn’t affect her mood. How does she do that? Maybe because they’re not her parents.

It’s really late, I should get to sleep.

L
ETTER TO
A
NDREI
, A
PRIL
5, 1957

D
arling, what a joy it was to find your letter in the mail today! And do you know, I almost didn’t get it! We have some mailbox thieves here and they opened your letter, looking I suppose for money, but luckily when they found nothing they dropped the letter on the ground. And there it was when I came home! My heart was pounding as I opened it.

But of course your news did not make me very happy. Please follow your doctor’s orders, dear. You must look after yourself so that one day we can meet again. You say your life has lost all meaning since we parted. Please, please, darling, remember how we all depend on you. Darling Olga, and the two of us, and all your colleagues and friends who adore you and look up to you. As for the rest of your family, you must not let them upset you. Don’t let those dark moods win you over, darling. I daydream constantly about how I will show you everything here, and how we will laugh together.

For example, when I buy butter, by the time I get home not only has it started to melt, but the blue print from the thin wrapping has seeped onto the butter! (It’s a real extravagance to buy such a luxury item, but Kostya and I love Israeli butter—once the blue print has been scraped off, that is—and once a month we treat ourselves.)You would make one of your jokes about the blue print, as you always did when we had similar difficulties at home.

And when I walk down the streets I imagine you breathing in the glorious smells of this city—for no matter how dreary I feel upon waking, as soon as I step outside, the city’s fragrances fill me with optimism and soften my heart. The scents come from certain plants that grow here in profusion, but I’m afraid I can’t tell you their names.

Another thing that would interest you, dearest, is the number of somewhat insane people walking freely on the streets here and accepted by all. Of course, you and I are used to seeing drunk people at home singing and so forth, but these people don’t drink. Some of them talk to themselves. Many of them have sudden outbursts of anger at storekeepers, or at customers if they are the ones running the store. They begin to shout and shout, a real tirade that makes very little sense and then ends suddenly, after ten or fifteen minutes. Often they begin to weep in a strange bellowing voice. Some have strange tics and movements, and act in very odd ways. Others are always certain that someone is following them and conspiring against them. We have one such woman in our building. They are everywhere, these mad people! No one would dream of locking them away. That is not to say that people don’t often dislike them or yell back at them during their fits. Everyone avoids the woman in our building, who is really quite nasty and always accusing us of imaginary and impossible crimes. But at the same time, these people are allowed to live their lives in peace and some are even teachers and bank tellers and so on.

I think many of them are casualties of the war, and went through hard times in the Nazi camps. I don’t know the details—no one likes to talk about these things here—but I’m sure those places were dreadful. Perhaps others came to Palestine because they were outcasts, and they were outcasts because they were unstable. I believe these mad people are tolerated because there is a sense here that we need every single body and soul, everyone is precious, and that anyone who chooses to live here is heroic to some degree. There is always a great deal of anxiety about having enough people, and if someone announces that they are leaving for the United States or some other place, they are despised and no one talks to them or sees them off. It is considered a great betrayal to leave, and a duty to stay.

I have myself fantasized about the three of us settling in Canada or the United States, simply because my English is so much better than my Hebrew. I feel I will never conquer this complicated language! I would be able to act in America, but here I may have to give up my career for good. But we know no one there and, besides, Kostya loves this country. He loves everything about it and is deeply attached to it. “Like a fish in water,” as they say. And this is the only thing that matters to me.

I know we may have to wait a long time until you find a way to join us, but I also know that one day you will succeed. How I miss your tangled beard, your lined forehead, the way you peer at me through half-open eyes when you are nearly asleep—you, too, must keep these memories alive and not despair.

I’m so glad Olga liked her gifts! I am knitting her a white sweater with silver swans. I cannot write more as I must run off to perform. Our play is a great hit, my love! I have finally memorized my lines perfectly.

I will mail this at once. You can’t imagine how much joy your long letter gave me, with all its detailed descriptions. Your story about the potato soup was so funny! And Olga having conversations with the radio … I have read the letter several times, tears spilling from my eyes. I was like a starving person, devouring every word, imagining your hands, your study, your fountain pen—how cruel, that we cannot even correspond freely! Even this last resort of separated lovers is denied us. But we are finding a way, and we will overcome all obstacles.

Your loving and devoted Annushka.

S
ONYA

T
he wall was made of identical stone rectangles lined up side by side like giant discolored domino pieces, mute and clumsy and immovable. A game of dominos on some distant planet, where everything’s gone wrong.

Two jeeps and three border guards were stationed in front of the wall. I went up to them and asked how I could get through to the other side. They came to life at once: for the third time that day a bored group of people was eagerly gleaning some diversion from my predicament. Hard to believe how many bored people there were in a country as volatile as ours, where not an hour went by without some dramatic event occurring either within our borders or in the territories we’re occupying. But maybe that was exactly the problem: when the world around you was so jittery and unreliable, you had to make an extra effort to keep things in place, and that meant being impassive, cautious, aloof.

I saw myself through their masculine eyes: a tall woman in a black skirt. They wanted sex, and my presence reminded them that they wanted it. I responded defensively; I looked at them sternly and, I hoped, coldly. But they weren’t deterred; they flirted with me and joked around—not in a blatant way, but subtly, through smiles and silly animated head movements.

“ID, please,” the shortest of the three said.

He examined my ID carefully, trying to control laughter; his friend had said something that amused him. A bunch of teenagers were running this place, dominating an entire population, flaunting machine guns—it was just ridiculous.

“Where are you going?” he asked me. He was in fact curious, although he tried to maintain a military imperviousness; he tried to be indifferent. Like the Tin Woodman, except that the guard was hoping to lose his heart, not find it.

“I’m going to see a friend,” I said. “He lives in Mejwan, I have his address here. His mother’s sick,” I added, hoping this would somehow add to my credibility.

His eyes narrowed playfully. “Your boyfriend?” he asked.

“I
hope
so,” I said angrily.

I’d poured cold water on this party, that was clear. The three of them shut down, looked away. A minute ago I’d been fun, now I was a tedious job. The short guard moved toward a clipboard lying on the hood of the jeep. He flipped through lined loose-leaf pages, lifting one after the other, until he reached a blank page. No one was going to convince me that this was an organized or serious enterprise, these pages covered with barely legible handwritten notes, attached to a clipboard. He copied my name and details, then returned my ID as if it were a trivial item for which he had no further use.

He pointed absently at the road that ran along the wall and told me there was a gate further down.

“A gate?” I asked, to make sure I’d understood.

He nodded and waved me on. “I’m completely against this occupation!” I said. “You’re tormenting ordinary people and getting killed in the process. What for?”

He ignored me and I walked away, my heart pounding.

I followed the route of the tall stone blocks. It was interesting seeing the wall up close, after reading so much about it. These heavy blocks were temporary, and would soon be replaced with a more solid construction, three times as high and topped with barbed wire. Unless a miracle happened, that is. A new, enlightened government; international pressure; Elijah descending in his chariot.

Most of the blocks were covered with graffiti. The graffiti was reassuring: a sign of life and commotion. Through the cracks between the blocks I could see slender figures darting here and there. A quarter of a mile further on, just before the wall began to climb upward along a hill, I came across a black metal gate. Unfortunately, it was locked with a padlock. Through the thin black bars I saw a crowd of people milling about, waiting to get through; they looked as if they’d been there a long time, but had nothing better to do than wait. About half were children, scrubbed and neat, their spotless navy school bags slung on their backs. “It’s locked,” they told me, rather redundantly.

Then they said something I couldn’t make out, though it seemed to be advice.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

A child pointed up the hill. I thanked him and walked in the direction he’d indicated, not sure exactly what I was looking for. Maybe there was another gate farther on.

But what I found wasn’t another gate. If one is so far gone as to put up meaningless ugly walls in the middle of neighborhoods, reasonable procedures are not to be expected. Halfway up the hill, people were climbing over the wall, partly hidden from view by a generous willow tree. Yes, the Israeli army was just the sort of army to be fooled by a willow tree! Peering down the hill at the tiny jeep in the distance, I saw that the border guards knew about this expedient crossing—just as they had known that the gate would be locked. I was not surprised.

The climb was not easy: one by one, people scrambled over the wall, I assumed from a ladder on the other side, and let themselves down by seeking with their foot a slight protrusion on this side. Young men and women in good shape jumped, but older people needed help.

This arrangement wasn’t really useful for me, because there was no ladder at my end. “Can I borrow the ladder?” I asked one of the women who had just slipped down. She was elderly, but agile underneath her gray
hijab.
There was some discussion in response to my request on both sides of the wall, transmitted by a man in a suit who was crouching rather precariously on the narrow ledge at the top of the block. He reached over toward me and dropped his briefcase into my outstretched arms; I was the tallest person there. Then he propelled himself, with great difficulty, down the other side. “Is this fair?” he asked me in English. He brushed his suit and walked away with the serene disgust of someone who has decided to triumph by refusing to feel humiliated.

After a moment or two the ladder appeared from behind the wall like a prop in a puppet show. It was, I saw, not a real ladder, but rather an old window frame, and it looked very unreliable. Inch by inch it ascended above the stone block, then tilted forward and came crashing down to the ground. I lifted the frame and set it against the wall, wondering whether it would hold my weight—especially since it had become even more wobbly from the fall. Ladders would be confiscated by the army, I now realized, and a ladder was too expensive an item to risk losing; bits of discarded building materials were more dispensable.

I climbed on the frame, feeling self-conscious in my short skirt. I should have worn something sturdier and less revealing for this trip, I thought; I should have worn jeans. But when I dressed, it had not occurred to me that I’d be going farther than Jaffa, and I certainly didn’t think I’d be climbing walls.

I pulled myself up to the top of the wall, and only then wondered how I’d get down the other side. I would have to let my body hang and drop down the remaining distance—there was no choice. I bent over the ridge at stomach level and lowered myself. Now I was afraid to let go, but it was too late to change my mind: I wouldn’t be able to dangle for more than a second, and I couldn’t pull myself up from this position. I was enormously relieved to feel firm hands on my waist, holding on to me and breaking my fall.

I turned around and saw an extremely fierce, masculine woman smiling at me from under her head covering. She was a little frightening: in a children’s play she would definitely be cast as the witch. And yet her touch was gentle and warm; it didn’t match her face. Two adorable little children were clutching at her gown. I wondered whether she was their mother or their grandmother.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m going to Mejwan. Do you know where I can find a taxi?”

She pointed downhill. I thanked her again and walked back the way I’d come, but on this side of the wall. A little further down, the street that ran along the wall met the continuation of the one Lorelei had been forced to abandon, creating an L-shaped intersection that served as an ad hoc city center. A small gathering of men, all standing around uselessly with their hands in their pockets, watched me as I approached. They were identical to their Jewish counterparts on the Israeli side: intelligent, cynical, stoic, sensitive. If ever we had peace we’d get along, I thought tautologically. But really, their whole demeanor was the same as ours. Proud, full of grievances, athletic. I walked toward them and asked whether anyone was going to Mejwan.