Friendly Fire (18 page)

And maybe he's right, and this trip really wasn't necessary.

At the edge of the rain-streaked sky, she can see a gray-green patch of the Indian Ocean, with bobbing fishing boats. So the beach is not far from here. On her last trip, Shuli took her along more than once for her long daily walk on the beach. Alone, without husbands by their side, they strolled with complete confidence on the fishermen's dock. Her sister had really enjoyed Yirmiyahu's posting in Tanzania. Once Elinor gave her some grandchildren, she said, maybe she'd want to be nearer to them, but in the meantime she was comfortable in these foreign surroundings, which dampened her pain over the loss of the soldier who had drawn the fire of his friends. Daniela was surprised at the time to have confirmed what she had already suspected: behind the veil of silent, noble grief, strange and difficult feelings burned in her sister regarding her son, and because she feared exposing those feelings inadvertently, she was grateful for the sojourn in an out-of-the-way country not on the map of friends or relatives. Even as she walked alongside the person who was closer to her than any other, alone together on an ocean beach, Shuli preferred to reveal nothing, instead replaying over and over long-forgotten moments from their own childhood and clinging to memories of their parents.

Later on, in her calls from Israel, Daniela took care not to dwell too much on her own children and grandchildren, and given her sister's small interest in other family members and mutual friends, and even smaller interest in political news from her home country, there was little the two sisters could do but rehash their last visit, marvel time and again at the animals in the nature preserve, and recall the naked children splashing in the waves.

The guest again focuses her gaze on the beach and asks herself whether on that terrible day when her sister began to die in the marketplace of Dar es Salaam, she had managed to walk the length of the fishermen's dock.

She turns around in a panic. No, it's not an African man touching her, but rather her brother-in-law, holding two bags in his hand, one filled with banknotes and the other with coins. Beside him is the bank manager, a young cheerful African in shirtsleeves and tie, who knew her sister well and twice even sat next to her at a
meal, in the days when her brother-in-law had more significant dealings with the bank than simple transactions on the account of a remote research dig. Yes, says the bank manager, Jeremy has just told him about her visit to Tanzania, which seems to him worthy and important, for indeed one must not forget the dead, especially those whose souls have departed from them in a far-off place, for only in this way can they return to their homes.

"What? You are also a pagan?" Daniela blurts; her impertinence surprises her as much as anyone.

"I wish I could be," says the young black man, sighing. "It is too late for me. I was born a Muslim, and for me to return to paganism, the rules of the bank would also have to be changed."

And he bows slightly to her and goes to invite the dozing African into his office.

"Do you have more errands?" she asks her brother-in-law impatiently, "or can you show me now where it all began?"

"I do have a few more," he says calmly, "but they're all in the right direction."

Y
A'ARI DOES NOT
require words of love and affection from his wife. It's enough that he has clearly heard her sane voice and his brother-in-law's jesting one. Her last-minute interest in the outcome of the Pinsker Tower controversy also warmed his heart. It's hardly a sign of absentmindedness that from so far away she remembers what troubles him in his daily work. True, she has always known how to surprise him with her unexpected interest in some office problem he happened to mention offhandedly. And because technical matters themselves are foreign to her and beyond her ken, she has made it her business to uncover the hidden sensitivities of employees and clients in order to support her husband in his deliberations and even give him a little advice. When he told her rather flippantly
about the complaints regarding the building on Pinsker Street, for some reason she was intrigued and wanted to hear for herself the howling of the winds that had crept into the elevators her husband designed. But so far her free time had never coincided with a typical windstorm.

He returns to his office. The meeting has continued without him, but it has deteriorated from the technical problems of adding a fifth elevator to an argument about how much the redesign would cost. The chief engineer has just named a substantial figure, and the younger ones all object: until we figure out exactly how to squeeze it in, it's impossible to set a price. But the chief engineer is speaking from financial, not technical, experience. If you don't give a government ministry a big number up front and lock it down with their budget department, at the end of the job instead of a check they'll present you with a book of the prime minister's speeches, autographed with a warm personal message.

Ya'ari interrupts them with a geographical question:

"The African continent is west of Israel, or east?"

"The African continent? What does that mean? West, in general."

Ya'ari laughs. "What does 'in general' mean?"

Now the engineers sense that the boss wants to trip them up with a trick question, so they concentrate and try to imagine a map of the world.

"Both east and west," says one young man finally. "It's a big enough continent for both directions."

Ya'ari explains how his brief absence involved Israel lagging behind his wife in Africa. He chuckles as he admits, to the amazement of his engineers, that despite the distance he was sure that they were at the same longitude, but apparently not. Then he quickly returns the conversation to technical matters, but is careful not to drop any hints about the nighttime sketch folded in his pocket.

At noon he invites his secretary to have lunch with him to clear
up a few things forgotten yesterday. The clear skies and calm air enable the waiter to ask an unseasonable question: Inside or out? Outside, decides Ya'ari, that's a fine idea. Although the secretary feels chilly and would have preferred the warmth inside, she cannot refuse the challenge of the open air, for in winter a sunny day has added value. But she has to leave on her jacket with the fake fur collar, making it hard for her to maneuver between her fork and the pen she uses to write down his instructions.

The weather is getting warmer, and with the calming of the winds his cell phone relaxes, too. The bereaved tenant in the tower is silent, the old woman in Jerusalem has fallen silent, and Gottlieb has also broken off contact. Ya'ari returns to work, looks affectionately at his employees, their faces glowing with digitized wisdom, and enters his office and opens the window. Around the beloved tree are scattered branches and twigs torn off by the recent storms, but this natural pruning has not detracted from its charm. Soon enough, the unknown vine that has colonized it will produce its spectacular red blossoms.

Can it be that Daniela is right? Did Moran actually fear his reserve duty, was his dismissive attitude meant to mask his fears? Ya'ari has never seen any sign of cowardice in his son. Moran, like his cousin Eyal, served in a combat unit, and even took on an extra year as an officer. Yet Daniela often reads their children's minds better than he does. But still, fear? Now? With the territories at the moment on a low flame? Can't a father with two children, whose family has already paid its debt to the homeland, ask for a little consideration?

He phones Efrat's cell, and to his utter astonishment it is picked up at once, but the voice is his granddaughter's.

"Neta, darling, where are you? Not at school?"

"Today's a holiday, Grandpa. Nadi also has off today."

"So where are you two now?"

"Home."

"Home? Great. That's the best place. You're playing?"

"No. On TV right now there's a show for kids."

"TV? What would you do without TV?"

"Nothing."

"Sweetie, give me Imma."

"Imma went out."

"Went out without her phone? How can that be?"

"It can be because she forgot it."

"And who's with you? Grandma?"

"No. A girl is looking after us."

"A girl? Whose girl? Which girl?"

"A girl."

"Who is this girl? What's her name?"

"She didn't say."

"Neta, sweetheart, give me this girl."

"But she's watching TV now."

"That doesn't matter. Tell her your grandpa wants to tell her something important."

The receiver is handed to the girl amid the shouting of children on television.

"Who are you, young lady?"

Her name is Michal, babysitter of the moment, all of ten years old, who lives in the next building.

"And what's going on there, Michal?"

"Nothing."

Ya'ari is furious at his daughter-in-law—

I
N
D
AR ES
S
ALAAM
the rain is soft and languid, and upon leaving the bank Yirmiyahu buys his sister-in-law an umbrella and hires a barefoot porter with a large straw basket belted to his back to carry their purchases through the market.

"It's really so important to you to see this place?" he asks again. "It's just a place in the market, next to some stall. There's nothing special about it."

But the guest is determined to stand on the very spot where death began to grip her sister. For this is also why she made the long trip from Israel.

He holds her arm and guides her carefully between the puddles as he leads her to a tool shed, where after checking a list he loads the porter's basket with small spades, soil strainers, batteries of various sizes, flashlights, and kerosene lamps. He tops off his order with some steel knives, which are also stashed in the basket. Then they walk among fruit and vegetable stalls until they reach the meat and fish market. There, in a small square where a net, torn in places, is spread out, two Indians wait for the white administrator, who pays them for last month's shipment of fish and hands them a new order.

"On that morning, did she take her walk on the beach?"

Yirmiyahu shrugs. "Who knows? I hope so with all my heart, because she so much loved her walks on the beach, and from the time you walked there together it was also bound up with a shared memory. There were days after you returned to Israel that she didn't feel like walking there alone."

"Because I wasn't here?" Daniela's voice quavers, and this knowledge of her sister's sorrow finally awakens her own.

They enter an open area of clothing stalls, hung with dresses and robes and colorful shirts and stacked with rolls of Indian fabric, and as if from the center of the earth there appears beside them another porter; Yirmi loads his basket with army blankets that on cold nights will warm the bones of the scientists. The Israeli visitor, wedged between passersby of various races, is struck by a clear recognition of the place. She stood exactly here on her previous visit. Shuli took her and Amotz to this very stall. She looks up at the rope stretched lengthwise above her head and sees hanging on it a dress that is the twin of her own. This is the spot, she says to herself,
this is the spot, and in her memory arises an image of Shuli, firm and decisive, rejecting Amotz's aggressive suggestion that she buy herself a dress to match Daniela's as an occasional substitute for her mourning clothes.

The administrator of the scientific team piles coins and small bills onto the African's open palms, and then takes his leave from him with a hearty embrace. But before he can go to another stall, Daniela tugs at his shirt.

"Am I right that this is the place where she stopped and first felt dizzy?"

For a moment he is amazed, and studies his sister-in-law with affection.

"More or less. Not far from here. You see that big rock? She sat down on it. And this man, the one I just bought the blankets from, noticed her distress from far away, and she managed to send him to alert me. But when I got there, she was already gone. She had lost consciousness, and four people picked her up and began to run with her to the hospital. But where did you get the idea this was the place?"

"Because we were with her here on the last visit," Daniela cries, "here is where we bought the dress I'm wearing now, and Amotz pleaded with her to buy the same one..."

And she points to the dress dangling above them.

"No," he says decisively, "don't start looking for mysticism that isn't here. That doesn't become you. This is no place in particular. This is simply a stop along the way to the diplomatic office; she passed by here every day. And don't get too worked up about your dress either. Dresses like these, if you look closely, are hanging on every corner."

The visitor shakes her head. Her heart is pounding.

"And where is the hospital they took her to?"

"They didn't make it to the hospital. Along the way they took her to an infirmary, sort of a small public clinic."

"Please, Yirmi, take me to that clinic."

"But it's already a bit late. The train leaves in an hour, and I thought we'd get something to eat."

"I don't care about food. Take me to the clinic."

"But why? It's just a clinic. Why does it matter to you?"

"Because that's why I came all the way from Israel."

N
OW FUMING,
Y
A'ARI
backs up the file he was working on in a futile attempt to calm down, exits the program, and turns off the computer. He closes the window, puts on his jacket, and says to the secretary, I have to go to my grandchildren. If someone needs me, I'm on my cell. He drives to his son's building in the north of the city, and this time does not hesitate to commandeer the apartment's vacant parking spot. He doesn't bother to ring the bell; he uses his own key, enters a dark apartment, and calls out cheerfully: Children, look who's here.

On the floor in front of the television sit his grandson and granddaughter. The short, pudgy girl between them must be that ten-year-old babysitter, who does not however lack initiative and ingenuity, since she has located the electric switch that shuts the blinds, darkening the living room and enhancing, as at a movie theater, the illusory reality of the characters prancing on the screen. Neta and Nadi gape for a moment at their energetic grandpa, but they are drained and lethargic from long hours of staring at that addictive machine and do not rise to greet him.