Scenes from Village Life (2 page)

"I'm listening," said Arieh Zelnik.

"The Zelniks, the descendants of Leon Akaviah Zelnik, were, if I am not mistaken, among the founders of this village. You were among the very first settlers, were you not? Ninety years ago? Nearly a hundred almost?"

"His name was Akiva Arieh, not Leon Akaviah."

"Of course," the visitor enthused. "We have great respect for the history of your illustrious family. More than respect, admiration! First, if I am not mistaken, the two elder brothers, Semyon and Boris Zelkin, came from a little village in the district of Kharkov, to establish a brand-new settlement here in the heart of the wild landscape of the desolate Manasseh Hills. There was nothing here. Just a desolate plain covered in scrub. There were not even any Arab villages in this valley; they were all on the other side of the hills. Then their little nephew arrived, Leon, or, if you insist, Akaviah Arieh. And then, at least so the story goes, first Semyon and then Boris returned to Russia, where Boris killed Semyon with an ax, and only your grandfather—or was it your great-grandfather?—Leon Akaviah remained. What's that, he was called Akiva, not Akaviah? I'm sorry. Akiva then. To cut a long story short, it turns out that we, the Maftsirs, also come from Kharkov District! From the very forests of Kharkov! Maftsir! Maybe you've heard of us? We had a well-known cantor in the family, Shaya-Leib Maftsir, and there was also a certain Grigory Moiseyevich Maftsir, who was a very high-ranking general in the Red Army, until he was killed by Stalin in the purges of the 1930s."

The man stood up and mimed the stance of a member of a firing squad, making the sound of a salvo of rifle fire and displaying sharp but not entirely white front teeth. He sat down again, smiling, on the bench, seemingly pleased with the success of the execution. Arieh Zelnik had the feeling the man might have been waiting for applause, or at least a smile, in exchange for his own saccharine grin.

The host chose, however, not to smile back. He pushed the used glass and the jug of ice water to one side and said:

"Yes?"

Maftsir the lawyer clasped his left hand with his right hand and squeezed it joyfully, as if he had not met himself for a long time and this unexpected encounter filled him with gladness. Underneath the flood of words there bubbled up an inexhaustible gush of cheerfulness, a Gulf Stream of self-satisfaction.

"Well then. Let us begin to lay our cards on the table, as they say. The reason I took the liberty of intruding on you today has to do with the personal matters between us, and it may also have something to do with your dear mother, God grant her a long life. With that dear old lady, I mean to say. Always provided, of course, that you have no particular objection to broaching this delicate matter?"

"Yes," said Arieh Zelnik.

The visitor stood up, took off his beige jacket, which was the color of dirty sand, revealing large sweat marks in the armpits of his white shirt, put the jacket on the bench and seated himself again.

"Excuse me," he said. "I hope you don't mind. It's just that it's such a hot day. Do you mind if I take my tie off too?" For a moment he looked like a frightened child who knew that he deserved a reprimand but was too shy to beg. This expression soon vanished.

When his host said nothing, the man pulled his tie off, with a gesture that reminded Arieh Zelnik of his son Eldad.

"So long as we have your mother on our hands," he remarked, "we can't realize the value of the property, can we?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Unless we find her an excellent place in a truly excellent home. And I happen to have such a home. Or rather, my partner's brother does. All we need is her consent. Or perhaps it would be simpler for us to certify that we have been appointed her guardians? In which case we would no longer require her consent."

Arieh Zelnik nodded a few times and scratched the back of his right hand. It was true that once or twice recently he had found himself thinking about what would happen to his ailing mother, and to him, when she lost her physical or mental independence, and wondering when the time to make a decision would come. There were moments when the possibility of parting from his mother filled him with sorrow and shame, but there were also moments when he almost looked forward to the possibilities that would open up before him when she was finally out of the house. Once he had even had Yossi Sasson, the real estate agent, round to value the property. These suppressed hopes had filled him with feelings of guilt and self-loathing. He found it strange that this repulsive man seemed able to read his shameful thoughts. He therefore asked Mr. Maftsir to go back to the beginning and explain precisely whom he represented. On whose behalf had he been sent here?

Wolff Maftsir chuckled. "Not Mr. Maftsir. Just call me Maftsir. Or Wolff. Between relatives there's no need for Mr."

ARIEH ZELNIK STOOD UP
. He was a much taller and larger man than Wolff Maftsir and he had broader, stronger shoulders, even if they both had the same long arms that reached almost to their knees. He took two steps toward his visitor and towered over him as he said:

"So what is it you want."

He said these words without a question mark, and as he spoke he undid the top button of his shirt, revealing a glimpse of a gray, hairy chest.

"What's the hurry, sir," Wolff Maftsir said in a conciliatory tone. "Our business needs to be discussed carefully and patiently, from every angle, so as not to leave any chink or opening. We must not get our details wrong."

To Arieh Zelnik the visitor looked limp or sagging. As though his skin were too big for him. His shirt hung loosely from his shoulders, like an overcoat on a scarecrow. And his eyes were watery and rather murky. At the same time there was something scared about him, as though he feared a sudden insult.

"Our business?"

"I mean to say, the problem of the old lady. I mean your dear mother. Our property is still registered in her name, and it will be until her dying day—and who can say what she has taken it into her head to write in her will—or until the two of us manage to get ourselves appointed her guardians."

"The two of us?"

"This house could be knocked down and replaced by a sanatorium. A health farm. We could develop a place here that would be unequaled anywhere in the country: pure air, bucolic calm, rural scenery that's up there with Provence or Tuscany. Herbal treatments, massage, meditation, spiritual guidance. People would pay good money for what our place could offer them."

"Excuse me, how long have we known each other exactly?"

"But we are old friends. More than that, we are relatives. Partners, even."

By standing up Arieh Zelnik may have intended to make his visitor stand up too and take his leave. But the latter remained seated, and he reached out to pour some more water with lemon and mint into the glass that had been Arieh Zelnik's until he had appropriated it. He leaned back in his chair. Now, with the sweat marks in the armpits of his shirt, without his jacket and tie, Wolff Maftsir looked like a leisurely cattle dealer who had come to town to negotiate a deal, patiently and craftily, with the farmers, a deal from which, he was convinced, both sides would benefit. There was a hidden malicious glee in him that was not entirely unfamiliar to his host.

"I have to go indoors now," Arieh Zelnik lied. "I have something to see to. Excuse me."

"I'm in no hurry." Wolff Maftsir smiled. "If you have no objection I'll just sit and wait for you here. Or should I go inside with you and make the lady's acquaintance? After all, I don't have much time to gain her trust."

"The lady," Arieh Zelnik said, "does not receive visitors."

"I am not exactly a visitor," Wolff Maftsir insisted, standing up, ready to accompany his host indoors. "After all, aren't we, so to speak, almost related? And even partners?"

Arieh Zelnik suddenly recalled his daughter Hilla's advice to give up her mother, not to strive to bring her back to him, and to try to start a new life. And surely the truth was that he had not fought very hard to bring Na'ama back: when she had gone off after a furious quarrel to visit her best friend Thelma Grant, Arieh Zelnik had packed up all her clothes and belongings and sent them off to Thelma's address in San Diego. When his son Eldad severed all ties with him, he had packed up Eldad's books and even his childhood toys and sent them to him. He had cleared out every reminder of him, as one clears out an enemy position when the fighting is over. After a few more months, he had packed up his own belongings, given up the flat in Haifa, and moved in with his mother here in Tel Ilan. More than anything, he desired total peace and quiet: a succession of identical days and nothing but free time.

Sometimes he went for long walks around the village and beyond, among the hills that surrounded the little valley, through the fruit orchards and dusky pine woods. And sometimes he wandered for half an hour among the remains of his father's long-abandoned farm. There were still a few dilapidated buildings, chicken coops, corrugated-iron huts, a barn, the deserted shed where they had once fattened calves. The stables had become a storeroom for the furniture from his old flat on Mount Carmel, in Haifa. Here in the former stables, the armchairs, sofa, rugs, sideboard and table gathered dust, all bound together with cobwebs. Even the old double bed he had shared with Na'ama was standing there on its side in a corner. And the mattress was buried under piles of dusty quilts.

Arieh Zelnik said: "Excuse me. I'm busy."

Wolff Maftsir said:

"Of course. I'm sorry. I won't disturb you, my dear fellow. On the contrary. From now on I won't make a sound."

He stood up and followed his host inside the house, which was dark and cool and smelled faintly of sweat and old age.

Arieh Zelnik said firmly:

"Please wait for me outside."

Although what he had meant to say, and with a degree of rudeness, was that the visit was now over and that the stranger should get going.

BUT IT NEVER
occurred to the visitor to leave. He floated indoors on Arieh Zelnik's heels, and on the way, along the passageway, he opened each door in turn and calmly inspected the kitchen, the library and the workroom where Arieh Zelnik pursued his hobby and where model aircraft made of balsa wood hung from the ceiling, stirring slightly with each draft as though preparing for some ruthless aerial combat. He reminded Arieh Zelnik of the habit he himself had had, since childhood, of opening every closed door to see what lurked behind it.

When they reached the end of the passage, Arieh Zelnik stood and blocked the entrance to his bedroom, which had once been his father's. But Wolff Maftsir had no intention of invading his host's bedroom; instead he tapped gently on the deaf old lady's door, and as there was no reply, he laid his hand caressingly on the handle and, opening the door gently, saw Rosalia lying on the big double bed, covered up to her chin with a blanket, her hair in a hairnet, eyes closed, and her angular, toothless jaw moving as if she were chewing.

"Just like in our dream." Wolff Maftsir chuckled. "Greetings, dear lady. We missed you so much and we were so longing to come to you, you must be very pleased to see us?"

So saying, he bent over and kissed her twice, a long kiss on either cheek, and then kissed her again on the forehead. The old lady opened her cloudy eyes, drew a skeletal hand out from under the blanket and stroked Wolff Maftsir's head, murmuring something or other and pulling his head toward her with both hands. In response, he bent closer, took off his shoes, kissed her toothless mouth and lay down at her side, pulling at the blanket to cover them both.

"There," he said. "Hello, my very dear lady."

Arieh Zelnik hesitated for a moment or two, and looked out of the open window at a tumbledown farm shed and a dusty cypress tree up which an orange bougainvillea climbed with flaming fingers. Walking around the double bed, he closed the shutters and the window and drew the curtains, and as he did so he unbuttoned his shirt, then undid his belt, removed his shoes, undressed and got into bed next to his old mother. And so the three of them lay, the woman whose house it was, her silent son and the stranger who kept stroking and kissing her while he murmured softly, "Everything is going to be all right, dear lady. It's all going to be lovely. We'll take care of everything."

THE VILLAGE WAS
swathed in the premature darkness of a February evening. Apart from Gili Steiner, there was no one else at the bus stop, which was lit by a pale streetlamp. The council offices were closed and shuttered. Sounds of television came through the shutters of the nearby houses. A stray cat padded on velvet paws past the trash cans, tail erect, belly slightly rounded. Slowly it crossed the road and vanished in the shade of the cypress trees.

The last bus from Tel Aviv reached Tel Ilan every evening at seven o'clock. Dr. Gili Steiner had come to the bus stop in front of the council offices at twenty to seven. She worked as a family doctor at the Medical Fund clinic in the village. She was waiting for her nephew, Gideon Gat, her sister's son, who was in the army. He had been studying at the Armored Corps training school when he was discovered to have a kidney problem that required hospitalization. Now that he was out of the hospital, his mother had sent him to convalesce for a few days with her sister in the country.

Dr. Steiner was a thin, desiccated, angular-looking woman with short gray hair, severe features and square rimless glasses. She was energetic yet looked older than her forty-five years. In Tel Ilan she was considered an excellent diagnostician—hardly ever wrong in her diagnoses—but people said she had a dry, abrasive manner and showed no sympathy for her patients; she was simply an attentive listener. She had never married, but people her age in the village remembered that when she was young she had had a love affair with a married man who was killed in the Lebanon War.

She sat on her own on the bench at the bus stop, waiting for her nephew and peering at her watch from time to time. In the faint glow of the streetlight it was hard to make out the hands, and she could not tell how much time she had left to wait. She hoped the bus would not be late and that Gideon would be on board. He was an absent-minded young man who was perfectly capable of getting on the wrong bus. Presumably, now that he was recovering from a serious illness, he was more absent-minded than ever.