the Debba (2010) (27 page)

56

T
HEY SAT ON CHAIRS,
they stood against walls, crammed themselves between the repainted crumbling columns, filled the cavernous hall with a hot, silent, humid presence--to the left the Arabs, to the right the Jews, the two peoples; and not a sound could be heard. Aside from the chirping of some walkie-talkies and the distant drone of cars outside, there hung over the audience an absolute deathly silence.

I watched them, my heart seizing; and as I sat there, sick with terror and longing, wrapping the keffiyeh around my face, I no longer knew whether it was my father's play I was longing for, to finally see performed as he had asked me, or whether I was merely waiting for it to end, so I could hold Ruthy just one more time, even though I might then be killed by my pursuers--

From behind the reddish curtain came muffled whispers. I rose slightly in my seat, devouring the sound. A hand tapped on my knee. "Lower your eyes!"

Two men in blue Atta jeans were passing in the row before us, looking into faces. A third walked behind, hand at the small of his back. In the first row, turning in his seat, Gershonovitz followed them with his Mongolian eyes.

The two
shoo-shoo
men approached slowly, stooping; I felt my body tense up--and at that same moment the lights dimmed and the curtain slowly folded back to reveal Yissachar in mourning, before a large leather lump, his dead horse. Behind him shone Mount Gilbo'a, dark and flat and primordial.

The two men retreated, muttering, to lean against a wall.

"O friend and companion," Yissachar sang on the shallow stage, "on whose back I rode in my ancestors' fields, who plowed with me the bosom of my motherland--"

From the audience came a low hum, like a beast raising itself up. Absurdly, a walkie-talkie crackled somewhere, as though it, too, were moved by the song. There was a creak, as the color wheel rotated, and a blue light was turned on; then, from behind a rock, rose Amatzia Besser in a striped blue
abbaya
, charmed out of his lair by Yissachar's song.

The hum in the audience intensified, like some unknown machinery beginning to rev up.

"You have charmed me, O son of man," Amatzia sang in a hard voice, "against my will you have turned me from all I know--"

In the first row, Gershonovitz, his face twisted, was staring at the stage as if seeing other people there, and other events unfolding. Amzaleg at his side, in a white shirt also, looked like a grown-up boy on a night out with his father. And then, as my eyes slowly got accustomed to the gloom, I saw behind them the shining pate of Mr. Gelber, and at his side, to my dull astonishment, Colonel Shafrir, and the bulk of Asa Ben-Shlomo--and by the wall, Ittamar the beggar, today in a clean, embroidered Russian
rubashka
, his hair combed ...

"--against my will," sang Amatzia, "I shall help you cut the furrows of my cradle, this land--"

And the entire
bohema
was there, too, seated near the wall: Riva Yellin, Tzipkin, old Benvenisti, erect and tense in a white shirt--

Everyone had come to hear my father's words spoken, and sung. Everyone. They had fought the play, they had battled it at every turn, but they had all come.

Another walkie-talkie crackled; and then there was a collective hiss, an indrawn breath, as Ruthy emerged from behind the cardboard Gilbo'a, her hair dyed black, and stood staring with fulminating wonder into the Debba's eyes.

"Why have you this shiny pelt that asks to be caressed--"

One more crackle, and then a scream; and another.

Two frenzied boys in orange shirts had scrambled up the stairs and were now running to and fro on stage, their arms windmilling.

The Debba sang on, "O beautiful daughter of man, whose skin is thin yet hard as steel, whose eyes are soft as morning light--"

More shouts.

Ruthy cowered behind the rock, her hands laced on her stomach.

"Sit down,
ya 'ibni!
Sit!" Abdallah hissed at me.

On the stage, one boy swung a chair, and the Debba stumbled; then it rose to its feet, swung both arms, the fists locked. The boy went tumbling, yelping weakly.

Voices rose in the hall, angry and insistent.

Kagan, his hair wild, was on his feet, wobbling. "Jews!" he cried in Yiddish. "Jews! I beg of you! Do not--"

Then he was down. Three more orange shirts had careened past him down the aisle, holding long sticks. More screams in the crowd.
"Cholerot
of Kahane!"

"Sit down!" Abdallah tugged at my
abbaya
. "Sit!"

I tore away from him. A mass of bodies writhed around me; orange shirts, and a few
abbayas
. There was an unearthly howling in my ears.

Who was yowling like that?

On stage, Ehud was grappling with a large man in an orange T-shirt, stumbling this way and that. As I watched, Ehud suddenly snapped his fingers above the man's head, then, in an eyeblink, twisted sideways and hurled him into the first row. But almost instantly, he was pulled down by two others who had scrambled onto the stage, shouting to each other in military Hebrew.

"--and get the scenery! The scenery! Break it to pieces!"

"--no, no, go after the actors!"

I rose to my feet, the yowling rising again in my ears. A chair broke to my right, on someone's head. Another voice screamed. The audience seethed, boiled. Abdallah was pulling at my
abbaya
. "Let's go,
ya 'ibni!
Let's go from here!"

The yowling rose again.

"Ta'al ho-o-on!'

Who was howling?

"There he is!"

An orange shirt swam into view, and a hand holding a knife--there was a flash of silvery metal--I half twisted--not enough, not enough!--but then an embroidered Russian shirt and a halo of hair stumbled on the arm, deflecting it, and the knife slipped down my ribs, not deep; and then an aluminum cane swung down from the other side, in a long arc. The knife changed direction, flashed in and out.

Abdallah stumbled, a narrow red efflorescence blossoming upon his shirt.

"Ya Daoud!
Ya 'ibni--
"

He fell.

"You piece of Arab
cholera."
Teeth were bared before me. "And you too,
ya
Arab-loving--"

I tried to dive after him, but the crowd swept me away, in a doughy mass of flailing legs and yammering voices, all swimming for the exit. Someone grabbed my neck. I kicked back at a groin, twisted, kicked at another. Howling, I swam against the human tide, toward the stage. It, too, now was a thick stew of bodies, writhing, coalescing. I hopped on the shallow elevation, cupped one hand to my mouth, tore the keffiyeh from my head, and waved it in the air.

"Ta'al ho-on!"

There was a moment of slowness, as though a wave had passed through the writhing, twisting bodies. Two of the men I had seen leaning against the wall started in my direction. "Here he is!"

I stood on the leather mound and kept waving the keffiyeh, howling.
"Ta'al ho-o-o-oo-n!"

All movement toward the exit stopped. Then, like the earth giving up the planted seed after rain, the bedlam began to disgorge men. Some in
abbayas
, some in baggy pants, walking slowly as though waking from a dream, toward the stage.

"Ta'al ho-o-o-n, ya shabbab!"
Rise up and come, O brave ones!

The two tall
shoo-shoo
men swam against the crowd, their eyes fixed on me; to the side came the third, carrying something in his lowered hand.

And then, from the other side of the hall, came other men. Four, five, six. Thin, diffident, their legs moving in floating half steps, shoulders hunched, heads bent forward, half to the side. Anons. I hadn't even known they were here. Then at the far back came another, a bulky frog of a man with a shiny welt under one eye and a clot of blood under his lip. Yaro. Our eyes locked.

Gershonovitz, in his seat, made a motion toward me with his head.

As though from a great distance, I could see Yaro hesitate, then begin to march down the center aisle toward the stage.

"Backup!" I called to him; my voice came out a croak. "Yaro, I need backup!"

Yaro went on walking.

I went into a crouch. Behind me, incongruously, Kagan rose to his feet, swaying.

"Jews!" He wept. "Jews! I am begging of you! For
his
sake--!"

Then he toppled again.

In the aisle, Yaro stopped. He stared at the spot where Kagan had fallen; his face was stricken and hot. All around him the melee seethed and surged. Then, as though shaking himself loose, he continued to move, his eyes no longer on mine. A tall Moroccan spoke to him briefly. When Yaro did not answer, the man started to grab his shoulder; without even pausing Yaro hit him twice, swiftly, almost as an afterthought, once with the elbow in the ribs, the second time with the heel of the palm under the chin. The man crashed sideways into a trio of boys in orange shirts, then to the floor.

I raised my keffiyeh, waving it, waving.

Yaro jumped on the stage. Two thin young men hopped right behind him, their hands held akimbo at their sides.

Yaro stood beside me, his eyes refusing to meet mine.

"Yallah,"
I said. "Later."

Fauzi shouted at me, "We'll take the back of the stage, close the door!" His keffiyeh was askew, his face flaming with emotion. At his side was Ben-Shoshan, the accountant, his head streaming blood.

"No!" Yaro snapped at him. "Stay with Dada and Uddy!"

The two thin men at his side were dangling broken chair legs from the tips of their fingers, swinging them lightly. I recognized them vaguely--they were from my brother's old outfit. They nodded at me slightly, bashfully, while in the hall below the brawl seethed and boiled.

"Ta'al ho-on!"

I jumped down into the hall. It was a mass of bodies, congealing and separating, breaking and joining, in a seething dance of hate. Behind me I saw Ehud and Ben-Shoshan, broomsticks in hand, fanning left, then two of the Arab
shabbab
, holding chairs, fanning right.

Three more men in orange shirts stepped forward.

Ben Shoshan waved his stick in the air.
"'Aleihum!"
At them!

Jews and Arabs, side by side.

"Ta'al ho-o-on!"

A heavy hand grabbed my elbow, hard, at the nerve joint. I swung sideways, once, twice, but couldn't shake it off. I twisted and brought him down, felt a large hand at my throat, and knifed with my knee. It was met with another knee. Another twist; this, too, was resisted. I brought my palm up, on the chin, and met another palm. It was like fighting a doppelganger who knew all my moves in advance. I peered into a dark face, the hooded eyes dark, the mouth gaping in a humorless grin. Amzaleg. His gun was out, a police-issue Parabellum.

"Enough," he said. "I'll take care of the rest."

He pointed the gun at the ceiling and fired once, then again. The sound rolled. There was a frozen silence.

Amzaleg reholstered the gun.

All motion stopped. Then, in the first row, Gershonovitz lumbered to his feet. "No one leaves until the ambulances arrive," he rasped. "This show is over." He pointed his finger at me. "And we want to talk to you."

The silence disintegrated. Policemen poured in through the open door, then men in white, with litters. Groans, and yelps of pain, were heard again.

I said to the fat man, "The show goes on." I pushed him into his seat, roughly.

"This show is finished!" He struggled up, his small mouth quivering with rage.

Amzaleg said, "Their permit says 'till midnight.'"

"Amnon," Gershonovitz hissed, "Amnon, Amnon, you don't know what you're doing--"

But Amzaleg had already left.

After the ambulances had come and gone (Abdallah, I saw from afar, was being taken out alongside a wounded policeman, side by side, on two litters), I saw we had no actors left.

The two principal ones had been taken to Hadassah Hospital, so we had no Yissachar and no Debba. Of the actors playing 'Ittay and Yochanan there was also no trace. Either wounded and taken to the hospital or escaped.

Ehud, miraculously, was safe. Ruthy, too, was unharmed. While everyone else was fighting, she had lain behind the stage, under the Debba's mound, hiding.

She now came out, her hands on her belly. "I--I couldn't," she said. "I had to protect it--"

Ehud stared at her, his eyes colorless.

"Yes," she said, her chin raised, as though ready to be hit. "I am. And not by you."

People came and went, collecting broken chairs and torn shirts.

I said to Ehud, "The two musical directors can do the Friends; they'll just have to sing it in a higher register--"

"I am telling you, Uddy," Ruthy went on, "at last, I am."

In the hall, the audience was sitting down, one by one.

I said to Ehud. "Can you take Yissachar's role? I'll take the Debba."

He looked at me, still saying nothing.

"Everything else, later," I said, gripped by panic. "First we finish the show--"

Ehud said, "But you got to promise me, first, something--"

"Everything later," I said.

"Now!" His face flowed in and out of shape. "You have to promise me now, or there's no show--"

"No!" Ruthy shouted. "No!"

"Promise"--Ehud stared at the floor--"that you'll leave her alone--don't worry about--but you must promise--"

"No!" Ruthy screamed. "Dada, no!"

"--on his grave--"

I looked over my shoulder at Ruthy, then at Ehud; Ben-Shoshan called out at me from behind the stage. I couldn't hear what it was. There was a hum in my ears.

Down at the hall, policemen were helping some men carry the last stretcher through the door. The audience was slowly sitting down; this time the Jews and Arabs sat mixed together wherever they found a chair or on the floor, looking up at the stage, at Ehud, at me. Waiting for my father's song to begin.

There was a long moment of absolutely no movement, no sound.

"Yallah,"
I said at last, through the sand in my larynx. "Let's get into roles."