A Wall of Light (12 page)

L
ETTER TO
A
NDREI
, M
ARCH
19, 1957

D
earest, the wait is becoming intolerable. I wrote to Heinrich last week, asking for news. I hope he will not think it rude of me to question him on his schedule. I am just so very impatient! But I know he is doing his best.

I have some news: I’ve switched restaurants! I was caught stealing. Actually they’ve known for months, but kept me all the same, I don’t know why. I was very lucky: they didn’t call the police—though I’m not afraid of the police here, darling! They all look like such nice boys and you feel they’re on your side, not against you. The owners didn’t even get angry. I think they realized these extra treats were all for Kostya, whom they’ve met several times and liked. I had sensed all along that I was not in any great danger, and that is why I took the chance. In fact, I have a feeling that I was fired for some other reason. Maybe a family relative needs the job.

But this was the best thing that could have happened to me, because I’m now working at a café that just opened up, the most interesting place to work in the entire city, I think. I got this job through Orlando. All sorts of talented artists and writers and musicians congregate here. This is a much better job for me, and though I only started last week, I have already been asked to sing once an evening. It started quite by accident, when I pointed out that a song someone was singing was originally Russian—at least the melody. And I sang the original. The owner was so pleased that he asked me to sing a Russian song each night. It turns out that many Hebrew songs have borrowed Russian melodies, and those are the ones everyone likes to hear. Thanks to my singing, which attracts customers, I received a small raise.

I bought a dress with the few extra pounds. I should have spent it on books for Kostya, but I have not had a new dress since I arrived, and it was very cheap. A long, flowered off-the-shoulders dress—I couldn’t resist. How I yearn for you to see me in it, to run your hands down my body …

Kostya brought a friend for supper, which he cooked entirely himself! A red-haired boy, covered from head to toe with freckles. I’ve never seen such a freckled person. Maybe the sun brings out freckles here if one has a natural tendency to that sort of pigmentation. I suppose fair-haired people were never really meant to live so close to the equator. I find I need to hide constantly under wide-brimmed hats and sunglasses and light cotton shawls in order to avoid the sun, for even the tops of my feet burn between the straps of my sandals!

It was a lovely evening. Kostya made all sorts of dishes that Carmela has taught him to prepare, and with the most affordable ingredients. Everything was delicious. The two boys spoke about politics the entire time. Imagine knowing so much about that sort of thing at age twelve! Children here are quite astute. They worry a great deal about war. They are constantly afraid of war breaking out, they seem to think it’s an ever-present danger, just waiting around the corner. Kostya is only slightly more optimistic than his friend. His friend is frightened every time his parents leave the house—what if war breaks out while they’re away? Kostya assured him that there will be some warning signs and we’ll know at least a few weeks in advance, but he agrees that it’s quite likely there will be a major war sooner or later.

I can’t form an opinion because I don’t follow the news at all. I’ve just had all the news I can take, it seems! I am constantly counting our money and trying to figure out what we can afford, and that takes up all my concentration. I have to admit that even if I wanted to follow the news I wouldn’t be able to, because I can’t read most of the newspapers here—the Hebrew ones are all printed without vocalization and it makes me dizzy just trying to decipher the headlines. Kostya sometimes reads articles aloud to me, but I’m afraid my mind wanders. It’s all so complicated! One minister says this, another says that, there are so many parties … I will only hope for the best.

I am very happy about one thing, however. I have heard that soldiers here can choose not to go into combat! And what’s even better, in the case of only children, the parent must agree to let the son go into combat, I believe. That is a great relief, for I shall never give my permission, never. I know it’s very selfish of me, for why should someone else lose her son and not me? Why should another young man die defending us in place of Kostya? But there you are, that’s how I feel. I suppose I am very unpatriotic. If I told people, I’m sure they would be so disgusted they’d never speak to me again. One man here lost his three sons in a single week during the War of Independence and now he’s alone and never speaks to anyone. There are many such sad stories, but I’m afraid they don’t change my passionate feelings about Kostya. I tell myself he can contribute to this state in many other ways, with all his talents, but I know that is merely an excuse. The truth is that I am too selfish to give him up and too selfish on his behalf to let him give himself up.

Next week is Olga’s birthday. I am enclosing a handkerchief I embroidered for her. Do you like the little chicks? I was pleased with the way they came out. Darling. Where are you?

S
ONYA

I
don’t know about you, Sonya, but I’m famished,” Kostya said. “I haven’t had lunch. How about a bite before we head out for Jerusalem?”

“Sure,” I said. My brother suggested an Italian restaurant near the American embassy, which he said had excellent food. I was very impatient and would have preferred grabbing falafel at a stand, but it made me happy to see my brother garnering some pleasure from life.

He drove to a gravel parking lot, paid the attendant, and parked the car. I had a sudden craving for a cigarette, though I had only ever smoked for six months when I was fourteen. Kostya had found out and made me stop. “I want a cigarette,” I said.

“You’ll regret it,” Kostya said as we walked to the restaurant. “Besides, we’ll be eating soon.”

“I said I wanted a cigarette,” I declared petulantly. “I didn’t say I was going to smoke one. Bossy!”

“Sorry.”

“I wonder whether Noah’s lapsed.” Noah had quit only recently. He’d phoned Kostya from Berlin and said, ‘I’m in the bath, and I’m smoking my last cigarette.’ Then, with Kostya as symbolic witness, he drowned the rest of the pack in the soapy water.

“Probably not. Decisiveness runs in the family.”

Only one street separated us from the sea, and the air seemed lighter here, like faded batik. At the same time, this part of the city always looked a little lopsided to me, as if the buildings were tilting ever so slightly toward the road; the effect, as in a Cubist painting, was both claustrophobic and friendly.

It was dark and cool inside the Italian restaurant. The reassuring smell of firewood and garlic made me think of the large hardcover edition of
Pinocchio
my mother gave me on my fourth birthday. The detailed illustrations, with their warm, damp colors, looked as if they’d have exactly this smell.

My brother seemed disappointed that the table near the window was taken. He was suddenly very emotional; a huge cloak of sadness fell over his shoulders. We sat down in the corner of the room and I looked into his eyes. He looked away. He was thinking about other things.

The waitress knew my brother. She greeted him with enthusiasm and I saw her saying that she hadn’t seen him in a long time. My brother answered politely, with feigned detachment. When she left I asked him what was going on.

“I used to come here every week to have dinner with a friend.”

“You mean your famous Wednesday nights?”

“Yes. We used to eat here.”

“Someone you were going out with?” He’d never wanted to talk about his weekly outings, and this had naturally aroused my curiosity—was he taking a course, doing volunteer work, playing chess with an opponent who offered him a chance of winning occasionally? I assumed it was something he was embarrassed about—but what could possibly embarrass Kostya? He was the most self-accepting person I knew. I would have nagged him to tell me, but he respected my privacy and I was forced, unfortunately, to respect his. One thing was certain: he was not secretly meeting a married woman, given his strong feelings on the subject.

“She was married. You know her, in fact. Or of her. She’s the one whose husband was missing for many years, because he’d been burned in an army accident. Dana Hillman. Remember that story?”

“Yes, of course. We talked about it—and you didn’t say a word, Kostya. You didn’t say you knew her.”

“It was clear from the start that she loved her husband, and that she’d never give up waiting for him. I was sure he’d killed himself but she was convinced he was alive.”

“Were you lovers? If that’s not too personal.”

“No, just friends. I loved her, though. I think she knew that, but she didn’t want to think about it. In any case, she was a lot younger than me.”

“How sad, Kostya!” I reached across the table and touched his arm. “I wish you’d told me.”

“There wasn’t anything to tell.”

“Such bad luck, sweetheart.”

He nodded; we were both thinking not only of his love for Dana, but also of Iris. I was fifteen when Iris was murdered. It happened outside Elkanah, a settlement just east of the Green Line. She was on her way to see a client in Mas’ha, a small Palestinian town next to Elkanah, and she stopped at the Elkanah gas station to fill up. She decided to park her car there and walk to the town, which was just down the road. It was a warm autumn evening. She had meant to see her client during the day, but as usual she was overworked and had been delayed.

She didn’t notice that she was being followed from her office in Tel Aviv. Or else she noticed, but with her usual fearlessness she shrugged it off. By the time she returned to her car, after the meeting with her client, it was already dark. She couldn’t see the man crouching in the back of the car. She sat down in the driver’s seat and the man shot her in the back of the head and vanished.

Iris took on dangerous, complicated cases, and the police told us that there were so many candidates for the murderer that it was hard to know where to start the investigation. Sometimes she defended her clients against fanatic Jewish settlers; but I knew it was unlikely that a settler would kill another Jew, in spite of their wild rhetoric. The police thought her murderer might have been someone who considered one of her clients a collaborator. That seemed even more far-fetched. My brother told us that he knew who had murdered Iris, or rather, had sent a hired killer to murder her; she’d received two explicit death threats just before she was shot. But he didn’t bother informing the police. No one would believe him, he said, and even if evidence turned up, the judges would probably be bribed or threatened. Apart from her work on behalf of Arabs, Iris was involved in uncovering financial and political scandals among powerful Israelis; those cases were almost always linked, at some inevitable point, to the underworld. My brother didn’t tell us who the culprit was. He was afraid Noah would spend the rest of his life looking for justice, and it would be a waste of time, he said, a waste of a life.

When the police came to our little ramshackle house to inform us that Iris had “gone to her world,” as they put it, my brother thanked them, made himself a cup of coffee, then walked out to the garden Iris had loved and uprooted every single plant; the ones he couldn’t pull out with his bare hands he dug out with a spade. The wilted flowers, dislodged bushes, and rotting vegetables lay there like a throbbing graveyard for several weeks. One afternoon, while my brother was at the hospital, Noah and I got rid of the mess. We borrowed a neighbor’s pickup truck and made several trips to the dump until there was nothing left of my brother’s anguished act. The two of us stood on the porch when it was over and looked silently at the barren strip of earth. Clearing the yard had been a spontaneous decision: we hadn’t discussed it ahead of time. Noah said, “I’m going into the paratroopers brigade. Dad’s already signed.” We fought then; not just argued, but actually fought: I kicked him, he kicked me back, I picked up a dictionary and smacked his head, he twisted my arm behind my back, I bit him. For three years after that we weren’t on speaking terms.

“It’s funny,” Kostya said, changing the unspoken subject. “Dana kept trying to persuade me to wear more casual clothes. She was always going on about it, but I refused to give in. The week after we parted I bought a pair of jeans. Maybe I thought it would bring her back. Or maybe it was a way of feeling close to her, or … do you think I was just being stubborn?”

“All three,” I laughed. The waitress came to take our order. I wasn’t hungry and asked only for tea. I signed my request and the waitress was pleased with herself for understanding me.

“Maybe you really are in love,” my brother teased.

“Just be a good boy and eat your dinner.”

Despite appearances, my brother did in fact have a sex life. It’s impossible to live with someone and not know these things. He had a sexual relationship with Tali, a lively woman who worked with him at the hospital and was about his age. She was separated and had four children, one of whom was in the army. My brother slept with her every Saturday night and came home at four o’clock the following morning. I wondered whether it hurt Tali that he always left before sunrise or whether she was the one who asked him to go. Maybe it was a mutually convenient arrangement.

“How’s your lasagna?” I asked him.

“It’s okay, but it’s been made by the replacement chef. He’s not as good as their regular one.”

“How can you tell?”

“He has a different style. The regular chef uses more spices, he balances them better.”

“Listen,” I said, “I think I need to write a letter to Khalid, in case he’s not home. I don’t want to go all the way to Jerusalem for nothing—I want to leave him a letter if he’s not home. And the letter needs to be in Arabic. I’ll phone Raya and see if she can do it for me.”

“This whole project seems misguided to me,” Kostya said.

I ignored him and texted Raya.
I need something in Arabic
, I sent.

“Come on over,”
she answered.

“It’ll be easier to walk to her place than look for parking,” Kostya said. “Or else I can drop you off and pick you up a bit later.”

“Oh, come on, Kostya, be brave. Raya won’t bite. Or at least, not hard.”