Fima (37 page)

"But you said that the inside of the world is fire, so why isn't the ground hot?"

And the grandfather:

"First you must study, Yossel. The more you learn, the more you'll understand that the best thing for us is we shouldn't ask questions."

Fima remembered that when he was a child, there was an old huckster who went through the streets of Jerusalem wheeling a squeaky, broken-down handcart, with a sack on his back, buying and selling secondhand furniture and clothes. Fima remembered in his bones the old man's voice, which sounded like a cry of despair. At first you would hear it a few blocks away, indistinct and ominous, ghostlike. Slowly, as though the man were crawling on his belly from street to street, the shout grew closer, raucous and terrifying—"
al-te za-chen
" —and there was something desolate and piercing about it, like a cry for help, as if someone were being murdered. Somehow this cry was associated in Fima's mind with the autumn, with overcast skies, with thunder and the first dusty drops of rain, with the secretive rustling of pine trees, with dull gray light, with empty pavements and gardens abandoned to the wind. Fear would seize him, and it sometimes invaded his dreams at night. Like a final warning of a disaster that had already begun. For a long time he did not understand the meaning of the words
al-te za-chen
, thinking that the awful broken voice was addressing him, saying in Hebrew, "
Al tezaken
," "Do not grow old." Even after his mother explained to him that "
alte zachen
" was Yiddish and meant "old things," Fima remained under the spell of the bloodcurdling prophecy that advanced through the streets one by one, getting closer and closer, knocking at the garden gates, warning him from afar of the approach of old age and death, the cry of someone who has already fallen victim to the terrible thing and is warning others that their time will also come.

Now, as he remembered that ghost, he smiled and comforted himself with the words of the dismissed clerk from Mrs. Scheinfeld's café, the man whom God had forgotten: "Anyway we all dies."

Going up Strauss Street, Fima passed the garish window of an ultrapious travel agency named Eagles' Wings. He stood for a while contemplating a brightly colored poster picturing the Eiffel Tower between Big Ben and the Empire State Building. Nearby, the Tower of Pisa leaned toward the other towers, and next to it was a Dutch windmill, with a pair of plump cows grazing blankly below. The words on the poster read: "With G-d's help:
COME ON BOARD—TRAVEL LIKE A LORD
!" Underneath, in the characters normally reserved for holy books: "Pay in sue easy installments, interest free." There was also an aerial photograph of snow-covered mountains, across which was printed in blue letters: "
OUR WAY'S POSHER—STRICTLY KOSHER
."

Fima decided to go inside and ask the price of a bargain ticket to Rome. His father would surely not refuse to lend him the fare, and in a few days' time he would be sitting with Uri Gefen and Annette's husband in a delightful café on the Via Veneto, in the company of bold, permissive women and pleasure-loving men, sipping a cappuccino, discoursing wittily about Salman Rushdie and Islam and feasting his eyes on the shapely girls walking past. Or he would sit alone by a window in a little
albergo
with old-fashioned green wooden shutters, staring at the old walls, with a note pad in front of him, and occasionally jot down aperçus and pithy musings. Maybe a crack would open in the blocked-up spring, and some new poems gush forth. Some light, easy encounters might take place, lightheartedly, with no strings attached, weightless relationships that are impossible here in this Jerusalem teeming with dribbling prophets. He had read recently in a newspaper that religious travel agents knew how to fiddle things so that they could sell flights for next to nothing. Over there in Rome, amid impeccable palazzos and stone-paved piazzas, life was carefree and gay, full of fun and free of guilt and shame, and even if acts of cruelty or injustice occurred there, the injustice was not your responsibility and the suffering did not weigh on your conscience.

An overweight, bespectacled young man, with clean-shaven pink cheeks but a broad black skullcap on his head, raised his childlike eyes from a book that he hastily hid behind a copy of
Hamodia
' and greeted Fima with a smug Ashkenazic accent:

"And a very good day to you, sir."

He was only about twenty-five, but he looked prosperous, supercilious, and eager to please.

"And what might we do for you, sir?"

Fima discovered that in addition to foreign travel the shop also sold tickets for the national lottery and various other lotteries. He leafed through a brochure offering "holiday packages" in splendid religious hotels in Safed and Tiberias, combining treatment for the body under the care of qualified medical staffs with purification of the soul by means of devotions "at the Holy Tombs of Lions of Torah and Eagles of Wisdom." At that moment, perhaps because he noticed that the young travel agent's starched white shirt was rather grubby at the collar and cuffs, just like his own, Fima changed his mind and decided to postpone his trip to Rome. At least until he had a chance to talk to his father about it and consult Uri Gefen, who was coming back today or tomorrow. Or was it Sunday? Nevertheless he took his time, leafed through another brochure with pictures of kosher hotels in "splendiferous Switzerland," hesitated between the national lottery and the soccer pool, and decided to buy a ticket for the Magen David Adorn drawing so as not to disappoint the agent, who was waiting patiently and politely for him to finish making up his mind. But Fima had to make do without even this, because all he could find in his pocket, apart from Annette's earring, was six shekels, the change from his meal in the flyblown cafeteria in Zephaniah Street. He therefore accepted with thanks some illustrated leaflets containing the itineraries and the minutest details about organized tours for groups of Torah-True Jews. In one of them, he found written in Hebrew, English, and Yiddish that by the grace of Almighty G-d it was now once again possible to make one's devotions at the tombs of "aweful saints" in Poland and Hungary, to visit "Holy Places destroyed by the persecutors, may their name be blotted out!" and to enjoy "the mind-broadening beauties of Japheth—and all in an atmosphere of real
yiddishkeit
, strictly kosher under the auspices of qualified, pious, and seemly guides, and all with the blessing and recommendation of Leading Giants of Torah." The travel agent said:

"Maybe you will change your mind and come and sec us again when you have had a chance to think it over, sir?"

Fima said:

"Maybe. We'll see. Thank you anyway, and I'm sorry."

"Don't mention it, sir. Our honor and pleasure. And a very good Sabbath to you."

As he walked on up toward the Histadrut Building, it occurred to him that this obsequious, overfed young man with the sausagelike fingers and starched shirt that had a grimy collar and cuffs was the same age as the son that Yael had got rid of two minutes away from here at some clinic in the Street of the Prophets. And he smiled sadly because, despite the skullcap and cantorial tenor voice, it was possible that an impartial observer could find a certain resemblance between him and that pudgy, grubby, smooth-talking young travel agent who was so eager to please. But could Yael feel any maternal affection for that bloated creature, with his murky blue eyes behind thick glasses and his porky-pink cheeks? Could she sit and knit him a blue woollen bonnet with a pompom bobbing on top? Could she link arms with him and let him choose spicy black olives for her in Mahane Yehuda Market? And how about you? Would you really feel the need occasionally to tuck a folded bill in his pocket? Or get the painters in for him? Which goes to prove that Yael was right. As always. She was born being right.

However, Fima thought wryly, it might have been a girl. A miniature Giulietta Masina with soft bright hair. She could have been named after his mother: Liza, or, in its Hebrew mutation, Elisheva. Although it is fairly certain Yael would have vetoed that.

A cold, bitter woman, he said to himself with surprise.

Was it really only your fault? Just because of what you did to her? Just because of the Greek promise that you didn't keep and could not have kept and that no one could have kept? Once, next to Nina Gefen's bed he saw an old translated novel, in a shabby paperback edition, called
A Woman Without Love
. Was it by François Mauriac? André Maurois? Alberto Moravia? He must ask Nina sometime if it was about a woman who did not find love or a woman who was incapable of love. The title could be taken either way. Though at the moment the difference struck him as insignificant. Only very rarely had he and Yael used the word "love." With the possible exception of the period of the Greek trip, but at that time neither he nor the three girls had been particular about their choice of words.

Wains curled. And vanished.

As he crossed the road, there was a squeal of brakes. The van driver cursed Fima and shouted:

"You there, are you crazy?"

Fima considered, shuddered belatedly, and muttered sheepishly:

"I'm sorry. Really. Very sorry."

The driver screamed:

"Damn half-wit: you've got more luck than sense."

Fima considered this too, and by the time he reached the other curb he agreed with the driver. And with Yael, who had decided not to have his son. And also with the possibility of being run over here in the street this Sabbath eve instead of running away to Rome. Like the Arab child we killed two days ago in Gaza. Being switched off. Turned to stone. Reincarnated, as a lizard perhaps. Leaving Jerusalem to Yoezer. And he decided that this evening he would call his father and tell him firmly that the painting was off. In any case he would be going soon. This time he would not give in or compromise; he would see it through, and get Baruch's fingers out of his pockets and out of his life once and for all.

Near the Medical Center at the corner of Strauss Street and the Street of the Prophets a small crowd had gathered. Fima approached and asked what had happened. A small man with a birdlike nose and a thick Bulgarian accent informed him that a suspicious object had been found, and they were waiting for the police explosives experts to arrive. A girl with glasses said, What do you mean? It's not that at all. A pregnant woman fainted on the steps, and the ambulance is on its way. Fima burrowed toward the center of the crowd, because he was curious to know which of these two versions was closer to the truth. Although he bore in mind that they might both be mistaken. Or both right. What if it was a pregnant woman who had discovered the suspicious object and fainted from the shock?

From the police patrol car which drew up with flashing lights and siren blaring, someone with a megaphone told the crowd to disperse. Fima, with a good citizen's reflex, obeyed at once, but even so he was pushed roughly by a sweaty middle-aged policeman whose peaked cap was tilted back at a comical angle.

Fima was furious.

"All right, all right, no need to push, I've dispersed already."

The policeman roared at him with a rolling Romanian accent:

"You better stop being clever, quick, or you'll get it."

Fima restrained himself and moved off toward the Bikur Holim Hospital. He asked himself whether he would go on dispersing until one day he too collapsed in the street, or expired at home like a cockroach, on the kitchen floor, and was only discovered a week later, when the smell wafted out
onto
the landing, and the upstairs neighbors, the Pizantis, called the police and his father. His father would no doubt be reminded of some Hasidic tale about instant, painless death, often called "death by a kiss." Or he would make his usual remark about man being a paradox, laughing when he ought to cry and crying when he ought to laugh, living without sense and dying without desire. Frail man, his days are like the grass. Was there still a chance to halt this dispersal? To concentrate at long last on what really mattered? But if so, how to start? And what in God's name was it that really mattered?

When he reached the Ma'ayan Shtub department store on the comer of Jaffa Road, he absent-mindedly turned right and walked toward Davidka Square. And because his feet hurt, he boarded the last bus to Kiryat Yovel. He did not forget to wish the driver a good Sabbath.

It was a quarter to four, close to die beginning of the Sabbath, when he got off at the stop on the street next to his. He remembered to say thank you and good-bye to the driver. The early evening twilight had begun to gild the light clouds over the Bethlehem hills. And suddenly Fima realized sharply, with pain, that another day was gone forever. There was not a living soul to be seen in his street apart from a swarthy child of ten who pointed a wooden submachine gun at him and made him raise his arms in surrender.

Thinking about his own room filled him with disgust: that arid stretch of time from now till tonight, and in fact rill Saturday night, when the group might be getting together at Shula and Tsvi's. Everything he'd meant to do today he hadn't, and now it was too late: shopping, the post office, the telephone, cash from the bank, Annette. And something else that was urgent but he couldn't remember what it was. Added to which, he still had to get ready for the painters. Shift the furniture and cover it. Pack away the books and kitchen things. Take the pictures down, and the map of the country with the compromise borders penciled in. Ask Mr. Pizanti to dismantle the bookcases for him. But first of all, he decided, he must call Tsvi Kropotkin right away. Explain to him tactfully, without offending him this time, without being sarcastic, how his article in the latest issue of
Politics
was based on a false and simplistic assumption.

Provided the telephone had recovered in the meantime.

In front of the entrance to his building, inside a white car with the windows closed, a large man was sitting bent over, his arms resting on the steering wheel and his head buried in his arms, apparently dozing. What if it was really a heart attack? Murder? A terrorist attack? Suicide? Gathering his courage, Fima tapped lightly on the window. Uri Gefen straightened up at once, lowered the window, and said: