the Debba (2010) (4 page)

To my son, my eldest, my beloved; David
.

I stared at the script for a long while, my eyes blind with wet heat. Didn't my father ever let up? Through the wetness I saw Mr. Gelber bending over to pick up the envelope. I snatched it out of his grasp and inserted it back inside the larger envelope. For the first time, his desperation for my signature penetrated through my haze. Why was he so eager that I relinquish my father's estate? Without thinking, I tucked the envelope under my arm and shakily rose to my feet.

Mr. Gelber gaped at me, his cheeks taut. "So you sign or not?"

I stumbled through the kitchen to the front door, the envelope radiating heat into my armpit. Mr. Gelber's wife and children were nowhere to be seen, but his cousin was waiting outside in the hallway, leaning on the wall. He stared at the envelope under my arm and began to lean forward as Mr. Gelber barged out after me, waving a pen.

I called over my shoulder, "I'll see you tomorrow in your office, after the funeral," then skipped down the stairs. Mr. Gelber cried forlornly after me, "Don't be a donkey! I am telling you, it doesn't have a chance ... not today ..."

I thrust roughly through the trio of yeshiva boys still loitering at the entrance, shook off the hand of one who asked me why I was pushing, and dashed out. A gray Toyota was waiting at the curb with its engine running, the windows curtained. I crossed Yahalal Street at a trot. Sweat poured off me as if I had been lugging heavy flour sacks. I looked over my shoulder. Mr. Gelber's cousin had pushed through the knot of the muscular boys and was now opening the Toyota's side door. A moment later Mr. Gelber joined him, and the car disappeared down Ben-Gurion Boulevard in a cloud of fumes. To my surprise, two of the yeshiva boys mounted Vespas and followed; the third went back inside. As I jogged, rusty seven-year-old instincts creaked back to life. Was Mr. Gelber's "cousin" keeping an eye on me? Were the yeshiva boys? I shook my head to clear it. One day here and I was seeing pursuers everywhere, as if I was again in enemy territory. Tomorrow, right after the funeral, I'd go to Gelber's office and hand him back the envelope, sign whatever the hell he wanted, and return to Canada, to Jenny, to the peaceful cold.

Back at the apartment I called Canada to tell Jenny I would be back in two days, but she was not home. I left a message on her answering machine with Ehud's phone number and raided the fridge for a beer, then for another. I felt enormous fatigue, as if I were swimming in glue.

Golyatt
, and the sonnets, and the damn play. Why did my father ask this of me? And why did Mr. Gelber seem so eager that I not do it?

I prowled the apartment, poking my head into cupboards, looking at the old chairs, at my parents' double bed with the foam mattress, where Ehud and Ruthy now slept. My father had rented out the apartment with all the furniture--even my mother's old Singer sewing machine was still standing on the kitchen balcony, covered by an army blanket of blue felt. Under it, in an old shoe box, were my old black army-issued Nomex coveralls, with their myriad pockets, the legging torn, and the special night-vision goggles, the left lens cracked. In another shoe box was an assortment of odd-looking instruments under a thick layer of dust. I stared at them for a long while. These, too, I had left behind.

I kicked off my shoes, lay down on the couch, and awoke five hours later, at four in the afternoon. I tried calling Jenny one more time. In Canada it would be nine in the morning. She was out.

I gobbled three Eshels and a large cucumber, all the while pacing around the coffee table. Faint smells of almond blossoms came through the window, and salty sea air. It was as if a second pair of nostrils that had shut down when I left Israel had now reopened. I took lungfuls of air, my stomach sizzling. From time to time I picked up the small envelope and stared at my father's handwriting, before sliding it back into the large one. More than once I nearly slit the small envelope open with a kitchen knife, but each time I recoiled. I was not about to stay here and do my father's bidding once again. It dawned on me I'd also better leave the apartment soon, before Ruthy came back. The last thing I wanted was to talk to her alone. I could always call Uncle Mordechai from a pay phone, or from a hotel. Yet I lingered, staring at the small envelope.

After a while I picked up the phone and called Uncle Mordechai in Tveriah.

5

T
HE PHONE RANG FOR
a long time before Uncle Mordechai picked it up. He was probably reading his
Davar
newspaper on the couch on the terrace overlooking Lake Kinneret.

"Who is this?" he asked. Fifteen years he had had the telephone and had still not learned how to answer it.

"It's me, David."

"Oh, David. Greetings! So you came from the diaspora for your father finally?"

"No," I said. "I came from Canada for the funeral."

"And how long are you going to honor us with your presence? A day? A week?"

"I don't know yet." For some reason I added, "I owe you a thousand shekels, for the burial society."

"You owe, you don't owe," Uncle Mordechai said. "You want to pay, pay; you don't want to pay, don't pay. Do what you want."

"I'll pay you after the funeral." Why was I talking about money?

"You want to pay, pay."

There was an awkward pause. "Mordechai ..." I blurted, "did they catch him? The burglar?"

The line hummed. "How do I know? Ask the police."

I heard steps on the stairs, and the rattle of a key in the door.

"I--I will ..." My voice seemed stuck. "But why would anyone--"

"I don't know anything. What do you want? I am in Tveriah."

I went on, obstinately. "Everyone is saying it's an Arab. Because of what he--you know." I pulled my handkerchief out and wiped my face.

"Who says? People have long tongues. There are Jewish burglars, too."

"Yes, I know. But--"

"The funeral is tomorrow? In Nachalat Yitzchak?" The line cleared up all of a sudden. "Ten o'clock?"

"Yes. Ya'akov Gelber, the lawyer, said that it must take place before Saturday. I don't know why."

Behind me the door opened. I sensed Ruthy coming into the room. Perhaps it was her smell. I don't know. Ever since we were children we could always sense each other's presence. But that was long ago.

"Of course before Saturday," my uncle shouted. "You heathen. You cannot keep a body unburied over the Shabbat. You forgot everything in Canada. What do they feed you there,
injill?"
Uncle Mordechai gave a sharp chuckle, a sort of bark.

Injill
is a wild Galilean weed. The Arabs believe that the Debba, the spotted hyena that lures away children to teach them the language of the beasts, feeds them
injill
first, so they will forget their own.

"Every day," I said. "We put it in the hummus."

"Ha! Hummus in Canada? Maybe hummus ice cream, too?"

"Yes. With
s'choog." S'choog
was the Yemenite red pepper sauce that bit your tongue as if it had teeth. The Yemenites believed it toughened the male member.

Uncle Mordechai's voice now had the bantering tone I knew. "What do you need
s'choog
in Canada for? For the shiksas?"

Ruthy said behind me, "I came early. Hi, David."

"Yes," I said into the phone. "All hundreds of them."

After a pause my uncle said, "Listen, Duvid, about your father, I mean, listen--Anyway, I'll see you in Nachalat Yitzchak tomorrow, with Margalit. Afterward you can come with us."

"The shivah will be in Tveriah?"

"Where else? You want it in Cafe Cassit maybe?" His tone softened. "Listen. After the funeral we'll go back to Tveriah. You want a
buri
or a
musht?"
Fried in olive oil,
buris
and
mushts
were Uncle Mordechai's specialty--the Kinneret fish most suitable for frying.

"I--I don't think I'll come to the shivah. After the funeral I'm going back to Canada."

There was a long humming silence. "You do what you want."

I heard sounds of running water from the kitchen, and the opening and closing of the fridge.

"And, anyway, I am not going to do what he asked me, in the will--"

I waited for my uncle to ask what that was, but as the silence dragged on I told him about the stipulation. "Do you have any idea why--"

My uncle's shout seemed to resonate all the way from the Galilee. "Don't you understand Hebrew? I told you twice already I know nothing about this dreck. You don't want to sit shivah for him? Fine. But don't you mix me up in this. You hear?"

Before I had a chance to ask my uncle what he meant, he had already hung up. I knew he would make straight to the bottle of Stock 777, the common cognac he drank every day after supper, ever since his son Arnon was killed.

What was my uncle so afraid of now?

The image of Mr. Gelber running after me with a pen in hand came to mind, then that of his cousin, and the yeshiva boys ...

What did everyone seem so afraid of?

I sat on the sofa, breathing shallowly, then got up and went to the kitchen.

Ruthy was sitting at the table. She was reading some gossip weekly with color photographs. Jenny read only poetry magazines.

"How was drama class?" I said after a while. My voice was rough to my ears, as if I had swallowed sand.

Ruthy made a face and swung her head from side to side, keeping her eyes on the page. "Blah. Nobody knew their lines so the instructor screamed for half an hour." She went on reading, not turning the page. The corners of her mouth trembled slightly.

I sat down opposite her. "It's in Nachalat Yitzchak cemetery tomorrow." My voice still came out all rough and I coughed several times, to clear it. "I didn't know they buried civilians there."

Ruthy did not look up. "Your brother is there; I mean, his tombstone." Her hair had been pulled back with a rubber band and I could see she had become thinner since I had last seen her, and also tanner. As for aging, I couldn't say. She looked to me exactly as if we had parted yesterday.

"But he was in the army," I said. Her smell, a warm lemony musk, reached me from across the table; I felt my eyes begin to sting.

"So was your father," Ruthy said, "once. He was what, in forty-eight? A major? Colonel?" Her face still reminded me of an apricot, soft and rounded and downy.

I said I didn't know. It was true. I never bothered to learn what he did then. All I knew was that he had killed Abu Jalood, the notorious leader of the Jaloodi terrorist gang, the one whom the Arabs claimed could turn himself into a Debba.

There was a brief silence as we both contemplated the coffee-stained table. I blinked several times, squeezing the corners of my eyes.

Ruthy leaned over the table and turned the radio on. Raucous music spilled into the air. "It's the new Peace Station. I worked there for a month."

The Peace Station, a pirate radio station transmitting from a boat anchored fifteen miles off the coast of Ashqelon, was financed by a leftist restaurateur; half the peaceniks in the country did a stint on it for no pay.

"Great," I said. "Do they also broadcast songs of 'Um Kulsum?"

Ruthy flared up. "She is a great singer! So what if she is an Egyptian? She sings better than half--"

"All right. All right. Don't get all hot."

There was a short brittle silence.

Ruthy said in a dull monotone, "You know how long I waited? You know how long?"

"I didn't tell you to wait."

"Seven years. Nobody can wait seven years."

"I asked you to come with me, you said no."

"I can't leave here, I told you. You know I can't leave."

The night before I left she had tried to explain to me why she could not come with me. It was not because she loved this place or anything, she said; it was just that when she thought of leaving, she immediately got sick. I pretended I did not understand and at last she stopped trying to make me see it.

A burst of wailing came from the yard. Probably some cats fighting over scraps.

"Anyway," I said, "it's all over now."

"Yes," said Ruthy. A slow flush was creeping up her neck to her chin and cheeks.

We looked bleakly at each other.

I got to my feet; my legs were shaking. "I really should call the police."

"The phone is in the living room."

"I know," I said. "I used to live here."

"Well, now you don't. Okay?"

I went to the living room and called the police station on HaYarkon Street, where I had once reported my bicycle stolen.

"Call Investigations, on Dizzengoff," said the policeman on the line. "I don't know what burglary you mean, there are so many; but they would know. Happy Passover."

Ruthy said behind me, "And tell them to catch him quickly so you can run away again!"

I turned my back to her and dialed.

6

"O
H YES," SAID
I
NSPECTOR
Amnon Amzaleg in the Dizzengoff station. "The one where they cut--"

"Yes," I said tightly. "I'm his son. Can I come talk to somebody who is responsible for the investigation?"

There was a short pause.

"Sure,
ya habibi,"
Amzaleg said. "Come, come."

I turned around and said to Ruthy, "I'm going to the police. I'll be back in an hour, to get my things. I think I should go to a hotel, so--"

"Don't be a donkey." Her face was still flushed. "You stay right here in Ibn Gvirol. Don't be afraid. Nobody will eat you. You want a lift?"

"I can take the bus."

"You'll only bump your head." She got up, too. "Come, I'll take you. Which one, the one on Dizzengoff?"

"Yes. Just behind the kindergarten of Miss Chassia--"

"I know where it is."

Rattling the car keys on the handrail, she ran down the stairs two at a time, as we used to do when we were children, while I trailed slowly behind her, watching the blur of her legs.

"So you're almost married?" Ruthy asked as we sat in her beat-up Volkswagen, rolling down Arlozorov Street.

"Yes," I said. I didn't want to talk about Canada.

"You'll send us an invitation?"

"If you want."

"So long as you're happy." She turned on the car radio and fumbled with the dial. Her red hair brushed my shoulder as she leaned to look at the numbers on the dial.

We were now stuck behind a large truck unloading boxes into a restaurant. Since I had left, the street had become trendy, and every second building now housed a restaurant, or a pub.

"They tore almost everything down," Ruthy said. "They're putting pubs everywhere. How much beer can you drink?"

"Lots."

"No, really. Look at this!" She pointed toward a busy pub, where tables and chairs had spilled onto the sidewalk. "Just four years ago half their friends died on Yom Kippur, and look at them now, drinking."

"So what do you want them to do? Stay home and light candles?"

For a while both of us were silent.

Suddenly Ruthy asked, "You love your girlfriend? What's her name?"

"Very much."

"What's her name?" she asked again.

"Doesn't matter." I didn't want to talk about Jenny, or Canada, or anything else. I wanted to get to the police station. Maybe I should have taken the bus.

"If you don't want to tell, don't tell," Ruthy said.

I watched the darkening street and said nothing.

After a while Ruthy said in a low voice, "So who do you think killed him?"

"It was a burglar."

"So why did they cut ... you know--"

"Maybe they wanted to make it look like Arabs." I felt dizzy just talking about it.

Ruthy persisted. "But maybe it
was
Arabs? Like--you know, in forty-eight?"

"It was a burglar!" I snapped. "A Jewish burglar!"

We drove the rest of the way in silence.

"It's here," Ruthy said. "I'm sorry about the brake. Did you hurt your head? I can wait for you in the car." She had parked behind a black patrol car, its doors scratched with the words "Avraham Molcho screws his sister."

I got out. The police station, a crumbly building overgrown with dead ivy, stood where it always had, between Rachmanov's hardware store and Berman's kiosk. Two of the front steps had been broken and someone had patched them up with old construction lumber, some long nails still sticking out, others bent with hammer blows.

"You can come in, too," I said.

"If you want. Just let me lock the car. There are lots of thieves here."