5
The asphalt smelled of rain and was just as gray as the sky. I was waiting for the bus to Jerusalem. On Friday night everything shut down—the Shabbat was holy and no work was permitted, without exception. The seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death, it says somewhere in the Torah, if I recall correctly. Because everything would lurch to a halt in an hour, the Tel Aviv bus station was packed. The rain was really pouring down by now and travelers pushed into the humid concourse. Across from me was a young woman in uniform, painting her nails. On the chair next to her lay a small purse and a machine gun. To her right was a man in royal blue shorts wearing a white yarmulke that was affixed to his ginger curls by two big hair clips. Behind me, two Thais of indeterminable age were having a loud conversation. The bus pulled up and all of us got on. The air inside the bus was hot and stale, the windows fogged from the inside. As on most Israeli buses the mood was tense. Everybody watched everybody. Women and children were mostly innocuous, as were older men. It was mostly the young guys who might strap on a bomb. Every hint of a paunch was suspicious.
On the seats in front of me a couple in uniform sat down. She was taller than he, blond, slender, and meticulously made up. He had an alert, intelligent gaze and a heavy body, which he maneuvered gracefully along the aisle. She laughed at the little stories that he whispered to her in Russian. After every comma, they kissed. I was so jealous that my heart ached. I couldn’t remember ever laughing that hard at anything Elisha told me, and for that, I felt I’d done him an injustice.
They were waiting in front of the bus terminal. Ori ran toward me. He hugged me and gave me a brief kiss on the mouth. There was a lighthearted and trusting quality about him, that of somebody who had not yet been betrayed. Maybe it was his age. He was twenty-two, had just finished his military service, and was under the impression that life meant well for him.
“So glad you could make it,” Ori said. “This is my sister, Tal.”
Tal extended her hand and I shook it a little longer than necessary.
Ori took my bag, slung it over his shoulder, and waved over a cab. I kept looking back over to Tal. She had long dark-blond curls and green-brown eyes that reminded me of sandpaper. And in her face I saw something that was in mine, too, and it didn’t bode well.
We ate in the old town. En route we saw Orthodox Jews dressed up in shiny coats and furred hats for Shabbat.
The restaurant was big and simply furnished, light marble tiles on the floor and walls, a lot of flaked-off fake gold and small plastic flower arrangements on the tables.
Our waiter was a scraggy man with a thick mustache and golden canine teeth. Reluctantly, he wiped off the table with a not-quite-clean cloth and then threw menus down in front of us. When I thanked him in Arabic and asked about the homemade lemonade, his eyes lit up. Ori and Tal were just as surprised as the waiter. He asked whether I was a 1948 Arab—a Palestinian who had remained in Israel after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. I said that I wasn’t. His long, bony, reddish face looked at me questioningly.
I caught Ori’s puzzled glance. And so did the waiter, who, obviously amused, asked me where I was from. He spoke the extremely soft and almost songlike Palestinian that I loved so much, because it reminded me of Lebanese and therefore of Sami.
“From Germany.” In this situation this seemed like the easiest answer.
“My cousin is living in Germany. Beautiful country. But people don’t learn Arabic there?”
“I studied it.”
“That makes sense. With your classical Arabic you sound like a newscaster.” He laughed.
“What choice did I have? At the university we almost exclusively studied Fusha. Only very rarely were there classes on ‘Amia, the dialects,” I said, defending myself.
“And which dialect did you pick?”
“Lebanese,” I said, and I could feel myself blush.
The waiter smiled at me. “And your husband?” he asked me.
Ori raised his right eyebrow questioningly.
“I’m not married. I’m an interpreter.”
“Hebrew–Arabic?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I translate Russian and French.”
The waiter nodded. “French. Very romantic, but useless. The dessert is on the house.” He patted Ori’s back and headed to the next table.
“You speak Arabic?” Ori asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?” asked Tal.
“What do you mean, why?”
“You speak Arabic, but no Hebrew. That’s strange, isn’t it?”
“What use is there in learning a small language like Hebrew? If I can have a UN language instead?”
“Your Arabic isn’t bad at all,” Ori said. Tal leaned back and crossed her arms.
“You speak Arabic?” I asked Ori.
“Only what I learned in the army. But they don’t want to hear that.”
Tal rolled her eyes. Ori saw it and I could see him trying to keep his composure.
“A friend of mine is fluent in Arabic. His Arabic is better than that of most Arabs,” Ori said.
I swallowed hard.
“But only because he works for the secret service,” Tal said. Her dress was shiny black-blue. Gold jewelry glittered around her neck and in her hair.
“As did I,” Ori said.
“Then you should know what happens there.” Tal held her breath for a moment, beside herself with rage. Ori shot her a hostile look. Tal leaned back in her chair and continued, “But you spent your military service in front of a computer. You weren’t out there. You don’t know the first thing.”
The waiter now looked over contemptuously.
“Fine. You are the only fighter in the family. Are you accusing me of not having been in a combat unit? Should I have lost a leg for the country? Or an arm? Would you have preferred that?” said Ori.
Tal got up and left, slamming the door.
“Can’t we have a single conversation without it turning into a negotiation over Zionism and the entire history of Israel?” Ori leaned on his elbows.
“I’m going to check on her.”
“Go ahead. Leave me here all by myself.”
Tal was standing in front of the restaurant, smoking. I joined her. A group of Orthodox Jews hurried past, their hats covered with plastic bags to protect them from the rain.
“I don’t glorify them. I think our culture is fundamentally different from Palestinian culture. Women don’t have any rights in Arab society and there’s a lot of other shit going down there. What I care about is my country. I love my country, but not its current state. I want to live in a free, democratic state.”
“OK,” I said.
We smoked in silence. The sun lowered in the sky—a rapid succession of pink, orange, lilac, purple, and then the absence of light. As we went back inside, Tal’s hand grazed my bottom.
That night I stayed in Ori’s apartment. I told him that sleeping with him had been an accident that would never happen again. And then I told him about Elisha and said that I couldn’t recall Elisha’s face in the dark. Ori listened patiently, without saying a word. After I was done, he gave me a long hug and left the light on in the hallway. Once he returned, he held me and said nothing and that felt so good that for a long time I couldn’t stop crying. I cried because it felt good. I cried because then he pulled me closer. I cried because he wasn’t embarrassed by my tears. And I cried because he wouldn’t leave until I stopped. When the tears finally ceased, Ori fell asleep immediately. Exhausted. By me. I got up, left him a note, and went home.