This makes the General smile, doubly so, as he spies, between the feet of the table, the crumpled foil from a chocolate coin.
He can’t understand why the menorah is still out, the floor still unswept, all the way to October, almost a year after the holiday fell.
And if the calendar really stands at 1967, then who are these grandchildren he already loves, so far from being ushered into this world?
It is not right, the General knows. It has been, for some time, not right.
The General does not run to the road to find his ghost of a son. He does not call for Lily, already gone. He will look for a mirror, is what he decides. For it cannot be both present and past, and the General wants to see which face he wears. He wants to know if he is old or if he’s young.
On his way to the foyer, where the closest mirror stands, the General pinches himself—hard. He feels the pinch and feels sure that he’s not dreaming.
He follows the pinch with a deep, deep breath, and he knows too that this must mean he is not, himself, yet dead.
But that shot, then, how can it keep on shooting?
None of it makes any sense. Unless, unless.
The front hall mirror is covered with a sheet, as if the General inhabits a house of mourning. He wiggles his toes and looks down at his feet. He’s not surprised to find himself padding around in socks, as if newly bereaved.
Nobody wants that, the General thinks. And the General closes his eyes tight-tight.
Reopening them, the General is relieved. Yes, he must have been dozing. It is the simplest explanation—for he is seated again, the copper tray table that Lily made back at his side. On it stands his mug of mint tea, the steam twisting off in a wisp.
Cautiously, the General lowers his gaze to his lap to find that the two bowls are where the two bowls belong. A comfort, followed immediately by another. His dear Lily—he has been calling for her—peers out from the kitchen, a towel in her hand.
The General wants to ask her what is amiss. But then there is the sound of the shot—distracting.
Leaning back, the General says aloud to himself (for he knows, already, his dear Lily will not answer), “Maybe it is that I am not well.”
He is a legendary strategist, the General. He has always been able to see the best way out, even in the midst of chaos.
Quagmire after quagmire, failure atop failure, with all his repeated ruinations and unravelings, the General has managed to reach all the way to the office of prime minister. Him! With all that blood on his hands.
Yes, the General knows this to be true. He is their leader. He knows too this must mean he’s already old.
This must mean he has already given up Gaza. This must mean he is busy planning for a Palestinian state. These decisions, he knows he has made them and that they fly in the face of all he’d ever believed.
He takes particular interest in these concessions. Look at how his aged self is able to wield compromise as a new brutality. If he’s come to those conclusions it can mean only one thing. This must mean there’s some trickery behind it. He must somewhere believe it’s the only way to win the Palestinians’ ruthless, fecund, demographic war.
The General flexes his stiffening fingers. He rolls his stiff shoulders. He tries on his now-creaky old self for size. It is not bad, this body, rickety as it is. And it fits so well, in his equally rickety, form-fitting old chair.
This taking of stock, he finds it pleasing and so reflects upon a long life lived. He remembers his way back to boyhood and finds himself in short pants under the Tel Aviv sun. He stands in his mother’s yard as she walks toward him with a cluster of purple grapes held aloft. He can feel himself reaching.
He fights his way forward, through the endless battles, military and political. He forges on until he hears it, not the shot but a different sound, like a wave crashing down. He hears the great rush of voices as the people chant his name. He has been crowned King of Israel, their savior. The General stands tall on the Temple Mount, bathed in this rallying call. He cannot see their faces, shielded by a phalanx, a show of strength.
He is letting his people know that however painful the sacrifices he will ask—this place, hallowed ground, he will never surrender. Not the jewel of their unified, undividable city.
To the edge of that thought is as far as the General’s mind will go.
2002, Paris
They do not exit through the door but climb out the bedroom window onto the little sloped roof of the caretaker’s shed. The waitress does not hesitate as they shimmy down on their bottoms toward the eaves.
“Does anything rattle you?” Z whispers, astonished by the waitress’s alacrity and calm.
“If the roof was higher, maybe,” she says. She then turns around and, slipping down over the edge, hangs for a moment before dropping the couple of feet to the ground.
Z passes her the bag and joins her with a quiet thud. She helps him up, and while Z dusts himself off he peers toward the darkened archway at the front of the building.
Seeing no one, he swings the bag over his shoulder and leads the waitress past the rear entrances, and beneath the second arch, beyond which stands a neglected garden, its trellis affixed to the perimeter wall.
“This was actually once a road,” Z says of the cobbled path beneath their feet. “It was the first that ran directly from the river to the Sorbonne. That’s why the front entry is so wide.”
“A perfect time for a tour.”
“A relevant time,” he says.
Z kneels down, as if he is going to propose, and, interlocking fingers, he offers her his linked hands as a step.
They hop the wall and find themselves on the continuation of that path, in a courtyard that mirrors the one they just left. They pass under the archways and at the other building’s front gate they press the button to release it, stepping out onto the street.
“You rented an apartment with its own escape route?”
“I did,” Z says. “It’s not so paranoid when you use it to do just that.”
Ready to bolt, Z takes hold of the waitress’s wrist. She pulls it free and takes hold of his.
“Fair enough,” he says. And feeling like he maybe, just maybe, might survive this night, he takes off with her on a happy sprint over to the main thoroughfare and across the first bridge, where they meld into the nighttime crowd outside Notre-Dame. At Rue de Rivoli they slow their pace and step into a taxi waiting at a light.
They sit there quietly, and the driver looks to them, properly annoyed.
“Your call,” Z says to the waitress. “As promised.”
The waitress leans her head toward the space between the seats and asks for the H?tel de Crillon.
“Are you kidding?” Z says. “That’s the fanciest hotel in the city.”
“My thought exactly. No one is going to be looking for you there.”