I could have refused, or yelled, or otherwise put up a fight so that they wouldn’t have left me there. I couldn’t have called anyone, because my phone had no reception. But I had the impression that I could have appealed to them, or at least to Schectman, who from time to time continued to regard me with his gentle, sad smile, as if he regretted having to leave me there on my own. But I didn’t object or even complain; at most, I pointed out that the typewriter was useless to me. Maybe I wanted to impress him with my independence and professionalism. Or didn’t want to disabuse him of the notion of untold talents, which, the moment he drove off, would be put to use for the good of the Jews. Or maybe I suspected that I’d already gone far enough that there was no turning back anymore. Whatever the case, from the moment Schectman extended his hand to help me up into the back of the jeep, I’d gone along with everything. As far as I remember, the only question I asked was about Friedman.
I was worried about him, I explained to Schectman, as we drank our coffee. I wanted to know where they had taken him, and if he was all right. But Schectman showed no sign of recognition of Friedman’s name, and when I pushed him further, he admitted that he had never heard of any Friedman. He had arrived in the story midway, it seemed, without knowing anything about what had happened prior to my becoming his charge, or what would happen after. All he knew was his part, which involved getting me from a roadblock at the edge of Jerusalem to this shack in the desert, with the suitcase and the dog. But I suppose that’s how they do things in the army, never giving any of the participants the whole story. In the military, the entire idea of narrative must be completely different, I thought. You learn to be satisfied with your small piece, without having any real idea of how it fits, and yet you never have to worry about the whole because somewhere someone who knows everything has thought it all out, down to the last detail. The story exists, who knows where it arrived from and where it is going, all you have to do is apply yourself to your part, which you can polish until it shines in what is otherwise darkness all around. In light of this model, it really did seem like sheer vanity to ever imagine that one could possibly know the whole thing, and, considering this, I momentarily forgot about Friedman, too. But when I caught Schectman looking at me over the top of his coffee cup, all my concern surged back with a force that took me by surprise. I would have given a lot to be told that Friedman was all right. I’d known him so briefly, but at that moment I missed him the way I’d missed my grandfather the last day I’d seen him alive in the hospital, when I’d said good-bye and he’d called after me, Come back if you can. And then, Go, I’ll wait. If you don’t hear from me, open the door. It seemed to me that Friedman had been trying to tell me things that I had been too slow to grasp.
I need to know what happened to him, I told Schectman again. My anxiety must have been plain, because he reached out and touched my shoulder and told me not to worry. I was overwhelmed with gratitude, and wanted to believe him. This must be how it begins with captives who develop a bond with their captors, I thought: one small, unexpected gesture of mercy begets what can only be called love. I pictured us watching soccer games on the little TV Schectman would bring for my birthday, which we would only be able to get in Arabic.
Did you know that I have children? I asked him quietly, wishing to extend the moment of intimacy. He shook his head. Two boys, I told him. The older one must be nearly half your age. And the younger? he asked, politely. For some reason, I don’t why, I said: The younger one is probably standing by the window, waiting for me right now.
I watched a drop of darkness seep under Schectman’s eyes. Maybe I was trying to test him, to see where his true feeling lay. But when I looked down, I saw that it was my own fingers that were shaking.
We drank the rest of our coffee in silence, and then it was time for him to go. He offered me some cigarettes, which I took, as I would have taken anything he offered me. I watched from the doorway as he climbed into the passenger seat next to the driver. I could see the jeep for a long time, getting smaller and smaller until finally it became only a cloud of dust, and when even the cloud vanished, I turned back into the house.
I washed the cups and left them to dry on the edge of the sink, and gave the dog more water. Then I went into the only other room of the house and eyed the suitcase still standing upright by the door. But it was not yet the moment for that, I decided. Instead, I turned my attention to the few old books on the shelves. They were all in Hebrew, and I tried to work out the titles. One caught my eye. It was called —Forests of Israel—and inside were black-and-white photographs of places that didn’t look like they could be in Israel at all: wild forests where one might still have a chance of being raised by wolves; thick, dark woods swept through with snow. I looked at the pictures for a long time, and because I couldn’t understand the captions, I had to content myself with imagining what they said, but as I could not very well imagine what the captions of photographs of forests that couldn’t possibly grow in Israel and yet had been gathered together under the title Forests of Israel might say, I was free to enjoy the magic of that discordance. In one photo I found a small white hare almost completely camouflaged by snow.
In the closet there were some rusted tools, a couple of shovels, what looked like a metal milk pail, a first aid kit, some rolls of twine, a wool scarf, a canvas backpack, and a pair of leather slippers worn smooth at the heels. I kicked off my shoes, put them on, and padded to the bathroom. The tap ran brown as if the desert itself were coming in through the pipes, while the kitchen faucet produced water that was merely cloudy and bitter. I drank from there.
When I’d seen everything there was to see inside, I went outside to explore. On one side of the house was a small picnic table scored by knife marks, and at the back was a covered stone well. There must have been an underground spring or aquifer, because there was a lot of scrub surrounding the house, and three or four small thorny trees. Tamarisk maybe, or acacia. Soon the rain would arrive here, too, and the desert would be carpeted in green, but here it was still dry and barren except for a few lone spots of life. I saw quite a lot of animals; their drinking source must have been nearby. There were horned ibex in the hills, and a family of small antelopes that came to chew on the scrub, and once a desert fox with amber fur, huge pointed ears, and a little thin snout came hurrying past the house and stopped to look through the open door, as if he half expected to greet someone familiar. But when he saw me, he trotted off again, not bothering to get involved. There were plenty of mice, too, which came and went as they pleased.