Prologue
Israel, 2001
7:30 in the morning and it’s frrrreezing.
I’m huddled in a heavy black coat on the Beit Yehoshua railway platform. I have a meeting with Dov and Yitzhak in Nahariya. There was a time when Yitzhak was known as Icho and Dov as Bernard. Yitzhak is seventy-five and can still lift a whole calf. Still strong. Dov at seventy-six is bigger than Yitzhak and loves cocoa cookies, television and peace and quiet. They have wives. Yitzhak has Hanna, a goodhearted woman. Dov has Shosh, who is also goodhearted.
The rain stops falling like a scratch. Like pain. At first it falls hard, abundantly, then trickles down. Branches drop to the ground indifferently. Shhhh. The tops of the eucalyptus trees travel from side to side in the wind and already I need to pee again. The loudspeaker announces the next train. The lamp flickers. In two hours’ time I’ll meet with Yitzhak and Dov. Yitzhak no longer pushes forward. And Dov never pushes, not even before. Dov will bring good coffee and cookies with cocoa and raisins.
Pew. Pew. Pew.
A man in a long coat fires at the approaching train. Pew. Pew. Pew. Wearing a beret pulled to one side, he holds a black umbrella and fires. His face is divided in dark lines, forehead, cheeks, chin, even his nose. His face is taut as if someone had slipped underwear elastic under his skin and pulled and pulled, almost tearing it, but no. He takes short hurried steps, flapping his arms hither and thither as if brushing away a swarm of flies or insects, or stinging thoughts, and firing. Raising his umbrella high in the air. Aiming at the eucalyptus trees or the train and shouting, pew-pew. Pew-pew. Pew.
I look the man straight in the eye as he shouts, pew. Pew. Pew. Pew. Pew.
I’m beside him now and he says stop. Stop. Aims and fires, pew-pew. Pew. Pew. Pew, all dead, he says and wipes his hand on old pants. I cough and he frowns, thrusting out his chin and biting his lips as if to say, I told you, didn’t I tell you? You had it coming, sickos. And then he breathes three times on the end of the umbrella, phoo, phoo, phoo, brushes imaginary crumbs from his coat, straightens the beret and returns to the middle of the platform. To and fro. Back and forth and back again, his hands in fighting mode all the time.
The soldiers have grown used to Friday shootings, the great rage that explodes on the platform from seven in the morning.
Everyone knows he comes from Even Yehuda on his bicycle. Winter, summer, he comes on a Friday. A constant presence. The trains pull out and he remains until noon. Firing without resting for a moment. In summer he uses a cane. People say, eat, drink, rest, why tire yourself, go home, too bad, but he’s in his own world. Seven in the morning, Friday, he must be seventy, maybe less, shooting on the platform in dirty clothes with wild, white hair. Every Friday he leaves on his bicycle at twelve-thirty on the dot. The cashier tells everything about him. Eager cashier. Fat cashier with blond bangs and black hair. The man has no watch. There’s a clock on the station wall. But he stands with his back to it. It isn’t important to him to see the time. He knows. He prepares the Sabbath for his dead.
Ah. The Beit Yehoshua platform is the closest thing to the platforms at Auschwitz. This is what the cashier tells us and we fall silent. At Auschwitz he touched his family for the last time. That’s what Yitzhak would say, and he’d raise his hat and shout, why should Jews stand on platforms at all? Are there no buses? Sometimes you have to stand on a bus, well, a taxi then. Taxis are expensive. So what, he refuses to stand on the platforms. Dov would cough if he heard Yitzhak getting mad about something. Then Dov would be silent. I’d pay no attention. I’d look first at Yitzhak, then at Dov and turn on the tape. Yitzhak would say loudly, why do you stand on the platforms, why don’t you take a taxi, too. Yes.
Now the eucalyptus trees are still. And the cashier is telling someone about Yajec. She has to talk fast before the new person shouts at Yajec. Every Friday the cashier protects him. Every Friday there are people who don’t know about him, haven’t heard him despair. The cashier has heard him and tells the older people so they won’t bother him. Leave him alone to kill with his umbrella, pew. Pew. Pew. Pew-pew. Once she told some new people, leave him alone, leave him be. Yajec was a little boy when he grabbed his mother’s dress, crying, yes. He wept incessantly, screamed, don’t leave me, but poor woman, she pushed him towards the group of men, and he ran to her, Mama, take me, but poor woman, she didn’t. Looking at her child, her face white, she screamed in his ear, Yajec you aren’t staying with me, go over there, you hear? And she slapped him and pushed him fiercely. You heard me. Yes. She went with the women and he stayed with strangers who didn’t see him because he was seven or eight, yes.
The train entered the station and stopped. Quiet. Three minutes of quiet. Even the cashier doesn’t speak when the train stops. She doesn’t want people to get confused. Whoever has to, boards the train, whoever has to get off – gets off. The train leaves, and the cashier said that Yajec’s father disappeared too. And his grandfather, grandmother, four sisters, and Aunt Serena and Uncle Abraham.
The face of an Ethiopian woman tugs at my belly. A gentle, fragile face, her mouth stretched outward as if she was about to weep, her eyes dark with sadness, a sadness from another place, distant, a sadness arranged in layers according to height, on her forehead a fresh, upper layer, her face strong. If Yitzhak and Dov were here, that face would probably make them weep. But Yitzhak never visits anyone and no one visits him. If Dov came, he’d probably give her a cookie and juice, tell her to sit down, sit down on a bench and rest a while.
Another train pulls in. The platform empties, only the man in the long coat and the beret are left. The Ethiopian woman boards the train. She knows there’ll be pushing but she gets on. The cashier said she was also a regular on the train. She was going to get a telling-off from the head teacher of the boarding school. That daughter of hers has behavior issues morning and night. She makes the teachers mad; wants to go back to Ethiopia; wants to live among her people; runs off to town on a Friday night, fools around at a Reggae Club. All she wants is to rap. She goes off in a long skirt and a long-sleeved blouse. In her bag she hides a small pair of shorts and a short, colorful blouse that shows her belly. She doesn’t want to be in boarding school, doesn’t want to! Her mother shouts, you are not coming back with me, you’re staying, understand?
Yitzhak would say, she’ll get used to it, in the end she’ll get used to it, and why does her mother get on the train every Friday, once every two or three months is enough, and she can go by taxi, didn’t they tell her? Dov would say, why insist with kids, it never works, best take her home, that’s all, right?
A white sun pushes through a narrow crack. It peeps out from behind the backs of the eucalyptus trees, creating a huge, shining kaleidoscope. The loudspeaker announces: attention, attention. The sun disappears. The train leaves the station.
I’m on my way to Nahariya.
Yitzhak won’t receive me. He might. On the telephone, Yitzhak said – we’ll see. Yitzhak has no patience.
Dov will sit with me. Dov keeps his word. Yitzhak too. But Yitzhak makes no promises. Yitzhak says – call on Thursday and we’ll see.
I call every Thursday, and he says, we’ll see. Finally, he says, yes, you can come.
Dov waits at the station with the car. Dov takes me to Yitzhak.