Friendly Fire (2 page)

He leans with his full weight upon the iron railing. As a veteran elevator expert, he is unaffected by dizzying heights, but he does wonder what has become of the winds that ought to be stroking his face.

A
S SHE DEPARTS
the duty-free shop, she is surprised to hear her name called on the public-address system and is struck anew by the recognition that on this trip there's no one at her side to keep track of time. All she'd wanted to do was buy some lipstick that her housekeeper had asked for, and when she couldn't find it at the cosmetics counter she had turned to leave, but then one of the older saleswomen, sensing the disappointment of a nice lady her own age, had talked her into buying another brand in a similar shade and of equal quality.

Indeed, she is aware that since her sister died she has been increasingly drawn to older women, as if she might find in them the image of her loved one. And these women, for their part, respond to her attentiveness and slightly abashed, inviting sympathy—which is why she gets stuck in endless conversations with teachers at her school and with women met by chance, in cafés, the doctor's waiting room, the beauty parlor, and, of course, shops—such as this friendly saleslady who began to talk about her own life, managing at the same time to cajole her patient listener to add to her purchase (at a significant discount) a fancy face cream guaranteed to rejuvenate her dry skin.

And the passage of time must be apparent in her face if the young steward bounding toward her identifies her as the tardy passenger and nabs her without asking her name, tears the stub from her boarding pass, and insists on escorting her to the plane, as if it were in her power to escape the sealed sleeve. It's okay, he says, his arm around this woman who could be his mother, the main thing is you're on board, and he hands her over, as if she were a confused child, to the stewardess, who takes her carry-on bag, stuffs it into an overhead bin, and shows her to her seat. "I was sure you weren't going to make it," confides the young man who hesitantly rises from her window seat under the stern eye of the stewardess.

She blushes, but won't give up her window. Even though she usually naps on planes or is immersed in a book and rarely looks out at earth or sky, being by a window is important to her, and even more so this time, with no husband beside her. As the doors are locked, and the engines rumble, and the flight becomes an irreversible reality, a wrinkle of worry furrows her tranquil brow. Is this trip necessary? Will it be helpful? Will Yirmi, her brother-in-law, help her revive the pain that has dulled over the past year? She doesn't lack consolation. Her friends and loved ones still remember to say something nice now and then about her sister, and her husband and family try to lift her spirits. But it's not consolation she wants. On the contrary, she is looking for precise words, forgotten facts—or maybe new ones—that will inflame her pain and grief over her big sister, whose death has claimed a portion of her own youth. Yes, she has a clear desire to breathe life into her loss and crack open the crust of forgetfulness that has begun to envelop her. She longs to spend a few days in the company of a man she has known since childhood, whose love for and devotion to her sister, she is certain, were no less strong than her own.

At the request of the concerned-looking stewardess, she fastens her seat belt, takes the newspaper that is offered her, and adds a request. If possible, at the end of the flight, could the stewardess save her some of the Hebrew newspapers and magazines that have been left on board? For out there deep in the Syrian-African Rift is an Israeli who would surely love to have them.

Y
A'ARI IS STILL
standing on the tiny balcony, shivering, hypnotized by the sunrise that expands the broad horizon and highlights the passenger planes that take off from the airport one after another, bound westward for the sea. His discerning eye has already picked out one deviant craft that is gracefully bending to the south. It's
her,
he thinks excitedly, as though his wife herself were steering it, and he narrows his gaze to follow the dot till it vanishes in the distance. Then he relaxes. Yes, his wife will arrive in peace and return in peace. And he leaves the tiny balcony, locks the engine room, and calls the elevator to take him down to the car park.

On her own? On her own? Brother-in-law Yirmiyahu had been astounded when Ya'ari had phoned with the round-trip flight times of his wife's holiday visit. On her own? he repeated. Yes, on her own, said Ya'ari, rising to defend his wife's honor, why shouldn't she? Of course she's capable, the warm, familiar voice from Dar es Salaam said with a chuckle, and if it's for seven days and not more, she might even survive here without you. But can
you
handle it? Can you accept the separation and not change your mind at the last minute and join her?

His brother-in-law certainly knew him well—perhaps from knowing himself. Until two weeks prior to the trip, Ya'ari had vacillated as to whether he should allow Daniela to travel alone to Africa even to see a close relative, almost an older brother, a responsible
and trustworthy individual, and also a man stricken by fate more than once in recent years.

Ya'ari, unlike his family and friends, was not so ready to condemn the man who hadn't waited for the end of the thirty-day mourning period for his wife, but instead, after sitting shivah for a week, had rushed back to his post as chargé d'affaires of the Israeli economic mission in Tanzania. Half a year after Yirmi's return to East Africa, it was decided in Jerusalem, whether due to budget cuts or other considerations, to eliminate the small office and ease into retirement the widowed diplomat, who apart from a security man and two local employees had no one working with him. In truth, more than once Yirmi himself had joked to relatives and friends about the pointlessness of his little outpost, which sometimes seemed to have been invented especially for him—an overdue bonus for a veteran worker in the administrative wing of the Foreign Ministry whose retirement had been delayed, as provided by law, because he had lost a son in the army. Therefore he accepted without rancor the elimination of his position, though it came so soon after his wife's death. And it was only natural that on his final return from Africa, after giving notice to the tenants renting his Jerusalem apartment, he had allowed himself a little detour, family time with his daughter and her husband, still toiling toward their academic degrees in the United States.

But America did not appeal to the new pensioner, and the visit was cut short. Without consultation—which in any case he owed to no one—or any prior warning, he surprised his relatives and friends by extending for two years his tenants' lease in Jerusalem and returning to Africa, not to his former location but to a place two hundred kilometers southwest of Morogoro, near the Syrian-African Rift, to take a vaguely defined administrative position with an anthropological research team.

Why not? he apologized to his brother- and sister-in-law by phone from Dar es Salaam, en route to the new place. Why hurry
back to Israel? Who really needs me there? Not even you. After all, I'm in Jerusalem and you're in Tel Aviv. You're busy with work, your kids, now your grandchildren too, and I'm free as a bird, without a wife or a career. You have no money worries; on the contrary, you worry how to spend your money, and I've got only the mediocre pension of a government worker, because we made over our "friendly fire" stipend to support our perennial doctoral students. Tell me honestly, why should I not take advantage of an unexpected opportunity to save a little money for my old age, before the inevitable collapse of my body or soul? Am I no less entitled than old Ya'ari to be cared for, if not by a Filipino couple, by at least one quiet and devoted Filipino to push my wheelchair in the park? Here in Africa living is cheap, and with the research team I get free room and board, and they'll pay me a decent wage for administrative duties and some minor bookkeeping. And meanwhile from Jerusalem my rent comes in every month, and the tenants even fix the place up at their own expense. Look, they replaced the stained kitchen counter, repaired cracks and ancient holes in the walls, and replastered the entire apartment. They've also promised to dust all the books and rearrange them by subject. So what's the hurry? Is there a chance or danger that the country will run away or disappear? Sometimes it seems you forget that you'll always be a few years younger than I, and you'll still find time to travel to new places, but I won't have many more opportunities to take in foreign experiences like Africa, of which, believe me, I haven't yet had my fill. So, please, to whom do I owe anything here? Would it not be pathetic for a man like me, already pushing seventy, in his first year of bereavement, to start a relationship with some new woman for whom I could have neither desire nor passion? After all, who knows better than you that my wife and I shared a love that was every bit as great as yours?

And therefore, my dears, and Daniela especially, let go of your sense of responsibility and stop worrying. I won't disappear. And if you still feel that you miss me and you can't get over your longing,
come for a short visit, although you were here three years ago and nothing has changed since then and there's nothing new to see.

"It's totally his right," was Ya'ari's verdict, though Yirmi's sudden decision continued to unsettle Daniela. "None of us is entitled to judge him."

T
HE FULL FORCE
of her fellow passenger's slumber is now directed her way. All her attempts to shrink into her seat and shake off the young head yearning to lean on her shoulder are futile. This man—maybe he partied last night, counting on a chance to sleep it off on the plane—is now avenging in his sleep the loss of his stolen window and also looking for a bed, not caring if that bed is the shoulder of a woman more than twenty years his senior, with two grandchildren, who will soon enough take out their photos to draw comfort from their sweet faces. Now she understands the weight of the responsibility she took on when electing to travel alone. Her husband's controlling, protective love has spoiled her, anesthetized her own sense of reality. Especially on trips, when he carries her travel documents and navigates unfamiliar roads and shifting conditions, so that in planes and trains and cars and hotels she coasts in a safe bubble while at her side is an alert and attentive person, who always has the correct foreign currency and the necessary information. Nor is there any reason for her to feel grateful for his devotion and concern, for she knows that by her very existence, even when she sleeps, she repays him fully for all his services.

But now she is on her way to Africa with no one to organize the world around her. And the stewardess passes by and notices the insolent sleeper, yet doesn't offer to help, as if this trespasser she'd earlier evicted from the window seat were now under her protection. So Daniela has no alternative but to wake the fellow herself and return him politely but firmly to his territory. The young man curls up a bit and mumbles an apology, though apparently only
in his dream, for his eyes immediately close again, and his head droops.

She folds up the newspaper and places it for safekeeping in the bag from the duty-free shop, alongside the lipstick and the skin cream that according to the chatty saleswoman would work wonders on her face. Then she extracts from her purse the photo album of her two grandchildren, whom she still swaddles in the adoration of a new grandmother. She lingers a long time on each picture, as if deciphering an esoteric text. Her older granddaughter, age five, is the image of her mother, Daniela's pretty daughter-in-law, but the child's blue eyes radiate innocence and wonder, nothing like her mother's distant, alienated look. She dwells more on photos of her grandson, a restless, agitated two-year-old always shown gripped tight by his father or mother or harnessed into a high chair or stroller. It's too early to tell whom he'll choose to resemble. Although his round face and the slight crease in his eyelids bring vaguely to mind the features of her son, or maybe even her husband, she's not willing to leave it at that. In photo after photo she strains to make out in this grandson signs of resemblance to herself as well. And since the flight is long and she will not, despite her fatigue, let herself doze off beside the border-jumping stranger, she has more than enough time at her disposal to discover what she hopes to find.

T
HE ELEVATOR BEGINS
its slow descent from the thirtieth floor, but stops immediately at the twenty-ninth and opens its doors. A woman clad in spandex and crowned by a headset is startled to find someone coming down from the thirtieth floor at such an early hour. At first she continues to groove on her music while sizing up her fellow traveler with a penetrating gaze, but as the elevator slows down and approaches the garage, she can't hold back and pulls off her earphones.

"Don't tell me the penthouse has been sold," she says peevishly, as if the sale of the luxury apartment, which she naturally craved but could not afford, were a small personal defeat.

"The penthouse?" Ya'ari answers, smiling. "I wouldn't know. I don't live here. I came to check out the complaints about your winds."

"
Our
winds?" the woman says, brightening. "Maybe you can actually explain to me what's going on here? They promised state-of-the-art construction, a luxury building, we paid a lot of money, and with the first little bit of winter, this insane orchestra starts to run wild—do you hear it?"

"Of course."

They step out onto the elevator landing. The roaring gets louder. He shrugs and turns to leave, but the athletic tenant won't let him go: "So what are you? A wind expert?"

"Not really, but I was responsible for the planning of these elevators."

"So what went wrong in your calculations?"

"Mine? Why mine? It could have been someone else's. It needs to be checked out."

And Ya'ari gets the feeling that it's not the howling wind that is now bothering the energetic woman, but his very existence. Who is he exactly? And why? So before he breaks off contact and goes looking for his car in the twilit garage, he adds, almost in passing, "Don't worry. We'll find the cause of the winds and get them under control. My engineers will get to the bottom of it." And he nods good-bye.