Friendly Fire (8 page)

J
UST BEFORE MIDNIGHT,
they arrive at the base camp of the scientific mission, set upon a colonial farm built at the beginning of the last century. Following Tanzanian independence, the property was confiscated from its European owners and turned into an elite training camp for army officers and public officials favored by the government. But tribal conflicts and violent coups d'etat made it impossible for officers and officials to maintain domestic tranquillity within a single locale, and the place was abandoned and forgotten for many years until two African anthropologists discovered it and approached
UNESCO
with a request for help in renovating it as a service facility for new excavations.

In the darkness, the outline of the farmhouse seems a ghost of the colonial past. But a light is burning on the ground floor. That is the kitchen, where he is no doubt waiting for you, says Sijjin Kuang to her passenger, who suddenly feels too exhausted to lift her small suitcase. After the Sudanese woman collects a package from the backseat, she leads the visitor toward the light.

If Shuli only knew how far Daniela has traveled, alone, to rekindle her memory, she would be pleased, perhaps even proud of her, but surely also apprehensive—as Daniela is now—about her encounter with the widower left behind.

"Here he is." The nurse points to a tall silhouette in the doorway.

Instead of running to his sister-in-law, to embrace her and help wheel her suitcase, Yirmiyahu waits at the entrance for the two women to come to him. Only then does he hug Daniela tight, and fondly pat the shoulder of the black nurse who brought her.

"What happened?" he asks in English, "I thought that you maybe changed your mind and canceled at the last minute."

"Why? Did you want me to change my mind?"

"No, I did not want anything."

He insists on continuing the conversation in English on account of Sijjin Kuang, who stands still as a statue beside him, holding the package in her arms like someone offering a sacrifice. Then, as if feeling sorry for his sister-in-law, who has made this long journey all by herself, he hugs her again and takes the handle of her rolling suitcase. At that moment she senses that his body has a new, pungent smell.

"The water is heated," he says, still in English, though he sounds a bit rusty. "But if you wish to drink a glass of tea before bed, let's go into the kitchen."

The three enter a large hall containing an enormous refrigerator and stoves for cooking and baking, and also what looks like an ancient boiler, the kind used to heat water for washing. The huge pots and frying pans, the ladles and spoons, graters and knives,
testify to generous cooking for a good many people. A pile of firewood stands in the corner and dozens of empty plastic boxes are arranged on tables. While the newcomer looks around wonderingly, her host relieves the Sudanese nurse of the bundle in her arms, thanks her for her trouble, and bids her good night.

"I asked her to buy you new sheets, so you'll feel safe and sound in your bed."

Daniela blushes. She ought to say "Why? Really, no need," but she can't deny his display of sensitivity. He knows well that in strange lodgings she requires, as her sister did, a pristine bed.

As he sets a kettle on the fire, she studies him. The white hair that she remembers from their last meeting has fallen out, and his bald skull, resembling the fashionably shaved heads of young men, arouses in her a slight anxiety.

"I brought you a bunch of newspapers from Israel."

"Newspapers?"

"Also magazines and supplements. The stewardess collected them on the plane and filled a whole bag, so you can pick what interests you."

An ironic smile crosses his face. His eyes flash with a sudden spark.

"Where are they?"

Despite her fatigue, she bends over the suitcase and extracts the bulging bag. For a moment he seems loath to touch it, as if she were handing him a slimy reptile. Then he grabs it and rushes to the boiler, opens a small door revealing tongues of bluish flame, and without delay shoves the entire bag into the fire and quickly shuts the door.

"Wait," she cries, "stop..."

"This is where they belong," he smiles darkly at the visitor, with a measure of satisfaction.

Her face turns pale. But she keeps her composure, as always.

"Perhaps for you it's where they belong. But before you start burning things, you could warn me."

"Why?"

"Because there was lipstick in there too, which I bought at the airport for my housekeeper."

"Too late," he says quietly, without remorse. "The fire is very hot."

Now she regards him with hostility and resentment. In her parents' house, he was the one who had devoured every old newspaper. But he returns her look with affection.

"Don't be angry. No big deal, just newspapers, which get thrown out anyway. So instead of the trash, I threw them in the fire. You'll compensate your housekeeper with something else. I hope you don't have any more gifts like these in store for me."

"Not a thing," she winces, "that was it. Nothing else. Maybe only ... candles..."

"Candles? Why candles?"

"It's Hanukkah now, did you forget? I was thinking, maybe we could light them this week, together ... It's one of my favorite holidays..."

"It's Hanukkah? I really didn't know. For some time now I've been cut off from the Jewish calendar. Tonight, for instance, how many candles?"

"It started yesterday, so tonight is the second candle."

"Second candle?" he seems amused that his sister-in-law thought to bring Hanukkah candles to Africa. "Where are they? Let's see them."

For a moment she hesitates, but then takes out the box of candles and hands it to him in the odd hope that he might agree to light them here, in the middle of the night, and ease her sudden longing for her husband and children. But again, with the same quick, slightly maniacal movement, he opens the little door and adds the Hanukkah candles to the smoldering Israeli newspapers.

"What's the matter with you?" She stands up angrily, but still maintains her calm, as with a student in her class who has done something idiotic.

"Nothing. Don't get angry, Daniela. I've simply decided to take a rest here from all of that."

"A rest from what?"

"From the whole messy stew, Jewish and Israeli ... Please, don't spoil my rest. After all, you've come to grieve."

"In what way spoil it?" She speaks quietly, without rancor, feeling pity for this big man with the pink bald head.

"You'll find out soon enough what I mean. I want quiet. I don't want to know anything, I want to be disconnected, I don't even want to know the name of the prime minister."

"But you do know."

"I don't, and don't tell me. I don't want to know, just as you don't know the name of the prime minister here in Tanzania, or in China. Spare me all that. Come to think of it, maybe it's too bad I didn't insist that Amotz come with you. I'm afraid you'll get bored here with me on such a long visit."

Now, for the first time, she is offended.

"I won't be bored, don't worry about me. And the visit isn't long, and if it gets hard for you having me here, I'll cut it short and leave earlier. Do what you need to do. I brought a book with me too, and don't you dare throw it in any fire."

"If the book is for you, I won't touch it."

"The nurse you sent to get me warned me ... By the way, is she really still a pagan?"

"Why still?"

"You mean, she believes in spirits?"

"What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing wrong. A very impressive young woman ... aristocratic..."

"You can't remember, but before the state was established, on street corners in Jerusalem there stood Sudanese like her, very tall and black, wrapped in robes, roasting these wonderful, delicious peanuts on little burners, and selling them in cones made of newspaper. But that was before you were born."

"Before I was born..."

"Her whole family was murdered in the civil war in southern Sudan, and she grew up to be a woman of great tenderness and humanity."

"Yes. And she said that you didn't come to meet me because you were afraid to run into Israelis. Why would there be Israelis on the plane?"

"On every plane between two points in the world there is at least one Israeli."

"I was the only one on the plane that brought me here."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"And a Jew?"

"A Jew?"

"Maybe there was a Jew on the plane?"

"How would I know?"

"Then imagine that I didn't want to run into him either."

"That bad?"

"That bad."

"Why? You're angry at—"

"No, not angry at all, but I am asking for a rest. I'm seventy years old, and I'm allowed to disconnect a bit, and if it's not a final break, then it's a temporary one, or let's call it a time out. Simply a time out from my people, Jews in general and Israelis in particular."

"And from me too?"

"From you?" He regards his sister-in-law with fondness, pours boiling water into her teacup, puts a flaming match to the cigarette she clenches between her lips, absolutely her last one of the day. "With you I have no choice, you'll always be my Little Sister, as I told you when you were ten. And if you came all the way to Africa to remember Shuli and mourn her with me, it's your right, since I know better than anyone how much you loved her and how much she loved you. That's all. I am warning you, grieve, but do not preach."

I
N THE MIDDLE
of the night, Tel Aviv brightens for an hour or so, and the moon, freed of its gray blanket, rolls the husband from his wife's abandoned territory back to his own side of the bed and from there, after a slight hesitation, lifts him to his feet as well. Yes, Yirmiyahu cautioned him not to expect any electronic sign of life until the next day, but still he wanders, one more time, among the television channels, so that—with the collusion of a mild sleeping pill—he will be able to fall asleep again, reassured that no plane has crashed or been hijacked; and in the meantime, till his bloodstream carries the pill's chemical message to his brain, he tries, with a few quick strokes on the pad of graph paper he keeps by the bed, to work out a scheme whereby the secret fifth elevator could not only be independently controlled but also have perpendicular doors, so that it could be squeezed into the southwest corner of the shaft without stealing much space from the four elevators already designed. Just a preliminary sketch, inspired by a design flickering in his memory, maybe from some old magazine. And as he long ago taught himself to do, so as not to disturb his wife's sleep, he works under a small reading lamp that blends its light with the miserly moonbeams. Despite his excitement over the idea and his faith in the sketch that embodies it, he adds a small note to the bottom of the page:
Moran, check if this is realistic!

I
N THE CLEAR
summer night south of the equator, the very same moon, rich and profligate, does not disturb the sleep of the woman whose natural serenity has pleasantly blended into the bed provided by her host, fitted with new linens. From many years' experience, Yirmiyahu knew that Daniela, like her sister, would not sleep well between old sheets washed in a dubious laundry. Even though he did not invite her to visit, he made sure she got new sheets and witnessed their packaging being removed. That was how the sisters would pamper each other, and the death of Shuli has not freed her husband from her obligation to the other, on top of his own obligation to let her have his room and bed.

This kind gesture of his does not trouble her. Six nights is a short time. On the other hand, she is dismayed that he threw the Israeli papers in the fire, and the destruction of the Hanukkah candles really does offend her, even though he promised with a smile that he had no intention of burning anything else. After midnight, in the big kitchen, as she smoked her very, very last cigarette—deducted from tomorrow's quota—he also told her not to misunderstand him, that his need to criticize, judge, or lodge official protest evaporated long ago, that all he wants now is disengagement and separation, at least for a while. Is she not a mature woman, who has known this man and his history since her childhood? Why, then, should his words not put her at ease?

After her teacup was washed and returned to its place, he took her suitcase and said, come, let's go upstairs, get ready for seventy steps, because here of course there's no elevator, though your Amotz would doubtless be surprised to discover that the architect who designed this place between the two world wars did not entirely rule out the possibility. There's a narrow round concrete shaft next to the stairwell. Now it's full of old furniture, probably tossed in there for years from all the floors.

And maybe there's no need for an elevator, since the broad shallow steps are easy to climb, even to the room on the top floor. This room was the one stipulation of this white man who joined the African team: a private room on a high floor, with a view of the broad landscape. The room is not large, but it is tidy and clean, and unlike his study in Jerusalem holds very few books, though on the desk is a pile of papers and ledgers, held in place by a shiny skull.

"Don't be alarmed," he told her, picking up the skull and stroking it. "It's not human. It belonged to a young ape, more than three million years ago—maybe an early ancestor of ours. And it's not real, either, but reconstructed on the basis of a single wisdom tooth. But if you think it will bother you at night, I'll take it away. Shuli would definitely not have been happy to sleep alone with it in the same room."

But Shuli's little sister has no such fears. Why should a replica of the skull of a young monkey a few million years old disturb her sleep? Doesn't he remember that as a child she would bring her parents greenish toads from the banks of the Yarkon and suggest they pet them at bedtime? Yes, Yirmi agreed, as a grin brightened his face, and he also remembered the toads jumping in her sister's bed. And maybe he would remember other things too. For a moment it seemed that he was glad his sister-in-law had come to visit. Yes, he admitted, this last mourning period was hasty, perhaps because the previous one had gone on and on. He left the country before the end of the thirty days not because he wanted to run away but for fear that if he stayed away too long, the authorities in Dar es Salaam would take advantage of his absence and shut down the diplomatic office they had long since regretted approving, because of the security costs. The great irony was that in the end it was the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem that decided to shut it down to save money, and maybe the whole economic mission had been created in the first place as some sort of compensation for the "friendly fire" that had killed his son.