About the Night (15 page)

How he envied her solitude. If he told her it was possible, she would leave Salon Hubert, pack her life into a single suitcase, and meet him with her clothing and scarves and a pair of candlesticks at the Haifa port, like that other time, when she was daring enough to go away with him to the Black Sea. Her few belongings would vanish if she left, her apartment would revert to its owner, and with a light and unencumbered heart, she would set out, free. He, on the other hand, was a prisoner of his many belongings: the land, the buildings, the warehouses, the orchards; even now, when they were not flourishing, they were a burden, chains that bound him to this place.

If only he could behave like so many German Jews had when the Nazis came, he thought, recalling a conversation he had had only days earlier at Kareem’s shoeshine stand with an Arab doctor who had studied in Italy. The bespectacled doctor informed him that the Jews that had avoided extermination were the ones who had picked up and left behind property and belongings and sailed for America or Palestine. And the ones who remained . . . He did not finish his sentence. He wiped his glasses and gave Elias a knowing look.

Kareem said, “You can’t fight destiny.”

The doctor said, “Sometimes you have to fight everything: logic and your heart and destiny, too.”

Elias said, “It’s not only the property, it’s not only life, it’s how you live. Whether you run away from your homeland or you dig in your heels in spite of the difficulty.”

Kareem said, “Being a refugee is worse than dying.”

Elias gave him a tip, shook hands with the doctor, and walked on. In spite of his shiny shoes, he felt heavy, with no spring to his step.

As he did daily, Elias made his calculations for survival, always coming to the conclusion that he could not uproot his family; they would never leave their home. But today, for the first time, he realized he could never abandon them, even if the price meant losing her. His body convulsed in pain at the thought.

No, he reassured himself, he would not lose her. He would not let that happen. Here, the sun was coming out after days of gloominess; this was something to hold on to, and it would make her happy, too, warming her and consoling her on the other side of the city. It was still the same sun, here and there.

George read two newspapers every day. Two half-truths, he called them, believing neither, but he carried on reading them anyway. He said that the Arab newspaper was thin but bloated with importance while the Jewish one was dry and arrogant. Between the two, he managed to cobble together an approximate picture of what was taking place around them. He filled in the missing pieces with the help of Munir, who rode his bicycle between the two sides of the city. Blue-eyed Munir, with his fair European looks and height, deflected suspicion. No one on the western side of the city thought he was an Arab, and on their own side of town, everyone knew the industrious young man on the bicycle responsible for the Rianis’ bookkeeping, mail, documents, bills of shipment, warehouses, the two cars, Elias’s suits, trips to the spice shop, fetching George’s coffee and newspapers—and that George loved him like a son and had pledged to look after him from the time he became an orphan. His father had worked at the laundry behind the Notre Dame building; when George came to leave a suit of his for cleaning, he noticed the boy with the blue gaze hiding behind the steam vapors.

Someone told Munir he had seen Elias with a beautiful woman, a Jew. He did not wish to listen and very nearly plugged his ears, since whatever one does not know cannot be leaked and turn lethal. He never breathed a word to either Elias or his father. His loyalty to this family was more important than everything, loyalty to each one and to them all. Their secrets were more precious to him than his own.

Again and again, she scrutinized the letter that had been placed in her mailbox. The letter had the time and place, the King David Hotel. There was not much to comprehend; it was clear and concise. In the hours since her arrival at the hotel, she had drunk several pots of tea but was afraid to leave her seat for a trip to the ladies’ room lest she miss him. Such disasters had taken place in the bad luck of a single moment.

At ten, she rose from her seat, tucked in her bursting bladder, and made her way to the bathroom. Once there, she closed the door of the stall and cried bitterly.

He had once asked her not to count the days because counting would sow anxiety. “Our love,” he had told her then, “is outside any framework, unfettered by time. It exists at every moment and in every place, so that even if I don’t see you for years, I know we will able to survive thanks to the strength of our love.”

Still, she assumed that the hidden clock in his heart kept the time even without meaning to. He might not count or listen to its ticking, but he knew what time it was without a watch, he knew when a full moon would appear and when it would rain, at what angle the sun would set and when the sea level would be high. Although he was a man who lived in a city and wore tailored herringbone suits, he was born with the instincts of a tracker. He could always point to the north, even in a foreign country or under cloudy skies. When she was at his side, she learned to let time trickle, melting into it and trying not to think about the end of their time together. She knew that he knew when the right time was for everything.

Once, at a time that now seemed far in the past, he brought her to the Judean Desert. They traveled without a map on rough roads during a period of explosive uprisings and infiltrators and armed and trigger-happy gangs. The sun, shadows, and wind were his guides. After several hours of driving, he stopped under a lone tamarisk, spread out a cloth and placed bread and cheese and shiny cucumbers on it, and he lit a fire to boil water for tea. The desert was theirs alone that morning, silent and restful, dry and wild, with white broom bushes and white hills of boulders, dry, clean air and wide-open spaces. She was standing with her back to a sharp, cool boulder as he fell prisoner to her lips, when suddenly, surprised at his need for her, he planted his feet firmly, lifted the hem of her skirt, and placed his hand between her head and the boulder wall, their breathing the only sound in that empty desert.

The desert heated up slowly, its winter sun generous and pampering. They lay on their backs in a hidden ravine strewn with perfectly formed pebbles created by rainwater. She had thought that this was how she could spend her life with him, listening to nature, relaxed and full, everything perfect and at peace, nothing cracked, nothing shattered. And then he had said what he had said, sounding like a prophet, sensing what was coming, that their time was limited and that he needed to arm himself with immunity in the face of difficult times.

“Everything is predetermined,” he had said, his voice low as if being considerate to the encompassing silence. “You are meant for me and I for you. It is so, and the amount of time that is ours has been determined as well, the hours we spend together. All of it, predetermined. You probably think that is strange.”

She sat up straight, amused by his seriousness.

“Therefore,” he continued, “there’s no point in fighting with time, trying to speed it up or slow it down.” He sat up next to her. “Because what’s happening with us, it’s preordained. Anyone who has met his true love knows this, and he also knows that nothing will impede that love from existing.”

The moment he finished speaking, he fell silent for a moment, and suddenly in the bushes there appeared a young buck in all its glory, copper-colored with white spots. Instead of running from the intruders, he drew near; only a small distance separated them before he stopped. He stood watching them for a long moment with an expression of innocence and complete trust, an expression neither of them would ever forget, and he allowed them to enjoy this wondrous sight. The world had stopped for a moment, the three of them frozen in this unexpected moment, until he lifted his legs and skipped off, out of their line of vision.

Only after he had been swallowed up into the desert did Elias break their stunned silence. “That creature,” he said, “freer than any other on the face of the earth at this moment, decided suddenly to make an appearance in our story.”

The waiter at the King David brought her change, and, in his eyes, his condolences for the meeting that had not taken place. For five hours he had watched her sit in a garden chair, straight-backed and full of anticipation, until hope had abandoned her and she slumped, weary. All the other patrons on the terrace had left long before. She rose and straightened her slightly wrinkled skirt.

“Perhaps the gentleman will still arrive,” the waiter said, without ever being told whom she was waiting for. “I’ll tell him you waited.”

The streets were deserted, and her footsteps returned an echo of empty loneliness. Here and there, the silhouettes of men in hats and coats passed by, but she had lost all fear. Disappointment had overtaken her apprehensions about being alone on the dark street.

That evening, after he had missed their appointed meeting, was not a good time to put into practice Elias’s worldview whereby good occurs now and may yet come again unexpectedly. Instead, it was the time to sink, to be led by the fear and anxiety that had taken over every corner of her tiny apartment.

Passover was around the corner, but the spring cleaning chores seemed like a heavy burden, impossible to carry out. At Salon Hubert, the list of appointments was dwindling, both the numbers and the mood falling drastically. The diplomatic wives were afraid to venture out, the locals cut back on their visits, and only the brides and the rich continued to show up, the latter as a show of keeping up appearances. Monsieur Hubert complained that he did not know how much longer he could keep the business afloat under such conditions, but Lila knew it was his nature to complain and that he had reserves from the days of prosperity. Hubert claimed that it was only thanks to the regular clients that they could stay open.

Like gray-eyed Betty, whom Lila had known since they were girls in Yemin Moshe. She said, “I don’t care what. The world can be falling apart. I’m still going to do my nails once every two weeks.” Her husband had been drafted over the weekend. He was given a service number, a rifle, and a uniform, and was sent to join a regiment of new immigrants, insulting as that was to a sixth-generation Jerusalemite. “He’s never held a gun before,” Betty said nervously. “Only a needle and a pair of scissors. I have no idea what he’s going to do there.”