About the Night (19 page)

“Put them between the benches of the van,” a policeman told them gruffly.

The maid said, “Dr. Herman’s wife will never understand where I disappeared to. She’ll go crazy!”

The pale girl said nothing.

Lila said, “You’re all right, aren’t you?”

The girl nodded.

“They’ll ask a few questions and send us home,” she told the girl, hoping to allay her fears.

Before the van set out, Lila gave a last look at the street, which only minutes earlier had been a scene of routine life—albeit squalid, but still routine, teeming with people and the buzz of traffic. But now, the street had emptied out and was the realm of whipping winds and silence and ugliness, with huge, curling spikes of barbed wire spread along it.

The van passed through the city, and when it reached its destination—the Russian Compound, police headquarters—they were instructed to disembark under the watchful eyes of irritable policemen.

“They think we’re cattle,” the maid complained.

The interrogator stood facing the detainees, his legs wide apart. “Let me make this perfectly clear,” he thundered. “Each and every one of you was a witness to this murder. The soldier was shot down by criminals, and we will catch them. I would advise you to not conceal anything you saw from us. Whoever does not cooperate will be arrested.”

The men were taken to separate interrogation cells while the women remained together. A British policeman recorded their names and handed over the list to the interrogator.

Lila Cassuto. Margalit Hasson. Esther Hakim, who added the name of Dr. Herman, her employer.

No one made a sound. The women had to wait for long minutes, then were brought into the closed interrogation rooms, one after the other. An officer with a golden mustache indicated to the pale girl that she should follow him, but Lila put a hand on her knee, instructing her to remain seated.

Lila said, in English, “She is with me.”

The officer ignored her.

Lila said, “You cannot take her; she’s just a girl.”

He hesitated a moment, then nodded. Lila held the girl’s hand, and together they followed after him. Lila’s heels echoed on the stone floors.

In the interrogation room, they waited as the officer arranged the papers for recording their testimony, three pages with carbon paper between them. Lila realized that looking after the girl dispelled any fears of her own, which is how people who have to save their children must feel. When you are looking after someone, your own fear shrinks.

The interrogator drummed his fingers and turned his attention to the girl. He asked what she had been doing on that street at that hour.

Lila was quick to answer in her stead: “We were waiting in the line for water.”

“I do not believe I was speaking to you,” said the officer, turning back to the girl.

Margalit said, “No English.”

The officer grew angry. “They teach you English in school, don’t they?”

She shrugged her shoulders, looking as innocent as a baby just fished out of her bath and peering from beneath a towel.

Lila hoped that the voice that came from her throat would sound confident, but a surprising tremor was there. “We were waiting for our turn in line when a car came along. It stopped for a moment and blocked our view of what was happening. Then we heard shots, and when the car pulled away, we saw a man lying on the pavement.” Lila cleared her throat and produced an artificial cough in order to overcome the tension she was feeling. “And that is all, officer,” she concluded. “That’s what we saw in the street.”

The officer asked about the car and about other passing cars. Lila recalled only the chocolate van, the vehicle with the yeshiva students, and the bus to Katamon.

“You’re quite certain you did not see the faces of the people sitting in the black car?” he asked again.

“Everything happened quickly,” Lila said. “There was a strong wind; we kept moving around to keep warm. From where we were standing, it was impossible to see.”

“We believe that someone standing in line knew about the assassination,” the interrogator said. “Try to remember the men standing with you. Ask her, too.”

The girl had been following along as they spoke. The officer left the room for a few minutes, and Lila whispered, “He wants to know if you can describe any of the men standing there in line.”

The girl remembered the young men in great detail, but they had run off the moment the shooting began. “Tell him I was busy reading my shorthand textbook,” she said.

Lila said, “He went to see if our names appear in their criminal records. You know, if we’re troublemakers.”

The girl continued to follow the interrogation with her intelligent eyes, her gaze alert. When everyone from the line had been interrogated, Lila was asked to sign a form, and they were set free.

They went out into the street, their pails in hand. “We’re like women from some desert tribe,” Lila said, “setting out for the spring and returning empty-handed.”

The sun came out for a moment, the wind abated, and there was something encouraging in the air: leaving the dark and gloomy police headquarters, the smell of freedom, the sight of life on the street, the slight hunger they were feeling. All these made Lila smile, and the girl smiled back.

“We were lucky,” Lila said, “that we really didn’t see a thing.”

“Thanks for helping me,” the girl said.

“You’re still young. Someone has to look out for you.”

“I’m not young.”

“Sorry,” Lila said, trying to appease her. “How old are you?”

“Fifteen,” she said, standing a bit straighter.

“Where do you live?” Lila asked.

“In the Bukharan Quarter.”

“So why were you standing in line in our neighborhood?” Lila asked.

“They know me in my neighborhood, and I got our allotment of water there yesterday,” she explained.

“And how do you manage to haul the pail all that way?” Lila asked.

“I manage. Oh, my mother’s going to be furious.”

“About what?”

“That I’m coming back without the water.”

“You witnessed a murder and were interrogated. Just tell her what happened. I’d guess this was one of the more dramatic days of your life.”

“She won’t believe me,” the girl said.

“Why not?”

“That’s the way she is. She thinks I make things up. She says I have a fertile imagination. She’ll punish me. It doesn’t matter what for. She’ll lock me up in the house and let me out only to go to school.”

Lila envied a girl living with her parents and studying in school, someone living a normal, simple life. “Where do you study?” she asked.

“The Alliance Française high school. I’m in the English and French track. Typing and shorthand, too. In the evenings I take sewing lessons, but she doesn’t know.”

“She—your mother?”

“Yes. I saved up the money for it. I want to sew my own dresses.”

“You don’t speak a word of English?” Lila asked.

“Who says I don’t?” said the girl, blushing. “I’m the best in my class. Nobody has a better accent.”

“What a crafty thing you are!” Lila said, surprised. “I believed you, like the officer did. So you understood everything he asked and everything I answered.”

“Everything. The people in the car were wearing uniforms.”

“You saw them?”

“The ones who were shooting. They were dressed as British officers.”

“How do you know they were dressed up?” Lila asked.

“Well, it’s pretty clear they weren’t British,” the girl said.

“You’ve got the eyes of a hawk,” Lila noted.

“Do you think you could do me one more favor?” the girl asked.

“How did you manage that ‘No English,’ like some fool?”

“It’s always better to be the one who doesn’t know. You want me to stand in line for both of us now?”

“We can stand together.”

“She’s going to lock me in at home,” the girl said. Tears filled her eyes and threatened to flow but remained where they were.

“You want me to explain to your parents what happened to us?” Lila asked.

“I wanted to ask you, but I didn’t feel comfortable,” the girl said.

“All right,” Lila said. “Your name’s Margalit, right?”

“Margo. My sisters got prettier names. There are four of us.”

“A large family. How nice.”

“Nice? What’s nice about it? My mother says that boys are a blessing and girls are a nuisance until you can marry them off and be rid of them. Every time she had another girl, she cried in the delivery room. Boys are strong, and they earn a living. That’s what she says. And girls are whimsical parasites.”

“Are all your sisters as bright and pretty as you?”

“They wish,” Margo said with a chuckle.

“Are you hungry?” Lila asked.

“No. Really, I’m not.”

“Wait here with the pails,” Lila said. “I’m going to get something for us.”

The baker emerged from the back, where the ovens were, through a door with a porthole window, bringing with him the most wonderful scent of baking dough.

“What an awful day,” he said to Lila. “Casualties on our side, a convoy to Ben Shemen and more up in the Galilee. I’m telling you, every day that passes and we’re able to bake our bread, it’s a miracle. I’ve got the radio on back there, and who knows, maybe it has an effect on the dough? Every day, more bad news. Tell me, where did all the good news disappear to?”

Lila considered telling him about the assassination she had witnessed but decided instead to bless him and his fresh baked goods. He handed her a cookie to taste. He apologized that it was made from almond extract, the only thing he could get his hands on lately, he told her. Lila enjoyed every morsel.

“When things are difficult for me,” she told him on her way out, “I think about the window of your bakery.”

The paper bag carried the scent of the cinnamon pastries she had bought. Lila noted that Margo tried to eat slowly so that she would not appear hungry. On their way to the well, Margo explained that she wanted to be an interpreter for the United Nations. She said it in a very determined manner, and Lila was amazed that she knew what she wanted. “And I’ll dress like you,” Margo said, “with sheer nylon stockings and high heels and a dress and a handbag with a handle.”

“One does not leave home,” Lila said with a smile, “if one is not in tip-top shape. You never know where you might wind up.”

Margo laughed.

The water distribution station was closed. “You see that?” Lila said, angry. “And they wonder why people steal water from the wells. Ben-Gurion can make speeches until tomorrow about the national morale and water stealing and profiteering, but without water, there’s no life. It’s no wonder that people are acting like animals.”

Margo was feeling better, perhaps from the fresh pastries or the confidence Lila exuded. They marched up the sloping street. There were no signs of attacks in this part of town.

Margo led Lila down streets that looked ancient and forsaken, winding streets with low buildings pressed one to the next. Lila thought about how people lived in their gloomy, gray Jerusalem buildings and everyone knew what they had bought and what they ate and where they went. The sound of a chicken cackling rose from inside the window of a home they were passing.

“Inside the house?” Lila asked.

“They have twenty laying hens,” Margo told her, as if this were an everyday occurrence. “They’re fed sorghum seeds. They have loads of eggs.”

“The chickens live in the house, with the people?”

“Yes. They have a kerosene stove, and it’s warm in there. Sometimes I go there in the evenings. They have three sons. The father works in a packaging factory. The mother bakes and knits. Sometimes, when she goes to the market, I babysit the little one, and when she comes home, she makes me an omelet sandwich.”

Margo pointed to a low cement wall.

“That’s the sniper’s wall,” she told Lila, stopping to let Lila be impressed with her knowledge. “The Arabs hide behind it. You have to bend low, like this,” she said, crouching like a cat. “Kids hold competitions here to see who’s the most daring.”

Margo wiped her shoes several times on a mat outside the door to her home, and Lila followed suit. They entered the tiny, spotless apartment, a single room with a small kitchen and dining table. A pot stood on the flame. A woman lay on a narrow bed with slices of raw potato on her forehead, her formula for alleviating migraines. Before she even opened her eyes, she looked angry and somewhat in pain, but when she caught sight of the guest, her expression changed.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I was just resting. The potatoes draw the headache out.”

“This is Lila,” Margo said, her voice hesitant.

“Vicky,” said Margo’s mother, clearly trying to ingratiate herself. As she shook Lila’s hand, she took in everything about her.

Lila was sorry she’d come in. She wished she had escorted the girl home and left her.

“Margo,” Vicky said, her eyes still on Lila, “why did you leave the water outside?”

Margo began speaking quickly. She told her mother all about what had happened that morning, stopping occasionally for confirmation from Lila. The line, the assassination, the detainment, the interrogation.