About the Night (36 page)

The echoing explosions from no-man’s-land continued through the night. On the radio, it was said that the divided city would be reunited in a single night. “Such dramatic measures,” said a thick-voiced commentator, “should be carried out quickly.” Bulldozers would work under huge spotlights until every last vestige of the division had been removed. Barbed wire destroyed, cement walls turned into heaps of rubble, deep pits filled in, mortar shells disposed of. And like the bulldozer operators and the operations officers, Lila, too, remained awake all night.

By the seven o’clock news, Lila was already on her third cup of coffee when she heard Mayor Teddy Kollek announce that there was only one Jerusalem now. You could debate this for generations to come, but it was a fait accompli.

She kept Elias’s letter nearby in case she wished to search once again for the unknown in it. There were still four days to go until her world would come to a stop.

Monsieur Hubert was waiting for her that morning. He was so predictable, so neurotic, short, and fat, and he stood glancing at his watch and tapping his foot facing the street from which she would arrive. Lila enjoyed avoiding his moods, and she made her way slowly to the kitchen with Monsieur Hubert right on her heels.

“I know, the queen of England is waiting at my manicure station,” she said as she buttoned up her work smock.

“Not the queen of England, just the wife of your prime minister,” he said, with a bigger sneer than usual. “I hope you’ll have time for her.”

“You don’t say,” she said as she prepared her fourth cup of coffee for the morning.

“I don’t have time for your games,” Hubert said. “The lady is waiting at the prime minister’s residence. A taxi will be here in fifteen minutes to fetch you. Bring everything you need with you. Don’t take any money from her. I want her to owe me.”

“I understand,” Lila said. “Now go splash cold water on your face and manage the salon before everyone in the waiting area rips you to pieces.” She did not mention the fact that she had been up all night and did not let on to anything that was happening to her. She merely prepared a bag, sterilized her equipment, and chose a few bottles of light-colored polish and some makeup. There were four days ahead in which she had to deal with many people and events and complaints and surprises, and she wondered how she would manage them all.

In his excitement, Monsieur Hubert had ordered two taxis and had to send one on its way. The driver whistled the entire way to Balfour Street. Lila was relieved that he was not talking; he made her feel better, and she left him a tip because his driving relaxed her.

The prime minister’s wife herself opened the door, just as the maid was running from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron and apologizing.

“It’s fine,” said the prime minister’s wife pleasantly. “Would you bring us some coffee?”

Lila followed her into a spacious library with a large desk, impressive windows, and a carpet embroidered with green tamarisk trees and stags with their heads up, watchful. She said, “We’ll need a bowl of hot water with soap, and a towel.”

“There’s a reception at the King David this evening,” said the prime minister’s wife, “and I’ve got to dress and make myself look presentable, you know.” She sighed. “I don’t like such events. I prefer to stay at home and eat cottage cheese and vegetables with him when he gets home in the evening.”

“We’ll make sure you look just fine,” Lila reassured her.

By the time the maid entered with a tray of coffee, they were deep in a conversation about women and whims, beautiful-hair days and disastrous-hair days, days when one’s skin is smooth and taut, and days when it droops. The prime minister’s wife did not ask if Lila was married and why she was not, all the usual questions. After drying her polish in front of a fan, she asked Lila to come with her to the bedroom to help her choose a dress.

They tried dresses and shoes, but Lila was not satisfied. In the meantime she fixed the woman’s hair into a bun and plucked her eyebrows and applied a delicate layer of makeup to this woman whom everyone thought of as modest and natural.

“You’re exceptionally talented,” she told Lila, “and you’re absolutely saving me.”

“I’m going to bring you something to wear,” Lila told her. “I’ll be back in half an hour.” She hailed a taxi and had the driver wait outside the Babayoff boutique until she emerged a short while later with two dresses, one black and the other wine-red. The prime minister’s wife liked them both, but it was Lila who decided on the burgundy. They agreed that everyone else would be wearing black.

When they were about to part company, Lila was uncomfortable with the lavish thanks the prime minister’s wife was heaping on her, and then, suddenly, without warning, she found herself tearing up. In front of the prime minister’s wife no less—what an embarrassment! The tears flowed, but Lila could only manage to say that she had to return to the salon. However, the prime minister’s wife took her hand and led her to the kitchen, where she made a sandwich of lox and mayonnaise she squeezed from a tube, and she made Lila sit down to eat.

“I don’t know you,” said Lila, “but I feel safe here.”

“The things we keep hidden are a terrible burden and come with a price,” the woman said. “Isn’t there anyone you can talk with?”

Lila shook her head.

The woman said, “That’s what I thought. Is it a man?”

Lila nodded and bit into the sandwich in order to swallow her discomfort.

“Someone good or bad?”

“Someone who can never be mine,” Lila said.

“There is no such thing as ‘never,’” said the prime minister’s wife. “We don’t know what’s around the corner or coming tomorrow.”

“This eternity of mine,” Lila said, wiping her nose, “has lasted nineteen years.”

The prime minister’s wife was now insisting she eat some chocolate. “Sweet is good,” she said. “What do you mean by nineteen years?”

Lila remained silent.

“Go on, say it out loud.”

Lila took a deep breath. “For nineteen years,” she said, “I have been waiting for him.” She began crying again, this time with gusto, like a chimney only being cleaned after years and years. Her body shook as though she were riding on a rock-strewn path. She was silently grateful to the maid for using the noisy vacuum cleaner in an adjacent room.

“I would imagine,” said the prime minister’s wife, her eyes brimming with mercy, “that he is worthy of it.”

Lila cried harder.

“People say it only happens once in a lifetime,” the woman said. “And whoever doesn’t experience it waits for it forever, and those who do feel it’s a miracle and cannot give it up.”

“Now,” Lila said, trying to regain control of her breathing, “he is asking to meet. After all these years.”

“And what about you?” the woman asked. “Do you want to see him?”

“I knew the answer to that question for all these years,” Lila said, “but now suddenly I don’t.”

“Look at you, how you’re torturing yourself. It’s the fear that’s confusing you. If you meet him and you’re disappointed, you’ll cry about that for a few months. But if you don’t go see him, you’ll be sorry for the rest of your life.”

“I think I’ll simply die the minute before I see him,” Lila predicted.

“Go,” the prime minister’s wife instructed her. “Be at peace. And be sure to listen to what he does
not
say.”

Lila felt slightly better, stronger.

“Troubles come uninvited,” the woman said, “but we have to bring happiness ourselves.”

“Monsieur Hubert is going to kill me,” Lila said, returning to herself.

“I’ll tell him I kept you here for hours,” the woman said with a smile. “Which is true.”

“I almost forgot,” Lila said, handing over a pair of Merci stockings. “I always keep a pair in my bag. Sheer is elegant. And one more thing: the height of your heel doesn’t matter, but it must be skinny.”

From his office window above the bustling main thoroughfare, Elias could keep track of events up and down Sultan Suleiman Street, alert to the changes taking place. Things were happening at such a pace that he was glad for a window from which to watch them. The flow of Israelis was incessant; they carried blenders, meat grinders, blow dryers. They piled the roofs of their cars with carpets, leather pillows, Hebron glass vases, footstools, copper kettles. Anything exotic, anything that could be bargained for, anything that had remained in their memories and could now be obtained.

The shopping spree extended to the grocery as well: soaps and sausages and sweets. Swarms of voracious buyers descended on booming businesses and fattened the pockets of their Arab proprietors. Mainly they purchased products from Jordan, with their fetching international labels that had been off limits due to the Arab boycott. Now all the barriers had been broken down, and nothing kept them from their dreams. In every shop, the same question could be heard on the lips of every panting Israeli: “Is this from overseas?”

One hot afternoon, East Jerusalem got its first traffic light. The changing lights were a big novelty and caused quite a ruckus. An Arab traffic policeman was posted there to let motorists know when to go and when to stop.

White flags of surrender had not yet been taken down from all the roofs. George Riani had refused to fly one in the first place, unlike most of his neighbors. “I am not at war,” he said, “so I cannot surrender.”

He was disgusted with two things that had forced their way into his life: Israeli graffiti on walls all around East Jerusalem, put there by visitors who wished to leave behind a reminder, and the flour shortage, which meant that the Arabs were forced to pay exorbitant prices for bread baked in West Jerusalem bakeries.

“The extra money is bad enough,” complained George Riani to Munir, “but the taste is worse, like a sponge. I can’t put the Jews’ bread into my mouth.”

George left work early and went home. He preferred to get used to these changes in the comfort of his home.

In the office, Munir made a pot of Orange Valley tea. As usual, he left his own cup in the kitchen, where he would drink it. Elias seemed forlorn and dejected. “Is there anything I can get you?” he asked Elias.

Indeed, Elias was in need of something, but he knew not what. A kick to the head, shock absorbers, the passage of time, a general settling after such an earthquake. Everyone around him was trying to figure out the meaning of events, trying to decipher what had happened and predict what would come next. Elias, on the other hand, was indifferent to all that, to what had happened, what was happening, and what would happen. A single thought was in his mind, and it sent a current right down his spine: that Israeli officer, or perhaps that one over there, or maybe the one standing next to him, or the one in the command car—certainly one of them was Lila’s husband. They looked to be in their forties. Perhaps one of these men in olive uniform was hers, the one she was sitting at home waiting for, the one whose uniforms she laundered, the one whose meals she prepared.