About the Night (44 page)

From that spring day in 1948, they were left with keys to buildings now rendered symbolic and worthless. The little money that George Riani left in the banks was eaten up quickly.

As the years passed, their status shrank; no one was envious of the Rianis any longer. Their annual holidays in snowy Lebanon and on the Red Sea beach of Aqaba were mere memories from their days of abundance. Nasreen, who had married into a family of means, discovered she could no longer even afford to visit her relatives in England. The villa in Jericho fell into disrepair, and the orange trees in the garden stopped giving fruit.

The tea trade that was so dear to Elias’s heart very nearly dried up. Their regular clients—Tel Aviv cafés and hotels—remained under Israeli control. At first, Elias continued importing tea, if only in order to remain in contact with large suppliers from around the world. There were also a few clients in East Jerusalem, mostly foreign consulates, who bought Oolong, Assam, and Darjeeling from him. He held on by the skin of his teeth and managed to cover his losses, though more than once he found himself with inventory he could not sell, and since he insisted on providing only fresh tea leaves, he would send Munir out to distribute their supplies to the cook at the orphanage or the children of the church choir or the Austrian hospice or the storekeeper at the Augusta Victoria hospital. Then the recipients at those places would enjoy several weeks of excellent tea poured into plain cups and glasses and prepared without ceremony, but it provided a feeling of goodwill nonetheless, short-lived though it was.

In the nineteen years that had passed, all signs of their wealth vanished. The men’s suits wore thin; the Mercedes needed endless repairs. Rumor had it that the Israelis were considering paying nominal compensation to property owners, but George refused and Elias did as well; they refused to receive something designed to quiet those who had been plundered and appease their own conscience. Elias knew their fortunes would dwindle further. At the most difficult of times his thoughts drifted to better days, and he wished he had lived at a time when his forebears were only just amassing their wealth and the family seemed protected. His grandfather had been quite wealthy during the Ottoman Empire, his father had fared less well under the British, and now he was left with nearly nothing as a result of the 1948 war and would be unable to pass anything along to his own son. That was the way it worked in their family: each generation lost a sizable portion.

At the same time, a new class of wealthy people sprang up around them, people who dealt in electrical appliances and owners of garages and restaurateurs and antique dealers: those who found themselves with great riches thanks to the occupation and greedy Israelis. On weekends, their establishments were overrun with customers, the alleyways clogged with long lines. Restaurants could not keep pace with the demand for strongly spiced Levantine food, the grills manned at dizzying speeds and filled with mutton and onions and tomatoes.

Elias accepted all this; he understood that he who was once on high would slowly grow accustomed to being low, while those who rose from the depths to the heights took no time at all in adjusting.

He tried to think of everything going on around him as the aftermath of a flood that had wiped out whole villages, an unforeseen natural disaster that drowned everything, then disappeared. Their luck had not held out this time, while others had emerged from this flood strengthened.

With time, the grief and sorrow abated and were replaced with the understanding that this was now their lives. Elias did not sink into melancholy. He no longer clung to their days of wealth, and he limited himself to what he could afford. His life became simpler, he was less preoccupied and worried, he became more alert, and he noticed details that had previously eluded him. He heard sounds his ears had not picked up before. One’s assets, he realized, were what one thought one owned, what one believed would provide security, and his loss was a problem of logic: what once was is no longer. In any event, he was never able to touch all that they had had. Would he spend the rest of his life as a bitter man mourning the lands that were once his and had been plundered, or would he leave matters alone for a while, since there was no way of knowing what tomorrow would bring and what surprises were in store?

That evening he would find a way of telling Lila what he had not told her all these years. The easy part would be telling her about how he had lost his wealth, that he lived on loans, that he brought in money from here and there, and that all that was left to him was the office on the main street, the home in which his family lived, and the desolate summerhouse in Jericho.

He walked inside the house to take his jacket and his wallet, and he made his way on foot to his office.

The telephone rang just as Nomi was spreading a cookie with chocolate. She put the knife down to answer. It was her mother.

“What are you doing?”

“Homework.”

“Have you eaten?”

“Yes. Bean soup.”

“Go to Lila’s beauty parlor,” Margo told her.

“Why?”

“Make sure she’s all right. We haven’t heard from her since the wedding, and the line at the salon is always busy.”

“Who’ll bring little brother home?”

“Your father. But don’t stay too long at Lila’s.”

It was a six-minute walk that meant crossing two streets and encountering many temptations, but Nomi resisted and arrived quickly at the salon. The “Open” sign knocked against the glass when she pushed on the door. Two of the hairdressers were dyeing hair, and there was a woman with a blue cream mustache on her upper lip. Monsieur Hubert was speaking on the phone and was clearly furious: “I am the most
professionnel
salon in Jerusalem!” he said before slamming down the receiver.

“Where’s Lila?” Nomi asked.

Monsieur Hubert snarled at an intern for not making sure the towels were folded properly and uniformly.

“Where’s Lila?” Nomi asked again.

“I don’t know,” he answered gruffly. “She didn’t come to work and didn’t phone.”

According to the clock on the wall, it was three o’clock. Nomi went out into the street and stood staring into the window of the bakery at the fresh yeast cakes that smelled so good she wished she could take up residence in the tins they were baked in. She was about to return home, but at the corner she noticed a Mercedes with a man inside it, and she thought she recognized him as the one who had come to collect Lila at the wedding and had given her Lila’s scarf. He stuck his arm out the window and motioned for her to draw near, which she did. In the light of day, he looked different. His hair was grayer, he had a few wrinkles, and his suit was light-colored.

“Do you remember me?” the man asked. His voice was pleasant, and his accent was like that of Uncle Mano. Sort of.

Nomi nodded. She was surprised he had recognized her after seeing her only once on a dark street, since she was not the kind of girl people noticed.

“Are you willing to give her a letter from me?” he asked as he passed a white envelope to Nomi.

“Lila’s not there,” Nomi told him. “She didn’t come to work.”

A cloud passed over his face. He hesitated for a moment, then asked if she would take the letter to Lila at home.

“Now?” she asked.

“Now.”

She remembered watching Lila fall to pieces when she escorted her to her apartment after the wedding, and she thought maybe that had something to do with the fact that she had not come to work. But she wouldn’t tell him about all that.

Something about the man in the car moved her and made her want to do his bidding, since beneath his straight and simple manner of speaking she sensed that he needed her help. No one had ever spoken to her as he did, like a girl who listened for clues and understood even what was left unspoken. He had chosen her, was making her part of something meaningful and important, and he trusted her—not her parents, not her uncles, not even the ladies from the salon, only her. This stranger was relying on her, and because of the softness in his presence, she wished to please him. As Nomi took the letter from him, her eyes rested on his hands, which were tanned and beautiful.

“Thank you,” he said, his smile broadening in gratitude, even though she sensed it was not easy for him. Even the wrinkles around his eyes were smiling at her.

She turned to go, but he called to her. “You didn’t tell me your name,” he said.

“Nomi,” she answered.

She raced up the stairs two by two.

Lila asked, “Who’s there?”

The door remained closed even after Nomi told her who it was.

“Not now,” Lila said through the door.

“I brought a letter for you,” Nomi told her.

“Put it under the door,” Lila said.

“It’s from him,” Nomi said.

There was silence. Then Lila asked, “From whom?”

“From the man in the suit.”

Lila opened the door and said, “The place is a mess.”

Nomi entered.

There was a different smell in the room, an odor of stifled air. Not the usual freshness. “It’s dark in here,” Nomi said.

Lila opened the metal blinds, and light filled the room. Nomi had never seen Lila like this: her hair was messily gathered, she wore pajamas, her face was white and so were her lips.

“Are you sick?” Nomi asked. She looked for somewhere to put herself.

“I don’t feel well,” Lila told her.

Now Nomi could see her eyes, which were red and very puffy.

Lila drew near. “Where did you get this?” she asked Nomi, referring to the letter.

“He gave it to me,” Nomi said. “Near the salon.”

Nomi went out to the roof and looked down at the street. She watched as tiny people and cars passed by, and for once Lila did not say, “Be careful. It’s a long way down.”

Lila leaned against the kitchen wall and slid down it until she reached the floor, her knees drawn up to her chest. She was not sure she was ready for whatever the letter contained. Her head felt as empty as a waterless well.

I have no intention of giving you up for a second time,
she read.

After an hour, the paper dropped from her hands, and only then did she notice Nomi facing her, sitting in the exact same position, as if she had read the letter along with her and grown weak along with her. Nomi was observing her like a doctor watching a dying patient to see whether the letter would get her back on her feet or send her sprawling. She hugged Lila’s knees and rested her warm cheeks on them.

2006

The nurse said she was calling in Mr. Riani’s name. “He’s in our ward now.”

“And which ward is that?” Nomi asked.

“Emergency care.”

“Why Emergency?”

“He didn’t feel well, so they put him under observation here. Not for long, I hope.”

“Should I come now?” Nomi asked.

“He’s sleeping at the moment. Come in the morning.”

“Please tell him I’ll be there tomorrow,” Nomi said. “And thank you for phoning.”

“Good-bye,” the nurse said. “And Shabbat Shalom.”

Nomi put down the phone and considered jumping in the car and going to him. Her heart felt heavy after that conversation. Elias had entered her life and in the process had brought her back to life. He had given her the right to worry about him, broadening the place inside her where her feelings throbbed. It was now up to her to look after him and keep him alive and well. When she was young and had to fight for everything at home, he had given her something of her own, a secret that was only hers that she guarded against everything and everyone. As an adult, she had been touched by Elias at the most vulnerable places in her soul. If only her father had lived longer and she had had the opportunity to drink in his words and his silences as she did with Elias.

It was already growing dark outside. Nomi stuck two Sabbath candles into square glass candlesticks, then sank into her white sofa, the one she joked was the color for the unmarried and childless because there was no one to get stains on it. A mug of green tea and a plate of ginger cookies stood on the table next to her, along with a pile of files bound with a rubber band, each marked “Secret” and carrying the name of a child looking for a home in which to grow up. The one whose mother had given him up for the rest of his life. The one who had been abandoned at birth because of a deformity on his face. The one found in a trash bin, and the one whose mother was murdered while he was still in her womb. The one who had been pried away from his abusive parents.

The sweet, soft babies put up for adoption this year would come to her office eighteen years from now to open their files, and everything that had been kept from them all that time would be revealed: parents’ names, addresses, countries of origin, photographs, and even, on occasion, a letter from the abandoning parent to the abandoned child. At such moments, when a young person first meets his or her own history, Nomi leaves the room, although sometimes a young woman asks her to stay, preferring the touch of a human hand to the need for privacy.

Nomi thought about how in her case it was all reversed: she had closed the file on her own biological parents years earlier. Her father and his weak heart, who had betrayed her, and her mother, who preferred running around the world in search of her next deal like an archaeologist on the trail of a hidden scroll.

The next day, a Saturday, she drove up to Jerusalem. The first thing she noticed as she entered the Emergency ward was the smell of finality, of rot. Of blood and medicines and bodily excretions and disinfectant. Smells trapped in a sealed place with no windows.

She found Elias in a glassed-in room of his own. The white lights were unpleasant, the instruments chirped, and the digital monitors put everything on display, even his body temperature and blood pressure. His body was being nourished by infusion.

She gazed at him. Would he catch her scent and open his eyes, or would he prefer the refuge of his artificial slumber? Her heart went out to him in his present state of helplessness and deterioration. How many more opportunities would Elias have to be close to death and still return from it? She figured he was using up his supply.

These visits to Elias were softening her, and the story of his love for Lila that he had been spreading out before her was loosening the tangled knots of her emotions. The withdrawn, remote personality she had cultivated for protection was coming undone. Other people’s suffering had penetrated her, and not just out of curiosity or in the files she read for work, but through her own opening heart.

She thought she saw Elias stirring. He winked at her as though he knew she had been there the whole time.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” she said. But Elias did not laugh. She drew closer. His cold hand moved toward her, and she took it in her own. “I brought tea for us,” she told him. “Munir won’t be coming since there are no buses today, and anyway, it’s nice to spare him all the germs.”

“You know what the problem is?” Elias said. “Because of your work you notice too many details.”

“That’s true,” Nomi admitted. “I go to the homes of potential adopting families like a sleuth trying to sniff out their lives. I watch for complicit glances, and I search out whatever it is they’re trying to hide.”

“Exactly,” Elias said. “You need to plug up all your senses.”

“Promise me you’ll get out of here fast,” Nomi said.

“I promise. Why?”

“There are viruses here,” she said, lowering her voice. “It feels like the last stop here.”

“I wanted to tell you about something. About hell.”

“When did you manage to visit there?”

“With Lila. I was thinking about it yesterday, before they moved me to Emergency.”

She was still holding his hand. “Tell me,” she said.