The Zigzag Kid (42 page)

I was so shocked; in fact, I couldn't move. Because if this was true, then he had done something extremely devious and cruel. He had used me against my own father … On the other hand, if he hadn't kidnapped me, I would never have heard the story about me and Zohara or gotten the present she had left me; on yet another hand, even if Felix had started out intending to get revenge, in the end he did what he did for my sake, as a partner, or a friend. And most of all—as a grandfather.

Dad gave a groan, pounded the wall with his fist, and roared at Felix: “Nonny is not your anything! You'll never come near him again, you hear? Not you and not that old woman up there doing a melodrama on the floor.”

“But Lola is my grandmother!” I yelled, affronted.

He turned slowly toward me, like a weary bull. “So you know now. They've told you everything.”

“Yes, everything. About my mother and about you. But don't worry. That won't change anything.”

“It's no use …” muttered Dad, his gun drooping down with his head. “I didn't want you to know. You're too young for that.”

All his anger suddenly vanished, and he sat on the stairs with his gun hanging down between his knees. At last I could look at him to my heart's content and try to read the story of the past few days in his face. He was staring out, holding his head in his hands. I searched his features for a trace of the young man who had jumped up on the crane that night and almost drowned in a vatful of sweetness; the young man who had visited Zohara in prison every day and built her a palace on the Mountain of the Moon; my father, who had delivered me with his own two hands and cut my umbilical cord.

But I couldn't find him.

His face was sealed. The face of a man who must constantly compress his lips to keep the memories from bursting out in a tidal wave. And he apparently succeeded: they didn't burst out. Not then and not ever.
When I was younger, I could feel them bubbling up inside him, like molten lava. Nowadays I'm barely aware of them. He succeeded too well.

All I could see was the face of the policeman, the professional. The one who had been punishing and torturing himself for the past twelve years for having fallen in love with a criminal, for having followed her on the journey she proposed, a journey beyond the laws of ordinary people. The man who cruelly refused ever to forgive himself for one great error, what he considered to be a great error; and with him, as we know, to err was unforgivable, and to punish himself he renounced anything that could bring him joy or relief or consolation.

He was his own prisoner, a prisoner of his character.

“I was planning to tell you everything, Nonny,” he said gravely. “I just thought I should wait till you were a little older, that's all. I was afraid you weren't—uh—mature enough yet to hear about the whole mess. Now you know, and I'm sorry.”

“Yes, but I'm okay, nothing's happened.”

A lot had happened, of course, but this was not the right moment to go into troublesome details.

“He treated you well? He didn't harm you?”

“Felix is great, Dad.” You're very much alike, I added silently.

Dad looked at Felix, Felix looked back at him, and I understood, in spite of my youth, what was passing between them as they gazed into each other's eyes. There was more than enmity between them. A special destiny bound these two men who had loved the same woman.

“So what will we do now?” asked Dad. “The police have been chasing you all over the country.” He sighed. But it seemed to me that he was purposely saying too much. “And I came here alone because I figured that your final stop”—here he stared hard at Felix—“would be to pick up the present Zohara left for Nonny …”

“You come here alone?” There was a spark of interest in Felix's eyes. His tongue ran quickly over his bottom lip.

“All by myself,” said Dad, staring at him blankly. “Why, did you want to make a proposition?”

“Lord, no. Who is Felix to make proposition to Mr. Father? Is just something I am thinking.”

“Let's hear it.”

“I am thinking perhaps we do like so: I pull out gun, yes?”

“Then what?” said Dad.

“Then I hold gun to Amnon's head and say, If Mr. Father does not let me go, I shoot, yes?”

“And then what?”

“
Nu
, you have no choice, so I get away.”

Another silence. They didn't need too many words to understand each other. “You mean”—Dad chuckled heartily—“you mean, you beat me? You know what the press will make of that? And the police?”

“Who cares about police?” asked Felix with a grin. “Forget police. You catch Felix once, now you catch him twice. No other policeman ever did half so good. Think about that.”

“But if I let you go, who'll know I caught you?”

“Ah, but you will know,” said Felix, looking pious. “And your Amnon will know, and that is what is important, yes?”

Dad nodded and nodded. He was always quick to make up his mind.

“Oh well,” he sighed. “Any other solution would hurt us all. Especially the boy. Go on, tie us up.”

He rose to his feet, put his gun back in the holster, and took his belt off. Felix and I watched him tensely. I was still holding the gun, because what if he jumped me? Dad halted halfway to the stairs. He saw the expression on our faces and my gun following his movements, and he heaved a sigh.

“Ah, Nonny,” he said with the trace of a bitter smile, “I know you're only doing what any professional would do in this situation, but for some reason, that really depresses me.”

Now I was sure he wouldn't try to surprise us, and put the gun back in my pocket.

Dad smiled wryly, and said to Felix: “In the end, what we teach them, they use against us, eh?” and Felix nodded.

Dad drew nearer, looking big and sweaty and unshaven, the perfect
SOS. We hadn't seen each other for three days. I wanted to jump up and hug him and shout for joy that it was ending this way. But we didn't even shake hands. Maybe it was better that way, man-to-man. Felix asked us to enter the vault and sit back-to-back. He tied us tightly to each other, humming as he worked, and the mark over his lips stood out again, the way it did each time he tied somebody up. He finished tightening the belt so I wouldn't be able to undo it, and I could hear Dad rasping at him not to tie it too tight. “Don't hurt the boy,” he said.

Then Felix pulled Dad's handcuffs out of his pocket and cuffed his hand to mine. Hearing the cuff clicking around Dad's wrist, I remembered the prisoner on the train and how he had turned into the policeman's jailor. What a weird trip this had been.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Felix leaning over Dad. “She was very special,” he said. “I know you really love her. But enough. You must to forget the dead. Life goes on. Nonny is good boy. He needs to have a mother. Listen to me, Mr. Feuerberg: old Felix knows many, many women in his day—but no one, ever, like your Miss Gabi. She is very smart lady. Think kind thoughts of her. Forgive me if I am mixing up in your private affairs. Thank you and goodbye.”

I could feel Dad breathing against my back. I was afraid he was about to explode. Felix circled the parcel he had just tied together and leaned over me with a smile; at first it was the old mesmerizing smile that turns everything blue, but then suddenly he wiped it off and gave me another one, from the heart.

“We have good time together, eh?”

I nodded.

“You are kid like nobody else. You are like crook and you are also good. Big jumble! Now that I see you, there is nothing more I need, because now I know: Felix will live on in this world.” He sniffled loudly. His blue eyes were red at the rim. “Okay, enough. I must to go now. Urgent business elsewhere. Maybe I see you again sometime. Maybe not. Maybe one day you meet Grandfather Noah in street and say hello. Anything can happen in this world. But most important is that you
know Felix now, and I know you.” He reached out gently and touched the golden ear of wheat on my chain as though bidding it farewell, too. “And also, is important that I know Lola will be watching over you, to make sure you don't turn out, God forbid, like Felix, except in little ways, so you remember there is more to life than rules, that in this life there must to be room for rules you make yourself!” And then he drew closer and, before I knew it, kissed me on the forehead.

“And remember, Nonny: life is the light between darkness and darkness. And you have seen better than most the light of Felix passing through this world.”

A flash of blue and he was gone.

We sat in silence, Dad and I, back-to-back.

Where do we begin?

Where do we be-ga-be—ga-be—ga-bi.

“So how's Gabi?” I ventured.

Silence, then a sigh, “Waiting at home.”

“Is she going to leave us?”

I heard him rub his whiskered cheek against his shoulder.

“She gave me an ultimatum. I have till Sunday to decide.”

Just as I figured. Yes, I knew everything.

Neither of us spoke.

And then he grumbled, “Do you still have the gun?”

I felt my pocket with my elbow. It was empty except for the folded scarf. Felix, that scoundrel, had picked my pocket while he kissed me! I wanted to laugh, but stopped myself out of respect for the feelings of my father, to whom I was very much attached.

And suddenly Dad said, “Do you realize it's only a few more days till your bar mitzvah?”

I just couldn't hold it in anymore. The laughter blared out of me. Dad sat in silence, his broad back sturdy and still. I laughed from the pit of my stomach and from my toes; I laughed back and forth and to and fro … and then I felt him kind of move, kind of shake behind me, trying to stop himself with all his might, until finally he roared with laughter, pitching me from side to side like a boat in a storm, like
someone trying to waltz with a refrigerator on his back. I guess you could say I had just made him laugh for the first time in my life. The first, the only, and the last time: that's three times, all in all.

He did have a laugh—a real horselaugh!

“Things get so complicated sometimes,” he said when we had both calmed down.

“I missed you,” I said quickly.

“So did I,” said Dad, and that was all I needed from him.

A few minutes later I was able to talk again. “I was in the newspaper,” I said.

“Oh, is that all? The whole country was up in arms on account of you. And in the end you say it wasn't a kidnapping.”

“Because it wasn't.”

“I'm going to get in trouble because of this mess. As usual. Never mind, though. One reprimand more or less won't make much difference.”

I said nothing. I had already decided for him about the police. I didn't care whether they came to my bar mitzvah or not. Who needed their presents? I had plenty of presents now.

“So I'll get in trouble,” he said suddenly, tightening the muscles of his back till I was lifted off the floor. “I've been in trouble with them for the past twelve years! For twelve years I haven't gotten any kind of decent promotion. They throw only the most piddling cases my way. What more can they do to me?”

We heard the wailing of sirens in the street. A loud commotion, shouted orders.

“They've arrived!” Dad was fuming. “I told Ettinger to be here at 0900. I didn't tell him why. Looks like we're going to have a hot time now.” Then he added the amazing words: “I hope at least your grandfather got away.”

That evening we went out to a restaurant, Gabi, Dad, and I. It was the happiest dinner of my life, though I must admit, the meal at the restaurant
with Felix was a little more elegant. As we were tucking in, I told them everything, or almost everything—or actually, very little, because the minute I started talking I realized I couldn't tell them the main thing, because the main thing was kind of vague and didn't make much sense. I felt like someone waking out of a dream, trying to convey that dream to the people around him, only to feel it fading away.

But one thing was still solid and substantial: the gift that had been sent to me out of the dream, and which was sitting on my lap. I held it tightly, and it's been with me ever since. Too bad I don't have a good enough ear to play the recorder, the simple wooden recorder Zohara left me. But whenever I feel sad or lonely, I sit on the windowsill, with my legs dangling out, put the recorder to my mouth, and listen for the undertones.

Later we discussed Dad's future on the force, and it turned out he didn't have one.

“I'll submit my resignation tomorrow morning. Look—uh—Gabi, I want to start a new life.”

Gabi blushed red and stared down at the tablecloth. Suddenly I understood something: that he didn't say “uh—Gabi” to annoy her. He was just pausing to make sure he didn't blurt out another name accidentally, the name that was always on the tip of his tongue.

“It was a mistake, staying on the force for so many years after what happened with Zohara,” he said, and I knew I had guessed right. It also made me feel good to hear him utter her name so freely.

“My real life was right here all along, only I didn't see it. I buried myself in hard work and wasted a lot of precious time.”

I listened openmouthed. I had never heard him talk this way before. It was almost as if Gabi had written the speech for him. Gabi, by the way, was silent almost all evening. She seemed to be waiting to hear his decision.

“The past few days have taught me what's important, and who's important, and about the kind of life I want to live and what's really right for me. I wanted to use this evening—to make a change,” he said.

He groped for something in his pocket, a little square box, the kind
widowers take out of their pockets in the movies when they want to propose to their children's governess.

“Wait, Dad!” I shouted. “Don't spoil it for me!”