Someone to Run With, Page 2

  Inwardly, he feels all mixed up – feels all the irritations, large and small, that had been bottled up inside him explode like tiny sparks of lava. He feels them transformed – on his chin – into one little burning pimple of anger at Roi, who had succeeded in convincing him to go out tonight, just the four of them, again, for the umpteenth time; who had even taken pains to explain that Assaf would soon realize Dafi was his type exactly, if you consider the inner being and all that. This is what he said, Roi did, giving Assaf a long, concentrated look, a conquering look. Assaf looked at the halo in his eyes, the thin golden halo of mockery that surrounded his pupils, and thought, sadly, that over the years their friendship had become something else. But what would you call it now? Seized by a sudden fear, Assaf had promised he would come, again, tonight, and Roi had patted him on his shoulder again and said, ‘That’s my man.’ Assaf wished he had the guts to turn around and throw that ‘inner being’ crap back in Roi’s face, because all Roi really needs is for Assaf and Dafi to be there as a mirror opposite, to make his and his Maytal’s glamour and ease even more apparent as they walk together, kissing every two steps, while Assaf and Dafi drag after them in silent, mutual contempt.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ The pizza man was getting angry. ‘Somebody’s talking to you!’

  Assaf sees that the pizza had been packed up in a white cardboard box, cut into eight slices, and the pizza man says, with special emphasis, as if he is sick of repeating his words, ‘Look, you got the usual in here: two mushroom-and-onion, one anchovy, one corn, two plain, and two olive. Ride fast so it will get there hot. Forty shekels.’

  ‘Ride where?’ Assaf asks, in a whisper.

  ‘Don’t you have a bike?’ The pizza man is surprised. ‘Your sister, she puts it on her basket. How will you carry it like that? Give me the money first.’ He reaches a long, hairy arm out to Assaf. Assaf is dumbfounded. He puts his hand in his pocket, and anger rises out of him, boiling through him: his parents left him enough money before they went, but he had planned his expenses to the last detail. Every day he skipped lunch in the City Hall cafeteria so there would be enough money left to buy another lens for the Canon his parents had promised to bring from America. This unlooked-for expense he was now mixed up in really makes him boil, but he has no choice: the man quite clearly prepared the pizza for him especially, that is, for whoever came here with this dog. If Assaf hadn’t been so angry, he probably would have just asked who this dog’s girl was; but, probably because of this anger, absorbed by the feeling that someone always determines his actions for him, he pays the man and turns away sharply, in a manner that’s supposed to express his indifference toward the money that had been taken from him unjustly. And the dog – she doesn’t even wait for the exact emotion to bloom on his face. She starts running again, immediately stretching the rope to its full length, and Assaf sails after her with a silent shout, his face twitching from the effort to balance the large cardboard box in one hand and hang on to the rope with the other. Only a miracle keeps him from getting hurt as he passes through the people on the street. With the box waving high in his outstretched hand, he knows – and has no illusions about it – that right now he looks exactly like a caricature of a waiter. On top of everything, the smell of the pizza is starting to leak out of the box; Assaf has eaten only one sandwich since the morning. Of course, he has the complete and legal right to eat the pizza he is now holding above his head – he paid for every olive and mushroom on it. And yet he feels as if it’s not completely his, that, in some way, someone else bought it, and it’s for yet another person as well – and he doesn’t know either of them.

  And so that morning, pizza in hand, Assaf crossed through more alleys and streets and ran more red lights. He had never run like this, never broken so many rules at once – people honked at him from every direction, stumbled into him, cursed and screamed; but after a few moments this ceased to bother him, and step by step his anger at himself washed away. Because, in some unexpected way, he became completely free out there, out of that stuffy, boring office: free from all the small and large troubles that had burdened him in the past few days, wild like a star that had broken free of its orbit, crossing the sky and leaving a trail of sparks behind. After that, he stopped thinking, stopped hearing the roar of the world around him; he was only his feet pounding on the pavement, his heart beating, his rhythmic breath. And even though he wasn’t an adventurer by nature – the opposite, if anything – he was filled with a new, mysterious feeling. The pleasure of running toward the unknown. And deep inside him, a thought started bouncing like a good ball, supple and full of air, the happy thought – I hope it doesn’t ever end.

  A month before Assaf and the dog met – thirty-one days before, to be precise – on a curving side road above one of the valleys surrounding Jerusalem, a girl stepped off a bus, a small, delicate girl. Her face could hardly be seen under the mane of her curly black hair. She went down the steps, stumbling under the weight of a huge backpack hanging from her shoulders. The driver asked, hesitantly, if she needed help, and she, recoiling at his voice, shrank a little, bit her lips, and shook her head: no.

  Afterward, she waited in the empty station until the bus was far away. She continued to wait, even after it had already disappeared behind the bend in the road. She stood, almost without moving, glanced left, glanced right, looking again and again, a ring of light flashing every time the afternoon sun hit the blue earring in her ear.

  Next to the station sat a rusty gasoline drum, pierced with holes; an old cardboard sign was attached to an electric pole: TO SIGI AND MOTI’S WEDDING, with an arrow pointing to the sky. The girl looked both ways one last time and saw that she was alone. There weren’t even any cars passing along the narrow road. She turned around slowly, passing the shade of the bus stop, now watching the valley at her feet. She made sure her head didn’t move, but her eyes swept back and forth, scanning the view.

  At a glance, anyone would have thought she was a girl going on a little hike. This is exactly what she wanted to look like. But if a car had passed by, the driver might have wondered, for just a second, why a girl was going into this valley by herself; or perhaps another disturbing thought might have occurred to him – why it was that a girl going for a little afternoon outing in a valley so close to the city was carrying such a heavy backpack, as if she were ready to sail away on a long journey. But no driver passed by, and there was no one else in the valley. She went down through the yellow mustard flowers, between rocks warm to the touch, and disappeared into terebinth and great burnet bushes. She walked quickly, on the verge of falling at every moment because of the weight of the bag, which tipped and made her teeter back and forth. Her wild hair waved around her face, her mouth still tight with the same tight, decisive, hard tension she had used in saying no to the bus driver. She was panting hard after a little while, her heart pounding quickly. The bad thoughts were spinning out of control; this was the last time she’d be coming here by herself, she thought. The next time, the next time –

  If there was a next time.

  Now she had reached the creek bed at the bottom of the valley, glancing at the slopes as if enjoying the view. She followed the flight of a jay, bewitched, scanning, with its help, the whole arc of the horizon. Here, for example, was a part of the path where she was completely exposed – somebody standing up on the road by the station would now be able to see her.

  Perhaps he had noticed that she had come down here yesterday, and the day before as well.

  At least ten times in the past month.

  And could trap her here the next time she came back –

  There will be, there will be a next time, she repeated with effort, and tried not to think about what would happen to her between now and then.

  When, for the last time, she squatted down, as if to fasten the buckle of her sandals, she didn’t move for two whole minutes. She checked every rock, every tree and bush.

  And then she was no more, she simply vanished
, like magic. Even if somebody had been following her, he wouldn’t have understood what happened: a moment ago, she was sitting there, had finally taken the bag off her shoulders, leaned back on it, inhaled – and now the wind moved through the bushes and the valley was empty.

  She ran through the lower basin, the hidden one, trying to get the rolling bag in front of her, moving like a soft rock, smashing oats and thorn bushes. It was stopped only by the trunk of the terebinth tree; the tree moved and dry gallnuts dropped from it, crumbling into fragments of reddish brown.

  Out of the side pocket of the bag she took a flashlight and, with a practiced motion, pushed a few dry, uprooted bushes aside, exposing a low opening like the door to a dwarf’s house. Two or three steps in a crouch, ears pricked and eyes wide to hear and to see every motion and shadow. She sniffed like an animal. Every cell in her skin wide open so she could read the darkness: Had anyone visited here since yesterday? Will one of the shadows suddenly detach itself and attack her?

  The cave unexpectedly widened, became tall and roomy. You could stand, even walk a few steps from wall to wall. A faint light was leaking in from an opening somewhere in the ceiling of the cave, covered by thick bushes.

  Quickly she poured the contents of the bag out onto a rag. Cans, a pack of candles, plastic cups, plates, matches, batteries, another pair of pants and another shirt she decided to add at the last minute, a foam water cooler, rolls of toilet paper, crossword puzzle booklets, bars of chocolate, Winston cigarettes . . . the bag was growing emptier and emptier. She had bought the cans of food this afternoon. She went all the way to Ramat Eshkol so she wouldn’t see anyone she knew. Still, she ran into a woman who used to work with her mother in the jewelry store at the King David Hotel; the woman spoke kindly to her, and when she asked why Tamar was buying so many cans of food, Tamar said, without blushing, that she was going on a trip tomorrow.

  Moving quickly, she arranged and organized what she had brought, counted the bottles of mineral water – the most important thing was water. She had over fifty liters there already. That would do. It had to be enough for the whole time, the days and nights. The nights would be the hardest, and she would need a lot of water. She swept the place again, for the last time swept the sand from the stone floor, tried to imagine herself at home here. Once, a million years ago – until about a month ago, at least – this was her most beloved hiding place. Now the thought of what was waiting for her here was twisting her guts.

  She laid the thicker mattress by the wall and lay down on it to see whether it was comfortable. Even when she was lying down, she didn’t allow herself to relax – her brain buzzed constantly – what would it be like when she brought him here, to her 600-square-foot forest, to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe? What would become of her in this place, with him, alone?

  On the wall above her the players of Manchester United shone with happiness after winning the Cup. A little surprise she’d prepared to make him happy, if he noticed at all. She smiled to herself unconsciously, and with the smile the bad thoughts returned, and fear again shrank into a fist, clenched in her stomach.

  What if I’m making a terrible mistake? she thought.

  She got up and paced from wall to wall, clutching her hands forcibly against her chest. He will lie here, on this mattress, and here, on the folding plastic chair, she will sit. She prepared a thin mattress for herself as well, but she had no illusions: she wouldn’t be able to shut her eyes for even a moment during all those days. Three, four, five days like that – that’s what the toothless man in Ha’atzmaut Park had warned her. ‘Take your eyes off him for one minute and he’ll run on you.’ She had stared, depressed, into the empty mouth that sniggered at her, into the eyes that ogled her body and especially the twenty-shekel bill she held in front of him. ‘Explain,’ she demanded, trying to hide the trembling in her voice, ‘just what you mean by “run on me.” Why should he run?’ And he, in his filthy striped gown, cradling himself in a matted fur blanket in spite of the heat, laughed at her innocence. ‘You ever hear about that magician, sister? The one who could escape, no matter how they locked him up? That’s exactly how it’s going to be with him. Put him in a box with a hundred locks, in a bank safe, in his mother’s belly, and he has to run. Guaranteed. Can’t control it. Even the law can’t help.’

  She had no clue how she would be able to stand that. Maybe, when she was here with him, strange new powers would awaken in her. She could count only on that now, on such faint hopes. It didn’t matter, everything was faint and hopeless anyway; if she started thinking about her chances, she’d collapse in despair. The fear swept over her, shook her in the little cave – don’t think, just don’t think logically, she was going to have to be a little crazy now, like a soldier on a suicide mission who doesn’t think about what might happen to him. She checked the food supplies again, for the tenth time maybe, calculated once more whether the food would do for all the days and nights. Sat on the folding chair in front of the mattress and tried to imagine what it would be like, what he would tell her, how he would hate her more and more from hour to hour, what he would try to do to her. The thought made her jumpy again. She ran to the hole in the back of the cave and checked over the bandages, the iodine, the dressings. She couldn’t calm down, moved a big stone aside, exposing a flat wooden board. Under it, in a little hole, dug in the ground, were placed, side by side, a little electric cattle prod and handcuffs she’d bought in a camping equipment store.

  I’m completely insane, she thought.

  Before she left, she stopped and cast another glance over the place she had been preparing and equipping for a whole month. At one time, perhaps hundreds of years ago, people had lived here. She’d found signs of it. Animals lived here, too. And now it was going to be home to him and her, and an asylum, and a hospital, she thought. And, especially, a jail. Enough. She had to go.

  And a month later a boy and a dog ran through the streets of Jerusalem, strangers tied to each other by one rope, as if refusing to admit they were really together. Still, as if casually, they were starting to learn little things about each other. How ears prick up in moments of excitement – the power of shoes pounding against asphalt – the smell of sweat – all the emotions a tail can express – how much strength there was in the hand holding the rope, and how much yearning in the body pulling it forward . . . They had already escaped the busy thoroughfare, going deeper into narrow, curving alleyways, and the dog still didn’t slow down. Assaf imagined that a huge magnet was pulling her, and a strange notion passed through him, that if only he could stop thinking, completely negate his own willpower, he, too, might be sucked toward that place with her. A moment or two later, he was jolted awake, because the dog had stopped in front of a green gate set into a high stone wall, and in a graceful motion, she stood on her hind legs, pushed the metal handle with her paws, and opened it. Assaf looked right and left. The street was empty. The dog breathed and pushed forward. He entered after her and was at once wrapped in a profound silence, the silence of the bottom of the sea.

  Big yard.

  Covered with snow-white pebbles.

  Fruit trees planted in rows.

  A round stone house, big and squat.

  Assaf walked slowly, cautiously. His steps squeaked against the pebbles. He was surprised by how such a beautiful, wide space could be hidden so close to the center of the city. He passed a round well; a shiny bucket was tied to the well by a rope, a few big clay mugs set on a nearby tree stump, as if waiting for someone to drink from them. Assaf peeped into the well, threw a small stone, and only after a long moment heard the little hiccup of the water. Not far from the well, smothered in thick grapevines, was a shelter, and under it, five rows of benches. Five large stones stood in front of every bench, each chiseled into a kind of pillow on which to rest tired feet.

  He stopped and looked at the stone house. A plant with purple flowers crisscrossed the walls, covering them, climbing all the way up the tall tower that rose above the house
, and cascading at the feet of a cross at its top.

  It’s a church, he thought, surprised. The dog apparently belonged to the church. That’s it, she’s probably a church dog here, he thought, trying to convince himself, and, for a moment, managed to picture the streets of Jerusalem filled with lots of agitated church dogs.

  The dog hurried, pulling him to the back of the house without hesitating, as if this really was her home. A little arched window was set into the top of the tower, like an open eye in the heart of the bougainvillea. The dog lifted her head to the sky and produced a few short, strong barks.

  At first nothing happened. Then Assaf heard the squeak of a chair from above, from the top of the tower. Someone up there moved – the little window opened – and an excited shout escaped, a woman’s voice – or a man’s, it was hard to tell, the voice creaked as if it hadn’t been used in a long time – one word escaped, perhaps the dog’s name. The dog barked and barked, and the voice from above called her again, sharp and amazed, as if not believing its good fortune. Assaf thought that his little journey with the dog was about to come to an end, she would be going back home to the tenant at the top of the tower. It was over so quickly. He waited for someone to peep out from the window and tell him to come up, but instead of a face, a hand emerged, dark and slender – for a moment he thought it was a child’s hand – then a little wooden basket appeared, tied to a rope, and the rope descended. The basket swayed at its end, a little airborne bulrush basket, all the way down, until it stopped right in front of his face.