Someone to Run With, Page 3

  The dog was nearly out of her mind with excitement – the entire time the basket descended, she barked and pawed at the ground, and rushed to the door of the church and back to Assaf. In the basket Assaf found a big, heavy metal key. He hesitated for a moment. A key meant a door. What was waiting for him beyond? (From one viewpoint, he was just the right person to handle this job. He had, behind him, hundreds of hours of training, preparing him for exactly this kind of situation: big metal key, tall tower, mysterious fortress . . . also, a magic sword, a bewitched ring, a treasure chest, and a greedy dragon watching over it. And almost always three doors, and you have to choose which one you’ll enter – behind two of them lie a variety of deaths and torments.) But here there was only one key and one door, so Assaf followed the dog to the door and opened it.

  He stood on the edge of a large, dark hall; he was hoping that the proprietor would come down to him from the tower, but no one came, and no steps were heard. He entered. The door closed slowly behind him. He waited. The outlines of the hall began to paint themselves out of the darkness: a few high cupboards, chests and tables, and books, thousands of books, covering the full width of the walls, on shelves, on top of the cupboards, on the tables, and piled up on the floor. Huge bundles of newspapers were stacked next to them, tied with twine, each labeled with a little slip of paper – 1955, 1957, 1960 . . . The dog started pulling again, and he was dragged after her. He spotted children’s books on one shelf, and was confused and even alarmed – what were children’s books doing here? Since when do priests and monks read children’s books?

  He swerved around a big square box in the center of the hall – perhaps an ancient sarcophagus. Perhaps an altar. He could imagine hearing the sound of motion from above, soft and quick steps, even the clink of forks and knives. Paintings of men in robes hung on the walls, haloes of light shining above their heads; their eyes, full of chastisements, fixed on Assaf as he passed.

  The big space of the hall echoed around him and the dog, doubling their every motion, each breath, each scratch of claws on the floor. She pulled him toward a wooden door at the end of the hall. He tried to pull her back – he had some sharp intuition that this was his last chance to escape, and possibly to be saved from something. The dog had no more patience for his fear; she smelled someone she loved. The smell was about to become a body, a touch, and she yearned for it in all the depths of her doghood – the rope stretched and trembled, she reached the door, stood and scratched at it with her claws and whined. When she stood this way, on her hind legs, she was almost as tall as he was, and under the dirt and matted fur, he noticed again how beautiful and supple she was. His heart contracted – he hadn’t had time to get to know her. All his life he’d wanted a dog and begged his parents to let him have one, knowing that there was no chance because of his mother’s asthma. Now it was as if he had a dog – but so briefly, and only while running.

  What am I doing here? he asked himself, and turned the knob. The door opened. He was standing in a corridor that curved around and probably encircled the entire church. I shouldn’t be here, he thought, and started running after the dog as it leaped forward, passing three more closed doors, blowing like the wind between thick, white-painted walls. He reached a tall flight of stone stairs. If anything happens to me, he thought – and in his mind he saw the captain gloomily leaving the cockpit, going to his parents and whispering something in their ears – no one in the world would ever think of looking for me here.

  Above him, at the top of the stairs, another door. Small and blue. The dog barked and whined, almost talked, and sniffed and scratched under the crack. Behind the door rose noises of joy and delight that sounded to him a bit like a chicken clucking, and someone inside, in a strange, old-fashioned dialect, ‘Wait, my darling! The gate shall open soon, my heart’s delight, there, there.’

  A key turned in the lock, and the moment the door had opened a crack, the dog shot in, storming whoever was inside, leaving Assaf outside, behind the closing door. He felt disappointed – it always ended this way, somehow. In the end, he was always the one left behind a closed door. And just because of that, this time he dared – pushed the door a little and peeped inside. He saw a back bending over and a long braid emerging from a round, black knit cap. For a split second he thought it was a child with a braid, a girl, tiny and skinny, in a gray robe. But then he saw it was a woman, a little old woman, laughing and burying her face in the dog’s neck, petting her with slender hands, speaking to her in an unknown language. Because he didn’t want to interrupt, Assaf waited, until the woman pushed the dog away, laughing, and cried out, ‘Well, my scandalyarisa, enough, enough! You must allow me to receive Tamar as well!’ and turned back, and the wide smile on her face suddenly froze.

  ‘But who –?’ She was taken aback. ‘Who are you?’ she groaned, and her hands hovered at the collar of her robe, her face twisted in a mixture of disappointment and fear. ‘And what are you doing here?’

  Assaf thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  The nun was further taken aback and pressed up against the wall of bookshelves. The dog stood between her and Assaf, looking back and forth at them, licking her mouth in embarrassed misery. Assaf could imagine the dog was disappointed as well, that she hadn’t brought him here expecting this meeting.

  ‘Excuse me, uh – I really don’t know what I’m doing here,’ Assaf repeated, and felt that instead of explaining himself, he was, as usual, only making things more complicated, the way he always did when he had to untangle something with words. He didn’t know what to do, to calm the nun down so she wouldn’t breathe like that, too quickly, so the wrinkles on her forehead wouldn’t quiver so much. ‘This is pizza,’ he said gently, signaling, with his eyes, to the box in his hand. He hoped at least this would calm her down, because pizza is simple and has only one meaning. But she pressed herself against the books even more, and Assaf felt his body, big and manly and threatening, and every move he made was the wrong one, and the nun looked so pitiful standing by the shelves, like a tiny, terrified bird, puffing up her feathers to threaten a predator.

  Now he noticed the table was set. Two plates and two cups, big iron forks. The nun was expecting a visitor. But he didn’t know what could explain such tremendous fear, and such disappointment, really that of a broken heart.

  ‘So . . . I’ll go,’ he said cautiously . . . but there was also that matter of the form and the fine. He had no idea what to do – how do you say such a thing – how do you ask somebody to pay a fine?

  ‘Go? What do you mean?’ the woman wailed. ‘Where is Tamar? Why hasn’t she come?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Tamar, Tamar, my Tamar, her Tamar!’

  With impatience she pointed at the dog three times, who was watching the conversation with wide eyes, her eyes leaping back and forth like a spectator in a Ping-Pong match.

  ‘I’ don’t know her,’ Assaf mumbled, carefully not committing to anything. ‘I don’t know her, honest.’

  There was a long silence. Assaf and the nun stared at each other, like two strangers desperately in need of a translator. The dog barked. Both of them blinked as if they had awakened from enchantment. Assaf pondered, slowly, the thought crawling through his mind: Tamar is probably the same young lady the pizza man was talking about, the one with the bicycle . . . maybe she’s making deliveries to churches? Well, now everything is clear, he thought, knowing nothing was clear but that it was really no longer his concern.

  ‘Look, I only brought’ – he put the white cardboard box on the table and immediately stepped back, so she wouldn’t think, God forbid, that he intended to eat here as well – ‘the pizza –’

  ‘The pizza, the pizza!’ the nun exploded in anger. ‘Say no more about the pizza! I ask about Tamar and he speaks of pizzas! Where did you meet? Speak! Now!’

  He stood, lowering his head between his shoulders. Her fear of him quickly evaporated as her questions hit him one after the other. It was as if she were poundi
ng him with her tiny hands. ‘How can you say that you “don’t know her”? Are you not her friend? Or an acquaintance, or a relative of hers? Won’t you look me in the eyes?’ He lifted his eyes to her, feeling, for some reason, a little bit like a liar under her piercing gaze. ‘You mean she didn’t send you to me, to make me glad, to put me out of this misery? Wait – a letter! Of course, I am a fool – there must be a letter!’ She leaped onto the cardboard box and began to dig through it, lifting the pizza and looking under it, reading the advertisement for the pizza place on the box with strange delight, her little face screwing up as if looking for some clue between the lines.

  ‘Not even a little letter?’ she whispered. And nervously fixed her silver hair, which had escaped from under the black knit cap and become disorderly. ‘At least some message by heart? Something she asked you to remember? Please try, I beg you, it is very important to me – she told you to come and tell me something, didn’t she?’ Her eyes hung on his mouth, trying to pull the longed-for words from his lips with only the will of her wish. ‘Perhaps she wished to send word that things went according to plan? That the danger has passed? Is this what she told you? Yes?’

  Assaf knew: when he stood like that, he was wearing the expression that once made Reli, his sister, say, ‘You got lucky with one thing, Assafi – with a face like that, you can only surprise people for the better.’

  ‘Just one moment!’ The nun’s eyes narrowed. ‘Perhaps you are one of them, God forbid, one of the villains! Speak! Are you one of them? You should know, young man, I am not afraid of you!’ She practically stamped her little feet at him, and Assaf was stunned. ‘What! Now you’ve swallowed your tongue? Have you hurt her? With these two hands, I will tear you apart if you have touched the child!’

  Now the dog broke into a cry, and Assaf, bewildered, knelt beside her, petting her with both his hands; but she continued crying, her body trembling with sobs, looking a bit like a child who is trapped in a fight between his parents and can’t take it any longer. Assaf actually lay down beside her, lay right down and hugged her, and petted and stroked her, and spoke into her ear, as if he had entirely forgotten where he was, forgotten the place and the nun; only tenderness for the depressed, frightened dog poured out from him. The nun fell silent, looking in wonder at the grown boy, concentrating in that moment, with his serious child’s face, the black hair falling over his forehead, the acne on his cheeks – and she was moved by what she felt flowing endlessly from his body to the dog.

  But at that moment Assaf remembered something. He lifted his head and asked, ‘Is she a girl?’

  ‘What? Who? Yes, a girl – no, a young woman your own age . . .’ She was searching for her lost voice, freshening her face with light pats of her fingers, watching the way he comforted and appeased the dog, gently, smoothing over the waves of her sobs until he quieted them completely, until the spark of light returned to her brown eyes.

  ‘There, there, you see? Everything is fine,’ Assaf said to the dog, and stood up, and again retreated into himself a bit when he saw once more where he was and in what kind of trouble he was trapped.

  ‘At the very least, you can explain one thing to me,’ sighed the nun, a different sigh this time, full of more than disappointment and sorrow. ‘If you do not know her, how, then, did you know to bring the Sunday pizza? How did the dog surrender herself to you and let you walk her on a leash? Why, she will not allow such treatment at the hands of anyone in the world, besides Tamar, of course. Or are you, perhaps, a sort of infant Solomon and know the language of the beasts?’

  She raised her little sharp chin in front of him, her face demanding an answer, and Assaf, hesitating, told her it wasn’t the language of the animals, it was . . . how to explain? The truth was, he didn’t quite understand everything she was saying, she spoke energetically and in such odd Hebrew. She especially stressed her consonants and the ends of the syllables, the way old Jerusalemites speak, emphasizing letters Assaf didn’t even know should be emphasized. Most of the time, she hardly even waited for his answers, just throwing more and more questions at him.

  ‘But will you finally open your mouth?’ she breathed impatiently, ‘Panaghia mou! How long can you remain silent?’

  At last he pulled himself together and told her, tersely and succinctly, as he always did, that he was working at City Hall, and this morning –

  ‘One moment!’ she interrupted him. ‘You are speaking too quickly now! I do not understand – why, you are too young to be employed.’

  Assaf smiled inwardly and told her it was only a summer job, over his vacation, and she responded, ‘Vacation? To where are you traveling? Tell me quickly, where is this wonderful place?’

  So Assaf explained that he meant his summer break. Now it was her turn to smile. ‘Aaah, you meant your summer recess. Well, well, then, continue, from just before that; please tell me how you managed to obtain such an interesting job.’

  Assaf was surprised by the question – what did that have to do with the dog he brought for her? Why was she so fascinated by the history of what had happened before he came here? But it did seem to interest her. She pulled up a little rocking chair and sat on it, rocking herself gently, her legs slightly parted, hands resting between her knees, and asked him whether he was enjoying his work there. And Assaf said, Not really; he was there to write down residents’ complaints about explosions of water pipes in roads and public areas, but most of the time he just sat and dreamed –

  ‘Dream?’ The nun sprang up as if meeting a friend in a place where everyone was a stranger. ‘Simply sitting, dreaming dreams? For a salary? Aha! Who said you cannot speak? And tell me, what do you dream about?’ She knocked her knees against each other in joy. Assaf was very embarrassed and explained to her he wasn’t really dreaming, he was just, like, daydreaming, thinking about all kinds of things . . . ‘But what things – that is the question!’ The nun opened her narrow eyes, now sparkling with something essentially elfish; her face expressing such seriousness and profound interest that it completely confused Assaf, silencing him, because what would he tell her, that he was dreaming about that Dafi, whether he could finally manage to break things off with her and still avoid a quarrel with Roi? He looked at her. Her dark eyes were fixed on his lips, waiting for his words, and for one crazy moment he really thought he would tell her a little. Why not? he thought. Just for the hell of it. She won’t be able to understand any of it anyway, thousands of light-years separate my world from hers, and the nun said, ‘Yes? Have you gone silent again, my dear? Have your powers of speech suddenly disappeared? God forbid, you should silence a story at its first breath!’

  Assaf muttered that it was nothing really, just a silly story. ‘No, no, no.’ The little woman clapped her hands. ‘No such thing as a silly story exists, you should know that. Every story is connected, somewhere, in the depths, to some greater meaning. Even if it is not revealed to us.’ But this is really a silly story, Assaf insisted seriously, then broke into a smile at the childish, sly way her lips pouted. ‘Fine,’ she said, pretending to sigh, and crossed her hands on her chest. ‘Tell me your silly story, then. But why on earth are you standing? Whoever heard of such a thing?’ – she looked in amazement around her – ‘the host sitting and the guest standing up!’ Quickly she jumped out of her seat to reveal a tall chair with a stern, straight back. ‘Do have a seat, and I will bring out a jar of water and some refreshments – shall I cut some fresh cucumber and tomato for both of us?’ –

  And her tomahto, with the long ah – ‘Why, it isn’t every day that we receive such an important guest here, from City Hall! Sit quietly, Dinka, you know you will have some as well.’

  ‘Dinka?’ asked Assaf. ‘Is that her name?’

  ‘Yes. Dinka. Tamar calls her Dinkush. And I’ – she bent to the dog and rubbed noses with her – ‘I call her shrew, and rebel, and dear heart, and my golden fair one, and scandalyarisa, and ever so many more, don’t I, my eyes?’

  The dog looked at her lovingly
, her ears moving every time her name was mentioned. Something unfamiliar, like a light, distant tickle, fluttered inside Assaf as well. Dinka and Tamar, he thought. Tamar’s Dinka, and Dinka’s Tamar. For the blink of an eye, he saw the two in front of him, cuddling with each other in soft, round completeness. But that really wasn’t any of his business, he remembered, forcibly erasing the vision.

  ‘And you? – What?’

  ‘What, what me?’

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Assaf.’

  ‘Assaf, Assaf, a psalm for Assaf . . .’ she hummed to herself, and hurried to the little kitchen with quick steps, almost skipping. He heard her chopping and humming behind a flowery curtain; she then returned and placed a large glass jar on the table, in which slices of lemon and mint leaves were swimming, and a plate with sliced cucumber and tomato, and also olives and slices of onion and squares of cheese, everything dipped in thick oil. She then sat in front of him, wiped her hands on the apron tied around her robe, and stretched her hand out to him: ‘Theodora, a native of the isle of Lyxos in Greece. The last citizen of that miserable island now sits to dine with you. Please eat, my son.’

  Tamar stood for a long moment in front of the little barbershop door in the neighborhood of Rekhavia and didn’t dare go in. It was twilight at the end of a relaxed day in early July. She had been pacing the sidewalk, back and forth in front of the barbershop, for maybe a whole hour now. She saw her reflection in the glass of the big window and the old barber trimming the hair of three men as old as he was, one after the other. An old man’s barbershop, Tamar thought. Suits me. Nobody’s going to know me here. Two were now left, waiting their turn: one, reading a newspaper; the other, almost completely bald – what was he doing here anyway? – with watery, bulging eyes, chattered incessantly with the barber. Her hair clung to her back, as if begging for its soul. It had been six years since she had cut her hair, since she was ten. Even during the years when she wanted to forget altogether that she was a girl, she wasn’t capable of giving that up. It was a convenient screen for her, and sometimes a little tent to hide in, and sometimes, when it spun around her, wild, full of air, it was her shout of freedom. Every few months, in a rare attack of self-adornment, she would braid it into thick ropes and coil it on top of her head, feeling mature and feminine and restrained, and almost beautiful. Eventually, she pushed the door open and entered. The smells of the soap and shampoo and disinfectant greeted her, and the stares of all the people sitting there. A heavy silence fell in the room – she sat down, bravely ignoring them, laid the big backpack by her legs. She put the huge black tape recorder on a chair next to her.