A. Yehoshua - Friendly Fire - A Duet

ON HIS EVENING visits, when his father's house is clean and organized, Ya'ari typically gives one short ring and then opens the door with his key, but this morning he rings longer and waits to allow those inside to prepare for his arrival. In fact, the Filipinos send Hilario to open the door, hoping that his sweet fluent Hebrew, and maybe also his adorable turban, will help the boss's son forgive the unaccustomed mess.

The father's morning ablutions have left the apartment very warm, and its residents' identity is more pronounced now than in the evening: it is there in the pungent smells of food cooked the night before, still cooling in a corner of the living room; the infant girl clad only in a diaper and set upon the dining table; the pajamas decorated with pictures of Asian birds, strewn on unmade beds; and the baby's mother, her nakedness swathed in a silken robe of many spectacular colors.

"What is this, Hilario, no school today?"

"It's vacation, Mr. Ya'ari. The holiday of the Maccabees," announces the little student, excited as ever by the mysteries of Judaism.

On the way to his father's bedroom, Amotz peeks into his own childhood room, now occupied by Hilario and his Israeli-born sister. Amid the electronic war toys, beneath the posters of mythic figures from children's movies, he can discern a few prehistoric items, such as the Monopoly game of his youth.

His father has been returned to bed after the morning's elaborate bathing, and Ya'ari is not used to chatting with a father wrapped comfortably in two blankets with only his head visible, collared by a colorful towel and showing no sign of the tremors of his disease.

"Don't be angry with me for insisting that you come this morning," he says, "but this friend of mine, Devorah Bennett, told me she had been trying to reach me for days, and that you and others at the office were hiding my phone number from her. So listen, habibi, this woman is a dear friend, and after Imma died she helped me a great deal during a difficult period. By the way, before I forget, what about Daniela, did you hear from her?"

"Today she goes to Dar es Salaam, where Yirmi will connect her with me by phone."

"If you get the chance, give her my regards, and tell her I hope her visit with her brother-in-law will help her get herself together."

"The problem with her is guilt… she always felt guilty toward her sister, for no reason, and after she passed away the guilt only intensified."

"A little guilt, even for no reason, can still be something productive and healthy," says the elderly elevator designer, "particularly if it is toward family or friends, and it should always be listened to. This is why I want you to help me with my little guilt regarding the friend in Jerusalem. She is nine years younger than I am, meaning she should now be eighty-one years of age. What can I say, a slip of a girl, and many years ago I helped her out with a private elevator, so she could go straight from the apartment to the roof and make some use of it. A simple elevator, small, just for one floor, with a Czech mechanism from before the world war that works on oil pressure with a piston that lifts it from the side. But the construction was all mine. Gottlieb built it according to my plans. And when your mother and I visited Germany in the early fifties, we found a few spare parts in an old scrap warehouse, and I shipped them back to Israel as research materials. You'll soon see it for yourself."

"What makes you think I'll see it?"

"Because I gave my friend a lifetime warranty. She is an intellectual lady and a bit artistic, and during the British Mandate she had an English husband, one-quarter Jewish, who didn't last long here after the establishment of the State. The building is in the center of town, and after a beauty salon opened up on the ground floor, I suggested to her, so she could have a quiet corner, to put in an elevator straight from her flat to the roof, which was not being used and could be reached only by a ladder from the stairwell. So this way she made herself a nice, quiet retreat, which is also cool in the summer evenings, as you'll see."

"Why do you think I should see it?"

"Because your father is asking you to. This is a woman who helped me a great deal after Imma died. She hasn't got the means to bring in a technician, who in any case will not be familiar with such an elevator. It's a building on King George Street, opposite the old Knesset, and she apparently doesn't plan to leave it while she is alive, and therefore she needs the elevator that gives her access to the roof. When Jerusalem was divided, before '67, you could see the Old City from there. And I gather that the elevator is also still alive and only needs adjustment, and to have its seal changed. You'll check for yourself."

"But what good can I do? I'm a design engineer, not a technician."

The father shuts his eyes and falls silent.

"All right," he finally says, "if you are just a designer then don't go see her in Jerusalem. Forget my request. I'll ask Moran. He has more patience, which is why he has golden hands, even though he, like you, is an engineer and not a technician."

"As you wish, ask Moran, he is an independent being, but just so you know, he's in the army right now."

"How so? He told me he's ignoring the army."

"He ignored the army, but the army didn't ignore him."

"So what's going to happen?"

"What's going to happen? Eventually they'll let him go."

"No, I mean in Jerusalem."

"In Jerusalem the slip of a girl can wait a bit. If you gave her a lifetime guarantee, then there's no danger that the warranty will run out. Meanwhile it's winter, so she won't need to go up on the roof."

"You're talking now without an ounce of compassion. But no matter. If you refuse, and the army is holding Moran, then I will ask Francisco to get me a taxi that can handle a wheelchair and bring along two Filipino friends from the old-age home, and they'll take me to Jerusalem, at least to give her a diagnosis."

"Good God, you are really stubborn. But tell me, what's going on with that damned elevator?"

"First of all, it's not damned, and second, as I told you, it's not dead at all, it's still alive, but it has, so she says, kind of a tremor when it starts moving, and also when it stops."

"Maybe it got a little old, Abba? What do you think?"

"Of course it got old, but because it is not a person, it's possible to adjust the oil pressure and replace the seal… no?"

"Anything is possible."

"And besides which, she also says, Devorah Bennett, that there started in the elevator a wail that was never there before, as if a cat in heat were riding in it with her."

"A cat in heat?"

"Yes, that is how she describes it."

"No, Abba, for God's sake, don't talk to me about more wailing noises in elevators."

THIS IS EXACTLY the same road, traveled in the opposite direction, and in the light of a broiling summer morning it goes faster, and the visitor may take in all that was hidden on the night she landed here. This time she is not in the front seat but sitting a bit cramped in the back, behind her brother-in-law's bald head, though the driver is the same driver, quiet and precise. Sijjin Kuang this morning has her shoulders and slender arms wrapped in a sunflower-colored shawl that highlights the coal black sheen of her skin. At ten they must be in Morogoro to board a Chinese freight train carrying copper ore to the port of Dar es Salaam, where, as firmly agreed, their first order of business will be to establish a living link between the guest and her husband; only afterward will they attend to the needs of the excavation team. And even though Sijjin Kuang is plainly of different stock from the locals, Daniela is very pleased to be visiting in the company of a black African woman, whose presence affords her a quiet legitimacy.