A. Yehoshua - Friendly Fire - A Duet

Yesterday, visiting the excavation site, she imagined for a moment that perhaps there had developed between the elderly widower and the nurse a bond deeper than their professional one, but this morning her impression has been erased by the profound sadness she sees in this young woman, whose whole family was murdered. She observes that when her brother-in-law's hand or shoulder happen to bump into the driver's as the car rounds a bend or suddenly swerves, the Sudanese shrinks from him, as from some enemy who wished to harm her.

They drive around Mount Morogoro on a wide red-dirt road, hard as asphalt, that twists through a thick bushy forest that now and then vanishes for no reason and is replaced by a barren hilltop. She asks her brother-in-law, is the earth redder here? I remember your explaining it to Amotz and me last time, but I don't remember what you said.

"The red color comes from the iron in the soil, which also decreases its fertility."

"Iron… I remember now, that's what you told us then too."

"See, here's proof that I'm a stable person, who doesn't easily change his mind. But if you ask Sijjin Kuang, for example, why the earth of Africa is red, she will flatly tell you it's because of all the blood that has been spilled upon it."

The driver, hearing her name mentioned, glances back at Daniela.

"And maybe because of the blood she can't forget, it's also good for you to be with her, because her tragedy is greater than yours. Next to her, you can forget your own."

Yirmi does not respond at first. Maybe he didn't hear. Maybe he disagrees with what she said. But suddenly he turns around, pulls his sister-in-law's little hand toward him and puts it to his lips in a gesture of gratitude. Sometimes you amaze me with your accuracy, the way you touch, as if casually, the heart of the matter. Of course this woman's tragedy is greater than mine, and I realize that, but that's not the only reason why I like her to drive the car and go on my rounds with me. You will be surprised, but she does not know about our Eyali, because I told her nothing, nor have I told the others, so that no one here will have any emotional purchase on what I myself want to forget. This woman helps me peel off my identity.

"How?"

"With all those things you also like about her. She is a genuine animist, a pagan who believes in trees and stones and spirits, not as a confused appendage to some failed abstract religion and not as a cry for help out of weakness and despair, but as a natural act, a whole different faith. And therefore, unlike Christians or Muslims, she has no connection or commitment to Jews, for either good or ill, love or hate. We are not the source she comes from, or a cause for struggle or competition. To her we are simply not relevant, nor does she see herself as relevant to us. To me she is a place where we do not exist in any memories. Not religious, not historical, not mythological. To her I am only a man — admittedly white, but that's a minor detail, because it was blacks, after all, who murdered her family and her tribe. And therefore, without talk or effort, simply as one person to another, she helps me peel away my identity, like the white man, who has peeled off his blackness. Everything that has oppressed me begins to fall off, without argument or debate, so that even if a dear and familiar guest happens to descend on me, that person can't reverse the process."

"You mean me, of course."

"For example. But up to now I have no complaints: you are behaving courteously and keeping within bounds."

"OKAY, I SURRENDER," Amotz says to his father. "Tomorrow's Friday; I'll try to get up to Jerusalem."

"But why not go today? You have all this free time now."

"What free time?"

"Your wife's not here, and you have no one to take care of or worry about."

"Don't exaggerate. I have someone left to take care of, and there's always something to worry about. So I'll hop up to Jerusalem tomorrow, not because of the yowling of an imaginary cat in heat but purely for your peace of mind."

"My peace of mind isn't a good enough reason? So before you go, let me give you a kiss."

Ya'ari can't remember the last time his father asked to kiss him. He himself, when he comes to visit and finds his father in the wheelchair, sometimes squeezes his trembling hand and lightly kisses, out of obligation, the cheek of the man from whom he has learned so much. But he doesn't recall his father ever once initiating a kiss, not for several dozen years. Now he does, as he lies naked in bed, under two blankets, and Ya'ari has to bend over him as he offers only his forehead to his father's lips.

"If you find the cat in heat inside her shaft, bring it with you so I can see it," says the father, then closes his eyes and plants a kiss on the forehead of the man of sixty.

Judging by his father's excitement, it would seem that she was a love of his, Ya'ari muses as he heads south to his office on a gray windless day. The old father even yearned to confess, but his son wouldn't let him, lest it turn out that the woman in Jerusalem had been his lover while his mother was still alive. And even if he were told that the woman only helped his father restore his manhood after his wife's death, Ya'ari has no great desire to meet her, and certainly none to service her ancient, shaking, wailing elevator. In any case it lies beyond his power to heal its afflictions, or even diagnose them. If Moran were in town, he would certainly send him to Jerusalem to satisfy his grandpa. But Moran has sunk into the abyss of the army and has exchanged not one word with him; Ya'ari suspects that his son has begun to enjoy the freedom of his confinement.

The office is teeming. Those who took yesterday off have come early today to complete their projects. Where's Moran? ask colleagues whose work depends on him. Moran is doing reserve duty, Ya'ari says, avoiding the whole truth. But he said he would ignore the army? So he said it. Not everything he says comes true.

For a moment Ya'ari considers whether it would be right to ask one of the younger engineers to go to Jerusalem in his place. But anyone sent there would likely feel foolish and helpless when confronted with a prehistoric private elevator, and bear a grudge over the Friday needlessly stolen from him and the imposition of a technician's chore on an engineer.

He phones the lady in Jerusalem and speaks to her in practical army language: You've won, Mrs. Bennett, I will come to see your elevator tomorrow morning, but I caution you, have no illusions, I am coming only to look, not to repair. So please, don't budge from your house, starting at nine.

After that, he convenes the weekly staff meeting in his office earlier than usual, to ensure that at the appointed hour of noon both he and his telephone will be free to receive his wife's African voice.

AT THIS MOMENT Daniela is not far from Dar es Salaam. She sits in a makeshift passenger compartment in the Chinese freight train, her brother-in-law dozes on the bench beside her, and across from her sits Sijjin Kuang, whose gentle gaze indicates that she gathered — at least from the Hebrew word pagani —that the conversation between the two Israeli relatives had something to do with her. And even though the tragedy of the young Sudanese woman is greater than the disaster that befell the elderly administrator — whose head droops on his chest and appears to be nodding in agreement — the visitor would still like to give her some hint about the fire that needlessly killed the white man's son.

But Yirmiyahu does not want to tell his driver anything about himself, lest one story lead to another, and one history get tangled with another, until even an idolator could find herself identifying with him. And so, since his sister-in-law has not come here to thwart his wishes, she steers the conversation to injuries and illnesses. Perhaps she can learn from the African nurse's experience about an ancient and proven cure for some malady she has yet to contract.