A. Yehoshua - Friendly Fire - A Duet

Yirmiyahu sighs, rises from his chair and follows the nurse. Daniela, who guesses that reassuring Zohara will take some time, approaches the desk clerk to ask if he has anything sweet, she feels a bitter taste in her mouth. The African apologizes that he has nothing to offer the white woman, but when he finishes on the computer he will try to find something. She looks at the documents he is inputting, and asks if he has any reading material, perhaps a brochure, maybe something with pictures? No, this institution has no need for public relations, and the paperwork piled up here consists of medical reports about illnesses and treatments, now being recorded on the hard drive for future generations. Then he remembers that one of the patients who died here left behind a book in English that might possibly interest the visitor; he will go upstairs for it at once, but it might be only a prayer book.

A prayer book is not exactly what his bored guest is yearning for — but if it is in English, she will give it a chance.

Meanwhile she tries to make herself more comfortable. She turns around the hippo relinquished by Yirmiyahu and joins it to her own, takes off her shoes and socks, and sinks her bare feet in the rough cracked hide of the other herbivorous creature. She closes her eyes and allows the noonday sun to caress her through the unshaded window. The tapping on the keyboard stops, and she hears the rustle of papers and the glide of a closing drawer and the moving of a chair. Now that she is all alone, a sweet drowsiness overtakes her, as in the car at night beside her husband, when he accelerates on the highway. And when the rumble of the elevator intrudes into her twilight consciousness, she is disappointed that her brother-in-law has already returned to rouse her from her well-arranged cocoon and tell her they are heading back. But the gravelly voice speaking to her now in fluent well-enunciated English belongs neither to Yirmiyahu nor the desk clerk. As in a dream, she sees an old man approach her, clad only in a white bathrobe, and extend a cordial hand. To her astonishment she recognizes the elderly Englishman who sat beside her on the flight from Nairobi to Morogoro. He had boasted to her that he was the owner of a small estate, and here he is but one of its residents. He has just learned that a white lady had arrived from the base camp of the excavations for the prehistoric ape, and immediately guessing who it must be, has hurried down to tell her, with unabashed candor, that their brief encounter on the plane has been very much on his mind.

"BUT GRANDPA, IT'S not raining anymore," Neta says, pulling at Ya'ari's fingers while he is deep in discussion with the lone soldier about the scenery in Ethiopia. The soldier talks with joy of the landscapes of his childhood, and it is so pleasant to chat with this older man that he is willing to open the rifle bolt for his enthralled grandson and explain to him, using a live round, how the pin hits the primer to ignite the gunpowder in the cartridge, which propels the lead bullet to its target. Boom-boom they kill and then give a kiss, Nadi summarizes the shooting process with great satisfaction. And after fondling the bullet with his little hands, turning it over and over, he spirits it slyly into the pocket of his coat, but Ya'ari quickly snatches it from the "little killer." Yes, we must hurry, it's getting late, and again he grabs his grandchildren's hands, but before they leave he remembers to ask the lone recruit whether in fact there is on the base an old tank.

And indeed, Moran was right. Ya'ari is not inclined to hallucination, neither by day nor by night. Behind the sheds of the base command stands a Syrian tank from the Yom Kippur War, set up as a memorial to past heroism. The Ethiopian goes outside and explains how to get there, and then, on a sudden whim, he leans over and kisses the children. Nadi hangs on him with affection, but Neta is alarmed. Come, children, let's see this tank, says Ya'ari to the dismay of his granddaughter, who has had more than enough of this military tour and wants very much to return to her parents, having sensed the tension between them. But Nadi's manly spirit pleases Ya'ari, and he wants to satisfy the boy's military curiosity, and so, as they stand before the tank, an obsolete Soviet model whose camouflage paint was designed for the basalt terrain of the Golan Heights, he complies with his grandson's request to lift him on top of the turret.

"Just for a minute, Neta darling, we're only going to peek and see what's inside this tank, and then right away we'll go back to Imma and Abba. You don't want to see what's inside?"

But Neta, standing tiny and tense alongside the corroded caterpillar tracks, wants no contact at all with the tank, which even after rusting in place for more than thirty years is terrifying. The darkening sky compounds her distress. But Ya'ari will not give in and lifts her little brother onto the hull, then goes up to join him, and from there, carefully and with considerable effort, climbs with the child onto the bulky turret. The hatch, he is pleased to discover, can be opened.

It is dark inside, and Ya'ari, who served in the infantry, is no expert on the innards of tanks. A cursory look tells him that the Soviet army had not been greatly concerned about the comfort of the individual soldier, only about the thickness of the steel protecting him. He can make out the olive-drab color of the steering bar, two large copper artillery shell casings, and what looks like the disintegrating vest of a tank soldier — dead these thirty years, no doubt — is lying in a corner. Nadi wants very much to crawl in and touch the steering bar, but Ya'ari is afraid he'll have trouble getting him out. As a compromise, he holds him upside-down, and in a reverse childbirth motion lowers his big head into the dark hole. Lower, Grandpa, the child pleads, while his head seems to float in the darkness, I see a dead man. That's it, no more, Ya'ari says, frightened by his grandson's wild imagination. You've seen enough. Now let's get out of here fast, before an officer comes and yells at us. No, Nadi says, stiffening his body. There's no officer, you're silly.

Ya'ari has noticed that Nadi sometimes speaks disrespectfully to his father and mother, but till now has watched his tongue with his grandfather. He pulls the child up sharply and clambers down with him. Nadi, that's it. You've seen enough. And on top of that, you can say "silly" to your friends in nursery school, but not to your grandpa who loves you so much. The child falls silent, lowers his gaze, then purses his lips and looks venomously into his grandfather's face. Neta, too, is on the verge of tears, tugging impatiently at his hand, and from the sky drops begin to fall. If she starts whimpering now, her brother will immediately join in, and it will not be to his glory to return two bawling children to their parents.

He puts the teddybear hoods over their heads, and covers his own, to his grandchildren's delight, with a sheet of graph paper he finds in his pocket.

When they reach the front gate Ya'ari is amazed to discover that the chaotic civilian world has been utterly erased, as by magic, from the consciousness of the army recruits. The picnic ground is deserted; all the cars have vanished, with no trace of paper napkins or empty mineral water bottles. Also absent is the car he lent his son, and now he remembers that he left his cell phone in it, plugged into the speakerphone socket.

Greenish lightning slashes the sky, followed by shattering thunder. The terrified children cling to his body, the soaking graph paper dribbles on his head. Without thinking twice about hurting his back, he lifts both his grandchildren in his arms and dashes for the guardhouse. A tall soldier in full battle garb looks at them severely. The amiable Ethiopian has been replaced by a Russian recruit who scowls at the three civilians who have sought refuge with him. Is he too a lone soldier, whose mother has remained in Russia? Ya'ari does not ask; nor does he need to. There is a woven basket in the corner, filled with food.