Eshkol Nevo - Homesick

Hacham Yehieh put his hands into the tub and asked Gina to cover it with a towel. Sima jumped up and did it for her. She tucked the edges of the towel carefully under the tub and shot a look at Gina to check that she was doing it right.

Hacham Yehieh closed his eyes and started mumbling in a language I didn’t understand. I think he’s calling the demons now, Sima whispered in my ear. Even though I’d been warned not to, the temptation to pull my camera out of its case was enormous: a ray of sunlight had just come through the window, with dust motes drifting through it, and there was Hacham Yehieh, with his intense piety and Gina, with her wrinkles, and in the background the colourful cloth hanging in their living room, and a picture of Avram looking twenty or thirty years younger, wearing an old-fashioned white undershirt and holding one of the boys, maybe Moshe, in the air.

No, I told myself, and kept my hand close to my body. Gina would get angry. And Sima would never forgive me.

For a few minutes, nothing happened. Hacham Yehieh mumbled. The towel moved a little. Outside, two dogs barked a conversation. And then, all of a sudden, Avram started to tremble. At first, it was a slight trembling in his bound hands, then it got stronger and moved to his arms, his shoulders, and finally his whole body was shaking violently. Gina let out a terrified scream. It really was very scary. No external force was shaking him. He himself was looking at his arms in total shock.

Now Hacham Yehieh went from mumbling to shouting. I didn’t know what he was saying, but some of it sounded like pleading and some of it like threats. His hands were moving under the towel as if they were battling something. His face contorted in real or fake suffering, and shrill, chirping sounds came from the area of the tub, although we couldn’t tell who was making them. Calm down, Noa, I told myself. Those can’t be the voices of demons. There is no such thing as the voices of demons. Hacham Yehieh must be a ventriloquist and those voices are coming from his stomach. It’s coming from his stomach, I gestured to Sima, but she was totally mesmerised by what was going on under the towel and didn’t notice me. Small bumps began appearing on the surface of the towel, like the kind you see on boiling hot pizza, hills rose and fell, rose and fell, as if someone or something was trying to get out and couldn’t. OK, I thought, trying to calm myself down, maybe it’s his fingers, maybe he’s pushing his knuckles against the towel to create that effect. But no, there are too many bubbles. It can’t be that he’s raising his fingers in six different places, unless … unless what?

Very slowly, the hills flattened out and Avram’s shaking subsided. And Hacham Yehieh stopped suffering and spraying water all over the place.

Amir won’t believe me when I tell him about this, I thought. He’s at home all week, and the day they have their own episode of X-Files here, he goes to Tel Aviv.

Hacham Yehieh opened his eyes and motioned with his head for Sima to untie Avram’s hands and feet and take the towel off the tub.

I almost fell off my chair: the water was full of blood.

He wounded me, that momzer, Hacham Yehieh grumbled and asked Gina to bring him a bandage. Sima was so shocked that she cried out when she saw the deep cut that split one of his fingers. OK, that doesn’t mean a thing, I thought sceptically, he could have cut his finger himself. All you need is a paper-cutter up your sleeve.

Gina wound the bandage around his finger, shooting worried looks at her husband, who’d gone back to staring at the world with vacant eyes.

He’ll be fine, Hacham Yehieh said. You have nothing to worry about, Gina. There was an old demon inside him, a stubborn old demon who’s been wandering around here for almost fifty years. The demon cut me, but I drove him away, and now he knows not to start up with Yehieh. I’ll write something for you to put in an amulet he can wear on a chain around his neck so the demon doesn’t come back.

Gina nodded admiringly. I started to nod too, automatically, but caught myself in the middle and stopped.

Won’t you be fine now? Hacham Yehieh asked Avram, to prove what he’d said. Avram nodded obediently. Now do you remember what happened to Nissan? Hacham Yehieh asked him, and we all tensed up. Avram didn’t say anything. The sunbeam, which had been getting shorter the last few minutes, made its final retreat from the room. I suddenly remembered that there’d been a time when all the kids in my Girl Guide troop used to talk about seances. None of them ever took part in one, but everyone knew someone who’d been to a seance and seen the glass move across the letters.

Nissan’s dead, Avram said, interrupting my nostalgia. Nissan’s dead, he repeated and gave Hacham Yehieh a puzzled look. What made you mention him now?

*

There’s a demon wandering around Maoz Ziyon. From nightfall till dawn. And he’s black, not white, like you picture a demon. And he’s all alone.

For the first few years he tried to be likeable, initiate a dialogue, squeeze through open doors. But everyone — men and women, old folks and children — screamed when they saw him and drew back. When he tried to compliment one woman on the aroma of her cooking, she promptly had a heart attack. They saved her in the end, but he decided: he wouldn’t try to be anyone’s friend any more. And that meant giving up the pleasure he held most dear: listening to the residents whispering to each other, the demon was there, the demon was here.

Sometimes, sitting on the park bench, the old people still talk about it: how a ghost used to wander around the Castel at night. And they start arguing, each one trying to convince the other that he’s right (while the demon listens with pleasure from a safe distance, behind a tree): I saw him myself, my eyes can still see. He’s something the women and children made up, so how could that be true? He’s a refugee from World War II. What are you talking about, he first showed up here in the fifties. What fifties? Your memory’s out of control. My memory’s out of control? Your memory’s like a fisherman’s net with an enormous hole. A fisherman’s net with an enormous hole? Nothing you say is true. You were born crazy, Simon, and you’ll be crazy when they bury you.

When the conversation collapses on its own (the old people are tired and the sun is glowing gold high in the sky), the demon withdraws. He disguises himself as a shadow and slips through the alleyways until he reaches the palace he calls home: the cage of used cartons behind Doga and Sons.

Only once or twice a year, when a gap opens in someone’s soul, does he take advantage of the opportunity and slip into it. Such a perfect place to hide. So warm and pleasant inside. He can play all sorts of pranks, make them all look like fools. Scramble memories. Break rules. And hope that stupid Hacham Yehieh is called upon. So he can trick him: retreat and come back again later on.

*

And while I’m trying to stop the Arab, to push him out, and Gina goes to the kitchen and comes back with a frying pan to hit him on the head with, and we’re both yelling terrorist! terrorist! so the whole neighbourhood can hear — Avram, who’s been snoring on the sofa all morning, stands up suddenly, looks at him, barks uskuto! at both of us and walks over to him. He touches his shoulders, his hands, then his face, moves his finger over his cheeks, his nose, his forehead. The Arab is so stunned, he doesn’t move. Just stands there with his certificate and his rusty key. Not breathing. Then Avram gives him two light slaps, the affectionate kind, and moves a little bit away from him, the way you move away to look at a painting, and then he moves back, looks at him with dreamy eyes and says, Nissan, ya ibni , my son, welcome, and hugs him tight. Over Avram’s shoulder, the Arab gives us a what’s-with-him look, and Avram squeezes him tighter and keeps on saying, ya ibni, ya ibni Nissan, and the worker, who’s starting to feel uncomfortable, hugs him back with one hand, and with the other, points at Avram and says, my name is Saddiq, not Nissan. I never heard of this Nissan, and what’s wrong with this old man? Gina recovers first, curses Yehieh under her breath and explains to the Arab: Nissan was our first child who died when he was two, the day we moved into this house, and Avram, he’s my husband, he has a demon inside him this week, he thinks Nissan’s alive and that we all know where Nissan is but we hide it from him on purpose, but Nissan’s dead. Avram, Gina says, putting her hand on his shoulder and trying to pull him gently out of the embrace, Avram, Nissan’s dead, kapparokh . Don’t you remember what you said to Yehieh? I didn’t say anything to Yehieh! Why are you lying?! Avram yells and pushes her hand away, Nissan’s here! This is Nissan! He moves away a little and points at the worker. Come in, ibni , he invites him with a sweeping gesture of his hand, sit down, we’ll get you something to eat, something to drink, we’ll make a place for you to sleep.