Eshkol Nevo - Homesick

The sun outside my room was so dazzling that I thought I might be able to convince my mother and father to go out for a drive, even though we’re supposed to be sad. Maybe they saw the sun too and remembered the Lundys. But when I saw what my mother was doing in the living room, I lost my confidence. She was sitting under the big picture of Gidi, next to Gidi’s memorial candle, browsing through Gidi’s yearbook. There was a box of tissues next to her with one tissue sticking up out of it. But I took a deep breath and asked her if she felt like going out for a drive because it was so nice outside, and without looking up from the yearbook, she said, I don’t know, ask your father. So I went and asked my father, who was lying in their bed reading the weekend papers and smoking a cigarette. He mumbled, I don’t know, ask your mother. I coughed loudly to remind him that I hate it when he smokes and said, I already asked her. He looked up from the paper and said, Yotam, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re not really in the mood for trips and I don’t think I have to explain why. I wanted to tell him that he really didn’t have to explain, that they weren’t the only ones who missed Gidi, I missed him too. But I didn’t know how to say it, the words didn’t come together into a sentence in my mouth, so I didn’t say anything. He put the cigarette out in the ashtray on the nightstand and didn’t say anything either. Then he went back to the paper. I coughed harder so he’d look up, but it didn’t help, so I left without saying anything. I pulled a shirt out of the huge mountain of dirty laundry — Mum never has the strength to do laundry — and went out. Mum yelled after me, Yotam, where are you going? But I didn’t answer. If she wants to know, let her get up from the sofa. I put a few more stones on Gidi’s monument — I keep adding stones, but for some reason, it stays the same height — and talked to him. I told him that I miss him terribly and that I’m sorry that on the last Saturday he was home before it happened, I interrupted his phone conversation with a girl from his base, and I hope he forgives me, and if he does, if he forgives me, would he please tell Mum and Dad, give them a sign from heaven that he doesn’t care if we go out on car trips, that he goes on trips up there and there’s no reason we have to stay at home all the time. I felt a bit weird talking to stones, like one of those half-crazies in Amir’s club, but when I finished, I waited for an answer anyway, for a stone that would fall and give me a sign that Gidi heard. No stone fell. So I left and went to knock at Amir’s door. But no one answered there either, even though I thought I heard noises inside. I could’ve taken the key out from under the plant, opened the door and checked. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to go out walking, that’s what I wanted. And no one wanted to come with me. OK, I’ll go alone, I said to myself. I walked down the tile path, crossed the street, and went past Madmoni’s house, which was starting to look like a real house, except without doors. I went down on the path to the wadi. Bushes with thorns scratched me, but I didn’t care. I was thirsty, but ignored it. I kept going down, down, down. I kicked small stones and sang to myself, I’m hiking, I’m hiking, I don’t need anyone, I’m hiking. I passed the big tree, the one I once built a wooden house in. And I passed the rock that Gidi once told me was the border and that we couldn’t walk past it. I kept walking and walking till I couldn’t see the houses of the neighbourhood any more, and after a while, the path ended too. There was a big bush and no path behind it, as if it had got tired, and that confused me a bit, because till then, I had at least known where I was going and all of a sudden I was standing there, in the middle of the wadi, and I had no idea what to do. When that happens on a trip with the family, my father takes a map out of his pocket, looks at it for a while and then decides, ‘to the right’ or ‘from here, we follow the red markings’, but I didn’t have a map, and even if I had, I wouldn’t know how to read it because whenever Dad used to say, come here Yotam, look at the map with me so you can learn how to navigate, I’d lean over the map, put a serious expression on my face and think about other things.

And then I saw a small house.

At first, I thought I was seeing things because it was very hot and Mum once told me that if you don’t drink enough water when you’re out walking, you start seeing things. I took a few steps toward the house and after a few metres it really did disappear. I didn’t see it at all. But I kept walking and there it was again. Then a whole bunch of trees hid it. But when I walked further down, I saw its walls made of dirty old stones, and its small, low door, and that gave me the courage to keep walking through the bushes and the rocks until I reached it.

Only when I was standing very close did I see that not only did the house not have a door, but it didn’t have a roof either. Probably no one’s lived here for years, I thought. And went inside.

*

Saddiq goes out to pee. Raises the side of the tent, bends over and squints so he can see. It’s very cold now. The wind starts to howl. Walking over to a bush, he stumbles on a rock and his face sets in a scowl. Laughter comes from the guard tower. A huge projector lights hill after hill. If he runs, he thinks as he opens his fly, if he runs now and climbs the fence, the guards will shoot him. He’ll fall. And it’ll all be over, once and for all. No more humiliation. No more desperation. No more of that longing that fills his throat with a burning sensation. His whole body begins to shake. He remembers when he and his brother used to go out to pee in the winter, so cold that their bodies would ache. He zips up and once again, his eyes move to the fence. Maybe I’ll climb it tomorrow, he says to himself. No. Doing it now doesn’t make any sense. Maybe in another two weeks, or three, when Mustafa A’alem finishes teaching me. Then I’ll take off and be free.

He walks back into the tent, lies down on his bed. His back hurts. The hunger in his heart makes him want to scream. But still, he sinks deeply into a dream.

Sometimes, when he wakes up in the morning, he reaches for his wife, thinking for one sweet, wonderful moment that he’s back in his old life.

*

Is Yotam here?

His mother was standing at the door with a ‘please-say-yes’ expression on her face.

No. He’s not at home?

He wanted us to go on a family outing today and … we couldn’t. I was sure he came here.

No, I said, and was filled with shame. I knew that it was him knocking on the door and I didn’t open it.

Where else could he be? Yotam’s mother asked, looking at me with forlorn eyes.

Let’s think, I said in an authoritative voice, and kept on kicking myself for not having opened the door. Maybe he went to a friend’s house?

He hasn’t been playing with other boys since … since it happened. I tried the houses of two kids who used to be his friends, but he wasn’t there.

If it was a weekday, I thought out loud, I’d try the arcade at the shopping centre. But it’s five o’clock now. The shops don’t open till seven on Saturdays.

That’s right, she said, and suddenly collapsed. Her knees buckled and she lost her balance. At the last minute, she grabbed my arm so she wouldn’t fall.

Come inside, drink some water. It’s very hot outside. I supported her until we got to the sofa in the living room. She sat down in silence and I went to the kitchen and came back with a glass of cold water and a napkin.

I don’t know what I’m going to do, she said, wiping her face with the napkin. Enough, it’s enough. It’s too much. Reuven says he’s not worried, Yotam went out for a few hours to make us angry because we didn’t want to take him for a drive. But how can we? Our feet are so heavy, and all the places we could go to — the Galilee, the Golan — we went to with Gidi, so how can we?