The Debba Read online

  Mornings I would go to the Waqf hall, to view the rehearsals, and to make sure the shabbab were at their posts; afternoons I would interview yet another cabdriver, about passengers who had either gotten in or disembarked near my father’s store that Saturday evening; or I would again talk to Abdallah, to see whether he had come up with anything new among whatever shadowy contacts he had in the Arab street. Amzaleg called me from time to time, leaving messages for me at home, or at Cassit, but I no longer bothered to respond. Ever since I realized that he probably knew who the burglar was—since the police and the Shin Bet often worked hand in hand—my trust in him had evaporated. In a curious way, his betrayal had touched me more than I cared to admit, perhaps because he had served with my father, and loved him, yet found it expedient to betray him; while Abdallah, whose share in my father’s store had been usurped, whose orchards had been confiscated, whose elder brother had been killed—perhaps even by someone in my father’s unit—now risked his neck for me, helping me find the murderer, and incurring the wrath of the shoo-shoo by helping me stage the play, and probably losing money in the bargain. Did he do it for the sake of my father, his old partner and friend, or for mine?

  So much gratitude I felt for him that it nearly eclipsed the gratitude I felt for Ehud, and the deep shame. Yes, the shame. I felt remorse for screwing Ehud’s bride-to-be and for costing him money, but I was more ashamed of my gratitude toward Abdallah.

  Gratitude to an Arab!

  I had never imagined I could stoop as low as this.

  45

  THERE WERE ABOUT A dozen people in our small theater troupe, both actors and crew, yet it soon became clear it was Ehud who was the production’s mainstay. With Kagan often hitting the bottle, and I away most of the time, it now fell on him to direct and handle the many annoyances that cropped up daily.

  “It’s only five days to the performance,” Ehud said to me late one evening, when I told him he should sleep more. “After it and after the wedding I can sleep all I want.”

  The wedding had been planned for three weeks after the performance. Ehud had asked me once if I would stay for it; I said I could not, and he did not ask again.

  Aside from such brief moments, I hardly saw him at all. He rose by five o’clock in the morning, and left long before either Ruthy or I awoke. He had lost weight, and had eerily taken on the lean look of my father in his early pictures.

  “I hardly see him anymore either,” Ruthy said as we lay entangled behind some hadass bushes on the Yarkon riverbank. “Except at the rehearsals. He can take a break from this, no? He doesn’t have to do it all himself.”

  I said Ehud was doing a fine job. “He’ll make you a star yet.”

  Ruthy flared up. “He make me a star? Do I need him to make me a star? I can do it on my own!” And then she said, as if the two topics were connected, “All I want from him is to be home sometime, to talk to me. I am going to be his wife in what? Three, four weeks?”

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  I didn’t want to think of it, so ashamed I was.

  When I came home (Ruthy stayed downstairs, so we wouldn’t come in together), Ehud said Jenny had just called. She would be arriving in Tel Aviv in two days.

  Whereas Jenny had briefly managed to hold my black dreams at bay, Ruthy made them worse. Every night the dreams returned, resurrecting all those lives I had extinguished, each more vivid than the last; but so did the inner chanting, where milky ghosts sang to each other on some inner stage, battling the dark. So vivid was it all that often it seemed as if my father’s play were being rehearsed nightly inside me in front of a dark audience that refused to hear its words. Night after night, as the performance drew closer, the battle inside me grew more intense, more painful. I did not know how long I could stand it, and often imagined that even a real fight with flesh and blood opponents might be better than this ephemeral war within.

  I didn’t know how close I was to getting it.

  46

  “THEY TOOK FAUZI,” ABDALLAH’s voice whispered over the phone. “The mukhabarat.” The security services. “They came and they took him—”

  I pressed the phone to my ear. “Did he do anything? Something?”

  “No, no, he’s a good boy, nothing, ya Daoud, nothing …”

  Vibrating with rage, I dashed out, grabbing the Beetle keys.

  At the Dizzengoff police station, I learned that Amzaleg was at Abu Kabbir, where the police took the most hard-baked criminals, and suspected terrorists, for “wet” investigations. We used to operate there, too.

  I turned around and ran to the car.

  The guard at the entrance of the gray detention center, behind the Abu Kabbir morgue, probably remembered me from years ago, because he didn’t try to stop me. I barged past him, staring into cells right and left through the viewing ports. Unshaven men stared back at me, eyes puffy from beatings. A few were lying on the floor, vomiting.

  Fauzi was in cell 5, seated on a metal chair. A deep gash ran along one side of his face and a trickle of blood flowed down his chin. Behind him stood Gershonovitz, and behind Gershonovitz, Amzaleg, holding the fat man’s shoulder.

  I slammed the door open. “Why did you take him in?”

  Gershonovitz’s small mouth pursed. “Ask him.”

  Amzaleg ignored me and said to Gershonovitz, “They cooked it, your guys. You know they cooked it, what they said they had found.”

  Gershonovitz tried to wrench his shoulder away, but Amzaleg’s fingers stayed lodged in it. The fat man said, “You’ve been drinking coffee with them too much, Amnon. You’re beginning to believe what they tell you.”

  “Fucking liars,” Amzaleg said. “All of your guys.”

  Fauzi’s eyes were black with venom and fear.

  I turned to Amzaleg. “What happened to him?”

  “He just fell, the Arabush,” Gershonovitz said. “On his forehead. Tell him, ya Muchamad.” With a slowness that was far more savage than any rage, he slapped Fauzi three times in swift succession.

  Fauzi’s head was thrown back, his chair nearly toppling. Without noticing it I was at his side and propped him up. “Enough, Shimmel. I said enough!”

  Gershonovitz recoiled in mock horror. “Oh ho ho, Dada, you became a dainty soul again all of a sudden? Just like in Um Marjam?”

  I felt myself go red and turned to Fauzi. “Fuck it, Fauzi. What did you do?”

  He did not reply.

  Gershonovitz said conversationally, “We caught him making a little bomb, with nails, and broken glass—we were watching him.”

  Fauzi shook his head violently, in obstinate denial.

  “Where?” I said. “When?”

  “In the back of the Waqf hall, backstage. We were watching him.” Gershonovitz’s face had acquired a sort of sheen, as though a lamp had been turned on inside it.

  “Shit in yogurt,” Amzaleg snapped. “We were watching him, too, and we saw nothing—”

  “You did not want to see.”

  Amzaleg’s cheeks stretched, the bones showing.

  “Go, go drink some water,” Gershonovitz said.

  Amzaleg turned around abruptly and left the cell.

  I turned to Fauzi. “Is it true? What he said?”

  He spit at me. Gershonovitz stepped forward and raised his hand for a slap.

  I caught the hand and bent it. “No.”

  Gershonovitz looked into my face, then calmly raised his other hand high in the air and snapped his fingers overhead. My eyes jerked up and at that very moment he slammed his commando boot down on my sandal, ground it twice, and, as I let go his hand, he smashed his fat fist into my groin.

  I sat down on the concrete floor, on Fauzi’s blood. Fauzi’s eyes went from me to Gershonovitz, and back to me. I got to my feet. My instep was bleeding and my groin was throbbing as if an electrical current had passed through it. Gershonovitz had hit me so expertly, after his clever diversion, that I felt a grudging admiration. An old man like him, using Unit tricks. Without thinki
ng, I took a floating half step in his direction, my hands at battle stance.

  “Careful, now,” he said, his hand at the small of his back. “You want to go into another cell?”

  I stopped in mid step. “I am a Canadian now.”

  “So you are a Canadian! Let’s rejoice! We have British here, Americans, two French whores, a Greek—”

  Fauzi shouted suddenly in a high pitched voice, “Lies! I didn’t do anything! Anything! It’s because of the show that they took me—” His voice stuck.

  “This piece of donkey shit,” Gershonovitz said to me conversationally, “we also found his notes, they were planning to do something, the day of your performance—one day before the elections …”

  “Lies!” Fauzi shouted. “Lies!”

  The fat man went on, “… hang posters, that the Debba had been seen in the Galilee, or the Negev … then put bomb gifts in stores, in Allenby, in Dizzengoff, in the Shekkem store—maybe in a few kindergartens, too? Hey, ya Muchamad?” Another slap. Now the chair toppled. I righted it and helped Fauzi up.

  Gershonovitz’s flat eyes were on me, mocking. “Maybe you want to try again?” He extended his old arm, thick and suntanned and wrinkled. “Here, try again.”

  I said nothing.

  “Or maybe you want to try with him? Like we taught you, before you forgot? Yes, why not, go ahead. Maybe you can get him to speak—”

  The door banged open. Like a large gray cat, Amzaleg was back. “I just talked to Levitan. He said it’s okay, that it’s mine, this case.”

  Levitan was the chief of police.

  Gershonovitz’s face underwent a transformation, almost too terrible to watch. For a brief instant it looked like the face of an animal, or a wild dog.

  “He said it’s for me to decide,” Amzaleg went on. “That it’s my jurisdiction.” He bent over Fauzi and began to untie his feet.

  Gershonovitz hissed, “You are making the mistake of your life, Amnon.”

  Amzaleg helped Fauzi to his feet. Then, as Amzaleg was leading him out, he jerked Amzaleg’s hand off, turned around, and shouted, “Yay, he hath returned, ya dogs. And may he soon come back to kill you all and cut off all your—”

  Amzaleg pushed him out and banged the door shut with his heel.

  Gershonovitz leaned on the wall. “Did you hear him? Did you hear what he said?”

  From outside came a sharp honk. I turned to go.

  Gershonovitz shouted into my back. “That’s all they talk about, now, the Arabushim … about this fucking show … I am telling you, if we don’t stop it, soon they’ll start raising their heads—”

  I left. Outside Amzaleg was getting into his patrol car. Fauzi was not there.

  “I told him to take the bus,” Amzaleg said.

  We stared at each other. Finally I said, “Why?” Meaning why all this.

  “This is not just a theater play,” Amzaleg said. “Make no mistake.” He slid into his cruiser and banged the door shut.

  I stared after him numbly as he sped away, wondering once again what the hell he meant and whether I could trust him; whether I could really trust anyone in this goddamned place.

  That same afternoon in the rehearsal Fauzi had taken his place as usual, at the back. The gash over his eye had been stitched shut, but every now and then it trickled blood.

  Ehud did not even notice, so involved he was in the enfolding scene.

  After the rehearsal was over, I told Ehud what had taken place. “They said he was preparing bombs—”

  “Shit in yogurt,” Ehud snarled. “Bombs!” I had never seen him so angry.

  When I asked him if he wanted to ask Fauzi about this, just to let him have a chance to deny it, Ehud grabbed my arm tightly. “You leave him alone! You hear? He is helping us, you think he doesn’t get shit from his own?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Probably.”

  “All right,” Ehud said. “Goddammit. Second scene in ten minutes.”

  • • •

  As Ehud prepared to go home with Ruthy, I said I’d stay behind. “In case these Kahane boys try something, what do I know?”

  All during the day, outside, the rhythmic shouts of the Kach crowd had been rising in volume and in pitch.

  He didn’t offer any help; he just took Ruthy’s car and left.

  I was sleeping on the army cot behind the stage when Fauzi shook my shoulder. “You’d better come, ya Daoud,” he whispered.

  My phosphorous Omega watch said ten past midnight. “Where?”

  “In Shazli Street, near the café. There are some new guys there.”

  I followed him to the yard. The street was dark, the café deserted. Four men in dark clothes were standing in the lee of a house, speaking in low voices. Another group was in Avoda Lane, leaning on an old Ford Cortina. I could see another Cortina at the end of Sefer Shir Lane, with a dipole antenna.

  “Where are the sentinels?” I whispered.

  “I’ll take you.”

  Eight young Arabs were leaning against the hall in the darkness, smoking. I made them extinguish their cigarettes, and sent one to Abdallah’s house. “Wake up the other shabbab. Bring them to the café here, and wait. When you hear me whistle like that”—I whistled softly ’Um Kulsum’s song “Ya Habibi”—“then you come.”

  I could see their teeth glint in the darkness. Then they dispersed, quiet as jackals.

  In ten minutes they returned. More of our crew from the chocolate factory had also arrived, and together with other young Arabs, they crowded around Fauzi and me. Amid the silence I explained we might soon be attacked. “They’ll probably swarm from several directions, try to wreck things. Don’t waste time grappling with them. Don’t shout, don’t speak, don’t scream. Be completely silent. Understand? Hit at their legs and at their balls. No shouting. Understand?”

  Nods all around.

  I distributed sticks. “And watch for guys with cans. You see someone with a gasoline can, or a lit match, everyone go for him. All together.”

  There was a tense murmur.

  Our accountant said, “I called the police to tell Inspector Amzaleg, but a policeman said he was not—”

  “Fuck the police!” Fauzi said. “This is ours. Ours!”

  The little crowd gave a collective hiss, and then, wordlessly, everyone dispersed, each going to his predetermined station. Only Fauzi and I remained; and together, side by side, we stood in the shadows and waited for the attack to begin.

  PART IV

  Yawm Al Dinn

  (Day of Judgment)

  47

  NEXT MORNING I WALKED into Amzaleg’s office, dizzy with fatigue and dream residue.

  “To drink the Jews’ blood,” Gershonovitz hollered at me. “That’s what they scribble everywhere now, these Arabushim, on every wall! See what you did last night?”

  Not an hour after our routing the Kach thugs, Arab graffiti had blossomed all over Tel Aviv, and in Yaffo. I could see it on the way home as I drove, on every fence. I had no idea how the news could have spread so fast.

  “That’s what you woke me up for?”

  My ears were still ringing with the shouts of the night before. After the Kach youth were chased off, Fauzi and the Arab shabbab wrapped a keffiyeh around my head, and, ululating wildly, carried me on their shoulders around the Waqf hall. Only at five o’clock in the morning did I manage to escape to the apartment, where I plunged into a nearly dreamless sleep until Amzaleg’s call woke me.

  Amzaleg did not say a word now, as Gershonovitz kept bellowing that it was all because of the bedlam I had made in Yaffo last night. “Dammit, ya Dada! What are you doing to us? You want an Arab rebellion here, like in thirty-six? Just because of your father’s fucking play?”

  I said obstinately that the police did not want to come, so we had to defend ourselves.

  “We!” Gershonovitz bellowed at me. “Who’s we?”

  Amzaleg growled into his desk, “I didn’t get the call until three in the morning—”

  “Tell it to
your grandma,” I said.

  Gershonovitz kept up his tirade. He shook a sheaf of yellow onionskins at me and I recognized Shin Bet informers’ reports. “Look what they’ve been writing on the walls of their hovels in the refugee camps—to get their souls ready for the rebellion—the military governors all recommend total curfew until after the elections—”

  “So do it. Put on a curfew. What the hell do you want from my life?”

  “We can’t! Not now! Not a week before the elections! If this gets out of hand, Begin will get in for sure. That’s what you want? Dada, you got to stop this play—”

  I turned my back to him and left, in the middle of his wild-eyed tirade.

  Ruthy was waiting for me in the apartment, Ehud standing five paces behind her, his face colorless.

  “Look at this.” Ruthy thrust a crumpled paper in my face. “Look what they say, these people—”

  Dumbly I took it, and felt my neck crawl as the handwritten words registered. The daughter of adultery hath continued her mother’s ways—

  Ehud whispered, “I was not even going to show it to you—”

  Ruthy said, “I found it in his Volvo, in the glove compartment. Someone had sent it to him.”

  Ehud whispered, “You know I don’t believe any of this crap—you know this—”

  “Shit in yogurt, ‘don’t believe.’ So why didn’t you show it to me?”

  Ehud shuffled his feet as if he had been caught, not Ruthy.

  “No, why?” Ruthy shouted, “You tell him, Dada! Tell him!”

  I heard myself cussing the writer in Hebrew, Arabic, and Yiddish, denying it all, gesticulating with both hands. “It’s someone in the shoo-shoo,” I shouted, in panic and rage, “They don’t want us to do this play. Can’t you see?” In a long rush I told him what Gershonovitz had just told me, in the police station.

  “Yes.” Ehud kept his head low.

  “Or maybe Gelber sent this,” I went on, “after they paid him. It’s possible.”