Текст книги "Second Person Singular"

Автор книги: Kashua Sayed

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

PART TWO. ELECTRIC RADIATOR

Yonatan is dead. I buried him last Thursday. I paid two Arab teenagers to carry the coffin. Aside from me, no one else came to the funeral. No one was invited. He was a twenty-eight-year-old man, just like me.

“He could die at any moment”—that’s what I was told when I first laid eyes on him. That was six years ago. I had just graduated from Hebrew University with a degree in social work and gotten a job at the east Jerusalem bureau for outpatient substance abuse treatment run by the Ministry of Social Affairs. I knew the place well; it was where I’d done my internship during my final year of school.

I was twenty-two years old and had spent the last three years living in the student dorms. After graduation, I managed to stay on for three more months, but in late October, when the new students started to arrive, I was forced to find someplace else to live. I took a number off a notice that had been posted outside the dorms – seeking third roommate, it said in Arabic – and called from a public phone.

That evening I turned my keys in to the dorm monitor and made my way to the Nusseibah housing projects, in Beit Hanina row 3, building 1, apartment 2.

“You’re right on time,” Wassim said. “I have to go to work. I got a friend to cover me until six. I’m leaving you a key, but make your own copy, okay? My shift’s over at nine and I’ll be home by nine thirty, so if you have to go out or anything leave me the key in the electrical cabinet downstairs.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Okay,” he said. “Welcome.”

The sun was setting and it was freezing in the apartment. I’d come with all my belongings. They were stuffed into three bags: one backpack, which had been used for school and then for work, and two identical gym bags with the emblem of the German national soccer team. They were the bags my mother had bought for me when I first left home.

In the bedroom, a neon light flickered continuously without ever coming to life. There was a damp, moldy smell, but I didn’t dare open the window. I buttoned my coat all the way up and tucked my head into the collar. It seemed like it was colder inside than out, and winter was just beginning.

The metal-framed bed groaned when I put my bags on it. Wassim had made sure there was a mattress for me, just as he’d promised over the phone, but it was smaller than the frame of the bed and it was very thin, the kind Arabs use for divans. I switched on the hot water heater outside the shower. The toilet looked as though someone had tried to clean it but it was still dirty and the water at the bottom of the bowl was black. I made a note to myself: get sodium chloride. From our phone conversation I had learned that Wassim lived in the apartment with his cousin Majdi, that they were both from Jat, that Wassim was a special-ed teacher, and that Majdi was in the middle of his internship at a law office. What kind of special-ed classes was Wassim teaching at this hour, I wondered.

There was a small heater in the living room, the kind with a screen and two electric coils. As soon as I plugged it in the lights in the apartment dimmed. The heater made a sizzling sound. I brought the heater with me and sat down on the wicker couch. The coils burned a pale yellow and I had to practically sit on top of it to feel any heat. I put my hands in front of the metal screen, which was blackened with dust and charred pita. The coffeepot on the table was flanked by two dirty glasses and the contents were cold. In the dorms at least there were radiators.

I did not call my mother. I’ll talk to her tomorrow, I thought. That was the longest the conversation could be put off. And anyway there was no phone in the house, and for all I knew no pay phones at all in Beit Hanina. Tomorrow, I told myself, I’ll call her from work.

Once I’d warmed up a bit, I went into my room and started to unpack my clothes. I didn’t have much, and most of what I had was dirty. It had been more than three weeks since I’d last been home and if I didn’t go back over the coming weekend, I’d have to find a laundry. There had to be one somewhere in the neighborhood.

I put the clothes in the closet without sorting them and went back to the electric heater. Once I’d warmed up, I returned to the room and unpacked my kitchenware: one plate, one cup, a tablespoon, a teaspoon, a fork, a knife, and a frying pan. I set it all out on the plastic table in the bedroom. Then I took out my sheets and the heavy comforter that my mother had insisted on buying for me. I hoped it would get me through the first night in the apartment. The next day, I decided, I’d buy an electric radiator. Call Mom, then buy radiator.

An hour after I’d turned on the boiler, I went to check for hot water. I tried the faucet with the red sticker, gave it some time, and then tried the other one. Nothing. I figured the water heater must need a little more time. In the meanwhile I took off my shoes, left my jacket on, and crawled under the covers. I shivered for a while but then felt the heat begin to spread through my body and my eyes begin to close.

I was startled awake by the sound of a door slamming and it took me a few seconds to remember that I was in the new apartment. I sat up in bed. A head and shoulders poked through the doorway.

“Hi, did I wake you? I saw the light was on and. .”

“No, no, I was just taking a little rest.”

“Nice to meet you,” he said, still standing in the doorway. “I’m Majdi.”

I got out of bed and walked over to him, feeling the cold rise up from the floor, seeping through my socks and into my feet. I introduced myself and shook my roommate’s hand.

“Wow,” Majdi said, “I can’t believe we let you freeze in here like this. He didn’t tell you we have a heater?”

“Sure, I turned it on in the living room.”

“Not that one,” Majdi said, turning around and motioning me to follow. He walked through the kitchen and out to a little box of a balcony. “We’ve got an amazing kerosene heater. I can’t believe Wassim didn’t tell you.”

“He was in a rush to get to his shift,” I said, “and I got here late.”

“How did you survive in this cold? The house is freezing! We keep the heater on the balcony because it emits toxic fumes when you shut it off.” Majdi pulled a lighter from his coat pocket, leaned over the heater, unscrewed a little domelike lid, removed it, and then threaded his hand in from the bottom and lit the wick. “We’ll let it burn for a little while out here. It’s only really dangerous when you light it and extinguish it, that’s why we always do it on the balcony. This window stays open, too. Anyway, how are you doing?”

I nodded and Majdi pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his coat and offered me one.

“I don’t smoke, but it doesn’t bother me,” I said. He lit one for himself and looked over toward the bathroom. “What, he fixed the boiler?” The red light was still on.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I turned it on at around six and an hour later there was still no hot water.”

“Motherffff. .” Majdi started to say, walking into the bathroom. He turned the faucet on, let the water run, and then put his hand in to check the temperature. “That bastard,” he said, striding toward the door. I heard him knocking somewhere upstairs, and then the sound of his angry voice and the soothing tone of an elderly man.

Majdi came back to the apartment, still pissed off and still smoking the cigarette. “That son of a bitch said he was going to fix it today. For the last week we’ve been heating water the way they used to twenty years ago, on the stovetop.” He walked through the kitchen to the living room and returned with the kerosene heater. “I can’t believe you sat here without this thing. You must have been freezing.”

“No, I was fine.”

“By the way, the guy I just spoke to is the landlord. Have you met him?”

“No.”

“The asshole lives on the top floor. He owns a few apartments in the building. He tried to tell me he didn’t know it hadn’t been fixed and that first thing tomorrow he was going to have a talk with his handyman. In the meantime, do you still have your hundred dollars for the rent?”

“Yeah, of course,” I said, reaching for my wallet.

“Good. Keep it. Don’t give him a cent. I told him that if tomorrow morning the boiler isn’t working, we’re going out to buy a new one with the next month’s rent. If he asks you for it, don’t pay him, okay?”

“Okay, sure.”

Majdi put out the cigarette and went into the kitchen. I heard the refrigerator door open. “Don’t tell me you didn’t eat anything either,” he yelled from the kitchen.

“No, I wasn’t hungry.”

“What, are you crazy? It’s after nine at night. You were just being polite. Ayouni,” he said. “Make yourself at home, what kind of place do you think this is? I’m making dinner right now. Wassim will be back any minute, and then we’re sitting down to eat.”

THE COMMUTE

We used to leave the house together at seven fifteen. Those early-morning hours were pretty much the only times I saw my roommates. Majdi interned at the law office until the afternoon and from there he went to the Sheraton, where he worked as a cashier until nine or ten in the evening. Wassim taught in the morning, came home, and then headed out again at four thirty for his other job, as director of a hostel for the mentally ill in Shuafat. Sometimes I got home from the clinic in time to see him, but usually he had left the apartment before I got back.

I was the first one up in the morning, but Wassim was first to get out of bed. He’d boil water for coffee before even going to the bathroom. Then I’d get up and use the bathroom. Only when the coffee was ready did Wassim go back and wake Majdi. They were the same age but it seemed that Wassim was the responsible adult, a kind of older brother to his cousin Majdi, who, unlike him, had managed to get into law school.

Majdi was the last one into the bathroom and the last one dressed, but he was never late. Probably thanks to Wassim’s badgering. “Come on, are you up?” he’d say. “Let’s go, the coffee’s getting cold.” Or, “Come on, no time for a whole cigarette, we’re late, smoke on the way to the bus, yallah,let’s go.”

I liked those guys better than my old dorm roommates, and was glad to be rooming with them. Each morning we’d walk up the path through the projects and out onto the main road that linked Jerusalem and Ramallah, looking for a ride heading south. Our apartment was on the right side of the checkpoint that was within municipal Jerusalem.

Wassím and I liked the Ford Transit share-taxis. They were faster than the buses. But if they pulled over and only had a spot or two then we waited for whatever came next, van or bus. Majdi preferred the buses, liked their color and their ambience. They were old clunkers that the Israeli bus company had retired. The Palestinians bought them, painted a coat of blue over the red, and turned them into the main source of public transportation in the eastern part of the city. I thought they were awful. Loud and slow, unheated in winter and uncooled in summer. There were hardly any seats that weren’t broken, wobbly, or with springs jutting out. But Majdi loved them. As soon as he got on and paid the driver, he lit a cigarette. “It’s an experience,” he’d say. “Not only can you smoke, but the driver’s usually too busy lighting up his own cigarette to take your fare.”

Nearly all the men smoked on the bus. It was a sort of ceremony. The windows were always open, winter and summer, and hands would dangle out, cigarettes clasped between their fingers. “Palestinians,” Majdi used to say, “smoke more than any other people in the world.”

It’s not far from Beit Hanina to downtown east Jerusalem but the traffic in the morning was some of the most brutal in the country. The cars inched forward. A five-minute drive took half an hour, and that was on regular days, when there were no surprise checkpoints.

Majdi used to say that the green signal at the traffic light for the Arab cars from Beit Hanina and Shuafat was the shortest in the city. The settlers’ cars got five minutes of green for every half minute they gave us. One hundred thousand people waiting in line for a few settlers from Ma’ale Adumim, Neve Yaakov, and Pisgat Ze’ev. Each morning Majdi used to swear that the first thing he was going to do when he passed the bar was file an appeal against that fucking traffic light in the High Court of Justice. “It’s a sure win,” he’d say. “They’ll cover it everywhere in the Arab press. All I need is a good suit for the cameras and I’ll be the number-one lawyer in east Jerusalem. You’ll see. If you will it, it is no dream.”

Majdi was first off the bus, at the Sheikh Jarrah stop. From there he took an Israeli bus to the center of town. I got off right after him, at the district court on Salah al-Din Street, and walked from there to the welfare office in Wadi Joz. Wassim took the bus all the way to the last stop, Damascus Gate, and from there he took a share-taxi to the school in Jabel Mukaber.

METHADONE

I was conscientious about getting to work on time. I always punched in before eight, even though the only other person in the office at that hour was the janitor. In general, there was not much to do at the office. I’d been far busier and far more stimulated as an intern. There were hundreds of addicts who had opened files in our office but only a handful of them were “active” cases, users who actually wanted to kick their habits. The rest just showed up to collect their income support, which they were eligible for only if they could prove that they were in treatment. And we did not make it difficult for them. We filed our reports to the Ministry of Social Affairs, renewing the welfare payments and the income support even if they didn’t come to a single meeting. It was the path of least resistance.

One year earlier, as a student intern, I’d come to the office twice a week. In order to get my BSW from Hebrew University I’d had to handle a minimum of four cases a year and the office manager, who was my supervisor, made sure that I met the requirement. Now I was a full-time employee, and four cases a year was too much to hope for. Full days passed with nothing to do. I had one active case, a forty-year-old addict who had seemed to want treatment but even he was starting to show the usual signs. It turned out that he was only going through the motions because his parole officer had insisted on seeing results.

The addicts mostly followed the same route: they came in, filled out a few questionnaires, talked to a social worker, took a urine test, and opened a file. They’d come back once a week and the few who actually seemed interested in rehab would be invited to a special advisory meeting attended by a social worker from the office, a municipal psychologist, and a district supervisor.

The addict would be sent to a methadone clinic and told to wait for an opening at the rehab center in Lifta, where there was only one bed allocated for the Arab residents of the city. When it became available, he’d be sent there for a two-month stay, with the main objectives being detox and the twelve-step program. They always came out of there happy and drug-free, swearing that they were new men, kissing the social workers and treating them like the parents they never had. Over the following weeks they would continue to come to the NA meetings, which were held downtown, and then, within a few months, they’d be using again. The sole success story, one that had achieved mythic status, was of a father of five, a fifty-year-old man who managed to stay clean for nearly a year. Aside from him, the east Jerusalem office had not managed to keep a single addict clean for any significant period of time in its fifteen-year history.

My colleagues came to work at ten, except on the rare Thursday when the special advisory meeting took place. On those days they came in at eight. Sometimes they’d even get there before me. Walid, the department head, was usually the second one in. He was also the first to leave, always before four, the official closing time. “I have to make a house call,” he would announce, “and then I’ll just head home from there.” The right-hand column of his time card was lined with his handwriting, house call.

Walid was joined by Khalil, who had taken on a sum total of zero cases since I’d arrived. Other than his job with social services, he held two other part-time positions, shuttling between them in his squeaky clean, bright red Peugeot 205, a CD of his beloved Gypsy Kings spinning from the rearview mirror. He and Walid were the only ones with a car. Shadi, who was one year older than me, used to come to work in jeans and designer T-shirts. He wore a gold chain around his neck with the first letter of his girlfriend’s name hanging off the end. He was always talking about a club – the Underground – and about how he had befriended the security guard, who let him in every Thursday. Sometimes he’d shut the office door and show us some of his new moves.

Like everyone else at the office, Shadi hated being a social worker. He used to say that he aspired to other things, that he’d studied social work by mistake, and that the college entrance exam, “the psychometric,” was engineered to screw Arabs. He had just enrolled in an accounting program at a private college, and showed up for work with his new textbooks, and that was pretty much all he ever did at the office.

Not that that was a problem. With the caseload being as it was, all employees were free to pursue other endeavors. They would show up at the office, sit down at their desks, and swivel the chairs toward the center of the room, sipping coffee and gossiping, mostly about girls they had known in college. I hadn’t heard of any of the girls they talked about, all notorious, all Arab, all sluts who had slept with half the guys on campus.

Hebrew University remained central to my colleagues’ lives. It was the reason they had left their villages and come to Jerusalem, and it was the reason that they had stayed. Aside from me, they were all somehow tied to the university. Walid was a teacher’s assistant at the School for Social Work, and was looking for a PhD thesis advisor. Khalil, whose grades were too poor to continue on in social work, had just begun a master’s in criminology, which made no difference at all to him, because “an MA in criminology gets you the exact same three-hundred-shekel raise.” Shadi, not wanting to waste money on rent, had settled on the floor of his cousin’s dorm room, splitting the rent three ways with him and his roommate.

At eleven, they’d each hand me ten shekels and send me to get them hummus from Abu-Ali on Salah al-Din Street, a five-minute walk from the office. I was more than happy to run the errand, pleased to get out of that wretched office, and I made the journey to Abu-Ali a little like a tourist, taking in the stone houses, the shops, the trees on the side of the road as though seeing them for the first time.

Soon enough, I didn’t have to say a word to Abu-Ali. Once we’d exchanged pleasantries, he’d make the usual – three orders of hummus with fava beans, one with chickpeas and spicy sauce; one plate of sliced tomato, cucumber, onion, green pepper, and pickles; one plate of falafel balls; and four glass bottles of Coke. He’d arrange it all on a brass tray and I’d carry it back to the office. When we were done eating, they’d all make fun of me for having to bring it back. What they didn’t know was that Abu-Ali always offered to send one of his boys to deliver the food and pick it up, but that I refused, cherishing my few minutes away from the office every day. That was why I also volunteered to go out again at two thirty to get schnitzel sandwiches in a pita from Abu-Ilaz’s stand near the Orient House. I ate mine alone, taking little bites as I walked, ever so slowly, back to the office.

ROTARY TELEPHONE

After lunch was over, Walid left on his so-called house call, and everyone else left soon after. I closed the door, sat down at Walid’s desk, picked up the old yellow receiver, and dialed. I waited for a few rings and then she picked up.

“Mom.”

“Hi, ya habibi,how are you? Inshallah,everything is okay. Please, tell me, how are things?”

“I’m fine. How are you?”

“I miss you. I’ve been waiting for days for you to call. I was really worried about you, habibi. Inshallah,everything is okay? Did you get your grades yet?”

It had been two weeks since I’d last called home. During our last conversation I had told her that I was waiting for a final grade on a term paper and that once I got it I could start working as a social worker. She knew nothing of the new apartment; as far as she was concerned, I still lived in the dorms. The last time I had been home, more than a month prior, I had told her that I was going to stay in the dorms during exams.

“ Alhamdulillah,” I said. “Everything’s fine, I got the degree.”

“Congratulations, congratulations,” she said, her voice rising with excitement. “And the grades, with God’s help, they were good?”

“Fine.”

“So you’re happy?” That was her standard question. Are you happy? Are you content? Are you doing well?

“Absolutely, Mom,” I said.

“Congratulations, congratulations.”

I cut her short because I knew what was coming – her asking me when I was coming home. And I knew that, having moved into a new apartment, I had no choice but to disappoint her. Above all else my mother wanted me to graduate and to come home, to live with her so that we could wage our battles together.

“Mom, listen. My grades were really good. My average was up above ninety, which means that I made Dean’s List and they’re going to announce that at the graduation,” I said, preparing her. I could hear the excitement in her voice and I knew that she was already planning to tell all the people she knew about her son’s grades. I am successful,she would be saying. Despite all, I raised a successful son.Up to that point, I’d told the truth. “Mom, listen. One of my teachers, the one I wrote the term paper for, a professor, took me aside this week and suggested that with my grades I should continue on toward a master’s.”

“That sounds great.”

“Yeah, I was really happy. If I do that, I’ll be able to advance much faster and who knows, maybe I’ll even keep on going with the studies from there.”

“Wonderful, I am so happy.”

“Yeah, me, too, but the thing is, this master’s, it’s a prestigious track, one that will allow me to treat patients privately, too, but in order to be accepted I need experience, not just grades. I mean, I have no problem in terms of grades, but I need work experience, too.”

“How much experience do you need?”

“With my grades, I only need two years. But the professor said he’d make sure that they counted my internship as one year, so I’ll be eligible already next year.”

“Great. You know you’ll find work right away in the village. I already spoke to some people and from what I understand there’s a constant shortage of social workers around here. I talked to someone from the local council and she said you could probably start right away.”

“That’s the thing, Mom. I thought the same thing, but when I spoke to the professor, he said that I had to have two years in the same field, in the same place. If I work for the local council in the village then I’d have to do two full years, and I was thinking. .”

She went quiet and I felt a weight on my chest on account of what I was doing. But I continued on with the same false optimism, fawning over the professor and the make-believe master’s degree, which I had no intention of pursuing. “So, Mom, I actually spoke with the head of the east Jerusalem office, the guy I did the internship with, and he was really happy because he needs someone and he said he could get me a position right away and that they would count the internship as a year of experience, which means I’d get a higher salary.”

She remained silent. What I was telling her was that not only was I not coming home, but that I was staying in Jerusalem for three more years at least, which made it twice as long as she had originally thought. And even back when I finished high school, she had begged me to study in Tel Aviv or at Bar Ilan University so that I could sleep at home every night, and then, too, I had sold her some story about talking to people in the field who said that a degree from Hebrew University was worth far more.

“But I’m not entirely sure,” I said, trying to cheer her up. “I really wanted to come home already. I’m sick of this city. I also want to rest a little after all this studying. I mean, I’m really happy I got these offers, but I haven’t made up my mind yet. I’ll come home for the holiday, Mom, and then we’ll talk. In the meantime, I’ll do some thinking on my own. The truth is, I’m really kind of tired. We’ll see, all right?”

I tried to keep myself busy till four. I went over my notes from my conversation with Daud Abu-Ramila, my addict, and then filed some papers in a tan folder and flipped through the many case histories in the long-dormant files. Testimonies from addicts, their wives, their social workers, reports from house calls, descriptions of violence and neglect. What interested me most were the reports about the welfare of the children. Were they in school? Were they working? Had they been sent away to foster homes? During those last hours of the workday the office was completely silent. At exactly four, I punched my time card and walked out, saying good nightto the janitor, who pushed his mop across the outdoor steps and looked at me with a gaze both supportive and pitying – he knew exactly what went on in the office.

I strode through Wadi Joz to Salah al-Din Street. Dark clouds drifted to the east and I hoped it would rain. Joining a throng of people waiting for a ride, I managed to get on the third Transit that came past. There was one spot available, next to a pretty girl. Taking my seat, I looked over at her briefly, feigning nonchalance, and then didn’t dare to look her way again. I usually tried not to sit next to young women. The best option was to sit next to a man and if that wasn’t possible then an older woman. I pulled my body in so that the sleeves of my coat wouldn’t touch her arms. I pressed my legs close to one another and laid my black bag on my lap. For the duration of the ride I made sure not to let my gaze stray far from the window and soon enough I forgot all about the girl beside me. Instead I immersed myself in my favorite hobby, peering into homes, looking for lit rooms in otherwise dark buildings, for the glow of television sets, and wondering about the people inside – were their rooms warm, were they surrounded by children who had come home from school, were they doing homework together, watching cartoons, enmeshed in family life?

“Excuse me,” the girl’s voice pulled me back to the taxi. The old Transit had pulled up next to the mosque in Shuafat and she wanted to get off. I didn’t want her to have to squeeze past me, for her legs to brush up against mine, so I opened the taxi door and got out, clearing the way for her. She didn’t say thank you and I sat back down in my seat and hoped that Wassim had not yet left for his second job. I just wanted to chat with him, hear how his day had gone and touch base, if only for a moment.

SODIUM CHLORIDE

During my first weeks at the Nusseibah housing projects I hardly left the building, aside from daily trips to work and the occasional trip to the grocery. I shopped for the three of us and after a while Majdi started calling me the Minister of Shopping. I’d get receipts for the things we shared – bread, eggs, sausages, cheese – and we’d split the cost three ways, even though I’d frequently get a fancier cheese or a more expensive sausage and ask the grocer to put it on a separate bill. “Ever since you arrived we have cleaning supplies in our apartment,” Majdi would say, laughing at the sight of floor cleaning liquid or dish soap.

I took charge of the actual cleaning also. That meant scouring surfaces that hadn’t been touched since the day the cousins moved in. My first mission was the refrigerator. Majdi and Wassim were shocked to learn that its interior could be cleaned and that the shelves could be made white again. The bathroom was no easier. It took an entire bottle of sodium chloride and a bottle of bleach to make the sink, bathtub, and toilet somewhat acceptable. I’m not sure if I cleaned because I wanted to combat the filth or simply because I wanted something to do with myself, a way to pass the time until Wassim and Majdi came home. They arrived one after another, at just before nine thirty.

Other than late in the evening, it was rare for the three of us to be awake and together in the apartment at the same time. Wassim and Majdi worked whenever they could, even on the weekends, trying to earn a little extra cash. Those were the worst times for me. I tried to entertain myself with the small TV and the old newspapers that Majdi brought home from the hotel. Every once in a while I’d treat myself to a cup of coffee. Those dead hours alone were dreadful enough to make me miss the office, and when I knew I’d have to spend an entire weekend alone in the apartment, I’d photocopy a few files, the thickest ones I could find, and shove them into my bag so that at least I’d have something entertaining to read.

The weekends that we spent together, on the other hand, were glorious. When Wassim and Majdi were off and hadn’t gone home to visit their families, we’d take the bus or a share-taxi down to Damascus Gate and go to Lina for hummus with fava beans. Then we’d meander through the old market, shuffling in and out of the human traffic while Majdi shopped for what he called “hilarious” music, asking the shop owners to play him a track from, say, Egyptian pop star Ahmad Adawiya’s newest album and then bursting out laughing. He liked Sheikh Imam, Ziad Rahbani, Michel Halifa, and a Palestinian band called Sabarin, which he talked about constantly. Wassim, whom Majdi called a hopeless conservative, liked the classics, always on the look-out for el-Halim, Farid al-Atrash, Sabah Fakhri, and Fairuz. I didn’t buy cassettes. I didn’t own a single tape of my own. Nor did I have a stereo. But I was fine with whatever they played at home. All-out wars would erupt over which music was to be played during what we called our narghile nights.