A Woman in Jerusalem (11 page)

The resource manager decided not to. Why let the old man sleep in peace by telling him the job was done?

Crossing the invisible, yet ineradicable, line between the two halves of the city, he switched on the radio to listen to the
concert. No, it wasn’t Mahler. Yet it did seem to anticipate him. The oboe and clarinet were almost Mahleresque. A sudden rhythmic tattoo of repeating notes inspired him to conduct the music with one hand as he sped through the neighbourhood of Talbieh. He passed his mother’s building and turned a corner by his old high school. Whose symphony was it? He might figure it out if only he could go on listening. Yet Jerusalem was too small a city to fit a whole symphony into, and he was already nearing the market that had been the scene of the bombing. Usha Street, where the dead woman had lived, was down the hill ahead of him. Rather than risk getting trapped in a maze of one-way streets and dead ends, he switched off the music, and parked on a main road. Then he detached his cell phone from its speaker and put it in the pocket of his overcoat.

When
we
heard
the
knock
on
the
door
we
were
already
in
our
nightgowns,
all
except
Big
Sister,
who
was
still
wearing
a
dress.
Although
our
parents
had
warned
us
before
they
set
out
for
the
rabbi’s
wedding
that
we
must
never
open
the
door
after
nine
o’clock
for
anyone,
not
even
our
own
grandma,
we
were
so
excited
that
we
ran
to
see
who
it
was.
We
were
sure
it
was
Grandma
come
to
watch
over
us
in
our
sleep.
We
didn’t
even
ask,
‘Is
that
you,
Grandma?
Have
you
come
for
the
night?’
but
opened
the
door
right
away.
We
almost
fainted.
A
stranger
was
there,
not
even
a
religious
Jew,
a
big
strong
man
with
short
hair
like
our
mother’s
when
she
takes
off
her
wig
before
going
to
bed.
He
asked
if
we
knew
where
Yulia
Ragayev
lived,
because
he
had
looked
for
her
everywhere,
upstairs
and
down,
and
couldn’t
find
her.
And
though
we
should
have
shut
the
door
and
put
on
the
chain
and
talked
through
the
crack
the
way
our
father
taught
us,
we
all
answered
in
a
chorus:
“She
doesn’t
live
here
anymore,
not
upstairs
and
not
downstairs.
She’s
moved
to
the
backyard,
to
the
shack
that
was
our
neighbour’s
storeroom.”
Big
Sister,
who
doesn’t
like
us
to
answer
in
her
place,
hushed
us
and
said,
“She’s
not
there
now,
because
she
works
night
shifts
in
a
bakery.
Sometimes
she
brings
us
a
sweet
challah
for
the
Sabbath,”
and
Middle
Sister,
who
knows
everything,
began
to
yell,
“That’s
not
so,
that’s
not
so,
don’t
listen
to
her!
Yulia
was
fired,
and
Father 
thinks
she
must
have
left
Jerusalem
,
because
he
’
s
been
looking
for
her
high
and
low
.”

The
stranger
smiled
and
explained
in
a
soft
voice
that
he
was
the
manager
of
the
bakery
and
that
Yulia
hadn’t
been
fired.
Did
we
remember
the
bombing
in
the
market
a
week
ago?
She
had
been
badly
injured
in
it,
and
now
she
was
in
hospital,
and
he’d
come
with
her
keys
to
get
something
for
her.
He
jangled
them
in
the
air
for
us
to
see.

We
couldn’t
control
ourselves
any
longer.
Every
child
in
the
building
knew
Yulia.
She
was
a
nice,
quiet
woman,
even
if
she
wasn’t
religious,
and
we
all
screamed,
“Oh,
no,
O
God,
what
happened?
What
hospital
is
she
in?”
We
were
sure
our
parents
would
want
to
visit
her,
because
it’s
a
commandment
in
the
Torah.

But
the
stranger
lifted
a
hand
and
said,
“Easy
does
it,
girls.
She’s
very
ill
and
can’t
be
visited
right
now.
Just
tell
me:
Has
anyone
been
looking
for
her?”

“No,”
we
all
said.
“No
one.
We’d
have
seen
anyone
who
came.”
He
nodded
and
asked
where
the
light
switch
was
and
how
to
get
to
the
yard.
We
had
so
forgotten
about
being
careful
that
Big
Sister
jumped
up
and
said,
“Come
on,
I’ll
take
you
there.
I’ll
show
you
every
thing.
”
And
to
us
she
said,
“That’s
enough,
girls.
Now
go
to
bed.”

But
how
could
we
go
to
bed
when
Big
Sister
was
out
in
the
yard
with
a
stranger
who
wasn’t
religious?
And
so
all
five
of
us,
Little
Three-Year-Old
Sister,
too,
ran
into
the
cold
in
our
flannel
nighties
to
be
with
them.
It
was
pitch
black
and
there
was
mud
and
puddles
everywhere
between
the
old
boards
and
old
tools.
We
ducked
beneath
the
laundry
lines
and
showed
the
man
the
shack.
Yulia’s
old
nameplate
had
been
ripped
away
by
the
storm
and
only
the
new
one
was
left,
the
one
with
the
Hebrew
name
we
had
given
her,
because
we
took
it
from
the
Bible
and
put
it
on
her
door,
and
she
just
smiled
and
let
us
do
it.

The human resources manager watched the first key turn in the lock and felt certain the second would open something too. It’s mission accomplished, he thought. I’ve got the right woman. And she’s still ours, the personnel division’s. But why
are these sweet little girls still standing around me, shivering in their long nighties? One of them must be my daughter’s age. What do they want from me? Now that I’ve opened the door, they must be waiting for me to go and look for what I promised to take to the hospital.

He beamed at them and said:

“Darlings, thank you for your help. It’s awfully wet and cold out here. And very late, too. Run along now and go to bed before you catch cold.”

Although all six sisters, from the biggest to the smallest, were startled by his strict, if fatherly, tone, they wavered for a moment, as if unsure whether an irreligious stranger need be obeyed. Then, all at once, like a flock of birds warned of danger by a single wing flap, they flew off without looking back. Stepping into the shack, he entered a cool, dark space whose smell of ancient sleep seemed never to have been aired.

He switched on the overhead light. The bulb was weak and he had trouble seeing even after lighting a small table lamp. The bed was rumpled, as if a bad dream had made the sleeper jump out on the last morning she had risen. Behind the pillow was another lamp, attached to the wall. Now there was enough light to survey the room.

For a second, he recoiled. Who had given him permission to be here? Yet he quickly collected himself. The company’s humanity was under attack; it was time for compassion, concern, and involvement, not apologies. If he were to dispose of this woman’s belongings and try to arrange compensation, he had to find a human link to her. Yes, compensation. Why not?

A doll in the form of a barefoot monk lay at the foot of the bed. It had a black robe and a beard of flax, dyed black, on its face. The resource manager held it up to see what it was made of before placing it on a shelf beside a small transistor radio, which he could not resist turning on, hoping to catch the end of the concert. Removing his gloves, he fiddled with the stations. For a while, there was a confusion of sounds; then he
found the wavelength of the unknown, sonorous symphony; the wind section was now trumpeting a solemn slow
movement
. Carefully holding the little radio, he removed, with a twinge of emotion, a flowery blouse from a wobbly straw armchair, sat down, and shut his eyes.

Back in his days as a salesman, when he’d spent many a night in hotels and lived in constant fear of insomnia, he had made a point of never going to bed before midnight. Now, after leaving his wife and moving in with his mother, he had developed the habit of taking a short but sound nap every evening, when the TV news came on. This helped him stay fresh for a night of bar hopping in the smart new
establishments
in town, where he hoped to meet someone new. Tonight, though, the nap would have to be symbolic, hastily snatched in the room of the departed cleaning woman.

Although both the door and the main window were shut tight, it was bitingly cold in the shack even with his coat and scarf on. The reason, he saw when he went to look for it, was another, small, open window in the bathroom. A laundry line ran from it to a nearby fence. Visible in the light of the
cloud-stalked
moon, clothing flapped lightly in the breeze.