My clothes were soaking wet and muddy, and I was shivering. I was shivering a bit because of the cold, but mostly, I was shivering because I knew what I would be in for when my mother saw me. Whenever I came back with a rip or a stain on my patched clothes, Mom would press her hands to her cheeks and cry, “Oy vey! Oh my! Oh woe is me!” And then she would look up at the leaky ceiling as if salvation would come from there, and call out in a tormented voice, “Why? Why do I deserve this? When will I finally have some peace?”
When I was younger, she sometimes spanked me, but now that I was taller than her, she didn’t even try. Instead she would lay the blame on Dad and reproach him for not caring that his child was about to come down with pneumonia. With Mom, no one ever had just a simple cold. No! If you got sick, it was undoubtedly a horrific disease and most probably incurable. You couldn’t argue with her because she had seen in the camp how people came down with a simple cold and ended up dying like dogs. Try to explain to her that that was then. Why did I have to suffer this now? Why did she always have to be worrying that something bad would happen to me? I was old enough to look out for myself. Maybe after we had caught the spy, she would realize that there are more important things than some stains on my pants and would begin to trust me.
I took advantage of the fact that we lived on the ground floor. I climbed through the back window into my parents’ and my bedroom. I quickly changed clothes, then went back out the window and entered the apartment through the front door. The door of the apartment opened directly into the main room, which served as our dining room, kitchen, library, and living room. This, of course, was a huge advantage, because this way we didn’t have to run between different rooms.
An awful burning smell filled the apartment. Mom was standing at the gas stove watching the blue flames lick up to singe the feathers off chicken wings that had not been properly plucked.
Dad, who hadn’t gone back to work since returning from the convalescent home, sat all day long at the dining table, his face sunk in the newspaper that lay before him.
It hadn’t always been like this. Before that awful day of his breakdown, he used to leave for work very early—before I woke—and return just in time for dinner. Mom would never let me start eating before he arrived. We could hear him singing loudly as he neared our entrance, and then he would fling the door open and step in like a Roman emperor returning from conquests and victories, not like some simple assembly-line worker who stood all day next to a noisy machine that manufactured screws. Of course, my father didn’t wear a white toga. He wore blue work clothes adorned with huge perspiration stains. Instead of soft leather deerskin sandals, he wore clumsy brown work boots, and instead of a laurel wreath, his head was adorned with a gray plaid beret.
Now, however, after the convalescent home, he didn’t go to work. Sometimes Zilbershtein the painter would do Mom a favor and hire Dad to be his “head assistant” painter, which was a fancy name for the job of simple porter. Dad would trail after the ramrod-straight Zilbershtein, struggling to carry the heavy buckets of paint and the brushes. In the evening when he came home, his clothes were stained and reeking of plaster, turpentine, and tobacco. Mom would look at him with impatience mixed with compassion, and I would stand around anxiously. He would put his trembling hands into his pockets, root around, and present Mom with some dirty, wrinkled banknotes. After Mom had taken the few pounds and deposited them in her tattered purse, he would raise his head, wink at me, and pass me a few coins that he had hidden away for me and that I could put toward the new soccer ball I wanted to buy.
“Where were you till now?” Mom asked wearily.
“At Reuven’s.” I plopped down next to Dad behind the newspaper before Mom noticed that the clothes I was wearing were different from the ones I had worn when I left the house.
“Sit to eat. I made your favorite dish,” said Mom and turned the gas off.
She gave me chicken soup with noodles and a plate of cooked chicken and mashed potatoes. As always, she said I should eat some vegetable salad because it had lots of vitamins, and I said I didn’t like salad. Mom didn’t insist. Instead, she pulled a huge yellow bottle with an oil-stained label down from the cupboard. I wrinkled my nose when I saw the thick, smelly, greasy fish oil. The rule was that skinny kids like me who hated salad had to take two tablespoons a day. Mom knew I preferred to die rather than swallow that disgusting stuff, but at the same time, she knew that even more than that, I preferred money, so she offered me a simple deal: for every two tablespoons I swallowed, she would stash away ten agorot for me. I held my nose. I closed my eyes. I took a drink. I swallowed that disgusting mustard-yellow liquid. While I was forcing myself not to vomit, Mom put a coin into the brown tin on which was a picture of coffee beans and the all-important declaration: “The people choose Elite Coffee.” The sound a coin made falling into the box got fainter and softer as it filled with coins. Every night before going to sleep, I would hold the tin in my hands and feel how the cold metal warmed up from the contact, and how the weight was increasing as the coins accumulated. I imagined that magic moment when my dream of owning a genuine leather soccer ball would come true.
I sat and ate quietly while my mind wandered. I was imagining what would happen when we caught the spy. I could see my picture on the front page of the evening paper and the huge headline in bold black letters:
Spy in Underwear Captured With His Pants Down!
Underneath would be the article:
Mordechai (Motti as he is called by his friends) and Reuven (Ruvi as he is called by his enemies), two clever sabras, have demonstrated courage and wisdom by uncovering a dangerous spy network operating in the Ramat Amidar neighborhood that was passing state secrets to the enemy.
“These journalists always exaggerate,” I thought in my daydream. I imagined myself buying the paper at Zehavi’s grocery store, as usual, and casually giving it to Dad, as if there was nothing special. I could see Dad unfolding the paper and then excitedly calling Mom to come over quickly and read the headline. Mom would wipe her wet hands on her flowery apron and peer over his shoulder. And then a smile of pure joy would light up her troubled eyes and, in one magic moment, erase all the fear and anxiety that never seemed to leave and that made her tired and sad. She would say, “Look! What a beautiful picture of our tzabra.” “Not ‘tzabra.’” Dad would correct her Hebrew. “That’s the word for a girl. For Motti, you must say ‘tzabar.’” And then they would smile at each other, and I would come up to them, and we would hug each other like we used to, before the awful silence took over. I smiled happily, even though I didn’t actually remember such a time in our family.
“Maybe you should eat? The food is getting cold!” Mom’s voice shattered my daydream. Instantly, I returned to reality. But I had no doubt that we had happened upon an actual spy. Maybe it would be a good idea to take advantage of Dad’s knowledge about spies but without him suspecting. So I asked him, just like that, if he could tell me more about spies.
It’s impossible to exaggerate the size of the smile on Dad’s face when I gave him the chance to talk. This was the first time since his return from the convalescent home that I saw him so happy. If his ears hadn’t been there to limit the width of his smile, it would have circled his head completely like the equator circles the earth. In other words, Dad loved to talk. And he loved to talk a lot. Some people mince their words and speak in short syllables. Others speak in sentences constructed of words. Dad, however, spoke in long, drawn-out speeches. He was the total opposite of Mom, who was silent most of the time, because the memories of whatever had been before the camp were too painful and should be forgotten, and whatever happened in the camp must never be mentioned.
“There have always been spies and traitors,” began Dad. “Everywhere and throughout history, there have always been people who are willing to betray their brothers and their people.” I knew this was a bad start—I knew this was going to turn into a long, long speech. But I had brought it on myself, and someone like Dad would never let pass such an opportunity to pound a bit of history into me. “Take for example the story of Rahab and the spies. You must have learned about it at school.” Sure. We’d studied it. About how this woman in Jericho helped the Israelite spies when they were sent by Joshua, and as a result she and her family were spared in the battle. “What did this Rahab do to save herself ? She was a traitor to her country! She abandoned her kinsmen!” Dad’s voice intensified to a shout as if Rahab was making Jericho fall on him this very moment. His face reddened and his veins threatened to explode. He continued passionately, not noticing that he was spraying me with spittle.
“What do you think? That only other people have traitors? What do you think? That Jews never betray their own? Ask your mother.” He turned to Mom, who gave him a piercing look. Her lips started moving as if she wanted to say something, but she didn’t, and Dad suddenly realized that she didn’t want him talking about the past. His voice faded and disappeared, like a train moving into the distance. Almost in a whisper he continued, “You never know who will betray you and when. You must always be careful, and never trust anyone. Trust only yourself!”
So, I got off pretty easy. While it wasn’t a long speech by Dad’s standards, it was still very juicy. Literally so, in fact! I gently wiped the drops of saliva off me as I tried to figure out the connection between Rahab, the double agent in a suitcase in Italy, and the spies in our neighborhood.
“But, what’s the connection …?”
“What is the connection, you ask? Listen and understand. First, you need to know how to read between the lines,” said Dad and handed me the paper as another ear-to-ear grin spread across his wrinkled face. I knew why he was smiling, but I didn’t take offense. Once, I hadn’t understood that “reading between the lines” meant to search for other meanings in the text. I took the expression literally and used a magnifying glass—just as any experienced detective would do—to search for hidden text between the two printed lines. I remember Dad rolling with laughter, only stopping when I burst into tears. After that, I know that what this means is that you need to read every word and try to understand why that particular word was chosen and what’s hiding behind it.
“Come and see.”
I followed Dad into the bedroom. Our bedroom was a small room with a large iron bed under which, like the inner part of a matchbox, lived another bed. Before bedtime, Dad would pull out the lower bed with a jerk. It was just like a carter pulling at a stubborn donkey, but instead of four hoofs digging into the ground, there were four rusty wheels squealing and shrieking in protest, as if the bed didn’t want to leave its shelter. And really, what did this bed really have to show the world? Broken iron springs? A stained mattress with prickly tufts of straw poking out of the tattered fabric? Dad would pull out the lower bed and raise it to the level of the other bed, muttering to himself that he really needed to grease the wheels—which he never did. This was my parents’ double bed. I slept on a fold-out cot that spent its day patiently waiting in a little closet next to the large clothes press.
Dad went to the closet. Brown paint was peeling along its length and width. At the bottom of it were three drawers in which Mom stored the water and electricity bills and other papers, and a fourth one with a lock that Mom wouldn’t allow anyone to open. In the left compartment were Dad’s personal archives, which consisted of a torn and tattered, stained cardboard box. In its previous life, it had held vegetables. But then Dad came, saved it from a life of ignorance, and raised it to the rank of master archive. Here Dad kept all his yellowing newspaper clippings that held concrete clues about spies. Important articles were circled, and every important or suspicious line was underlined. He pulled out a newspaper from last November and read it aloud with the dramatic voice of a news anchor:
Abducted Man Rescued from the Egyptians is Jewish
Man employed as interpreter at the Egyptian Embassy in Rome rescued at last moment. Egyptian intelligence planned to send him to Cairo in “diplomatic mail” suitcase.
Yesterday evening, Italian customs officers discovered a man hidden inside a large leather suitcase that two Egyptian diplomats wanted to load onto an Egyptian airplane. A customs official was shocked when he heard groans coming from the suitcase. He continued listening and heard a faint whispering: “Help! Murderers!” The Egyptians claimed that there were musical instruments in the suitcase. They fled in a van but were later apprehended.
The scene revealed was worthy of a Hitchcock film. A young man was bound to a wooden seat. His head had been fastened to the side of the suitcase with padded leather iron rings, his hands were tied behind his back, his bare feet were tied to wooden blocks nailed to the bottom of the suitcase, and his mouth was stuffed with cotton wool saturated with a sedative. As soon as the suitcase was opened, the man fainted.
The words “faint whispering” and “stuffed with cotton wool” had been heavily underlined in blue ink.
“Let’s do a little experiment. Close your eyes and open your mouth,” said Dad.
I closed my eyes and opened my mouth wide like I do at the dentist.
“Now put as much of your fist in your mouth as you can … That’s right. Now try to whisper.”
Of course I couldn’t get a word out! I just ended up choking and quickly pulled my hand back out of my mouth.
“If his mouth had been stuffed with cotton wool, how could he even talk?” Dad asked me while I checked my hand for toothmarks.
“But if he couldn’t talk, how was he discovered in the suitcase?” I wondered aloud.
“Because someone tipped the customs officers off! Someone ratted!” Dad exclaimed and stared at me like someone who knew what he was talking about. “If you don’t believe me, ask Uncle Fischel.”
Fischel! Again Fischel! I thought, remembering what my mother always exclaimed. Why must Dad always be overshadowed by his twin brother, the only survivor of Dad’s eight other brothers and sisters who were last seen getting on a train headed to the Treblinka extermination camp—no ticket required.