“The spy went back to the army base afterward and stole some more secret material from the garbage,” I told Reuven the next day.
“Did you see what he took?” Reuven’s eyes glinted with curiosity, and he stretched out his hands to me as if he expected me to place the answer into them.
“Tss.” Sometimes instead of saying “no” we would click our tongues and make a “tss” sound. “It was dark, and I was far away.” I described to Reuven how I had watched the spy going to the garbage bins, and how I had leaped from one dumpster to another to stay hidden, and how I had crept on my belly, just like the Native American Winnetou, Old Shatterhand’s friend in Karl May’s adventure stories. I watched Reuven’s face while I spoke. I saw his mouth gaping and his eyes staring, and I’m sure that, if I had brushed his hair aside, I would have seen his ears standing erect. He didn’t say a word, but I sensed he understood exactly what I had gone through in those moments of fear and anxiety. When I got to the part where the soldier kicked me, he grabbed his right side as if the soldier’s heavy boot was kicking him at that very moment, and I could see the pain on his face. I didn’t want to ruin the image, so I left out the part about the humiliating kick to my backside. Instead, I exaggerated a little bit how I almost got killed.
“And then the soldier told me to skedaddle from there and ‘make it fast.’ I knew he was about to shoot me in the back. If I hadn’t run in a zigzag, I’d be dead now for sure.” It wasn’t lying because I really did run in a zigzag and thought I felt bullets flying overhead.
“I didn’t hear any gunshots,” said Reuven. “I wasn’t so far away.”
“Neither did I,” I admitted. “I bet he had a silencer on the rifle.” The more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself that that was really what had happened, and I could even see the sparks from the shells of the bullets that missed me.
“I would have been shaking in my boots if I had been there instead of you,” said Reuven. “You’re simply …” He didn’t finish the sentence, he just slapped me on the back with a whack that nearly broke me into pieces. But who cared? I knew what he meant and I was thrilled. What can be more important than hearing your best friend say that you are one of a kind? “Try to remember what he took. It’s really important,” he said, as if now, after that thump on the back, I would suddenly be able to recall everything I had seen.
I was contemplating whether to tell him about my attempt at self-hypnosis with the pendant but it suddenly seemed ridiculous to me, so I just said, “I spent all night trying to remember, but I couldn’t.” Which was the truth, but without the elaboration.
“Okay. So let’s meet at five near the bus stop and we’ll follow him,” declared Reuven. “I never had any doubts that he is a spy, but now that we’ve seen him stealing confidential military documents, I’m a million percent sure that he is a dangerous spy.”
Reuven said “dangerous” in a weird, scary tone, and he looked at me as if he was checking my resolve to go all the way. He must have been reading my mind, so I hesitated before I brought up my old idea again because I didn’t want him to think that I was afraid of the spy. Instead, I wanted to try to convince him that my idea made a lot of sense.
“So … maybe we should tell an adult? Or the police? Or maybe Zilbershtein the painter? After all, he was a partisan. He must be an expert at such things, mustn’t he?” I suggested.
“Your dad was also a partisan,” said Reuven, who remembered what I had told him about my father. I didn’t want to disappoint him, but I also didn’t want to admit that I had made everything up because I was ashamed of my dad, who had never actually fought against the Germans and wasn’t even called for reserve army duty. Luckily, Reuven didn’t wait for an answer.
“It’s not the time yet. We need to catch him red-handed,” said Reuven.
I nodded in agreement. On second thoughts, I figured it was better we catch the spy on our own and not have to share the glory with all sorts of adults who joined in at the end and did nothing except be “responsible” adults.
* * *
There was a huge noticeboard across from the bus stop. Reuven was hiding behind it. I was behind Widow Schwartz’s milk crates on the other side of the street. Mrs. Schwartz delivered the milk. We were each carefully observing a different sector while keeping each other in sight. We were waiting for the spy to appear again. An hour passed and nothing happened. The spy didn’t show. Reuven signaled to me to go over to him.
“He could be near the army base,” said Reuven. “Maybe we should go there.”
We walked up Etzel Street toward Eilat Street. We passed the Yeshurun religious school, whose playground bordered the Ramat Gan fire department. On the left was Photo Guez camera shop. Black-and-white photographs of last Saturday’s Amidar soccer game were taped up in the window. The photo right in the middle showed Cohen soaring through the air, his body parallel to the ground, his arms spread like the wings of a plane, and a blurry black-and-white ball bouncing off his forehead. During the week, Cohen emptied dumpsters into a garbage truck and then yelled, “Go!” to the driver, but on Saturday, dressed in the blue uniform of the Ramat Amidar soccer team, he was a flying prince. I so wanted to be like him.
The army base was quiet. A bored soldier in a crumpled uniform, his giant Czech rifle hanging over his shoulder, stood and smoked a cigarette near the entrance.
We found a hidden corner where we could observe what went on. White smoke was rising from the edge of the camp across from the garbage cans. Reuven declared that the smoke was from the incinerator where they burned the secret documents.
“I once saw a movie where they took a paper that had been burned and completely restored it. Do you think maybe the spy will try to do the same?” I asked Reuven. He said that could very well be, and then he told me to watch the incinerator while he kept his eye on the garbage.
It wasn’t easy for me to sit stock-still in ambush focusing on one spot. After a while I started to get bored, and my eyes started wandering. I saw soldiers walking around aimlessly and a few cats roaming among the garbage cans. Besides that, nothing. The time passed agonizingly slowly and our spy didn’t appear. The white smoke had dissipated a long time ago and night was falling. The streetlights came on one by one. Mothers went out on their balconies or to their windows shouting for their children to come home. We decided to give up. I heard my mother’s raspy voice and I knew I had better start heading home if I didn’t want to get yelled at for the dinner that was getting cold because of me.
I ascended the three porch steps in one giant leap, opened the door and walked in. I was expecting to see Dad immersed in his newspaper and Mom warming up food on the kitchen stove, but instead they were sitting next to each other looking grim. I looked quickly at the clock. This couldn’t be about me—I was on time.
“What happened? Why are you like this?” I thought that maybe Mom was angry because I hadn’t come home immediately, but it turned out that there was an entirely different reason.
“Sit down. We have something to tell you,” said Dad. He rested his elbows on the table and folded his hands together, making a huge fist with his fingers.
“Sit,” he repeated, and with a grave look on his face, pointed to the chair next to him. It was very strange to see Dad behaving the way he used to before the convalescent home and to see Mom sitting quietly, waiting for him to speak.
I figured that something terrible must have happened. Maybe Uncle Fischel had died? What else could cause a change like this in Dad if not the shock of his brother dying? I walked mutely toward the chair.
“Wait a minute. Let the child eat something first,” said Mom. She placed a bowl of chicken soup with noodles in front of me.
I sat down on the chair, put one foot over the other and rubbed my thumbs together, which is what I always do when I’m embarrassed or nervous.
“Mom is going abroad tomorrow,” said Dad seriously, as if this was the greatest tragedy in the world. I felt a huge surge of relief knowing that Uncle Fischel was okay. I knew Mom didn’t like him that much—that is to say, I knew that she couldn’t stand him, but I actually liked him quite a bit. But I was still surprised.
“Why is she going abroad all of a sudden?” I asked in amazement. “I didn’t think we had money for such a thing.”
“She’s going to Germany,” said Dad. He looked me straight in the eye, as if he were trying to hint at something I couldn’t understand. I looked at Mom. She didn’t say a word.
“Germany? Are you kidding? I thought you hated Germans. We never buy anything ‘made in Germany’ even though it might be considered the best in the world.”
“Mom isn’t going for a vacation. She’s going to do some tests,” said Dad, wrapping my hands in both of his, just like he used to do when I was a kid and we used to stroll in the garden, and my tiny hand would soak up the warmth and security from his large, warm, gentle hand.
I panicked. I didn’t know Mom was sick. My eyes started to fill with tears.
“What kind of tests?” I choked. I resisted going over to her to hug her. I’m not a little kid anymore.
“Don’t worry. She’s not sick. These are routine inquiries for receiving compensation. And don’t cry. Act like a man,” said Dad. But his eyes were also moist.
“What compensation? Why?” I asked.
Dad’s deep-set blue eyes turned to Mom, as if he expected her to answer, but she just looked at him for a moment, then turned and went into the kitchen without saying a word. She stood in front of the sink and began washing dishes.
“Compensation for the two years she was like a slave in the camp. Worse than a slave,” Dad eventually said.
“But you once said you would never take money from the Germans, that you wouldn’t forgive what they did, and that it is a disgrace to take money. I heard you tell Uncle Fischel that you would never take compensation from the Nazis because it would be like forgiving them, and no amount of money could pay for the blood they spilled!” I looked at them both. They looked unhappy and miserable, Mom in her worn apron and Dad in his faded suit. I was already taller than both of them. I was so embarrassed that these emaciated Diaspora Jews were my parents. Not only did they look miserable, but now they were giving up the last little scrap of self-respect they had left.
“This is true. This is why we have never asked for it for all these years. But the situation has changed and we need the money now. It is not for us.”
“Then for whom?” I shouted, but I knew already what Dad would say and I wasn’t wrong.
“For you,” he said. “So you can have a better future than we had.”
“I don’t need their filthy money! I can manage without it!” I yelled in anger.
“Sometimes, we have no choice. When you grow up you will understand,” said Dad and lit a cigarette. “Sometimes, life is more powerful than principles.” He blew a smoke ring, and then another one inside the first.
I did not like Dad’s answer, to put it mildly. In fact—and to be totally honest here—at that moment I actually hated him. I despised him from the bottom of my heart. I knew that Dad, Uncle Fishel and Mom were the only ones left in their families after the Holocaust. And now Mom was going to take money from the Germans! Where was her dignity?
“I’m only going for a week,” said Mom finally. “There is no choice. Now finish eating and go to bed.”
“This is wrong!” I shouted. “Shame on you! It’s a good thing I’m not like you. I am a sabra and sabras have self-respect!” I pushed away the soup, thrust myself from the table and walked, head held high and proud, toward the bedroom. Mom said nothing. I wanted her to give me an answer, to explain, to defend herself. But she didn’t say a word. She just went over to sit next to her usual refuge: her sewing machine. She didn’t even tell me to go take a shower.
I heard my father talking to my mother in Yiddish, and I heard her replying. This totally freaked me out and I screamed, “Enough! Stop speaking in that disgusting language of the Diaspora. We are in Israel, not in any camp. Speak Hebrew!”
Burning with anger, I went into the bedroom and froze in place. Lying on the bed, silent and serene, was a huge black suitcase. I went up to it and examined it from all sides. The sides were lined with leather. It was massive. I walked around it, looked at it, touched it. Then I had to make sure I was not mistaken. I climbed in, folded myself up like a fetus, and closed the lid. Inside, it was dark and tight. But I was correct. There was definitely enough room in here for a small, thin person.
Mom didn’t do any sewing that night, and I had trouble falling asleep without the clickity-clack of the sewing machine. As I lay on my bed, the newspaper headlines about the “Spy in the Suitcase” kept running in front of my eyes. Reuven’s voice echoed in my mind: “According to my calculations there has to be a number of spies in our neighborhood. The mathematics is never wrong.”
The next morning, when I woke up, the suitcase was gone and so was Mom.