I knew exactly what I had to do. I dashed to my target destination. In the yard, near the chinaberry tree, that old refrigerator was lying on its back like a corpse. I decided to use it to climb the tree. It wasn’t all that heavy and I managed to stand it upright without much effort. In the middle of the door was a handle that locked the door shut. It could only be opened from the outside. I pulled the handle, and the inside of the refrigerator gaped at me like the dark looming jaw of a whale. If I had thought for a moment I might find hidden treasure inside, the stench that assaulted my nostrils immediately changed my mind. I left the door open, climbed up onto the refrigerator and from there into the tree that Reuven had fallen from. I checked every branch carefully. The last thing I wanted to do was to crash the way Reuven had. I didn’t have a father with a motorbike that could come to collect me.
From the treetop, I could see some kids playing hide-and-seek. I knew them all, even though they were younger than me. Itzik was “it.” He was standing with his face to the wall, counting out loud to ten while the others ran to hide. One of them, Ezra, ran toward me. He was a short and skinny boy, who lived with his four brothers and four sisters in a two-and-a-half-room apartment on the second floor of my apartment block. He ran with the swiftness of a cat. His left hand held on to the big black kippah—skullcap—on his head, below which flew two long, curly payot, or sidelocks, which was the only hair on his shaved head. Once a week, his father sat him, Sa’adia and Nissim, his big brothers, on the stairs, and with a blunt razor, shaved their heads. Yair and Danny, his two younger brothers, were exempt from the ritual because they were both still under the age of three, and their luxurious curls would be shorn during the Bar Kochba celebrations on Lag b’Omer.
Ezra stood under the chinaberry tree where I was and was about to climb it, when our eyes met.
“Shh …,” I whispered to him and motioned him away. He turned around and looked for somewhere else to hide. I waited a bit, and when I didn’t see him through the chinaberry branches and was sure he was gone, I continued according to my plan. The rotting wooden shutters were locked, but that wasn’t a problem. I pushed a thick branch under the rusty latch and manipulated it up. The metal tab squealed as if it was angry that I was pestering it during its nap, but it slowly rose. Suddenly, I heard a door slam. I froze. I listened carefully but didn’t hear any footsteps or voices. The noise had probably come from an apartment on the first floor. I went back to the task at hand and pulled the shutter, which opened effortlessly. I stretched out my hand, grabbed the windowsill, and in one deft movement, tumbled straight into the heart of the enemy’s stronghold.
It felt creepy and terrifying to be in a strange place, especially when it was the territory of an enemy who could show up at any moment and beat me up. I stayed flat on the floor and scanned my spy’s stronghold. I expected to see a command center laden with communication equipment, television screens and antennas, but all I saw were musty walls that were in desperate need of Zilbershtein’s paintbrush. Black mold spotted the ceiling. Cobwebs dotted with the bodies of captured flies fluttered in the corners of rooms. And the damp! The enemy’s stronghold was a one-and-a-half room apartment just like all the other apartments in our neighborhood. Except that it was much more neglected.
A rusty iron bed stood by the window. On it lay a straw mattress that no horse or mule would ever risk eating. Maybe a donkey. In the center of the room, under a naked lightbulb, was a rickety table, and on it was a moldy slice of bread and a half-empty glass of water.
I scanned the apartment and tried to think where the spy might have hidden his transmitter and camera. There didn’t seem to be anywhere to hide anything, and other than a few green rags on the bed, I couldn’t see anything incriminating. Obviously, the spy was not stupid, but I also wasn’t born yesterday, and I had read enough books not to fall into a trap. I got up and started to press and tap on the walls. There must be a hidden door somewhere that led to a cache for his spy equipment. I went from one wall to another, but discovered nothing.
I moved to the other half of the room, which served as a kitchen. On the dirty counter stood a one-burner electric hotplate, its white enamel covered with the charred remains of oil. On it stood an old aluminum kettle with a curved spout.
I continued to investigate. My next objective was the toilet, a narrow, stuffy cubicle, at the back of which was a seat-less, lidless, cracked toilet that was all black inside.
I don’t understand how my mind works, because in the middle of my detective work, I recalled how my mother always got upset with me because I forgot to lift the toilet seat. That wasn’t completely true—I did remember to lift it up, but only after I’d noticed that it had gotten a bit wet.
I continued scanning the little room. There was a tiny sink, a shower, and a small, rusty water heater—what we call a “boiler”—with a faded sticker that said “Because Friedman is always the best.” There is no doubt that this boiler had a sense of humor, because it sat there, contentedly leaking into a pail with a frayed, dirty rag at the bottom.
There wasn’t any toilet paper. Sheets of old newspapers were scattered on the floor. I nudged the papers with my foot and on one of the pages, in big black type, I saw the words “Lotz,” “Champagne,” and “horse.” I had seen this article once before, but I couldn’t remember when or where. The room was suffocating. I left the bathroom and was back in the bedroom when suddenly I heard footsteps approaching from along the hall. They stopped outside the door. I held my breath, heard a key being inserted into the lock, and saw the doorknob jiggling. I couldn’t believe it! The spy had decided to return at this exact moment!
I knew I had to escape. If the spy caught me, it would be the end of me. I ran toward the open shutter. The branches of the chinaberry swayed in the wind. There was no way I could jump from the window to the tree without breaking some important body parts. I had to hide before he came in and slaughtered me. I closed the shutters, and the apartment went dark. The door was still making sounds. The spy tried a key, and then another key. He had keys to so many secret doors that he couldn’t find the key to this one. I had to find a place to hide. To return to the bathroom was too dangerous. I had no choice. I crawled under the bed.
At first, I couldn’t see a thing and I felt as if I were drowning in an ocean of dust and dirt. I was pretty sure no one had swept under the bed since it had been placed in this very spot.
I heard the door open. A flicker of light illuminated the room for a moment and then the door quickly closed. My eyes grew accustomed to the dark and I peeked around the room. I heard footsteps and the sound of a cabinet door opening. How could I have missed the kitchen cabinets? I couldn’t understand why he didn’t turn on the light or open the shutters. I craned my neck from underneath the bed and saw a faint circle of light from a flashlight on the floor. Why would someone go into his own apartment with a flashlight? Maybe he didn’t want anyone to know he was home. The footsteps came toward the bed and I could just see his shoes. Black-and-white sneakers. Similar to mine. Very strange. Suddenly I heard the sound of a key in the door. What? Another one?! The shoes stopped in front of me, and a second later, a dark body flew in under the bed and smashed into me. I was trapped. I was done for!