Davidka

 

Right in the centre of the city, where the homemade mortar that was used to defend Jerusalem at the dawn of our statehood remains pointed at the perpetually windy sky, where pigeons pick at the crumbs of bourekas and drink from the miniscule fountains, there is a corner where respectable people don’t go. The kerchiefed mothers of reclusive Chassidic families pinch their lips in disgust and hurry by without looking back, clutching their purses to their chests. Men stick their hands deeper into their pockets and turn their noses away from the draft. Kids point and wonder; the elderly shake their heads and shuffle sadly away.

It’s the place where people go when life had left them nothing much at all, when disasters steal their health and hope, and when thoughts and pondering could kill just as surely as the contents of the syringes underfoot. They lie despondently on the benches, yesterday’s newspaper spread over their faces against the sun, or on the cold stone floor of the monument itself, paved with black granite. They are missing teeth, and they haven’t showered in longer than anyone can remember. Police don’t bother them; sometimes, people hand them sandwiches or a can of coke. They laugh and tell stories, or just sleep the day away. The days pass slowly; the children hurry to and from school, offices and shops open and close, until the bakeries put the leftover pitas and loaves outside at sunset, and Jerusalem settles down for the night under a blanket of heatwave mire.

There is a wine shop in there, hidden in between the square columns. On the top shelves they store the sunlight of Judea, bottled with the fragrance of the mountains intact. In the middle, there are the wines for Kiddush and for Havdala, for the meal and for the party. On the lowest shelves and outside they offer the slipslop that the desperate pay for with a handful of coins.

Next door to it stands the little grocery shop. Five steps separate the ground floor of the shop from the top, where the fridges are stacked with milk and yoghurts.

Shimmy stood on the ground floor, swinging to and fro on his crutches. It’s been nearly ten years since he was pushed off the growing wall at a building site by a fellow contractor, one named Ahmad. Shimmy broke his back, and was instantly paralysed. A year in a rehab hospital gave him his legs back, but not enough of them to ever walk properly again. Ahmad spent a month in jail, but in the end, his version of being dizzy and slipping was accepted by the court. He walked out pumping his fist in the air. Shimmy was wheeled out by his daughter, who had since moved to Canada. Now, Shimmy needed cottage cheese and some pasta, and the owner of the shop was getting it from the top floor. “And soap! I need dish soap!” – He called, looking up. The owner nodded. He was always moody, or so it seemed. Some said he had seen things in Lebanon, his friends being torn to pieces by an anti-tank missile. Others claimed he was just slightly autistic. Yet others still proposed the theory of him being slightly deaf.

Either way, Gadi was not a man of words. He nodded when he could, or remained silent. His impressive height ensured his safety from any questions about it – he could reach the ceiling on the light rail tram without trying much. His face was still smooth, for all his hair had turned grey long ago. His wounds, if he had any, did not show enough to satisfy people’s curiosity.

Another customer wandered in, a purple-haired Russian woman with a face so deeply furrowed by wrinkles that she resembled a desiccated apple. She wanted cigarettes and a loaf of bread. Gadi processed the purchase, then nodded at Shimmy’s shopping. “Going home?”

“No, I think I’ll vacation in Eilat for a bit first. What do you think?”

Without a word or a laugh, Gadi picked up the bag, dropped in a litre of milk and some crackers as a gift, and walked out. He got on the motorbike and was gone in a cloud of stinky exhaust fumes, but the man wasn’t worried. He knew he’d find the bag by his door. It wasn’t the first time.

When Gadi got back, a customer was waiting inside. A boy, barely sixteen years old, his hands shaking with the effort of restraining a fully-grown black Cane Corso on a thick metal chain. The dog’s head alone was the size of a large watermelon. If he had stood on his hind legs, he could’ve reached some of the quality wines next door. Drops of hot saliva were falling from the metal-and-leather muzzle. “We need water…”

Without a word, Gadi got out plastic bowls and a bottle. The boy strained to remove the muzzle off the beast, so Gadi helped him by holding the chain, so he could press the button.

Then a woman stopped by to chat about politics. She bought a packet of chips as an excuse, then sat under the air-conditioning for a good half an hour, filling Gadi’s head with her opinions and relatives’ misfortunes. He nodded, only half-listening. She was talking at him, not to him, and that was just fine. People needed to do that sometimes. He handed her a packet of Bamba on the way out, and would not accept payment.

One of his regular customers, a Holocaust survivor called Isaac, hadn’t shown up in a while. Perhaps checking on him would be a good idea.

An Ethiopian teenager ran in to buy two packets of chocolate milk for her sisters, then ran out again, swift as a dancer. The street sweeper came in to beg for a cigarette, and Gadi gave him a packet, as the man knew he would. The sweeper didn’t abuse the kindness and showed up exactly once a month, not more.  

A gaggle of yeshiva students bought sweets and cakes for the end of term party.

Then, a woman in a hijab bought a packet of pepperoni with a bread roll, as silent as Gadi himself, and sat outside eating them for a while.

Gadi flipped on the TV, suspended right by the ceiling. Elections, parties, hopes and disappointments filled the space.

Then he heard screaming from the outside. One of the drunks had become unresponsive. An ambulance motorbike pulled up almost before anyone could dial for one. People stopped to stare at the resuscitation attempts. Gadi knew it was useless, but watched along with everybody.

A Swedish tourist walked in, her face burnt to the colour of a ripe pomegranate. She had come to Jerusalem on tour but a year ago, and was blessed – so she said – with a vision of Jesus on the Golgotha, and now only she knew when the war of Gog and Magog would start. She had lost a frightening amount of weight, her sandals were fraying, but she could not leave the country where the Messiah would reveal himself, riding on a white donkey. She had even picked up some Hebrew. Nobody cared much for where she went and what she did, neither the embassy nor the psychiatric services, as long as she remained harmless. Gadi sold her a loaf of bread and a tub of hummus, then threw in some biscuits. Perhaps she would nibble on them next time she had nothing at all. Her new partner, a lost-looking German hippie with washed-out grey eyes and a goatee had waited for her outside.

Gadi switched off the TV when the sky began to darken. A waft of smoke reached his nose – there was a forest fire in the mountains again. He sighed, trying to push away images of another forest fire engulfing his fire engine, stealing the air from his nostrils, until the words of “Shma Yisrael” were all that remained to him. No, that was not a good place to go, not now, not ever. With an effort, he pulled himself to the here and now, and found a little girl staring at him from behind the counter. She was holding a pathetic-looking kitten.

“He is hungry… do you have cat food?”

One of the kitten’s eyes was glued closed by infection. His right front paw looked broken, and he was teaming with fleas. Gabi sighed. He reached down and took out a can of cat food from under the counter. Too often, the drunks bought it for themselves, because it was cheap, claiming they had a pet, so now Gadi started hiding it. “Six shekels.”

Really, it cost fifteen, but Gadi doubted she would have even six.

“I have five…” The girl’s eyes filled with tears, and Gadi, silent as ever, pulled up the metal ring on the can. “Oh, thank you! I will bring it… later…”

Gadi nodded. People still did that sometimes, like in the fifties, when the country had been young and everybody knew everyone else. It had been so in his now distant childhood, by the port in Ashdod, where they swam and ate ice cream all summer long. Things are always better perceived from a distance.

For a while, the shop remained empty, leaving Gadi with his thoughts. The streets were quiet, and the light rail rumbled by much more rarely.

He locked up the shop, not bothering with the alarm system, and walked across Yaffo and into Shaarey Chessed. Tiny, crowded streets that were built for donkeys, not cars, engulfed him, until only his shadow floated behind him, not quite touching.

He went up a flight of broken stone stairs and knocked on a faded brown door. It swung open, and a man stepped back from the entrance.

They sat down by the empty fireplace. The house had been built for an Ottoman functionary two centuries ago, and the walls were as thick as those in a fortress. The air was still and heavy, without the smells of food or rubbish. The windows were never opened.

The other remained in the shadow, created by a little night light. “How many?”

“Only four. I can’t just give out a lot, people will suspect…”

“And you will tell them it’s sponsored by an organisation. Is it not?”

“I guess it is…”

“You must find a way to do more. I insist on it.”

“Fine.” Gadi sighed. In the multitude of weirdos and crazies populating Jerusalem, his own bizarre behaviour was barely noticeable.

The other pulled out a wad of cash from his pocket. “Take a full basket of food to Isaac. And the rest is for today and tomorrow.”

Gadi shifted on his seat. “It’s not much… why do you take my mitzva away by paying me for it?”

The other laughed. “You know nothing, man. Just let it be, will you?”

He nodded.

“There is a young man there who wants to go to rehab. You will find him and pay for it.”

“Name?”

“No names. I want you to figure it out.”

“Uh-huh. I will.”

“See you tomorrow, then.” The Other was always business-like, and Gadi never saw his face. He could not ask… What choice did he have? He had agreed to it, all that time ago, when his fire engine was engulfed by flames, and he had floated above his own body for a while.

Gadi left, carefully closing the door behind him, just as the other spread his wings above the defunct fireplace. Jerusalem slept uneasily. Her multitude of people ached her, as always.