The Falafel King Is Dead Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  SIMONA DADON

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  DUDI AND ITZIK DADON

  Dudi and Itzik

  Dudi

  Itzik

  Dudi

  Itzik

  Dudi

  Itzik

  Dudi

  Itzik

  Dudi

  Dudi and Itzik

  Itzik

  Dudi

  KOBI DADON

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  ETTI DADON

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  About the Author

  Copyright

  SIMONA DADON

  1

  Who would have thought the Katyusha would find me outside? I haven’t been out, really, for six years. I just switch off and go: to work, to the market, to the market, to work. And the one time Simona does something different, the Katyusha catches her out.

  I’d already put food on the table for them, the usual Tuesday couscous with chicken, pumpkin, chickpeas – all mixed together. I stand there, the sky falling in, and what do I think about? Whether they ate the couscous before the first Katyusha landed, or whether they went down to the shelter on an empty stomach. I count them, one by one, in my head, as I think of them running to the shelter: Kobi, Chaim, Oshri, Etti, Dudi, Itzik. Go home, I tell my feet. But they don’t obey me.

  I’m on a swing in the playground, my feet pushing the ground away from me. I just sit there, swinging back and forth, forth and back. It’s pitch black. The first Katyusha hit the electricity supply for the whole town. Only the lights in the moshav on the hill are still on, blazing from the houses and the chicken coops. There are lights in the Arab village on the other side, too. I swing. Hey Simona mona from Dimoaona, hey Simona mona from Dimoaona. The swing stops, and I sing, ‘Put your ha-and in my ha-and, I am yours and you are mi-ne.’ Then I start to cry.

  When the second Katyusha falls, I scream and throw myself to the ground. My mouth is open as wide as it can go, but no sound comes out. My scream comes from the heart, not the throat. And after I scream from the heart, I scream from the belly. And when I finish screaming, I throw up. I lie down in the pitch-black night, and throw up. I retch and retch, but it’s too dark to see what’s coming out. In the end there is nothing left, just water. After a while the water is finished, too. When I get up, I feel as though the lead weight that has pressed down on me for six years has gone.

  Akh ya rab, that feels good! The lead weight, which turned my heart into a block of ice, has disappeared. How did I survive for six years with a heart of ice? I sit back on the swing and take off my headscarf. I wipe my mouth with it and throw it as far away as I can. I think the second Katyusha fell somewhere near our apartment. I want to run and see if they are all OK: Kobi, Chaim, Oshri, Etti, Dudi, Itzik. Simona’s feet push the ground away again. Hey Simona mona from Dimoaona. My feet don’t listen to me when I tell them to take me home. I sit with my back to the apartment buildings. People are on the road now, shouting, running. In a minute the car with the loudspeakers will drive round, telling people to go down to their shelters. Then the ambulances and fire engines will come. My feet stop the swing then walk in the opposite direction to our apartment. I don’t know where they are taking me. I’m walking towards Ricki’s house, but my feet take me past her shelter and down the hill.

  If only I could divide myself into twenty pieces. I’d scatter the pieces all over town, so that at least one would be hit by the Katyusha. Then, at last, it would be over.

  I open my hands and my mouth, gaze up at the sky. I’m like the little Moroccan girl I used to be, trying to trap the rain in her mouth, sticking out her tongue like a saucer, hoping to catch a drop. That girl loved the rain, thought it Heaven-sent, just as I love the Katyusha that will surely come.

  It’s quiet. The Katyushas have stopped. Here, it’s quiet, and there, they’re working on my Katyusha. God in Heaven, who sees that Simona wants to come to Him, help them send a Katyusha, and to do it right. God forbid it should leave me half-alive, lying in a hospital. God forbid. My only wish is not to be stuck in a wheelchair. I’m already half-dead. Let them take the other half and be done with it. God, give them the brains to do a good job! Ya rab, what a world. You even need luck to have the death you want.

  Why do I have to go to the shelter? Why do I have to get up tomorrow morning? For the chores? Ay, that’s sad. How could Simona leave her chores? What will Simona’s chores do if she flies up to the stars? Poor little chores. They’ll have to sit shiva for her.

  In the morning, when I leave for work at the nursery, the chores sit cross-legged in the apartment, waiting for me to come home. They jump on me the minute I open the door. They’ve waited all day, and now they want to play. I feel like a ragdoll. The ironing chore throws me to the sink. The sink, as soon as it’s empty, tosses me to the broom. The broom sends me to the bathroom to wash the little ones. The bathroom orders me to the stove to make something to eat, and then back to the sink, to the laundry, to the needle and thread. The chores don’t stop for a minute, and they laugh at me, laugh and laugh, until the very last chore takes me in its arms and sees there’s nothing left, nothing to laugh at. No more Simona. Only then does it allow me to drop into bed.

  Thanks so much.

  I get up at quarter to four. If I’m up then, I can manage. If I leave it until ten-past four, or even quarter-past, the day’s shot.

  I can’t function at speed until after five o’clock. My arms feel as stiff as sticks, and keep threatening to drop off my shoulders. My knees tremble. My lower back kills me. It’s like a competition in pain between them all. My feet feel encased in iron, like horses’ hooves. The veins near my left knee are on fire.

  When a husband dies, they should transform the wife back into a girl again, exactly the way she was before she knew him. Let her start again. You shouldn’t leave a woman stumbling in the desert with her husband’s children, when she’s exhausted from giving birth to them all, when her body bears such bruises.

  At four in the morning, I do the quiet chores. If the twins wake, my morning’s gone. Even if their blanket falls to the floor, I don’t pick it up. I hang the washing outside. In the winter it’s hell; in the summer it’s OK, my hands aren’t too icy. In the middle of winter, when the mornings are dark, I hang out the washing later, so that it can dry on the line all day. The washing machine has worked its magic. Without it you would see a family’s daily news bulletin: what everyone wore, what they ate, what they did, where they went, how they slept. When I’ve hung out the washing, I tighten the line on the pulley, and the clothes move away from me. I hope for a hot, thirsty sun that will drink up all the water.

  When Mas’ud died, my periods stopped. What a stupid girl I was to think that my blood went with him into the grave. I didn’t believe he’d left me anything of himself. I cried and I didn’t eat and I almost fainted every day, but I didn’t think anything of it. It didn’t enter my mind that I’d been caught out, but everyone else knew. I’d see myself in people’s eyes wherever I went, and I didn’t understand it. I’d look hard into all those eyes, one after another, and see the same thing: a pregnant woman. I thought they were mad. How could it be? Then one lunchbreak, Ricki, the cook at the nursery, grabbed me, closed the door behind us, and began to talk. My mind went blank. I heard what she was saying, and I wanted to kill myself from shame. All I could think of was h
ow to get out of her kitchen, when everyone had been gossiping about me for a month, about how I’d fallen pregnant at the last minute. But Ricki, however rude she can be, is the person you want when you’re in trouble. She said: ‘Simona, listen to me. You’re going to sit with me until your head is clear. You’re not going to think about tomorrow, or yesterday. You’re just going to think about one thing: how you walk out of here with your head high and your eyes wide open. Remember, you didn’t do anything wrong by falling pregnant.

  ‘You just listen to me: this is a blessing. A kid that bears his father’s name is a blessing. It might seem like trouble right now, but in half a year you’ll see what’s growing inside you at this moment, and it will have a new face. You have to let the gossip just slide right off you. Don’t listen to them. I’ll put oil on you, believe me I will, so that nothing sticks. Sit down, sit down. What did you get up for? Don’t stand next to my pot; the soup will get all salty if you cry into it. Aiwa, that’s better. Half a sour smile from Simona is still something. Where are you going? No, baby, you’re not cleaning today.’

  She gave me tea with shiba, then went out to the others, collected their finished cups of instant coffee onto a tray, and said: ‘Yalla, girls, to work. No cleaning elves are coming to help you today.’

  Back then, I didn’t know I was carrying two sons. I said goodbye to one person, and hello to two.

  Seven months after Mas’ud died, they were born. Two of them with exactly the same face, their father’s face.

  They didn’t take after me.

  I put three pots on the stove. I always leave three pots for lunch. Yesterday I made rice, beans and fishballs in sauce. Today it’s the couscous. I’d already put white beans in water to make their favourite soup for tomorrow. I’d also thought of making potatoes and fried fish.

  People think Mas’ud is dead and I’m alive. That’s wrong! Totally wrong! Mas’ud is alive and I’m dead. As soon as he died, I was finished. It was all over for me. Everyone knew him as the falafel king; I was his queen. And now? They’re still talking about him. He will always be a king. No one can replace him. And me? Where am I? My days as a queen are long gone.

  When your husband dies, everyone comes to check on you, to see how much you love him. When he’s alive, who cares? Then, you can drive him crazy, talk about him to whoever you like, badmouth him. No one sniffs about that. But as soon as your man dies, someone turns up every five minutes to check you’re being respectful. The moment you get up the morning after shiva, a thousand people come to sit in his chair. What’s their job? To see if you’re treating him right. And they work hard at it. They don’t leave you alone for a second, and they count your tears. Their ears, eyes and noses seem to grow, as if on the lookout for an out-of-place laugh, for perfume or makeup. They want you to die with him. He’d dead, six feet under, so you should be dead, too, spinning on top of the ground, just for them.

  If a man looks at you, if his eyes rest on you for two seconds, they’d kill him in an instant, to preserve your honour.

  But when they see you’re washed up, their hearts turn heavy and black. So they pour mercy, like a bucket of filthy mopping water, on to your head. Then their hearts are clean again, shiny with goodness. And you? You stand there, soaked to the skin, and dirty, too, from their black mercy.

  But if you run away from the mercy, God forbid that you should fall into the widows’ sugary trap.

  Right from the start, I said to myself: Simona, don’t go near the widows, because once you’re stuck there, there’s no way out. They’ll pull you away from other people. They throw a party when they hook a new widow. Your luck and their luck have the same colour and shape. They only want one thing: for you to be with them, to sit with them, so they can teach you the widows’ rules.

  So I’ve been looking at my feet for six years, paying attention to my steps, just so I don’t wake up one day and find out I’ve stepped in something nasty.

  I don’t have the strength to keep my hands high, stretched out for my Katyusha. I only ever had one thing in life that I kept my arms open for. When that was gone, I closed my arms.

  Where is Simona going? Where are her feet taking her? To the football pitch at the end of town. No Katyushas have fallen there yet. Inshalla, let one come today. Simona throws her bag off her shoulder, stands on the pitch. The grass is dry. This country doesn’t have enough water. It’s a constant refrain. But they find water for the football pitch. It’s only her good fortune that they haven’t used the sprinklers today. Simona stands on the grass, her head spinning crazily, her mouth opening to sing: ‘Why is this night different from all other nights, from all other nights? Because on all other nights Simona does chores and more chores. Tonight, tonight, a Katyusha will take Simona, who’s waiting for it.’ She calls out to the angel of death, but it is the angel of madness that comes for her instead.

  The poor kids. At least if I go, they’ll get a little honour and some money because I died in a Katyusha attack. In this country, whoever manages to be killed by Arabs is honoured like a king. If you go mad, on the other hand, your whole family is ruined. Who would want to marry Etti if her mother is said to be mahbula?

  2

  Where can I lie down? This is a nice bed. A long green sheet. I lie down in the middle, where the game starts, in the circle made with lime. But after two minutes, my body starts to itch madly, just as it did when I had German measles.

  Simona heads for the goal. Why there? Because there’s no grass. She’s the ball at the end of the game, the goal scored by God in the eighty-ninth minute.

  I take off my shoes, put them near the goalpost, and lie down again. The netting of the goal makes a tray of baklava in the sky, and the stars are the almonds on top. I curl up on my side. My bare feet are crying out for mercy. I don’t listen to them. I never do.

  How did I turn from ‘Our Simona’ to ‘Simona of the Chores’? How? Everyone used to call me ‘Our Simona’. I was invited everywhere, adopted by everyone. What could I do? Our Simona used to laugh all day, until she brought the evil eye upon herself. The eye wouldn’t go away. It stayed for six years.

  When I wanted something, I only had to say the word, and five minutes later, my wish was granted. Not even five minutes. Anybody with a brain wanted to stand next to me, so that some of my luck would rub off on them and give them a rose-tinted life, too. That’s why they used to hug me, to buy me little presents.

  Every morning Our Simona would stroll around town. She’d go to the falafel shop, take some money from the drawer, just so she wasn’t short. Not a lot of money, perhaps fifty or a hundred shekels. I knew everyone’s break-times: at the bank, at the post office, at the school. I’d drink something with them – tea, instant coffee, Turkish coffee – and make the girls a little jealous with nylon stockings from the city, a new perfume or haircut, a bracelet Mas’ud had bought me … It was even better if men were there, too. I’d turn their heads a little, laugh, then be on my way. I’d go to the nursery, take a child in my arms for the fun of it, have a drink with them, too. I didn’t have to work. Why should Our Simona work? Mas’ud would get up to mop the house with her; she’d put a few pots on the stove. We used to lock the door so no one would come in and see him mopping; being caught with a mop in his hands is the greatest shame for a man. We’d finish at ten. His mother would come and take care of the baby for a few hours. In those days, Our Simona would hang around town, and he’d grind the chickpeas for the falafels. It cost him pennies to make, but he made a fortune.

  Wherever I went, people would look up from their work, laugh, forget their troubles, and dream that, one day, they’d be in my shoes. What was wrong with that? Even when I made the girls’ eyes green, it was good for them. It stopped them falling asleep in the middle of their lives. Whenever I brought something new from the city, they’d ask God to give it to them, too. Why not? A month later, half a year, a year at most, they’d have it, too, and they’d be happy. And the men, when they heard what Mas’ud had bought me,
would start to put money aside to buy something nice for their wives.

  When Mas’ud died, his fortune went with him. He never saved a penny. He gave it all to me. And what did I do with it? The truth? It just ran through my fingers. So the nursery did me a favour and gave me temporary work. I was there for six or seven months. Then I had the twins.

  Just after the twins’ birth, Hani left the nursery, and I started a permanent job in the toddlers’ room, with Aliza Fadida. We have eighteen children. Avi is the youngest – just a year and two months – and Miri the oldest at two years and seven months.

  At six-thirty in the morning I rush to the nursery. At four-thirty I crawl home. Every day someone brings up the days of Our Simona, the queen. All the envy kept on account, all the jealousy in their hearts, is given back to me with interest. And in instalments rather than one lump sum. I don’t know when that account will be empty.

  Last week I thought: One more word, and I will throw down my apron and run home.

  When was it? Monday afternoon? Tuesday? Not Tuesday. Maybe it was Thursday. Why should I remember the days? What’s so special about each one? A mountain of days lies upon me, smothering me, all mixed up like the laundry. Here’s a sleeve, there a trouser leg, and a towel that is in fact a sheet. I can’t remember a single day from morning to evening. There are no shining days, not one I can tell apart from the others. A day that I washed by hand so it wouldn’t turn the same colour as the rest.

  Why should I care what day it was? What I do know is that it was midday. We finished changing the nappies, put the children in their cots, ate, then sat for a while with a drink. Ricki came out of the kitchen, her hands covered with soapy water, and shouted:

  ‘Sylvie, come here. Yehuda is on his way. Yehuda from the Council, from the maintenance department. Any minute now he’ll come through the gate. I told Devora to call him about the drain, but really I want him to put a roof over the sandpit. Come on, give me your apron – aiwa, just the right dress for him – grab Shlomi, darling, and go out to him. Don’t forget what we said. Get us a roof for the sandpit, just like the ones the Council put in the schools, and turn his back to my window. Girls, put some perfume on her, but quickly, he’ll be here any minute. Come on! It’s as if those children have put you to sleep! Put some rouge on her … a little more. Let your hair down, darling. Don’t be stingy with it. When you’ve got it, flaunt it … I don’t want another kid. It’s got to be Shlomi, his nephew. How can he say no to his nephew? Bring him here. He isn’t fast asleep yet. Here, darling, Ricki’s giving you some sweet tea. Shlomi, do you know who’s coming? Your uncle Yehuda! Want to say hello to Uncle Yehuda? No, Sylvie, don’t go out yet – let him get a little closer. You remember what to do? Make the kid as if he wants to play in the sand. Now, go!’