My Michael Read Online Free PDF Page B

biscuits. For two hours I sat and glowered, fastening and unfastening the catch of Michael's briefcase. What had he brought me here for? Why had I allowed myself to be talked into coming? What sort of a man had I landed myself with? Hard-working, responsible, honest, neat—and utterly boring. And his pathetic jokes. Such a dull man shouldn't be forever trying to be amusing. But Michael did everything he could to be witty and gay. They exchanged boring stories about boring schoolteachers. The private life of a gym teacher called Yehiam Peled reduced Michael and his friend to howls of vicious schoolboy laughter. There then followed an angry argument about a meeting between King Abdullah of Transjordan and Golda Meir on the eve of the War of Independence. Michael's friend's husband thumped on the table, and even Michael raised his voice. When he shouted his voice was frail and tremulous. It was the first time I had seen him in the company of other people. I had been wrong about him.

    Afterwards we walked in the dark to the main road. Tirat Yaar was connected to the main Jerusalem road by a lane lined with cypresses. A cruel wind nipped me all over. In the afterglow of sunset the Jerusalem hills seemed to be plotting some mischief. Michael walked beside me, silent. He could not think of a single thing to say to me. We were strangers to each other, he and I. For one strange moment, I remember, I was overcome by a sharp feeling that I was not awake, or that the time was not the present. I'd been through all this before. Or else someone, years before, had warned me against walking in the dark along this black lane next to an evil man. Time was no longer a smooth, even flow. It had become a series of abrupt rushes. It may have been when I was a child. Or in a dream, or a frightening story. All of a sudden I was terrified of the dim figure walking silently beside me. His coat collar was turned up to hide the lower part of his face. His body was thin as a wraith. The rest of his features were hidden by a black leather student's hat pulled down over his eyes. Who is he? What do you know about him? He's not your brother, no relation at all, not even an old friend, but a strange shadow, far from human habitation, in the dark, late at night. Maybe he's planning to assault you. Maybe he's ill. You have heard nothing about him from anyone responsible. Why doesn't he talk to me? Why is he all wrapped up in his own thoughts? Why has he brought me here? What is he up to? It's night. In the country. I'm alone. He's alone. What if everything he has told me was a deliberate lie. He isn't a student. His name isn't Michael Gonen. He has escaped from an institution. He's dangerous. When did all this happen to me before? Somebody warned me, a long time ago, that this was how it would happen. What are those long-drawn-out sounds in the dark fields? You can't even see the light of the stars through the curtain of cypresses. There is a presence in the orchard. If I scream and scream, who will hear me? A stranger, walking with fast, clumsy steps, heedless of my pace. I fall back a little, deliberately. He doesn't notice. My teeth are chattering with cold and fear; the winter wind howls and bites. That silhouette doesn't belong to me; it's distant, wrapped up in itself, as if I were just a figment of its thoughts, with no reality of my own. I'm real, Michael. I'm cold. He didn't hear me. Maybe I wasn't speaking aloud.

    "I'm cold, and I can't run this fast," I shouted as loud as I could.
    Like a man distracted from his thoughts Michael hurled back his reply:
    "Not long to go now. We're almost at the bus stop. Be patient."
    As soon as he had spoken, he vanished once more into the depths of his great overcoat. A lump rose in my throat, and my eyes filled. I felt insulted. Humiliated. Frightened. I wanted to hold his hand. I only knew his hand. I didn't know him. At all.

    The cold wind spoke to the cypresses in a hushed, hostile tongue. There was no