Gideon gulped down the pill without water.
“Listen,” he said all of a sudden, “I … Count me out this time.”
Aron stared at him blankly till he realized that Gideon was referring to the stakeout.
“So you’re turning chicken on me?
Like Zacky?
Terrific.”
He said it like an actor delivering the wrong line.
“I’m no chicken and you know it.”
Again they were silent and withdrawn, as though all their energy had ebbed away.
Adults, Aron reflected, carry things around with them, like wallets and pens and cards and stuff, and coins and beads and rings and key chains; why have I been breaking so many pencils lately, and losing pens, he frowned at his hand, and yesterday at supper I knocked my glass over again, and
at school I slammed the door on my finger, and what about the way I always miss a few times before I get the straw in the bottle?
And he wondered if anyone had noticed yet, a few days ago when Papa asked him to change a light bulb, he screwed it the wrong way and it shattered in his hand.
“You want to know what I think?”
said Gideon, “we’ve been going along with your ideas since age zero, every summer you come up with a spy or a buried treasure, or we spend months trying to discover an unknown substance”; he rattled off the list as though proving a point, but despite himself, he softened.
“And remember the time you convinced us old Kaminer was a werewolf …” Gideon chuckled and Aron smiled.
“And we sneaked into their apartment.”
“And found a woman’s wig,” Gideon recalled.
“See?
I told you.
It must have come from one of his victims!”
“Oh sure, and there was this huge carpenter’s file there, and you told us that’s what he used to file his teeth …” “Well, what about that calendar?
How do you explain that?”
“What calendar?”
“The one with the red marks that show when the moon is full!”
And Gideon shook his head and sighed.
“Oi, Ari, the ideas you used to come up with,” and Aron thought, And still do, if you’re with me.
“And remember the last time we sneaked into What’s-her-name’s?”
Aron nodded silently.
Little did Gideon suspect that Aron had been back there at least once a week ever since.
“Do you still have the key, that passkey?”
Aron pulled it out of his pocket and showed it to Gideon.
He’d bought it three years before from Eli Ben-Zikri, who had initiated him into the mystery of locks and keys with obscene allusions which to this day excited him whenever he tried a new lock.
In return Aron had given Eli the key to the bomb shelter of the building project, the long, narrow cellar where people stored what they didn’t have room for in their crowded apartments.
And suddenly the shelter began to expand; no matter how much stuff people brought down, miraculously there was always room for more; and Aron shivered at the thought of what would happen if anyone found out.
“And remember the time Kaminer came back from dialysis and almost caught us?”
“Lucky I made Zacky stand guard outside,” said Aron proudly.
Aron and his foolproof plans.
“Poor Zacky, you always made him wait outside, didn’t you?”
Gideon chuckled.
They smiled at each other, a wan smile of complicity.
A brief respite.
“And remember the time you decided Peretz Atias was a member of
the Ku Klux Klan.”
Gideon groaned with mirth, stretching this thread of grace even more, till Aron began to suspect he would try to shirk his duty.
“And you would suddenly decide someone walking down the street was an Egyptian spy, and we’d follow him until he started getting suspicious …”
Aron cleared his throat, to release the nectar of longing.
“Okay, then, who’s Yigal Flusser?!”
“Yigal Flu … oh, right: twenty-seven years old.”
“Twenty-four.”
“Twenty-four.
He escaped to Egypt and spied against Israel.
And he fell in love with the wife of What’s-his-name … Altshuller, the guy who was in prison there!
But which prison?”
“Abassia Prison!
And who else was in with them?”
“Just a second, don’t tell me … Victor Gershon from Pardes Hanna.
And Nissim Abusarrur.”
“Not bad.
And what was the name of the Egyptian interrogator?”
“Uh … I forget.”
Gideon shrugged his shoulders.
“You forget?
Colonel Shams of Egyptian counterintelligence.”
“Right.
Shams … and you wanted to train us to survive his interrogations … You really had a thing about spies and traitors.”
“I still do, I guess.”
Aron giggled.
“And remember, nu, what was I going to say, oh yes, sometimes I still wonder about that guy they said looked like a kibbutznik, the one in prison, with the private cell?”
“They said it was hard to believe anyone who looked like that would want to spy against Israel.”
“And where was Simon Kramer from?”
“Hey.”
Gideon smiled.
“Remember the time you made us believe you were a double agent?”
“Uh-uh.
Simon Kramer was from Rishon LeZion.
He crossed the border into Gaza and joined Egyptian intelligence.”
“You were always pretending you knew spy secrets … you’d draw marks on the sidewalk, to signal planes …” Something flashed in Gideon’s eyes, and Aron turned hastily around.
“You’re wrong,” he said.
“I drew those marks for a different reason.
I thought them up in fifth grade, after our big fight.”
“Ah, I remember!”
cheered Gideon, misled.
“Right, we had this big fight, but what was it about?
We thought the world had ended.”
It had.
And when they made up again, the friendship changed: from a habit
of childhood it became an earnest choice.
They laughed together quietly.
They laughed too much.
A farewell sigh wafted in the words.
Aron wasn’t certain what had happened in the last few minutes, he only hoped that Gideon would take pity and relent.
“Right,” Gideon recalled, running his hand through his hair.
“You worked out some complicated system of signs; seven signs, remember?”
“Did I?”
asked Aron cautiously.
“Funny, I don’t remember anymore.”
“Sure, you must: that red T-shirt from day camp, you said that if an emergency came up while you and I were feuding, we could hang the shirt on the laundry line and then the other would see it and know to hurry down to the rock.
Our feuds never lasted for more than a week, you made sure of that.”
“Hmm.
Anything else?”
“We were supposed to tear the three bottom leaves on the ficus plant in the hallway.
That was the first sign.
And on Mondays there was a different one … Oh yes, leave the tap dripping in the back yard; if one of us saw that, he’d rush to the rock, no matter what.
As soon as we woke up from our naps, you said, at four o’clock sharp.”
“See that, I can’t remember anything,” said Aron, choking.
“Sure!
You used to draw tails on the sidewalk arrows, don’t you remember?”
“No.
Remind me.”
“And … we’d pour sand into the holes in the sewer caps.
I can’t believe you’ve forgotten that.”
“It’s beginning to come back to me now, wait, wait.”
He dragged out the suspense.
“Wasn’t there one last sign that would rally us from the ends of the earth?”
“I’m amazed at you, forgetting that, with a mind like yours.”
Aron squinted at his moving lips.
“If one of us was in bad trouble all he had to do was climb on the rock and SOS with a mirror.
Flashing at the other’s bedroom ceiling.”
“Hmm … do you still remember how to SOS?
I’m sure I don’t.”
Gideon knitted his brow.
“Like this: dot dot dot, dash dash dash, and dot dot dot again: fast, slow, fast.
Morse code is something I will never forget.”
“That’s terrific,” said Aron, leaning back, breathing deeply.
“The ideas you used to have.”
Shut up now.
Control yourself.
“Better than James Bond, I can tell you that”—he went and spoiled it.
“Those were the days …” sighed Gideon.
And Aron echoed, Those were the days.
Again the silence interrupted them.
Gideon yawned broadly, and Aron stared into his open mouth; why is Gideon so exhausted all the time, Mr.
Stashnov wanted to know.
Shut your mouth, Aron begged silently, and burrowed into his thoughts, looking for something to distract him from his guilt and shame, to fan the tiny flame that had flickered between them a moment ago.
What would he say?
He knew a blow was coming at the end of this conversation.
Full of anguish, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the coin.
Gideon studied it: “Seems like it’s been rubbed with a stone.”
“But maybe it’s a rare coin?”
said Aron.
“Looks obsolete to me.
Ask my dad to take a look.
He has a coin collection.”
“Right, a coin collection.
I forgot.
See how forgetful I am today.”
He was playing for time.
Again he mustered the strength to say, What do you think, should we throw it to Morduch, and with a wavering smile he added that he knew it wasn’t right to cheat a blind man, and Gideon, carefully looking away, said Morduch wouldn’t know the difference, and Aron whispered, That’s true, he wouldn’t know the difference.
He blesses you no matter what you throw into his cup, said Gideon.
Right, no matter what, Aron repeated listlessly, drawing out the endings of Gideon’s pithy utterances, as if secret caresses emanated from them.
They continued this game of peek-a-boo, then stopped and fell silent.
Aron’s head drooped between his shoulders, revealing his slender nape, and still he waited, but Gideon said nothing.
Aron was too tired to wait anymore.
He couldn’t understand why Gideon seemed so strange and threatening.
Absentmindedly he touched the knapsack, stroked the puppylike padding inside.
Gideon glanced at his fingers in surprise.
Aron pulled them away.
“Now that we finally have the chance to capture a genuine spy, or maybe even a hired assassin, you want to drop out, well thanks a heap …” He didn’t know why he was talking such nonsense.
He tried to act the injured party, but his voice sounded too whiny and high-pitched, and his face appeared suddenly devoid of itself, revealing his strange, dejected depths.
If only Gideon had looked at him just then, he would have seen into the heart of his anguish.
But alas, with the egotism children need in order to survive, with the amazing detachment
that maintains their loyal friendships, and with a vestigial sense of caution, Gideon turned away and was spared.
He looked out into the distance, remaining sensitive and decent.
And Aron knew that all was lost.
“Zacky says he’s getting sick of your make-believe.”
Gideon embarked on his mission, tossing off “make-believe” with dignified haste.
He might have said “babyish” instead or, worse, “childish.”
And Aron, both grateful and humiliated, knew that Gideon had taken it upon himself to break the news and shield him from Zacky’s tactlessness.
“I was making up adventures for you,” whispered Aron, his lower lip trembling.
“Adventures are fine …” Gideon squirmed, and in the silence that followed Aron reached into his pocket, touched the onion strip that reveals the invisible workings of the mind, and heard Gideon thinking: But we’re about to set off on the greatest adventure of our lives.
Aron dropped the onion strip as though burned.
“So what, are you saying you don’t want to do the Houdini act anymore either?”
Better to hear it now, the bare truth; he had always secretly felt protected, having Gideon there to lock him in and tie the ropes.