The Crying Machine

‘Maurice Safar.’

Yusuf’s face goes tight at the name. In the wider landscape of Jerusalem, Safar doesn’t even figure, he’s a neighbourhood guy, but he’s connected everywhere. Skipping town is not an option. ‘Eesh! How much?’

‘Does it matter? More than Silas just put on the table.’

‘Wallahi, Levi! Did they not teach arithmetic at Jew school? You people are supposed to be all about the money!’

He always panics. That’s why I can’t tell him everything. I’ve got nine days until Maurice Safar breaks the thigh bone of my left leg. Yesterday he showed me a metal bar he got from his father. It’s the one part of the job he always does himself. Violence is only an effective motivator when it’s sincere. People have to know you mean it, and Maurice Safar always means to hurt you.

‘All I need is someone to do the legwork and stay out of sight …’

‘You mean a thief – someone who has actual skills.’

‘I have skills.’

‘All right, skills other than bullshitting and buying cheap tobacco.’ Yusuf counts something imaginary on his fingers like a kid doing maths.

‘OK, OK, you made your point. I need a thief, a cheap one.’

‘So ask your girlfriend. She needed money.’

‘I honestly cannot tell whether that’s a serious suggestion. Seriously, I don’t know.’

He holds his hands out, palms up, and gives me this look like I’m breaking his heart. I know for a fact he doesn’t have one. ‘She did a number on fat Saul outside – swiped one of his oranges faster than you can blink.’

‘I love you, man, but sometimes you can be a schmo. This – this is one of those times. Tell you what, if I need someone to steal fruit, I’ll give her a call.’

Yusuf reaches under the bar and picks up a glass from a shelf I can’t see, stares at some imaginary dirt at the bottom, shakes his head slowly from side to side. This whole Mr Reasonable schtick is bullshit. He only says these things to get a rise out of me. Other people don’t see that.

‘Excuse me for trying to help.’ The snake muscles of his forearm flex as he twists the pint jar around a towel.

‘Don’t be like that …’ If it was actually possible to hurt Yusuf’s feelings, I might put more effort into making nice. Or I might not; it’s kind of hard to imagine how things could be different from how they are. Maybe it is a little messed up.

The sound of leathery laughter from somewhere near the door jerks me around. It’s just the old guys at the shisha pipe laughing at something dumb. Sometimes I still make the mistake of trying to listen to their conversations. I swear they do not speak in actual words; every now and then you might get a sentence, but it is never, ever funny.

The door curtain rattles behind me. Outside, shopkeepers disappear like cockroaches in the fading afternoon light that creeps through the gaps between rooftops. Everything closes for ‘quiet time’ in the Old City. The only people still looking for business at this time are the tech cult preachers offering to solve all your problems by putting a computer in your head. A pair of them stand behind a stall like they’re going to be there all night. Somebody told me they don’t sleep after they get the procedure done, but I’ve watched them: they do shifts; they just all have the same haircut and the same smile, like they’re in on a secret.

In three hours every door and every shutter on this street will be wide open again, covered with racks of carpets and leather stuff and birds in cages – all shit that nobody on the planet actually needs. Like there’s some unwritten law of the souk that says no one’s allowed just to sell you a loaf of bread. I still have to go to the Mahane Yehuda for real food, which always carries a risk of running into family. Right now it’s the wrong time for shopping, but the kind of work I have to do is easier with empty streets. I need to see bad people, and they get busy later.

Leo’s restaurant is in the Armenian Quarter. Depending on who you ask, we’ve got anywhere from three to five quarters – that’s just Jerusalem arithmetic. Any other year I’d detour to avoid the crowds around Temple Mount, but the tourist flow dried up as soon as the insurrection in Europe started again. The one thing you can never avoid is the Haredim doing their business at the Wailing Wall, crying about a building that got knocked down two thousand years ago, and was probably somewhere else. If you think about it, it’s impressive how they keep up the motivation.

It takes fifteen minutes to walk to Ararat Street. You know someone’s going to be watching you from the minute you cross the invisible boundary that runs down the middle of the Cardo archways, so there’s no point trying to be sneaky. When I get there, Leo’s standing outside his joint, smoking a Russian import cigarillo. The old guy clocks me as soon as I turn the corner. Still sharp.

‘Shalom! Well, if it isn’t the Old City’s very own yid prodigy! I’m sorry, kid, I’m all good for plastic replicas of the Dome of the Rock. What can I say? Tourist business isn’t what it used to be. It’s this damn war.’

A couple of years ago I would have laughed at the shitty joke and taken the hit, backed out of the big boys’ game. I can’t afford that now; opportunities to earn real money are too thin on the ground. ‘I need to talk business with Shant.’

The old man’s smile vanishes. ‘What kind of business do you need to talk about with Shant, kid?’

‘With the greatest respect, the answer to that question is Shant’s kind of business, Leo.’

Leo gives me that old gangster stare. He’s not playing. He can still bury me if he thinks I’m jerking his chain. ‘OK, kid, I know you. Shant can listen to what you have to say, but you better not be wasting his time. He’s my nephew. I look after him. I hold you responsible for anything that comes out of this. You get me?’

‘I get you, Leo.’

‘Give me a minute. I think he’s doing his yogilates.’

‘I’m sorry, what?’

‘Yogilates. It’s a mix of … Doesn’t matter. Sit tight. I’ll get him.’

Everything is shiny in Leo’s bar: no cracks in the red leather seats of the booths at the back. It’s obvious these guys don’t need tourists to make money. Shant makes me wait, but I stay casual even though I can feel my ass sweating. This is already wrong. I can’t run a job unless I’m the boss, and he’s letting me know I’m not the boss.

‘Hey.’ The voice is high-pitched. It comes from a pair of spectacles peering over the back of the seats three booths away. The face behind them is a boy, kind of. It’s one of those staring-down-the-barrel-of-puberty faces that’s still making up its mind.

‘Hey.’

The face comes up. It looks at me like I’m a cat that wandered in off the street, not sure whether he’s supposed to pet me or kick me out. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m, uh … waiting for someone.’

‘Oh, you’re here to see my dad.’ Suddenly he sounds bored.

I look again at the eyes. There’s a bony hardness around them that could be Shant. The rest must be his mother. ‘You’re Shant’s son?’

‘Mmm …’

‘Learning the old man’s business, eh?’

‘Yeah.’ The word comes out as a sigh. His head turns so the cheek rests on the top of the booth, like he’s going to sleep. He’s had this conversation before, and he doesn’t want to be here. I don’t blame him. If he was my kid, I for sure would keep him the hell away from all this shit.

‘You should count yourself lucky, kid. You know what my father did?’ The face rises from the seat back, curious. ‘He ran a furniture showroom on the Rehov Hanevi’im.’

‘That doesn’t sound so bad.’

‘Really? What do you think I did all day? Nothing, that’s what. School holidays killed me. To this day, I still get antsy if I smell wood polish.’

‘That does sound boring. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to learn sitting around here. All I see is people come in, start talking, and my dad gets angry.’ His eyes dart around the room; then he leans forward. ‘Some of the kids at school say he hurts people.’

Shit. You can tell by the look on his face: he knows – not the ugly detail, but he can feel what’s not right. Kids are smart like that. I mean, my dad was a fucker, but the worst he ever did was leave a few bruises on us, and Mom if she got loud. He never buried anyone in an underpass. What can I say? He’s looking at me, waiting for an answer, a guy who just walked in off the street, like somehow my opinion matters.

‘Those kids don’t know what they’re talking about. Would I be here if your dad was gonna hurt me?’

‘I guess not.’ He looks happier, but not much. I guess he probably wanted me to tell him his dad was really the greatest guy on the planet, but he’d know I was lying. Sometimes the truth sucks, but it’s what you’ve got. ‘You know, the other guys who come around here don’t say more than two words to me.’

‘Well, they’re idiots. Maybe that’s why your dad has to shout at them.’ The sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs drags me back to reality. ‘Don’t worry about learning the business. All that “follow in your father’s footsteps” stuff is for schmucks with no imagination. You do you, kid.’

He gives me a grin that looks nothing like his father.