Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy

then trace, at his leisure, a trajectory of the sun as it came over the green slopes of the mountain, hovered directly overhead, and fell at last into the water, “on time for sunset, every time!” as Uncle Arik liked to say. And, standing on the balcony and leaning slightly out over the railings, Danny could see the streets below, where partisans, rabbis, poets, and assassinated politicians wove between each other: There Hannah Senesh, who parachuted into Yugoslavia and death at the hands of the Nazis; there the Ba‘al Shem Tov, who could perform miracles; there the great Arlozorov Street, named after the man who was shot on the beach back in 1933. Looking left, the golden dome of the Baha’i temple shone in the sun, and there, farther down, was the great sprawling mass of Hadar, with its shawarma stands, its cheap clothing and sunglasses, its second-hand book stores, dingy travel agents and numerous coffee shops—Danny’s favorite place in the whole wide world.

* * *

Many children are given, at one point or another, a set of magic tricks for their birthday. Danny’s conjuring set, having come from Davenports, was better than most (it included a thumb tip and silk handkerchief, a pack of Bicycle cards, a cut-and-restore rope, an egg bag, a Svengali deck, and the inevitable wand), but it was not guaranteed to turn a kid into a magician.

Most children play with the magic kit for the length of time required to learn that coins don’t really disappear (it’s in the other hand!), that everyone knows a card trick or two and would be happy to display it when presented with the slightest opportunity, and that performing magic requires practice. Like playing the clarinet, unless one enjoys the task, one soon abandons it. And it would surprise no one—and Danny’s father least of all—that Danny, too, abandoned the magic kit shortly after receiving it, and after some time of its remaining untouched in his room, it finally made its way into the family boydem, the storage area in the ceiling where all unused but not-unwanted things inevitably end up.

In fact, the magic kit—the “conjuring set,” to use Uncle Arik’s term—bears little relevance to our story but for its consequences.

* * *

At thirteen, a Jewish boy celebrates his bar mitzvah, an occasion of great pleasure for his family and often of acute embarrassment for the boy himself. Danny’s bar mitzvah took place in a rented hall near Crusaders Road, close to the Garden of Statues, and was attended by a great many people, some of whom he knew. Besides the cousins, second cousins, loose cousins (“This is Tali,” Danny’s father said. “Her grandmother was once married to your grandmother’s brother. Works in diamonds.”), uncles, aunts, and other assorted relatives, there were also friends of his father’s (“This is Barashi,” Uncle Arik told Danny in confidence, “friend of your father’s from army training days. Good man. Lives in Jerusalem. Buys and sells.” Danny said, “Buys and sells what?” and Uncle Arik smiled and tapped his nose conspiratorially), acquaintances, and school friends of Danny’s with an entourage of parents of their own. He was given presents: Barashi gave him a black plastic combination flashlight-scissors- measuring-tape device and tousled his hair; Aunt Miri gave him hand-knitted socks and a wet kiss on the cheek; Cousin Uri from the kibbutz gave him a rubber catapult and said, “I made it myself”—it was confiscated by Danny’s dad as soon as it was given—and there were also envelopes with his name written on each, which were given to his father on Danny’s behalf.

After the party was over they took a cab back to the flat, just Danny, his dad, and his uncle. “Mazal tov,” the taxi driver said.

In the flat, the two adults sat back on the sofa, and Danny sat in the armchair. Sitting together, his dad and Uncle Arik looked remarkably alike: It was in the lines around their eyes, in the way their hairlines receded in an almost identical fashion, but mostly it was in the way they smiled. “Well,” Uncle Arik said, “what are you waiting for? Pass the envelopes.”

“It will all have to go toward paying for the hall,” Danny’s father said. Uncle Arik saw Danny’s reaction and winked at him. “Let’s count the money first.”

They divided the envelopes into three. Danny’s dad and his uncle began to open some. Danny put his on the low round table by the armchair. Too late, he realized the morning’s mail was also on the table and, in trying to extract it from underneath the pile of envelopes, upset the whole thing. Envelopes fluttered to the ground like a flock of seagulls settling down to rest in the harbor. Danny hurriedly bent down to pick them up. Danny’s dad frowned but said nothing. They sorted notes in piles, by denomination. Danny collected strewn paper debris.

When he was finished, and as he sat back down and began sorting through the pile, a small dirty-blue envelope fell down and fluttered into his lap. He picked it up. Unlike the others, it bore no giver’s name. The paper felt brittle. When he took his hand away there was dust on his fingers. He tore it open. There was no money inside.

At first he thought it was empty. Then, when he tipped it, pressing the envelope open as if squeezing a lemon, a small single sheet of paper slid out. He picked it up and looked at it. There was a line of writing in black ink, the letters carefully drawn, as if the writer was not quite comfortable with the Hebrew alphabet. The handwriting seemed feminine. The note said, “Daniel, whatever is happen I love you.” It was signed with a single letter—aleph.

“What’s that,” his father said, briefly looking up from his work, “a check?”

Danny didn’t reply. He looked at the note again, mutely. Aleph could stand for ima—“Mum.” But his mother had died when he was four, of cancer. He had only a vague recollection of her: the smell of cooking stuffed cabbage, and cigarettes, and perfume like at the Mashbir department store on Herzl Street. “Danny? What is it?”

But the language was wrong. And no one ever called him Daniel. He said, “Nothing, Dad,” and put the note back in the envelope. “I’m just going to the bathroom,” he said. He got up and, still holding the envelope, went instead to his room. He looked at the envelope again. As he stared at its back, it seemed to him that he could see some faint etchings in the paper, as if an address had been written there before, and there was also a depression in the top right corner, as if a stamp was once affixed there. It’s just an old letter, he thought; maybe it finally surfaced from wherever it was and got mixed up with the normal mail. He’d read stories where things like this happened. He looked around his bookshelves. On the bottom shelf lay Ze’ev Vilnai’s seven-volume Guide to Eretz Yisrael, and alongside it all seventeen volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. On the shelf above it was a near- complete run of Am Oved’s science fiction paperbacks in the distinct white bindings. Above these, the western, secret agent, mystery, and karate paperbacks that could be found, at ten shekels a pop, in every secondhand store in the city—and on the last shelf, tended carefully like a row of elderly geraniums, the rare books left him by his mother: The Detective Library Series, the worn paperbound books that featured the adventures of the first hebrew detective, David Tidhar, and which were, at thirteen, Danny’s abiding passion.

He looked through them. Revenge of the Maharajah—no. The Blue Crosses, Tales of the Hashish Smugglers—no. But there—Disappearance on Mount Carmel: A Mystery in the Margins of the City? He wanted to look through it, but his father was calling him from the living room. Danny put the letter into the slim volume, where it nestled next to the title page. He felt strange, as if he had momentarily stepped into something beyond the ordinary and for which he had no words. “I’m coming,” he called, and returned the book to the shelf.

His father and uncle were still counting money when he returned, and he joined them, though less enthusiastically now.

At last the task was done. “I’ll get us a drink,” Uncle Arik said. “Ben?”

“Just some water,” Danny’s dad said. Uncle Arik departed to the small kitchen and returned with water for his brother, a coke for Danny, and a whisky with ice for himself. “Le’chaim,” he said, raising his glass. “And mazal tov, Danny.”

* * *

When the events hall and other expenses were all paid for, some money yet remained, and so a decision had to be made: What should Danny spend his money on?

Danny was initially in favor of a computer. Computers were the latest thing. You could buy one to have in your house. You could play games on it—an argument he didn’t quite put forward to his father. They would need to add extra money for the purchase price—quite a lot of extra money, when it came to that—but …

Uncle Arik, in an uncharacteristically somber display, suggested putting the money in a savings account at the bank, to accumulate interest until Danny was twenty-one. Danny was not wholeheartedly supportive of the idea.