Nice of you, I said.
People should be nice, Mordecai said.
His radio buzzed. Finally.
They called from the school to ask when the writer will be there, said a hoarse female voice.
We’re already past the checkpoint, Mordecai said. In fifteen minutes, we’re at the gate.
—
I relaxed in my seat. The story about Tiberias and the radio call had done their job. I still didn’t understand why he called himself Mordecai, but I no longer feared for my life, which left room for the stage fright that always attacks me before these sessions but had been pushed aside this time by a much greater fear.
I rummaged around in my bag and took out the list of main points I’d written down. I read them again and again with blind eyes until we stopped in front of the school gate.
When should I expect you? Mordecai asked.
In about an hour and a half, I said. But keep your cell phone on so if it ends before that, I can let you know.
There was a good reason I left myself the option of cutting out early.
A week ago, a security guard had smuggled me out of a high school in Ramla in the middle of the question period. I had begun, as always, by telling them about my childhood, which included moving many times, and said the words that always create a link between me and them—you can really almost hear the click: “Once every year or two, I found myself being the new kid in class.” I explained how my book, which they were studying for their matriculation exams, actually came from a personal place, as personal as possible: the attempt of an adult, soon to be a father, to find out for himself if there is a place in the world he can call home—and I saw their eyes open wide, wondering, “So is it all bullshit, everything our literature teacher told us about your book being a microcosm of Israeli society after the Rabin assassination?”
Then I opened the floor for questions.
The first question was a general one. About the rhymes in the book. A question that’s pleasant to answer.
But the second question was, “Do you like Arabs?”
Just like that, right in your face.
The questioner was a teenager wearing glasses. People wearing glasses always look more vulnerable to me.
Silence in the room.
I told him that I gave a voice to an Arab character in the book because I felt that you can’t write a book that takes place in the Castel and talk about the idea of home without hearing the voice of the people who once called that place, Al-Qastal, their home.
So you like Arabs, he said.
That’s not what I said, I persisted. I said that it was important to me, is important to me, to listen to the story of the Palestinian worker in the book, who had been driven out of his village when he was a child.
They ran away, the teenager with the glasses corrected me. We didn’t drive them away.
That’s debatable, I said. In any case, I felt connected to that story because, as a child, I had to leave quite a few homes I wanted to stay in.
Didn’t I tell you he likes Arabs? the teenager with the glasses asked another teenager sitting at the far end of the room, and explained to me: We had a bet. Now he owes me a combo at the Burger King.
Go fuck yourself, you didn’t prove anything, the other teen said, stood up, and walked over to him. And pushed him.
Fists started flying. At first, it was just the two of them, then their friends joined in. The girls screamed. The teachers tried to separate them, and a security guard put a hand on my shoulder and said, Mr. Writer, I think I should escort you out.
—
This time, in the Jerusalem school, I decided not to get myself in trouble—and pass on the question period. But even so, a hand was raised when I finished telling them about my suitcase-childhood.
A delicate, female hand. Of a girl I would bet sang at school Memorial Day ceremonies.
I said, Yes, you want to ask something?
I wanted to say, she replied, that my favorite parts of your book are the white parts.
The white parts? I turned to look at the book in an effort to understand what she was talking about.
I think it’s really nice, she went on, that in a book that has so many voices, you left room for silence.
Really, I said, as slowly as I could, thinking that maybe stretching out the word would bring me enlightenment.
For homework, she said, our teacher asked us to find an alternative name for the book, so I called it “Five Voices and Silence.” Do you like it?
Very much. Tell me, can I take a peek at your book?
It’s your book! she said, and all the kids in the room laughed.
She handed me the book, which was covered in the plastic book jackets that libraries use. When I opened it, I saw them almost immediately: white spaces. Wherever the voice of the Palestinian worker was heard in the original book, there was white space now. In the beginning, there were only a few white spaces, later on there were many, and toward the end of the book, after the Palestinian goes to jail, there was no longer any need for them.
Since I was looking through the white spaces in the book, I didn’t notice that the literature coordinator had come over to me, and now
