Second Person Singular by Sayed Kashua

Author:Sayed Kashua
Language: eng, heb
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Published: 2012-02-16T16:00:00+00:00

PART

FOUR

FRIED SAUSAGES

For the first few weeks after quitting the outpatient clinic, I hardly ever got out of bed before noon. After the night shift with Yonatan I’d take the bus to Musrara and get hummus with fava beans at Akramawi’s hole in the wall and then take a share-taxi back to the apartment in Beit Hanina and crawl straight into bed. Majdi and Wassim were already at work so the place was empty and quiet. Sometimes I’d go straight to sleep and sometimes I’d read one of the books I’d borrowed from Yonatan’s library until my eyes closed. I’d wake up at some point, drink some water, go to the bath­room, and then crawl back into bed.

Wassim would come back at three in the afternoon. If he hadn’t eaten anything on the way home, we’d fry up some sausage and eggs or make some tuna and cream cheese and eat together. After that he’d rest for an hour before his evening shift at the hostel. Majdi, I barely saw.

I stopped sleeping during the night shift, remaining awake until Osnat showed up in the morning. Ever since I told her that I had left the social services job and that I didn’t mind if she came in a little late, she started showing up at eight in the morning. She was very happy with the new arrangement, even said that her husband was going to buy me a present because he wasn’t in charge of getting the kids off to school in the morning anymore. “We almost got divorced over it,” she said, laughing.

I spent the sleepless nights listening to music and reading Yonatan’s books. There were 156 books on the shelves and 98 CDs on the racks, 70 in English and 28 in Hebrew. Yonatan had written his name on the inside jacket of his discs, too. He had nice handwriting, very delicate, like a good student or a pretty girl.

On one of the top shelves he had a fine collection of hardcover art books. Most of them were photography-­related. They looked old, filled with black-and-white photos. I looked through the photos occasionally, but mostly I was interested in the Hebrew fiction. I must have averaged a book every three shifts. Some I liked more than others, but I made a point of reading each one all the way through.

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