Free A Pigeon and a Boy by Meir Shalev Page A

had never done for any other patient.
    “This way, please, Mr. Fried,” he said. “Come in this way.”
    The man and the boy disappeared inside the clinic and I stood watching the girl, who had moved up to the front seat. My astonishment turned to pleasantness, my dread to curiosity But just thenBenjamin and his gang of friends gathered to ogle the car. Benjamin told them, “It came to my house!” as he drew close, encircling the car, examining the dimensions of the round rear lights, the convertible top, the chrome plating that distorted reflections of the children’s faces, the red leather bucket seats.
    “Do you know what kind of car you’re sitting in?” he asked the girl.
    “My father’s car.”
    A small smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. For a brief moment she was beautiful; then just as quickly she went back to being my look-alike.
    “It’s a Ford Thunderbird,” Benjamin said, regaining his composure. “V-8 engine, three hundred horsepower. There’s only one of these in all of Jerusalem, maybe the whole country!” And because the girl was not impressed he added, importantly: “It’s an American car from the United States.”
    The girl waved at me and smiled. I left the window, came down the stairs, and stood next to the car with the others. Her eyes lit up. “Want to sit next to me?”
    I sat in the driver’s seat. Benjamin was quick to announce, “I’m his brother!” and scrambled to climb into the back seat, but the girl said, “I didn’t invite you!” and so, stunned, he stood riveted in his place.
    “I’m Tirzah Fried,” she said to me. I said nothing. I had never before heard a child introduce herself that way “And you are who?” she asked.
    “I’m Yair Mendelsohn,” I answered in a rush. “I’m the doctor’s son.”
    “You don’t look like him,” she said. “You don’t look like that kid, either, who says he’s your brother.”
    Benjamin and his friends sauntered off, and Tirzah added what I already knew myself: “You look like me and Meshulam and my brother Gershon.”
    “Who’s Meshulam?”
    “Meshulam Fried. He’s my father, and Gershon’s.”
    “What’s wrong with your brother?” I asked.
    “He has rheumatism. He swelled up and my parents are afraid something’s going to happen to his heart and he’ll die.”
    “Don’t worry,” I said, full of importance, “my father will save him. He’s a very good doctor.”
    And that is what happened. Tirzah Fried’s brother did not have arthritis but was allergic to penicillin. The doctor who made the diagnosis had ordered more and more penicillin for him, and his conditionhad worsened rapidly Meshulam Fried, who had built a whole wing of the Hadassah Hospital, had decided to turn to Dr. Mendelsohn, the new pediatrician from Tel Aviv
    Dr. Mendelsohn grasped the mistake at once. “If you continue to give him penicillin,” he said, “your son will die.”
    “Thank you very much,” the contractor said. And to his son he whispered, “You say thanks to the doctor, too, Gershon, say thank you that Professor Mendelsohn his very selfness is taking care of you.”
    Gershon said thank you, and in the weeks following the white Thunderbird convertible continued to visit. Sometimes it was to bring Gershon to Dr. Mendelsohn and sometimes it was to bring Yordad to the Fried home. On occasion it was the contractor himself who would chauffeur Yordad, and at other times one of his foremen. And when Yordad said he could forgo the privilege, preferring to come in our own little Ford Anglia “instead of traversing Jerusalem in the car of the president of the United States,” Meshulam said, “It is not to make you feel privileged, Professor Mendelsohn, that Meshulam Fried sends his car. It is to make sure you will come.”
    Meshulam Fried was capacious of hand and heart, amusing, emotional, and eruptive. All those traits were spread before us then in the stunning fan of a peacock’s tail and have remained so to