The Question Dodger

“I’ve made you an appointment at the job centre,” my mother says. “If you don’t want to go back to school, you’ll have to find work.” I get up and sigh. My blood runs cold at the word job centre. Frozen horror palaces staffed by men in saggy suits behind brown desks.

“Peel the potatoes first. You’re good at that.”
I stand in the kitchen, unable to move. My plans for the future are even vaguer than the answers I give when my parents bring the subject up. I usually conjure some random course of study out of thin air, the kind that someone with a vivid imagination might eventually distils into an actual profession.
“If you want to go to art school, you’ll need to register first.”

I’d rather stay in my vacuum, undisturbed and unrescued. Not so long ago, after I’d driven two youth welfare officers to the edge of despair, my mother arranged for me to have a talk with the local minister. His wife answered the door. She was unexpectedly attractive. She led me to his study, where the minister sat with hands folded in pious repose, his eyes on his wife’s backside as she bent forward to set down the tea tray and the tin of plain biscuits.”

To break the ice, we started by discussing death. Then he told me about an Israeli kibbutz where minors could go to work, it would really suit me, he said, all those young people around.
“The Six-Day War is over,” he added reassuringly. “And since you’re sixteen, you’d live with a family.”

I said I’d think about it. It sounded like freedom, but the family part didn’t appeal to me at all, and neither did the so-called work. The whole thing was far too cheerful and straightforward. I pictured myself toiling in dusty fields to the sound of communal singing. I felt sorry for him, because he was kind. At least he took me seriously in this godforsaken hole. I hadn’t known ministers were allowed to have attractive wives.

I stare out of the kitchen window at our lilac tree in full bloom. Same as every year, I spot the miserable wretch next door pottering around his garden, ready to saw off the overhanging branches.

“Haven’t you peeled those potatoes yet?” my mother asks.