He arrived home at eight o’clock, retrieved from the rear seat the crushed morning paper, which was still warm from female flesh, and dashed through the rain to his house. As soon as he entered he noticed that the living room door was closed. His youngest son came accusingly out of his room. “Someone’s here to buy medicine,” he said. “He’s been waiting for an hour and wouldn’t go away. He even threw up in the bathroom.” Molkho opened the door to the living room. The man was still in his wet coat, a tall, thin fellow who jumped to his feet as if seeing a ghost. The symptoms of his condition were obvious: the puffy face, the unnatural redness, the thin, limp hair like the bristles of an old brush, the eyes bulging with the effort of his struggle. Why, it’s like a family reunion, thought Molkho, who hadn’t realized until now how he had missed all these things. But the man was impatient, self-involved in his illness; sent by the old doctor, he wanted to pay for the medicine and go, so that Molkho quickly took the boxes from their shelf, showed him they hadn’t been opened, and told him the price. “Exactly half what they cost in the drugstore,” he said, removing his coat while describing the rain to the visitor, who, however, had not the slightest interest in either the weather or Molkho’s adventures. I wonder what’s been carved out of him beneath that coat and what’s rotted away by itself, wondered Molkho, smelling vomit as he approached him, trying to befriend him a bit, to tell him about the Talwin. But the stranger did not need to have the drug explained, for he had been taking it for years, and hurriedly counting the boxes, he did a mental sum and wrote out a check. And still Molkho clung to him. The man, something told him, was at the climax of his drama. Did he have a wife? Children? Yet already he was on his way, the blue-and-white boxes stuffed into the pockets of his coat. “It’s raining out,” Molkho warned, making one last effort to detain him. “Don’t you have an umbrella?” But he was already gone.
In the bathroom Molkho thought he could still smell the man’s puke. He took a look at the day’s mail and, feeling suddenly fatigued, lay down in bed, where he could not find a comfortable position. All at once he felt sorry he had sold the medicine. He had parted with it too cheaply; he should have asked for more. And besides, he was used to seeing the colored boxes before going to sleep; he should at least have left himself one. He glanced at the check to see who had written it, but it was the old-fashioned kind, without a name at the top, and he couldn’t make out the signature. Getting up, he poured himself a nip of brandy and then, though he was exhausted, paced restlessly around the house, feeling the four girl soldiers’ sleep instead, which had rubbed off slimily on him. He had a moment of panic and even after dozing off kept waking up again, as in the days when his wife was ill. It was after midnight when he suddenly felt the presence of a stranger in the house. It was a woman. A light was on, and in it he saw a girl soldier stepping out of the kitchen—but it was only his daughter, whose officers’ course had just ended. He called her name. She looked just like her mother. He held her hand.
26
AND THEN THE INVITATION CAME. The legal adviser was tired of waiting. There had indeed been prior indications, but he had read them wrong, had not been at all sure she had anything to do with them or with the sudden flurry of activity in the office that seemed meant to wake him from his trance. Suddenly he had been bombarded with documents and memos about the state comptroller’s report on the finances of townships in the north and his department head’s insistence that these be more closely audited, several cases of corruption having already been uncovered. Long meetings were held, and of all times, on Fridays, when all he could think of was planning a nice Sabbath meal. During one such conference a note was slipped into his hand. “I’m having a few people over tonight,” it said. “If you feel up to it, you’re invited. It’s not RSVP.” Underneath was written her address. Turning around, he spied her behind him, studying him quietly with her oriental eyes. Blushing, he nodded his agreement, pleased to feel everyone looking at him understandingly.
After lunch that day he tried to nap, but within ten minutes he awoke and took a bath. Then he called his mother-in-law to arrange to pick her up for dinner, noticing a hesitancy in her voice. “No,” he replied when she inquired if he had a cold. “What makes you think I do?” “You just sound like it,” she said. “Well, I don’t,” he repeated, asking, “Why not?” when she wondered aloud whether he should come for her on such a rainy night. In the end, she broke down and confessed that she had forgotten to bake her strudel. “Don’t even think of it,” said Molkho, insisting that she come, especially since his daughter would be there too. He set a time and arrived early as usual to watch the Arab help arrange the chapel, read the menu in the dimly lit dining room, and look at the old folks, scrubbed clean for the Sabbath and glad it was storming outside, lounging with their German magazines. Once again he thought of ways to visit the fifth floor, where the terminal cases lay dying.
The down elevator arrived, and his mother-in-law stepped out of it, bundled up in a large, old fur coat. “You really didn’t have to come for me on a night like this,” she said, which made him answer in protest, “but when would we see you if I didn’t?” She smiled at him. The secrets they had shared during the illness belonged to them both, and they were aware of an unspoken bond between them, although sometimes he still had to dispel her suspicion that he was only being nice for his wife’s sake. The old people in the lobby rose to greet her, saying something in German (perhaps to dissuade her from venturing out into the rain), but his umbrella was already open and his arm was gripping hers. “Why don’t I carry your cane for you,” he suggested. “There’s no need to,” she replied—and there wasn’t, because it remained hooked on her arm while he led her between puddles to the car. “How was the concert?” she asked as they drove off. “Wonderful,” he said, feeling a hot flush. “Haydn’s Creation was magnificent, and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons was perfect too.” “Who went with you,” she asked, “the boy?” “No,” he answered, “no one.” The old folks who told on him, so it seemed, had mistaken the young man sitting next to him for his son. “Won’t you go to any concerts at all this season?” he asked. “Most likely not,” she replied.
For dinner, he served a new dish he had made from a package of frozen food, couscous with vegetables and gravy, which seemed a great success until he noticed that no one wanted a second portion. His mother-in-law asked him for the recipe, listening to his explanation with a rather pitying look and chiding his daughter for not helping him. As soon as the television news was over, she rose to go. “Stay a while,” said Molkho. “I’m going out soon, and I’ll drop you on my way. I was invited by the legal adviser at the office,” he went on, curious to test her reaction, which turned out to be one of perfect calm. “She’s a widow,” he added, letting her see that he was keeping nothing back, but she simply sat unperturbedly down again. For the second time that evening he shaved and changed clothes, taking his time because he did not wish to be early. In the car his mother-in-law gently pointed out that he had some soap behind his ear, and he wiped it away. The rain had stopped, and he let her off in front of the home without waiting to see if her little friend was there to bow to her.
It was already late. He drove to the West Carmel, losing his way but finally finding the house. As he climbed the poorly lit stairs he felt a pressure on his bladder and realized he had neglected to relieve himself. For a moment he considered using the backyard, but afraid he might be mistaken from a window for a pervert, he quickly dismissed the idea. Outside the slightly peeling door of the legal adviser’s apartment, he paused in a vain attempt to hear voices, and then rang the bell, whose sound was followed by a laugh and a woman’s quick footsteps. Her hair looked more rumpled than it did at work and her heels were not as high; indeed, he thought, there was something childlike about the way she stood in the doorway, staring at him with her crinkly, oriental eyes as if trying to make out who he was. Behind her, at the end of a hallway, was a living room clouded by cigarette smoke in which stood several men. Two
women, he saw when he entered it, were there too; yet it was the men, of whom there were five, whose warm camaraderie set the tone. In one corner of the smallish room, which was furnished in a modem, minimalist style, a fireplace burned with an exquisitely pure orange flame.
His hostess introduced him to her guests, all but one of whom were members of her family: her father, a straight-backed, sturdy-looking man; her younger brother, whose small, narrow eyes were like hers; the two brothers of her late husband; and an elderly lawyer from abroad whose relation to the others was unclear. They were all friendly, cultured Haifaites of Central European origin, balding and a bit on the thin side, lawyers and travel agents—in short, people whom Molkho’s own wife might have dismissed as superficial and beneath her. Though at first it made him nervous to be so unexpectedly put to the test of the family’s approval, they did their best to set him at ease, and the legal adviser, far from clinging to him, soon left him to his own devices. With perfect naturalness she led him to a seat by the fireplace beside the two women, who professed surprise that he had come coatless in such cold weather, and brought him a whiskey and a tray of hors d’oeuvres, from which he chose some vividly candied fruit peels.
The conversation rambled intimately. Though he had prepared a few subjects to talk about, especially several of a legal nature, he saw at once that he needn’t make the effort, for everyone appeared harmoniously acquainted and he, it seemed, was passed back and forth among them in a discreet and unaffected fashion. Afraid of being suspected of some organic problem if he went to the toilet too soon, he sat with his legs together to ease the pressure on his bladder while one by one the men came up to him, introducing themselves once again and steering the talk to safe topics that all could agree on without seeming overly bland. One of the brother-in-laws’ wives, who had met Mrs. Molkho in a teachers’ course, spoke about her warmly and sincerely, moving him with her appreciation of the devotion he had shown in nursing his wife at home while comparing it with other cases, in Haifa and elsewhere, some of which he knew about too. Then one of the brother-in-laws mentioned seeing Molkho at the last concert and asked him what he thought of it. The man himself, so it seemed, was highly critical of the performance, especially of the soloists, who, he claimed, were often flat and left out whole bars of the score. Molkho was shocked; he had no idea that whole bars could be skipped in a concert—and in such a well-known work! Who would have thought that there was fraud even here, he reflected resentfully. Meanwhile, the conversation was getting heated. The names of orchestras, conductors, choirs, soloists, were bandied about, one after another, making him realize with amazement how highly musical and well traveled the legal adviser’s family was. They spoke of hotels and restaurants all over Europe, but especially of operas and concerts; it seemed that there wasn’t an opera house they hadn’t been in, even behind the Iron Curtain. And, to his surprise, they apparently considered him their equal, because they spared him none of the details and fell respectfully quiet when, after listening attentively, he expressed an opinion of his own. Until twenty years ago, he confessed, he had never been abroad at all. “I’m a fifth-generation Sephardi in this country,” he told them, “and Europe is another world to us.” The five generations impressed them. “In that case,” joked someone to the laughter of them all, “your family has served its time here and is free to live where it wants!” The legal adviser, Molkho noticed, let her family do the talking while she served the food and drinks, after which she sank down on an embroidered leather hassock, where she sat like a well-trained dog. And yet whatever she said met with general approval, so that Molkho, struck by her keen intelligence, wondered again what she saw in him. Was it simply his good looks, his curly hair and fair eyes, or perhaps, too, his being a concertgoer whom her family could talk music with? Already nettled by her outranking him, he felt a pang of envy when, half just to him and half to them all, she mentioned being sent next month to a legal conference in Germany. No one, he asserted aggrievedly, had ever sent him abroad at the taxpayers’ expense! “Nor us, and it’s her third such trip too. How she gets them to foot the bill is beyond us,” chimed in everyone fondly. When, they asked Molkho, had he last been in Germany himself? “Never,” he answered, although his wife was born in Berlin and spent her childhood there. She and her mother had managed to leave just in time, after her father, a pediatrician, had taken his own life, and she had refused on principle to go back. He and she had been in Europe several times, especially in Paris, where she had a favorite cousin, but never in Germany.
Suddenly—it was no doubt the fault of the cup of tea he’d just drunk—the pressure on his bladder grew worse, yet he still did not wish to be the first to use the bathroom. There was a momentary silence in the room, though by no means a disapproving one. They could understand his late wife’s feelings; they themselves, however, looked at it differently, and in any case, he was now free to travel there himself. It was well worth it if he loved music. Paris was Paris, of course, but for music there was no place like Germany. And there were special opera flights now too, with the price of the tickets included in the airfare; in fact, it was the rage all over Europe, where opera was back in fashion. “You say there are flights like that all over Europe?” Molkho asked. “Of course.” “From Paris too?” From Paris too—but why did he ask? Because, he told them, suddenly inspired, he had been thinking of going there next month. “When next month?” asked the legal adviser’s family with great interest. He wasn’t sure yet, he said. Perhaps he would wait a little longer, because Europe in the winter rather scared him. But why should it scare him? they asked. It was at its best then! Who was his travel agent? He mentioned an agency that, of course, they all knew of, adding with a knowing smile, because he expected them to pooh-pooh it, “I hope you don’t think too poorly of it.” They smiled back sympathetically. “It’s not fair to ask us,” they said, “because we can’t be objective.” “But I’d like to know anyway,” he persisted. “Well,” they smiled, “it’s not such a bad agency; it’s just a very simple one, a bit unsophisticated. A man like you, of your age, deserves something more cosmopolitan.” Of course, he thought, listening good-naturedly, they were out for his business; they were simply waiting for a hint—but he was not about to drop one. From across the room the legal adviser flashed him a smile. “You have a nice place here,” he said appreciatively, rising from his chair with an air of freedom, because he had to go to the bathroom at once. Yet attracted to the fireplace, he approached it instead and exclaimed, “What a lovely fire. And it draws so well—there’s no smell of smoke at all!” The guests exchanged embarrassed glances while the legal adviser explained that the fire wasn’t real but electric. “Electric?” he marveled, grinning foolishly at his ignorance. “It certainly had me fooled!” Red-faced, he asked her in a whisper for the toilet. She rose from her hassock to show him, and he slipped away at once, cursing himself for not having gone at home.
Molkho shut the bathroom door behind him, quietly slid home the bolt, and inspected the little room, which, compared to the rest of the house, had a rather neglected look, a strict and nonaesthetic functionality: the paint was peeling above the toilet and in a web in one corner hung a large spider, which he felt he should kill. His own bathroom, which boasted a shelf with some books, an illustrated calendar received each year from the bank, and a large poster of three monkeys wearing clothing, was much livelier. Sighing with relief, he carefully aimed a silent jet of urine at the side of the toilet bowl and waited for the last concluding dribble while straining to hear the voices in the living room. Yet when he tried flushing as quietly as he could, the water burst from the tank with a roar. Quickly he switched off the light and went to the separate washroom, which was equally Spartan but clean. He soaped his hands thoroughly, musing about Death and whether some part of the legal adviser’s late husband was not still grappling with it on these walls, and then peeked at the medicine cabinet, hoping for some insight into her condition. It was, however, poorly stocked: a few tubes of
makeup, some old aspirins, a box of Band-Aids, the usual antacid preparation, and a paper bag from the drugstore with some little red pills that he could have sworn he had seen before. Slowly he inspected himself—his Levantine curls, his handsome eyes—in the mirror. If he was not just a guest in this house, if he was really an official suitor, he had the right to take his time.
The conversation in the living room was still flowing naturally, no advantage having been taken of his absence to discuss him behind his back. Slowly he walked back up the hallway, peering into a darkened bedroom whose faded wallpaper needed to be changed. Outside the window were the dotted lights of houses and a dark ravine. Did it merge with his own somewhere? A pair of kicked-off pink slippers lay by a bed. There was an awkward lull in the living room: so they were following his progress after all. Yet he did not rejoin them but rather glanced into a lit room to his right in which, on a junior-sized bed, lay a girl of about thirteen who looked like her mother, having the same straight, smooth hair and slanted eyes. She was reading a book, and suddenly, Molkho felt a great pity for her. Why, she’s an orphan too, he told himself, thinking of his own children and stepping with unforeseen boldness into the room. There was a hush behind him in the living room. He introduced himself to the girl—who, her head on a pillow, might have been either sick or just resting—and struck up a friendly conversation, sitting on the edge of her bed and looking around while asking her about herself and the book, reassured at being able to make out through the window the tall building of his mother-in-law’s old-age home on the opposite flank of the mountain. The girl struck him as bright but rather sad, and returning to the living room with his eyes cast somberly down, he felt a new warmth directed toward him and even made out tears in the eyes of her grandfather. Indeed, the whole family spoke of her lovingly, after which he told them a bit about his own children. And so the evening passed pleasantly until it was time to go home and he left in the company of a brother-in-law and his wife. Still chatting, the two walked him to his car, surprised all over again that he wasn’t wearing a coat. “It must be my Asiatic blood,” he said, watching them in the mirror as they turned around and walked back to the legal adviser’s apartment, no doubt to take part in the postmortem.
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