They got out on a top floor and walked down a long hallway, at the end of which Molkho’s counselor knocked rhythmically on a door, opening it himself when there was no answer. The apartment was dark and warm, the only light coming from a crescent moon, which shone unhindered through a window. Apparently as surprised by this state of affairs as Molkho, Uri dropped his hat on the living room table and hurried to a back room, through the doorway of which Molkho made out the lower half of a woman’s body covered by a thin blanket. Still adjusting his eyes to the darkness, he heard a whisper, no doubt a plea to get up, followed by a soft, sleepy murmur, and reminded of the times he had fought to arouse his deathward-slumbering wife, he felt a dreamy rush of desire. He shut his eyes to hear better, taking a small, weary step in their direction; but at once he caught himself and stood looking around the room, from the shadows of which now emerged some straw chairs with embroidered pillows and several hangings on the walls. On the large table were a folded tablecloth, a set of tall pewter candlesticks, a bottle of wine, an open book, and an ivory comb, each object an erotic gleam in the darkness, as though destined, like herself, for his possession.
A light was switched on in the bedroom, casting new shadows on the walls, and there was a brief laugh; then, shutting the door behind him, Molkho’s counselor returned to the living room, beaming brightly, if still a bit uncomfortably. Quickly he turned on a light there too, which fell on some more furniture stacked in a little hallway, and cleared an armchair of some books. “Sit down,” he urged Molkho. “Ya’ara went to sleep early because she decided we weren’t coming. It’s all my fault for being late. Please sit down.” He moved some books from a second chair too, hurrying to make order, but Molkho remained awkwardly standing, trying to stay calm while gazing out the window at the lights dotting the hillside across from him. You’d think this were my idea! he thought indignantly, hearing the sound of running water and of something that sounded like the beating of wings. You’d think I were some salesman who had come knocking on their door! Just then, though, the bedroom door opened and Ya’ara stepped out. Tense with expectation, he cast a soft, weary glance at her, his heart missing a beat, only to realize at once that he had confused her with someone else or, rather, combined in his memory two different people who now immediately split up again. Of course, he thought astonishedly, that’s who she was! Why, I really was in love with her; I may even have written her that love letter, he told himself, feeling a pang at the sight of the gray, though still lavish, hair gathered at the nape of her neck in an old-fashioned braid.
She was tall and long-legged, though her body, while still lissome, bulged slightly at the belly beneath a terry-cloth robe, as if all her failed pregnancies were gathered there in the form of a question mark. He shook her hand and glanced at her makeupless face, which, whether from sleep or excitement, was flushed like his own. Her skin was dry but smooth, except for the crow’s-feet by her small, pearly eyes, their strange, greenish beige color highlighted by her gray hair. “Why, you haven’t changed one bit,” she said in a husky drawl. “I’d have recognized you anywhere, I swear!” “I haven’t?” he asked self-consciously, feeling almost slighted. “But how can that be?” It was as if they wanted to keep him a boy forever, to deny that he had grown up. “Ya’ara has a wonderful memory for faces,” explained her husband, pulling up a chair for her as if she, too, were a guest. Slowly she sank into it, while Molkho sat down with an understanding nod, his covertly male glance running quickly down to her bare, snow-white feet, their small, perfect toenails as clear as if made of cut glass. He caught his breath, overwhelmed by the heat and her presence, which seemed to promise untold pleasures that he was not at all sure he could cope with. In any case, he promised himself, I’ll go to bed with her at least once.
Her husband stood beside her, affably listening to him explain his mistake. “To tell you the truth, it just now dawned on me that I was under a wrong impression. You see, I partly confused you with someone else from our class,” he stammered, mentioning a name that neither of them knew. “I pictured you differently, but it’s all come back to me now.” He made his confession gladly, though feeling parched and fatigued, and she flashed him a crimson smile, reaching into the pocket of her robe for a crumpled yellow pack, from which she blindly took a cigarette, stuck it in her mouth, lit it with a lighter in her hand, and inhaled deeply, only then remembering to offer the pack to Molkho. On it was a picture of some gaunt black horsemen who seemed to have ridden out of the pages of history. “And we really did share a desk for several months!” he added excitedly.
His counselor offered to make him some coffee to perk him up for the drive back to Haifa. “Are you sure you won’t sleep over?” he asked. “Yes,” replied Molkho, “I have to be at the office at eight.” While Uri went to the kitchen, Ya’ara asked Molkho about his work. He did his best to explain it, trying to be precise without too much dull detail, though mentioning by way of illustration his recent trips to the Galilee. “Do you travel a lot?” she asked, sucking greedily on her cigarette. “No,” he replied, feeling her bright sympathy. “During my wife’s illness I hardly went anywhere.” Through the walls of the apartment came various noises mingled with the voices of children, wide awake despite the late hour. Evidently Saturday nights were a time when the building came alive.
“We heard you had a hard year,” said his counselor’s wife huskily, her small eyes taking his measure. “Just one?” he scoffed, feeling the right to sound resentful, his own eyes resting briefly on her bulging belly before returning to her feet. “There were seven of them, all awful! It wasn’t so much the physical part; that was never the worst of it. It was the constant fear, starting with the first operation. It never left us for a moment.”
He glanced out the open window, seeking to catch a whiff of the Jerusalem air of his childhood, conscious of having betrayed his dead wife with this woman he hardly knew. Her husband brought Turkish coffee and a plate of cookies on a tray, and she rose to bring Molkho a little table to put it on. “No cookies for me, thank you,” he said, “I happen to be on a diet.” “You, on a diet! What ever for?” she asked with a laugh. “But just look at me!” he exclaimed, gladdened by this sign of her approval, though with such vehemence that his counselor, seated in a rocking chair, changed the subject to the guest’s children, especially his younger son, who appeared to be something of a problem, because the boy was doing so badly in school that there was again talk of leaving him back. “Did you ever think of sending him to a boarding school,” inquired Uri, “or aren’t there any good ones in your area? Say what you will about the Orthodox, their boarding schools are first-rate.”
The conversation now shifted to Orthodox Jews, whom Molkho was careful not to criticize, unlike his wife, who grew apoplectic at the mere mention of them. But his caution, he soon saw, was unnecessary, for Uri, rocking wildly, gave vent to such violently anti-Orthodox opinions himself that for a moment his long beard seemed no more than the badge of a bohemian kibbutznik. Ya’ara sat puffing attentively on her cigarette, the smoke swirling in little clouds out the window and into the vast night; she had, Molkho noticed sadly, several varicose veins in her legs. They must be real night owls, he thought, for they did not seem to be tired at all, and remembering the long drive ahead of him, he took advantage of the first lull to rise from his seat. “Do you ever get to Haifa?” he asked offhandedly, as if hardly expecting to see them again. “Rarely,” said his counselor, rising too, “but now we will. Perhaps Ya’ara will come visit you,” he added, putting an arm around his wife. She rose lazily from her chair, causing Molkho a moment’s worry that she might be too tall for him; but the firmness of her handshake banished all his fears, for they had already, so it seemed, decided in his favor and nothing he could say or do could make them change their minds. They were strong, self-willed people, joined by the powerful bond that only childless couples have, world travelers for whom all things were possible. Now, at this midnight hour, he felt glad to be in their hands
.
“Do you own this apartment or lease it?” he asked on his way to the front door, looking with interest at the walls. The question surprised them. Neither, they replied; they simply paid a monthly rental, which was not very high. “And you don’t own a home anywhere?” Molkho asked. No, they said; they had never saved the money to buy one. He took her hand again, feeling it soft and smooth in his palm. “Well, then, I hope we’ll meet again,” he declared, tensing at the sight of her dead gray hair. “Perhaps on my next visit to Jerusalem.”
Her husband walked him to the elevator, in which children were still riding up and down, no doubt to make up for the forced inactivity of the long summer Sabbath. “You live in a busy building,” Molkho said, trying to pat the head of a little boy, who jumped back so fearfully that his companions burst out laughing.
Despite the late hour, the street was full of cars and pedestrians. “The passersby regarded him curiously, but his counselor merely nodded to them without offering to introduce him, so that Molkho thought, I suppose I’ve disappointed him after all. Yet when he unlocked the car door, something kept him rooted to the spot. “It’s damn queer, what you’re doing,” he said, swallowing hard. “My wife has been dead for ten months, and I still can’t get over it, can’t connect with anyone. It’s like having a phantom limb. For years I suffered in silence, and now I have to be careful. Why, two months ago I fell in love with a little girl in some village in the Galilee, just a black little Indian! It was the strangest thing.”
His counselor listened with bowed head. “Let her think about it,” Molkho added blackly. “You do that too, and then we might give it a try, only slowly. Don’t be so sure that I’m the right man for you. After all, what would you have done if my wife were still alive?” His counselor didn’t answer. Eyes shut and only half-listening, he seemed loath to talk, perhaps because three black-hatted youths were eavesdropping from their perch on a nearby fence. “Drive carefully,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.” Slowly Molkho backed out of the parking lot, the lights of the project in his rearview mirror like hundreds of questioning eyes.
6
FEELING HIS TIREDNESS lurking inside him he drove slowly, heading north along the coast, happy to see from the cars on the road and the campfires on the beach that he was not alone in the night. On the outskirts of Haifa he decided to park and walk by the sea for a breath of the humid night air. He wanted to cry, to conjure up his old high school love and relive it. Even if I never marry her, he thought. Even if she’s mine just long enough to start the sap running again.
It was after one when he came home. To his surprise, he found the living room light on. No doubt the high school boy, who was sleeping at a friend’s house, had returned for something and forgotten to turn it off. Drawers were open too, the television had been moved, and a strap was torn on one of the blinds. What on earth had gotten into the boy? Perhaps boarding school was not such a bad idea. But Molkho was too tired to pursue the thought and went to bed without showering, crawling naked between the sheets as though loath to wash off Ya’ara’s touch. Not until he was already lying in the dark did he notice the ugly white patch on the wall where a picture had been. Suddenly realizing that he had been burgled, he jumped out of bed and ran turning on the lights from room to room. The expensive tape recorder with the stereo earphones was gone. As was the electric kettle. And the alarm clock. All the closets and cabinets had been rifled too, though it was hard to tell what had been taken. Apparently the thief had started to make off with the television also, changing his mind at the last moment. Stunned, Molkho slipped on his pants and went to call the police, noticing on his way that other paintings were missing from the walls. “Call back in the morning,” the desk sergeant told him, “and meanwhile, don’t touch a thing.” “But I’ve already touched everything,” he groaned in despair. He went out to the terrace and stared down into the ravine, where a campfire was glowing. Was the burglar still down there in the bushes? Was he looking back up at him right now? Turning out the lights, he stood there for a long while in the darkness.
Early in the morning a neighbor rang the doorbell. Draped over his arm was Molkho’s wife’s big fur coat, slightly torn and wet with dew; he had found it hanging on the fence and was sure it must have fallen by mistake. Molkho was thunderstruck. “What, they even took this old coat?” he asked aggrievedly, handling it with care, he explained, so as not to leave false fingerprints for the police, who were due to arrive any minute. “Fingerprints?” snorted the neighbor. “Before you know it, they’ll be accusing me!” Molkho, however, did not hear him, for he was already hurrying into the ravine, vainly searching for additional belongings.
The burglary was so on his mind all day long that he forgot about his visit to Jerusalem. The police did not show up until the afternoon, when they lackadaisically wrote everything down. “Do you think it was just a chance hit or an inside job by someone after your paintings?” they asked, pointing out to Molkho the bedroom window through which the thief had entered and proceeding to lose all interest in the case as soon as they were told that the paintings’ value was purely sentimental. Then he waited for the insurance agent, who came that evening, examined the apartment at length, haggled over the worth of each stolen item, and insisted that bars be put on the guilty window.
No less worried than the agent, the neighbors suggested that he install an alarm. The next morning, he went downtown to look for one, but he soon gave up the idea, for the thought of having to tiptoe to the bathroom at night for fear of setting it off seemed thoroughly absurd. Bars were the best solution—though by no means a simple one, he realized, discovering the great price differences among them. Nor was there anyone to consult, since his sons made light of the whole business and he did not wish to worry his mother-in-law. His wife had always made such decisions herself, and this was the first one left up to him. Yet, while he was tempted to put it off until his daughter’s return from abroad, he was fearful of another burglary.
7
IT STAYED HOT, and Molkho waited to hear from Jerusalem, jumping up whenever the telephone rang, though relieved each time it proved to be someone else. On Tuesday night, however, Uri called at last, sounding muffled over the wires, which crackled with other voices. “I’ve been burgled,” Molkho informed him at once. “It happened the same night I saw you.” His counselor was unimpressed. When did Molkho plan to be in Jerusalem again? he asked. “I don’t know,” Molkho answered. “I really haven’t made any plans. I thought you might want to come to Haifa.” “Fine,” replied Uri at once. “When would be the best time for you—morning, afternoon, or evening?” And when Molkho, taken aback, had trouble deciding, he added, “What time do you get home from work? Or do you take a nap then?” “As a matter of fact, I do,” admitted Molkho, straining to hear the voice on the phone, which seemed tired and tentative, “But I don’t mind missing it.” “How about four or five o’clock, then?” asked his counselor. “That’s perfect,” replied Molkho. “I’ll pick you up at the bus station. Just call me before you leave.” But when, his counselor wanted to know, was the last bus back to Jerusalem? “I couldn’t tell you,” Molkho said. “I’ll have to check. I never go to Jerusalem by bus, but I’ll find out.”
There was silence at the other end of the line. Was his counselor offended? “But why not sleep over here?” he offered weakly. “There’s plenty of room.” “No, that isn’t possible,” replied Uri. “Although maybe Ya’ara would like to spend a few days with you by herself.” “That’s an excellent idea,” responded Molkho. “Really, it is!” But his counselor chose to backtrack, asking Molkho whether he couldn’t perhaps come to Jerusalem after all. “Well, I suppose I could,” conceded Molkho. “Maybe this Saturday.” “Saturday?” The voice on the phone sounded more doubtful than ever. “On Saturday someone’s liable to throw a rock at your car; let’s make it Saturday night.” “What, Saturday night again?” objected Molkho. “What’s the point of spending another Saturday night at your place?” Once more there
was silence while the interference on the line grew worse. “You’re right,” admitted his counselor, his voice fading in the distance. “That won’t get us anywhere. You know what? Let me think about it. I’m a bit tired now. I’ll be in touch.”
The torrid weather continued, and Molkho, picturing Ya’ara’s bare feet sticking out of her old housedress and her gray hair done up in its adolescent braid, felt the need to see her again. But his counselor did not call back. By Friday morning he was so impatient that he decided to drive to Jerusalem, and so, phoning his mother-in-law, he canceled her standing invitation to the Friday night meal. “Are you planning to visit your mother again?” she asked. “Yes,” he answered tersely. “Isn’t she feeling well?” asked his mother-in-law. “She’s feeling fine,” he told her, anxious to forestall further questioning—and indeed, there was none. After lunch, he packed a small suitcase and set out. Less than halfway there, however, he stopped the car and turned around. I need more patience, he thought, heading back to Haifa. I’ll just scare them off this way. I’d better give them more time.
Five Seasons Page 24