In the café he tried discussing politics, but the subject failed to interest her. Nor, when asked about her husband’s views, did she seem to think it interested him. “What does, then?” inquired Molkho. She looked at him in bewilderment, unused to having to explain the man who was always there by her side to explain himself. “He’s looking for the Meaning,” she murmured, drawing on her cigarette. “For the Purpose of it all. Not just to live with as much pleasure and as little pain as possible.” “What Purpose is that?” inquired Molkho. “But that’s what he’s looking for!” she answered. “Yes, I know,” he said a bit sarcastically. “He told us that in the movement thirty years ago—but what has he found since then?” “It’s not like discovering some Big Idea,” she tried to explain. “It’s something you have to live.” “But isn’t life itself the Purpose?” he asked. “To get through it as best you can before Death comes for you?” “But Death doesn’t mean a thing to him!” she retorted admiringly. “He doesn’t believe in it!” “Oh, he doesn’t!” Molkho grinned at her painfully. “Do you think Death cares whether he believes in it or not?” Frightened by his vehemence, she tried changing the subject. “But I want to know!” he insisted, just getting more worked up. “What does he believe in?” “Don’t ask me, ask him,” she answered softly. “And you? How about you?” he queried. “I’d rather not think about Death,” she said. “I feel more like you do about it. Even when I had all those miscarriages, I never thought of them as deaths, just as failures, because how can you die if you haven’t been born?”
Once again he was reminded of her old directness, of the naive honesty she had answered all their teachers with. So it wasn’t just her looks that made me love her, he mused, trying to remember more. Left back a grade, she had sat there not caring about her studies, wanting only to get through the year. She hadn’t even pretended to care. And though all her friends were seniors, she made a strong impression on the junior class she was banished to. “Sitting here with you,” Molkho told her, “I feel that I’m back in high school again, only this time without homework or exams and with spending money in my pocket.” She flashed him an intimate smile. How can we keep the feeling of closeness? he wondered just as he spotted the two little Russians, mother and daughter, heading for the exit of the café, followed by an old woman with a cane who stopped to pay the cashier. For a moment, sure he had been noticed, he caught his breath; then, turning to Ya’ara, he whispered, “Look over there, that woman in the white peasant blouse—she’s my mother-in-law. Just wait until you get to know her. She’s eighty-two and clear as a bell. Would you believe how she looks? And she does everything! She doesn’t even need that cane; it’s just something she carries around with her. It’s incredible how lucid she is.”
Ya’ara looked curiously at the old woman, who was counting her change over the counter. Satisfied it was correct, she scooped it up and made her way slowly toward the exit, listing slightly like a ship. “Was your wife like her?” asked Ya’ara. “I never used to think so,” said Molkho. “Recently, though, perhaps because I’m forgetting, I’ve begun to see a resemblance.”
16
HE CHANGED PLANS and took her to the Bahai Temple, where they joined a group of Dutch tourists in a manicured garden full of flowering bushes, led down a paved path by their guide to the golden dome of the sanctuary. “It reminds me so of Europe,” marveled Molkho. “I’ve been living in Haifa for thirty years—twice a day I drive right past this place, and yet I’ve never been here before. It’s something I’ve always meant to do.”
By the door of the golden-domed structure, they were asked to take off their shoes, after which they entered a small room with thick Persian carpets on the floor, Persian and English inscriptions on the walls, and several decorative lamps and objets d’art behind a lace curtain. Molkho assumed they would next be taken to view the interior of the sanctuary itself, but presently they were told that their visit was over and that no one, not even Bahais, ever saw the dome from within. “But what’s in it?” he asked disappointedly. “Nothing,” replied the guide. “Nothing?” Laughing with disbelief, he put on his shoes and took a free brochure about the Bahais and their faith.
From there, they drove downtown for lunch in an Arab restaurant, where Ya’ara hungrily fell upon the bread even before the appetizers arrived, her voraciousness once again amazing him. Is that where I’ll first kiss her? he wondered, looking at her smooth forehead, or will I find someplace better? She ate quickly, enjoying the meal, while he told her about his mother and her tedious complaints over the telephone each morning. Her own mother, she said, had died a few years ago, and the two of them had never been close. But the heat and noise in the crowded restaurant made it difficult to talk, and eventually they lapsed into silence, waiting for their Turkish coffee. Why, she’s even duller than I am, he thought, suddenly recalling how in public school, not wanting to hurt the feelings of a fat girl with pigtails who had been foisted on him as a girlfriend, he had put up with her for a whole year while eagerly waiting for the summer vacation to free him.
A muggy hour later, on the stairs to his apartment, they encountered his elderly downstairs neighbor, who, dressed in an undershirt, stopped to inspect the new woman while asking some question about the hallway light. Upstairs in the apartment the telephone was ringing, and feeling Ya’ara stiffen, Molkho handed her the key and said, “Go see who it is. Maybe it’s for you again.” She ran up the stairs while his neighbor, never taking his eyes off her, kept on about the light. “Do we have a new tenant, then?” he asked slyly. Molkho patted his shoulder. “I really couldn’t tell you,” he said.
He found her gripping the telephone, her belly bulging softly as if the last of her dead babies were still trapped there. She was talking to her husband, whose concern for her seemed boundless. Or perhaps he was coaching her from the sidelines in ways unclear to Molkho, who slowly lowered the blinds of the sun-baked apartment, plunging it into darkness. Maybe he wants to know if we’ve made love yet, he thought. Anything is possible with them. He opened the refrigerator, took out a pitcher of cold water, poured himself a glass, drank it, poured her one too, and set it on the table in front of her. Is that really his plan for us? he wondered. And here I am, playing the tourist guide! Though if that’s what’s expected of me, what better time than now?
“Uri would like to have a word with you,” Ya’ara said, handing him the telephone and walking away. “Are you having problems?” asked his counselor. He sounded nervous and rushed, and Molkho was surprised by his directness. “If you’d like, I can come for her tomorrow.” “But why?” protested Molkho. “There’s no need. I’ve already told the office that I’m taking two days off. Everything is fine here. We’re still getting acquainted,” he chuckled. But his counselor sounded somber. “Talk to her!” he urged. “Talk to her! She’s used to it and is a good listener. Talk to her!” “It’s all right,” whispered Molkho tensely into the receiver. “You don’t have to worry.”
He went to his room, turned on the air conditioner to dry off his sweaty body, and asked Ya’ara if she might like to nap there. “No, thank you,” she replied, preferring to sit in the easy chair facing the TV. “I never sleep in the afternoon. I’ve spent too much of my life in bed as it is.” He showered and put on fresh clothes instead of a bathrobe, regretting his lost privacy again. A fresh cigarette in her mouth, she was staring at the unlit screen of the television as though waiting for an important message. “Wouldn’t you like to shower too?” he asked. “No, why?” she answered puzzledly, as if, sitting there as fresh as a daisy in her old jumper, showers were not for her. “Then perhaps you’d like to watch TV,” he said. “The educational channel is on now.” She gladly agreed, settling back in her chair with her legs crossed, while he switched on the set and sat down beside her to watch some program about insects in the jungle. The wasted humming of the air conditioner kept making him want to shut his eyes. “Are you sure you don’t want to lie down in my room?” he asked, getting to his feet. She
shook her head, her eyes glued to the screen, and so he brought a fan and aimed it at her, its current of air playing with her silvery hair. “Do you mind if I go he down, then?” he asked. “I’ve become so dependent on my afternoon nap that I’m a wreck at night if I don’t get it.” “Of course,” she blushed. “Go right ahead. Don’t let me bother you.”
He brought her the newspaper, showed her how to switch off the set, shut the door of his room, undressed, and climbed into the cool bed in his underpants, feeling as though his head weighed a ton. How can I make love to her, he wondered, if I have to talk to her all the time? The television droned on in the living room, but the purr of the air conditioner drowned it out and soon put him to sleep.
He awoke shivering from cold an hour later and went to turn off the machine, hearing the voices of many children in the apartment next door, which suddenly sounded like a schoolroom. Dressing quickly, he stepped into the living room, where striped light fell through the slatted blinds. She was still in the same chair, which his wife had liked to sit in, too, before becoming bedridden, so that for a moment, not yet brought back to reality by the head of gray hair, he thought that’s who it was. The folded newspaper was where he had left it on the table. Was Ya’ara asleep? She didn’t stir or seem to notice him. Stepping closer, however, he saw that she was watching a children’s program that featured a bowlegged green hedgehog that spoke in a funny voice. The room felt like a furnace. “You didn’t sleep?” he asked, laying a hand on her startled shoulder. “There are some really good children’s programs,” he added, not wanting to sound disapproving of the drivel on the screen. “Don’t you have TV at home?” “No,” she said, enthralled by the hedgehog, which was trying out a new stunt. “But sometimes I stop to watch it in the store windows.” The fan had dried her skin a waxen color. “Come, let’s have coffee,” he said, “and then I’ll show you the university.”
She didn’t offer to help this time, either. Only when he switched off the TV and told her the coffee was ready did she rise from her chair in her faded old jumper, which looked like a woman prisoner’s, girlishly stretching her limbs while a wave of warm desire swept over him. First we’ll dye her hair, he thought. There’s no reason not to. And get her to use makeup. And to buy some new clothes. And then maybe I’ll marry her. After all, the neighbors seem to like her, and I really did love her once.
17
ON THE HIGH CAMPUS of the university the air was as sultry as elsewhere; the spectacular view was swaddled in the same blue haze they had stared at that morning, and the observation tower was closed. Ya’ara was disappointed, for though she had hoped to catch a glimpse of the mountain range near Yodfat, perhaps even of Yodfat itself, where she had spent the happiest years of her life, it was hidden by a great bank of mist. Nearer to them the brutal summer had burned red blotches in the landscape and the vivid green of the Carmel was smeared a streaky gray. “Did you ever finish high school?” asked Molkho, steering her to what he hoped might be a better vantage point. No, Ya’ara answered, she never did. “And you’re not sorry?” he asked softly. No, she said, and neither, for that matter, was Uri. Molkho pointed out a few sights to her, telling her how much better he liked Haifa than Jerusalem. “Even if it is a bit boring here,” he confessed—although if she was bored, she gave no sign of it. What now? he wondered, feeling he had run out of topics. Nothing would seem natural until they had gone to bed.
On their way back to the apartment, they stopped off at a supermarket. “You push and I’ll fill,” he joked, giving her a cart, “but feel free to take what you want.” She took nothing, however, merely blushing each time he inquired whether she liked, ate, or ever had tried this or that item on a shelf. Well, he thought, tossing it into the cart anyway, she’ll have a lifetime with me to get used to it.
Back home he suggested once more that she shower, but again she preferred the television. This time, however, determined to involve her in supper, which he had decided to eat on the terrace facing the sunset, he asked her to slice vegetables for a salad. She did, washing them well and carefully peeling the tomatoes in a special way she had learned in South America. It’s a good thing the children aren’t home, Molkho thought, sitting opposite her on the terrace while looking now and then at the bright arrows of sunlight shooting through the clouds. Though his children did not seem to interest her, he began discussing them anyway. All of them, he told her, worried him: the college student, who had started going out with an older woman; his daughter, who had never had a boyfriend and seemed strangely hardened by her mother’s death; and most of all, the high school boy, who went about in a daze and was likely to be left back in school. But he loved them, felt close to them, and considered himself responsible for their future. Needless to say, everything he owned would be theirs one day. He listed this for her, stating the value of the apartment and all his bank accounts, while she listened without comment, eating heartily and smoking between bites of food or else glancing westward, where the sun had burned a blazing hole in the sky through which purple rays glinted off their plates and glasses. Could she still be on the same pack of cigarettes or had she brought more from Jerusalem?
Finally she rose and went to wash, leaving him again to do the dishes, though he was relieved to note that she returned with a new dress on, a jumper, too, yet brighter and more flowery. Nighttime became her, he thought, smoothing out the wrinkles on her old beauty. “Don’t you ever use makeup?” he asked offhandedly with a look at the long-strapped black handbag slung over her shoulder. “No,” she said. “The thought of smearing all that junk on my face revolts me.” It was late, and they drove hurriedly to the old Crusader fortress in Acre, descending a flight of stairs to the Knights’ Hall, whose thick stone walls were damp with humidity. Though the hall wasn’t full, several people there knew him and came over to say hello and have a look at his new partner. “This is Ya’ara,” he introduced her casually, glad she made a good impression. His old friends the doctor and his wife were there too, apologetic for having been out of touch. “This is Ya’ara,” he said as they scrutinized her, puzzled by the plain old dress, which seemed like a throwback to their teens, though Molkho soon sidetracked their efforts to place her by inquiring about their son, who was a classmate of Gabi’s. “Did he tell you about that hike of theirs?” he asked. The doctor and his wife, though, hadn’t heard of any hike. Their son, they said, had gone to Tel Aviv to spend a few days with a friend.
“I have a feeling we’re in for some dry music tonight,” whispered Molkho to Ya’ara as they settled into their wooden chairs and watched a violinist, a cellist, and a violist mount the stage, proud to be initiating her into a world of values no less stringent than her husband’s. She nodded apprehensively, her body straight as a rod. Why, with a posture like that she’ll be indestructible! he thought. Indeed, the music was harsh and cerebral: no sooner did the violin play a lyric bar than the cello and the viola overcame it, attacking the theme and breaking it down analytically. At first, he could see she was following, her eyes fixed on the musicians, yet soon her attention wandered. He smiled at her mournfully, glancing down at her dusty shoes with their still neatly folded bobbysocks on the sunken old stone floor. Once more he noticed the curly blond down on her legs. How can I kiss a woman with so much fuzz? he wondered gloomily. And her black handbag would have to go too. Her bulge of a belly rose and fell as though an unborn child kept getting up and sitting down there, each time about to walk out on the avant-garde trio that chose to play such highbrow music on so heat-struck a summer night. “How’s your head?” he asked in a whisper. “It hurts,” she confided, impressed by his diagnostic powers. “I’ve had a headache for a while.”
During the intermission he took her out to the garden and led her to a stone bench beneath a leafy tree, where she sat wanly with her head back while he went to fetch some water. She was smoking when he returned. Were her migraines chronic, he inquired, or were they something new? “I’ve had them for several years,” she said. “In that ca
se,” he reassured her, “you have nothing to worry about. Just to be on the safe side, though, you might want to have a brain scan. It’s a perfectly painless procedure.”
Five Seasons Page 27