The doctor and his wife appeared in the garden, no doubt looking for them, and he clung to the shadow of the tree to avoid detection. The warning bell rang. “You go on in,” Ya’ara said. “I’ll wait out here until it’s over.” Alarmed by her sudden rebellion, he sat down beside her. “Then let’s go home now,” he said. “No,” she protested. “If you like it, I don’t want you to miss it.” “It’s not a question of liking it,” he explained. “I don’t care for it much myself, but sometimes, if you sit it out to the end, you feel something has rubbed off on you.” “Then why deprive yourself?” she said. “My head hurts too much for me to go back, but that’s no reason why you shouldn’t.” “No, never mind,” said Molkho. “I’m sorry I brought you to such a dull concert without asking you. It was my mistake. It was entirely my mistake.” It pleased him to repeat the phrase; he would not abandon her now. They sat in silence beneath the dark tree, waiting for the last of the audience to disappear inside, after which he brought her some more water and waited for her to smoke another cigarette before they left.
They did not go straight home, though. Taking a detour by the port, he drove through the downtown streets with their empty office buildings and peroxided whores outside smoky bars and emerged at the city’s southern end, where he made a right turn toward the beach. “Come,” he said. “Let’s go down to the water and cool off a bit.”
The dark night smoldered in its prison of air, the sea struggling to break free of the enchaining vapors of day. Slowly they walked along the water’s edge, listening to the simple, monotonous boom of the surf. Beyond it, out among the breakers, youths in dark swimsuits rested on boards, waiting for a wave to ride to shore. Shoulder to shoulder Molkho and Ya’ara watched the silent scene, the surfers like a school of gray dolphins on the dim breast of the sea. He glanced at her, still unsure how much taller she was. She smiled and looked seaward, greedily gulping the salt tang of the thick air while automatically groping in her bag for a cigarette, which she lit at once. That’s all her freedom amounts to, he thought: a private little revolt against her lungs that will poison her in the end. “If you hadn’t made such a fuss about that bathing suit this morning, we could have gone for a swim now,” he said, his voice full of unsuspected malice. She gave him a startled look. “Come on,” he said, not knowing what made him so angry, “let’s at least get our feet wet.” He knelt to take off his shoes and socks, rolling up the cuffs of his pants. “Come,” he said more softly. Hesitantly, her cigarette still in her mouth, she removed her shoes and white socks, laying them next to his. He caught his breath, glimpsing the delicate blur of white legs in the darkness, and strode ahead of her into the warm, oily water, rolling his pants up still further. The hem of her jumper, he saw, was wet, yet she made no effort to raise it.
He headed for some rocks and climbed atop one, suddenly towering above her. She laughed, finding it comic, and then climbed on a rock of her own, the smoke from her cigarette drifting fragrantly past him. “Watch out, it’s slippery,” he called, though there was really no danger. Now she rose above him, her gray hair loose about her neck as she stood staring landward. A thin, emblematic moon clung to the tower of the university. She took a last greedy puff of her cigarette and threw it into the sea. Molkho sighed softly. “I suppose he’s trying to phone us now,” he mused. “No, he’s not,” she replied. “His Talmud class never lets out before eleven.” “Well,” Molkho said, “it’s his problem anyway, because this whole crazy business was his idea.”
She threw him a quick smile. For an ambiguous moment a light flared on the horizon, like the blue flame of a burner that someone had forgotten to turn off. Then it went out. “He told me to keep talking to you,” smiled Molkho slyly, “because you’re such a quiet type.” Shocked, she jumped off her rock. “He told you that?” she asked in a hurt voice. “Yes,” he said uncontritely, “he did. I’m not very good at small talk either,” he added more gently. “My wife did most of the talking; generally I just answered her.” Ya’ara jumped back on her rock and then leapt to another, a bitter smile on her suddenly hard face. “I don’t know why he said that,” she said. “You don’t have to talk to me at all. I really don’t know what made him say that. As far as I’m concerned, you needn’t talk at all.” He laid a soothing hand on her shoulder. “Forget it,” he said. “I shouldn’t have told you that. Let’s go home.”
18
BACK IN THE APARTMENT, still gritty with sand, she went right to the television. Slowly she sank into her chair, riveted to the end of some thriller. Molkho went to the kitchen, prepared two bowls of ice cream, and handed her one of them, which she polished off at once. There was a splotch of tar on the blonde down of her shin and the tan she had acquired during the day had softened the lines of her face. The late-night movie over, a passage from the Bible was being read in a preachery voice. He rose, took the empty bowls to the kitchen, from which he heard the concluding news bulletin, and returned with some napkins and a plate of fruit. “Don’t you get Jordan?” she asked, staring at a blank screenful of snow while reaching out for an apple. “Good lord,” he laughed, switching off the set, “you are an addict!” She nodded happily. “Doesn’t anyone in that community of yours have a TV?” he asked. “Oh no,” she said. “The rabbi wouldn’t stand for it.” “What’s his name?” asked Molkho. “Reb Yudl,” said Ya’ara. “Reb Yudl?” The name tickled his funny bone. “Reb Yudl?” She seemed amused by it too. “I’d like to meet the man,” said Molkho, sitting beside her.
It’s now or never, he thought. If we’re going to make love, what are we waiting for? He could always make a final decision later, he told himself, feeling a sweet tingle of anxiety. This was it. Tomorrow his son would return from his hike, complicating everything. And if she turned out to be a screamer or a sobber, better late at night in an empty apartment. He tried staring at her telepathically. A cricket chirped in the ravine. Then there was quiet. One by one, she was plucking grapes from the plate and popping them into her mouth, not looking sleepy at all.
“Well, what shall we do tomorrow?” he asked her wearily. “We’ve just about seen Haifa. That is, there’s some kind of museum here somewhere, but I don’t even know where it is. How about a day trip to the Galilee? I was up there a few months ago, and it was lovely. We can even visit Yodfat. You haven’t been there for ages, and I’m sure you’d like to see it.”
The idea appealed to her. The one problem was that she would have liked Uri to come too. Couldn’t they put it off until Tuesday? “Absolutely not,” replied Molkho indignantly. On Tuesday he had to be at work. Even taking two days off had been difficult, because half the office was away on vacation and he still owed a great deal of back leave. Through the open door of his bedroom, he could see the dark, velvety night beyond the new bars on the window. The telephone rang. It was not his counselor but the parents of a classmate of Gabi’s, frantically calling to ask about their son. Was he by any chance with Gabi? “Gabi’s not here,” Molkho told them. “He went off on a hike two days ago.” “What kind of a hike?” they asked. But Molkho couldn’t remember. Had Gabi even bothered to tell him? “I think it’s the Scouts,” he said uncertainly. But they had called every boy in the class, the worried parents said, and no one had mentioned any hike. “How can that be?” asked Molkho. “I know for a fact that there is one!”
He had barely hung up when the phone rang again. It was his counselor, wide awake and eager to know what had been played at the concert. “Bach,” said Molkho, not recalling the names of the pieces. “I mean, not the real Bach. The other one, his son.” “Philip Emanuel!” exclaimed his counselor, disappointed not to be there to share his musical knowledge with them. “We didn’t stay until the end,” Molkho told him. “Ya’ara had a migraine and we left after the intermission.” Encouraged by the sympathetic silence at the other end of the line, which was presumably more for his misspent evening than for Ya’ara’s headache, he began complaining good-humoredly about her smoking, her uncommunicativeness, and her lack of in
terest in music, while she sat passively by his side as though someone else were being talked about. “We’re going to Yodfat tomorrow,” he told Uri. “Whose idea was that?” marveled his counselor, approving of the initiative while regretting he couldn’t take part in it. “It’s been years since we’ve been there. I suppose I’ve been afraid to go back, but I’m glad Ya’ara is going.” Ya’ara herself was moodily leafing through the newspaper, half-listening to the conversation. She would rather he hung up, Molkho felt; however, placing the receiver gendy on the table with a nod in her direction, he went off to brush his teeth in the bathroom.
The first day with her, though something of a standoff, had at least not been too strained, he reflected, the white foam of the toothpaste bubbling on his lips. Damn that boy’s parents, though, for making him worry about the hike, which was beginning to seem like something he had imagined! He decided to shave the five o’clock shadow from his chin, which he dabbed with a spicy scent that his wife had liked. But, when he returned to the living room, Ya’ara wasn’t there and the door of her bedroom was shut. And without so much as saying good night! he grieved, going off to bed himself. Why, you’d think I was running a hotel here!
Still, it seemed unfair to use the air conditioner while abandoning her to the humidity, and so he undressed and stood cooling off by the window, staring at the forbidding bars. How could they have made anything so ugly, he wondered, calculating what it would cost to replace them. Switching on the bed lamp, he took out a road map and studied it; then, putting on fresh pajamas, he went to her room, knocked softly on the door, and entered. “Can I bring you anything?” he asked. “I see you’re having trouble sleeping.” “I haven’t been trying to sleep,” she snapped with unaccustomed sharpness, her head on the pillow and the newspaper still in her hand. The radio was on and she was smoking, her gray hair loose around her shoulders. “Does Reb Yudl allow you to smoke in bed?” he joked, joining her surprised burst of laughter. He liked her flannel nightgown, despite its wintry look, perhaps because it made her look more solid. “It’s all right. I hardly sleep at home either,” she said, grinding out her cigarette in a little ashtray she had found. Yellow grains of sand gleamed on the white socks folded neatly in her shoes. Would she wear them again tomorrow? “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you,” he said, taking a step toward the bed. “Did you ever think of adopting?” Yes, they did, she replied. In fact, they had even filed an application several years ago and been rejected. “But why?” Molkho asked. Apparently, explained Ya’ara, because Uri’s instability and her own lack of a diploma hadn’t made a good impression. “What a pity,” Molkho said. “Here, let me turn out the overhead light so that you needn’t get up to do it later.” He flicked the switch, leaving her in brown shadow. “Don’t let me sleep late tomorrow,” he said. “Wake me when you get up. And no more vanishing acts!”
19
AND WAKE HIM SHE DID. Why, obedient isn’t the word for her! he thought, pretending to be still asleep. He let her knock, open the door, step inside, and call to him, hoping all the time that she would touch him. But she didn’t. She simply called his name again and contrived to make some noise until he sat up and thanked her, though in fact it was so early that he soon fell back upon the pillow, from where he went on thinking about her while looking out the window at an overcast, prematurely autumnal day.
A few minutes later she knocked and called again. “Just a minute!” he called back. It’s no wonder she never finished high school, he thought. She’s fifty-two years old and never sleeps—and neither will I if I marry her! Defiantly he sank back into bed, curling up in a ball beneath the sheet and dozing off again, only to feel even sleepier upon awakening. He washed and dressed hurriedly to the muffled sound of the radio in her room, where he pictured her hungrily waiting for her breakfast, but when he looked for her there after noting with satisfaction that the kitchen table had been set (she was finally beginning to feel at home, then!), he found only her suitcase beneath her hastily made bed and three dresses hanging in the closet. Didn’t she have any dirty laundry? he wondered, tempted to look for it in the suitcase.
He returned to the living room. No doubt she had gone for another walk in the ravine, and he went down to look for her, only to see her coming up the street with a bag of milk, her large sunglasses flattering her small eyes. The milk in the refrigerator was sour, she announced with an edge in her voice, starting up the stairs ahead of him as he took the morning paper from the mailbox. Before he could apologize, a friendly neighbor wished them a good morning, and Molkho, glancing at her neatly folded bobbysocks, decided that their relationship had a future. I can’t afford to be choosy, he told himself, carefully taking the milk as though it weighed a great deal and remarking that the day would be another scorcher once the clouds burned off. I’m sure I once loved her, he thought, following her up the stairs. That’s something we can build on. If only she’ll dye her hair and use makeup. She can even keep the same wedding ring. What do I care who she got it from?
They sat down to breakfast. He was glad he had given the cleaning woman the day off, and Ya’ara washed the dishes without prompting, though she forgot to clean the sink and left suds and soggy food in the drain. She was looking forward to Yodfat. “We’ve thought of visiting there so many times,” she told him, “but the place meant so much to us that we were always afraid to go back.” Before leaving, Molkho phoned his mother-in-law, who asked when he planned to be in his office, because she wanted to consult him about her Russian friends. “As a matter of fact, I’m taking the day off,” he said, “but I’ll be in tomorrow. I hope it’s not urgent.” Apparently it was, though, for he felt her hesitate, though typically she didn’t press the matter. “Well, then, perhaps tomorrow,” she said, remembering to ask about the children. Pleased to hear that the high school boy was off on a hike, she asked where it was to. “To the Galilee,” replied Molkho after a moment’s pause. “Yes, I believe it’s to the Galilee.” “Is it a school hike?” she asked. He paused again. “No, it’s a Scout hike.” How could it be a school hike when school was out for the summer?
20
THEY ARRIVED in Yodfat shortly before noon. The roads leading out of the city were clogged, and on one he took a wrong turn and had to backtrack, yet once on the new highway to the Lower Galilee, they sped along unobstructed and Molkho praised everything he saw: the well-engineered road, the fresh green forests, the new settlements on the hilltops, the large, clearly lettered road signs. Belted in beside him and looking good in her sunglasses, Ya’ara, too, kept oohing and aahing. The silence as they climbed the last curves to Yodfat reminded him of the approach to Zeru’a, but here the houses were well built and attractive, surrounded by trees and neat lawns. Hardly able to wait, Ya’ara undid her seat belt and guided him to a parking lot by a large, red stone building, jumping youthfully out of the car the moment it came to a stop. “Does it still look the same to you?” he asked, pleased to see her so excited. “Yes and no,” she answered, looking eagerly around her. “I guess more no than yes, though.” She was already starting up a narrow path toward several prominent houses standing amid the gray rocks of the hillside. “You go ahead,” he told her, sensing her wish to be alone with her memories. “I’ll catch up with you.”
He circled the large red building, no doubt a public structure of some sort, looking for an open door. But there was none, and so he walked up the paved street searching for a place to relieve himself, encountering only closely spaced houses with gardens featuring the same gray rock. He had despaired of finding even a suitable tree when he spied an old prefab that apparently served for office space, inside of which, at the end of a short corridor, he came to a small, dirty washroom. Extracting a warm and somewhat distended penis, he tenderly aimed it with both hands at the toilet bowl, dissuaded from talking to it only by the sound of an electric calculator on the other side of the wall, where an unseen bookkeeper was at work. He flushed the toilet, washed at the soapless, towelless little sink,
and returned to the corridor, shaking drops of water from his hands, where he was intercepted by the bookkeeper, a short, burly man with thick, steel-rimmed glasses and a head of blond curls. Who, the bookkeeper wanted to know, was he looking for? “I’m just accompanying someone who once lived here,” Molkho told him, mentioning Ya’ara by name. “What, they’re here?” asked the short man excitedly. “Just she is,” answered Molkho. “By herself?” The man seemed mystified, as if it made no sense. “But where is he?” “In Jerusalem,” Molkho said. “And is it true what they say about him?” asked the man tensely. “Yes,” replied Molkho, who could only guess at the meaning of the question. The bookkeeper gave his head of boyish curls an angry though not unadmiring shake. “I might have known!” he said. “An anarchist like him is capable of anything.” Molkho nodded sympathetically. Though he would have liked to inquire about the village, the man seemed in the grip of such powerful memories that he deemed it best not to. “Is there anything you’d like me to tell her?” he asked, wiping his wet hands on his pants. “Never mind,” snapped the bookkeeper with inexplicable ire, wheeling to return to his cubicle.
Molkho retraced his steps to the parking lot, from where he started up the path after Ya’ara. Beneath the overcast sky the air was hot and dry. Scraggly pine forests covered the hillsides, some of which were dotted with white houses, the same new settlements advertised by the road signs. Somewhere off in the distance a machine buzzed stubbornly, its faint rasp set against the silence. A young woman emerged from a house with a baby in a blue backpack, glanced at Molkho slipping past her, and started down the path. When he reached the top of it, by the uppermost houses, Ya’ara was still not in sight. He paused for a moment, debating which way to turn in the rocky terrain, which seemed to grow wilder in the stillness. There was a rustle in the bushes. He headed toward it, crossing a stony field full of weeds, and soon spied her standing beneath a window. A rusty hoe and some crates of rotting potatoes stood against the wall of a house that was apparently empty. Mysterious-looking in her dark sunglasses, she took several crates, piled them on top of each other, and climbed up to look through the window.
Five Seasons Page 28