As they were leaving Molkho asked again if Mr. Shimoni couldn’t give them a letter to the Russian embassy certifying that Miss Zand was still a refugee. But the official was adamant. “Believe me,” he said, “any letter from me would only make things worse. She’ll just have to take her chances. And what are your own plans?” “Oh, I’ll stick around for a while to see what happens,” Molkho said. Shimoni nodded, loath to part with such an entertaining couple. “Well, let me know how it turns out,” he told them, first in Hebrew and then in Russian. “I feel responsible in spite of everything.” Molkho gratefully shook his hand, and Shimoni put a friendly arm around Miss Zand and steered them both toward the elevator. “What’s there to do mornings in Vienna?” asked Molkho as the red arrow lit up. “All sorts of things,” said Shimoni. “What are you interested in?” “Oh, some museum or historical site,” Molkho answered. “Even one of Jewish interest,” he added patriotically. “Some old synagogue, for instance, or maybe Herzl’s grave.” “Herzl’s grave?” chuckled the Jewish Agency official. “Herzl’s grave is in Jerusalem. Perhaps you mean Herzl’s house. There’s nothing but a plaque there though, and it’s hardly worth the effort.” He looked smugly at Molkho, who smiled in embarrassment. “If tomorrow is as nice as today, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be, I suggest you take a walk in the Vienna Woods and go to the zoo.” “The zoo?” Molkho was mortified. “Yes,” said Mr. Shimoni, “why not? The zoo here is marvelous, and you probably haven’t been to one in ages. Take the number 6 or 8 trolley, and you won’t regret it. Sometimes there’s a military band there too. I’m sure you’ll enjoy every minute.” Graciously opening the door of the groaning elevator, he saw them on their way.
11
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT Molkho was awoken by a muffled shout and angry voices. He dragged himself out of bed to the sink, gulped more water while wondering why Vienna made him so thirsty, and went over to the dark window, where he drew the heavy curtain and stared down at the street below. By the locked gate of the building that he had taken for a hospital, two guards were arguing with the driver of a white car. In that case, he thought groggily, it can’t be a hospital, because it wouldn’t turn away an ambulance. Suddenly he remembered having dreamt about his wife. Although he had dreamt of her before, this time she was in company, sitting off to one side in a room with familiar wallpaper. The others did not know, or pretended not to know, that she was dead, so that, unaware of Molkho’s presence, as if he, not she, were the ghost, she sat there perfectly content. Meanwhile, down below, the argument finally ended with the opening of the gate and the disappearance of the white car. Much to Molkho’s relief, the night grew silent again.
In the morning he found his little rabbit in the lobby, pale and baggy-eyed in a conservative red woolen suit with stiff, padded shoulders. Her new curls had softened agreeably overnight, making her look rather cuddly. “How did you sleep?” he asked concernedly, repeating the question a second time in even more basic Hebrew. “Terrible,” she replied with a glum smile, the wealth of her vocabulary surprising him. “Much terrible.” Smelling alcohol as he led her to the dining room, he sat her at a table, took out a map, and showed her the location of the Soviet Embassy. As simply, though in as many ways as possible, because even if she understood only a fifth of what he said it was worth it, he reviewed their meeting with Mr. Shimoni, trying his best to sound hopeful. As a government official himself, he said, he had one bit of advice to give her: tell the Russians the truth and nothing but. Though the fact of the matter is, he thought, watching her tubbily bounce off to the buffet for another fresh roll, that if I believed they might take her, I would have made love to her last night as a parting gift from Israel. It’s not as if that could have been taken as a commitment. But the chin above her white, shapely throat was double after all, and he couldn’t be blamed if his wife’s illness had made him suspicious of swellings. Besides which, he told himself, I happen to have high standards. In fact, they’re only getting higher, which is why I’m wasting precious time on these oddballs instead of going to some dance hall and grabbing the first woman on the floor.
It was eight o’clock, and since the embassies didn’t open until nine and the weather was nice and the distance not great, Molkho suggested that they walk. They strolled through the awakening streets of the city, soon coming to a colorful farmers’ market that was just being set up. Making their way past mounds of fruits and vegetables, they lingered by stands of seafood sparkling with crushed ice, looking at the little black mussels, the large gray fossil-like clams, the piles of purplish shrimp and ruddy lobsters fanning slow antennae, the wicked coils of eels and lampreys. “Why, it’s just like Paris,” exclaimed Molkho enthusiastically, “it’s exactly the same!” Shoulder to shoulder, for he didn’t care what people here took them for, they followed the map through a clean, pleasant quarter, stopping now and then to window-shop while he translated prices into shekels and dollars.
A cordon of armed Austrian policemen indicated the site of the Soviet embassy from afar. Molkho halted and handed the little Russian her laissez-passer, which she deftly slipped into her handbag, after which they carefully circled the building, checking its various entrances and the visiting hours posted outside them. Even if nothing comes of it, he thought, even if it was only a gesture, I’ll have done my human duty. “I’ll wait here for an hour or two,” he said, pointing to a little café on the corner, “and after that we’ll meet back at the hotel. Just no more disappearing acts, please!” She nodded, and since they still had time, they entered the café together. From everywhere came the melody of Russian voices, for the place was full of embassy officials who had dropped in for a hot drink or something stronger. Aglow at the sight of so many compatriots, the little Russian followed Molkho to an empty table in a corner and ordered brandy, while he asked for coffee, wondering if he should be seen with her here, where he might be mistaken for a Western intelligence officer running a secret agent. She, too, it seemed, had the same thought, because as soon as she downed her drink, she went off to the rest room, leaving him by himself. Watching the embassy workers come and go with friendly greetings, he felt more optimistic. After all, they’re human beings just like us, he thought, why shouldn’t they agree to take her? What do they stand to lose? It’s natural to feel homesick. What’s one more Jew to them when they already have millions? If she stays in Israel, I’ll be the one to suffer, because I’ll just have to marry her in the end. Surreptitiously slipping one of the hotel’s cards into her handbag, he took his coffee to a distant table, from which he watched her leave the rest room. She looked for him, caught sight of his furtive wave, and showed she understood it by exiting to join the line already forming by the gate of the embassy, through which the Russians now streamed from the café, brandishing their ID cards at a new shift of burly guards.
He let the café empty out and went to pay the waiter, asking for a receipt. Not, he mused, that his mother-in-law would check his expenses, but he should be able to give her a general account of where her money had gone. Perhaps she would even want to send him abroad again; it was certainly more likely than a junket from work like the legal adviser’s. He jotted down what other outlays he remembered on the back of the receipt, counted his change carefully, stuck it in his pocket, and looked out at the busy street. The little Russian had vanished through the gate of the embassy, and when after a while she failed to return, his hopes soared even higher.
12
AT LAST, he stepped outside himself, surprised at how warm the clear autumn air had become. Fallen leaves crackling underfoot, he strode by the lavish storefronts determined to withstand temptation and not waste the morning shopping. And so, though still smarting from Mr. Shimoni’s advice, as if museums and galleries were beyond the ken of a mere Levantine like himself, he found a number-6 trolley stop, made sure he was headed in the right direction, and boarded the next car for the Vienna Woods with a contingent of old ladies, young mothers, and noisy children. At last, with a great c
latter and clang of bells, the trolley came to the end of the line. It was indeed right next to the zoo, which Molkho, despite a moment’s uncertainty, decided he was too old for, opting instead to go for a walk among the tall trees of the park, its well-trodden paths being full of local hikers. Eventually he reached a large outdoor café with a fountain adorned by statues of animals, beside one of which, a skillful figure of a deer with blind, stony eyes, he sat down in a shady spot. After looking around at the crowd, which was composed mostly of old people enjoying the warm fall day, he glanced at an article about abused women in the weekend supplement of his Hebrew newspaper and then took out Volume II of Anna Karenina, turned to Part Seven, and began to read. Quickly he grew absorbed in the story, turning page after page until at last the beautiful Anna threw herself in despair beneath the wheels of a train and he shut the book with shaking hands. Though his old counselor had warned him of Anna’s fate months ago, the actual description of it, so precise and yet so simple, left him numb with a grief that yielded only slowly to a warm feeling of appreciation. Wanting somehow to express his gratitude to the dead author, he rose, walked stretching himself among the tables until he came to a glass case full of cakes, and ordered one that he ate hungrily. And yet, reopening the book to Part Eight, in which he had expected to be told of Vronsky’s reaction to Anna’s death, he was disappointed to discover that the novel took another turn entirely, so that after reading with flagging interest for several more pages he shut it dispiritedly.
It was nearly noon, and schoolchildren began arriving in the park, in which bright parasols against the sun now made their appearance too. Molkho took the trolley back into town, looked for his little Russian in the hotel, and then returned to their café, where there was no trace of her among the handful of customers. In front of the embassy all was quiet. Why, they must have agreed to take her after all, he told himself, smiling at the thought of Mr. Shimoni’s surprise.
13
MEANWHILE, HE THOUGHT, I had better put my time to good use, and so, though hungry again, he decided to find out the cheapest route to the Soviet Union. On a street they had walked on that morning, he recalled, there had been a travel agency whose window was designed to look like a train compartment, complete with a white-sheeted Pullman bed and a female mannequin looking out at the passing landscape while her hair whipped in the breeze. “Ne manquezpas la route,” had said a poster in French, and another in English, “Go by Rail and Know Where You’ve Been.” Retracing his steps to the place, on whose wall was a map of railroad lines reaching all the way to Peking, he was plied with so much helpful information that by the time he stepped back out into the street the sky had clouded over and the humid air brushed his face like a damp cloth.
He hurried back to the hotel to see if his little Russian had returned, but her key was still behind the desk, though he imagined for a moment that it swung back and forth as though it had just been hung up. Fraulein Zand, the desk clerk told him knowingly, had neither been back since the morning nor left any message, so that, though the sky was growing more threatening, Molkho had no choice but grumpily to set out again for the café in the hope that she was mistakenly waiting there. But she was not, and so he ordered a club sandwich and thought, She’s run out on me again and who’s fault is it but my own? I grew soft looking after a wife whose effective range shrank to zero and now I’m paying for it. To calm himself, he took out Anna Karenina and resumed reading Part Eight, but soon he put it down unhappily. Indeed, it was so obvious that nothing more was going to happen that he wondered what made Tolstoy keep writing.
Only one guard remained by the gate of the embassy, all the traffic through which was now outward. Could they really have taken her off his hands and left him with his mission accomplished? He paid for his sandwich, left the café, waited for the guard’s view to be blocked by some Russians leaving work, and boldly passed through the gate and into the building, down the corridors of which he walked with a pounding heart, reminded of the times he had come to take his wife home from her chemotherapy, which had always ended as the oncology ward was emptying out for the day, so that he would find her alone in a silent room, exhausted yet glowing with hope in her hospital frock. How, he had wanted to ask, did the isotope injected into her veins find the spreading cancer, which he imagined as a reddish lode in a dark mine? Controlling his fear, he glanced cautiously into rooms whose tired officials were cleaning their desks before quitting time, wondering whether, had he taught the little Russian a secret whistle, he would dare use it now. Outside the barred windows a noiseless rain began to fall, drowned out by the chorus of Russian voices in the building. A curly-headed stranger in their midst, he turned and headed back for the entrance, careful not to lose his way.
14
BRIEF THOUGH IT WAS, the fresh-smelling downpour cleared the muggy air, which turned a luminous velvet beneath the prodigal streetlights. After all, thought Molkho on his way back to the hotel, satisfied that his little rabbit wasn’t being held prisoner, not even the Russians would torture her in some dungeon just because she’s homesick. Taking a shortcut through a busy arcade, he let himself be swept into a large department store, where he decided to look for presents, considered buying a fat English-Russian dictionary in the book department on a top floor, and thought better of it. Why waste the money, even if it wasn’t his, when the little Russian would soon be gone anyway? Replacing the book on its rack, he wandered off to the classical music section, which had an especially rich collection of Viennese composers, and soon bought a cassette of Mahler’s The Song of the Earth for his mother-in-law. This time, rather than another embarrassing blouse or scarf, he would bring her something cultural.
As he was riding the escalator back down he suddenly spied the plump figure of Miss Nina Zand trying on hats before a little mirror. Droplets of rain still clung to her clothing and hair, whose curls had shriveled forlornly, and the makeup was streaked on her worn face. So the answer was no after all, he thought even before laying a pitying hand on her shoulder and smelling the liquor on her breath. She smiled sheepishly, not at all surprised he had found her there drowning her sorrows in shopping, as if it were only natural for him to dog her faithfully everywhere. “What happened?” he asked quietly. “They say no,” she replied, slowly removing another hat and throwing it into a pile of discards with a grimace of resignation. “No visa. No nothing. Byurokratya. Very too much byurokratya. They say no can take me.” Her big blue eyes filled with guilt for letting him down. Resignedly he led her to a corner and tried getting more information, but all he could find out was that she had been made to run from one office to another all day long. The bastards, he thought, plying her with more questions that she didn’t understand while steering her through the throng of shoppers, furious at the Russians for not helping, perhaps because she looked so crestfallen in her rumpled suit and white blouse, the open collar of which revealed the perspiring whites of her breasts. “Byurokratya,” she repeated, as if her encounter had been with some supernatural force. Suddenly he felt a flash of violence. Damn her! he thought, almost shoving her across the boulevard past clanging, orange-lit trolleys and into the regal lobby of the hotel, with its crowd of guests and wild strains of gypsy music from the dining room. Should he go straight to his room and telephone the bad news to Israel or should he wait a little longer?
15
AFTER DINNER they went to see Mr. Shimoni, who was curious to hear the little Russian’s story, even if the outcome, which Molkho had told him about on the phone, did not come as a surprise. No doubt he wanted to know about her contacts in the embassy, and perhaps, too, he felt guilty for having denied her the letter she had asked for. This time, they found other guests in the antique drawing room, two Viennese Jews who had come to pay a sick call. Mr. Shimoni, however, seemed much better, for he was now fully dressed in a dark suit and tie, although his face, the ascetic intellectuality of which had so impressed Molkho the night before, was as pale as ever. The tiny old woman from the back room
was present too, wearing a black silk dress like a delicate mummy. She was Mr. Shimoni’s mother, and after introducing the new arrivals she sat Molkho by her side, while her son moved the piano stool over to Miss Zand’s armchair and began a brisk interrogation. Happy to be the center of attention, the little Russian related her adventures in her musical voice, gesturing broadly to help describe the Soviet officials and their offices.
Meanwhile, old Mrs. Shimoni, who didn’t know any Russian, commenced an interrogation of her own to find out what sort of Molkho Molkho was, quickly determining that she knew his grandmother and paternal aunt in Jerusalem, from which she had arrived several weeks ago to spend some time with her son. “Doesn’t he have children?” Molkho asked. “Of course he does,” said his mother, “and very successful ones too, but they’re all married with children of their own.” “And where is his wife?” inquired Molkho. “Ah,” exclaimed the old woman, “she passed away several years ago.” “And he never remarried?” asked Molkho with concern. “I’m afraid,” said Mrs. Shimoni with a poignant look, “that finding a new wife isn’t easy as you think.” Molkho nodded so vigorously that his teacup rattled on its saucer. “You’re quite right,” he declared. “Everyone thinks it’s easy, but it’s not. You see,” he added with a suffering smile, “I too lost my wife nearly a year ago. It was cancer.” He persisted plaintively, even though to his surprise the old woman knew all about it, as if it were written on his face, “An incurable cancer that started in one breast, then spread to the other, and then...” But Mrs. Shimoni knew all about that too. The little Russian, it seemed, had told the old woman’s son everything the night before.
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