“How can I leave everything here? You tell me,” I demanded. Then I added, “Maybe I’ll go in the end to bring them back.” And with this thought I also reassured myself when shortly afterward I heard how much Michaela had already accomplished in preparation for the journey. It was as if to compensate for the dismemberment of her beloved statuette she had decided to grow another head and two more pairs of hands during the few hours of my absence so she could transform her return to India into a fact from which there was no turning back. She had been to several travel agencies to compare dates and prices of cheap flights and make notes of possible alternatives, and she had visited the Indian consulate that had recently opened in Tel Aviv to apply for a visa, and of course she had not forgotten to go to the Health Bureau to find out whether a baby of Shiva’s age could be vaccinated. Since all this wasn’t enough for her to feel that her trip was becoming a concrete reality, she had made her way in the pouring rain to a number of used-car lots to find out how much she could get for our car, which she had decided to sell to pay for her trip, and at the same time to inquire about a secondhand motorcycle for me so as not to leave me without any means of transport after she was gone. All this had been preceded, of course, by a long telephone conversation with Stephanie in London, to warn her of the imminence of the date of departure. She told me all this on the phone as soon as she arrived at Hagit’s place, as if she were afraid that I might have changed my mind during the day and would try to prevent her from taking Shivi, whose participation in the trip she regarded as absolutely essential, especially now that Stephanie had agreed to go along.
Michaela’s voice was full of excitement; it was evident that the day of running around in the rain to prepare for the trip had filled her with joy, as if the possibility of a great love had opened up today not for me but for her. Darkness had already descended on the apartment in spite of the earliness of the hour, and the rain which had been falling all day was still pouring down, as if the winter so often promised by the weather forecasters had finally burst forth in full force. I had taken a shower and changed into clean, warm clothes, and when Michaela called I was in the middle of wondering whether to go to Dori’s office to find out where I stood after the night before. It was even dark in the kitchen, which was usually full of light in the afternoons, and only a single ray of light succeeded in escaping the sunset hiding behind the clouds and weakly penetrating the window above the sink. To Michaela’s credit, I have to say that her great happiness did not prevent her from sensing my somber mood, which was due not only to the return of the soldier-son and my growing uncertainty about my position but also to the thought that I would soon have to travel around on foot. After repeating her assurance that she would not have Shivi vaccinated without first consulting me, Michaela suddenly took pity on me and said persuasively, “You remember how amazed I was the first time we met, at Eyal’s wedding, that you hadn’t taken advantage of your free trip to India to stay on for a while by yourself? If you regret what you missed then and you want to join us, why don’t you come along? We’ll welcome you with open arms and accept you just as you are, whatever the state of your soul.” And her laughter burst out, free and uninhibited, just as it had always done in London. For a moment the thought crossed my mind, Why not? Perhaps this was my chance to escape from the snares in which I was getting increasingly entangled. Maybe in the place where the gorgeous silk of my infatuation had gradually been woven, my love might slowly unravel and dissolve into the mystery that had given birth to it.
But Michaela was not able to penetrate my thoughts any further, nor to take advantage of my momentary indecision and sweep me along with her. And perhaps she didn’t want to. She immediately took my silence for a refusal, and without asking me what I was going to do for the next couple of hours she said good-bye, without telling me when she was coming home—as usual. I switched on the light in the kitchen, not only in order to banish the gloom but also to look for my old crash helmet in the storage space between the kitchen and the bathroom. I wasn’t angry with Michaela for selling the car to finance her trip; I knew there was no other way we could pay for it, and although my parents had given the car to me to replace my motorcycle, it was still our joint property, like everything else we possessed. Her offer to buy me a motorcycle with part of the money she got for the car seemed fair to me too, and I even liked the idea, although I knew that seeing me on a motorcycle again would upset my parents, whose continued absence from their house on a day like this surprised me. When I heard my father’s excited voice on the answering machine again, I was careful not to say anything, in order not to alarm them by leaving two messages in a row, and I quietly replaced the receiver and put on the black helmet, which during the year and a half of lying in storage had absorbed the bitter smell of mold brought by winds from the nearby sea. In the mirror I saw my previous self, young and carefree. Wouldn’t the motorcycle make things more difficult for me in the battle I had commenced today with the world around me? Naturally I couldn’t expect a woman of mature years to put on the second helmet like Michaela and ride behind me to visit my parents in Jerusalem. But it was quite possible that on some hot summer evening when the streets were jammed with traffic and parking places were hard to find, she might be persuaded to mount the pillion in order to arrive at the movies on time. The mere thought of this filled me with yearning to see her now, and although it was not a hot summer evening but a rainy winter one, I couldn’t bear to stay in the apartment alone any longer, and I took an old umbrella that the granny had left in a corner with the mop and the broom and went outside.
There was no doubt that the big black umbrella had belonged not to the dainty little granny herself but to her husband, and I was glad to see that in spite of long disuse it opened easily and gave me plenty of protection from the rain. I decided to continue by foot, remembering with a smile the Indians who never parted from their umbrellas, rain or shine, by day and sometimes even by night, as if the black shelter above their heads were intended not only for physical protection from the elements but also for spiritual elevation. Indeed, I too felt elevated when I arrived almost completely dry at Dori’s office, which I found very crowded and busy at this early evening hour. The lights were on in all her colleagues’ rooms, and there were a number of people in the waiting room. I had to wait until one of the three secretaries opened Dori’s door to usher in two clients who had been sitting conspicuously apart in the waiting room, and then I let her know I was there and asked her how she was feeling, in my capacity as a fussy family doctor. Even if she was embarrassed and confused by my sudden appearance, she maintained her composure and greeted me with the old automatic smile, as if I were one of the clerks here. A silver-haired gentleman in an elegant suit who looked like a lawyer drew his chair up to hers, apparently to equalize their positions vis-à-vis the two clients who entered the room, presumably for the purpose of reaching a compromise. She took advantage of the brief pause and came over to me, confident that I would not try to draw her into a long discussion just now. She was wearing black, as she often had before Lazar’s death. But this time I did not recognize her outfit, which consisted of a black sweater with a high collar and a slightly too-tight skirt, which made her stomach stick out with an ugliness than even her long shapely legs, in high-heeled boots, did not make up for. Was she really better? I asked myself. Or maybe she had never been ill? But the night before I had felt her fever in every part of my body. She evidently had no intention of introducing me either to her colleague, who was obviously wondering who I was, or to the unfamiliar secretary who tried to bar my way and find out whether I wanted Dori or one of the other partners. I did not want to get involved in a long discussion either, but only to tell her my big news: that Michaela knew, that she was going abroad, and that very soon I would be free to make myself entirely available to Dori until … who knows? Even marriage was possible. But it was impossible to say any of this in the presence of so many strangers, so I stuck to the role of the devoted doctor dropping in on his patie
nt on his way home from work to ask if the medication had helped. “Everything’s fine. The fever’s gone down completely,” she said, smiling in embarrassment, and when she saw that I was not content with such an optimistic report, she added, “It’s just that I’ve started to cough. I’ll try to pick up something on my way home. Symphocal, or something like that.”
“Symphocal is good for children,” I responded quickly, even though it was effective with adults too. “I’ll bring you something better. When are you leaving here? Because I haven’t got the car.” She touched my arm lightly with her fingertips to bring me to my senses. She didn’t have a car either. Someone from the office would take her home, or perhaps Hishin would pick her up, because he wanted to come over and look for some papers Lazar had taken home with him. “So if not here,” I said, retreating, “I’ll take it around to your apartment.” And with those words I took the keys out of my pocket, to show her that I was serious.
Upon seeing them, she uttered a strange cry of relief, as if she had been looking for them everywhere, and reached out and snatched the key ring nimbly from my fingers. In spite of her patience with me, in the face of the growing irritation of the other people in the room—and her confidence that my youth would prevent the inquisitive secretary from guessing the nature of our relationship—she wanted to restrain me and draw clear limits, which I immediately showed myself willing to accept, and in spite of my disappointment at having the keys taken away from me, I said good-bye pleasantly and left. Outside, the rain had stopped, but I opened the umbrella anyway. I soon found a pharmacy, where my physician’s card enabled me to obtain a powerful cough medicine from the restricted-medicines cabinet, a drug that Nakash liked to use to nip colds and influenzas in the bud. Although I could have gone back to Dori’s office and left the cough medicine with her secretary, I felt a strong urge to return to the Lazars’ apartment. Seeing that the lull in the rain was continuing and the radiant, sparkling air was bringing many people out to walk happily in the streets, even though they had to negotiate between the puddles, I decided to continue on my way, taking a shortcut across town and thinking of the letter I would leave for my love along with the medicine. Soon, as if I had been coming home here for years, I could recognize in the white light the distant silvery tops of the trees in the boulevard next to the house, and even though the slot in the Lazars’ mailbox was big enough to accommodate the package, I folded my umbrella and took the elevator to the top floor, knowing that perhaps in doing so I was entering a battle for my love against its most fanatical, if still unknown, opponent.
But he had not yet come home from the army. The door was opened by Einat, with the sound of the washing machine spinning in the background. She had come home to do her laundry, and she now stood in the doorway, surprised and even a little alarmed to see me holding the medicine bottle in my hand, not only because she did not know her mother had been ill but also because she had thought that her father’s death would put an end to my relations with the family, not the opposite. Now that her face was so pale and her beauty had faded, I noticed a resemblance to Lazar that had not been evident before, as if the painful memory of seeing her father die before her eyes had carved his image secretly on her face. She was sloppily dressed in a greenish sweater and a pair of jeans that were too big for her. When she took the bottle hesitantly from my hand, careful not to touch me, I was afraid that in her distraction she was liable to send me away. I asked her if I could call the hospital. Without a word, still fearful, she showed me the way to the living room, which was now perfectly clean and tidy—no doubt the work of the maid. Einat went into the kitchen and shut the door behind her, ostensibly to give me privacy but actually to quickly finish eating the improvised meal I had interrupted. I phoned the internal medicine ward to ask about the patient whose surgery I had prevented at the last minute. Although I didn’t know his name, the nurse immediately knew who I was talking about, not by the details of his medical condition or his age but by his red hair, which had apparently made an impression on her too. It turned out that he had been returned to the operating room after a heated argument between Professor Levine and Professor Hishin, who had suddenly appeared in the ward and insisted that the operation take place. “So they did it anyway,” I said softly, thinking remorsefully that my excessive anxiety had led to a renewed outbreak of the rivalry between the two friends. “Did they mention my name, by any chance?” I asked. “Yes, Dr. Rubin,” said the nurse. “They’re angry with you and with Dr. Vardi for playing hooky.”
“Playing hooky?” I giggled at the use of this childish term. But was there any point in trying to explain my real motives? I put the phone down and went to ask Einat, who was sitting at the kitchen table polishing off a carton of cottage cheese, if I could make another phone call. The kitchen too was clean and tidy, and between the flowered curtains on the big window I saw that it was beginning to rain again. Einat smiled shyly. “What a question! As many as you like. Make yourself at home,” she said, and as I turned back to the phone to call Hagit and ask Michaela to come and pick me up here and take me home, she asked if I had time for a cup of coffee before I left.
I was of course happy to accept her offer. In the first place I intended to wait for Michaela to come and pick me up anyway, and, more to the point, I still hoped to see the mistress of the house when she came home. I wanted to try to get to know Einat a little better, and also her soldier brother, who suddenly arrived, soaking wet. Since I had last seen him in the corridor of the internal medicine ward he had exchanged his khaki uniform for the pale gray of the Air Force and his gun for a small, light submachine gun, no doubt thanks to the intervention of influential friends of the family, who had succeeded in getting him transferred to a service unit close to home and his widowed mother. Despite his surprise at my presence, which bordered on hostility, I tried to be nice to him. When I told Einat about Michaela’s plans to return to India, it was as if this simple announcement transformed her, rousing her from her apathy and even restoring a little of her previous beauty to her delicate face. “I knew it!” she cried enthusiastically, although she also expressed some doubt about how much fun it would be to wander around India with a baby. But when I told her that a good friend from London would be accompanying them, she was reassured. A good friend could be a great help. If only she could, she too would gladly join them, but nobody would give her permission to go now, especially after what had happened. It was impossible to tell whether she meant the hepatitis or the death of her father. “You need permission?” I cried in astonishment. “Who from? Your mother? I’ll give you permission.” And although I didn’t say in whose name I was giving her permission, she understood that it was in my capacity as a doctor, and her eyes lit up with a rare, provocative gleam. “And if I get sick again,” she asked, “will you come by yourself to fetch me?”
“You won’t get sick again,” I said confidently, “and if by any chance something does happen to you there, don’t worry. We’ll come to the rescue again. Why do you still want to go there, Einat? Wasn’t the first time enough for you? What draws all of you so much to India?” She was surprised at my question. “I thought Michaela had already infected you with the India bug.”
“Michaela is a lost cause. She’s already half a Hindu herself,” I replied. “That’s why she’s incapable of explaining anything to an outsider like me.” Einat looked at her brother, who was standing in the doorway listening to our conversation and eating a thick slice of bread. Then she bowed her head, trying to meet the challenge of finding a convincing explanation for the fascination with India. In a quiet, halting voice she began to formulate her thoughts. “A lot of things are attractive. But the most compelling is the sense of time. Time’s different there—it’s free, open, not harnessed to some goal. Without any pressure. At first you think it’s unreal, and then you discover that it’s the true time, the time that hasn’t been spoiled yet.” When she saw that I had not succeeded in understanding the depths of this other sense of time, s
he added, “Sometimes it seems there that the world’s stopped turning, or even that it never started turning in the first place. And every hour there is enough in itself, and seems final. So nothing ever gets lost.” A faint sneer now crossed her brother’s face, but when he saw that I was nodding my head in profound agreement, he crammed the rest of the bread into his mouth and went to pick up his submachine gun and duffel bag, which were lying in the middle of the living room floor.
But the shrill whistle of the front door bell interrupted him, and he opened the door to his wet, shivering mother, both of whose hands were full—one with a cake box and the other with a shopping bag and a dripping umbrella. Although she knew that her son was due to arrive, she broke into loud cries of joyful surprise and hurried to put down her packages and embrace him as if he had just come home from the wars, forgetting that there were other people present. In the end she gave Einat a quick kiss too and asked her to help her unpack her bag. When at last she turned her attention, with a suspicious smile, to the medicine I had brought her, the bird-cry pierced the air again, and Hishin appeared at the door in a heavy, waterlogged coat and with the old baseball cap once more on his head, carrying another shopping bag. He too was glad to see the soldier, slapping him on the shoulder and saiding, “I see we pulled it off” as if he had had a hand in the boy’s transfer. Without asking permission from anyone or taking any notice of me, as if I were some kind of ghost, he took off his coat and hurried over to the big desk standing in the corner of the living room. This was apparently the true purpose of his visit, for within a few minutes he had succeeded in identifying the documents he was looking for and separating them from the rest of the files and papers. Then he announced to Dori, with a satisfied look, “Now I can rest easy.” A violent attack of coughing prevented her from reacting, and when all her smiles did not succeed in calming the spasms racking her, she picked up my medicine and showed it to Hishin, who said nothing except that it was a strong cough medicine favored by Nakash, which did nothing to recommend it to Dori. “Wait, don’t go yet,” she said to her old friend, who showed no signs of intending to leave. “Let’s all have tea.” And after asking Einat to put the electric kettle on and see that the plug wasn’t loose, she went into her bedroom to take off her wet, muddy boots, to which a few autumn leaves were sticking. Hishin finished reading what was written on the label of the bottle and without saying a word sank into an armchair, the files in his hand, still ignoring me pointedly, as if I really had turned into a ghost. During the past month he had grown a little thinner, and there were new lines on his face, which still, in spite of everything that had happened, fascinated me. From the bedroom the sound of Dori’s coughing reached us. Hishin stopped reading and listened, a faint smile crossing his face, as if he did not believe there was an organic cause for her cough. His eyes finally met mine, and he suddenly said in a natural tone of voice, as if he were continuing a conversation that had already begun, “What happened this afternoon with Levine? What exactly did you discover that made you phone him from the operating room?” But before I had a chance to answer he silenced me with a rude wave of his hand. “Never mind. Never mind. Don’t start reciting numbers again. I know. You’re right. You’re always right. But for God’s sake, leave Professor Levine out of it. What do you want from him? Why did you call him?”
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