“Did you remember to get vaccinated before you left?” I asked my mother, who now realized that she may have endangered her health by her journey. But my father was overjoyed, getting down on his knees to watch the movements of the little girl, whom I now set down gently on the floor to continue her tottering investigations. He did not seem to bear my mother a grudge for her disappearance; in fact, he was very proud of what she had done. Had he kissed or hugged her, I wondered, when she emerged from the airport terminal? I had never seen them kiss or embrace in my presence or in the presence of others; sometimes I wondered how I had been born at all.
At last the door opens, and slowly they wheel the mystery’s bed out of the operating room on its way to the intensive care unit. It is sunk in a deep sleep and wrapped in white bandages, connected to infusions and flickering instruments, but none of the nurses waiting in intensive care knows what to do for it or how to help it, for no knife or saw has been brandished over it, no tube or needle inserted to implant what was amputated at the dawn of time. Even if no drop of blood was shed, it is still suffering torments after a long night of stubborn delving into a black and riven soul. And perhaps they do well to bring a big cage in which two wild birds are chained together into the room full of morning light. Perhaps the birds will relieve his suffering with their song. Indeed, for the first time a smile breaks on his face. Has the first tender young plant already taken root? ask the nurses clustered around his bed. Among them is the little girl left behind in the kitchen in her school uniform, who has grown tall and beautiful and stolen in unobserved, disguised as a nurse, to take care of him. But the ray of light shattering on the emerald of her eyes betrays her. And then I can’t stop myself any longer from bursting into this dream. My darling, I whisper to her, my darling, my love.
About the Author
Born in Jerusalem in 1936, A.B. Yehoshua is the author of nine novels and a collection of short stories. One of Israel’s top novelists, he has won prizes worldwide for all his novels, and in the UK was shortlisted in 2005 for the first Man Booker International Prize. He continues to be an outspoken critic of both Israeli and Palestinian policies.
By A.B. Yehoshua
The Continuing Silence of a Poet:
The Collected Stories of A.B. Yehoshua
The Lover
A Late Divorce
Five Seasons
Mr Mani
Open Heart
A Journey to the End of the Millennium
The Liberated Bride
A Woman in Jerusalem
Friendly Fire
Copyright
This ebook published in Great Britain by
Halban Publishers Ltd.
22 Golden Square
London W1F 9JW
2012
Originally published in Great Britain by Halban Publishers, 1996
www.halbanpublishers.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Publishers.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 1 905559 49 7
Copyright © 1996 by A.B. Yehoshua
English translation copyright © 1996 by Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
A.B. Yehoshua has asserted his right under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
Designed by Paul Randall Mize
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