“I hope we didn’t disturb you,” he murmurs. “Dina insisted that we drop in to watch you teach. I myself didn’t want to…”
“It’s all right.”
He smells faintly of eau de cologne. What’s gotten into the man?
“You’re so intense that you scared me. But I’m glad to have seen you lecture. Marvelous! You’re a real orator. And with those dramatic hand gestures… I thought you were really going to shoot Bravo! Go on being tough with them. Give them exams. That’s the only way they’ll respect you. What was the subject of today’s lesson, terrorism? How interesting. Are you lecturing on that all year long?”
“No. The course is on late-nineteenth-century Russia.”
“Of course. That’s what your doctorate’s about.”
“No, it’s about the 1820s. I sent it to you… but I don’t suppose you ever looked at it…”
I weave in and out lightly fending off bodies like a submarine in a busy harbor.
“But I did. Of course I read it… that is, the parts that I could understand… it’s just that…”
Now he’s trying to stammer his way out of it. But then I didn’t hear a single word from him. We stand facing a strong dry wind in the plaza outside. Dina rushes to catch up with us. She clings to me hugging and kissing me for all the students to see.
“It was such a lovely class!”
“But you kept disturbing me.”
She giggles.
“He started up with me. It wasn’t my fault. He’s one of those eternal students. He was once even in a class of mine. But we talked in a whisper.”
“Forget it.” I take a step back from her. “Were your parents happy to see you?”
“At least now they’re sure that you weren’t immaculately conceived… even if you would have liked to be.”
Father laughs.
“I’m glad Dina made me go. It was a must. They were so happy to see me. It was a short but successful visit, wasn’t it, Dina? They’re very likable people.”
“That’s good, father, but we have to move. We have a long trip ahead of us.”
Again I feel the sting of the lost day. My precious time… and it almost Passover and the library soon to be closed…
“Yes, let’s go,” says Dina animatedly.
“You’re coming too?”
“Of course.”
“But how can you? Aren’t you going to work today?’’
“I’m taking the day off. I’m coming with you.”
My wife the playgirl.
“Absolutely not. There’s no reason for you to be there.”
“Then I’ll wait outside ”
“But what on earth for? I don’t get it. You haven’t gone to work for several days. In the end you’ll be fired, you do know that, don’t you?”
“Don’t worry about me.”
The selfishness to keep taking off from work and coming home at the end of the month with hardly any paycheck. If it weren’t for what we get from her parents…
“Then I’m coming.” She turns beseechingly to father who says nothing.
“You are not!”
“I haven’t seen your mother for so long.”
“You’ll have plenty of time to see her. She’s not going anywhere. And neither are you today.”
I squeeze her arm hard to show her I mean it. She has new little pimples on her face. Brackish blue eyes. Cheekbones that protrude as though about to puncture her thin skin. How did I ever get stuck with her? A stubborn Mongoloid child.
“Why don’t you go to work.”
She retracts her arm from me.
“I don’t want to. And you can’t make me.”
Father turns away smiling faintly half listening to our enjoyable little spat.
“Of course I can’t. Who can make you do anything? Come, father, we’ll be late.”
She stands there stunned flushed with rage. Students stare at us as they pass. Father lays a light hand on her.
“So we’ll see you on the holiday? You’ll come to say goodbye… we’ll be in touch…”
She doesn’t hear him though. Doesn’t look at him. She stares at me floored by my refusal.
“Then give me some money, Asa.”
“What for?”
“I need some.”
“But just yesterday…”
“It’s all gone.”
“Do you two need money?”
“No, father, it’s all right.’’ I take out my wallet and give her five hundred pounds.
“That’s all?”
“That’s all I have. I need some for myself.”
“If you two need money, say so.”
“Fine. I’ll go to the bank.”
“There’s none left there either.”
“He’ll give me some anyway.”
“Who?”
“The teller who brought me the cheese last night.”
All at once she bursts out laughing gaily. Warmly she throws herself on father’s neck then shakes my hand stiffly and disappears among the students.
“Very simple people. I was in their grocery store. Straight out of a nineteenth-century Hebrew novel, with a barrel of pickled fish by the door. A genuinely literary grocery! A most depressing one too. And they’re very religious, even if her father doesn’t grow long sidelocks. Very religious, I tell you: I have a sixth sense for that sort of thing and I could feel it right away. In fact, in no time they were telling me that they belong to a small sect of Hungarian Hasidim with some very old rabbi whom they consult about everything and who tells them just what to do and think. Were you aware of that? You too, my dear Dr. Kaminka, are in his hands. You too are being manipulated by him by means of some hidden string, heh heh…”
(Why is he carrying on like this?)
“Is this our bus? The express to Haifa? You’d better make sure…. Let me pay for us. It’s frightful that I still haven’t gotten to the bank to change dollars….All right, then, I’ll pay you back in Haifa. The main thing is to be in the station there by one o’clock. Ya’el and Kedmi will be waiting for us…. It makes no difference to me, you can sit by the window…. What I’ve been asking myself since my fascinating visit with your in-laws this morning is whether you knew what you were getting into or whether you simply saw a pretty young thing at the university and didn’t bother to ask what she came with. What a hodgepodge world it’s become! Twenty years ago a young girl from such a family would never have left the streets of her neighborhood; she would have gone about so muffled up in long dresses that you wouldn’t have bothered to look twice at her in the street. But today there are such astonishing leaps and transitions… the barriers have all come down. A total chaos. Just look what an anarchist like you has gotten involved with! But I suppose you manage to get along with them… leave it to you. From the time you were in nursery school you always had the knack of getting along. Asa knows how to minimize conflict, mother and I used to say to each other…. When is this bus going to leave? I’m glad I went to see them, they would have been hurt if I hadn’t. I really don’t understand why you were so against it. After all, we got back in perfectly good time. Your Dina can be a bit childish, and I’m happy you didn’t let her join us for the drama that’s in store for us today. You saw that I kept out of it. But this morning she was right. Why should you have been angry? After all, I did it for your sake too. I really don’t follow you there. Are you ashamed of them? They may be simple folk, but they’re certainly decent ones. And your own father is no model of perfection either, heh heh…”