They clustered round me from the moment that Yehuda and the rabbis left the hospital. It was as though they popped out from under the wheels of the taxi when it drove off, a whole gang of them that Yehezkel had inflamed in recent days: Musa and Ahre’le and D’vora and those two young ex-soldiers. “Congratulate her!” he commanded, grabbing my hand and extending it to them. “She’s a free, eligible woman now. There’s no need to kill him anymore. They’ve both been saved.” Even Musa touched my hand, stammering and blushing with emotion. All day today they followed me everywhere, I couldn’t shake them off. The nurses tried to reason with him but he kept stubbornly turning up again at my door, trailing after me as far as the fence, sitting opposite me at lunchtime, passing me platters of food, rolling out the water hose for me. There was no way to unstick him from me and no one to ask to do it. The hospital itself was in a chaos: cars driving in and out around the cottages, families looking for members to take home for the seder, strangers crowding into the wards, dressing the patients, collecting their things, signing forms, memorizing medicines, making a racket, joining us for tea. Yehezkel had a caller too, his son, a carbon copy of him: the same pinched, hangdog look, the same disintegrating face, the same wet cigarette in a corner of the mouth. The only difference between them was that the son’s thinning hair was still dark. A future basket case himself. He came in a khaki scooter with a sidecar for his father but Yehezkel wouldn’t go. He became so hysterical that no one could talk to him. In the end his son went to the office and brought back a doctor and nurse but Yehezkel was adamant. Absolutely not. It was his duty to stay here with me. “I tell you, he’s in love with her,’’ I heard the young doctor say. The blood rushed to my head and I ran off to my deck chair in its clump of trees, put on the glasses that father brought back today from the optometrist’s, and opened the book that I’ve been reading for the past several years while listening to the roar of the departing scooter and the sound of Yehezkel searching for me. I mussed my hair, shut my eyes, pulled my straw hat down over my face and made believe I was asleep. Already I could hear their whispers and the branches stirring around me, could feel the earth shake from Musa’s heavy tread. But when they saw me sleeping they grew oh so still and sat down where they were to keep watch. The gentle spring sun ran its rays over me. Slowly the noise of the strangers and the cars died away. A deep, peaceful silence came over me and I thought, here I am with the divorce that I wanted, he’s given me his share of the house, never again will I hear him speak to me in that overbearing manner of his that punched my life full of holes. And I thought too, perhaps now is the time for a visit from her to tell me what she thinks. But my breathing grew heavier and the book slipped to the ground while I dozed off, dimly aware of someone taking my glasses and propping my head on a pillow. My mussed hair blew in the wind and I sank deep into a dream at the bottom of which a child’s voice spoke in English. From somewhere came a strong smell of cooked mushrooms as though she were really nearby, my murdering-so-filled-with-longing other, and then I felt a light hand and woke with a start to see D’vora’s white face framed by its faded blond hair and Yehezkel hiding behind her, holding her arm like a stick with which to stroke me. “Tsvi’s come!” he exclaimed right away. “He’s here. He’s waiting at the gate. He sent us to get you.” I had thought Tsvi might call but I never imagined he would come by himself on the day of the seder. I rose feeling woozy but clear-headed inside, as though I’d been scrubbed clean in my sleep. The hospital was completely deserted now. Alone on a path in all his glory, decked out for the holiday in an old, freshly ironed doctor’s smock in place of a white shirt and a red bandanna tied around his neck, stood our King Og, our giant Musa. He even wore a black skullcap, fastened by a bobby pin. “Tsvi’s at the gate,” Yehezkel repeated frantically. “Did you know that he was coming? Have you spoken with him?” The man was in despair. After having stayed behind just for me, here I was running out on him. “Has he come to get you?” But I didn’t answer him. Drowsy but so clean inside I walked to the gate, feeling the newly risen breeze that was softly seeding the bright sky with small clouds, followed by the three of them; Yehezkel, Musa and D’vora. (Ahre’le had vanished, someone must have come for him too.) Yehezkel was beside himself. He kept running forward, waiting for me like a faithful dog and running ahead again, as though he were clearing the way. When we passed the closed ward we all stopped at the sight of three unfamiliar children in undershirts and gym shorts, playing as unconcernedly as though they hadn’t a notion where in the world they were. Children in the hospital… a tall blond girl and a skinny boy rolling their chubby baby brother on the lawn and chattering gaily in English…
We reached the gate, from which a row of eucalyptus trees flanked a road that ran ruler-straight through fields stretching out on either side: to its right a green fuzz of cotton that would break out in white blossom toward summer’s end, to the left great furrows of plowed earth with huge clods thrown up alongside them. Past them the railroad tracks streamed north to touch the foothills of the Galilee, whose scrub forests cut into strips by firebreaks formed a soft horizon rubbing up against a serenely innocent round sky full of sweet radiance, like a bowl of raspberry syrup mixed with the thin exhaust of the speeding cars on the highway. Somewhere out there, where the orchards and villages ran inland, Horatio loped dirty and hungry through the juicy young thorn shoots, fooled by the intoxicating scent of my wandering wild other no borders could hold, who was making her way steadily eastward.
Beyond the gate, near the darkened guardhouse from which rock music bubbled out, my Tsvi was taking the air by a white automobile, a long cigarette in his mouth, the sleeves of the jacket draped over his shoulders whipping in the breeze to reveal a knit beige shirt above his light bell-bottom pants. He always did have a flair for color that was worthy of a fashion magazine. As soon as he saw us he broke off his small talk with the watchman, bowed casually to my escort and breezily opened the gate for me, shutting it gently in Yehezkel’s face even as he thanked him. He threw away his cigarette, turned to have a look at me, took my two hands in his own, flashed a triumphant smile, and embraced me warmly. He kept up a stream of chatter as he hurried me to the car, from whose back seat he took out a bouquet of flowers. He laid them in my arms and grinned again. “You’re crazy, Tsvi,” I said. “Honestly.” He burst into a merry laugh. “Well, you’re free at last,” he said. “Free as can be. I spoke to Ya’el on the phone, and when she told me it went smoothly I couldn’t resist coming up. I had to, and Calderon agreed to drive me….So it’s over, then. Whereupon, I’ve been told, you went and fell peacefully asleep. Hats off to you, mother…” He didn’t stop running on at the mouth, saying the most fatuous things. And a bouquet of flowers, no less! In the car I could see the banker’s eyes glitter anxiously. He nodded imperceptibly, stiff with deference, afraid to intrude on us.
“So it’s over,” repeated Tsvi, slipping an arm through mine and walking with me down the road between the quiet, pre-holiday fields. “How do you feel? To tell you the truth, I was afraid he’d back out at the last minute.” He looked at me. “Or else that you would. Ya’el said something about some rabbi who kept making trouble right down to the wire. But here it’s over at last: you’ve parted honorably and without a fuss. I called Asi to tell him and he was glad too. ‘It had to happen… sooner or later it had to… there was no choice’—he kept saying that over and over. That’s his great insight, you know, that everything has to happen. Tomorrow he’ll come with Dina to say goodbye to father, and perhaps he’ll visit you too. To extend his congratulations…’’