All at once he came to a halt, winked, and hugged me again. “And now, what do you propose that we do? I thought I would come to take you… but where to? I’m tom between the two of you. He’s flying back tomorrow night, and I’ve hardly seen him yet — in fact, I feel that I won’t be seeing him again for a long time. He really is leaving us — I finally had to believe it when I saw how calmly he let you have the apartment in the end. And Ya’el asked me to spend the seder with them… although Kedmi and his monster mother will be there too… and I can’t stand the thought of leaving you here with all these people. I did so want to be with you — who would have thought that I’d be the excited one and that you’d have dozed off so quietly?…But is everything really all signed and sealed… the documents, the bill of divorce… you have it all? We have to decide what to do in a hurry, because poor Calderon has to be home for the seder… all hell has broken loose there… and he keeps deliberately provoking it… so what do you say? We could go somewhere by ourselves, just the two of us… perhaps to a hotel… there must be one with a communal seder around here… or should we just go back to Tel Aviv and have our own private holiday meal there? You still have your old clothes in the apartment…. Well, what do you think?”
But I stood there without answering, still groggy from my deep sleep and shapeless dream, wondering if she’d come back today, if I’d be able to talk to her, if I still remembered how. My throat and lips felt parched. I let him lead me down the road, looking at the wet, fissured earth, at the plowed-up weeds scattered over it. A single sunny day would burn them all yellow. And he so childishly wanting to celebrate, such a blabbermouth, dragging me as far as a large, rusty plow that stood at the end of the field. He examined its caked blades curiously, wide-eyed.
“What do you say then, mother? What shall we do? We have to make up our minds, we can’t keep him any longer… his whole family is waiting for him there. His world has caved in on him and he’d like everyone else’s to also. Why don’t we send him on his way and go eat by the fisherman’s wharf in Acre… we’ll be the only Jews there… what do you say? You can’t possibly stay here by yourself on the night of the seder…”
“Why not?”
“You don’t remember?”
“Remember what?”
“How terribly depressed you were that first year. I was with you here.”
“You were with me here for the seder?”
“Of course.” He smiled. “You’ve forgotten. You were very ill then. You hardly noticed a thing… but I was with you, and I’ll never forget what a madhouse it was. It gave me the creeps…”
All at once my heart felt for him. He was the only one never to be afraid of me. To come to see me even then. I took his hand.
“Go be with father. You’re right. You won’t see him again for a long time. I’ve already said my goodbyes to him, but I want you to be with him. And I want you to help Ya’el. I’d just lie here in bed and read anyhow. Father brought me back my glasses. Why must you do all this for me? Everything is finished with… you say that I’m free now… I suppose you think that I’m eighteen years old…”
He was moved to sadness. Thoughtfully he knelt by a row of little sprouts and absently began to pluck them until he realized what he was doing and stuck them quickly back into the earth with an embarrassed smile. And I thought, was I really with him that seder or only with her, so alert and enjoying herself? And I lifted my eyes to the mountains and saw in the soft light of the setting sun a distant dot that made me freeze. It was she, on the trail in an army windbreaker, her hands in her pockets, traveling light. I couldn’t tell if she was moving toward me or away. And then suddenly I felt the old throbbing, the urge to have her be part of me again like a heavy backpack, the joy of her wild otherness between knife thrust and light flash…
Tsvi brushed the dirt from his clothes, out of breath, the first wrinkles of age in his face. He turned back toward the hospital and the distant gleam of the sea. “It’s so peaceful here. So lovely. I even dreamt about it. A haunting dream — I’ll tell you about it sometime. But I have to go now. Come say goodbye to Calderon… he’s falling apart, he’s lost all control of himself. In the end he’ll even be fired from the bank…” As he walked me slowly back to the waiting car I could feel that he wanted to say something else but was keeping it back, could hear her light footsteps behind me. The man was reading, his crewcut gray head bent over the wheel.
“Calderon,” said Tsvi gently. “Say goodbye to my mother.”
He roused himself, and when he looked up I saw his face bathed in tears. He wiped them away as he climbed out of the car, flushing hotly, in inner conflict.
“Forgive me, Mrs. Kaminka.” He shook my hand, nearly falling all over it. “It’s just… it’s this Chekhov book. Do you know it? We saw the show of Uncle Vanya, and so Tsvi brought me the book. A tremendous production. Fantastic. And when I think of how everyone cried then it makes me want to cry again… although I know it’s silly to shed tears over a bunch of Russians who lived a hundred years ago and were probably anti-Semites at that. Well, how are you? I heard that it all went well, praise God. As long as it’s over — sometimes what matters is not what you decide but simply having decided…”
He shook his head, red-eyed with tears that still wet his cheeks. Suddenly he remembered to say:
“I wanted to wish you a happy Passover. And what lovely spring weather it is… winter is finally over…”
“Where will you be for the seder?” I asked.
He glanced at Tsvi. “I don’t know yet.”
“At home,” declared Tsvi sharply. “You’ll be at home. Haven’t you gotten that into your head yet?”
“Yes,” he sighed, looking back and forth between the two of us. “I suppose I’ll be at home.” He gripped his book while stealing a glance at mine. And again he recalled something:
“Mr. Kaminka told me that on your mother’s side… that you… I mean, that you have a bit of us in you…”
“A bit of who?”
“Of Abrabanel.” He pronounced the name grandly. “That you’re part Abrabanel… I mean that you have their blood…”
When did they meet and what made Yehuda tell him about Grandmother Abrabanel?
“He was very glad to hear that we’re part Sephardi,” explained Tsvi.
“Does that seem important to you?” I asked softly.
He squirmed redly. “It’s another way of looking at yourselves… a different bloodline… the Abrabanels are of very fine stock. Of course, it’s not literally the blood… I don’t believe in that… it’s something intangible…”
He glanced at Tsvi with such deep love that it appalled me. Tsvi smiled mockingly back. And just then I saw her pass quickly by above the treetops. I felt a splitting pain in my head and made a face.
“Is anything wrong?” both asked at once.
“No. Nothing.”
“Well, we’d better be off,” said Tsvi. “If you’re not home soon, they really will murder you.”
“Let them,” said Calderon with a wry smile.
Tsvi kissed me warmly and said once more, “I’m glad that it’s over with.” And again I felt that he had left something unsaid. They got into the car, waving goodbye as it turned, and drove off to the east. My clear head was muddled now; it ached all over and things in the distance went fuzzy. The white car headed down the road — and then, by the railroad tracks, in the wet jungle of weeds, someone went flying, a dress shot up in the air, and the car stopped and drove back in reverse. Tsvi jumped out while it was still moving and ran up to me. “Mother, perhaps I should keep those papers that father gave you. It’s better not to leave them in the hospital. Someone might take them and lose them.”