“The problem is, I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know Eilat. It’s only my second day here. And I already hate the place.”
“You’re a strange guide,” she said. “I won’t be in the least surprised if you tell me next that you don’t have a driver’s license and this jeep doesn’t belong to you.”
“Of course it doesn’t belong to me,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll ever be rich enough to drive a car of my own. But that doesn’t mean we can’t go sightseeing. I’m just as curious as you are about this goddamn town.”
“Okay, let’s go to the beach,” she said, “and check out those boats with the glass bottoms. As long as I’m here I’d like to see something of Eilat. Though I must have begun touring the country from the wrong end.”
“You’ve never been to Israel before?”
“No,” she said. “I know only what my husband told me. Though he had never been here himself.”
“He’s dead now?”
“He died two years ago,” she said.
Israel stopped the jeep and turned his face to her. Sweat was running down his brow and getting into his eyes; he wiped it off with his hand, but that didn’t seem to help much.
“Listen,” he said, “you don’t have to pay me. Why don’t you see this town on your own? Half an hour would be enough. You really don’t have to pay me that ten pounds.” He paused. “I wouldn’t want you to think that someone was trying to swindle you. Here, in this country your husband told you so much about. It’s a country like any other. And the people here are no different from other people.” When she didn’t say anything, he asked, “You’re German, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she said. “You guessed by my accent?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I can always tell Germans. I think I would be able to recognize them in the dark and even if they didn’t say a word.”
“Do you mind that I’m a German?”
“No,” he said. “Germans never got in the way of Jews. It was always the other way around. Didn’t your husband tell you that?”
“I want to see this country,” she said stubbornly. “I want to see everything my husband told me about. That’s why I came here.”
“Okay,” Israel said. He started the jeep and they drove toward the bay. “I don’t know Eilat, so maybe you can show it to me. I guess you could call me a cicerone à re-bours. But I never expected anybody would want to pay me for something like this.”
“Well, I do,” she said. “You can like Germans or not, but Germans always pay.”
“There are many people in Israel who have refused all war reparations,” he said. “Nobody in the world knows how much exactly he should get for his mother’s murder. Or for the loss of an eye. Or for spending five years in a concentration camp. Maybe that’s why those people don’t want to accept money that’s rightfully theirs. Or maybe they think the rates will go up with time and they’re afraid of accepting too little.”
She turned to him.
“I can’t say anything about that,” she said. “I came here to see the country my husband told me so much about.” She looked ahead at the red, dusty road; a layer of dust had already settled on her slim, weary face. “My husband, whom I loved very dearly,” she added.
“I’m sorry,” Israel said. “I shouldn’t have said what I did. After all, my mother died here, in a free country. And I’m free too.”
Suddenly he braked hard; she had to brace herself against the windshield with her hand. The jeep stopped.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He didn’t answer; he was watching a plane coming in for a landing from over the bay, its undercarriage half out.
“What a fool,” he said loudly.
“Who?”
“That goddamn pilot,” he said. “Letting out the undercarriage in the middle of a turn! That’s the quickest way to plummet to the ground. Where the hell did he train to be a pilot, in a coal mine? Only a dead drunk miner could have issued him a pilot’s license. I haven’t seen anything so stupid as long as I live.”
“Do you like planes?” she asked.
He didn’t answer; he hadn’t heard her question. He was still watching the plane. She looked at his hands and saw they were executing strange movements, as if they held something that was invisible but gave resistance, that had to do with the control of a machine’s motion; then the plane touched down heavily on the runway, and Israel’s hands came to rest on the jeep’s steering wheel.
“Were you a pilot?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “And I never will be.”
He started the car again. They were driving now along the bay, tranquil and luminous; she turned her gaze toward the sea and the white houses of Aqaba on the other side of the border.
“What’s over there?” she asked, pointing.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It looks like an oil-processing plant or something of the sort.”
“You don’t like this country, do you?” she asked.
“I dislike Eilat. I never said I disliked Israel. Actually, I’ve never given that question any serious thought.”
“Why did you come here?”
“Because I thought I should,” he said. “And it turned out to be an illusion. People should never do things they don’t want to do. But there are always others who can make them do something against their will and even talk them into believing it’s what they want most themselves.”
Israel stopped the jeep. “Here we are,” he said. “See that boat out in the bay? That’s the one I told you about. They should be back in a few minutes.”
“Look!” she said. “There’s that old couple you wouldn’t give a ride to.”
He turned and saw the two people in black garb shuffling slowly along the beach. The woman was still clutching her husband’s arm; from time to time she would yell something to him, bringing her mouth to his ear.
“They look as if they’re in the wrong movie,” Ursula said. “It happens. You are somewhere, maybe doing your shopping, and suddenly you see someone who looks totally out of place. Just as if the projectionist got his rolls of film mixed up.”
“Don’t worry about them,” Israel said. “I’m sure they don’t feel the way you do. They are certain their presence is what was lacking here and only now is everything finally in perfect order.”
As the old couple strolled by, Israel saw that their eyes were red and glazed from the sun; the old man was walking with his mouth wide open like someone who’s breathing his last and will drop dead the next instant.
“That bitch made him come here,” Israel said. “She convinced him he should see this country before he died, and then dragged him here all the way from New York or California. Now he can go back and die.”
“You don’t like old people, do you?”
“No,” he said. “How can anybody like them? They know too much and have too little dignity. That old bitch thinks the world couldn’t go on without her. That’s why she browbeats her travel agent and flies here halfway across the world, spending money that’d be enough to feed five hungry men.”
“That woman could be your mother,” Ursula said.
“I’d say the same thing about my mother,” he said. “Fortunately, my mother is no longer here.” For a few moments he watched the old couple trudging slowly and doggedly along, even though each step they took must have required an effort. “Americans never say somebody’s dead; they say he’s gone or departed. But I prefer to think that old people really die and I’ll never see them again. All those old mothers who ruined their children’s lives. They won’t come back.”
“I don’t understand that,” she said. “My mother died when I was nine. I often wish I could talk to her. Maybe things would have been different if she had lived.”
“Oh, definitely,” he said. “She would have taken care of that. She would have done everything to ruin your life. But, believe me, none of them ever come back. They don’t return, they disappear, together with their despicable bodies, their wisdom, and bad breath. Have you ever thought of how an old woman really smells? Nobody wants to think about it. No animal smells as bad as an old woman.”