It took a while to find the checkroom where his coat was, because they kept getting lost in the rapidly emptying corridors. Outside they discovered that the driving sleet had gotten worse. Though it was not especially late, barely half past ten, the streets were already deserted, the young audience having vanished as though into thin air, leaving only a ragged line of older people standing at the top of the steps, at whose bottom an even older footman in a black uniform and a smartly brimmed cap, a red armband on his sleeve, was trying to flag down cabs with an ancient and ineffective whistle. Feeling his companion pressing against him, Molkho allowed himself a gentle response. Did she really have the secret hots for him? But, unless he had disappointed her by falling asleep or by being such an uninspired conversationalist, the opera must have exhausted her too, for she seemed pensive and uncommunicative. Taxis were scarce and the wait was a long one. “Perhaps we should walk,” she suggested. “The hotel isn’t far, and I’m sure I can find it.” For a minute he wavered. But his faith in her sense of direction had been shaken, and the little spears of icy rain kept jabbing down. “No,” he answered, “I think we should wait for a cab,” and so they joined the long queue, which was slowly inching along.
Indeed, the flow of taxis increased, and soon they were next in line. Just then, two more cabs pulled up and the two old ladies in front of them started down the slippery steps. Though they had not exchanged a word, Molkho was sure they were together and prepared to follow them down; the legal adviser, however, held back. Sure enough, the two women climbed into a single cab and the car behind it honked softly. “Quick, it’s our turn,” he exclaimed, breaking free of his companion’s grip and darting down the rainy stairs to catch the taxi. Hurriedly, as if searching for his missing arm or afraid he wouldn’t wait, she started after him, her fur coat flapping around her. “Watch out,” he warned, seeing her stumble and then, losing her balance, pitch forward and tumble down the broad steps, stopping after three or four of them because, agile squirrel that she was, she caught herself and sat up, her face twisted in pain, one shoe on the ground behind her. Frightened, he ran back toward her, reaching her ahead of the Germans who came to the rescue too, even though he paused on his way to pick up her shoe, which looked more worn from use than scuffed. He held her arm, bending over her while she tried first telling him in Hebrew, and then the Germans in German, that she was all right. Above her ankle, where her stocking was torn, were a few drops of blood, which stirred him sadly as with an old passion. Kneeling beside her on the cold stairs, he tried helping her on with her shoe. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said crimsonly, snatching the shoe from him and getting to her feet. Then, holding it in one hand, she hobbled down the stairs and disappeared through the open door of the taxi to the relief of the bystanders, who appeared to be genuinely concerned.
Inside the taxicab, cursing under her breath, she bent down to feel her ankle. Her face looked gray and old. Although eager to remind her that he had warned her, Molkho said nothing, remembering how his wife had always hated such I-told-you-so’s. The taxi was still standing there, its driver awaiting instructions. Slowly the legal adviser got a grip on herself. “We have to give him the address,” said Molkho and she did.
He insisted, of course, on helping her up to her room. “Lie down, let’s have a look at you,” he said as she pulled off her stocking, catching a glimpse when he removed the two suitcases from her bed of an unlikely pair of red panties and an old-fashioned girdle that resembled those worn by his mother. At last, he could get a good look at her foot in the light. The bruise above her ankle, for which she let him make a compress from a washcloth, was superficial and no longer bleeding, but the ankle itself was swollen and painful, though when he tried to turn it gently, they both agreed it wasn’t broken.
SHE SMILED AT HIM and he smiled back, feeling fully awake now, his tiredness forgotten. Now she’ll see what I’m made of, thought Molkho. As she hopped to the bathroom on one small foot, he rose to have a look around the room, which was slightly larger than his own but, except for the double bed, furnished in the same Spartan style. His glance fell on familiar items in her open suitcases, such as the pink slippers she had worn that evening in her home. How strange to see them here in Berlin! He laid them neatly on the floor, took out several other things she was likely to need, put them on the table, and hung her cold, wet fur coat in the closet. He heard the toilet being flushed in the bathroom, and when she returned to the room, still hobbling but freshly combed and made up, he hurried to help her lie down, examined her foot again, and asked if she had medical insurance. Of course she did, she replied, though she had no intention of calling a doctor. “It’s nothing,” she smiled with a grimace. The puffy redness around the ankle looked edematous; he knew the symptoms, had become an expert on them during the past year. Lightly touching her foot, he searched for the point where the natural irregularity of the bone yielded to the actual swelling. He should make her a splint or ligature, something at least for the night, though it wasn’t the swelling that bothered her but the pain. Could he look to see if she had any pills? she asked, still badly flustered, especially as her back hurt now too. He poked through her toilet kit and found nothing but a few crumbly aspirins. “Here, let’s have a look,” he said, thinking how odd it was to be turning a strange woman over on her stomach. “I’ve become half a doctor this past year.” There was a faint blue contusion on her back, but when he pressed it gingerly, they agreed it was no cause for concern.
The opera seemed far away now, a forgotten figment of the imagination. Giving her two aspirins—just one would do no good—he suggested finding a drugstore and buying an athletic bandage to bind her foot for the night. “That’s hardly necessary,” she said, so clearly pleased by his solicitude that he had to warn himself not to overdo it, afraid to be trapped in a relationship that might not be at all what he wanted. At first, he proposed taking her key to let himself back in with, but she preferred to leave the door unlocked. Downstairs the hotel was quiet. The ten other keys were in their cubbyholes, a mute sign that they were still alone in the hotel.