Once again there was a new clerk at the reception desk, this time a young student, who looked up from his heavy book to give Molkho directions in excellent English, as if helping guests find drugstores in the middle of the night were routine, even drawing a map of how to get to one that was only five minutes away. Molkho took several of the hotel’s cards from a box on the counter, stuck one in each pocket in case he got lost, and, quite proud of himself for venturing out in this city behind the Iron Curtain guided by only a slip of paper, strode jauntily into the narrow streets, whose shroud of desolate fog was pierced by the lights of bars and restaurants. Before long he arrived at the drugstore, which was visible from a distance; large and well lit, it was located in what seemed to be an old church or fortress or, at any rate, an artfully renovated old building, though the giant containers of brightly colored liquids on its shelves and the large straw hampers filled with tubes and boxes gave it more the appearance of a supermarket, over which presided the druggist, a stout, jovial man in a black cravat who seemed greatly to amuse his young assistants. Indeed, every sentence he uttered aroused peals of laughter, the cause of which, Molkho concluded, could not possibly be the man’s wit but simply his buffoonish manner. Slowly Molkho walked down the aisles, enjoying the special night mood of the place, examining the rows of medicines while looking for an athletic bandage. Poking about a bit in the hampers, where he noticed several over-the-counter drugs that in Israel were sold only by prescription, he suddenly came across the most familiar of them all lying innocently in its blue-and-white box. Talwin! Lovingly he turned it in his hand, feeling all the excitement of a chance meeting with an old friend whom he had never expected to see again. He consulted the price, figuring it in shekels, and was so angered by the enormousness of the Israeli markup that he went on calculating its precise, scandalous percentage all the way to the checkout counter, only to discover upon arrival that the elderly druggist, who bore a striking resemblance to Doctor Doolittle, didn’t understand a word of English, which not only failed to prevent him from making jokes that were translated for Molkho by an assistant but inspired him, to the merriment of all, to mimic the translation too. At last, producing several athletic bandages, he laid them on the counter, and Molkho bought the next to the cheapest, having already decided that he would not let the legal adviser reimburse him. As he started to pay, the druggist inquired with a wink about the box of Talwin, which was still firmly gripped in Molkho’s hand. “Ask him if it’s good for pain,” Molkho requested of the English-speaking assistant. The druggist regarded him with his merry blue eyes. Jawohl, he declared, it was wunderbar. “Then I’ll take it,” declared Molkho, already plotting his revenge on the drugstore in Haifa that had overcharged him.
THERE WASN’T A SOUND in the hotel. Most of the lamps were turned off and the shades of the lit ones cast reddish brown patches in the corners of the lobby. Molkho took the elevator up to the room, knocked lightly, and gently opened the door. Still fully clothed, the legal adviser lay in misery on her bed, the night’s music having fled and left her with a sprained ankle, at which she stared in despair. Tearing its wrapper, Molkho took out the athletic bandage and vigorously bound her foot, which now looked like a fat little fish, informed by her cry that her threshold of pain was nothing like his wife’s, which had reached truly supreme heights toward the end. Indeed, what did she know about suffering? Her husband had dropped dead on the floor like a pot cover, her whole family pampered her, and intellectuals like herself had no powers of endurance anyway. Now she was gazing at him contemplatively, her close-cropped hair on the pillow, looking just like her daughter that night in her room. The aspirins, it seemed, hadn’t helped. He had suspected as much when he saw them, small, old, and crumbly; it was amazing how people didn’t realize that no drug was immortal. She was terribly sorry, said the legal adviser; she was afraid their whole trip would be ruined now. “I told you to watch out,” replied Molkho, unable to restrain himself. “I had a feeling you were going to slip,” he added, realizing too late that she might be blaming him for just that, for letting go of her in a hurry at the wrong time. Yet, how long was he expected to hold onto a woman he hardly knew—and one three whole civil service ranks ahead of him, not to mention car expenses, a subject that still bore looking into?
Still, he felt for her. The best thing, he told her, was to get a good night’s sleep and wake up feeling better in the morning. Gently he took a few things from her suitcases and stood there wondering whether to help her undress, only to decide it might embarrass her; and so, too much attention being as bad as too little, he left her room. It was 12:15 and as the elevator didn’t seem to be working, he descended the narrow, padded stairs. Clearly, there were still no other guests. What, apart from its low rates and cleanliness, had made her choose this place? Had she already stayed here with someone before him? Strangely, as if all the events of the day had never happened, he didn’t feel at all tired. Not ready for sleep, he sat in the armchair reading about Jesus in Jerusalem until suddenly it struck him that it was Friday night and he hadn’t even thought of his children. “How could I have forgotten them,” he reproached himself, trying to go back to his book. Yet, when he tried picturing Jerusalem, all he could think of was his mother sitting grumpily in their big, old house.
Finally he undressed, put on his pajamas, got into bed, and turned off the night-light. It was after one. Just as he was dozing off, however, he heard someone hobble down the hallway. He rose and went to the door, through which the legal adviser asked in her brisk manner if he had anything stronger than the aspirin, which wasn’t doing any good. “I’ll be right there,” said Molkho. Dressing quickly, he took the box of Talwin and went upstairs.
Her fully lit room looked a mess, its window wide open as though she were about to throw herself out of it, though she was in fact limping anxiously about in a flowery nightgown and light bathrobe while the radio played soft German songs. Her back pains, she told Molkho, were gone, but her foot was in agony. He nodded sympathetically, amazed how frightened she was of pain, showed her the box of Talwin, opened it, and pulled out a chain of little pills. Over the past year, he explained, telling her about his wife’s experience, he had become an expert anesthesiologist.
The legal adviser listened eagerly to Molkho’s stories of his wife, who had suddenly turned into a role model. But why, she wanted to know, had he brought all those pills with him to Europe in the first place? He hadn’t, he explained; he had bought them just now at the drugstore, over-the-counter and cut-rate. She took a blue pill from him, swallowed it obediently, and suggested taking another. “Absolutely not,” he declared, slipping the box back into his pocket while feebly stifling an astonished yawn at the sight of her breasts bobbing up and down beneath her nightgown. “They’re very strong,” he said. “One is enough.” Regretfully she watched the box vanish. “Maybe you should leave them with me,” she said. “If one doesn’t work, I’ll take another during the night.” “One is enough,” he repeated, “you’ll see.” Yet, not wanting her to think he didn’t trust her, he left her the box anyway. Reassured, she hobbled back to bed, where he helped cover her with a blanket and was rewarded at last with a smile. “Now you’ll sleep well,” he promised, wondering whether he shouldn’t crawl in beside her, though he was more used to having the patient prone beneath him. The main thing was for her to rest her foot—the thought of which made him lift the blanket and decide to undo the bandage for another, last look. The ankle was good and swollen now. Expertly he rewound the elastic, feeling the flabby warmth of her flesh around the bruise, in which the blood had jelled like rubies, reminding him again of a fat, white, blind, stranded little fish. “I’m afraid I’ve ruined this trip of yours,” she said for the second time. There was something touching about the no-longer-fresh bloom of hopelessness on her face. “You haven’t ruined anything,” he answered quietly. “Tomorrow you’ll feel better. Just let me take care of you.” Overcome by fatigue at last, she fell back against the pillow, and he felt a faint stirring in his loins, as if the gray mouse had turned over in its sleep. He closed the window, drawing the blinds. “To let you sleep late in the morning,” he explained, offering to lock the door after him to keep the chambermaid out. “Never mind,” she said resignedly from her pillow, “you can leave it unlocked. No one’s about to burgle or rape me here.” Once again he considered sedating her with his body warmth, but her eyes were already shut, and so he switched off the light and descended to his room.