HE PHONED his elder son, the college student, and went to wake the high school boy, which was no easy task in the dark. During the last year the boy had taught himself to sleep soundly, dead to the world, but Molkho forced him out of bed, throwing off the blankets (beneath which his son had slept in his clothes again to save time dressing in the morning) before breaking the news to him. He was prepared for it, had been in fact for quite a while. Over the past month he had detached himself from his mother, so impatient with the slowness of her death that if, asking about her on coming home from school, he was told she had had a good day, he frowned involuntarily. Now his father took him for a last look at her, steering him by the shoulder, though stiff with sleep he stood there so dazed and dry-eyed that Molkho wondered if it wouldn’t be better for him to take his exam in school than stay home and get in everyone’s way. Meanwhile, pale and haggard, the college student had arrived with the speed of light and was showering kisses on his grandmother while lightly holding his mother’s hand. Next he’ll start kissing her too, Molkho thought, sensing himself grow more remote, more coldly calculating, from minute to minute.
The telephone rang. It was 5:15. His mother was calling from Jerusalem. Though how was beyond him, she already knew everything; all night long she hadn’t slept a wink, thinking about it. She had wanted so badly, she wept, to say good-bye to her. She had loved her so much. Could someone fetch her from Jerusalem? When could they come? Could they keep the body at home until she got there? He heard the distant, muffled sound of her tears and parried her lamely, exhaustedly, ignoring her pleas, for he knew she had always been afraid of her daughter-in-law, whose corpse he preferred she not see in its bed. Finally he hung up and dialed a close friend, the doctor who had treated his wife in recent years. He, too, answered at once and quite lucidly, as if he had been expecting the telephone to ring. Meanwhile, an aroma of coffee filled the house, and Molkho greedily drank the large, hot mug of it poured him by his son, feeling drunk with the sweetness of Death, pacing back and forth in the room, though never too close to the bed, listening to his daughter’s endless sobs—she, of all people, who had never gotten along with her mother at all.
His mother-in-law still sat by the bed, guarding it without moving. The doorbell rang. It was the doctor and his wife, both grim-looking. Brushing past Molkho, the doctor went straight to the corpse and examined it thoroughly, as if to make sure it was dead, which made Molkho fear that it wasn’t, that maybe it was merely unconscious, while at the same time feeling angry at not being believed. But at last the examination was over; gently the doctor drew the sheet over the dead woman’s face, and Molkho told him about the end, imitating her wheezing and the tremor in her hands, though just then the flood of morning light pouring in the window made the two-hour-old death seem something that had happened long ago. The doctor listened and dialed the hospital to order an ambulance, while several neighbors knocked and entered, all of whom—the women, too—had to kiss Molkho. Odder yet, it seemed to him, was how one of them burst out wailing bitterly, starting off the day with a good cry at the corpse’s expense, though she and his wife had never done more than say hello on the stairs. Her husband stood by concernedly, conversing with Molkho’s mother-in-law, who still sat by the side of the bed as if she were the living half of the dead person and empowered to carry on in her behalf.
Molkho felt exhausted. Desiring to be alone, he went and sat in the living room, from where he listened to the college student telephoning all their friends in his toneless drawl, rousing them from bed without even an apology. No doubt, Molkho thought, they, too, would come running to pay their last respects—an idea that aroused in him such profound resistance that he sat stubbornly brooding in the corner, thinking how much better it would be for no one to see her at all. What did her dead body matter? All along he had taken good care of her, everyone knew that he had, and now all at once he was to blame for her death, for which he was being held accountable.
Time passed as in a waking dream. More and more people, surprisingly quick to arrive, rang the doorbell, all wanting to be with him, just as once, long ago (for so last night already seemed), they had wanted to be with her. Then his mother was on the phone again; but this time, refusing to rise, he asked his son or daughter to take the call. Where, he wondered bitterly, was he to find the strength for it all? He had always imagined that his wife’s death would set him free, yet now he felt newly shackled, and when someone removed the sheet from her face, which looked pale and ugly in the strong light, he suddenly had enough and snapped, “What do you think this is, Lenin’s tomb?” Just then, though, the ambulance arrived, and two men carried her out of the house. It wasn’t even seven; it was like one of those distant days long ago when she left for school ahead of time because her class had an early homeroom.
THEY WERE ALL AFRAID that the rain would spoil the funeral, but at noontime, some two hours beforehand, the sky cleared and a warm breeze blew in from the sea. The procession left the funeral parlor on time and covered without incident the short, straight distance to the cemetery, where, the hour being convenient and the news having spread, the crowd turned out to be a large one. All eyes were on him, following him to the grave, and he did his best to look about and remember who was there, asking his children to remember too. A light, delicate mist swirled about them, whitening the tombstones, and they walked in its midst with an unhurried crunching of feet: his mother-in-law, without her cane and surrounded by all her old friends, stepping slowly and supporting each other; his children with their friends; and he himself with his mother in tow, tottering after him in a black fur coat like a cart missing a wheel, stopping in front of all the people she knew to cast them a disconsolate glance. The grave had already been dug that morning in a new section of the cemetery on a low rise of the mountain, and now he stood dutifully beside it, looking down at the fresh earth and observantly up again at the murmuring crowd, pleased to see not only his friends from the office but many secretaries and colleagues too. The woman doctor who had once treated his wife was there also, as were her fellow teachers and many others he couldn’t place—teenagers, college students, young soldiers, high school pupils in their uniforms, his children’s teachers, even several cousins from Jerusalem, heavy, balding Sephardim of the old school, bundled in scarves, their eyes, unused to the sight of it, fixed on the stormy sea nearby with a look of astonished concern. He had never been such an attraction before, besieged by so many people—who were thinking mainly of her, of course, but no doubt also of him.
The rabbi beside him was an impeccably dressed, distinguished-looking man of German origin who had presided two years ago at his wife’s uncle’s funeral to the satisfaction of the entire family, at which time her mother had had the presence of mind to jot down his telephone number. Quickly, expertly, he tore the lapel of Molkho’s shirt while Molkho looked at him hopefully, trusting him to guide them just as smoothly through the rest of the ceremony. Surrounded by his children, friends, and family, he stood there certain of the acknowledgment in their warm, approving looks, for he knew that they knew how devotedly he had cared for his wife, doing everything he could to nurse her at home until the end—yes, even the rabbi, in brief but eloquent words, was now speaking in his praise. Raising his eyes to the somberly listening circle of women, his wife’s friends, now regarding him contemplatively, Molkho wondered if any of them knew things he didn’t, intimate secrets she might have shared with them during the long hours they had sat with her, strange fantasies even, the product of her illness, against which he was unable to defend himself. Why, even though she had refused to make love to him since that day seven years ago when her first breast was removed, he had never been unfaithful, had never protested even once!