But there was no answer when he called. He laid his head on the steering wheel, feeling his fear get the better of him, and then decided to look for the college student. “I know he’s studying for an exam,” he told Ya’ara, “but it is his brother.” He drove to the campus and parked by the library. “If you don’t mind,” he said gently yet another time, for it was premature to introduce her to the family, “wait for me here. You can stretch your legs on the lawn if you’d like. I want to see if Omri knows anything.” He entered the large reading room with its windows looking out on the lights of the city and its air-conditioned atmosphere, which felt like that of another planet, passing down the rows of students hunched by their lamps until he found the college boy sitting drowsily beside a pile of books and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. But tall, thin Omri, when told in a whisper what had happened, did not seem at all upset. “He must be delayed somewhere, Dad. What are you so worried about?” “But what hike was he on?” demanded Molkho. “No one knows a thing about it.” “Maybe he went with a different Scout pack,” drawled Omri. “Why don’t you wait for him at home?” “No, I’d better call the police,” said Molkho inconsolably. “But it’s too early for that,” objected his son with a baffled look. “They won’t understand what you want from them.” “You’re right,” whispered Molkho, turning the pages of a book “I’m at my wits’ end. It’s a good thing your mother is dead. If anything’s happened to him, I’ll want to die too!” The college student shut his eyes, his head full of formulas and numbers. “Would you like me to sleep at your place tonight?” he asked wearily. “No, there’s no need,” answered Molkho. “If he’s not home by midnight, I’ll let you know. I just hope he knows what he’s doing.”
He rose, leaned over his son’s crew-cut head, patted it lightly, and stepped out into the night, where Ya’ara’s silhouette through the dark window of the car looked like a smoke-wreathed ghost. He thought of Gandhi and of millions of Indians and then tried picturing the cosmos flipping over and his son falling out of it. “You smoke too much,” he said, brushing against Ya’ara as he slipped into the car. “You’re poisoning yourself for no good reason.” Annoyed, she huddled in her seat without answering. Naturally, Omri knew nothing, Molkho told her. “Since my wife’s death, it’s been every man for himself in our family. Let’s drive to Carmel Center. Maybe he’s waiting for a bus.” He cruised slowly past the bus stops in the Center, but the boy wasn’t there, and he swung around and started home, driving slowly downhill in low gear. “Maybe he decided to walk. You look on your side and I’ll look on mine. If you see a teenager with curly hair just like mine, that’s him.”
She quickly opened her door when they pulled up by the house, exhausted and eager to get upstairs. “Just a minute, you wait here,” he ordered, jumping out first and stopping short when he saw that the apartment was still dark. And the note was still on the door, an air of permanency about it. Unthinkingly he grabbed it and hurried back to the car, where her thin, pale arm was resting in the window. “He’s not there,” he said. “I can’t just sit up waiting for him. He’s only sixteen. Suppose something happened? His mother would murder me! We’d better look some more. I know you’re tired, but what if he missed the last bus from the Central Station and can’t get home? I’m worried,” he said with a lump in his throat. “If he’s not there, I’ll call the police.”
This time he insisted that she come with him, leading her through an underground passage and up to the silent ramps that stood between the deserted fast-food stands and the parked rows of dusty buses. She followed him in silence, lagging behind a bit, yellow in the dim, fluorescent light. By some pay phones they watched the last buses whoosh up and discharge a few rumpled passengers—red-eyed soldiers with rifles, yeshiva students with bags of books, young vagabonds with backpacks. All vanished quickly, as if into the thick concrete walls, while Molkho went off to dial his apartment and stood listening to the telephone ringing in the darkness.
They returned to the car and drove past the bus station toward the traffic lights at the corner. But, instead of continuing straight, he instinctively turned left toward Rambam Hospital, in front of which, despite the late hour, there was the usual commotion of shiny ambulances slipping in and out the gate. Security guards stood talking to visitors, including entire families with baskets and pots of food. Over the main entrance shone the green light that meant the emergency room was functioning normally. A car pulled up and out of it stepped a young woman in an advanced state of pregnancy, a gay grimace of pain on her face; plucked away like a large, ripe fruit, she slowly advanced toward the lit entrance without waiting for her husband, who, having parked, was now running after her with a small suitcase. For a moment Molkho sat there transfixed, feeling the old fear rise from his gut and bear him off on a sweet wave of longing. He glanced up at the cloudless midnight sky, in which large, splendid stars stood silent sentinel. “As long as we’re here anyway,” he almost begged, seeing the disbelief on Ya’ara’s face, “why not take a look inside? I know it’s irrational, but I’ll feel better if I check the emergency room. Won’t you come too? There’s no point in waiting out here.”
ALTHOUGH THE APARTMENT was still dark, there was nothing to do but return to it. At the top of the stairs, however, he saw a new note on the door, which bore a message from the neighbor: Molkho’s mother-in-law, it said, had called to announce that the high school boy was with her, having arrived home at ten-thirty with no key. His sleeping bag was by the fence behind the house. “Didn’t I tell you he’d forget his key?” exclaimed Molkho triumphantly. “What can you do with such a child!” He let Ya’ara inside, switched on the lights, and went down for the sleeping bag, which was dirty and covered with burrs, hugging its campfire smell to his chest with untold relief and exhaustion. She was out on the terrace when he returned, her face turned to the night as if away from him. Should he embrace her gratefully? But no, that might prove awkward—and so he laid a limp hand on her shoulder and stared down with her at the ravine, which lay bright and vital in the moonlight. “Well, we had a nice day,” he said. “I’m sorry if Gabi and I spoiled the evening for you.” “But you didn’t,” she answered earnestly. “It’s not your fault. I could see how worried you were.” “Yes,” he said swallowing hard, the waves of tiredness that were breaking within him threatening to carry him away. “He always makes me feel so guilty. I’ve never had an easy time with him. He’s taken everything the hardest in this family, and he still hasn’t accepted the fact of his mother’s death. But it’s awfully late. Go to bed. It’s time you got some rest. Go to bed,” he repeated with the last of his strength, feeling as if an impersonator within him had taken over to keep him from collapsing.
In the morning he was pleased to find her still obediently sound asleep. He phoned his mother-in-law, who listened to him berate her grandson, speaking up only to ask that he bring the boy some fresh clothes. The house seemed to bask in Ya’ara’s slumber, as once it had done when his wife was peacefully sleeping off a hard night, and glad to be by himself, he ate breakfast, washed the dishes, went downstairs for the paper, hung his son’s sleeping bag out to air on the terrace, made himself a sandwich for work, and put it in his briefcase. Lastly, he packed some fresh clothes for his son in a shopping bag, taking two of everything just to be on the safe side. He was almost out the door when he recalled his wife’s insistence that he always say goodbye to her, no matter how fast asleep she was, and so he knocked lightly on Ya’ara’s door and opened it. She did not feel him enter. He sat on the edge of her bed and touched her shoulder, surprised to encounter the soft, round warmth of her breast beneath her flannel nightgown, as if it had changed places during the night. “You really were bushed,” he said with a bright smile. Disconcerted by the sight of him, she sat up and apologized for having been up until dawn. “Go back to sleep,” he said, gently restraining her, as if her insomnia were medically indicated. “I’m going to the office. If you want to go out, the key is on the kitchen table by the newspaper. Feel at home. Take what you want from the refrigerator and use the stove too if you wish. I think there’s a morning movie on TV. I’ll be back by one.”