Molkho sat down to eat, from time to time salting the tasty stringbeans and tender cutlet while describing Ya’ara and Uri to Gabi as if they had been his guests together. “When I was your age I even had a crush on her,” he said, taking more beans from the bubbling pot. His son looked at him with a gleam of curiosity. “How was your hike?” he asked. Receiving the usual grunt in reply, he resolved not to take it for an answer. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked, surprised by the deathly quiet of his voice. “You change Scout packs without telling me, you go off with some kids from another school and don’t even let me know—who do you think I am, the doorman? And you have the nerve to complain that I don’t give you enough money! When did I ever refuse you money?” “But that’s not what I said,” protested Gabi hotly. “Yes, it is!” replied Molkho, cut to the quick. “Your Grandma would never make it up. How do you think that makes me look?” He was shouting now and practically in tears. “You, of all people, who lose your school-bus ticket every week, who can’t put a pair of pants in the wash without leaving money in the pockets—you dare accuse me?” Frightened by the display of temper, the boy rose to leave the house. “And don’t forget your key!” cried Molkho running after him, suddenly full of pity for his mortified, curly-headed son. “Where is it?” he demanded. But the boy couldn’t find it, and so he slipped his own key off its chain, passed a string through it, knotted it, and hung it around his son’s neck as though he were a toddler. At first, Gabi looked for a pocket; then, realizing his sweat suit didn’t have one, he sheepishly let the key hang, even returning the bear hug his father gave him.
Only now did Molkho realize how tired he was. He showered, lay down, and fell into a deep sleep, awakening hours later with the feeling that someone was walking silently about the house. Was it his son? But no, the boy had not come back. It was as quiet as could be. Suddenly he was reminded of the end of the week of mourning, with its hollow feeling of freedom that had accompanied him ever since. Still, the house felt less empty now. Which is strange, he thought, considering she was here for all of three days and hardly spoke. He pictured her tall, question-mark figure, which seemed to bear the last of its unborn babies inside it. Grieving as if for yet another death, although this time a small, quick one, he set out in quest of her, going first to the kitchen, where he scraped the last charred, sweet beans from the pot, chewing them sleepily and licking his fingers clean. From there he went to his daughter’s room but there, too, there was no trace of her, the sheets so neatly folded and stacked on the bed that he wondered whether to keep them for the next time or to throw them in the wash. Not that she’ll ever know the difference, he told himself, putting them away in the closet. He glanced at his watch. By now they were in Jerusalem. Had they made up their minds about him yet? Returning to the kitchen to throw out a scrap of paper, he was surprised to find some half-eaten stringbeans and a crushed pack of cigarettes in the garbage pail. Though he was tempted to salvage the half-empty pack, it was already much too begrimed.
THOUGH HE WASN’T SURE if he really missed her, he thought of her all the next day. Things were simpler without her, yet he was already considering another trip to Jerusalem to see her. Both the loss of her and the thought that she might still be available made him desire her more. Even the legal adviser, when he ran into her now at the office, aroused nothing but warm, friendly feelings. Was she aware that she had grown slightly dumpy since the winter? Not only did he no longer fear her, but he felt strong enough to readmit her to his life.
One blinding, hot noon he felt an urge to see her. He rose from his desk, left his room, and wandered off down the empty corridors of the Ministry of the Interior, most of whose employees were away, though even those who remained seemed on vacation, as if their hearts were not in their work. Inventing some imaginary problem to discuss, he descended the stone steps of the dignified old British building, crossed the courtyard to the opposite wing, climbed two flights of stairs, and knocked on the legal adviser’s door. As there was no response, he entered the office of her secretary, an impish young thing who sat doing her nails with red polish. “Is the legal adviser away?” he asked. “Yes,” she said, not bothering to look up. “How long has she been gone?” he inquired. “Three weeks,” said the secretary. “Three weeks and no one is filling in for her?” marveled Molkho. “No one can,” smiled the secretary. “But suppose I have a legal problem?” he demanded. “In the middle of a summer like this?” she teased, amused by his seriousness. “Yes, in the middle of a summer like this,” he insisted. “Then it will have to wait,” she replied. “But suppose it can’t?” he asked. “Then let it solve itself,” laughed the secretary.
He laughed too and walked slowly back down the stairs, at the bottom of which he encountered his mother-in-law in her big, crumpled hat, palely clutching some office forms. “Why, what are you doing here?” he asked, the thought crossing his mind that she wasn’t long for this world. Among some people determinedly waiting on a bench, he spied the old Russian, who bowed cordially in his direction, while next to her, her plump daughter beamed at him brightly. The office forms were printed on old, yellow paper the likes of which he hadn’t seen for years: one was a request for a laissez-passer, the other for a waiver of Israeli citizenship. “But why waive citizenship?” he asked after ushering the three of them into an empty room. Because, explained his mother-in-law, grateful for his help, the Finnish embassy in Tel Aviv, which represented the Soviet Union, thought it the best way to convince the Russians that her friend’s daughter really wished to return. It would be even better, of course, for her to regain her refugee status, but that could only be done through the Jewish Agency in Vienna, which had refused to answer her letters. “Then her mind is made up?” asked Molkho impartially, looking curiously at the young woman, who was dressed too warmly for the weather, while his mother-in-law translated. Satisfied that this was the case, he went to another department, received a new set of forms from an unfamiliar clerk, and brought them back to be filled out and stamped before the office closed for the day. The women couldn’t thank him enough, and the plump little Russian—laughing, sighing, and turning beet-red as the talk went from Hebrew to German, to Russian, and back again—tried explaining herself in rapid-fire bursts, of which all he understood was that the Israeli bureaucracy was to blame for everything. You might think, he mused with a sense of injury, that there weren’t any bureaucrats in Russia—but his mother-in-law seemed so anxious to humor him that he shrugged it off good-naturedly, took the forms to the department head to be stamped, had duplicates made on the office copying machine, and even gave the three women a lift, dropping the two Russians off at a bus stop and driving his mother-in-law to the home.
Their shared hour of paperwork had renewed the old bond between them, and she looked so pale, old, and tired in the blinding afternoon light that he went to open her car door and walked her to the lobby while she continued to thank him for his efforts. “Don’t mention it,” he said. “I admire your energy, but if you had just bothered to explain it to me on the phone, I could have saved you the trouble of coming down in person.” Why, though, he asked, advancing with her across the lobby, was her friend’s daughter so eager to return to Russia? But he barely listened to her answer, for he was busy peering through the open doors of the dining room, in which at the tables, with their starched white cloths, a mere handful of oldsters sat in silence, as if all their companions had died overnight. “What’s happened?” he demanded. “Where is everyone?” Some of the residents, his mother-in-law explained, were vacationing abroad, while others were visiting their children. “And they keep the dining room open for so few of you?” he marveled, watching the waitresses come and go with trays of soup. His mother-in-law countered with a question of her own: Was his housekeeper still on vacation too? “Yes,” Molkho said. “I gave her the whole month off. That’s what she asked for. As a matter of fact, I think she’s pregnant, though I’m not even sure if she’s married.” The old woman nodded fretfully. “Perhaps you should find someone else,” she advised. “But what will you do for a hot meal today?” And before he could tell her that he would open a can, she had invited him to lunch in requital for his pains. “Don’t you have to notify the management?” he asked. “Not in summer,” she replied, taking off her shapeless hat and leading him to a table at which a little old man was eating soup.