The food was not as good as Molkho had imagined; indeed, it was overdone, saltless, and cooked with almost no oil. Judging by the curious looks he received, the other diners were pleased to have his company, no doubt flattered to be joined by such a youngster. What’s happening to me? he asked himself gloomily, politely chewing his meal in the large, quiet hall, with its white tablecloths and polished silver. Instead of finding myself a woman, here I am sitting with my dead wife’s mother among a lot of old German Jews, practically ready for an old-age home myself!
AFTER A BRIEF NAP at home, he took out some stationery and began to write. “Dear Friends, I’m writing you both together. I’m too confused to know how to feel. You must admit that this whole thing is very strange. I don’t know what marks you’ve given me, but the days together left me with a nice feeling. But I feel that I still need more time and that you must have patience with me. Perhaps we should try again next month. Ya’ara and I could take a trip abroad, because here at home you’re always running into the wrong people.”
He put down his pen. The word “nice” seemed inadequate and he tried to think of something better while crossing out “abroad” and writing over it, “to some hotel.” But after composing a few more sentences he gave up, paced restlessly up and down, and then put on a pair of old work pants and took a can of black paint from the closet. Prying the can open with a screwdriver, he stirred the sticky dark mixture, brought a small ladder, spread some newspapers on the floor, and began painting the bars on the window. “It’s just temporary,” he explained to the high school boy, who came to watch. “When I get around to it, I’ll order new bars like you want, with room for flowerpots, but meanwhile these may as well be painted.”
HE STILL JUMPED whenever the telephone rang, hoping it might be them. As it never was though, he finished his letter, made a clean copy, and was about to put it in an envelope when he realized that he didn’t know their address and had no way of finding it out. And so, deciding to drive to Jerusalem that Saturday, ascertain what it was, and drop the letter in the nearest mailbox, he called his mother to tell her he was coming. “Good,” she said. “Come Friday and we’ll visit your father’s grave. It’s about time we did.” “But I can’t take the day off,” he explained. “I’m the only senior person left in the department. After all, think how nice they’ve been to me.”
He arrived in Jerusalem late Saturday morning, just in time for the heavy lunch she had cooked. “Never mind,” she said to him, sensing at once that something had gone wrong with his new relationship. “At least you tried, that’s all anyone can do.” But when she tried pumping him for more details, he suddenly cried out, “For God’s sake, leave me alone!”
In his old room he couldn’t fall asleep. A new family with a baby that cried all the time had moved in next door, and not even the thick stone walls were able to shut out the noise. Having decided it was safest to visit his counselor’s building during the afternoon siesta, he drove there at two-thirty, when the city was deep in Sabbath slumber, parking a distance away from the religious neighborhood to avoid the risk of being stoned. I mustn’t get on their wrong side, he told himself.
The housing project seemed larger by day than it had on his two nighttime visits. Apart from a few children at play, it was indeed deserted. The day was hot, and the sweat stung his eyes. When he came to where his counselor lived, there was no house number anywhere, and the building itself, he now noticed, was but part of a much larger complex. Stopping a young woman on her way out the front door, he asked for the address. “Which house are you looking for?” she asked. “For this one,” he replied. “Then you’ve found it,” she said. “So I have,” smiled Molkho, “but suppose I want to send someone a letter?” She paused to consider and then said, “There is no address. Just write the name of the project and the family. It will reach them. We’ve never used house numbers.”
Nevertheless, deciding it was safer to leave the letter underneath his friends’ door, he thanked her and slipped inside, hearing the groan of the elevator as it started and stopped overhead. Finally it arrived with a creak, smelling of pot roast and boiled carrots. It was a Sabbath elevator that stopped automatically at each floor; the door would open and Molkho would remain standing in silence, awkwardly waiting for what seemed forever, until it buzzed and shut again as slowly as if designed for paraplegics. When at last he reached his destination, a pregnant woman in a doorway informed him that the Adlers lived a floor below. He descended the stairs and was about to slip the letter beneath their door when it struck him that they might think it a cowardly thing to do. Besides, he missed their little apartment. If only he could have made love to her there! In his own home it simply wasn’t possible.
He knocked lightly. Someone came to the door. It was a drowsy-looking Uri, dressed in an undershirt and gym shorts, his beard shiny in the sunlight. “Oh, it’s you,” he said drily, looking neither glad nor annoyed. “You don’t have a telephone, you don’t have an address, a person can’t even get in touch with you!” exclaimed Molkho defensively as he entered. “I felt we couldn’t just leave things the way they were. I had to talk to you, to know what you think.” “Who is that?” called a husky voice from the bedroom. “It’s me,” Molkho called back. “It’s me, Ya’ara. I just thought I’d drop by.” Uri went to the bedroom to put on a shirt, and Molkho heard them whispering, after which they came out together. Ya’ara, too, must have been sleeping, the last traces of her Galilee suntan still visible on the once beautiful face that was now past its prime. Why does she seem so much more desirable to me here? he wondered.
“We had no idea you were coming,” they said in a reserved but not unfriendly tone. “Neither did I,” he apologized wanly. “I wrote you a letter but had no address to mail it to, and so I brought it myself. Tell me, though, what exactly is the rationale for that weird Sabbath elevator of yours?” But his attempt at humor only made his counselor frown. “I’m sure you didn’t come here to discuss the religious ontology of elevators,” said Uri so sharply that Molkho cringed. “Talking to a nonbeliever about such things simply makes them seem ridiculous.” They all sat down. Too downcast to talk, Molkho nervously took out his letter and handed it to the two of them. They read it together with a new sense of solidarity, as if the sole purpose of Ya’ara’s visit to Haifa had been to return her to this overpopulated Orthodox world more dependent on her husband than ever. Automatically she reached out for the cigarettes on the table, and gently Uri’s hand closed over hers to remind her that she musn’t smoke on the Sabbath.