When he finally got into the bath, he lay for a long while in the deliciously sudsy water with his eyes closed. Then he dried himself, shaved, applied some lotion, ate the last apple in his briefcase, dressed, stepped out into the corridor, and knocked on the little Russian’s door. There was no answer. He knocked harder, but there was still no response. Good grief, he wondered, do I have another Sleeping Beauty on my hands?
HE DIALED HER ROOM, but no one answered the telephone either. I shouldn’t have spent so long in the bathtub, he fretted, descending to the lobby to look for her. But she was not there either, nor had she left any message or key at the desk. He searched in vain in the large dining room, where a gypsy band was playing, and stepped out into the broad boulevard, which was now bathed in twilight, peering into shops as he passed them, though the chances of finding her were slim. Could she have gone off to see the sights without telling him? Not that she was under any formal obligation, but it was a matter of simple courtesy. He asked again at the desk, knocked once more on her door, tried phoning her room a second time—but she had vanished into thin air. Could she, he wondered, racking his brain, have unknown friends in Vienna? It was getting dark out. Bright lights came on in the lobby. He sank grouchily into a leather chair that commanded a view of the entrance, ordered some coffee, and was about to ask for a slice of the cream pie on the pastry cart when he remembered his little breasts in the mirror and decided to wait for dinner.
Three veiled young ladies with their arms full of shopping bags entered the lobby with a man who could have been either their father or their husband, a large, swarthy Arab with the mien of a desert prince, no doubt from the Persian Gulf, dressed in a white kaffiyeh and an expensive European suit. Chattering in rapid Arabic, they deposited him and their parcels in a seat next to Molkho’s and darted excitedly out again, off on another spree. The prince, in a state of shock from his purchases, or perhaps from the Western clothes he had been made to wear, tilted his sun-bronzed face toward an invisible horizon and soon sank into such a trance that he did not even notice the cup of coffee brought him by a sedulous waiter. Suddenly, however, sitting up amid the bags of women’s wear and glancing desperately around him, he noticed Molkho, who was sitting a few feet away, and beamed with recognition, as though spying a fellow tribesman. Molkho looked uncomfortably away, yet the big Arab was already leaning toward him with a grin, his dark eyes lighting up. Not wanting to disappoint him, Molkho fled to the telephone booths by the reception desk and dialed Mr. Shimoni’s home number. Mr. Shimoni answered the phone. “Yes, I’m not well,” he declared in an overrefined voice, “but if time is of the essence, perhaps I could receive you at home this evening and see what I can do.” Dictating his address, he insisted that Molkho write it down.
The little Russian’s disappearance was getting to be serious. Molkho hurried to her room and knocked loudly on the door, though not so loud as to attract the attention of the guests descending for dinner, and then went to look for her again in the dining room, sidestepping tray-laden waiters, passing a small, dimly lit bar whose customers were lining up for their first cocktails, and emerging in a garden where some staff was folding chairs. This is no joke, he thought worriedly, stepping back into the street. Might she be in trouble somewhere and in need of help? I shouldn’t have been so standoffish on the plane, he chided himself, returning to the lobby, which he decided to explore in greater depth. Descending some stairs, he opened an apparently locked door and soon came to a floor of large conference rooms, smoke-filled billiard parlors, a gymnasium, and even an empty swimming pool still smelling of chlorine. Peering into dark washrooms, he headed for some lights at the end of a passageway and found himself in an underground shopping center full of little boutiques and cafes, a subterranean world that was shutting down for the night. A few last customers were leaving the shops, in which the personnel was wiping counters and mopping floors before closing. A sixth sense telling him that his white rabbit was near, he quickened his stride. We must have a whistle, he resolved just as he saw her through the window of a small beauty parlor, happily seated beneath a dryer with curlers in her hair. He was about to burst angrily inside when he spied a large, pasty woman in a corner, staring balefully with her arms crossed at the obstinate client whose hair had to be done at the last minute, when the lights were already dimmed and the scissors and combs put away for the day. Relieved to have found her, he stood watching from a safe distance. Though it was comic to think that a fresh permanent would matter to Mr. Shimoni, he slowly felt his ridicule yield to an odd compassion.
AT NINE THAT EVENING a taxi brought them to a baroque apartment building in a middle-class suburb, where a stocky guard met them at the door and took them up to the second floor in a dark elevator. Stepping into a vestibule wallpapered with a forest of gold trees and faded green leaves, they waited for their guide to unlock a door and usher them into an ornate drawing room in which stood a grand piano covered with musical scores. Large windows looked out on a dimly lit park; on the leather chairs and sofa lay piles of newspapers, magazines, and office files; shelves of books and Judaica lined the walls; and the overall jumble was such that Molkho cast a worried glance at his plump Goldilocks while their guide vanished down a hallway to look for Mr. Shimoni, who proved to be a tall, thin, sallow, bald man in his sixties, dressed in a silk bathrobe and high slippers and with a cultivated air. Sucking on a cough drop, he shook their hands formally, the blue veins bulging in his broad, intellectual brow. Yes, he’s even sicker than I thought, decided Molkho, begging pardon for the late-hour intrusion. Mr. Shimoni waved off the apology and sank into a leather armchair, imperiously dismissing the silent guard while inviting his guests to sit down. “Well, then, this is the Miss Zand that I wrote you about,” began Molkho, removing some Hebrew newspapers from a chair and pointing to his rabbit, who teetered on her high heels in a dress slightly creased from her suitcase. “She was processed by you in Vienna nearly a year ago on her way from Russia to Israel. I understand you don’t see many new faces these days, so perhaps you even remember her.”
If he took umbrage, the official gave no sign. Smiling faintly at Miss Zand, who, bright with excitement, was settling into a chair, he began questioning her in a fluent Russian that he evidently kept handy for such occasions. She answered him solemnly, her stiff curls shaking with each emphatic bob of her head. “Then you don’t remember her?” interrupted Molkho, feeling left out. “What difference does it make?” replied Mr. Shimoni brusquely, barely glancing in his direction. “They’re only here for a day or two; their train pulls in from Russia in the morning, and by the next evening they’re on a plane to Israel.” “Well,” said Molkho, discouraged by the patronizing tone, “she wants to go back. She’s been in Israel nine months and doesn’t like it. You don’t like it, do you?” he asked her while Mr. Shimoni stared ironically at the floor. Suspicious at the sudden switch to Hebrew, which no longer seemed quite so amusing, she looked from one man to the other. “Where in Israel did she live?” asked Shimoni, using his divide-and-conquer technique to repeat the question in Russian without waiting for Molkho to answer. Sitting on the edge of her chair, Miss Zand replied to all his queries, pulling out a packet of letters from her handbag and even showing him one from her old place of employment in the Soviet Union declaring its readiness to take her back.