IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT Molkho was awoken by a muffled shout and angry voices. He dragged himself out of bed to the sink, gulped more water while wondering why Vienna made him so thirsty, and went over to the dark window, where he drew the heavy curtain and stared down at the street below. By the locked gate of the building that he had taken for a hospital, two guards were arguing with the driver of a white car. In that case, he thought groggily, it can’t be a hospital, because it wouldn’t turn away an ambulance. Suddenly he remembered having dreamt about his wife. Although he had dreamt of her before, this time she was in company, sitting off to one side in a room with familiar wallpaper. The others did not know, or pretended not to know, that she was dead, so that, unaware of Molkho’s presence, as if he, not she, were the ghost, she sat there perfectly content. Meanwhile, down below, the argument finally ended with the opening of the gate and the disappearance of the white car. Much to Molkho’s relief, the night grew silent again.
In the morning he found his little rabbit in the lobby, pale and baggy-eyed in a conservative red woolen suit with stiff, padded shoulders. Her new curls had softened agreeably overnight, making her look rather cuddly. “How did you sleep?” he asked concernedly, repeating the question a second time in even more basic Hebrew. “Terrible,” she replied with a glum smile, the wealth of her vocabulary surprising him. “Much terrible.” Smelling alcohol as he led her to the dining room, he sat her at a table, took out a map, and showed her the location of the Soviet Embassy. As simply, though in as many ways as possible, because even if she understood only a fifth of what he said it was worth it, he reviewed their meeting with Mr. Shimoni, trying his best to sound hopeful. As a government official himself, he said, he had one bit of advice to give her: tell the Russians the truth and nothing but. Though the fact of the matter is, he thought, watching her tubbily bounce off to the buffet for another fresh roll, that if I believed they might take her, I would have made love to her last night as a parting gift from Israel. It’s not as if that could have been taken as a commitment. But the chin above her white, shapely throat was double after all, and he couldn’t be blamed if his wife’s illness had made him suspicious of swellings. Besides which, he told himself, I happen to have high standards. In fact, they’re only getting higher, which is why I’m wasting precious time on these oddballs instead of going to some dance hall and grabbing the first woman on the floor.
It was eight o’clock, and since the embassies didn’t open until nine and the weather was nice and the distance not great, Molkho suggested that they walk. They strolled through the awakening streets of the city, soon coming to a colorful farmers’ market that was just being set up. Making their way past mounds of fruits and vegetables, they lingered by stands of seafood sparkling with crushed ice, looking at the little black mussels, the large gray fossil-like clams, the piles of purplish shrimp and ruddy lobsters fanning slow antennae, the wicked coils of eels and lampreys. “Why, it’s just like Paris,” exclaimed Molkho enthusiastically, “it’s exactly the same!” Shoulder to shoulder, for he didn’t care what people here took them for, they followed the map through a clean, pleasant quarter, stopping now and then to window-shop while he translated prices into shekels and dollars.
A cordon of armed Austrian policemen indicated the site of the Soviet embassy from afar. Molkho halted and handed the little Russian her laissez-passer, which she deftly slipped into her handbag, after which they carefully circled the building, checking its various entrances and the visiting hours posted outside them. Even if nothing comes of it, he thought, even if it was only a gesture, I’ll have done my human duty. “I’ll wait here for an hour or two,” he said, pointing to a little café on the corner, “and after that we’ll meet back at the hotel. Just no more disappearing acts, please!” She nodded, and since they still had time, they entered the café together. From everywhere came the melody of Russian voices, for the place was full of embassy officials who had dropped in for a hot drink or something stronger. Aglow at the sight of so many compatriots, the little Russian followed Molkho to an empty table in a corner and ordered brandy, while he asked for coffee, wondering if he should be seen with her here, where he might be mistaken for a Western intelligence officer running a secret agent. She, too, it seemed, had the same thought, because as soon as she downed her drink, she went off to the rest room, leaving him by himself. Watching the embassy workers come and go with friendly greetings, he felt more optimistic. After all, they’re human beings just like us, he thought, why shouldn’t they agree to take her? What do they stand to lose? It’s natural to feel homesick. What’s one more Jew to them when they already have millions? If she stays in Israel, I’ll be the one to suffer, because I’ll just have to marry her in the end. Surreptitiously slipping one of the hotel’s cards into her handbag, he took his coffee to a distant table, from which he watched her leave the rest room. She looked for him, caught sight of his furtive wave, and showed she understood it by exiting to join the line already forming by the gate of the embassy, through which the Russians now streamed from the café, brandishing their ID cards at a new shift of burly guards.
He let the café empty out and went to pay the waiter, asking for a receipt. Not, he mused, that his mother-in-law would check his expenses, but he should be able to give her a general account of where her money had gone. Perhaps she would even want to send him abroad again; it was certainly more likely than a junket from work like the legal adviser’s. He jotted down what other outlays he remembered on the back of the receipt, counted his change carefully, stuck it in his pocket, and looked out at the busy street. The little Russian had vanished through the gate of the embassy, and when after a while she failed to return, his hopes soared even higher.
AT LAST, he stepped outside himself, surprised at how warm the clear autumn air had become. Fallen leaves crackling underfoot, he strode by the lavish storefronts determined to withstand temptation and not waste the morning shopping. And so, though still smarting from Mr. Shimoni’s advice, as if museums and galleries were beyond the ken of a mere Levantine like himself, he found a number-6 trolley stop, made sure he was headed in the right direction, and boarded the next car for the Vienna Woods with a contingent of old ladies, young mothers, and noisy children. At last, with a great clatter and clang of bells, the trolley came to the end of the line. It was indeed right next to the zoo, which Molkho, despite a moment’s uncertainty, decided he was too old for, opting instead to go for a walk among the tall trees of the park, its well-trodden paths being full of local hikers. Eventually he reached a large outdoor café with a fountain adorned by statues of animals, beside one of which, a skillful figure of a deer with blind, stony eyes, he sat down in a shady spot. After looking around at the crowd, which was composed mostly of old people enjoying the warm fall day, he glanced at an article about abused women in the weekend supplement of his Hebrew newspaper and then took out Volume II of Anna Karenina, turned to Part Seven, and began to read. Quickly he grew absorbed in the story, turning page after page until at last the beautiful Anna threw herself in despair beneath the wheels of a train and he shut the book with shaking hands. Though his old counselor had warned him of Anna’s fate months ago, the actual description of it, so precise and yet so simple, left him numb with a grief that yielded only slowly to a warm feeling of appreciation. Wanting somehow to express his gratitude to the dead author, he rose, walked stretching himself among the tables until he came to a glass case full of cakes, and ordered one that he ate hungrily. And yet, reopening the book to Part Eight, in which he had expected to be told of Vronsky’s reaction to Anna’s death, he was disappointed to discover that the novel took another turn entirely, so that after reading with flagging interest for several more pages he shut it dispiritedly.