Though it was dark outside and the construction, which was apparently going to be a new shopping mall, gave the quaint streets a harsh look, he still felt perfectly at home: every corner, shop, and restaurant reminded him of his previous stay, which he now saw in a magical light. Could I really have been happier then, he wondered, or was it just the combination of snow, sleep, and music? He felt a sudden urge to revisit the beer cellar where he and the legal adviser had spent their last night, found it easily, and descended to the large hall, which was even more hideous when empty, its cold walls smelling of stale tobacco. Paying no attention to the dozen or so waiters eating at a long table in a corner, he strode silently among the tables set with fresh red cloths. “You killed her,” she had said to him with a squirrelly look, sitting over there. “Yes,” he had answered suavely, keeping his wits about him, “but in that case, so did you.” “Perhaps, but not in the same way,” she had retorted. He should have had a comeback for that too. She never gave me a chance, he thought. It was much too soon after my wife’s death. Today I’d think of something that would put her in her place. “No, thank you,” he said to an approaching waiter who was about to show him to a table, “I’m only looking for a friend.”
He returned to the hotel, hoping to find his little Russian. But the key was still in its cubbyhole, his note a white feather sticking out of the dove-shaped holder. He tore it up, took the keys to both rooms, debated which to make his own, and climbed to the second floor, passing his first opera-bound Indian of the evening. From the room he tried placing a long-distance call to his mother-in-law, who was out again, after which he called his Haifa apartment. The high school boy answered, his voice indistinct. “It’s Dad,” shouted Molkho. “It’s Dad. How is everything?” The boy ran to turn off the television and returned. “Where are you?” he asked. “I’m in Berlin, Gabi, in West Berlin,” Molkho said. “I’m trying to cross her over from here. Why isn’t there any answer at Grandma’s? I’ve been trying to get her for days.”
The boy didn’t know why there wasn’t any answer, because his brother and sister were with their sick grandmother right now. “Sick?” Why couldn’t he be less vague! “Yes,” said Gabi. “She broke her arm and caught a bad cold.” “She broke her arm? Which? When? How?” asked Molkho excitedly. But the boy only knew that his grandmother was in a cast and had been in bed for several days—how many he couldn’t say. Afraid to run up the bill, Molkho hung up and paced worriedly about the room; then, hastily putting some things in his suitcase, he went down with it to the little room on the first floor and proceeded from there to the lobby. The gaily lit bar was deserted. Exhaustedly he leaned against the counter, sorry he hadn’t gone to the opera instead of waiting on tenterhooks here.
Through the open door of the kitchen he watched the German family eat dinner, ladling some sort of dumpling soup out of a large bowl. In a corner flickered the spectral blue light of a television, on which an announcer was reading a weather forecast from a map crisscrossed with arrows. Would he like to join them for a bowl of Schwemmele? asked the proprietor, noticing him and pointing to the doughy gray dumplings. Tempted, Molkho declined. “Thank you,” he replied warmly. Everything looked delicious, but he did not wish to spoil his appetite, for his lady friend would soon arrive and go out with him to eat. He had simply been trying to make out the forecast. “It could be worse,” said the German. “Lots of rain.” “But no snow?” smiled Molkho. “No snow,” the German laughed, remembering Molkho’s last visit. He translated for his family, which broke out laughing too. Oh no! No snow! Not yet! They must think I’m some sort of eccentric, Molkho thought as he stepped out into the street. First I bring them a sleeper and then a vanisher, although the truth is that the sleeper brought me.
A thin rain was falling again, and he walked down the block through the yellow fog, hoping his Russian might appear. Could she be lost in it somewhere, wandering between East and West? He recalled his last glimpse of her, sobbing childishly while a crowd formed around her as the pale East German officer arrived. Or was she perhaps crying for joy? Not everyone keeps his emotions under wraps like me, he thought, stepping into his working-class restaurant. Though he considered ordering Schwemmele, he dutifully asked for wurst and fries, as if determined to make up for all the sausage meat denied him as a child by his mother, who claimed it was made from offal. He returned to the hotel, wrote a new note that said, “I am in Room 1,” and entered his dwarflike cell. Leaving his suitcase unopened, he took off his shoes and lay down to wait in his clothes with the light on.
HE MUST HAVE switched off the light in his sleep, because it was dark when he awoke hours later. At first, he couldn’t remember where he was. When he did, his first thought was of his mother-in-law. So now she’s broken her arm, he thought. That’s a bad business. At her age the bones don’t knit, which means I’ll have a cripple on my hands. Thank God it’s just an arm. Or is it? His son had sounded as if he were hiding something. His wife had been right to insist the old woman move to the home. Not that there couldn’t be problems there too. Why, just look how she had gone and fallen the minute his back was turned!
He could feel his anger at her growing. She had bitten off more than she could chew this time, and he was the one who would pay for it. He rose and descended to the lobby, where the only light came from the little bulbs lighting the cabinets of swords and maps. The clock showed after two. Behind the desk the student was asleep on his mattress. A lone dove nested in its cubbyhole. Beside it was his note, which he took and read. “I am in Room 1.” Then they must have taken her after all! Could it really have gone so smoothly? Or had they simply locked her up for disorderly conduct? And I didn’t even say good-bye, he mused sadly, missing his little rabbit. Why hadn’t he touched or kissed her plump breasts, which now seemed such an overture to pleasure? Returning to his room, he switched on the night-light and sat guiltily on the edge of the bed. It was irresponsible, even cowardly, to have left her, he thought, studying his passport, which the East Germans hadn’t bothered to stamp. Why couldn’t he have waited to see what happened to her, the two old women would ask, not fathoming his fear of being trapped in the East himself. The tiny room made him feel claustrophobic. He returned to the lobby, took the last key, went back to Room 1, packed a few things, and ascended with them to Room 9. If I’m paying for two rooms, I may as well sleep in both, he thought.
HE SLEPT LATE and saw by the luggage in the lobby when he came down for breakfast that most of the guests were checking out. A young girl was waxing the furniture and a thorough cleaning was under way.
He spent the morning buying a few last presents, sticking close to the hotel in the hope that his little Russian might give some sign of life, and then returned to the checkpost after lunch. “I crossed yesterday,” he told the East German policeman he handed his passport to, “and I liked it so much I’ve come back. Is that all right?” “Of course,” said the policeman without looking up. “Come back all you like. There’s no problem as long as you cross back before midnight.” He received his visa, ascended to the street, and strolled down Unter den Linden to the old opera house, from which he surveyed the War Memorial across the street. Then, joining a group of tourists, he filed past the glass-enclosed flame and the honor guard. Who knows, he thought, perhaps it really worked. Back on the boulevard he asked some East Germans for the Soviet embassy, but no one seemed to know where it was, and so he proceeded to the Alexanderplatz and walked about among the shops, watching some carefree teenagers who looked like youngsters anywhere. We project our fears and fantasies on the world, he thought, but the world just shrugs them off. He glanced at his map, in the margin of which his mother-in-law’s old address was still written, trying to orient himself.