ON HIS WAY home in the wind and rain, gray-faced from an exhausting day, the father phones his son to hear the technician's diagnosis of the winds in the tower. And who is this expert, anyway, whom Gottlieb showers with praise?
Moran sounds amused and excited. "No, Gottlieb's not exaggerating. You missed out on a magician and juggler. Right out of the circus."
"How old is she, anyway?"
"Hard to tell. She's a kind of child-woman, who at first glance looks twenty, but by the time I left she seemed over forty. The face of a child, huge eyes, nimble and a bit hyper. She worked for years in the regional auto garage at Kfar Blum, up north…"
"Whatever," Ya'ari says with a yawn. "What's the verdict with the winds?"
"Wait a minute. Listen, she has incredible hearing. First, imagine this, as soon as we start going up in the middle elevator, she can already tell that we replaced the original seal with a different one. You remember?"
"Moran, I remember nothing. I got up at three A.M. and lit candles with Grandpa, and I'm wiped out. Give me the bottom line. How are the winds getting in?"
"She claims that the shaft is cracked and pocked with holes in more than one place, which produces an unusual acoustic effect, like the sound from the holes of a flute or clarinet. She recommends that at three in the morning we shut down all the elevators and ride on top of one of them to locate the exact spot of the penetration."
"Forget it. Flute or clarinet, what does it have to do with us? The defect, just as I thought, is in the shaft, so we're not responsible. The tenants need to go to the construction company."
"I'm not sure you're entirely right, Abba. Gottlieb was obligated to check the shaft carefully before installing anything and so were we as the designers."
"Now listen, Moran. The shaft is not our responsibility. Period. Cracks and holes can develop even after the installation is finished."
"She claims, according to the sounds, that these are old defects."
"She claims… she says… habibi, calm down. This little girl is not God around here. Anyway, we'll talk tomorrow at the office."
"And Imma, did you hear from her?"
"According to my calculations, she's still in the air, unless I'm wrong."
HE IS WRONG. It's remarkable that a practical man like him is unaware that East Africa is one hour ahead of Israel, meaning that the beloved traveler is no longer in the air, but on the ground, on a dark and desolate mountain road — though her fate is in the capable hands of an intelligent driver, whom she is briskly quizzing about her life story.
In the bloody civil war of southern Sudan, Sijjin Kuang's relatives and many other members of her tribe were slaughtered because their skin color was blacker than that of their murderers. She, alone among her entire family, was saved. Her rescuer was a United Nations observer, a Norwegian, tall like her, who arranged for her rehabilitation and education in his country on the condition that when she received her nursing degree she would return to serve in a field hospital on the Sudan-Kenya border, where she could take care of the wounded of her tribe. But the hospital was never established, and while going around Nairobi looking for other work, she learned that UNESCO was funding an anthropological expedition made up solely of African scientists, whose goal was to discover, using their own research methods, the missing link between ape and man. She applied to the director of the mission, a Tanzanian named Seloha Abu, offering her services as nurse to the team.
"You are a Christian, of course," says Daniela, who is highly impressed by her personality and the details of her story. But Sijjin Kuang is neither Christian nor Muslim but rather an animist, as supporters call them, or mushrikun, as their opponents call them, or, in cultural-scientific terms, simply pagan.
"Pagan?" The Israeli is overwhelmed by such intimate contact, in the dark, with an idol worshipper. "Really? In what sense? This is so interesting… because for us, pagans are only in legends…"
And the Sudanese, with a slightly embarrassed smile, explains very briefly the principles of her ancient tribal faith.
"Spirits? Winds?"
"Yes. Sacred spirits in trees and stones."
"And this kind of belief," Daniela inquires cautiously, "does not interfere with the rationality of the medical science that you studied?"
"No belief can interfere with care for the sick," the Sudanese declares. "Least of all animism, since any person may approach the spirits individually and according to his understanding, without any pope or ayatollah to do it for him."
"Marvelous…"
Daniela now wonders how a white person such as her brother-in-law was accepted to join a scientific mission composed only of Africans, all the more because he is neither a scientist nor a doctor and also is a citizen of a country not generally well-liked. But the Sudanese has a simple explanation. To prevent conflicts on sensitive matters among Africans who have joined the mission from all over the continent, it was decided that financial management and supervision of expenses would be placed in the hands of a white man, a foreigner yet an experienced person, someone familiar with the region and its ways. When a white widowed pensioner, a former diplomat in Africa, offered them his experience in administration and finance, and struck the members of the team as a reliable and objective person, immune to outside temptation.
"Temptation? In what sense?"
"Temptation that might prevent him from handling the accounts with honesty and precision. But soon he will explain this to you himself."
A warm summer wind streams through the open window of the car, scented by the thick flora. This is hill country, and the car climbs and descends the lower slopes surrounding Mount Morogoro, which appears periodically and then vanishes from view. The moon that accompanied her flight has disappeared behind the clouds, but its light is reflected by the lush roadside foliage that brushes the sides of the car. Not long ago, following a small road sign, the driver turned off the asphalt onto a dirt road. Although narrow, the road is tightly packed and free of potholes, and the engine maintains its powerful rhythm. But Daniela now has a bit of a problem. The huge sandwich she consumed and the great quantity of tea that accompanied it demand relief. Had she known about those in advance, she would not so blithely have passed up the chance to use the toilet at the airport. No choice now but to ask the kind driver to stop at a spot appropriate for both car and passenger and inquire as to whether there might be some paper handy; otherwise, she will have to open her suitcase.
"You will have to open your suitcase," Sijjin Kuang says, laughing, and slows to a halt.
She cautions the traveler not to try to seek privacy in the bush, where she is likely to arouse the interest of some small creature. You can simply stay on the road; you can see there is no traffic here, and even if a car should happen to pass by, no one will remember you.
But Daniela is uncomfortable being exposed in the moonlight, even in front of this licensed nurse, who in the meantime has shut down the engine and got out to stretch her legs and light up some sort of long pipe, thin and black like its owner. So she goes off to a bend in the road. Even there, despite Sijjin Kuang's warning, she is reluctant to crouch on the road, and blazes herself a trail a few steps into the bush.