THE BIG KITCHEN at the farm is clean and quiet. The cooks have disappeared. Yirmiyahu opens one of the doors of the big refrigerator for his sister-in-law. What can I heat up for you? But the strong sun, and the memory of the African woman smearing her roof with cow manure, have dulled her appetite. No hurry, she tells him. First I'll go up and rest awhile, and then, if possible…
Yes, they can postpone lunch, but they will have to finish it by three, because then he must go out with the food to the excavation site and won't return till late at night.
"Is it far?"
"Not terribly, but the driving is very slow."
"So what about me?"
"Rest, read. After all, I didn't burn your novel."
"And who else will stay here?"
"There is always a security guard."
Suddenly she is seized with the fear of abandonment.
"Can I join you? Is there room for me?"
"Yes, but on condition that you don't wait like your sister till the last minute, but be ready down here by two-thirty, and we'll eat and hit the road. You want me to wake you?"
"No need," she says, suddenly a bit dejected. "I don't think I'll be able to sleep."
She slowly climbs the broad and easy stairs that spiral around the old elevator shaft. The room she left that morning now smells of Lysol, reminding her of the toilets at her school. In her absence the floor has been mopped, the bathroom cleaned, and her bed remade. She looks at the bluish haze of the summer sky. On a distant hill are two zebras, either fighting or copulating, not clear which. She thinks about her husband. Was Amotz in fact the source of the phrase friendly fire, which even during the week of mourning began to trip from Yirmi's tongue with a sarcasm that depressed and paralyzed her sister?
She pulls the wooden shutters closed and surrounds herself with darkness. The room is pleasant, but is missing a large mirror to reflect her full image. The small scratched mirror hanging over the sink can't satisfy her curiosity. She takes off her gym shoes and her dress. Remembering the appreciative looks of the locals, she is pleased that she took Amotz's advice to try out its bold colors on their native soil. For years she has worn only trousers, convinced that dresses make her look heavier. But here she is free and not compelled to look after her figure. The dress added a light touch to the morning call on the elephant.
She stretches out on the bed in her bra and panties, then after a few minutes undoes the bra and liberates her breasts. Then she wraps herself in a lightweight robe she found in Yirmi's closet. Amotz had too easily turned down the chance to come with her. True, she was concerned that on this trip he would be in the way, but for now she is not swept up in childhood memories or in sorrow, and who knows what might happen in the short week ahead? The detachment to which her brother-in-law is so fervently addicted is damaging the simple and natural bond she always had with him. And it is implausible that he's living here merely to build up his savings. Surely his intentions are more radical. As she leafs through the three volumes of anthropology and geology that she found in the room, she realizes that they are not there simply for reading or browsing. They are a clear statement on the part of a man whose bookshelves in Jerusalem were always filled to overflowing.
She gets up to make sure that she has locked the door. If she had gone with Amotz that day to the foreign ministry to bring the horrible news, he would have chosen his words more carefully and not blurted out "friendly fire," the words Yirmi has fallen in love with and is amplifying into a new religion. But she got to her sister's side in Jerusalem too late. Moran was so anxious about the heavy blow he was about to deal her that he hung around the school for a solid hour till she finished her lesson. Everyone knew about Eyali's death before she did.
The door is locked. Despite the heat she takes one of Yirmi's woolen blankets and curls up under it. For years she has been faithful to her afternoon nap and tries not to miss it even when traveling. And since in their first year of marriage it had already become clear to Amotz that afternoon napping enhanced her sexuality, he would loyally join her. Was it because of the mysterious power of the afternoon sun? Maybe this feeling of sexual awakening in the afternoon was tied to her teenage years, when every day after school she would be surrounded by several admiring boys who would tag along on her way home and dawdle in front of the apartment block while her mother waited upstairs to serve her lunch.
However it was, years after her mother's death, with her suitors long since happily united with other women, she still retains that afternoon flame, which Amotz won't allow to go to waste, even cutting meetings short and driving the long way home to their northern suburb to try his strength in the darkened bedroom, in which a teacher has fallen asleep after her long day in class.
BUOYED BY THE fact that his nighttime sketch has been met, for now, with humor and not scorn, Ya'ari shuns his own elevator and skips down the stairs to the exit. The skies have cleared and a friendly winter sun caresses the passersby. The streets are calm, now that the Hall of Culture has swallowed up the children and their parents. But can it be that the Hanukkah show has also consumed his chief engineer and financial manager? The office is locked. The smell of tobacco is all that remains.
He phones Moran, but his son's sophisticated mobile device, paid for by the firm, is only taking messages. With low expectations he calls Efrat's cell, which his veteran bookkeeper has also managed to list as an office expense, and hears her phone's parrot recitation of its usual ingratiating but heartless recording. Everyone is shirking his duty. Is he the only one at his desk today? Taped to his computer screen is a note from the chief engineer: An elderly woman from Jerusalem, Dr. Devorah Bennett, wishes to speak with your father regarding a malfunction in the private elevator in her home. I intentionally did not take down her number, so that she won't expect us to call her back. But she will probably call again this afternoon. Should I give her your father's home number?
No, scribbles Ya'ari with a black marker, don't give her anybody's number. The tenant from Pinsker is enough for me. Just remember that we're a design firm and not a service center. And he pastes the note to the engineer's computer screen, locks up the office, and drives home. If he's not entitled to a ticket to a children's play, maybe he deserves a free dream in his double bed.
And so, desiring only to dream, he threads his car through crowded streets, marveling at the sight of the many ultra-Orthodox children who have been excused from Torah study and, lacking a show of their own to attend, are filling the playgrounds along the banks of the Yarkon River, sliding and swinging, despite the cold weather, the fringes of their ritual undershirts flapping in the breeze.
Before entering his building he clears the leaves the wind had amassed at the front door. The near perfect neatness of the apartment underscores the absence of his habitually messy wife. He restores to its place a red candle that has fallen from the menorah set up for the evening's lighting, heats his lunch, and eats it rapidly. Then he goes into his bedroom and gets undressed. Is dozing off alone, without making love, a good enough reason to disconnect from the world?
Without hesitation he unplugs the phone. Tomorrow afternoon Yirmiyahu will take Daniela to Dar es Salaam, as agreed, and place a call to Israel. So for now he can let things go. The Filipinos are looking after his father; the army has taken Moran, whose mother-in-law is supposed to deal with the children; and Efrat's good looks will excuse her failings. Nofar in any case is out of his control, even if she does show up this evening. He draws down the blinds, turns on the heater, gets into bed, and pulls the blanket over him. It's nice, this unaccustomed silence, undisturbed even by the rustling of newspapers by his side. Yes, out of love he should have offered to go with her, but the wiser love was not to insist on it. And he did make sure to warn Yirmiyahu to be extra vigilant in the face of her absent-mindedness and dreamy confusion, which have lately grown worse.