Raindrops slide down the front windshield, although minutes ago it was sunny. The road is gradually engulfed by hilly forest. When Yirmi sees that his sister-in-law, who has listened attentively to him, is shocked into silence, he slowly turns his face to the front, toward the road, as a sign that the confession is over and there is nothing more to be said.
But for Daniela the conversation is not over. Without trying to raise her voice over the engine noise, she leans forward and brings her lips close to her brother-in-law's bald crown, and says in a near whisper:
"This confession of yours is so painful and understandable and natural. For weeks after he died, when we were thinking about you, we also couldn't touch each other. And Amotz, who always wants it — in that period he was careful not to try to persuade me. Without a word of explanation, he just went celibate. Then something strange happened, which sometimes happens to him even now. He started crying in movies, in the dark, sometimes over silly things… and when I look over at him, he's self-conscious and ashamed…"
Yirmiyahu's skull freezes. Then slowly he turns around.
"Crying in the dark? Amotz? I don't believe it…"
"Maybe now you can understand why he was the one I chose."
Fifth Candle
ON FRIDAY MORNING Ya'ari stands by the trash bin weeding Ha'aretz of unnecessary supplements — national and local, real estate sections, inserts of big retail chains — and while so doing he pictures the furnace where his brother-in-law burned all the Israeli papers. If the newspapers get any fatter, we'll have to install an African furnace here too, so as not to overload the trash bin. His newspaper reading is quick and selective, though he makes sure not to miss the millimeters of rainfall, the level of the Sea of Galilee, and the synoptic weather map. When the radio chimes in with a report of dry but strong easterly winds, replacing the humid westerlies, he wonders whether a new type of wind will produce a different sort of roaring and howling at the tower or whether the wind-sucking shaft doesn't discriminate between east and west.
He washes the breakfast dishes in the sink, it being only fair that in the absence of the mistress of the house the electric dishwasher also get a rest. But the silence around him feels oppressive, especially as he looks ahead to a long, slow Saturday. Although he told the owner of the Jerusalem elevator to expect him by nine A.M., he knows from experience that it's impolitic to barge in on an older woman before she gets properly organized. His mood is good. He pleasantly replays in his mind Moran's favorable reaction to his nocturnal sketch. So on his way to Jerusalem he is willing to go listen again to those whining winds before agreeing with the manufacturer on where to hold firm and where to give in. Until candle-lighting time with the grandchildren there is no important person on the horizon he can or should arrange to meet. For many years now he and his wife have made all of their visits together, and if he should invite himself someplace two days after Daniela left on her trip, it might seem suspicious, as if he were taking advantage of her absence to tell his friends something new about himself.
Once again he transmits the electronic signal to the iron gate and descends into the underground garage. He is careful to wait for the car that has followed him inside to claim its parking spot, and only then he steers his own to one of the empty spaces, which are fewer now than on his last visit. As he opens the fire door that separates the parking from the elevators, it seems to him that the easterly winds have worsened the roaring — perhaps because of their dryness. No doubt about it, this noise is a major nuisance and ought to prompt some soul-searching on the part of the architect and the construction company — though the elevator factory and his own design firm are not exempt from scrutiny either. Ya'ari does not call for an elevator right away but instead stands still and listens, and when the tenant who has just parked his car walks up, the stranger standing stupidly before the elevator doors understandably arouses his suspicion.
The tenant is an older man with a melancholy face and sunken cheeks. He wears old khaki pants, and his shoes are covered with fresh mud, as if he were returning from a tramp through the fields. Although his apartment keys already dangle from his hand, at the sight of the visitor standing as if in silent prayer opposite the motionless elevators, he, too, refrains from calling one, merely tilting his head and listening with a grave expression. Each man steals a sidelong glance at the other; already they are forming suspicions. Finally the tenant steps to the side and takes his cell phone from his pocket, and just as Ya'ari, who has had enough of the wailing winds, is about to open the fire door and return to his car, a melody tinkles in his pocket and stops him short.
The voice of the tenant talking in the corner merges with the one on Ya'ari's phone.
"Yes, Kidron, it's me."
"Now do you believe that the winds are real and not a hallucination?" The tenant continues to talk from mobile to mobile at a few meters' distance.
But Ya'ari, who prefers face-to-face conversations with real voices, hangs up.
"Real, obviously. I never accused you of hallucinating. But I doubt, or rather, I deny, the responsibility of my firm for this condition."
"The building company is also ducking out, and the architect is AWOL, and your friend Gottlieb is hiding in a hole, so who in the end will assume this orphan responsibility?"
"There's no simple answer to that. Responsibility still needs to be determined and assigned. But forgive me if I ask you something that may seem impertinent."
"What?"
"Is this howling really so horrible?"
"What?"
"After all, stormy winds are rare in this sunny country, and in Tel Aviv they're especially rare, and the ride in an elevator, even to the top floor, takes no more than a minute…"
"So what?"
"So what's all the fuss about? Because in a certain sense, from another standpoint, the sound of the wind in a sealed apartment tower in the heart of the city only adds a touch of living nature: a taste of clouds, or maybe the aroma of mountains…"
"Aroma of mountains? Have you lost your mind?"
"I'm only suggesting an option, a different way of looking at the whole thing."
"Maybe it's an option for you, Mr. Ya'ari, but certainly not for the people who live here. And if you think that with oddball fantasies like these you and your firm can weasel out of the responsibility for your defective design, let me tell you, it won't work. Because we'll hound you all the way to a court of law."
"Don't you have anything more important to do?" Ya'ari asks with a cordial smile.
"I do," the man answers firmly, "but I also have a great deal of free time to get involved with many things. As you see, here it is only six-thirty A.M., and I have already finished my workday, which began one hour ago."
A little chill runs down Ya'ari's back.
"That's because my work is brief," the tenant continues, "though not easy. I go every morning to the military cemetery, to my son's grave, walk around the gravestone a bit, pull a few weeds, remove an old pebble and replace it with a new one. Sometimes, if a tear comes, I also have to wipe it. All in all, not much employment. Which is why I have plenty of time to demand that others fulfill their obligations."
Ya'ari hangs his head and recalls Gottlieb's words, that people like this have a different agenda and with a touch of inner satisfaction he says, "I may not be a bereaved father like you, Mr. Kidron, only a bereaved uncle, but I have insider knowledge, family knowledge, of your grief, and I respect it a great deal. So please, don't be angry that I made a little joke. You can rest easy: this is what I came here for, and I'm going to arrange a four-way meeting with the elevator manufacturer and the contractor and the architect, so that in a team effort we can determine where the winds are sneaking in, and after we discover the source and maybe also the cause, we'll try to calm them down."