"What book is this?"
"I asked the desk clerk for something to read, and he found me, you'll never guess, a Bible, in English, with the New Testament too."
"So what? You can leave it on the table."
"No, I want to read it a bit in the remaining days. You see things in the English that you can't in Hebrew. In the meantime nobody here will miss it, and you can return it when you come to pick up your patient. On the condition that you not burn it."
Yirmi's eyes sparkle.
"Why not burn it? Why should the source of all troubles be more immune than the newspapers? This book is where all the confusion and curses begin. This especially must be destroyed."
Daniela regards him quizzically, but still warmly.
"Here it's in English, not Hebrew."
Yirmiyahu looks affectionately at his sister-in-law.
"If it's in English, we'll give it a pardon."
"THIS IS ISRAEL," declares Moran, handing his father the keys. "Thunder and lightning and commotion, then out jumps the sun to calm everyone down. Too bad that nature isn't more cruel in this country, to force the people to fight against it instead of one another. This is winter?" He continues to embellish his observation, perhaps in order to distract them all from the fact that he arrived late and exposed his father and children to the raging thunderstorm. "In global terms, this is just a pleasant autumn."
He and Efrat are standing beside the car, and as Moran leans into the back to buckle his children into their car seats, the redheaded adjutant pops out of nowhere looking for his confined soldier and is surprised by the beauty of his wife. That's it, I have to confiscate your husband, says the adjutant to the woman studying him with mild contempt. Believe me, I could have sent him to the West Bank, to stand at roadblocks and chase wanted men, but I felt sorry for him and preferred to adjust his attitude here. What can I do, I'm a man who doesn't give up even on lost causes. And he suggests to Ya'ari to change his route and take the trans-Israel highway back to Tel Aviv. You won't be sorry; you can now get onto it near here, and even though it's a longer way around, and he had also objected to its construction because of the damage to the landscape, it really is quick and not crowded, and it's silly to keep boycotting it.
Ya'ari is pleased with the idea. It's been a while since he took the highway, and the new section is unfamiliar to him. But Moran is finding it hard to part from his wife and children, and at the last moment he remembers to talk about the office. Go and bravely defend your white queen, his father interrupts him, waving at the barracks. The elevators won't run away.
At the Ihron interchange they merge smoothly into the highway. A beep signals that the cameras have identified the car's owner as a registered toll-payer, and Ya'ari picks up speed on the well-designed road that traverses the heart of Israel. Efrat has hidden away in the trunk her wet army jacket muddied by the love-making and sits now at her father-in-law's side in a lightweight turquoise sweater that exquisitely matches her eyes. Diligently, she leafs through the road atlas she found in the glove compartment, not out of a deep interest in the geography of her homeland but evidently to escape the curious glances of the driver, ostensibly a family member but essentially a stranger.
Deep sleep has spirited the children away. The tour of the army camp, and especially the frightening wait for their parents, have dissipated in the warmth of the car, and the humming of its tires on the road. The girl's head is the first to droop, and her hand reaches forward in a gesture of saintly supplication. For a while longer, Nadi seems to wrestle with the shadow of the dead Syrian soldier he saw in the old tank, and then sleep tips his head backward too.
Ya'ari smiles into the rearview mirror at his sleeping grandchildren. You know, he says to his daughter-in-law, yesterday, when I spent time with the children, I thought I saw a new resemblance between Nadi and Daniela.
"Daniela?" Efrat turns around and peers at her son for a moment.
"Maybe not Daniela herself," he backtracks a bit, "but via Daniela to Shuli and to Eyal when he was little. You, of course, can't see that similarity, but I knew Eyal when he was Nadi's age. And last night — it was amazing — when you went to the party, and Nadi cried and carried on, suddenly this new resemblance surfaced."
Efrat again turns her head toward the backseat. The possible resemblance to Moran's cousin excites her but is also confusing. She hesitates a moment before reacting, but finally has the courage to tell her father-in-law something that even her husband does not know. In her fifth month, when it was already known that the unborn child was a boy and not another girl, without consulting Moran she wrote to Yirmi and Shuli and asked for permission to name the baby after their son. But they refused. Politely, sympathetically, but firmly. She thought she was making a gesture of consolation, then realized she was only adding to their pain.
Her pale face grows very red from the thrill of telling the father something she concealed from his son. As a gesture of support Ya'ari removes a hand from the wheel and rests it on the young woman's shoulder, not far from the little hidden tattoo. It was good that you made the gesture, and good that you understood why it was refused. Although, in their place….He does not continue, and even resists thinking what he had intended to say.
Traffic on the highway is light, and although it moves at high speed, calm nerves and good manners prevail. On the east and west sides of the multilane road two identical gas stations come into view, flanked by shops and cafés. He glances at Efrat, to see if she wants to buy something for the children, who have had nothing to eat or drink since breakfast, but now her head is flopped backward just like her son's, and her eyes are closed, as if her brief confession exhausted her. Is she really sleeping, or has she closed her eyes to break off contact? A short while ago, in the bosom of nature, did she take the liberty of shouting her joy out loud, or sigh discreetly, murmuring her pleasure? He says not a word more, but turns down the heater and picks up speed.
His daughter-in-law, like his wife, surrenders trustingly to his driving and sinks deeper into sleep. This gives him an opportunity to examine from close up just what her beauty is made of. But when her radiant eyes are closed and her dimple disappears, the Madonna-like face seems a bit gaunt, her cheekbones sharp and oversized. Only her unblemished swanlike neck, adorned by a delicate gold chain, remains alluring. Is all that beauty actually something precarious and fragile, hanging by the thread of her forceful personality?
As they head south, the skies grow bluer and clearer. Ya'ari pays attention to the road signs, especially those pointing east of the highway. Only when one gets to the heart of the country does one see how sturdy and deeply rooted are the Arab settlements, small villages that have turned into crowded towns, the minarets of their new mosques jutting upward. And as a security barrier, not very high, suddenly begins to wind alongside the road to the east, he slowly pries the road atlas from the fingers of the sleeping beauty and turns the pages to see if he is right. Yes, this is Tulkarm, old and stubborn enemy, but pastoral too.
The weight of passengers' sleep can make a driver drowsy, particularly one who did not spend the night in his own bed. So he gingerly turns on the radio, looking for some soft music. Efrat opens her eyes for a moment and closes them again. If grinding rock doesn't keep her awake at night, why should mellower music during the day?
The scenery along the Trans-Israel Highway is monotonous. Herds of bulldozers have sliced through hills, obliterated farmland, uprooted humble groves, and made the crooked straight so that the drive will be smooth, without significant rises or dips or unexpected curves. But the sun, already heading west, compensates for the bland practicality of the road. Golden winter light inflames the fringes of the clouds.