"Where else would it come from?"
"You don't understand. It circumvents the regular connection to the apartment."
"Why?"
"Because the building doesn't have three-phase current, meaning that the electric company would have had to be called in to switch the hookup, and they would have started drilling problematic holes all over the walls. Back when the elevator was built, the wait for such an operation could take two years, not to mention the cost that the lady was not equipped to undertake, even though my father offered to pay for it. So he tapped straight into the electrical pole."
"By what authority?"
"His own. His was a generation that didn't always distinguish between private and public property."
"Yes," the former kibbutznik says, smiling, "I know a few of those old socialists myself."
They go out onto the roof, and the winds try to shove them off. Ya'ari steps back. In stormy weather like this they'll never find the pirate cable, and there's obviously no chance of taking his father up here in the hope he'll remember where it is. But neither cold nor wind can intimidate the expert, and like a small gazelle she skips among the potbellied water tanks, hops around satellite dishes, puts her ear against old fraying clotheslines that haven't been used for decades.
A rare creature, Ya'ari thinks as he follows her movements, wondering what Daniela would make of her. Not only is her age elusive, but her sex seems to change from hour to hour. No wonder Gottlieb is scared of her. And now, despite the deluge from above, she succeeds in finding the cable.
"Don't touch a thing," Ya'ari shouts, but his voice is muffled by the roaring winds.
She points to an insulated wire that runs innocently among the clotheslines and comes to rest surreptitiously on the roof railing, from there heading someplace unspecific to steal electricity.
She rests her belly against the railing and leans way down to trace the route of the wire, her legs in the air. Ya'ari races over in a panic and pulls her back, and she lands like a feather on the roof and rolls over.
"I'm warning you," he says, extending his hand to hers, "don't touch anything here."
"But if we don't disconnect the electricity, how can we fix the connector box?"
"Let it keep yowling at her forever," he retorts, "she's not worth getting electrocuted for."
"If that's what you want," she says, her eyes wide with disappointment. "But you're giving me a day's pay for nothing."
"And if it's for nothing, what do you care?" he says, leading her by the arm back toward the elevator. "But don't worry," he adds, a new idea dawning, "your workday isn't over. When we get back to Tel Aviv, we'll go listen to the shaft in the Pinsker Tower. Strong winds like these shouldn't go to waste."
AFTER THE ARCHAEOLOGIST has left her room, Daniela reconsiders. Maybe it's not right to conceal from Yirmi the little mission she has just undertaken. She puts on shoes and makeup, and goes down to the kitchen.
In the kitchen the cooks are preparing the last meal for the research team. New provisions are also arriving, but Yirmiyahu is not at the table by the entrance to list them and pay the suppliers.
"Where's Jeremy?" she inquires of her friend the elderly groundskeeper. He tells her that her brother-in-law was there a few moments ago, but a bad headache drove him to the infirmary.
"It really is high time he tended to himself," she says offhandedly to the African, who marvels at the white visitor's morning appetite as she asks for a bite of the lamb chops emerging from the oven. But the cooks are quite pleased by her hunger and hurry to offer her also a taste of an unidentified dish already prepared for the farewell dinner. Here, madam, they say, now that you are getting used to the smell and taste of Africa, you are leaving? When will you come back to us?
She could gratify them by holding out some hope, but instead she gives a straight answer: I won't be back, and she spoons undissolved sugar from her cup to sweeten her mouth, then exits into the burning sunshine, heading for the infirmary. Recalling the vicious standoff between cat and snake that she witnessed two days ago in the grass nearby, she makes sure to walk on open ground.
On a dirt mound near the infirmary sit several young African women, two of them pregnant, apparently waiting. The door is wide open. Inside the infirmary are two rooms. In the well-lighted front room stands the cot where her blood pressure was found to be normal. In the darkened back room she can make out the bald head of her brother-in-law, who lies with his face to the wall.
She taps on the open door, and he turns and faces her, but she doesn't get up. For the first time since she arrived six days ago, she catches a flash of hostility in his eyes.
"Sijjin Kuang hasn't come back yet?"
"No."
"Can it be that Zohara won't let her leave?"
"Anything is possible."
"But what's so scary over there?"
"Why scary?"
His curt answers seem intended to put her off, so she sits on the adjacent bed, as if to announce, I'm not budging from here.
"In the kitchen they told me you had a terrible headache. Did you find anything here to make it better?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Sijjin Kuang locks up the medicine cabinet. Because sometimes women from the area sneak in and take medicines they don't need."
"And you have no key?"
"Why should I? Sijjin Kuang is always nearby."
"So what will you do now?"
"I'll wait for the pain to pass. And if you don't mind, close the door, the light makes it worse."
He shields his eyes with his hand.
A quiver of pity runs through her. "If you've decided to lie down, why not in your bed?"
"For one thing it's not my bed, and here in the infirmary I'm safe from the commotion of the researchers. Tonight they'll go back to the dig, and tomorrow, after you leave, I'll go back to my place."
She gets up and closes the door, but he doesn't remove his hand from his eyes, as if to say that even behind a closed door he is not open to conversation.
"Maybe drink something?"
He doesn't answer.
"I suggested you should drink."
"Later."
"Should I bring you something?"
"Later."
But she goes out anyway into the front room. The African women have left the dirt mound and are now at the doorstep, perhaps hoping that the white woman can also dispense medicine, murmuring at her as she fetches Yirmi a glass of water. When she offers it to him he doesn't drink, but asks her to set it on the floor, but she insists, drink, so you won't get dehydrated. He continues to refuse, and she keeps insisting, and finally he yields, lifts himself up and drinks from the glass and mutters, you always managed to get your way in the family. Everyone always went to the restaurant you wanted, drove the route you wanted. Maybe, Daniela smiles, it's because you knew deep down that what I want is good for others. And she takes the empty glass and asks, more water? But he does not reply, and this time, she gives in.
Silence. Outside, despite the heat, the wind is whistling. In the inner room the blinds are closed, but points of light glow white in the cracks. The murmur of the African women grows louder. Maybe they have entered the infirmary now and are longingly examining the lock on the medicine cabinet. For a moment she considers whether to tell him now about the mission she has accepted, but figures that in his current state of mind he is likely to object, and she has a strong desire to keep her promise. She has a strange belief that these dry bones, from an ape that gave rise to all humankind, are meaningful for Israelis as well.
"Were you thinking of showing me something else on my last day here? Doing something?" she asks her brother-in-law cautiously.