I didn’t have to wait long, and in the pale golden light I stood up and went to look for them. But I had a hard time finding them. Indian children lay huddled together in the aisles, as if in solidarity with their little friends sleeping on the sidewalks at home. The number of passengers seemed far larger than the number of seats, but nevertheless, it felt strange to me that I was unable to discover the whereabouts of the two Lazars, as if something had gone wrong with my sense of reality during my deep sleep. The plane began to sway in the wind, and Indian flight attendants emerged and instructed the passengers to return to their seats and fasten their belts, with the result that the aisles were gradually vacated, and here and there blankets which had been hung during the night to create sleeping nooks were taken down and hidden corners exposed. I returned to my seat, wondering if the Lazars had for some reason been seated apart and I had been mistaken in searching for them together, but I immediately dismissed this impossible thought. My parents, if unable to find seats side by side in waiting rooms or buses, would sit down separately without any hesitation, but not these two. When the wind died down and the passengers were released from their seat belts, I suddenly saw Lazar’s gray mane looming up in the front of the plane, and then I remembered that I had sometimes come across him in the hospital during the past year, but without knowing who he was. He started advancing down the aisle, and when he reached me he bent down and said in a tone of mild complaint, “You slept and slept and slept,” as if my sleep had somehow deprived the rest of the world of theirs. “And you?” I asked. He ran his fingers through his curly hair, closed his eyes wearily, and answered in a strangely complacent tone, “Me? Hardly ten minutes. I told you, I’m a lost cause, I’ve never been able to sleep in something over which I have no control.” “And Dori?” I asked, blushing slightly at my inadvertent use of this pet name but reassuring myself with the thought that it would have been strange to go on saying “your wife” after twenty-four intensive hours of their company. He laughed. “Oh, all she needs is something soft to put her head on and somebody to keep watch in the background, and she sleeps like a lamb.” And he suddenly leaned right over me to look out the window. “Where are we now?” I asked him. “Don’t ask,” he laughed. “Probably flying over some crazy country like Iran.” There was a silence, after which he couldn’t resist saying, “I hope you found the sandwich and the chocolate we left for you. We saw that you missed supper.”
“Yes, yes, it was great. I wanted to thank you, but I couldn’t find you.”
“Listen,” he said with a suddenly serious expression, “it doesn’t matter if you can’t find us in the plane, but what will happen if you lose us in India? We’ll have to lay down a few rules for keeping contact. In the meantime, you should know our private whistle, which has stood us in good stead ever since our honeymoon.” He whistled it a few times so that it would stick in my head.
On a soft and hazy afternoon we landed in India, and for a moment I had the feeling that we were entering not a living reality but a vast screen on which a Technicolor movie about India was being projected. Already I found myself squeezed against the two of them, next to the knapsack with the medical supplies and the suitcases, which looked clumsy and almost superfluous in the small space of the ancient cab and in the face of the Indian poverty bombarding us through the car windows in a whirlwind of color. Lazar’s face was pressed against my shoulder, very tired and wrinkled under the stubble of his beard, while the plump and lively face of his wife was made up and scented and radiant with childish excitement. Every few minutes she broke into loud cries of admiration, exhorting me and her husband to look at all kinds of passing Indians who seemed to her worthy of special attention. But Lazar refused to raise his head. Worn out, his eyes closed, he grumbled, “Enough, Dori, not now, I haven’t got the strength, we’ll have plenty of time to look later,” while I actually tried to respond to her cries, despite their annoying loudness and enthusiasm, and turned to see where she was pointing, repeating a silly sentence that I couldn’t get out of my head: “I feel as if it’s not real yet, as if it’s only some English movie about India, and we’ve become a little English ourselves.” And she smiled at me kindly, as if I were a child trying to be original. But when we reached the hotel recommended by the travel agency, within the walls of the old city, her enthusiasm suddenly plummeted, which confirmed my objections to her joining us. Although the hotel was quite ancient, neither I nor Lazar could see anything wrong with spending the night there. But as we neared the reception desk, her face fell and she began whispering to her husband, demanding to see the rooms before we handed over our passports. Lazar grumbled at first but finally gave in to her, and they left me in the lobby with the luggage and went up to examine the rooms. On their return the argument between them seemed to have grown sharper. Her face was flushed and determined, and he looked very annoyed indeed. “I don’t understand,” he repeated, “I simply don’t understand. It’s for one night, at the most two. I haven’t slept for thirty hours, I’m falling off my feet, and all I want is a simple bed. That’s all. Where are we going to find a better hotel now?” But she gripped his arm tightly in an angry, distraught gesture, as if she wanted to shut him up, and sent me an automatic smile when she saw me looking at her, perhaps in order to shut me up too. “One night is worth something in life too,” she said, rebuking her husband, and she gave me a reproachful look as well, even though I hadn’t said a word.
We had no alternative but to leave the hotel, and the minute we hit the street two Indian boys pounced on us, relieved us of the knapsack and suitcases, and led us to see other hotels. And since we now felt light and liberated after the long, cramped flight, and the weather was soft and mild, we walked as if floating on air to not one but five hotels. The travel agent’s warning that we were due to arrive in India at the height of the pilgrim season proved true. The hotels Mrs. Lazar approved of were full, and the hotels which could take us were rejected by this impossible woman, who went up by herself to “smell the rooms,” as her husband remarked with a helpless smile, in which to my astonishment I also sensed a hidden admiration. And thus we wandered around the streets of the old city in the company of the two boys, who were enthusiastically prepared to lead us farther and farther, until after an hour of searching we finally found a hotel which was “at least possible,” and whose prices turned out to be no higher than those of the ones that had been rejected. Our two rooms were next to each other, quite small but clean, or at least colorful. The windows were draped in curtains of pale green silk, like saris, and there were heavy chains of bright yellow wilted flowers hanging over the beds. After a day and a half I was really alone at last, and the welcome solitude wrapped me in its sweetness. It was already four-thirty in the afternoon, and I wondered whether I was too tired to do anything but take a shower and get into bed or whether I should go out now, before it got dark, into the new world beyond the door. In the end hunger gained the upper hand, and since Lazar and his wife had uncharacteristically failed to mention their plans for our next meal, I decided to go out and get something to eat on my own. I wasn’t sure how frugal I needed to be since the financial arrangements between us had not yet been finalized. All I had to go on was the vague and general statement of intent made by Lazar’s wife on the first evening in their apartment. The arguments over the choice of the hotel, which was situated in a far from elegant quarter, indicated that in spite of her indignant protests, expense was a factor to be taken into account, at least as far as Lazar was concerned. It wasn’t going to be a luxury trip. And indeed, why should it be?