“That’s not the way things work, Dad,” I complained wearily. “It’s not so simple.” But my parents were resolute in their enthusiasm. “Just don’t be in such a hurry to refuse — the hospital’s not running away, and you’ve worked so hard this year that you deserve a vacation.”
“In India?” I said sarcastically. “What kind of a vacation can I have there?” But now my mother began praising the country. She had an uncle who had served there between the two world wars, and she remembered that he was in love with India and never stopped describing its charms. “That was a completely different India,” I said, trying to cool her ardor, but she persevered: “Nothing in the world ever becomes completely different, and it was once full of magic and beauty — something must have remained, and for such a short trip it will be quite enough.” I was surprised by my parents’ reaction. I had assumed that their constant anxiety would make them try to talk me out of the idea, and instead they were joining in the pressure to make me go. “I can’t see what kind of vacation I’ll have on a trip like this,” I grumbled into the phone, “and I don’t need a vacation now, either. My work at the hospital’s so fascinating I don’t want to miss a single day. In any case, I’ll think it over tonight. I promised to give them a final answer tomorrow morning.” I tried to put an end to the conversation. But my parents wouldn’t let me go. “Even if the idea of the trip doesn’t attract you at the moment,” argued my father, “people here are asking for your help — it’s an opportunity to do a good deed.”
“A good deed?” I laughed. “There’s no question of a good deed here — they want to pay me a fee for the trip. It’s got nothing to do with good deeds, and anyway, why me? They’ve got the whole hospital at their disposal; they could easily find some other doctor to go with them and bring their daughter back for them.”
But of this I was not certain. When I had promised the Lazars a final answer early in the morning, they had repeated that if I refused, they wouldn’t have time to find and persuade another suitable doctor from the hospital.
“This is a chance for you to experience another world and refresh yourself,” said my mother. Recently she and my father had been worried about how absorbed I was in my work, fearing that I was in danger of becoming a slave to it.
“Another world? Perhaps,” I replied heavily, pulling the telephone onto my lap and falling exhausted onto my bed, “but will I be able to refresh myself there?” My parents were silent, as if I had finally succeeded in conveying to them across the distance that separated us the full weight of my weariness. “When would you have to leave?” my mother asked gently. “Right away.” I closed my eyes and covered myself with the blanket. “They want to fly to Rome the day after tomorrow.”
“The day after tomorrow?” repeated my astonished mother, who had not realized the urgency of the trip. “What did you think? It’s serious. There’s a very sick girl out there. Who knows what really happened to her? That’s what I’ve been trying to explain to you, it’s not exactly a pleasure trip.” And suddenly I felt the pressure lifting on the other end of the line. “In that case, we really should think twice. Perhaps you’re right. We’ll all sleep on it, and talk again in the morning.” Now I was sorry that I had called them. I knew that their short night’s sleep would be even shorter tonight, because of their inexhaustible appetite for discussing me and my plans. In the first place I was their only child. Now, more than ever, I’d begun to worry them as an icicle of lonely bachelorhood had begun to grow inside me. I was only twenty-nine years old, but I noted with pity their attempts to steer me toward a life outside the hospital walls, prompted in part by their guilt for having put so much pressure on me to devote myself to my studies. And sure enough, early the next morning when I called, my father said, “We stayed up all night thinking about the trip to India, and we’ve changed our minds. It will only exhaust you, and you don’t need to go.” But to their astonishment I told them that only half an hour before I had agreed to go, and asked them to find my British passport and take down a good suitcase for me.
Instead of pleasure and satisfaction, I now heard only tension and anxiety in their voices, as if all that talk the night before had referred not to an actual journey but to a theoretical one. Was it because of them that I had changed my mind? my mother wanted to know. I reassured them that I had thought it over again myself and decided that I should go. Then I gave them the unpleasant news that Hishin preferred the other resident to me. Who knew, maybe his hands really were better than mine. There was silence on the other end of the line. “Hishin prefers the other resident to you?” my father said incredulously. “How can that be possible, Benjy?” And my heart contracted painfully at their certain disappointment. “You’d be surprised at how possible it can be,” I said with deliberate lightheartedness. “Never mind, it’s not so terrible, and actually this might be a good time to go somewhere far away, where I can think about what to do next.” The truth was that I actually felt relieved, as if something had been liberated inside me. From the minute I had agreed to join the Lazars, at six-thirty in the morning, it was as if the excitement of the journey had swept the anger and the envy out of my heart. Lazar’s wife had answered the phone, and for a moment I failed to recognize her voice, which was younger and fresher than she had seemed the night before, and although she did not seem surprised by my decision — as if she had known that I would come around — she thanked me repeatedly, and asked me if I was quite sure. But then her husband lost patience and snatched the phone from her and began shooting out instructions with terrific efficiency. He was going to Jerusalem to meet some India expert at the Foreign Office and to get letters of recommendation and introduction, leaving his wife and me to conclude the necessary arrangements. “And what about the hospital?” I asked. “They’re still expecting me in the operating room this morning — there are operations scheduled.” But Lazar was unequivocal. As far as the hospital was concerned, I could leave it to him; it was his turf, and Hishin had given his express consent. “No,” he rebuked me firmly, “from this minute on, please stop thinking about the hospital and devote yourself exclusively to making arrangements for the trip. Time is short. This afternoon we’ll find time to sit down with the doctors and the head pharmacist and discuss the medical aspects. All that’s no problem. The main thing — I almost forgot to ask — is your Israeli passport valid?”
No, my Israeli passport wasn’t valid. I had checked it the night before. Lazar gave me instructions on how to get to his wife’s office in the center of town. His wife, a lawyer by profession and a partner in a big law firm, would take care of it. I barely recognized her when she came out of her office to meet me, dressed in black, wearing high heels, her face made up. Again she thanked me for my decision, with a friendliness that struck me as artificial and exaggerated. I handed her my passport, and she immediately passed it to one of the girls sitting in the frenetic front office. Then, she took out her checkbook, signed a number of blank checks, which she gave me, and said, “Here, this is Hannah, who’s going to devote herself to you this morning and get you ready for the trip.” In the travel agency, surrounded by posters of glorious tourist sites, I sensed a sudden joyful wanderlust burgeoning inside me. Two of the travel agents put themselves at our service to speed things up. First of all, they informed Hannah and me that travelers to India had to present certificates of vaccination against cholera and malaria to obtain a visa, and told us not to forget to tell Lazar and his wife. “His wife?” I asked in surprise. “Why his wife?” But the travel agents’ records clearly showed that the previous afternoon Mrs. Lazar had asked them to book her on a flight too, with an open ticket. “She probably wasn’t sure if I’d agree to go,” I tried to explain, “and so she asked you to get a ticket for her just to be on the safe side.”