“May we really call you that? Benjy? Good. Then come in and sit down. We’ve got Michaela here, Einat’s friend who brought us the letter. Come and hear what she has to say about Gaya and the hospital there.” But I declined the invitation. “Sorry,” I said. “It’s late and I’m in a hurry to get to Jerusalem to say good-bye to my parents and organize my packing.”
“And will you sleep there tonight?” asked Lazar in a disappointed tone. “What a pity. We thought of asking you to sleep here, so that we could all go straight to the airport early tomorrow morning.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, “my parents will get me there in time.” But Lazar was evidently unable to stop worrying, and he immediately ran to fetch a pencil and paper to write down my address and phone number in Jerusalem, while his wife — I was still asking myself whether she was coming on the trip or not — urged me again to come into the living room. “My mother’s here with us, and she’s eager to meet you.”
“Your mother?” I said in confusion. “All right, just for a minute,” and I entered the living room, where I stood amazed at the view of the roofs of Tel Aviv spreading out in every direction before me. When I was here the night before, the curtains had been drawn and I hadn’t guessed what a commanding position the penthouse occupied. On the sofa sat a frail old woman in a dark wool suit, and next to her a boy dressed for some reason in a white cotton dress. But when I went closer I saw that it was a sunburned young woman whose shaven head threw her big light eyes powerfully into relief. “Mother,” said Lazar’s wife in a slightly raised voice, “this is Dr. Rubin, the doctor who’s volunteered to accompany us to India. You wanted to meet him.” The old lady immediately held out her hand to me and nodded, and a very faint echo of her daughter’s automatic radiant smile flickered for a moment in her eyes. Now I could no longer restrain myself. The possibility of Mrs. Lazar joining us began preying on my mind more disturbingly than ever, and while I inclined my head toward the young woman with the shaven head, who discreetly made room for me at her side, I turned to Lazar’s wife with uncontrollable annoyance and said, “Excuse me, I don’t understand. Are you coming with us?” But Lazar cut in before she could reply. “It hasn’t been settled yet; we’ll decide tonight. But why do you ask?”
“I just wanted to know,” I mumbled, looking at his wife, who was no longer smiling at all, although her head turned with an almost imperceptible, slightly threatening movement in her husband’s direction. And then, against my will, I sat down in the place vacated for me by the shaven-headed woman, who gazed at me curiously, as if to take my measure with one look. With the sofa cushions around me still fragrant with warmth, I reached out to take the cup of tea that the grandmother had poured, and through the big window I watched the great, silent fan of an approaching rainstorm spreading over the horizon of the sea. It was then I felt a certain annoyance and anger. I had to get going; my mother and father were waiting for me. What was I doing sitting there like a member of the family? As if I wouldn’t be seeing more than enough of them for the next couple of weeks, whether I liked it or not. I stood up quickly, without tasting the tea, without even saying a word to the slight young woman, whose ostentatious Indianness made me anxious, but also newly eager for the journey. “Did you have a chance to get the two vaccinations for the visa?” I remembered to ask my host on the way to the door. “What vaccinations?” asked the astonished Lazar, who was sure that he had everything connected with the journey under control. It turned out that his wife had forgotten to tell him. “How could you have forgotten?” he cried in despair. “Where are we going to find someone to vaccinate us in Rome?” But when he heard that I had brought the vaccines and sterile syringes with me, as well as two stamped vaccination certificates, and that I had them all in my pocket, he recovered immediately. “You’re the best,” he said, and gave me a hug. “You’re the best; now I understand why Hishin was so determined to have you.” He demanded to be vaccinated on the spot and led me to their bedroom, which was also elegant and spacious. There he removed his shirt, exposing his hairy arms and heavy back, closed his eyes, and made a face in anticipation of the prick of the needle. Outside the big window next to the double bed, on which lay a large suitcase surrounded by scattered items of clothing, the sheet of rain sailed slowly eastward in the glow of the setting sun. “Don’t make such a face,” laughed his wife, coming into the room with cotton wool and alcohol while I filled the syringes, “it’s not an operation.” And she stood next to me, watching carefully. When I finished vaccinating her husband, he put on his shirt and prepared to accompany me to the door. “What about me?” she said in offended surprise. “Shouldn’t we wait and see what we decide tonight?” said her husband tenderly. “Why be in such a hurry to get shots you may not need?” She flushed deeply, her face darkened, and she turned to me sharply and demanded to be vaccinated too. First she tried to roll up her sleeve, but her arm was too thick and she couldn’t get the sleeve past the elbow. She went up to the door and half closed it, as if to hide herself, then slipped off the upper part of her jump suit and stood there in her bra, revealing very round breasts and heavy shoulders spattered here and there with large freckles, and smiling with charming shyness. I hurried to give her the shots, and she thanked me with a nod and pulled on the top of her jump suit. It was then I knew for sure that she was indeed coming to India with us, and my heart tightened. What had I let myself in for here? I said good-bye to her and went down to the street with Lazar, who had decided to transfer the medical kit to his car. The spreading rain now darkened the city and a fine mist sprayed the air. Lazar took the knapsack from me and examined the big motorcycle curiously. “Are you really going to ride that to Jerusalem in this rain?” he asked, with fatherly concern mingled with admiration. When I was sitting on the Honda, with my foot in position to start it, something stopped me. I couldn’t hold back any longer. “Excuse me,” I said, “I understand that your wife is coming with us.” Lazar moved his head in an unclear gesture. “But why?” I asked in a kind of quiet despair. “Two escorts are already more than enough, in my opinion. Why three?” Lazar smiled and said nothing. But I was determined to pursue the matter. Perhaps I would succeed in persuading him at the last minute to stop his wife from coming. “Is there some special reason that she has to be there — something I don’t know yet?” I asked. “No, nothing like that,” replied Lazar. “She just wants to come along.”
“But why?” I insisted, with a bitterness whose intensity I couldn’t understand myself. He looked straight at me, as if he were paying attention to me for the first time, trying to make up his mind if he could trust me, and then he spread out his hands and smiled in embarrassment. “It’s just that she doesn’t like being separated from me, she doesn’t like being left alone.” And when he saw that I was still determined not to understand, he smiled at me again with a kind of sly satisfaction. “Yes, she’s a woman who’s incapable of staying by herself.”
Two
Is it possible to bring up the word “Mystery” yet? Or is it still too early even to think of it? For none of the characters moving at this wintry dawn hour from east or west toward the airport knows how thoughts of mystery are born, let alone what it is made of, and how it flows. Not even the great India awaiting them can stimulate thoughts of mystery, for it is not yet a differentdimension of being in their eyes, only a place they wish to reach quickly and efficiently, in order to collect a sick young woman and bring her carefully home. And that sickly yellowness, clouding the whites of her eyes and surrounding the greenishirises, flickering between the gray sheets in the little room in the monastery on the outskirts of Bodhgaya, can that ignite a spark of mystery? No, certainly not. Because in the imaginations of the people now dragging their suitcases through the departure lounge, that sickly yellowness toward which they are directing their steps holds no portent of mystery, it is only the symptom of a disease, which has a name and is described in books and articles, and which, according to Professor Hishin, is self-limited, even if the return journey holds a turning point, where it will hover desperately between life and death. But even in that terriblecrisis there is no mystery, and now it stands still in the time and place appointed for it, among wicker furniture smeared with bright purple paint, waiting for the precise moment of time, which always arrives with an astonishing simplicity and naturalness.