They came inside and stood awkwardly in the passage, by the coat hooks where, in the summer months, there hung only Father's cap, a silk scarf, and the shopping basket. The captain apologized, returned Mother's greeting, explained politely that he and his men could not accept a drink when they were on duty, suddenly remembered to doff his cap in the presence of a lady, and asked for permission to glance around the other rooms. They would be as quick as possible, of course. He was so sorry.
We said nothing. Mother was our spokesman. She said, "Of course."
And she smiled.
The soldiers, three thin young men in khaki shorts and army socks up to their knees, stood pressed in the doorway as if ready to vanish at the slightest hint that they were not wanted. Meanwhile, the captain had managed to overcome his initial embarrassment. He was still behaving as though we and they were a group of well-mannered strangers stranded together by regrettable circumstances in a broken elevator. Even when he asked my father to stand with his hands up and his face to the wall, and my mother to be kind enough to sit down in the armchair with the dear little boy on her lap, the pleasant-faced captain still seemed to be merely volunteering helpful, boy-scout-like suggestions that would enable us all to make our escape from the elevator, perhaps by somewhat athletic methods, and thus reduce to a minimum the unpleasantness that had occurred to us all despite the good will and indisputable respectability of all parties involved.
Nevertheless, he did not remove his hand from the black holster. In recent times there had been some unbelievably nasty incidents in Palestine, always at unexpected moments and in apparently respectable places.
The three soldiers inspected the bookshelves one by one, carefully moving the complete poems of Bialik and the Gems of Literature aside to see what lurked behind them; they lifted the lid of the piano and sniffed among the strings; they took down the picture of the pioneer pushing the plow through a field in the Jezreel Valley oblivious of the crows, tapped on the wall behind, and listened intently to the sound. The bust of Chopin was lifted up and then reverently replaced. The captain apologized for his curiosity and wished to know who it was and what the inscription meant. Mother translated once more from Polish, "With all the warmth of my heart and until my dying breath."
"I am very sorry," the captain said in a tone of hushed awe, as if he had accidentally disturbed some religious ritual or defiled a holy object.
They proceeded methodically, searching the wardrobes, peering under the beds, hitting the walls gently with the butts of their Tommy guns, and listening for an echo. All the time I was sitting with Mommy on the armchair, and I kept my eyes averted so as not to have to see my father standing with his face to the wall and his hands raised in the air. Secretly I recited to myself the four cardinal rules for standing up to torture in interrogations. It was Ephraim who had taught them to me; perhaps he had invented them himself.
But there was no interrogation.
The captain only voiced a polite request: would Father kindly show them over the printing press that, according to their notes, was in the basement of the building.
When the search was concluded, they took with them various samples; since they could not read them, they were obliged to appropriate one copy of each item for examination. These were labels for matzoh packages, appeal forms for the Diskin Orphanage, receipts and counterfoils, and copies of a newsletter for thrifty housewives. With this the captain was satisfied. Ke regretted any unpleasantness we might have been caused. He expressed a hope for better times, which were bound to come soon. One of the soldiers called me a "boy scout." Another belched, and started at a stern look from the captain.
Then they left.
The lane was already in darkness. A solitary street lamp, swinging in the breeze, cast nervous circles of light on the asphalt. How unnecessary this yellow light was: the curfew still remained in force after the searches. There was not a soul in our lane. Besides the stray dogs. These dogs lived off our garbage cans. Nobody here wanted a pet dog. But nor would anybody volunteer to drive them away or put them down. Let them be.
Father said:
"They behaved perfectly correctly. You've got to admit it."
Mother said:
"What disgusting sycophants."
"What do you expect," Father rejoined. "That's just their manners. The iron fist in a velvet glove, as they say."
"Not them. You. Both of you. Don't answer me back. That's enough."
Outside, in the empty lane, the stray dogs raised their drooling muzzles to the moon and let out a howl.
Father said:
"Come along, Uri. Tonight you and I will fix supper. Mommy's not feeling very well."
9
The curfew was lifted on Saturday night.
The searches were now concentrated, according to rumor, in the southernmost suburbs: Bayit Vagan, Mekor Hayyim, Arnona, Talpiyot.
Father gave it as his opinion that everything Ephraim had said about a scientific trick that made the commander of the Underground invisible and so on was sheer fantasy. It was more reasonable to suppose that he followed a simple rule of moving from district to district on the heels of the hunt, always slipping into a neighborhood that had just been searched. This solution appeared to Father at least logical, if not necessarily conclusive.
Mother said:
"Which means that now he's here."
"If you choose to think so," Father said with a smile.
"It's Saturday night," Mother said, ignoring his smile. "If you stopped your constant yammering for a moment, we might be able to hear the church bells in the distance. Surely the bells are calling to somebody. The evening is calling to somebody. The birds are clamoring for attention. They've built bell towers on every hilltop in Jerusalem to ring out to the distance. When will they finally call to us? Perhaps they've already called, and we were so busy talking we didn't hear. Why can't we have some silence? Please, Kolodny, leave my arm alone. Leave me alone, too. Why do you keep pestering me?"
"Calm down," Father begged.
And as an afterthought he added:
"We haven't been out for ages. Why don't we go to the movies and sit in a café like civilized human beings. Life must go on, after all."
Early on Sunday morning, Mother went down into the garden carrying a tub of washing. I followed her downstairs without her noticing. The morning sky was grubby and overcast, as if autumn had arrived. But I knew these mornings; I told myself that it wasn't autumn yet, and that actually it was a sure sign of a blazing-hot day. I noticed a quick tremor run through her neck and shoulders. She stood all alone in the low gray light, which imparted a bluish, doubt-ridden hue to the stone, the trees, and the asphalt. It looked as though the light were a stream, and the houses on either side were its banks in a fog, and everything in between was being swept away by the leisurely current. The garbage cans, waiting along the sidewalk, were in the stream. A smell of fish. The smell of the oleanders. And a faint, almost pleasant reek was also in the stream. Not a stream. A ripple of light. A veil. Somewhere nearby there lived a persistent cuckoo that never stopped repeating a single urgent phrase as if it were impossible to remain silent. On the perches of the dovecote stood three lazy pigeons, exchanging views and opinions. They totally disregarded the cuckoo's interruptions.