It was at that point that you came into the picture. Actually, you were there already: an intense woman on a nearby rocking chair, in a simple, severe summer dress. Sitting and judging.
"If I might be permitted to intrude in this exchange," you say.
And I, in a trice, return from the harems of Baghdad to my Viennese manners:
"By all means, dear lady. Need you ask? We were merely indulging in idle banter. Please."
And so you advise me to choose fresh orange juice, rather than coffee, after all. From bitter experience that morning, you have discovered that the coffee here is ersatz, a kind of greasy black mud. Incidentally, I am not a total stranger to you: you once heard me lecture at a one-day conference at the Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus. I spoke about hygiene and the drinking water in Palestine, and impressed you with my sense of humor. Dr. Nussbaum, if you are not mistaken. No, you are surely not mistaken.
I hasten to reassure you, and you continue:
"Very pleased to meet you. Hermine Oswald. Mina for short. A pupil of pupils of Dr. Adler. Apparently we both share the same Viennese background. That is why I permitted myself to intervene and rescue you from the Health Service coffee. I have a bad habit of interfering without being asked. Yes. Nurse, please leave two glasses of grapefruit juice on the table here. Thank you. You may go now. What were we talking about? Ah, yes. Your lecture on the drinking water was entertaining, but quite out of place in that one-day conference."
You imagine I will agree with you on this point.
Dr. Nussbaum, naturally, hastens to agree wholeheartedly.
Meanwhile, Jasmine is receiving a noisy dressing down: the Trade Union official is grumbling, half an hour ago or more he asked her — or one of the other nurses, what's the difference — to put through an urgent telephone call for him to the office of Comrade Sprinzak. Has she forgotten? Is it possible?
You indicate him with your chin, smile, and explain to me sotto voce:
"Beginnings of egomania and overbearing behavior typical of short men. By the time he's seventy, he will be a positive monster."
We drift into lighthearted conversation. Jasmine, rebuked, has moved out of sight. You call her an "enfant sauvage." I ask myself whether you have overheard my foolish exchange with her, and find myself devoutly hoping that you have not.
"I react in exactly the same way as you," you are saying, "only in reverse. An Oriental taxi driver, or even a Yemenite newsboy, can throw me quite off balance. From a purely physical point of view, of course. These 'enfants sauvages' still retain — or so it would appear — some sort of sensual animal language that we have long forgotten."
Dr. Nussbaum, as you will surely recall, does not blush to hear all this. No. He blanches. He clears his throat. Hurriedly he produces a freshly laundered handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his lips. He begins to mumble something about the flies, which he has just noticed are all around. And so, without further delay, he changes the subject. He has an anecdote to relate about Professor Dushkin, who, you will recall, was in the chair at that medical conference at the Hadassah. Dushkin called everyone — the doctors, the High Commissioner, the leaders of the Jewish Agency, Stalin, everyone — Svidrigailovs.
"How unoriginal of him," you remark icily. "But Dr. Nussbaum, you may invoke whomsoever you will, Dushkin, Stalin, Svidrigai'lov, to change the direction of our conversation. It is not you but I who should apologize for the embarrassment I have caused."
"Perish the thought, Dr. Oswald, perish the thought," Dr. Nussbaum mutters like an idiot.
"Mina," you insist.
"Yes, with great pleasure. Emanuel," Dr. Nussbaum replies.
"You are uneasy in my company," you say with a smile.
"Heaven forbid."
"In that case, shall we take a little stroll together?"
You get up from your rocking chair. You never wait for an answer. I get up and follow you. You take me for a leisurely amble along the gravel path and beyond, down the wooded slope, to the shade of the cypress trees, toward the smell of resin and decay, until we come to the famous tree that was planted by Dr. Herzl and was later felled by some Arabs. And there we discovered, in the dry summer grass, a rusty earring with a Cyrillic inscription.
"It's mine!" you suddenly exclaim possessively, like a high-spirited schoolgirl. "I saw it first!"
A tearful grimace played around your mouth for a moment, as if I were really about to prize the earring from your fist by brute force.
"It's yours," I said, laughing, "even though I believe I saw it first. But have it anyway. As a gift."
Suddenly I added:
"Mina."
You looked at me. You did not speak. Perhaps for a full minute you looked at me and did not speak. Then you hurled the earring into the thistles and took hold of my arm.
"We are out for a stroll," you said.
"Yes, out for a stroll," I agreed happily.
What happened to us. What did you see in me.
No, I do not expect an answer. You are in New York. Up to your eyeballs in work, I expect. As usual. Who can rival your power of periodically turning over a new leaf.
If I were to try to examine myself through your eyes that day in Arza, I should not be much the wiser. You saw before you a withdrawn man with a pensive expression and a cautious way of moving. Rather a lonely man, to judge by outward appearances. Not lacking in sensuality, though, as you must have learned when you overheard him flirting with the girl Jasmine. Not bad looking, either, as I have already stated. A tall, thin man, inclined to turn pale in moments of emotion or embarrassment, his features angular and decidedly intellectual. Hair going slightly gray, but still falling luxuriantly over his forehead, enough perhaps to attract attention. He may have struck you as a rootless artist, he may have looked to you like an unconventional musician from the conservatoire of some German-speaking land, who had turned up here in Western Asia and now bore his degradation with silent, tight-lipped resignation: there is no way back. A melancholy man, yet capable nonetheless, in unusual circumstances, of wholehearted enthusiasm.
In brief, an orphan and a dominating aunt, according to your definition. A definition, however, that you only voiced some time later.
By lunchtime, we were already sharing a table. Chatting about the poet Gottfried Benn. And putting our heads together like a couple of conspirators, trying to work out the order in which the various tables were served. It was Jasmine who served us. As she poured the mineral water I was splashed slightly, because she was not paying attention. I did not complain; on the contrary, as she leaned over me her firm breasts almost brushed my shoulder. At their base, glimpsed through the opening of her white overall, there showed a network of blue veins, such as one sometimes finds in marble from Galilee.
My lust did not escape your notice. You were amused and began to tease me. You started asking me certain questions about my bachelor life. All without batting an eyelid, as if you were inquiring where I bought my shirts. Apparently your practical experience as a psychologist (before you devoted yourself to research) enabled you to ask me questions of a sort not normally exchanged by new acquaintances.
As for me, I blanched as usual. But I made up my mind this time not to evade your questions. Only I found the choice of words very difficult.