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Why, he wondered, smarting, did she have to say “My”? Unless he breathed some life into the embers of intimacy that had begun to glow again, they would soon go out forever. He wanted to get her back onto the couch, to sit beside her and feel her body. He would have given anything for the kisses and caresses of which the truth had deprived him. But she was too ensconced in his father’s chair to be moved — all but her white-stockinged feet, which dangled in the air.

“Can’t you at least feel some hate for your father now,” he asked, “for wrecking our love and marriage to save himself?”

“He was saving me too. I would never have survived your truth.”

“There you go again! If it was my truth, what are you asking forgiveness for?”

“I can’t judge him.”

“But why can’t you, damn it?”

“Because I pity him. I don’t believe he wanted sex with her. He just couldn’t get out of it.”

“But what do you know about it?” He felt like weeping. “How can you say that? How can you defend a man who was so brutal to me? I never even told you that I met him one last time after our separation. I begged him in your very words. I said, ‘I can’t judge, I won’t breathe a word of this. Just let me stay with Galya and your family.’”

“You did that after our separation?”

“Yes. I begged for my life. And he cynically blamed his betrayal on me.”

“No, Ofer. You’re wrong about that. He simply felt that your promises meant nothing. That you only made them because you confused the hotel with me. He didn’t believe your love would last. And he was right…”

“But how can you say that? How can you even think it when you see me so torn up, stuck for years in my blind loyalty to you? I walk the streets of Paris without even noticing all the beautiful women around me. All I see is the curve of your breast, the sole of one of your feet…”

“That’s just because you’re far away. If we had stayed together, your love would have died. You can’t accept the cruel, sick complexity of this world. You fight it all the time. Your hatred and envy of my father would have driven you crazy and poisoned us both.”

“But your father is gone now. Why not come back to me?”

“Because the memory will haunt us. We’ll never forget that you, too, were implicated. That’s why you went poking in that basement, even though you were warned not to. There’s nothing to regret. Our love was used up. You’re just talking yourself into something.”

“Don’t you dare say that!” He jumped to his feet, pacing the room like a trapped animal unreconciled to its loss of freedom. “I’m talking myself into something? I, who go on paying the price for my loyalty and hope? What is it that you want? If I got down on my knees, would you believe me? You say you’ve come to ask forgiveness, but what does that mean? I kept my promise. I never said a word. Now give me some hope that you’ll come back to me, if not now, then some day… with your child that should have been mine…”

“I can’t. Watch it…”

“The cup is leaking.”

“No, it isn’t. That’s not where the water is coming from. You’d better call your mother. She’ll know what to do….”

24.

THREE HOURS HAD PASSED and still the Rivlins didn’t know to which hospital Ofer had taken his ex-wife or what was happening there. It was almost midnight. The French Carmel was quiet. The big searchlight in the navy base at Stella Maris shone with bright purpose in the thickening murk. Hagit undressed, got into bed, and switched on the TV. But the curly-headed newscaster whose smiles sweetened the hideous headlines was not on tonight, and she soon switched it off again.

“Come to bed,” she told her husband tenderly. “Walking up and down all night won’t make that baby get born any quicker.”

“But suppose Ofer needs us?”

“At the delivery of another man’s wife? You’re too much! Come on, take off your clothes. You’ve had a hard day. And whatever happens, you’ll have to take him to the airport tomorrow.”

“But shouldn’t we at least find out what hospital they’re in? Suppose her mother or sister want to know. And where in the world did that husband of hers disappear to?”

“If he’s not worried about her, you can relax too. You’re not part of this birth.”

“Why not?”

She raised her head from the pillow to regard him with amazement. Her hair disarrayed, her face wild with anger, she had lost her last shred of patience.

“Because you aren’t! You’ll wait for Ofer to get in touch — if he does. And you’ll let him live out this day, and his meeting with Galya, and whatever is happening right now as he pleases.”

“Of course. Naturally.”

“Promise me you’ll stay out of it from now on.”

“I promise.”

“Swear you won’t phone or go looking for anyone while I’m asleep.”

“All right. All right….”

“No, it’s not all right. Swear!”

“I swear.”

She smiled. “And now get into bed. You’ll sleep better for having sworn.”

He undressed and got into bed, turning out the light and snuggling up to her. But the more regular her breathing grew as it carried her surely off to sleep, the more awake he became. His excitement getting the better of him, he disengaged himself and rose. Sleeping pills were out of the question on a night like this.

He entered his study apprehensively, as if the amniotic sac that had burst a few hours before might still be dripping. Hagit, with unusual alacrity, had mopped it up before he could get a look at it. Now, though, in the light of the desk lamp, he saw that his chair was still damp. Overcoming his qualms, he bent to sniff it. The stains had a slight, soapy scent. With a shiver of revulsion, he noticed what looked like bits of white, nearly colorless matter.

Galya had left her overnight bag on the couch. It was open. In it, beside her toilet articles and a book, were rolled her wet dress and underpants. He closed the bag and put it on the floor. Then, covering the chair with a sheet she had slept on as one covers the mirrors in a dead man’s house, he sat down, switched on his computer, loaded a chapter of his book onto the screen, and set to work on it. He was getting closer, he thought, to the crux of things that he had been groping for since the spring. Though still not out of the woods, he felt confident that he was onto something real. Yet he wondered if he would ever find out what it was, or if he would remain like a faithful courier with no idea of the message he carried.

True to his pledge to Hagit, he waited to hear from Ofer. One might have thought his son could pick up a telephone and tell his parents, “Galya had the baby.” Or, “We’re still waiting.” Or how the delivery was proceeding, or whether Jerusalem had been informed, or if Tehila and Bo’az were on their way. Or, at the very least, “I’ll be home soon,” or “I’m staying at the hospital,” or “Go to sleep, Abba,” or “Wait up for me.” Hagit was asleep. He could easily phone every hospital in town and find out. But he had sworn not to.

The editing went well. He worked on the chapter and made such progress that he was almost up to the next one. It was nearly two o’clock. For a moment he imagined that Ofer and Galya would soon come home from a disco, as in those distant days before the wedding.

It took him a while to realize that the tapping on the front door was not imaginary. He hurried downstairs. Through the frosted glass he made out a blurry figure. It was Tehila, standing in the darkness. As though continuing a conversation, she remarked, without saying hello:

“Tell me, am I wrong or did you once live somewhere else, in a fantastic wadi all your own?”

“We moved,” Rivlin said. She had hennaed her cropped hair, increasing her pallor.