About the Night (37 page)

“As fast as you can,” she told the taxi driver who stopped for her.

“Of course I know where the InterContinental is,” he bragged. “I know the way.” But he still managed to get them lost and had to ask passersby while his passenger held her stomach to keep from exploding. Still, when they finally reached the hotel, she took a long moment before getting out.

At her feet, like a gift, Jerusalem lay spread out before her, a stunning and appeasing illusion of a unified city. This was the first time in nearly twenty years that Lila was looking at the breathtaking sights from on high. She could see her own neighborhood, and his as well, even the tall cypress trees on his street. She could see the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock, the Jewish and Muslim cemeteries, the ancient churches, the hills of Edom to the east, the sinking orange of the sun as it made way for night, the lights beginning to twinkle, their headlights, our headlights.

A summer scent perfumed the air. Young olive trees stood proud in their new abode. The seven white arches of the hotel seemed to be boasting of the importance of the spectacular hill—Jerusalem’s finest—on which they were located. A uniformed doorman bowed and pointed her to the entrance. Everything she took in—the lobby, the employees, the hotel guests, the chandeliers, the furniture—seemed to have been painted in sepia tones that recalled the early years of the century.

Her legs carried her inside, to the stairway. Soft carpets absorbed her heels, and she felt as though she were moving through a fog. There was a hush of many languages resounding off the stone walls, and people in the lobby stood watching her like an honor guard as she passed by. Her thoughts suddenly became sharp, and then at once she lost focus. Her mouth was dry, her eyes burned, her ears filtered the noise around her. All she could hear was a murmuring, perhaps the coursing of her own blood, the beating of her own heart. This moment would be etched onto her forever, but she did not feel the same fulfillment that comes in the wake of expectation.

She looked around for a man on his own, most likely dressed in a suit and tie, but she saw no one who fit this description. So she turned around, retraced her steps. He was not sitting on the sofas or at the restaurant with its glorious view facing east. Something inside her began to crumble; she was unable to read the time on the clock at the reception desk. Resourcefulness and the voice of reason abandoned her.

A short waiter in a black suit rescued her. “Madame Lila?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Would you accompany me, please?”

She was horrified, certain that the waiter would lead her to a telephone where it would become clear that he would not be coming.

They traversed hallways, went down a flight of stairs, and passed through a door with a porthole window. She had the feeling of crossing a great distance, and if she had to find her way back, she would get lost. The smell of soap and boiled laundry mixed with that of steam and roasting. This more modest, underground area of the hotel was noisier and more pungent than upstairs.

They stopped in front of a wooden door. The plaque read “Manager.”

The waiter knocked on the door. The light in the corridor was dim.

“Yes?” came a voice from the other side of the door.

It only took her one syllable to recognize Elias’s voice.

How much time had passed before the waiter disappeared and left her standing in front of the closed door? She was incapable of stretching out her hand and turning the knob, but it did open, as if it was the gateway to heaven, and he was standing there.

He stood motionless, allowing the moment to overtake him, absorbing her image, the eyes that were looking at him and the teardrops glistening inside them. After the shock, he took a step backward and made room for her to enter. Not a word was uttered, and the door closed.

Lila did not know how it happened, but she was gathered to his breast, her chin on his shoulder, his arms around her back slowly, gently, tightening, as if to absorb her into his body. When he placed his hand on her head, a stifled, silent cry rumbled inside her and caused them both to tremble.

When they pulled away from each other, she could see he was both joyful and tormented. She understood he was overwhelmed at being together with her, but at the same time he was suffering, and she did not know why.

“Like pearls,” he whispered as he wiped away her tears with his finger. He could see that she was trying to maintain control, but it was quite beyond her capabilities. “I’m happy you came,” he said.

He took her hand and led her to two armchairs standing in front of a desk, like a couple come to stand before a judge. Only when she was seated did he sit as well.

He poured water from a glass jug into two tall glasses and handed her one. His eyes drank her in as she sipped.

“You are so beautiful,” he said. “More beautiful than ever.” He trailed a finger down her arm, as if verifying that she was really there with him.

She tried to speak, but the words would not issue from her throat. Her ragged breathing and trembling body and pale lips gave away more than he dared to expect.

“Go ahead and cry,” he said, his voice gentle and soothing. “I’m here with you.”

He was bringing back that feeling he gave her, that unique sense that he knew exactly what she was feeling.

“Come to me,” Elias said, rising from his chair and pulling her to her feet like something fragile. He embraced her and rocked them gently side to side in a harmonious movement, like a curtain in a breeze.

His scent was slightly different, she noticed. She called out his name.

“Yes, my love,” he said.

“I want to ask you something,” she said.

“Ask.”

“I’m unable.”

“So perhaps this isn’t the time for questions,” he said. “Let’s take it slowly.”

“Elias,” she whispered, searching his face.

He was waiting for her there, his lips delicately brushing hers, a few light touches, until she buried her head in his neck and said, “Tell me it’s going to be all right.”

He tightened his grip, pulled her closer. “It’s going to be all right,” he said. “You know that.”

Only then did they hear the evening sounds of the hotel: the beeping of a teleprinter, a generator kicking in, a car engine revving outside, the shelves of a cart clattering. All these remained outside the circle of time they created in their warm embrace as they rocked back and forth. They were still searching for something to bridge the gap between them, something that would stitch them together.

“It’s not a tear,” Elias said. “It’s just a seam that’s opened.”

She smiled into his chest, and he said, “Let me look at you. You’re smiling.”

She lifted her face to him. “How did you know?” she asked.

“What do you mean, how did I know?” he answered. “I could feel it. Why did you smile?”

“Because you’re finding the way,” she told him. Words of softness.

Lila thought, He will always take baby steps. Unlike herself, who would choose to throw herself into a waterfall of melted snow.

“How did you get here?” he asked, indicating that something was drawing to a close.

“By taxi,” she told him.

“Come,” he said with utmost gentleness. “Let’s leave here.”

She suddenly grew sad. Only a moment earlier she had regained her wits, and now they were going to part?

But Elias knew, as he always had, when she was entering darkness. He turned off the green reading lamp on the desk, and they stood facing each other by the door, looking into each other’s eyes. “From today, from this evening, from tomorrow,” he said, his voice low, “we will meet as often as we can. We will make up for lost time, and we’ll take everything that’s waiting for us.” He pulled her so close to him that there was practically no air left in her lungs. “Just say you agree to that,” he said.

On the trip back through the underbelly of the hotel, Lila felt safe and protected with Elias leading the way. Now she was able to take in the mosaics, the velvet sofas, the thin curtains, the warm purple coloring.

“It’s new,” Elias told her. “They only finished building it three years ago. What good timing, as if it was built for the prosperity that was around the corner.” He pressed her hand in his but let go of it when they reached the lobby and stood breathlessly looking out over the city that was once again theirs.

Elias paid the taxi driver and told him to drive the lady carefully, like a
malika
, a queen. Her eyes looked out at him with longing, and he looked back at her with a soothing expression that said, What are you worrying about? From now on, I am here.

His back was to her as she pulled away in the taxi, but when she wished it to happen, he turned around, and their eyes locked. Had he turned around only a second later, the moment would have been lost.

It had been all so real and alive, but at the same time it was evaporating. Perhaps everything had taken place in her mind, like all the many, many times she had envisioned their reuniting in the past.

“Where did you pick me up from?” she asked the Arab driver.

He gazed at her in the rearview mirror. “From the hotel,” he said.

“Who paid you?”

“A man in a suit,” he said, with growing suspicion. “You saw him yourself.”

“And where did he tell you to take me?”

“Wherever you want.”

“What day is tomorrow?” she asked in the way one questions a person who has lost his memory.

“Friday,” he said. “Maybe open the window and you’ll feel better?”

The taxi plowed through the city like an express train, nothing in its wake, as if the blood in the veins of the city had stopped flowing.

“Right here,” she told him. “On the right.”

The simplest thing, she thought, would be to relive the encounter with Elias minute by minute, but this did not happen. Instead of a tidy outline, she wound up with a mix of images and interrupted impressions and emotional moments that would not align themselves into a single entity.

She considered what they had not discussed: the past. They did not cling to what was; they did not discuss the war; that was still too raw and painful, and there were victors and losers. They did not talk about the years that had gone by, how they had passed for him and for her, or the abyss that had opened up between them. They had not mentioned the here and now. She wondered what she knew about him. Only that he was alive, that he was the same man she had loved, that nothing had changed between them.