Authors: A. B. Yehoshua
W
ITHOUT THINKING
twice about it, he gallantly offered her the window seat. She had hardly flown before and might never fly again, so why not let her enjoy it? He explained the seating arrangements to her in sign language, making sure to fasten her belt while considering how to convey to the other passengers, who were staring at him curiously, that she was neither his wife, cousin, nor mistress but rather someone he was escorting to Europe for a fee and a free weekend in Paris. Perhaps her broken Hebrew would suffice to make that clear; indeed, he now regretted not having brought along a pocket Hebrew-Russian dictionary. Meanwhile, he spoke as simply as possible, omitting adverbs and adjectives and sticking mainly to nouns, with an occasional verb thrown in. She listened to the Hebrew words with amusement, giggling at being treated like a retarded child as she had done when discovered by him that summer in his mother-in-law's bed.
Unawed by the takeoff, she turned away from the window once the plane gained altitude over the sea. Yet again, her savoir faire surprised him, for as soon as the stewardess came down the aisle with drinks, she asked for a glass of Scotch and downed it before break fast, merely picking at her food while he finished his and hungrily eyed her full tray, which his wife, had it been hers, would have been thoughtful enough to offer him. They were over the Greek islands by now, and since she still seemed wide awake and he was tired of looking up all the time from his magazine to smile at her, he rented her a pair of earphones, helped adjust them on her head, and ordered her another whiskey, though this time letting her pay for it, which she anxiously did from a little purse stuffed with one-dollar bills. Then, to help pass the time, he reached for his
Anna Karenina,
showing her the title page. “Ah, Tolstoy, Tolstoy,” she exclaimed with a tragic sigh, though he rather doubted she had ever read a word of it. Before he had gotten very far in Part Seven the plane was already descending through the clouds, bouncing and shuddering in the gray fog, and she was on her third Scotch. He shut the book and glanced at the contents of his briefcase, annoyed to discover that his mother-in-law, who had promised to see to everything, had forgotten to take out medical insurance for him. I should never have trusted her, he thought, already worrying about what might happen if he fell ill.
A
T THE AIRPORT
in Vienna the wooden trunk was the first piece of luggage to appear on the conveyor belt, sailing proudly into the arrival hall as if it had come all the way from Tel Aviv under its own steam. Molkho let it circle, grabbed it by its new handle, and struggled to stand it upright on a cart, convinced that either it had grown heavier or he had grown weaker during the flight. Soon their two suitcases came, and they wheeled the cart out into a muggy afternoon over sidewalks strewn with autumn leaves. But here, too, the trunk proved a problem, for the Austrian capital did not boast many cabs with baggage racks. Moreover, the little Russian, who, smelling faintly of alcohol, seemed as happy as a puppy, suddenly discovered that she had lost her umbrella, which not only strengthened Molkho's resolve to hold onto her documents but made him wonder whether to confiscate her personal effects and money too. It was nearly four o'clock, and all at once the brief day was fighting for its life as the light ebbed out of it. Impatiently he scanned the traffic for the right kind of cab, hoping he might still manage to call the Jewish Agency before closing time to confirm their next day's appointment. He had never spoken to his wife about Austria. Would she have objected to his coming here too? Most likely she had never thought of it. She had thought of most things, but not all.
Their hotel, in which his mother-in-law had made reservations through a travel agent on the recommendation of someone in her old-age home, turned out to be a large, centrally located, overpriced, slightly rundown, decadently grand establishment, in which the old steamer trunk, dragged into the lobby by Molkho, nearly created an anti-Semitic incident. “What's in it?” demanded the Austrians, evidently concerned for their reputation, first surrounding it with several bellhops and then bundling it off into an elevator as quickly as possible. Though not as fancy as the lobby, the little Russian's room was large and faced out on a broad boulevard. At first, the bellhops tried sliding the trunk beneath the big double bed, but it was several inches too high. Nor did it fit into the closets, and so they pushed it into a corner and draped it with a cloth while Molkho stood stonily watching from the doorway. His own room, though on the same floor, was off a dark corridor and faced in a different direction. Too late did the profuse thank-yous of the bellhops, who put down his light suitcase with an expression of relief, inform him that he had overtipped them.
A
T LEAST THIS TIME
there aren't any stairs to climb, Molkho thought, still sorrowing over the size of the tip. His first task, he decided, was to learn the value of the Austrian currency that his mother-in-law had handed him in an envelope. Spreading out the bills and coins on his bed, he studied their colors and pictures, turning them this way and that. How big had the tip been? Why, they might think he was a gangster with a corpse in his trunk! Finally, satisfied it wasn't that much, only about seven dollars, he hung up his pants and jackets, put away his shirts and underwear, and shoved the empty suitcase underneath the bed, feeling immediately less transient. There was no New Testament in the room, nor for that matter any Old, just a brochure about Vienna, and so he went to have a look at the large, multimirrored bathroom, which offered all the modern conveniences, despite its period appearance. Stashing away the extra bars of soap in his toilet kit, he decided to leave the container of blue bath bubbles by the tub and proceeded to check the plumbing, whose bent, rusty pipes testified to its age. Still, there was no denying that the place was kept up well.
He returned to the bedroom and theatrically flung open the velvet curtain on the large window, which unfortunately faced a drab side street lined by gray buildings that made him think of the wings of a hospital. Had his mother-in-law forgotten the little Russian's medical insurance too? Drawing the curtain, he read the fire regulations that hung on the wall beside the authorized room price, whose exorbitance dawned on him only now. As if having to spend the next few days with a plump rabbit he couldn't talk to was not bad enough, there would be, he suddenly realized, almost no money left for his planned weekend in Paris. He would have to operate on a shoestring: if he could not arrange her return to Russia within a day or two, he would simply transfer her to a cheaper hotel and let her and her trunk get back to Israel by themselves.
He took off his shoes and undressed, preparing to take a bath. It was one of the pleasures of good hotels that there was plenty of hot water, just as there had been in Jerusalem during his childhood, when he bathed once a week on Thursday night. His wife had been so shocked by this revelation that she had all but called off their marriage. “But you have to shower daily!” she had told him. “In bathtubs you just sit in your own filth!” Indeed, even as she lay dying thirty years later, she still didn't trust him, sometimes sitting up deliriously in bed to ask if he had washed yet. The surest way to her heart was by showering twice a day, a measure guaranteed to win a loving look. Only in hotels was he granted a special dispensation to take baths.
He had already opened both faucets of the tub when he remembered his phone call to the Jewish Agency. After all, he thought, I didn't come to Vienna to bathe. Still in his underpants, he turned off the water and went to dial the number given him of a certain Mr. Shimoni, whose Israeli secretary answered the phone. Molkho introduced himself, explained that he was representing a Miss Nina Zand, referred to the letters sent on her behalf and to the answers received, and asked to confirm the appointment he had made for the next day in order to obtain the assistance and missing documents still required. “I'm afraid,” said the secretary, “that your appointment has been canceled because Mr. Shimoni is indisposed. He hasn't come to work for several days.” “You mean he's sick?” asked Molkho in dismay. He hadn't taken such a possibility into account. “But we've come all the way from Israel just to see him!” “Yes, indeed,” the secretary assured him. She knew all about it. Mr. Shimoni hadn't forgotten the appointment. In fact, he had taken the file home with him and even telephoned her that morning to ask that Mr. Molkho call him there.
Molkho breathed a sigh of relief, and the secretary gave him the phone number, requesting only that he call later in the day, since Mr. Shimoni liked to take a long afternoon nap. “As one public servant to another,” Molkho told her, “I want to thank you for being so helpful. I must say we don't deserve our bad name.” “No, we don't, do we?” answered the secretary vivaciously. “If it's not too much to ask,” continued Molkho, “what exactly ails Mr. Shimoni?” The secretary wasn't sure. “It's probably a diplomatic illness,” she laughed, “because he's terribly bored being an immigration official without immigrants.” Molkho laughed too and started to hang up, but now it was her turn to question him. When did he arrive in Vienna? And how was his flight? And what was new in Israel? “Nothing is new,” he said. “And how's the weather?” she asked to make conversation, as bored by her job as was her boss. “It's been rainy,” said Molkho, “but not very cold, although, of course, not as hot as the summer.” Apparently, however, she hadn't heard of the hellish summer. How long was he staying in Vienna, she wanted to know. “Oh, just a day or two,” Molkho said. “As long as it takes to find out if the Soviets will repatriate Miss Zand.” “Just a day or two?” She seemed disappointed. “Why not stay longer and enjoy yourself? There's lots to do here that doesn't call for any German, all kinds of operas and concerts. Would you like me to suggest something?” Molkho guffawed. “No, thank you,” he said, “I've been to enough operas and concerts to last me for a while. But perhaps you could recommend some good ballet.” At once, as if she worked for a ticket office, she listed several performances, even spelling them out for him in Hebrew letters. Clearly, she didn't want to hang up, and Molkho listened patiently, distressed to see in the large wall mirror that he had indeed put on weight and had even sprouted little breasts.
When he finally got into the bath, he lay for a long while in the deliciously sudsy water with his eyes closed. Then he dried himself, shaved, applied some lotion, ate the last apple in his briefcase, dressed, stepped out into the corridor, and knocked on the little Russian's door. There was no answer. He knocked harder, but there was still no response. Good grief, he wondered, do I have another Sleeping Beauty on my hands?
H
E DIALED HER ROOM,
but no one answered the telephone either. I shouldn't have spent so long in the bathtub, he fretted, descending to the lobby to look for her. But she was not there either, nor had she left any message or key at the desk. He searched in vain in the large dining room, where a gypsy band was playing, and stepped out into the broad boulevard, which was now bathed in twilight, peering into shops as he passed them, though the chances of finding her were slim. Could she have gone off to see the sights without telling him? Not that she was under any formal obligation, but it was a matter of simple courtesy. He asked again at the desk, knocked once more on her door, tried phoning her room a second timeâbut she had vanished into thin air. Could she, he wondered, racking his brain, have unknown friends in Vienna? It was getting dark out. Bright lights came on in the lobby. He sank grouchily into a leather chair that commanded a view of the entrance, ordered some coffee, and was about to ask for a slice of the cream pie on the pastry cart when he remembered his little breasts in the mirror and decided to wait for dinner.
Three veiled young ladies with their arms full of shopping bags entered the lobby with a man who could have been either their father or their husband, a large, swarthy Arab with the mien of a desert prince, no doubt from the Persian Gulf, dressed in a white kaffiyeh and an expensive European suit. Chattering in rapid Arabic, they deposited him and their parcels in a seat next to Molkho's and darted excitedly out again, off on another spree. The prince, in a state of shock from his purchases, or perhaps from the Western clothes he had been made to wear, tilted his sun-bronzed face toward an invisible horizon and soon sank into such a trance that he did not even notice the cup of coffee brought him by a sedulous waiter. Suddenly, however, sitting up amid the bags of women's wear and glancing desperately around him, he noticed Molkho, who was sitting a few feet away, and beamed with recognition, as though spying a fellow tribesman. Molkho looked uncomfortably away, yet the big Arab was already leaning toward him with a grin, his dark eyes lighting up. Not wanting to disappoint him, Molkho fled to the telephone booths by the reception desk and dialed Mr. Shimoni's home number. Mr. Shimoni answered the phone. “Yes, I'm not well,” he declared in an overrefined voice, “but if time is of the essence, perhaps I could receive you at home this evening and see what I can do.” Dictating his address, he insisted that Molkho write it down.
The little Russian's disappearance was getting to be serious. Molkho hurried to her room and knocked loudly on the door, though not so loud as to attract the attention of the guests descending for dinner, and then went to look for her again in the dining room, sidestepping tray-laden waiters, passing a small, dimly lit bar whose customers were lining up for their first cocktails, and emerging in a garden where some staff was folding chairs. This is no joke, he thought worriedly, stepping back into the street. Might she be in trouble somewhere and in need of help? I shouldn't have been so standoffish on the plane, he chided himself, returning to the lobby, which he decided to explore in greater depth. Descending some stairs, he opened an apparently locked door and soon came to a floor of large conference rooms, smoke-filled billiard parlors, a gymnasium, and even an empty swimming pool still smelling of chlorine. Peering into dark washrooms, he headed for some lights at the end of a passageway and found himself in an underground shopping center full of little boutiques and cafes, a subterranean world that was shutting down for the night. A few last customers were leaving the shops, in which the personnel was wiping counters and mopping floors before closing. A sixth sense telling him that his white rabbit was near, he quickened his stride. We must have a whistle, he resolved just as he saw her through the window of a small beauty parlor, happily seated beneath a dryer with curlers in her hair. He was about to burst angrily inside when he spied a large, pasty woman in a corner, staring balefully with her arms crossed at the obstinate client whose hair had to be done at the last minute, when the lights were already dimmed and the scissors and combs put away for the day. Relieved to have found her, he stood watching from a safe distance. Though it was comic to think that a fresh permanent would matter to Mr. Shimoni, he slowly felt his ridicule yield to an odd compassion.