Authors: A. B. Yehoshua
H
E SLEPT LATE
and saw by the luggage in the lobby when he came down for breakfast that most of the guests were checking out. A young girl was waxing the furniture and a thorough cleaning was under way.
He spent the morning buying a few last presents, sticking close to the hotel in the hope that his little Russian might give some sign of life, and then returned to the checkpost after lunch. “I crossed yesterday,” he told the East German policeman he handed his passport to, “and I liked it so much I've come back. Is that all right?” “Of course,” said the policeman without looking up. “Come back all you like. There's no problem as long as you cross back before midnight.” He received his visa, ascended to the street, and strolled down Unter den Linden to the old opera house, from which he surveyed the War Memorial across the street. Then, joining a group of tourists, he filed past the glass-enclosed flame and the honor guard. Who knows, he thought, perhaps it really worked. Back on the boulevard he asked some East Germans for the Soviet embassy, but no one seemed to know where it was, and so he proceeded to the Alexanderplatz and walked about among the shops, watching some carefree teenagers who looked like youngsters anywhere. We project our fears and fantasies on the world, he thought, but the world just shrugs them off. He glanced at his map, in the margin of which his mother-in-law's old address was still written, trying to orient himself.
Perhaps he should ask directions, he thought, debating whether to strike out for some low buildings to the east on which the autumn sun shone mildly. In the end he turned to an elderly woman, showing her the writing on the map. “Taxi?” he asked. She stopped to think. “No taxi,” she replied, pointing toward an entrance to the underground. “Metro?” inquired Molkho. “Metro,” she agreed, happy to find a word in common. He looked at her closely. She had a trustworthy, proletarian face with gray hair pulled straight back and glasses that she removed to study the map. “Magdalenastrasse,” she said, pointing to the underground again and ticking off seven stations on her fingers. He nodded gratefully, trying to memorize the name, but seeing it was hard for him, she took a pen and wrote it on the map. Then, as if assisting a foreigner were a privilege that she was determined to make the most of, she turned and climbed down the stairs to the underground, motioning to him to follow.
He did. After all, he smiled to himself, even if she was once a secret agent, she's past retirement age. They came to a gate with a machine that sold tickets and a smaller one that stamped them, though in the absence of guards or ticket takers anyone could have walked right in. Fancy an underground honor system! thought Molkho, who nevertheless feared losing his way in the subterranean labyrinth. But it was too late to change his mind, for his elderly guide had already bought him a ticket and was leading him onto the platform.
Once aboard, he sat beside her and counted the stations, feeling one with the motion of the train, which was quite modern and not at all noisy, though the tunnel it sped through seemed rather crudely hacked out. Bad finish, that's the trouble with Communism, he thought, postponing further consideration of the subject until his return to Israel, because meanwhile here he was in East Berlin, traveling the underground with ordinary people like himself. At the fifth stop his guide got off, holding up two fingers to indicate the stations that were left as if unsure whether foreigners could count. The other passengers now watched him for her. He wondered what they would think if they knew he was looking for his dead wife's first home.
He got off at Magdalenastrasse, the whole car making sure that he didn't miss his stop. Climbing some stairs to ground level, he saw that he was in an old residential area, far from the tourist sites and shops. He had barely taken a few steps when he noticed a sign with the name of his wife's street, which a quick glance revealed to be only a few shabby blocks long. He smiled wryly, thinking of his mother-in-law. So you were right after all. There was nothing here to come back to. Nothing that has to do with you or her.
A
ND YET,
suppose, Molkho thought, that his wife had wanted to come backâsuppose she hadâwould she have recognized anything in this dreary street or only imagined that she had? That playground, for instance, with its little green gate made for children that led to a battered seesaw and some old trees with metal guards that stood sullenly stripped of their leaves. And yet it was here that her mother must have wheeled her in her carriage and here that she first began to crawl, memories that should have moved her as the thought of them moved him. Or that grocery over thereâwas it as drab before the War too, the few unappetizing tins of crackers, bottles of bilious oil, and bars of soap in its window suggestive of a trading post in some provincial backwater? Slowly he walked down the street, fingering his passport with its East German visa in his pocket. I've seen so many spy movies that I can't help thinking I'm being followed, he thought, though turning around to look will just make me seem more suspicious. I'd better walk slowly enough for any tail to have to pass me, though not so slowly as to be conspicuous. Not as though I were looking for something, but more like someone out for a stroll, someone who isn't quite well. Yes, that's it, he thought eagerlyâlike someone who hasn't been well and is just getting over it!
His mother-in-law hadn't told him the house number, nor had he thought of asking her, never imagining he would return to Berlin so soon, a notion that would have seemed preposterous; yet now, trying to guess which house had been hers, he felt sure his wife would have approved of him despite all her principles. Yes, sometimes she had wanted him to resist her, not to be so afraid. Because I was afraid of you, he murmured.
A fine, lacy rain had begun to fall and Molkho quickened his steps until he came to a fish store that seemed in such an unlikely location that the only explanation for its being there was that it always had been. Somber gray swordfish lay on beds of crushed ice, and a woman sitting by a large tiled tub stared out the window at him, perhaps hoping he might buy a fish. Did she share in the store's profits or was she simply a state employee who didn't care if there were any? Once more regretting his mother-in-law's vagueness, he walked as far as a large apartment building at the street's end, crossed to its other side, and headed back at a convalescent pace, passing the fish store again and noticing old bullet holes in the walls of some of the houses. Enough! he scolded himself, worried that his leisurely promenade would be noticed from a window. Be glad you found the street. What does the house matter? Don't be a worse perfectionist than she was! And yet the desire to know where she had lived persisted. For a whole year she's run my life by remote control, he thought bitterly. It's as though I've gone right on looking after her. How can I stop now?
He started back toward the underground, yet something in him would not admit defeat, and turning into another gray side street that was full of children on their way home from school, he stepped into a small stationery store with an old-fashioned bell that tinkled each time someone entered. Here, he felt sure, his wife had once bought her school supplies. There was no display window, all the merchandise being ranged behind the counter, and Molkho took out a ten-mark note, mentally chose a pencil and a notebook as mementos, and awaited his turn in the line of quiet children. Behind him the bell tinkled again and a new band of youngsters entered the store, among them a tall blond girl with large glasses and a wistful stare.
Molkho pointed in silence to the items on a shelf, smiling sagely to confirm the storeowner's selection. He received a handful of change, stepped back out into the street, waited for the girl to emerge, and set out after her at a safe distance with a quicker though still ruminative gait. The girl, who had on an old gray raincoat, walked as far as the corner and turned familiarly into his wife's deserted street. This is as far as I go, he told himself, a shiver running down his spine. I've done all I could, I cared for her to the end, and even if she still expects me to follow her, it's time I thought of myself. I have children who need me, an old mother in Jerusalem, and a mother-in-law with a broken arm. Even in a free country a middle-aged man trailing a strange girl down an empty, rainy street would seem suspicious. And, indeed, the girl now turned around to look, her glasses glinting in the gray light. With a show of unconcern, he watched her disappear through a doorway. Suppose I say that's the house, then, he told himself. Suppose I do. Isn't that enough?
A
FTER ALL,
he thought, it's not me who lived there or lay there having dead babies. It's no concern of mineâwhy stand here with my heart in my throat? And yet he kept on toward it down the unpronounceable street, which swerved oddly at that point, as if badly rebuilt from a wartime bombing. Barely half an hour had passed since his descent into the underground, yet he was so wet to the bones from the driving rain that he felt he had to get out of it and so took shelter in the entrance to the house, a prewar apartment building that appeared to have seen better days. Several mailboxes lined a small vestibule that was too dark for him to read the names on them, and he opened a door that led to a dimly lit staircase, beside which stood the small red cage of an elevator. Then this really is it! he exulted, staring at the ancient box, which suddenly rose with an animal wheeze in response to a call from above, malignantly dragging its dark tail of cables behind it.
He waited in vain for it to return, its caller having apparently vanished. At last, he pressed the button himself. With a jerk and a wheeze the gray tail slid past, followed by the red cage. Molkho opened the two doors of ancient grillwork, entered the malignant cell, and pressed a button, watching the apartment slip by. Once, long ago, her faith in life already shattered, a young girl had stepped forth from one of those doors on her way to Jerusalem. But did I really kill her? he wondered. The elevator stopped, letting him out in a hallway, where he first looked for a door without a name and then knocked on one that had several. There was silence, followed by the scrape of a chair across a floor. A child clambered up to reach the high lock and opened the door a crack, peering earnestly out at the stranger. “Doctor Starkmann?” Molkho asked the wide-eyed little boy, who was apparently all alone. “Doctor Starkmann?” The boy frowned adorably, as if trying to recall the man who had killed himself here fifty years ago, and made a move to shut the door. For a second Molkho tried stopping him, flattening himself sideways as if to slip through the crack; then, with a quick backward step, he turned and dashed down the stairs and into the rainy street to the underground, by which he returned to the Alexanderplatz, which now seemed safely familiar, despite the falling night.
I
F YOU'RE NOT OUT TO CHANGE THE WORLD,
even East Berlin can be home, Molkho thought, passing the War Memorial again, where the tongues of flame flared up in the darkness with a stark beauty. Maybe I should take one last look inside so that I can say I tried everything. Attaching himself to some tourists, he was delighted to discover that they were French and that he finally could understand what the guide was saying. Karl Friedrich Schinkel, it appeared, was the name of the architect of the building, a neoclassical structure with Doric steps and columns that was built in 1816â1818. A guardhouse during the nineteenth century, it was converted into a war memorial after World War I and rededicated to the victims of militarism and fascism after World War II. Molkho listened with interest to the lively questions of the French tourists and then followed them across the boulevard to the old Berlin Opera House, which they were allowed to enter, despite the renovation underway.
He climbed the steps, which were even steeper than those of the West Berlin opera house. If the legal adviser had fallen here, he thought, she would have broken her neck. Beneath a high portico with grimy ecclesiastical walls, their guide lectured them about the building's architecture. What a pity there's no performance tonight, thought Molkho, whose musical reputation in Haifa would soar if he could see an opera in East Berlin. Meanwhile, impressed by the Frenchmen's curiosity, their guide found a way to usher them into the plastic-wrapped auditorium, where some old paintings on the ceiling were being restored. From a side door came the sound of music and singing. “What's that?” asked the Frenchmen. Unable to answer, their guide opened the door to reveal a small recital hall, where onstage several singers were rehearsing around a table. Could they watch for a while? he asked in German. “But of course!” said the opera singers. It would give them great pleasure for the visitors from France to see them work.
The stage was bare except for a piano and the singers kept repeating a single ensemble, which the short, dark conductor frequently interrupted to comment on. And yet though after a while the French tourists began to fidget, Molkho remained attentive. Even when they left, he stayed behind in his dark corner, particularly enthralled by one of the sopranos, whom he couldn't take his eyes off. He had never been to a rehearsal before, and while he knew he never would see the finished product, watching an opera come into being seemed to him a rare experience.
The music was unfamiliar, and he hadn't the vaguest idea if it was modern, romantic, or even classical. Indeed, sometimes it sounded so primitive that it could have been medieval, though he seemed to remember that opera did not exist then. Gradually his interest centered on the conductor, a furiously energetic little man who hopped about the stage waving his hands, breaking into snatches of song, rushing over to correct the pianist, even snatching the score from the hands of the performers and penciling in new notations, as if he were not only conducting the opera but composing it. The more exhausted the singers grew from his efforts, the more possessed he seemed to become.