The old woman blushed, took off her glasses, and gripped the vial of perfume in her veiny hands, staring at the label. She seemed to want to say something but, with that deep inner control of hers, refrained; instead, putting down the bottle, she thanked him perfunctorily, and he turned to his tea and crackers, telling her about Paris and her niece, who seemed so contented and full of life, not at all bitter or hypercritical like his wife. The old woman nodded understandingly, her stiff white hair falling forward. He told her about the snow too—in fact, about each single day, even the visit to the opera—while she did her best to follow, glancing from time to time out the window at the sun setting into the clear, mild evening above the bushes turning red at their branch tips. “To think that winter is already over here and that there I ran into a blizzard!” he exclaimed. “Don’t be so quick to bury the winter,” retorted his mother-in-law; and so, changing the subject, he asked her about the high school boy, how he had been and what he had eaten, and about her old-age home. Had anything happened there in his absence? Yet though he inquired about several residents whose names he had heard mentioned by his wife, all were still alive and well.
Perhaps, Molkho found himself hoping, the old lady would invite him to have dinner with her at the home. But she gave no indication of it, and if anything, seemed eager for him to depart—something, however, that he was not in any hurry to do. The two of them, after all, had shared the same adventure, and even if it was over now, the deep bond between them remained. Sinking deeper into his armchair, he watched the dusk fall on her wrinkled old face and suddenly confessed, as if he had done it just for her sake, “I was in that Berlin of yours too.” “In Berlin?” she asked, astonished, perhaps even upset. “Yes,” he said. His wife never wanted to go there with him, so now he had seized the opportunity. “All those countries are so close anyway,” he added breezily, as though to prove that he was free now and that the rules had changed. “You went by yourself?” she queried. “Yes,” he said, not wanting to distress her, “by myself,” and he told her about the travel agency that arranged opera tours of Europe. The idea of his becoming an opera buff clearly seemed bizarre, if not perverse, to her, for at once he felt her hostile reaction, though controlling herself she held her peace and waited for him to go on; but instead, he asked about her memories of Berlin, and especially about the house she had lived in, which she was not at all eager to recall, mentioning only that it had had an elevator, the only one on the street. Producing from his pocket the hotel map of Berlin, Molkho asked her to show him where it was. “You mean the street?” she asked with an unsure laugh, holding the map upside down, still unable to fathom his being there. She turned the map around, tried taking off her glasses, complained about the small print, went to bring her reading glasses, and announced that they were no better, while Molkho patiently sought to help her, pointing out his hotel, which was circled in red, and the Berlin Wall, though he could see she wasn’t really listening. “Nothing is left of it anyway,” she said to him. “It’s all been destroyed and rebuilt.” At last, she laid the map on the table and compromised by promising to ask one of her friends and perhaps even to try remembering herself.
Out in the street the last rays of daylight lingered on. The hot spring wind grew stronger, oblivious of the rain clouds still drifting slowly in the west, and Molkho thought, Here I am free to choose any woman I want, even two, and all I lack is the desire. He stared at the sexy model in an illuminated bus-station ad and recalled with a smile how the little old squirrel had said to him, all excited by her discovery, “You killed her little by little.” Did his mother-in-law think so too? And yet she had been his faithful partner, even if lately she had been acting rather coolly toward him. He remembered how, eight or nine years ago, his wife had wanted to leave him, how she even had run away for a few days, only to return in the end, and how, knowing that she would, he had managed not to panic. The children were small then. Once again he felt how much he missed her. He pictured her lying gloomily in bed, listening to music and reading. “What’s left of her now?” he mused, clenching his fists, imagining her rotting like the binding of an old book.
He noticed a brand-new supermarket and went in to have a look at it, having no end of time at his disposal; but returning to his car, he spied his mother-in-law sitting by herself at the bus stop in her winter coat and red cap, her glasses glinting in the sun and her old cane gripped in one hand. Why, he wondered indignantly, hadn’t she asked him for a ride? He stood staring at her hypnotically, listening to her bus climb the hill until it appeared and stopped. Quickly, erectly, as if she intended to live forever, her ticket in her other hand, she boarded it and disappeared. I should see a little less of her, thought Molkho. Maybe I scare her. It wasn’t as if his wife had asked him to take special care of her.
AFTER THE SABBATH DINNER that Friday night, when the table had been cleared, his mother-in-law reached for her reading glasses and handed Molkho the map of Berlin, on which the conjectured location of her house had been marked beside the name of the street, written in an unfamiliar hand. Her recently arrived friend from Russia, who had been her neighbor back in the prewar days when her husband had worked in the Soviet embassy in Berlin, had helped find it for her. It was far from Molkho’s hotel—in fact, in the eastern part of the city. So much for his sixth sense of being near it! But why, asked the old woman, did it matter? Did he intend to go back? Of course not, he replied, he was simply curious. In fact, the whole thing was unimportant; he just thought she would be happy to know he had been near his wife’s birthplace. She looked at him suspiciously, her eyes a dark velvet. Since his return from abroad, she seemed to harbor some resentment against him, and so he placatingly asked about the new friend from Russia she had been spending so much time with. The fact of the matter was that there seemed something strange, even slightly absurd, in the intensity of this relationship, which had resumed after a break of close to fifty years. Could it simply be a way for his mother-in-law to distance herself from him, or even from her grandchildren, for whom she also seemed lately to have so little patience? Why, tonight she had not even wanted to watch the news with them, rushing home as quickly as she could when the meal was over.
THE NEXT MORNING he set out to visit his mother in Jerusalem, almost stopping on the way to pick a branch of regal white almond blossoms. He went to see some old friends first, arriving at his mother’s in time for lunch, which was already waiting on the table. Though she scolded him for his lateness, his German crew cut pleased her greatly. “It’s very becoming,” she declared while refusing to accept the scarf he had brought as a gift. “I told you not to bring me anything!” She even declined the bar of Swiss chocolate he had bought her until he finally prevailed on her to take it. He ate the peppers she had stuffed for him, listening to her stories, complaints, and opinions, while praying—in vain, as it happened—that she would not refill his plate. Afterward, he tried napping in his childhood bed, but no sooner had he dozed off than he became aware of her lurking behind the door. At last, he rose and went out to sit lethargically on the dusty terrace, looking down on decrepit old Jaffa Road below and breathing the heavily accented Jerusalem air. He drank the coffee he was served, munching almonds and walnuts while his mother, a corpulent woman whose fallen face was painted like a savage’s, questioned him about his trip, how much it had cost and whom had he met, crudely trying to ferret out everything, especially if there had been a woman. “Yes and no,” he replied. “How yes and how no?” “Just for part of it.” “For which part?” “The opera part, in Berlin.” “Which opera?” “I suppose you’d know if I told you,” he laughed. “Why, I’d never even heard of it myself!” “Then why go so far for it?” “To see what it was like.” “And where’s this woman now?” “Out of my life,” he answered patiently. “But who was she?” probed his mother. “Someone from the office,” he answered, refusing to name names. “All right then,” she said, “just don’t be in any hurry.” “I’m not,” replied Molkho. “You mean it’s just sex?” she inquired. “Why, I don’t believe you know what that is any more!” Flabbergasted, he laughed, popping nuts into his mouth so fast that they seemed to fly into it, stealing a glance at this berserk woman while doing his best to keep his temper. “I suppose you know all about that too,” he said, trying to keep calm. “Well then, tell me if I’m wrong,” she persisted, “tell me if you feel like having sex.” “What on earth are you talking about?” he snapped, turning red. “Forget it, it doesn’t matter,” said his mother. “For my part, you can have all the sex you want. Just don’t be in any hurry. Take a good look around. You suffered enough these past years. You cared for her enough, it’s time someone cared for you. You’ll see, you’ll have women running after you, they’ll be knocking on your door. Your children are grown up and you’re financially secure. Just don’t get involved too quickly. Try them out first. Try out a whole lot of them before you make up your mind.”