By the door of the golden-domed structure, they were asked to take off their shoes, after which they entered a small room with thick Persian carpets on the floor, Persian and English inscriptions on the walls, and several decorative lamps and objets d’art behind a lace curtain. Molkho assumed they would next be taken to view the interior of the sanctuary itself, but presently they were told that their visit was over and that no one, not even Bahais, ever saw the dome from within. “But what’s in it?” he asked disappointedly. “Nothing,” replied the guide. “Nothing?” Laughing with disbelief, he put on his shoes and took a free brochure about the Bahais and their faith.
From there, they drove downtown for lunch in an Arab restaurant, where Ya’ara hungrily fell upon the bread even before the appetizers arrived, her voraciousness once again amazing him. Is that where I’ll first kiss her? he wondered, looking at her smooth forehead, or will I find someplace better? She ate quickly, enjoying the meal, while he told her about his mother and her tedious complaints over the telephone each morning. Her own mother, she said, had died a few years ago, and the two of them had never been close. But the heat and noise in the crowded restaurant made it difficult to talk, and eventually they lapsed into silence, waiting for their Turkish coffee. Why, she’s even duller than I am, he thought, suddenly recalling how in public school, not wanting to hurt the feelings of a fat girl with pigtails who had been foisted on him as a girlfriend, he had put up with her for a whole year while eagerly waiting for the summer vacation to free him.
A muggy hour later, on the stairs to his apartment, they encountered his elderly downstairs neighbor, who, dressed in an undershirt, stopped to inspect the new woman while asking some question about the hallway light. Upstairs in the apartment the telephone was ringing, and feeling Ya’ara stiffen, Molkho handed her the key and said, “Go see who it is. Maybe it’s for you again.” She ran up the stairs while his neighbor, never taking his eyes off her, kept on about the light. “Do we have a new tenant, then?” he asked slyly. Molkho patted his shoulder. “I really couldn’t tell you,” he said.
He found her gripping the telephone, her belly bulging softly as if the last of her dead babies were still trapped there. She was talking to her husband, whose concern for her seemed boundless. Or perhaps he was coaching her from the sidelines in ways unclear to Molkho, who slowly lowered the blinds of the sun-baked apartment, plunging it into darkness. Maybe he wants to know if we’ve made love yet, he thought. Anything is possible with them. He opened the refrigerator, took out a pitcher of cold water, poured himself a glass, drank it, poured her one too, and set it on the table in front of her. Is that really his plan for us? he wondered. And here I am, playing the tourist guide! Though if that’s what’s expected of me, what better time than now?
“Uri would like to have a word with you,” Ya’ara said, handing him the telephone and walking away. “Are you having problems?” asked his counselor. He sounded nervous and rushed, and Molkho was surprised by his directness. “If you’d like, I can come for her tomorrow.” “But why?” protested Molkho. “There’s no need. I’ve already told the office that I’m taking two days off. Everything is fine here. We’re still getting acquainted,” he chuckled. But his counselor sounded somber. “Talk to her!” he urged. “Talk to her! She’s used to it and is a good listener. Talk to her!” “It’s all right,” whispered Molkho tensely into the receiver. “You don’t have to worry.”
He went to his room, turned on the air conditioner to dry off his sweaty body, and asked Ya’ara if she might like to nap there. “No, thank you,” she replied, preferring to sit in the easy chair facing the TV. “I never sleep in the afternoon. I’ve spent too much of my life in bed as it is.” He showered and put on fresh clothes instead of a bathrobe, regretting his lost privacy again. A fresh cigarette in her mouth, she was staring at the unlit screen of the television as though waiting for an important message. “Wouldn’t you like to shower too?” he asked. “No, why?” she answered puzzledly, as if, sitting there as fresh as a daisy in her old jumper, showers were not for her. “Then perhaps you’d like to watch TV,” he said. “The educational channel is on now.” She gladly agreed, settling back in her chair with her legs crossed, while he switched on the set and sat down beside her to watch some program about insects in the jungle. The wasted humming of the air conditioner kept making him want to shut his eyes. “Are you sure you don’t want to lie down in my room?” he asked, getting to his feet. She shook her head, her eyes glued to the screen, and so he brought a fan and aimed it at her, its current of air playing with her silvery hair. “Do you mind if I go he down, then?” he asked. “I’ve become so dependent on my afternoon nap that I’m a wreck at night if I don’t get it.” “Of course,” she blushed. “Go right ahead. Don’t let me bother you.”
He brought her the newspaper, showed her how to switch off the set, shut the door of his room, undressed, and climbed into the cool bed in his underpants, feeling as though his head weighed a ton. How can I make love to her, he wondered, if I have to talk to her all the time? The television droned on in the living room, but the purr of the air conditioner drowned it out and soon put him to sleep.
He awoke shivering from cold an hour later and went to turn off the machine, hearing the voices of many children in the apartment next door, which suddenly sounded like a schoolroom. Dressing quickly, he stepped into the living room, where striped light fell through the slatted blinds. She was still in the same chair, which his wife had liked to sit in, too, before becoming bedridden, so that for a moment, not yet brought back to reality by the head of gray hair, he thought that’s who it was. The folded newspaper was where he had left it on the table. Was Ya’ara asleep? She didn’t stir or seem to notice him. Stepping closer, however, he saw that she was watching a children’s program that featured a bowlegged green hedgehog that spoke in a funny voice. The room felt like a furnace. “You didn’t sleep?” he asked, laying a hand on her startled shoulder. “There are some really good children’s programs,” he added, not wanting to sound disapproving of the drivel on the screen. “Don’t you have TV at home?” “No,” she said, enthralled by the hedgehog, which was trying out a new stunt. “But sometimes I stop to watch it in the store windows.” The fan had dried her skin a waxen color. “Come, let’s have coffee,” he said, “and then I’ll show you the university.”
She didn’t offer to help this time, either. Only when he switched off the TV and told her the coffee was ready did she rise from her chair in her faded old jumper, which looked like a woman prisoner’s, girlishly stretching her limbs while a wave of warm desire swept over him. First we’ll dye her hair, he thought. There’s no reason not to. And get her to use makeup. And to buy some new clothes. And then maybe I’ll marry her. After all, the neighbors seem to like her, and I really did love her once.
ON THE HIGH CAMPUS of the university the air was as sultry as elsewhere; the spectacular view was swaddled in the same blue haze they had stared at that morning, and the observation tower was closed. Ya’ara was disappointed, for though she had hoped to catch a glimpse of the mountain range near Yodfat, perhaps even of Yodfat itself, where she had spent the happiest years of her life, it was hidden by a great bank of mist. Nearer to them the brutal summer had burned red blotches in the landscape and the vivid green of the Carmel was smeared a streaky gray. “Did you ever finish high school?” asked Molkho, steering her to what he hoped might be a better vantage point. No, Ya’ara answered, she never did. “And you’re not sorry?” he asked softly. No, she said, and neither, for that matter, was Uri. Molkho pointed out a few sights to her, telling her how much better he liked Haifa than Jerusalem. “Even if it is a bit boring here,” he confessed—although if she was bored, she gave no sign of it. What now? he wondered, feeling he had run out of topics. Nothing would seem natural until they had gone to bed.