On their way back to the apartment, they stopped off at a supermarket. “You push and I’ll fill,” he joked, giving her a cart, “but feel free to take what you want.” She took nothing, however, merely blushing each time he inquired whether she liked, ate, or ever had tried this or that item on a shelf. Well, he thought, tossing it into the cart anyway, she’ll have a lifetime with me to get used to it.
Back home he suggested once more that she shower, but again she preferred the television. This time, however, determined to involve her in supper, which he had decided to eat on the terrace facing the sunset, he asked her to slice vegetables for a salad. She did, washing them well and carefully peeling the tomatoes in a special way she had learned in South America. It’s a good thing the children aren’t home, Molkho thought, sitting opposite her on the terrace while looking now and then at the bright arrows of sunlight shooting through the clouds. Though his children did not seem to interest her, he began discussing them anyway. All of them, he told her, worried him: the college student, who had started going out with an older woman; his daughter, who had never had a boyfriend and seemed strangely hardened by her mother’s death; and most of all, the high school boy, who went about in a daze and was likely to be left back in school. But he loved them, felt close to them, and considered himself responsible for their future. Needless to say, everything he owned would be theirs one day. He listed this for her, stating the value of the apartment and all his bank accounts, while she listened without comment, eating heartily and smoking between bites of food or else glancing westward, where the sun had burned a blazing hole in the sky through which purple rays glinted off their plates and glasses. Could she still be on the same pack of cigarettes or had she brought more from Jerusalem?
Finally she rose and went to wash, leaving him again to do the dishes, though he was relieved to note that she returned with a new dress on, a jumper, too, yet brighter and more flowery. Nighttime became her, he thought, smoothing out the wrinkles on her old beauty. “Don’t you ever use makeup?” he asked offhandedly with a look at the long-strapped black handbag slung over her shoulder. “No,” she said. “The thought of smearing all that junk on my face revolts me.” It was late, and they drove hurriedly to the old Crusader fortress in Acre, descending a flight of stairs to the Knights’ Hall, whose thick stone walls were damp with humidity. Though the hall wasn’t full, several people there knew him and came over to say hello and have a look at his new partner. “This is Ya’ara,” he introduced her casually, glad she made a good impression. His old friends the doctor and his wife were there too, apologetic for having been out of touch. “This is Ya’ara,” he said as they scrutinized her, puzzled by the plain old dress, which seemed like a throwback to their teens, though Molkho soon sidetracked their efforts to place her by inquiring about their son, who was a classmate of Gabi’s. “Did he tell you about that hike of theirs?” he asked. The doctor and his wife, though, hadn’t heard of any hike. Their son, they said, had gone to Tel Aviv to spend a few days with a friend.
“I have a feeling we’re in for some dry music tonight,” whispered Molkho to Ya’ara as they settled into their wooden chairs and watched a violinist, a cellist, and a violist mount the stage, proud to be initiating her into a world of values no less stringent than her husband’s. She nodded apprehensively, her body straight as a rod. Why, with a posture like that she’ll be indestructible! he thought. Indeed, the music was harsh and cerebraclass="underline" no sooner did the violin play a lyric bar than the cello and the viola overcame it, attacking the theme and breaking it down analytically. At first, he could see she was following, her eyes fixed on the musicians, yet soon her attention wandered. He smiled at her mournfully, glancing down at her dusty shoes with their still neatly folded bobbysocks on the sunken old stone floor. Once more he noticed the curly blond down on her legs. How can I kiss a woman with so much fuzz? he wondered gloomily. And her black handbag would have to go too. Her bulge of a belly rose and fell as though an unborn child kept getting up and sitting down there, each time about to walk out on the avant-garde trio that chose to play such highbrow music on so heat-struck a summer night. “How’s your head?” he asked in a whisper. “It hurts,” she confided, impressed by his diagnostic powers. “I’ve had a headache for a while.”
During the intermission he took her out to the garden and led her to a stone bench beneath a leafy tree, where she sat wanly with her head back while he went to fetch some water. She was smoking when he returned. Were her migraines chronic, he inquired, or were they something new? “I’ve had them for several years,” she said. “In that case,” he reassured her, “you have nothing to worry about. Just to be on the safe side, though, you might want to have a brain scan. It’s a perfectly painless procedure.”
The doctor and his wife appeared in the garden, no doubt looking for them, and he clung to the shadow of the tree to avoid detection. The warning bell rang. “You go on in,” Ya’ara said. “I’ll wait out here until it’s over.” Alarmed by her sudden rebellion, he sat down beside her. “Then let’s go home now,” he said. “No,” she protested. “If you like it, I don’t want you to miss it.” “It’s not a question of liking it,” he explained. “I don’t care for it much myself, but sometimes, if you sit it out to the end, you feel something has rubbed off on you.” “Then why deprive yourself?” she said. “My head hurts too much for me to go back, but that’s no reason why you shouldn’t.” “No, never mind,” said Molkho. “I’m sorry I brought you to such a dull concert without asking you. It was my mistake. It was entirely my mistake.” It pleased him to repeat the phrase; he would not abandon her now. They sat in silence beneath the dark tree, waiting for the last of the audience to disappear inside, after which he brought her some more water and waited for her to smoke another cigarette before they left.
They did not go straight home, though. Taking a detour by the port, he drove through the downtown streets with their empty office buildings and peroxided whores outside smoky bars and emerged at the city’s southern end, where he made a right turn toward the beach. “Come,” he said. “Let’s go down to the water and cool off a bit.”
The dark night smoldered in its prison of air, the sea struggling to break free of the enchaining vapors of day. Slowly they walked along the water’s edge, listening to the simple, monotonous boom of the surf. Beyond it, out among the breakers, youths in dark swimsuits rested on boards, waiting for a wave to ride to shore. Shoulder to shoulder Molkho and Ya’ara watched the silent scene, the surfers like a school of gray dolphins on the dim breast of the sea. He glanced at her, still unsure how much taller she was. She smiled and looked seaward, greedily gulping the salt tang of the thick air while automatically groping in her bag for a cigarette, which she lit at once. That’s all her freedom amounts to, he thought: a private little revolt against her lungs that will poison her in the end. “If you hadn’t made such a fuss about that bathing suit this morning, we could have gone for a swim now,” he said, his voice full of unsuspected malice. She gave him a startled look. “Come on,” he said, not knowing what made him so angry, “let’s at least get our feet wet.” He knelt to take off his shoes and socks, rolling up the cuffs of his pants. “Come,” he said more softly. Hesitantly, her cigarette still in her mouth, she removed her shoes and white socks, laying them next to his. He caught his breath, glimpsing the delicate blur of white legs in the darkness, and strode ahead of her into the warm, oily water, rolling his pants up still further. The hem of her jumper, he saw, was wet, yet she made no effort to raise it.