You know him? Shaul lets out a deep groan. How? Where from? For he, in his innocence, in his boundless stupidity, imagined at the time that he knew every person in her life, and as far as he knew, she had never mentioned this stranger, who looked as if he was about to collapse on the floor, but for now was leaning over their dinner table on both hands and looking at Elisheva with a huge face and weighted, sagging cheeks. He is a sad-looking man, with silver stubble from a particularly sloppy shave, a pack of cigarettes crushed in his shirt pocket, dressed simply and almost neglectfully, like a Russian teacher from a lost generation, carrying a shopping bag from the neighborhood grocery. Shaul now thinks he looks like a work-weary family man, or perhaps a forlorn bachelor who lives a meticulous life, a kind of devoted workhorse who was suddenly stung by a wasp of madness and tore himself away from the furrow and started running amok, until he arrived here to tell Shaul's wife in a choked voice and for the third time, Elisheva, I can't go on like this anymore.
The fact that he knows her name. And the way he says it. Shaul's knees give in and he sits down, and the man stands, and the two of them breathe heavily, without looking at each other. The man's breath is heavy and wheezy and his face turns red. Elisheva whispers from her place by the sink, But you have to be patient, I keep telling you. In the end we'll find you a good place. Now go home, Paul. Come to the office tomorrow and we'll talk.
Shaul lowers his head and stares at the table. He slowly freezes and tightens on the chair. His feet barely reach the floor. His feet are swinging in the air. The man turns to him and says he is sorry. Shaul barely comprehends. The man's Hebrew is new but surprisingly fluent, and he explains to Shaul that it's already been a year and a half and they still haven't found a job for him. That he's not willing to make compromise- Is that how you say it? He turns to Elisheva questioningly, and she proudly confirms with a warm smile, Yes- with his art.
He's a cartoonist, Shaul explained to Esti with a Russian accent, mimicking Paul's speech with surprising mischief: "And I to know that Mrs. Elisheva making very much for that me have job, but year and a half I am inemployed, not employed, because is principle for me to work only art, only art!" Esti looked and saw his face change, become heavier and more daring. "And government here give to me-or office job, or guard job, or driving job! So what? Like that, no job, no art, and also no life!"
Shaul cannot understand what the stranger wants from him or what he's supposed to do now. Should I leave? he asks the man. No, Paul says, surprised. Why leave, sir? Is your house. Shaul smiles gratefully and looks around in a daze. Elisheva and Paul talk. There. He has put it into one sentence that doesn't immediately crack open: Elisheva and the-stranger-who-burst-into-their-kitchen talk. He hears the sounds of the stranger and Elisheva and does not comprehend. Maybe it's Hebrew, but he knows Hebrew. No, her stranger is talking with her in a language he does not know. And she's answering him. It's not Hungarian, of that Shaul is certain. He knows her Hungarian a little. And it's not Russian, or English or French; or Portuguese, he now adds to the list, or any civilized language. And when did she have time to learn another language? He listens with surprise to their strange dialect, full of breathing and soft consonants, and comprised mostly of gestures. He tries to follow, but cannot. Elisheva and the stranger even try to make it easier for him, slowing down their speech a little for his benefit. Sometimes they raise their voices, arguing. Elisheva seems to lose her patience. She is angry at something, and the man is sorry. God, Shaul thinks, so many shared emotions they have! And once in a while Shaul notices some pet name of hers, it seems, which the man repeats over and over again. It's unlike her name, and coming from him it sounds a little prolonged, seems foggy and melting at the edges: belo. belo. Shaul watches their lips attentively and devotedly. He has a vague feeling that if he is a good student they won't kick him out, that they'll let him stay in their house and abandon the idea of sending him to boarding school.
The stranger looks at Elisheva. A tortured look. Asking for mercy. He says something that even Shaul, who has not learned the language, understands is a huge request, something like: Teach me, Elisheva, teach me so I'll also know. Elisheva doesn't answer. Her head is bowed, her hair, still golden, hides her face. Shaul watches them both with his mouth open. They freeze that way, the three of them, for a long time. Then the man sighs, nods at Elisheva and Shaul without seeing them at all, mumbles "Sorry" to the air, and turns and leaves.
For the first time in several minutes, Shaul breathes a sigh of relief-at it all being over, with no blows exchanged or blood shed. Things like this can sometimes end in murder, after all. He is also relieved because in fact you could say that he beat the intruder, did he not? He managed this little conflict fairly wisely, did not lose his cool, and in the end he banished the man from his territory.
When the door shut behind the stranger, everything went back to normal at once. The radio came on, the neon light shone again, and Elisheva-as if everything that had happened hadn't-went on chatting and told Shaul about the man, an immigrant from the Soviet Union, the son of a French father and a Russian mother. She knew everything about him. He was a fairly well-known cartoonist in Riga, certainly an original artist, she said, but it had been a year and a half and she hadn't been able to find him a job in a suitable place, or even a newspaper to publish his cartoons or a gallery to show his famous creations. Who needs a cartoonist these days? She sighed. She'd already been through numerous job interviews with him, and begged curators and gallery owners and weekly editors, but nothing. Shaul did not look at her or listen to her words. His whole body trembled like a tiny animal cowering in a riverbed, listening to an oncoming torrent.
Then a calm fell upon him. The gushing began from all sorts of places, all over his body. He heard pleasurable little giggles on the outer edges of his mind, in the dark creases behind his thoughts. He felt good, better than he'd felt in years. As if he were inside a huge embrace. And he felt as if he had finally reached the right place, his home, his motherland. He realized that everything was beginning now. That up until now he must have been living only in the introduction. Elisheva said she wanted to go to sleep early, she had a crazy day ahead. Shaul nodded. She asked if he felt all right. Yes, he said. Yes, sure. She asked him not to be upset because of that Paul bursting in. Sometimes they can't take all the humiliations we put them through, she said, and with Paul it's somehow more complicated, it's really hard to find a place to match his talents and his principles. Shaul looked at the way her lips, when they said his name, rounded as if in a kiss. He imagined that her lips were cutting this strange name out of his own flesh: he was like a rolled-out ball of dough onto which she placed an upside-down cup, flattened it down tightly, and used it to cut circles of Paul out of him. She told him he'd already lost two of the jobs she'd managed to get him. He's a difficult one, she sighed. He's such an individualist, and he has such a special way of thinking. Shaul nodded obediently and threw her looks with eyes torn wide with amazement, as if he had never seen her like this. He said to himself, In fact, you've only just met her. You are only now meeting as you were really supposed to. And what was everything that came before? Perhaps just a preparatory meeting. Yes, a very long preparatory meeting between two slightly faded representatives of yourselves. You always sensed it and couldn't put a name to it, and now the real thing is starting. The battle, the game, the hunt.