— Just imagine, they lived in Greece then. On that island, you know, Crete…
— Really?
— Of course I know about that trip you took with Father… it was before I was born…
— No, Efi’s parents were separated long ago, after his bar-mitzvah. He and his mother moved to Tel Aviv and she married again. He has a younger stepsister, but they’ve all been living in London for the past few years and it looks like they’re on their way to settling there for good. He lives by himself… he told me all this on the bus ride, although mostly he talked about having to serve soon in Lebanon. I could feel how frightened that made him, and how angry he was at the university for not helping to get him a deferral…
— No, he’s just a plain reservist, a corporal at most. He’s a medic… And that, Mother, is how we began getting close on that bus ride from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. I found myself liking him more and more, and I could feel myself falling in love again, but this time so much more sensibly. By the time we reached Tel Aviv I knew that if I didn’t find some way of hanging onto him then and there all the effort I had put into going to Jerusalem that day would be wasted, because we would lose touch the whole month he was in the army, after which the semester had just one more month, and it was only a one-semester course, and he didn’t have any more grandmothers left to die for another condolence call. And so, although it wasn’t that late at night, I asked him to see me home, I mean to Grandmother’s apartment. Maybe it was the difference between the two grandmothers — one who had just died at the age of sixty-eight and one who had just flown off to France at the age of seventy-four like a young lady — that made him curious to come upstairs. At most I thought we might neck a little, but suddenly we grabbed hold of each other, and he was so gentle and yielding, even if he did undress in this awful hurry, and it was all so natural and hardly hurt a bit that I asked myself, Mother, what was I waiting for all this time? What was I so afraid of? Unless maybe there was just something special about him, although to tell you the truth, you’ll see what I mean if you ever meet him, he’s not at all handsome or anything, just this slim, curly-headed type with glasses and nothing spectacular about him. But anyway, that’s why in the morning, as soon as he left, I ran to the telephone to tell you…
— Why?
— I just wanted to make you feel good, Mother. What did you think?
— Yes, Mother, it was just to make you feel good. Even if I knew you would have to walk two kilometers from the orchard to the phone and back, I thought it was worth it, because I could feel how anxious you were beginning to get about my staying a virgin…
— I thought…
— But what do you mean, you never knew? Don’t act so innocent, Mother!
— You would have known the minute it happened. Haven’t I told you that I always tell you everything?
— Yes, everything So far.
— No. There were four more times before he went to Lebanon. Five altogether.
— He didn’t take any precautions. He must have thought that I was taking them. And I already told you that I got the dates confused, and besides, I thought that if you douched right away with hot water…
— Naturally. Don’t you always know exactly what’s going on in my subconscious?
— Yes, in Grandmother’s apartment. It was the most obvious place, and if you must know everything, it was even in her room, that is, hold on tight, in her big double bed…
— But what’s wrong with that?
— Deceitful? Toward who?
— Not at all… I’m sure Grandmother would be thrilled…
— Something drew us there… right into her bed…
— No, not especially. I just thought it might interest you.
— Oh, I don’t know… maybe psychologically… you must have some interpretation of it…
— But if I don’t mind telling you everything, why should you mind hearing it?
— Are you out of your mind? Who else could I tell? Only you, Mother, there’s no one else. You’re the only person in the whole world…
— But in what way…
— What doesn’t matter?
— I want you to tell me. What doesn’t matter?
— Coffee for me. But what doesn’t matter? Tell me!
— No. I don’t think I was making a fool of myself.
— No.
— No.
— Are you back to that again? Why must you keep rushing me off to the shower? I’ll take one later. It’s as if you kept trying to head me off…
— From telling you my story.
— But what are you afraid of? I didn’t do anything bad in Jerusalem, Mother. I only did good.
— Because that’s where my story begins. The rest is ancient history by now. Efi left for Lebanon two weeks ago, and I didn’t hear from him again until the beginning of this week…
— No. I couldn’t have told him before he left.
— Because I wasn’t sure myself yet.
— Of course. But late Sunday night he suddenly called from some mobile phone unit they had brought to this checkpost he’s manning near Beirut, and before I could make up my mind if and how to tell him, he asked me to get in touch with his father, because he couldn’t get through to Jerusalem to tell him he wasn’t coming to the unveiling, which the army wouldn’t give him leave for. Of course, I promised him to do it, and I even felt good that he was asking me so casually, as if I were the person he was closest to. But when I started dialing Jerusalem, it was the strangest thing, one minute there was no answer and the next the phone rang busy, although I kept trying all evening. The next day, which was Monday, I had a full schedule at the university and could only try dialing three or four times, and then Monday night Efi called again to ask if I had gotten hold of his father and how was he. I told him the phone seemed out of order, and then, Mother, he started up in this imploring tone, but really anxious like, begging me not to give up until I contacted his father, because he was very worried about him…
— No, I didn’t tell him anything. How could I? I could see how tense he was about his father, and there he was in Lebanon, standing out in the wind and the rain without even his glasses, because he told me he had broken them and wasn’t able to read… which is why I thought, why hassle him even more, what kind of a time is this to scare him with the news that he’s about to become a father himself? For the time being I owed him that much quiet… and so that same night, which was Monday, I began dialing Jerusalem again, but really thoroughly, nonstop. I kept it up until midnight, only so did Jerusalem. Either it was busy or else there was no answer, and the same thing happened the next morning, which was Tuesday, when I got out of bed especially early and started in on the phone immediately. In the end I called the telephone company to ask if the line was out of order, and they told me that no one had reported it and that to the best of their knowledge it was not, but they suggested I try information to see if the number had been changed, because sometimes, it seems, numbers get changed without notice. Well, I called information, and the number hadn’t been changed. And then, Mother, don’t ask me why, I felt that I just had to get through to that father, whom I actually remembered quite well from my brief visit the month before, unshaven and in his socks on the living room couch, this stocky, pleasant, Mediterranean-type man sitting next to two little old Sephardic ladies who had come to pay their respects and looked straight out of some Greek or Italian movie, and I went on dialing him from the university between classes, I even left my last morning class in the middle and dialed and dialed, because like I say, by now it was a matter of principle…