— Of you. Of your anger — your shock — no, Father, you cannot deprive me so easily of the conviction that you were furious…
— Delighted? But how can that be? No, I don’t want to hear another word, you stubborn man, you, ha ha… Why, this most whimsical journey of ours would never have tasted so delicious if it had not been partly aimed against you…
— Against all your bourgeois Zionists. You don’t know how disappointed I am, Papa dear, to hear you say that you were not in the least annoyed.
— True — it is an odd thing to be disappointed about — but there you are. And do you think it was so easy to get from Basel to Palestine? I had no notion where to begin. I went to the Bahnhof to ask for train schedules and information, but I soon realized that there was little of either and that the Swiss would only drive me to despair, first by not understanding my German and then by not understanding my question, since Palestine for them was not a place on the map but a location in the Bible. Ultimately, however, they saw who they were dealing with and sent me to a Jewish clerk, a soft-spoken young lady not much older than Linka, who had run away from a fanatical family of Hasidim in Vilna to attend the first congress two years ago and decided not to go back. And so she had stayed on in Basel, living from hand to mouth between congresses, during which she found temporary work at the Bahnhof — where the authorities had seen fit to open a “Jewish bureau” for the delegates, who — once the proceedings were over — wished to travel to various boardinghouses, hotels, and sanatoria in the green heights of Europe and recover there from their national responsibility while digesting it thoroughly…
— No, that’s true. There were good people there too, conscientious and with a sense of the occasion. But — why deny it, Father — there were plenty of freeloaders also — people like myself, for example — who only came to divert themselves at the expense of Jewish destiny, which they regarded as they might a game of whist…
— Why, our whole trip had been intended as nothing more than a diversion — until it suddenly changed course…
— Hold on a minute, will you! Don’t you want to hear about the Jewish clerk from Vilna?
— As a matter of fact, she was not especially pretty, Father. She was pale and rather sickly looking — a consumptive, I had already decided — but a sharp-witted and free-mannered young thing, with a most Talmudical mind. And she was an expert in the map of Europe, which she knew by heart and could slice in any manner in her head. She knew every train — the name of each station — the departure and arrival schedules — the points of connection. She could describe the compartments for you in every class — tell you where each number seat was — advise you which coaches were best — and needless to say, quote the price of everything. In a word, an incomparable young lady! She took a liking to me too, and when she heard that I wished to travel to Palestine she all but made the journey her own, as if she intended to go with me. Despite her doubts about Mani’s Greek ship that was sailing from Venice, which she thought too light a craft, she dashed off a telegram to the agent reserving us two of his best cabins and began to plan our route. She was — how shall I put it? — most enthusiastic, and at once my flagging spirits revived. And so I roamed back and forth between the congress and the Bahnhof, hatching my secret plan, which still seemed to me little more than a fantasy. On the afternoon of the third and last day of the congress I went to see my little consumptive and was handed a handsome folder with our train tickets, our travel papers, and our entire itinerary written out in Yiddish — and a most ingenious itinerary it was too, with all the travel at night and the days kept free for touring. Nothing had been left to chance: where we would stop, and what we would eat, and the sites we would see, and what it would cost — and of course, how we would return from Palestine… she had planned every step of the way. All that was missing was the height and direction of the waves… which, alas, Father, turned out to be the most important thing of all, ha ha…
— Wait, I will get to that. That evening, in her little cubby in the crowded Bahnhof, I paid her for the trip, took her small hand in my own, and — her eyes were suddenly bright with tears, that’s how hard it was for her to say good-bye — kissed it devoutly…
— Four thousand Swiss francs.
— The exchange rate, I believe, is —
— More or less…
— More or less…
— Perhaps a bit more… is that really so dear? The boardinghouse in Lugano would have cost something too.
— Of course. Nothing but first class, as befits the son and daughter of gentry…
— I had not said a word so far to Linka, who was faithfully attending the congress and not missing a single speech in that whole deluge of speeches. Sometimes Dr. Mani sat on her right and sometimes I sat on her left, quietly smiling to myself. I knew she suspected something, but — no matter how piercing and questioning her glance grew — she had no way of guessing what that was. We still had not made up after that night of the pans — when we talked, it was in short, brusque sentences — and that evening in the boardinghouse — it was a particularly warm one — she showed me without a word her dress for the closing ball. I must say, it was perfectly presentable…
— Yes, there was a closing ball, Father. Was there no such thing at your congress?
— Well, this time they must have decided on a modest one to cheer us all up after the German Kaiser’s cold shoulder. That is, “our elected officers” closeted themselves in a small hall and elected themselves to various positions, while the hoi polloi put on its frock coats, evening dresses, and jewels, and danced up a storm. The Viennese waltzes were already gaily playing when we arrived, and outside the Casino — in the line of carriages parked on the main street — I was astonished to see Dr. Mani’s black-topped hansom packed with bundles and valises and already prepared to set out. The big coachman stood by in a blazer with his whip in one hand, while his horse, which was supping on a sack of barley hung around its neck, looked up from its meal with a heavenward roll of its bloodshot eyes. What — I asked the coachman — did all this mean? It meant, he explained succinctly, that they had decided to leave for Arth-Goldau ahead of time on account of the heat, since the horse did better in the cool of night. By now I was afraid that Mani might vanish before knowing we were about to be his guests, and so I hurried into the dance hall and found him in a black frock coat, waltzing a ponderous, old, diamond-bedecked English Jewess. He was talking to her quite somberly — no doubt about his clinic, for which he must have been hoping to pluck from her a last-minute contribution. Linka, despite her modest dress, was already besieged by young men, and so I went off to a corner and smoked cigarettes in a chain, my travel plans safely inside my head. Despite the great heat, I was actually trembling from my secret.
— Dance? I am not, you know, much of a dancer — and the women, apart from Linka, did not seem especially light on their feet — but the truth is, Father — the truth is — that if my little consumptive from the Bahnhof had been there, I might not have been able to resist asking her for one waltz.
— So it would seem. I grew rather fond of her, but she does not have long… believe me… a dry cough like hers…