— But again, what do you want from me? You take me for the murderer when all I am is the witness…
— Yes, perhaps that explains my fondness for her… how astute of you, ha ha… ha ha ha ha ha…
— No, don’t say that, Father, not now. You will live, don’t you worry — you will live for a long, long time. I don’t think you have realized yet that this story is not about me. It is about him, Mani, who finally gave up on his Anglo-Jewess — she had not made herself one diamond lighter for his benefit — and parted from her with a deep bow before sitting glumly down beside me with his eyes on our merrily waltzing Linka. And I ask myself: if he was already determined to take his own life — if the idea was even then in him like a living seed — why did he not do it right then and there, in that blue-toned dance hall, in front of all the delegates? It would have made an immeasurably greater impression than waiting for the dusk of day in that wretched train station in Beirut…
— The devil knows, Father…
— The devils… no, no…
— Because I saw how he was clinging to me, unable to say good-bye. And I, Father, suddenly began to shake, stirred by the journey that was pressing on my heart like a hot coal. I was beginning to get cold feet — it was not, after all, too late to change my mind — to cancel everything — to let the itinerary in my pocket take the place of the trip itself…
— I was frightened… I don’t know of what… frightened of Palestine…
— No. Your anger only spurred me on…
— Of Palestine itself. I kept picturing it, like a little yellow viper at the tip of the large map that hung in my clerk’s cubby with P-a-l-e-st-i-n-e spelled out on it in black…
— Perhaps the shape of the letters… But anyway, Papa dear, that was what I sat there thinking. And next to me was my brown-skinned gynecologist from Jerusalem, feeling low over haying to part and waiting to say good-bye to Linka, to whom he had become quite attached. All at once I felt sorry for him — odd as it sounds, he seemed to merge in my mind with the travel clerk from Vilna, who had labored over my trip — so sorry that I broke my silence and asked him in a low voice — since I might soon wish to take him up on it — if his invitation to Jerusalem still stood. He crimsoned with surprise, which made me wonder whether all his generous offers of hospitality had not been extended on the basis of the fullest confidence that there was no one who could possibly accept them. Presently, however, he stammered with great feeling: “You wish to come to Jerusalem?” “Yes,” I answered gently, fingering the packet of travel documents in my breast pocket, which yielded with a soft, pleasant crackle. “Yes, I do,” I repeated, speaking in the first person, because I had no idea what Linka would say. “I am sailing from Venice on the first”—I took a piece of paper from my pocket and read what was written on it — “on the Kereiti Zurakis” When he heard me utter the name of his ship, he sat up and grabbed my wrist, as if seeking to ascertain from my pulse whether or not I was pulling his leg. For a moment or two he was speechless — and when he could speak again, he said: “In Jerusalem you are my guest.” “I will be most honored,” I said — we were still talking in terms of “I” and “you,” as if I did not have a sister with me. He rose and circled me in his excitement. “And will mademoiselle be coming too?” he asked. It was strange to hear Linka called that — strange too to hear him ask with such emotion — because — although I knew that he had fallen in love with her before seeing her — I had no idea that he was still in love with her after seeing her, since she was only a —
— Bravo, Papa! Yes, a pretext. You need not smile. That is all we were for the passion that had been lurking in him for so long that perhaps he had even snatched it from his mother’s womb… Yes, dear Papa, that is an indispensable part of my conception…
— Wait, don’t say anything… just hold on, for God’s sake…
— Linka has not been talking to me since Beirut. The most I could get out of her were yes-or-no answers when it came to planning our travels…
— I never forced her to do anything. On the contrary, I said to Mani: “Mademoiselle? Let us ask her to speak for herself.” I rose, waited for the music and the waltz to stop, spirited her away from the outstretched arms of her would-be partners — do not think, Father, that there was any lack of them — and brought her all flushed in the face to Dr. Mani, who kissed her hand — he was aware that by now she expected no less — while she radiantly flashed him her wonderful, prodigal smile. “Linka,” I said to her, “Linka — Dr. Mani is inviting us to Jerusalem and I am inclined to accept — what would you say to our setting out tomorrow morning for his Palestine?” All she had to answer was, “My dear brother, I don’t know what has gotten into you, but you are quite mad,” and I would have gone off at once to a corner, torn up every last travel document without a thought for what it had cost, and gone straight to Lake Lugano as you wished me to — straight to Frau Lippmann’s boardinghouse, Father — to ogle the Jewish lovelies of Europe gathered there for matrimonial purposes and to ask myself — not for the first time, I assure you — exactly what about them turns my stomach. But Linka’s smile just grew brighter and broader, as though glowing out of the darkness where her newly hatched soul was beating its wings — as long as I live, Father, I will never forget how she showered me with kisses, hugging me with a childlike trust, as if I had providentially granted her very wish — as if during the two days of my secret comings and goings from the gare her intuition had already told her everything — had made her guess our destination without comprehending that there had to be some means of getting there — that there was no magic wand to transport us straight from that dance hall to the center of Jerusalem. I tell you, I felt butterflies…
— My stomach?
— Yes — ha ha — that is where I feel things… I was in fact slightly nauseous — but it was only my lack of resolve — you need not worry about me — a most yidlike lack of resolve, which I shall overcome one day in order to find myself a yiddess and jump right into bed with her…
— No.
— No…
— Perhaps we should stop here, Father. What is the point of going on? Linka can tell you the rest of the story, and I will spread a blanket here by the stove and lie down. I must have caught something from one of those damned pilgrims. Why, I’m shivering! The fire could not be any colder if it were just a painting of one. Is Stefa sleeping also? Here, let me stir up the coals a bit — by now God must be asleep too…
— Such virtue as I have displayed can be allowed at least one little sin…
— If you insist. By now it was midnight. Our elected leaders, led by Herzl and Nordau, filed out of the small hall to a burst of cheers and applause. There were some short, rosy speeches and some toasts, and all at once everyone was talking about the next century and about the next congress. “Fin de siècle!” somebody called out — a shiver ran through us all — “fin de siècle!” the cry was taken up — you could feel the hatred for this old century of ours, which everyone will be glad to say good-bye to, and the warmth for the new one on its way — the twentieth. The three of us stood excitedly off to one side, no longer a part of it all. Mani could not bear to leave us. Indeed, he might have lingered there forever had not the coachman entered the hall in his traveling blazer, swept in upon his black beard. He sullenly elbowed his way, whip in hand, through the crowd of cheering Jews — he had quite run out of patience and was in a thoroughly vile mood — it made a splendid, a perfect antithesis to all that Jewish dignity to see the three of us marched out of there — all but whipped out — by Mani’s coachman, who practically flung him into the hansom. It was thus, rather dejectedly, that he bade us farewell, unbelievingly asking over and over: “But will you truly come?” Linka promised him we would. She hugged him as a child hugs a father — all in English, of course, which by now was their own private language — and suddenly gave him a kiss. You would think that I, who found that sudden kiss most charming, would have realized that it was only the first — but I did no such thing. I was too busy gaping at all the bundles and valises tied to the black-topped hansom — at that earnest black horse — at the passenger sitting inside — who did not look — no, not then in the middle of the night — like a man bound for a country that was our common goal, but rather, like one being sent back to some starting line. That night —