At last, a dream bathed in light rose quickly in the darkness of my closed eyes. And clearly the dream was mine and nobody else’s, for my father was supposed to be present in it, since I had gone especially to meet him in a rural settlement next to a lake which lay hidden in the gentle fold of a pleasant hill whose slopes were covered with plots of land so well tended that they looked like flourishing gardens. Although it was a fine spring day, vestiges of the long, hard winter were still floating at the edges of the sky, scraps of gray cotton wool sailing past the stone window of one of the houses, which consisted of nothing but one narrow room. In it a handful of silent farmers, their reddish hair proclaiming them to be blood relations, were sitting around a long narrow table full of knives and forks, waiting for the last guest so they could begin their meal, which an invisible woman was cooking in a lean-to kitchen. Maybe they’re waiting for me to bring him to them, I thought, and I went out to search for my father among the narrow canals of water winding between the houses, and as I walked I thought not of him but of the old car he had given me. Where had it disappeared to, I wondered, where had I parked it? Was it possible that I had driven up the narrow dusty paths through the flourishing fields covering the slopes of the hill? The hill was so easy to climb that I effortlessly reached its summit and looked down at the large lake surrounded by empty wasteland, and I went down the other side, and as I walked I felt full of distress that I was here all alone and there was nobody to help me drag the old car out of the grim gray water of the lake, into which I had apparently absentmindedly allowed it to roll. But then I was awakened by the ringing of the telephone, which immediately rescued me from my distress. It was Hagit, phoning to tell me not to worry, because Michaela had called to say that she and Shivi were on their way to her house.
“Thank you. But I really wasn’t worried,” I explained affably to this good friend, who apologized for waking me up in her eagerness to reassure me. “I always have complete faith in Michaela. Soon you’ll see just how much I trust her, when you hear about her new plan to return to India, this time with Shivi.”
“So you gave in to her in the end?” cried Hagit, who sounded upset at the idea of parting from her friend, even though she knew how Michaela longed for India. “And you? Are you going too?”
“How can I leave everything here? You tell me,” I demanded. Then I added, “Maybe I’ll go in the end to bring them back.” And with this thought I also reassured myself when shortly afterward I heard how much Michaela had already accomplished in preparation for the journey. It was as if to compensate for the dismemberment of her beloved statuette she had decided to grow another head and two more pairs of hands during the few hours of my absence so she could transform her return to India into a fact from which there was no turning back. She had been to several travel agencies to compare dates and prices of cheap flights and make notes of possible alternatives, and she had visited the Indian consulate that had recently opened in Tel Aviv to apply for a visa, and of course she had not forgotten to go to the Health Bureau to find out whether a baby of Shiva’s age could be vaccinated. Since all this wasn’t enough for her to feel that her trip was becoming a concrete reality, she had made her way in the pouring rain to a number of used-car lots to find out how much she could get for our car, which she had decided to sell to pay for her trip, and at the same time to inquire about a secondhand motorcycle for me so as not to leave me without any means of transport after she was gone. All this had been preceded, of course, by a long telephone conversation with Stephanie in London, to warn her of the imminence of the date of departure. She told me all this on the phone as soon as she arrived at Hagit’s place, as if she were afraid that I might have changed my mind during the day and would try to prevent her from taking Shivi, whose participation in the trip she regarded as absolutely essential, especially now that Stephanie had agreed to go along.
Michaela’s voice was full of excitement; it was evident that the day of running around in the rain to prepare for the trip had filled her with joy, as if the possibility of a great love had opened up today not for me but for her. Darkness had already descended on the apartment in spite of the earliness of the hour, and the rain which had been falling all day was still pouring down, as if the winter so often promised by the weather forecasters had finally burst forth in full force. I had taken a shower and changed into clean, warm clothes, and when Michaela called I was in the middle of wondering whether to go to Dori’s office to find out where I stood after the night before. It was even dark in the kitchen, which was usually full of light in the afternoons, and only a single ray of light succeeded in escaping the sunset hiding behind the clouds and weakly penetrating the window above the sink. To Michaela’s credit, I have to say that her great happiness did not prevent her from sensing my somber mood, which was due not only to the return of the soldier-son and my growing uncertainty about my position but also to the thought that I would soon have to travel around on foot. After repeating her assurance that she would not have Shivi vaccinated without first consulting me, Michaela suddenly took pity on me and said persuasively, “You remember how amazed I was the first time we met, at Eyal’s wedding, that you hadn’t taken advantage of your free trip to India to stay on for a while by yourself? If you regret what you missed then and you want to join us, why don’t you come along? We’ll welcome you with open arms and accept you just as you are, whatever the state of your soul.” And her laughter burst out, free and uninhibited, just as it had always done in London. For a moment the thought crossed my mind, Why not? Perhaps this was my chance to escape from the snares in which I was getting increasingly entangled. Maybe in the place where the gorgeous silk of my infatuation had gradually been woven, my love might slowly unravel and dissolve into the mystery that had given birth to it.