True, it would have been more becoming and more decent to make love on my parents’ bed and not to desecrate the room of a couple of strangers vacationing in Italy in complete ignorance of my existence. But I was afraid that if I took Dori back to my parents’ room she might regret her impulse, and by the time I succeeded in seducing her we would have to leave. Without wasting time on declarations of love, I went up to her in resolute silence, and put my arms around her and kissed her and felt the heaviness of her body again. This time too she refused to let me take off a single item of her clothing, as if this would undercut her liberty and independence, and as on the first time she waited until I was standing before her naked in the freezing room before she got undressed and lay down on the green bedspread, which in her eyes was evidently not only more beautiful than the plain white sheet but also cleaner. She waited with her eyes closed for me to finish covering with passionate kisses her sweet, full stomach, which had grown even rounder since the last time, as if she were hoarding secrets there in a slow, endless pregnancy. But when I tried to move down to her crotch, she stopped me with a light tug at my hair and pulled me up to lie with her properly, taking hold of my penis and trying to put it inside her with an unclear anger, perhaps because its tip was already covered with a delicate film, like my face, which was suddenly bathed in tears because the pain and pity of this strange love were complicating my lust. In a second I lost my concentration, and I knew that I would not be able to satisfy this beloved woman but only watch as her excitement weakened and died and ebbed away, like a wave returning to the sea. Thus we remained lying in a long, silent embrace until she opened her eyes and glanced at her watch and I saw her surprise at the tears on my face. “But what’s wrong?” she said. “Don’t be sorry, it doesn’t matter. In any case, everything’s impossible here.” And with uncharacteristic speed she got dressed, watching me with some anxiety as I slowly and feebly collected my clothes and put them on in the strange, cold room. Then we left the house, which she said she liked very much, and if there was time, she said, she would show it to Lazar as a good place to spend a holiday in London. On the way back she chattered gaily and quickened her steps, as if what had happened between us gave her hope of getting rid of me, or at least of warning me off. But when we entered the administrative wing of the hospital her strange gaiety gave way to a mild tension. She preferred to leave me at the end of the corridor and go on alone to Sir Geoffrey’s room.
The room looked dark to me, as if nobody were there, and, not wanting to leave her alone, I remained where I was. Indeed, the door proved to be locked, and there was nobody in the secretary’s room either. From my position at the end of the corridor I could see that she was very agitated, not only because she didn’t like being left alone but also because she was evidently not used to waiting for her husband. She sat down on the bench opposite the office and then stood up and began pacing up and down, until she caught sight of me standing at the end of the hall. “Are you sure this is the place?” she called out angrily, as if I were capable of leading her astray. When I reassured her, she said unexpectedly and somewhat bitterly, immediately giving rise to new hope in me, “So we hurried back for nothing.” Then she sent me away, after refusing my offer to go and look for her husband. I went to the nursery, to see if Michaela had already taken Shiva, and saw that the baby was still there. The nurse told me that she had been restless, crying for most of the time since I returned her to her crib, and suggested that I take her home without waiting for Michaela. I put her into her sling, but instead of leaving right away, and despite the fact that I didn’t like hanging around the hospital with the baby, I went back to Sir Geoffrey’s office to see if Lazar had come to get his wife. From the end of the corridor I saw that she was still sitting on the bench, erect, her legs crossed, smoking a cigarette, and my heart melted with love and concern. I went up to her and asked, “What’s going on? Where’s Lazar?” She shrugged her shoulders with an unfamiliar melancholy smile, as if she feared the worst. “Don’t worry,” I said, “he must be somewhere in the hospital. Let me leave the baby with you for a minute and I’ll go and look for him.” She put out her cigarette and agreed with alacrity, as if glad to have the opportunity to play grandmother for a while. I turned to the surgical wing, since I knew that the equipment Sir Geoffrey wanted to give Lazar was there. But in the surgical wing they told me that the two of them had left half an hour before for the emergency room. “Why?” I asked in surprise, and was told that Sir Geoffrey had taken Lazar to undergo some tests. I rushed breathlessly to the emergency room, to the astonishment of the phlegmatic Englishmen I passed as I ran, who up to now had no doubt taken me for one of them. In the familiar emergency room I immediately spotted Lazar’s mane of gray hair. He was lying on one of the beds without his jacket and shoes, his shirt sleeves rolled up, shaking his head and smiling apologetically at the head of the department, Dr. Arnold, a quiet, rather modest man, who was explaining something on the EKG strips to Sir Geoffrey. “Where’s Dori?” he asked in Hebrew as soon as he saw me. “She’s waiting for you outside Sir Geoffrey’s office,” I said. “Should I run and get her?”
“There’s no need for that. She’ll only get frightened. I’ll be out of here in a minute,” replied Lazar, and added with a smile, “Just imagine, they wanted to keep me here!”
It turned out that when he had examined the dialysis machine Sir Geoffrey had offered him, he decided to check out various electrical apparatus attached to it too, such as the sphygmomanometer and the EKG, and out of curiosity asked to be connected to them. The random EKG showed runs of a rapid heartbeat, which Lazar had not felt at all because of their short duration. The technician immediately noticed the abnormality and hurried to call the cardiology resident, who examined the EKG and wanted to hospitalize Lazar on the spot. But Lazar, who felt no different from usual, and Sir Geoffrey, who suspected that something might not be adequately calibrated in the machine, which had not been used for a long time, asked for a repeat examination on another machine, and those results were better, if not completely normal. A more senior cardiologist who was summoned to examine Lazar suggested that the whole thing could be attributed to the excitement and stress of the trip. This cardiologist was of Pakistani origin — English physicians are far more cautious about confusing the body and the soul. At this stage Sir Geoffrey became fed up with the arguments and took Lazar to the emergency room, where he felt he could rely on the quiet, confident Dr. Arnold, who gave Lazar a thorough examination and decided that there may have been a mistake and that the EKG results were almost normal. Lazar’s blood pressure, however, was very high, and he gave him a ten-milligram sublingual capsule of nifedipine, which immediately caused his blood pressure to drop. He also gave him medication for the next few days and instructed him to continue treatment when he got back to Israel. And then he turned to me and began explaining the EKG results, so that I would be able to translate them into Hebrew for the benefit of Lazar, whose visit he evidently saw me as responsible for, in some sense, since I was here at his initiative, after all.