“And?”
“Nothing. She clammed up. But what does it matter? They’re not the first couple to have fallen out of love. At least it happened before it was too late. She knew how much I liked Ofer. But it wasn’t me who had to live with his fantasies.”
“Fantasies?” There was that word again.
“That’s what she called them.”
“But fantasies of what?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
“You never asked?”
“No.”
“But it isn’t possible!” He flung the words at her angrily. “I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t believe me?” The delicate woman was hurt.
“Don’t take him seriously, Mother.” Tehila had entered quietly through the door left open by Fu’ad. “He keeps thinking we’re hiding something from him. But at least that gives us a chance to see him.”
He sat up in his chair, the afternoon sun in his eyes. The proprietress, in whose cropped hair he noticed the first streaks of gray, was not content with a handshake. Tall and stooped, a chambermaid’s apron tied by its strings around her waist, she bent to plant a ministering kiss on his forehead, as if he were a small boy with a fever.
“Your coffee, Professor,” she said, with a hint of mockery, “is waiting downstairs.”
“But Fu’ad said he would have it sent up,” Mrs. Hendel complained.
“So he did. But I told him not to, because I didn’t want you to miss your lunch. We’re closing the kitchen soon.”
“You can send my lunch up too.”
“No, Mother. I have no one to wait on you today.”
“Then I’ll skip lunch.”
“No, you won’t. You think you will, but at three o’clock you’ll decide you’re hungry, and I’ll have to wake up the chef and make him light the oven. You need to show some consideration, because it’s been a crazy day even without the snow. And don’t worry about our guest. He’ll be back — won’t you, Professor? Just because we tell you we know nothing is no reason to believe us, is it?”
11.
TEHILA DESCENDED THE BROAD, old-fashioned staircase ahead of him to the ground floor. Her long stride made her look like an ungainly bird that had forgotten how to fly. If Ofer knew to what depths I’ve descended to look for the fantasy he’s marooned by, Rivlin thought, he’d wipe me from his mind instead of just cold-shouldering me. In the large lobby he halted, stuck out a hand, and said:
“Thank you. I’m afraid I’m running late. I’ll have my coffee on Mount Scopus.”
“But why?” She gave him a whiskey-colored glance. “The coffee is ready. What can you be late for? You have plenty of time until your talk.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw an ad for the conference in the newspaper. The afternoon session starts at four, and your eulogy comes at the end of it. You’re in no hurry. And where are you going on a day like this? Don’t let the sunny skies fool you. The temperature is dropping.”
“I see you’ve decided to manage me too.”
“Let’s say I’m giving you a bit of friendly advice. Not that you couldn’t use some managing — especially when you’re away from your wife, with no one to keep an eye on you.”
He recoiled. “My wife,” he said softly, “keeps an eye on me everywhere — from within me…”
There was an awkward silence. Her birdlike face, sharp, hard, and offended, lost its teasing look. He felt suddenly sorry for this ugly Circe of the hotel, her bright apron perched absurdly on her hips like a chambermaid’s in an Alpine inn.
“All right,” he relented. “Let’s have some coffee. I wouldn’t want to hurt Fu’ad.”
The little table in the smoking lounge was set with elegant cups and saucers and a plate of cookies. Rivlin looked for Rashid. “I gave him a bed to rest in,” Fu’ad said, pouring their coffee. “He’s feeling low because of all those forms for his sister’s children. Why does an Arab have to be sick to be allowed back into his own country?”
“What’s wrong with having to live in a village near Jenin?” Tehila asked, warming her ivory hands on her coffee cup. “Isn’t that Palestine too?”
“But Ra’uda grew up in the Galilee.”
“So what? Why must every one of you live where he or she was born? What babies you are, missing Daddy and Mommy’s home when you’re parents and grandparents yourselves! I swear, you deserve a spanking, not a state.”
Fu’ad glanced at Tehila and then down at the floor, unsure what to make of her barb. His arm in the sleeve of its black maître d’s jacket trembled as it lifted the cover of the canister to see how much coffee was left. “Afay’o, ya Brofesor?”* he glumly asked of Rashid.
“Give him a few more minutes,” Rivlin replied. “He needs to rest. Sar majnun u’murtabir min kul el-ashyaa illi hawil yi’milha.”†
“Mitl el-masrahiyya,”‡ Fu’ad said. “Hada el-dibbuk illi mat.”§
“A jinni,” Rivlin said. He looked wearily at the proprietress, who was nursing her coffee in slow sips. Sallow and sickly-looking, she sat plotting her next move while trying to follow the Arabic conversation — until, with a gesture of impatience, she signaled the maître d’ to be gone.
“As long as your driver is resting, you may as well, too,” she said to Rivlin when they were alone. “Is your eulogy ready?”
“More or less.”
“Will you read it?”
“I’ll speak from notes.”
“Good,” she said approvingly. “That way you can cut it short if you’re losing your audience.”
He regarded her sardonically. “Don’t worry. That’s never happened to me.”
“I should hope not. But tell me, what made this Tedeschi such a big shot that he’s getting a whole day in his honor?”
“You don’t have to be such a big shot to get a day for dying. But he was an important scholar. And a dedicated and much-loved teacher.”
“Ah, yes,” she said, with a sly gleam. “Yours is a generation that still loves its teachers. Nowadays, I’m told, university faculties are full of dumb women.”
“That’s ridiculous.” He felt a chill of fatigue. “You’ve never even been to a university.”
“What if I haven’t?” She took another calm sip of coffee. “It’s not because I couldn’t have, as you seem to think. It’s because I went to work for my father, helping him to put the hotel on its feet. Believe me, I’ve learned more from life here than I could have at a university. But you’re cold!”
“Something is wrong with the heating.”
“Nothing is wrong with it. Fu’ad likes to save electricity, especially when he’s mad at me. As soon as the dining room empties out, he turns the heat off. This part of the building cools quickly. Down in the basement, where you were the last time, you wouldn’t know the difference, not even when it was freezing out. There’s natural heat down there.”
“Natural heat?” He scoffed at the idea. “It must come from those old tax files.”
“Perhaps,” she said with a hearty laugh, throwing back her head as though remembering something. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.”
“So you want to stick me in that hole again?” He met her small, eagle eyes, their gaze fearful with anticipation.
“You can rest there undisturbed, polishing your eulogy beneath a warm blanket in perfect equilibrium.”
He smiled uncertainly and glanced at the thick curtain on the window. A ray of blue light slipped through the space between the hooks and the curtain rod. Why was it, he wondered, that during the year of his marriage Ofer had hardly ever mentioned Tehila? He had only enthused about Galya’s father and the hotel. Had he paid no attention to his wife’s shrewd sister, or was she, too, part of his “fantasy”?