“Just make sure you phone first,” Rivlin warned her. And before hanging up, he repeated: “Make sure you phone.”
In the new airport terminal, amid the chirping of cell phones that welcomed the arriving passengers before they had time to arrive, the pervasive smell of burned coffee, and the plashing of fountains that serenaded the crowd waiting for the returnees (who, in the seconds between clearing customs and coming into sight, had their happy-to-be-home-again faces televised on a closed-circuit screen for the benefit of their welcomers) — here, and here alone, the professor from Haifa reflected, was the erotic epicenter of the Jewish state. The Jewish heart might throb in Jerusalem, and the Jewish brain might grow sharp or soft in Tel Aviv, but the passionate focus of Israeli life was here, in the going and the coming. It took an Arab of the old school, like Fu’ad, to realize that what might seem to be Jewish solidarity, as displayed by the tall man coming over to tell him that his wife was on her way, was only Jewish hyperactivity.
Rivlin wasn’t sure whether this person, who had gently put down his suitcase, was the prosecutor or the defense counsel in the mysterious trial. He himself was already looking at his wife on the closed-circuit screen. Her few seconds there were enough to tell him that something was on her mind. He hurried to take her suitcase, hoping to learn, before they joined the patiently waiting man, what it was. “Not now,” she whispered, giving him a grateful hug for his powers of observation. “There’s a split decision to convict, and I’m the dissenting opinion. We’ll talk about it later. Did you miss me? I missed you terribly. That man is the assistant district attorney of the Northern Circuit. We’re giving him a ride to Haifa. I couldn’t refuse. Don’t ask him too many questions. Just be nice.”
Her two colleagues on the bench had stayed an extra night in Vienna to take in an opera, while the chagrined defense counsel was on business in Germany. That left the prosecutor, now ensconced in the backseat of their car. Satisfied with the results of their journey, which had tipped the case against the defendant, an accused spy he had long been trying to nail, but aware that Judge Rivlin had doubts about the testimony given in the Asiatic republic, he chatted about other things. One of these, which he mentioned in a rather snide tone, was the opening of an exhibition of oils and watercolors by former Supreme Court Justice Granot, a stroke victim who had taken up painting.
“Granot has another show?” Hagit turned, upset, to her husband. “How come I didn’t know? Why didn’t you show me the invitation? You know I wouldn’t want him to think I’d forgotten him.”
“But what makes you think I saw an invitation?” Rivlin answered. “It must have been sent to your office and got lost.”
He refrained from commenting in the presence of a stranger on the chronic disorder of his wife’s desk, a consequence of her inability to throw anything away.
“If the exhibition is still on, we’ll go to it tomorrow,” Hagit comforted herself before lapsing into a drowsy silence. She looked gray and tired in the yellow light of the road. Rivlin fell silent, too. He felt the eyes of the prosecutor, who was sitting alertly behind him, drilling into his back, as if contemplating indicting him as well.
Back in their duplex, Hagit kicked off her shoes and stretched out on their bed as if to stamp it with the impressions of her trip while he emptied her suitcase out beside her, shut it again, and slipped it beneath the bed. Before hanging up her clothes, he examined them to see which items had paid their way and which had traveled as hitchhikers. He dumped a bag of his wife’s underwear into the laundry basket and carried her toilet kit to the bathroom.
“You can arrange your bathroom things by yourself,” he said.
“Of course.”
“So who goes first, you or me?”
“I don’t have much to tell. We went to a primitive place at the end of the world to listen to the fantasies of either a psychopath or a highly sophisticated liar. I honestly don’t know whether someone in the district attorney’s office or the Mossad thought they could put one over on us or they’re so naive that they think the man is telling the truth.”
“What did the other judges think?”
“They didn’t see it that way. They’ve been sold an opera like the one they’re going to in Vienna. Not that the defendant isn’t a can of worms. But you don’t put someone away for fifteen years without better proof.”
“Fifteen years?” His curiosity was piqued.
“It could be. There are charges of treason.”
“What kind of treason?”
“Never mind. There’s not much I can tell you. I’d rather not talk about it. I’m fed up with the whole trial. And I feel bad for Granot. He must think I’ve abandoned him.”
“You exaggerate. In his condition, he has other things to think about.”
“Precisely in his condition! When you can’t talk and can only think, every little thing becomes crucial. I know how much I mean to him. We have no choice. Tomorrow or the day after, we’ll go to his exhibition and buy a painting.”
“A painting of Granot’s? What for?”
“He needs the money. Why do you think he’s exhibiting? His wife never worked, he has no savings, and it’s hard to cover an invalid’s expenses on a pension, even a Supreme Court justice’s.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“There’s nothing to think about. We’ll go to the exhibition and buy a painting. Now tell me about yourself. Did the peace and quiet I gave you help you to make progress?”
“Conceptually, not on paper. Are you awake enough to listen to a strange story?”
“Of course.”
He paced up and down by the bed, his excitement mounting as he described his night journey among the Arabs. Hagit, eyes half-shut, lay listening to every word. She did not appear to be overly perturbed by his story.
“So! I leave you alone for a couple of days and you run wild.”
He smiled, relieved by her making a joke of it. “I suppose I did…”
“Did you at least enjoy it?”
“Enjoy it? Not exactly. But it may have sparked some new thoughts.”
5.
REMOVING HIS GLASSES, he lay down beside her in the faint hope of making love. Not that he really wanted to, but they hadn’t done it for a while, and he didn’t want their bodies to grow rusty. Hagit, however, smiled wearily without responding. Although he did not feel greatly deprived, he made a point of wringing from her an acknowledgment of remissness.