Five Seasons (14 page)

Afterward, they discussed the office and politics, for which she, like his wife, had a passion. His opinions, when she pressed him for them, made her look slightly incredulous, and he could see that his mind worked too slowly and banally for her, disappointing her with its simplicity. I'd better sharpen my brain, he told himself; it's time I thought about something besides medicines, hospital beds, orthopedic mattresses, therapeutic baths, changing linens, and playing doctor. And yet they talked for a long while until, despite her repeated assurances that he looked perfectly respectable and that no one dressed for the opera anymore, because all that mattered was the music, they hurried back to the hotel for him to change. He went to his room, turned on the light, turned it off again as though someone were watching him, and quickly began to undress. Deciding to change underpants, too, he paused to examine his penis by the reddish glow of the streetlight streaming through the thin lace curtains. “So, old man,” he whispered, morosely observing how small and scrotal it looked, like a tired gray mouse. He hurriedly put on a tie and descended to the lobby, where, freshly made up but still wearing the same dress, she was waiting; he felt annoyed that she didn't attach the same value to clothing that he did.

It had gotten colder, and the drops of icy sleet jabbed at them like little javelins. “The snow's following me from Paris,” he said, and she answered impishly, “I wish it would catch you already. I love it.” In the taxi she took out the German program of the opera from her handbag. “It looks like a modern piece,” she informed him. “I hope we'll like it.” “Modern?” he asked, feeling vaguely anxious. “Yes. Experimental. My brother-in-law says he's heard it's good. Let's hope we'll think so too. Tomorrow we'll see something more classical.” “You'll have to explain everything to me,” he warned her, looking out at the widening streets, “because I don't know a word of German. I'm at your mercy.” “I know,” she replied, smiling gaily while slipping a warm hand into his that sent a shiver down his spine.

His first thought upon reaching the opera house and stepping out of the cab beneath the large marquee was that they had stumbled on some college demonstration. Though he had expected to see the passengers he had flown with from Paris that morning, none were visible in the crowd, which seemed composed for the most part of young Berliners, a throng of whom surrounded them at once, asking for extra tickets. So many youngsters were unheard of at the orchestral performances in Haifa, whose elderly concertgoers seemed rejuvenated now in Berlin, quiet and well-mannered in their steel-rimmed glasses and clipped beards, so that the occasional oldster, like the tall woman leaning on her walking stick in the midst of a circle of reverently listening youths, stood out in contrast. The legal adviser, Molkho now realized, had been right, for most of those present had on jeans, army jackets, and windbreakers.

I
T WAS AN OPERA
from the 1930s. The overture struck up, muted but urgent, and the curtain rose on a bare canyon of a stage. Slowly, by means of a hidden effect, long strips of yellow fabric swirled across it like a sandstorm, and groups of performers, all dressed in identical black—some of them, to Molkho's surprise, quite old—entered from the wings, dancing, singing, and even shouting, while old-fashioned street and shop signs descended from the cavernous ceiling on radiant wires. Molkho found it rather exciting, and indeed, it was very different from the opera he had seen in Paris: serious, even somber, yet electrifying the young audience, which seemed mesmerized. He did his best to concentrate, trying to banish the last twenty-four hours from his mind, yet unable to do so: the morning in Paris, the slow drive to the airport, the search for the unknown airline, his wife's cousin's annoyance at the sign saying
Voles Opera.
His eyes moved back and forth across the stage, from whose pit came music that was softly melodic and wildly discordant by turns. Had the high school boy, he wondered, remembered to shut the gas cock at night? Now the protagonists were left onstage by themselves, two men and three women who soon became involved in a tortuous operatic argument, quarreling passionately, almost murderously, and then making up again before somersaulting down a kind of manhole in the middle of the stage and popping up unexpectedly somewhere else. Gently Molkho covered his mouth with one hand, smelling his breath and reproaching himself for not brushing his teeth in the hotel, suddenly recalling that endless night a year ago when, riddled with tubes after major surgery, his wife amusedly told him that she could no longer distinguish the orifices of her body or tell what entered or exited from which, and he had listened attentively, eagerly trying to imagine the feeling, convinced that he was on the verge of a new insight, carefully probing her with questions until she fell silent and said no more. Dully he now strove to follow the performance, whose cacophonous score was giving him a headache, though the legal adviser, sitting bright-eyed beside him, seemed quite taken by it. Beneath her blouse he made out the outline of her breasts; what, he wondered, were they really like? Would he have to fondle them later that night or would a goodnight kiss be enough, leaving the next uncertain installment for tomorrow? Again he regretted having failed to brush his teeth. Feeling her eyes on him, he smiled at her dolefully. “Tell me if you understand anything,” he whispered. “It's symbolic,” she told him. “It's really very symbolic.” “Yes, I can see that myself,” he replied, “but of what?” Yet, though she tried explaining, he doubted she understood more than he did, and besides, they were already being shushed by the German audience, which was, it appeared, very sensitive. Considering the price of the ticket, it was odd there was no program in English. Not that it matters, he thought, shutting his eyes defensively against the violent music, which barreled on as if squeezing the life out of him, though what I need, he told himself, is some life squeezed into me, only not too quickly, for the weird clangor, he felt, shutting his eyes still tighter, was wringing him dry. He managed to drowse a bit, there being no intermission, but not for long, because suddenly the legal adviser poked him sharply and he awoke to find a floodlit stage growing still brighter and a gorgeously costumed cast breaking into an unexpectedly melodious ensemble that made him, sitting in the overflow crowd, decide it was a splendid opera after all and that, even if he didn't understand it, that was no reason not to like it, so that he joined in wholeheartedly when the applause broke out, even rising for the standing ovation as if to make up for his catnap. “It's true that a lot of it was over my head,” he said with a smile to the legal adviser, who, her narrow eyes appraising him, seemed baffled by his enthusiasm, “but something did get through to me in the end. I'm not sure what, but I'm certainly glad we came.”

It took a while to find the checkroom where his coat was, because they kept getting lost in the rapidly emptying corridors. Outside they discovered that the driving sleet had gotten worse. Though it was not especially late, barely half past ten, the streets were already deserted, the young audience having vanished as though into thin air, leaving only a ragged line of older people standing at the top of the steps, at whose bottom an even older footman in a black uniform and a smartly brimmed cap, a red armband on his sleeve, was trying to flag down cabs with an ancient and ineffective whistle. Feeling his companion pressing against him, Molkho allowed himself a gentle response. Did she really have the secret hots for him? But, unless he had disappointed her by falling asleep or by being such an uninspired conversationalist, the opera must have exhausted her too, for she seemed pensive and uncommunicative. Taxis were scarce and the wait was a long one. “Perhaps we should walk,” she suggested. “The hotel isn't far, and I'm sure I can find it.” For a minute he wavered. But his faith in her sense of direction had been shaken, and the little spears of icy rain kept jabbing down. “No,” he answered, “I think we should wait for a cab,” and so they joined the long queue, which was slowly inching along.

Indeed, the flow of taxis increased, and soon they were next in line. Just then, two more cabs pulled up and the two old ladies in front of them started down the slippery steps. Though they had not exchanged a word, Molkho was sure they were together and prepared to follow them down; the legal adviser, however, held back. Sure enough, the two women climbed into a single cab and the car behind it honked softly. “Quick, it's our turn,” he exclaimed, breaking free of his companion's grip and darting down the rainy stairs to catch the taxi. Hurriedly, as if searching for his missing arm or afraid he wouldn't wait, she started after him, her fur coat flapping around her. “Watch out,” he warned, seeing her stumble and then, losing her balance, pitch forward and tumble down the broad steps, stopping after three or four of them because, agile squirrel that she was, she caught herself and sat up, her face twisted in pain, one shoe on the ground behind her. Frightened, he ran back toward her, reaching her ahead of the Germans who came to the rescue too, even though he paused on his way to pick up her shoe, which looked more worn from use than scuffed. He held her arm, bending over her while she tried first telling him in Hebrew, and then the Germans in German, that she was all right. Above her ankle, where her stocking was torn, were a few drops of blood, which stirred him sadly as with an old passion. Kneeling beside her on the cold stairs, he tried helping her on with her shoe. “I'm fine, I'm fine,” she said crimsonly, snatching the shoe from him and getting to her feet. Then, holding it in one hand, she hobbled down the stairs and disappeared through the open door of the taxi to the relief of the bystanders, who appeared to be genuinely concerned.

Inside the taxicab, cursing under her breath, she bent down to feel her ankle. Her face looked gray and old. Although eager to remind her that he had warned her, Molkho said nothing, remembering how his wife had always hated such I-told-you-so's. The taxi was still standing there, its driver awaiting instructions. Slowly the legal adviser got a grip on herself. “We have to give him the address,” said Molkho and she did.

He insisted, of course, on helping her up to her room. “Lie down, let's have a look at you,” he said as she pulled off her stocking, catching a glimpse when he removed the two suitcases from her bed of an unlikely pair of red panties and an old-fashioned girdle that resembled those worn by his mother. At last, he could get a good look at her foot in the light. The bruise above her ankle, for which she let him make a compress from a washcloth, was superficial and no longer bleeding, but the ankle itself was swollen and painful, though when he tried to turn it gently, they both agreed it wasn't broken.

S
HE SMILED AT HIM
and he smiled back, feeling fully awake now, his tiredness forgotten. Now she'll see what I'm made of, thought Molkho. As she hopped to the bathroom on one small foot, he rose to have a look around the room, which was slightly larger than his own but, except for the double bed, furnished in the same Spartan style. His glance fell on familiar items in her open suitcases, such as the pink slippers she had worn that evening in her home. How strange to see them here in Berlin! He laid them neatly on the floor, took out several other things she was likely to need, put them on the table, and hung her cold, wet fur coat in the closet. He heard the toilet being flushed in the bathroom, and when she returned to the room, still hobbling but freshly combed and made up, he hurried to help her lie down, examined her foot again, and asked if she had medical insurance. Of course she did, she replied, though she had no intention of calling a doctor. “It's nothing,” she smiled with a grimace. The puffy redness around the ankle looked edematous; he knew the symptoms, had become an expert on them during the past year. Lightly touching her foot, he searched for the point where the natural irregularity of the bone yielded to the actual swelling. He should make her a splint or ligature, something at least for the night, though it wasn't the swelling that bothered her but the pain. Could he look to see if she had any pills? she asked, still badly flustered, especially as her back hurt now too. He poked through her toilet kit and found nothing but a few crumbly aspirins. “Here, let's have a look,” he said, thinking how odd it was to be turning a strange woman over on her stomach. “I've become half a doctor this past year.” There was a faint blue contusion on her back, but when he pressed it gingerly, they agreed it was no cause for concern.

The opera seemed far away now, a forgotten figment of the imagination. Giving her two aspirins—just one would do no good—he suggested finding a drugstore and buying an athletic bandage to bind her foot for the night. “That's hardly necessary,” she said, so clearly pleased by his solicitude that he had to warn himself not to overdo it, afraid to be trapped in a relationship that might not be at all what he wanted. At first, he proposed taking her key to let himself back in with, but she preferred to leave the door unlocked. Downstairs the hotel was quiet. The ten other keys were in their cubbyholes, a mute sign that they were still alone in the hotel.

Once again there was a new clerk at the reception desk, this time a young student, who looked up from his heavy book to give Molkho directions
in excellent English, as if helping guests find drugstores in the middle of the night were routine, even drawing a map of how to get to one that was only five minutes away. Molkho took several of the hotel's cards from a box on the counter, stuck one in each pocket in case he got lost, and, quite proud of himself for venturing out in this city behind the Iron Curtain guided by only a slip of paper, strode jauntily into the narrow streets, whose shroud of desolate fog was pierced by the lights of bars and restaurants. Before long he arrived at the drugstore, which was visible from a distance; large and well lit, it was located in what seemed to be an old church or fortress or, at any rate, an artfully renovated old building, though the giant containers of brightly colored liquids on its shelves and the large straw hampers filled with tubes and boxes gave it more the appearance of a supermarket, over which presided the druggist, a stout, jovial man in a black cravat who seemed greatly to amuse his young assistants. Indeed, every sentence he uttered aroused peals of laughter, the cause of which, Molkho concluded, could not possibly be the man's wit but simply his buffoonish manner. Slowly Molkho walked down the aisles, enjoying the special night mood of the place, examining the rows of medicines while looking for an athletic bandage. Poking about a bit in the hampers, where he noticed several over-the-counter drugs that in Israel were sold only by prescription, he suddenly came across the most familiar of them all lying innocently in its blue-and-white box. Talwin! Lovingly he turned it in his hand, feeling all the excitement of a chance meeting with an old friend whom he had never expected to see again. He consulted the price, figuring it in shekels, and was so angered by the enormousness of the Israeli markup that he went on calculating its precise, scandalous percentage all the way to the checkout counter, only to discover upon arrival that the elderly druggist, who bore a striking resemblance to Doctor Doolittle, didn't understand a word of English, which not only failed to prevent him from making jokes that were translated for Molkho by an assistant but inspired him, to the merriment of all, to mimic the translation too. At last, producing several athletic bandages, he laid them on the counter, and Molkho bought the next to the cheapest, having already decided that he would not let the legal adviser reimburse him. As he started to pay, the druggist inquired with a wink about the box of Talwin, which was still firmly gripped in Molkho's hand. “Ask him if it's good for pain,” Molkho requested of the English-speaking assistant. The druggist regarded him with his merry blue eyes.
Jawohl,
he declared, it was
wunderbar.
“Then I'll take it,” declared Molkho, already plotting his revenge on the drugstore in Haifa that had overcharged him.