Five Seasons (8 page)

T
WO MONTHS HAD PASSED
since his wife's death, the second of which, Molkho noticed, went by particularly slowly. The days turned warm and clear, and the cold, rainy weather of the premature winter was forgotten. Though each time the telephone rang he still ran excitedly to get it, he had no idea whom he hoped it would be. Sometimes the call was from distant acquaintances who had only now heard the news, either because they didn't read the obituaries or because they had been abroad, and he enjoyed being able to describe his wife's last weeks again and to hear their sincere expressions of regret. Gradually, though, there was less of this. And galloping inflation notwithstanding, his own telephone bill had shrunk too, quite extraordinarily so; his wife, he realized, must have been on the phone constantly during her last, bedridden months. Calling whom, though? Out-of-town friends, no doubt, perhaps even her cousin in Paris. In any event, he himself used the phone sparingly, though he still called his mother in Jerusalem every morning with news of the children and himself. Slyly she would ask him how he felt and whom he was seeing, always with the same advice: “Don't go to the movies yet, don't go to any concerts. It's too early for that. Just see a lot of people, keep in touch with your old friends before they forget you, and find new ones,” she would warn him again. “But don't go to the movies. You have a TV at home; that's enough for you. When your father died, I didn't even have that, and I had to stay home a whole year doing nothing.” Grumbling, he would try to hang up, but it was impossible to get a word in edgewise; she simply repeated over and over, “Don't go to any concerts. You know what people will think. You've done the right thing until now. Just have patience a little longer. Isn't that what her mother says too?”

Nevertheless, when it was time for the next concert, he decided that enough was enough, though he did not, of course, say so to his mother-in-law over dinner that Friday. As usual, having arrived early at the old-age home, which he found himself liking more with each visit, he wandered about it. With sympathy he regarded its clean, bald German Jews who sat in their Sabbath best in the lobby, talking politely and looking at him affably, a stoutish man with curly gray hair and dark Levantine eyes that scanned the bulletin board with wary tedium, reading up on the cultural programs being offered that week. Perhaps, Molkho mused, he should put up a notice about the Talwin. Sometimes, his heart beating faster, he rode the elevator up to the fifth floor, curious to see the dying patients in the medical ward and the apparatus by their sides; yet each time, intercepted at the door by an elderly nurse who asked him where he was going, he stammered an excuse and rode back down.

He spoke in praise of the home to everyone, jocularly adding that the only thing wrong with it was its being exclusively for German Jews. “I can become a Christian,” he protested, a note of seriousness creeping into his voice, “even a Moslem, but there's no way I can become a German Jew and get in there one day myself.” His mother-in-law liked the place too, though she had resisted moving into it for years, being used to her apartment near her daughter's in which she had continued to lead an independent life, even after turning eighty. It was only when the illness took a turn for the worse that Molkho's wife insisted that she move. “What will we do if anything happens to you?” she asked her mother. “Who will take care of you?” And even then the old woman put up a fight: she had two rooms in her apartment and would have only one in the home, and besides, she was in perfect health, there wasn't anything wrong with her. But his wife refused to back down. “We can't be responsible if anything happens to you,” she persisted. “What can happen?” asked the old woman with a quiet smile. “Suppose you fall and break something,” suggested Molkho. “But why should I fall?” asked his mother-in-law, amused by the thought. Then his wife said in desperation, “But can't you see, you're not letting me die in peace,” and her mother's resistance crumbled. The old woman moved into the home while her daughter was still well enough to visit her there in her small but dignified room, and in fact, she got on famously with everyone, a little old, lucid, 100 percent German Jewess who could read Hebrew and had even once run an orphanage, so that she was soon elected to the social committee—which gave Molkho, now waiting impatiently for her in the lobby filled with potted plants, a feeling of having a personal stake in the place. Recently she had begun to remind him more and more of his wife. Smiling at him as she emerged from the elevator, her cane hooked over one arm, she looked as chipper as ever and carried the usual box of strudel that was her contribution to the Sabbath meal, whose chef he now was, though he refused to run any risks, playing it safe with a salad, french fries, and some frozen, codlike fish on which he had practiced all week, even burning it once or twice in the frying pan before getting the hang of it. And indeed, at first it was a great success with everyone, though after a while it, too, began to pall.

Their meals were not talkative. His wife had been the conversationalist in the family. “Without me,” she used to say to them, “you'd just gobble your food like animals,” and in fact, though it did not make them feel particularly bestial, that was how they now ate. Sometimes one of them would groan in despair over the political situation, but fatalistically, as one despairs of the incurably ill; and sometimes Molkho's mother-in-law would tell the children about their dead mother, relating some childhood story about her from the age of ten or eleven. None of them had ever heard these anecdotes, which the old woman evidently rehearsed during the week; but though Molkho would listen to them with interest, feeling a bittersweet pain, the children would sit through them bored and fidgety. Soon the college student would return to his dorm (he had fallen behind in his studies and had a lot to make up), the soldier would pick up the telephone and begin dialing her friends, and the high school boy would slip off to his room, leaving Molkho and his mother-in-law to watch the news by themselves until, as soon as the entertainment programs started, she would rise from her chair and put on her coat and scarf. Sometimes, driven by habit, she first went to her daughter's bedroom and stood looking at it from the doorway, casting Molkho a kindly glance. Though she had never thought particularly highly of him, he knew that she felt a subtle affection for him, which had grown stronger in recent months. “Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked. “Perhaps you'd like me to invite the boy for a meal now and then.”

He would have liked to ask if she was going to Tuesday's concert, but he thought better of it. Driving her back to the home, he parked near the entrance and watched her step out of the car, her feet groping weakly for the sidewalk, then quickly recovering and striding firmly down the path between flowerbeds and bushes surrounding a small pool until she reached the large glass door, on the other side of which the postprandial light was an almost blackish violet. He waited to make sure she passed safely through it, watching her gaily say hello to the old folks chewing their cud in the lobby and the little old lady who greeted her, rising quickly from her corner with an old-fashioned bow.

T
HAT TUESDAY NIGHT
he went to the concert. The program featured Haydn's
Creation
and rumor had it that the performance was a good one, Sundays and Monday's audiences having only the highest praise for it. Though at first the college student had promised to join him, Molkho found a note from him that afternoon saying that he couldn't make it, and so he asked the high school boy instead. “What's there to lose,” he cajoled him. “Try it one time. It's wonderful music. You can always leave in the intermission if you don't like it.” “Ho, ho, ho,” said the boy, rejecting the offer disdainfully. Molkho did not make a point of it. This time he was sure his wife's ticket could be sold. His last Philharmonic concert had been over half a year ago, in early summer, before his wife, who had come leaning on a cane, took to bed for the last time; later on in the season, when he had wanted to bring her again, she had asked him, practically begged him, to go by himself, and he almost did, until suddenly she began to throw up and he was forced to stay home with her.

He washed, put on a dark suit, and arrived earlier than he had meant to. Yet the mall was already crowded, and its festive mood was infectious. There were numerous people he knew, many of whom came over to shake his hand earnestly, and he wished the college student were with him so that the blame, such as it was, could be shared. The concert was sold out; quite a few youngsters circulated among the crowd in search of extra tickets, but none were to be had. He himself was approached in a friendly manner by an attractive young lady in glasses; she seemed to be alone, perhaps even available, and seeing her bright, beaming face, he thought, Why not, who knows what may come of it? Yet he wavered, afraid how it might look, and then feebly shook his head. Soon after a young man in jeans came up to him too. No, said Molkho decisively after starting to take a step toward him, making up his mind to forfeit the price of the ticket. Entering the auditorium, he took his customary seat. The two old men on his right, who were partners in an optometrist's shop, greeted him diffidently, not quite sure it was he, while quickly he sought out his mother-in-law's seat a few rows ahead of him and saw it was empty. The musicians began coming onstage, taking their places and warming up deftly on bars of the opening piece. The hall hummed with people, more of whom kept streaming in, though it looked almost full already. Students were sitting in the aisles. Now and then, someone stopped to ask Molkho if the seat beside him was taken, to which he testily replied, “Yes, it is.” Still tuning up, the orchestra was now wildly improvising on all kinds of themes. He kept staring at the empty seat ahead of him, hoping to see his mother-in-law appear, but instead, an usher arrived with a little old lady in an old velvet dress who, anxious and flustered, bowed to her neighbors with a timid smile and sat in Frau Starkman's place. Just as he recognized her, a hand on his shoulder made him jump. It was some old friends from Jerusalem, who helped him to his feet and sorrowfully embraced him. “We heard about it,” they said in low voices. “We're so sorry. We wanted so much to come see you. Was it very hard in the end? Did she suffer much?” They wanted some preconcert consolation, and he gave it to them warmly. “No, she didn't suffer at all. Not a bit. I know, because it happened at home.” “At home?” they asked astonishedly, their arms still around him. “Yes,” he said proudly, “at home. She hardly suffered at all.” The old men on his right listened open-eyed, regarding him sympathetically when he sat down again. No doubt they had suspected as much, from the moment they saw her last summer with the cane, and now they put two and two together. Still, they didn't seem to mind his being there. They even seemed about to speak to him, but just then the conductor made his entrance.

The first piece was Vivaldi's
Four Seasons,
which was new to him. In general, Molkho's knowledge of classical music, which had come to him via his wife, was sketchy. Both his parents had been bom into Orthodox families in the old walled city of Jerusalem, and what little musical education he possessed was the result of his wife's patient efforts. He still preferred compositions with plenty of trumpets and drums, although he couldn't deny that the strains of the first violin now washing over him tugged at his heartstrings too. Suddenly, glancing at the empty seat beside him, he missed his wife acutely, as if he had left her at home and was now needed by her there, hobbling about on crutches in the dark apartment. Why did he have to say she hadn't suffered, what made him need to be so comforting? A light cough from somewhere behind him sounded like hers. Reassuringly he laid a hand on the soft plush of the open seat beside him.

During the intermission the two of them used to join her mother in the lobby, where they would arrange to meet after the performance. Now, elbowing his way through the resplendent crowd past elegant women whose bare, perfumed flesh-scent he inhaled, he craned his neck to get a better look at the old lady. She was still seated in her place, her big, clear eyes wide with wonder. Tiny, dressed in old clothes, her gloved hands in her lap and her white hair streaked with dull gold, she looked like someone out of the pages of a fairy tale, shyly smiling at her surroundings with an aura of faraway lands, at him, too, although she did not appear to recognize him. Returning from the lobby, he found the seat next to him occupied by an aloof young man and made him change places, giving him his own and moving over to sit in his wife's. Meanwhile, a choir had filled the stage. Surprising him with a beauty that struck a chord deep within him, the music began on a powerful note.

H
E STILL HAD NOT FOUND
the meaning of his new life, its deeper rationale. During the illness, each day had been a recurrent test whose ultimate goal was Death itself. His task, he had known, was to prevent, or at least to forestall, suffering, while at the same time hastening it along. As evening jelled outside the windows and he finished his last preparations for the night's vigil, having already given her a shot of morphine, or sometimes even before that, he felt that he had vanquished the day and that this victory had not only a physical but also a spiritual dimension, so that Death, which he sometimes imagined as a distant and soon-to-appear relative dressed in black, regarded him from afar with approval, the hidden observer of his resourcefulness; whereas now, his lunch already eaten, the dishes washed, and nothing left to do around the house, the day still stretched half unfinished before him with no apparent reason for its being there.

He still hadn't disposed of the Talwin, which was beginning to weigh on him. It was worth some four hundred dollars all in all, and it was a crime to throw the money away, especially as he had broken a fixed-time deposit at the bank for it. He had known even then that he was overpurchasing, but the lady pharmacist had warned him that her stock was low and his wife had made him buy it all. In fact, the drug hadn't even been prescribed by her regular doctor, who was abroad at the time, but by an elderly stand-in whose promise that it would relieve her pain she had believed implicitly, though in fact it turned out to be contraindicated by another, more crucial drug and had to be discontinued. Who, he wondered, would take it off his hands now? Standing on the shelf across from his bed, the white boxes with their neat blue stripes were the first thing he saw on getting up in the morning and the last thing he saw at night. There were drugstores that hadn't even heard of it, and though by now he was almost willing to give it away, he knew of no one who needed it. Finally, one night, he called the old doctor who had prescribed it. The doctor, it so happened, was sick himself; when asked by the man's wife what he wanted, Molkho's first inclination was to hang up, but before he knew it, he was telling her the whole story. What was the drug called? she inquired. Apparently she had heard of it, because she asked how much he had, and when told twenty boxes, she said, “Bring them over. We'll see what we can do.” “When?” asked Molkho. “Right now if you'd like,” the woman told him. And so, stuffing the medicine into a plastic bag, he set out for the doctor's house, a small stone building on top of the Carmel.