A. Yehoshua - A Late Divorce

The morning mist is breaking up dissolving northward a clean light washes the bay. How quickly day is born here. And out there in the west darkness awaits you or rather it creeps up behind you in a few more gratuitous hours it will have caught up with you again. A free gift that you needn’t pay back. What time is it? What time can it be? You open the door of the darkened guest room Tsvi is curled up on the living-room couch fast asleep his pale arm dangling down his wristwatch catching the light you can’t resist picking up the thin hand he lets you have it in his sleep you twist it to look it’s five after six. He opens his eyes for a moment with a smile then curls up like a fetus again. You walk to the dining room nothing is left on its expanded table but the soiled cloth you drop into the seat at the head of it where you sat last night your head in your hands from somewhere comes the flicker of a thought.

Here next to you, a few hours ago, sat the uncommunicative parents. At first they wouldn’t hear of joining us but I insisted until they did. Kedmi took the young man aside for “a quick briefing,” as he put it, telling him what to admit and what not, the main thing being to dispel all suspicion that he had escaped to stash away the loot from the robbery. Once again it struck me that he thought the fellow was guilty and was defending a client whom he didn’t believe in. In the end he made him sign some document stating that he was turning himself in of his own free will, after which he hastened to phone the police, refusing to talk to anyone but a certain officer he knew. Meanwhile the murderer’s parents sat with us at the seder table, frantic with worry, not touching the wine cup placed in front of them, the woman staring at the table, the man watching us with hard, alert eyes. Gaddi looked back at them hostilely, while I sought to smile sympathetically.

“He simply wanted to spend the seder with us,” the woman explained to Ya’el. “He’s an only son, he didn’t want us to be alone…”

“Are you his mother?” Ya’el wondered softly. The woman nodded in an admission of guilt. When you began to question the father you discovered a stubborn but naive German Jew who had somehow fallen by the wayside due to his own self-limiting rigidity and had remained a simple blue-collar type all his life. Now he was in total, unremitting conflict with the world, and economically slowly going under.

“Don’t you worry,” said Kedmi’s mother, beatifically inspired to feel that via Kedmi they had come under her patronage. “You’ll see. My son will save him.”

The woman regarded her trustingly, murmuring her gratitude, but the father burst out irately:

“There’s nothing to save him from because he never did anything in the first place!”

Kedmi’s mother gave him a knowing smile, mystified by his stubbornness but ceding nothing. “You’ll see. Even if he did murder her, Yisra’el will save him.”

“Murder who, grandpa?” asked Gaddi, who was sitting next to you, in an excited whisper.

“No one,” we all exclaimed together. “No one at all.”

Tsvi smiled, still slumped in his chair, toying with the little Haggadah that he held.

“Then why are the police coming to get him?” Gaddi persisted.

“Because they think that he murdered someone. But your father will prove that they’re wrong.”

The murderer’s father looked angrily at Gaddi and we all fell silent, listening to Kedmi rant over the telephone with his customary know-it-all aggressiveness and uncalled-for provocations. Tsvi alone sat there untroubled, taking it all in with an ironic smile, his fingers constructing a small pile of matzo crumbs on the white tablecloth. At last Kedmi returned to the dining room, beamingly dragging the escaped man after him as if afraid to let go of him for a second. It had taken a while for the morons at police headquarters to get it, but soon they would arrive. “Come on now, let’s finish the seder in a hurry before the fun begins…”

The parents jumped up in alarm. “Well then, we’d better go,” they said sorrowfully. “We’ve bothered you enough as it is.”

“But how can you say that?” asked Tsvi. “You’ve been no trouble at all!” He got gallantly to his feet. “Stay with us until the police come. You’ll want to say goodbye to him then.”

“Yes, do,” agreed Ya’el. “Perhaps you’d like to wait in the living room. You can be there quietly by yourselves.”

“But why should they?” protested Tsvi, who had come suddenly, mysteriously to life. “Come sit with us if you can stand it.” He smiled at me. “You’ll have the experience of hearing my father sing Passover songs.’’ And he made room for Kedmi’s murderer, brought him a chair and helped him into it, and redistributed all the Haggadahs.

I felt a burst of fear when I saw how he looked at the fellow. Kedmi was taken aback for a moment but quickly gave his assent; perhaps he was afraid that the escaped prisoner would disappear again if left alone in the next room. Hesitantly the guests resumed their seats and listened to the weak, uncertain singing led by me with Kedmi’s mother and Gaddi joining in while the others just hummed along. Thus the seder came to an end, leaving us at the table still waiting for the police.

Kedmi went to open the front door. “For Elijah.” He winked. Suddenly there wasn’t a sound. We sat there unaccountably silent, except for Tsvi, who whispered something to the murderer with glowing cheeks, to which the escaped man replied with an annoyed, uncomprehending look. And so we waited until at last we heard heavy steps on the stairs. Kedmi hurried back to the door. “Listen to them drag their feet,” he mocked. “The only place you’ll ever see a cop run is on TV.”

Finally a fat, mustachioed sergeant appeared in the doorway gasping for breath. He had a piece of paper in his hand and a big pistol strapped to his waist. “Does Yisra’el Kedmi live here?” he asked.

“Yes,” answered Kedmi rapidly, “and it’s about time you’ve come. It’s only on TV that you people ever move fast. In reality you’re as slow as molas…”

The words were still in midsentence when the sergeant pulled out a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and slipped them with startling speed onto the astonished Kedmi’s wrists.

“That’s enough of your wisecracks,” he said, dragging Kedmi to the door. “Move!”

Kedmi went wild. “Just a minute, you nut, I’m the lawyer! Why don’t you read that note through to the end…”

Tsvi let out a loud, strange guffaw while the rest of us crowded around the sergeant. Next to me Gaddi was biting his lips. The murderer grabbed the policeman and said calmly:

“Hey, it’s me. I’m the one.”

But imperturbably, stubbornly, the sergeant refused to admit his mistake. He stood there slow and stolid, his humorous eyes the only sign that he was enjoying the scene he had caused.

“What do you mean, it’s you?”

“I’m the one who escaped.”

“Are you Yisra’el Kedmi?”

“No, I’m Yoram Miller.”

“Who the hell is that?”

“That’s me.”

“No one said anything to me about any Miller. But if you care to join us, come along.”

Kedmi went totally beserk, rattling his handcuffs and screaming, “You let me out of these at once, you moron, I’m his lawyer!”

The sergeant gave him a sharp yank, twisting his cuffed wrists savagely. “Stop calling me names, you! I’ve got Yisra’el Kedmi written here. Is that you?…It is? That’s all I want to know.”

At which point I approached him, gripped him lightly by the arm, and set him straight simply and clearly. He listened to me, beginning to comprehend, while Kedmi watched pale with anger, his eyes darting hatefully back and forth. The sergeant took a walkie-talkie from his belt and tried to get headquarters. There was a crackle of static. He asked Ya’el for a glass of water, laid the set on the table, took the glass with his free hand and gulped it down. A young woman’s voice spoke. “What did you say the name of the apprehended party was?”