A. Yehoshua - Friendly Fire - A Duet

Now through the window a few houses can be seen, then streets. Here is a city. And, for a tiny moment, a sliver of smooth sea with a gliding sailboat.

Yirmi, again alert and energetic, confidently leads the two women along streets he clearly knows well, between vegetable stalls and buckets of fish and sacks of coal. "If possible," Daniela says, "let's start by calling Israel. We promised Amotz, and I know he's waiting with his hand on the phone."

"If we promised, we will deliver." Yirmi calms her with a smile. "From the time I met him, forty years ago, I knew it's dangerous to make him wait."

He guides them into a darkened shack, a public telecommunications center, filled with a jumble of wires plugged into elderly computers and antique phones, that brings to mind a spider's web. The proprietor, a beefy woman named Zaineb, greets them happily and seats the tourist by a telephone with a well-worn dial.

"I have learned from experience that from here you speak frugally and clearly," Yirmi says self-righteously, "since every month I call America to report to Elinor that I am surviving, and to hear how many words she has added to her dissertation. Write down for Zaineb the exact number, with the codes for Israel and Tel Aviv, and you will be able to put your loved one at ease. We shall wait patiently outside."

"You don't want to say a few words?"

"Only if you don't overdo your conversation. Look, don't be so sure that I don't think about him too sometimes."

The connection from the spider web is made efficiently, and is actually clear and strong. And in Tel Aviv the office receptionist is happy to hear the voice of the boss's wife in Africa, though she is a bit surprised by the early hour. There's a staff meeting going on in his office, but not to worry, she'll pull him out of there right away. Just don't hang up.

"Why do you say I'm early? We arranged to talk today at twelve."

"But it's now eleven," the secretary chides. "You seem to have an hour's difference in your favor."

"In my favor?" Daniela says, laughing, "in what sense?" But the secretary has already gone to fetch her husband.

STANDING BY THE receptionist's desk, using her telephone in front of other people and maybe being overheard, was not the way he had wanted to conduct the much anticipated conversation with his wife. But is it proper to cut short the meeting and dismiss everyone from his office, just so he can complain about his troubles without an audience? Given no choice, he grabs the receiver and retreats to a corner, stretching the phone cord as far as he can, and tries to speak confidentially. His tone comes out sounding both accusatory and defensive.

"That's right," he says, "I got the times wrong. I was sure you were on the same longitude, and all of a sudden Africa is not only southwest but also east of us. So everything I imagined you doing on your trip you had finished an hour before."

"It's only an hour's difference. But if it's hard for you to talk now, I'll try again later."

"No, absolutely not. I'll just talk quietly, because there are people here. Can you hear me?"

"Perfectly. First of all, tell me about the children."

"Just a minute, the children can wait. You tell me what's happening. First of all, how was the trip?"

"The flight to Nairobi was nice, but to spend six hours in the airport just for your peace of mind, that was cruel. And I ended up almost missing the connecting flight anyway."

"Missing it? How was that possible?"

"My boarding pass disappeared in the novel."

"Novel?"

"The book I bought at the airport."

"But I warned you beforehand to keep everything with your passport, and I put it there myself. So how did it wander into the novel?"

"Never mind, I found it."

"Watch out. You can afford to dream only when I'm with you. And how was the second flight? I worried the whole time that on an internal flight in Africa you'd have a small, shabby plane."

"It was a small plane, but clean and nice and not shabby at all, and they even served unlimited whiskey."

He laughs. "Not to you, I hope. And where is it, this farm of Yirmi's? Is it far from the airport?"

"Not very. But the road is mostly dirt and a bit complicated, part of it through a forest. Fortunately, the pagan who drove me—"

"Pagan?"

"A charming young Sudanese woman, an idol worshipper… a tragic figure, I'll tell you all about her…"

"Idol worshipper? What idols?"

"No, not now. I'll tell you everything later. How are the children?"

"Leave the children aside for a minute. Yirmi forgot you and didn't come to the airport?"

"No, no, it's a long story. I'll tell you all about it. He's the one who sent her; she's the nurse of the research team."

"And what about him?"

"Stranger than ever. But also pleased with himself. I brought him a package of Israeli papers from the plane and he burned them all."

"Burned them? Good for him. Why should he read Israeli papers in Africa? Where's the fun in that?"

"The Hanukkah candles I brought, he threw them in the fire too."

"What, he has a campfire burning there?"

"The fire of the water boiler."

"But why the candles?"

"No reason. He's looking for ways to disengage himself. From Israel. From the Jews. From everything."

"Disengage? Why not? A great idea. I wish I could do that sometimes. But why detach himself in Africa? There are nicer places in the world to get detached."

"Not now, Amotz. He's right outside. We'll talk about everything next week. But tell me what's going on with the children."

"Nofar came home yesterday with an older friend to light candles."

"Very good."

"But she only stayed a little while."

"That's not important. What's important is she came."

"But here's the big news, listen carefully: the army didn't give up on Moran. They caught him and put him in confinement."

"Actual confinement?"

"The real thing, confined to base for a week or so. But he's in Israel, not the West Bank, with the adjutant corps. I haven't got through to him yet, because they confiscated his cell phone, but he's in touch with Efrat occasionally. And yesterday I replaced you and picked up the children from preschool and waited with them at a café till Yael was able to take them. Tomorrow's Friday, and I'll light candles with them then."

"It's good that her mother always volunteers to help."

"The mother is okay, but the daughter of the mother keeps running around on empty. A training course up north, then a seminar down south. She drives me crazy."

"Go crazy quietly and keep it to yourself; be careful not to make any remarks. It's not your business to educate her. Let Moran take care of her."

"But Moran is a prisoner. An officer in the IDF. Imagine the disgrace."

"Leave him alone too. Don't reprimand him. For a long time I've had the feeling that he's afraid of his reserve duty."

"Afraid? Moran? Where'd you get that idea? Moran was never a coward, certainly not in the army. He just felt like blowing them off, and he's like you: he is sure that the whole world revolves around him."

"And I'm sure the whole world revolves around me?"

"More or less."

"Where'd you get that idea?"

"Not now. I'm not alone either. This is my secretary's phone. But where's Yirmi? Is he with you? In any case, I want to say a word to him."

"What word?"

"That he should keep an eye on you."

"Don't you dare."

YIRMIYAHU IS WAITING in an alley with Sijjin Kuang, whose tall aristocratic figure alongside the awkward old white man's has attracted the curiosity of people in the marketplace. From time to time he glances inside at his sister-in-law, who sits smiling and content in the depths of the communications hut, surrounded by young Africans riveted to computer screens, as she, in a girlish pose he finds charming, presses the worn-out phone receiver against her short-cropped head, crosses her legs, and plays with the hem of her dress, exposing her shapely calves.