A. Yehoshua: Friendly Fire: A Duet

THE ELEVATOR BEGINS its slow descent from the thirtieth floor, but stops immediately at the twenty-ninth and opens its doors. A woman clad in spandex and crowned by a headset is startled to find someone coming down from the thirtieth floor at such an early hour. At first she continues to groove on her music while sizing up her fellow traveler with a penetrating gaze, but as the elevator slows down and approaches the garage, she can't hold back and pulls off her earphones.

"Don't tell me the penthouse has been sold," she says peevishly, as if the sale of the luxury apartment, which she naturally craved but could not afford, were a small personal defeat.

"The penthouse?" Ya'ari answers, smiling. "I wouldn't know. I don't live here. I came to check out the complaints about your winds."

" Our winds?" the woman says, brightening. "Maybe you can actually explain to me what's going on here? They promised state-of-the-art construction, a luxury building, we paid a lot of money, and with the first little bit of winter, this insane orchestra starts to run wild — do you hear it?"

"Of course."

They step out onto the elevator landing. The roaring gets louder. He shrugs and turns to leave, but the athletic tenant won't let him go: "So what are you? A wind expert?"

"Not really, but I was responsible for the planning of these elevators."

"So what went wrong in your calculations?"

"Mine? Why mine? It could have been someone else's. It needs to be checked out."

And Ya'ari gets the feeling that it's not the howling wind that is now bothering the energetic woman, but his very existence. Who is he exactly? And why? So before he breaks off contact and goes looking for his car in the twilit garage, he adds, almost in passing, "Don't worry. We'll find the cause of the winds and get them under control. My engineers will get to the bottom of it." And he nods good-bye.

But the woman persists. She feels entitled to a precise definition of this well-built man of more than sixty whose modish cropped hair is flecked with white. His dark eyes radiate confidence; his windbreaker, unfashionable and threadbare, adds a simple, unaffected touch.

"'My engineers?'" she repeats, in the quarrelsome tone that seems natural to her. "How many do you have altogether?"

"Ten or twelve," he answers quietly. "Depends how you count them." Then he disappears into the shadows of the garage. He glances at his watch. His wife has not even left the territorial waters of Israel and already his free-floating love is attracting strangers.

EVEN THOUGH HER husband is not at her side to safeguard her sleep in this unfamiliar place, her eyelashes drift downward, the photo album falls to her feet, and the engine noise insulates the intimacy of her experience. Then the warm aroma of something freshly baked rouses her, she opens her eyes and sees the young man in the next seat hungrily consuming his breakfast.

"Real desire," she had tossed at her husband almost offhandedly as they were about to part, and it's still not clear to her what she'd had in mind, what compelled her to say it at the last minute. Was it to hurt him for not insisting on coming with her, even though she really had wanted to go alone, or was it to strengthen his longing for her, leaving him with hopes for her return? Yes, he's right. She was responsible for his frustration. He wanted to, he tried, but she, despite her willingness to give him the pleasure he craved, hadn't considered it quite fair for him to be satisfied while her own desire was blocked by anxiety over the trip, and in any case she had never found sex so important, either in her youth or in maturity, and certainly not now, as she ripens into the third phase of her life, yet she knows that her husband's love needs to be requited more often. It's just that she's not always able to focus her energies at the expense of her own desires and the need to be good to herself.

She looks out the window. While she was sleeping the clouds broke into soft cottony tufts, and in the light of day she sees the desert plain kissing the gulf. Is this Africa? From her visit three years before, she remembers the arresting redness of the soil and the Africans wrapped in colorful fabrics walking upon it with barefoot grace. From the window of her brother-in-law's office, adjacent to the apartment where he housed them in violation of the rules — not only to save the cost of a hotel but also so they'd be together the whole time — she once saw her sister, early in the morning, buying milk and cheese from a plump African woman wearing a headdress with a flamboyant green feather. Daniela's heart reaches out now to her sister's slender silhouette, wrapped in an old woolen shawl she remembers from their parents' home.

The photo album of her grandchildren has made its way while she slept to the feet of her neighbor, who is now unwittingly stepping on it. She politely asks him to pick it up; he apologizes, saying that he hadn't noticed. The stewardess, who is already clearing away empty trays, asks whether she would still like her breakfast, and after a moment's uncertainty she decides not to decline. But when she removes the aluminum cover from the main course and tastes the first bite, she feels a wave of nausea, like the ones she felt so many years ago at the beginnings of her pregnancies. Her husband is always ready and eager to finish off her leftovers, indeed expecting that his wife will always leave him something of hers, and so even when she wants to clean her plate, she restrains herself and leaves him something symbolic, as a concrete expression of her fidelity. But now there is no one to rescue her from this repellent meal. And she senses the gaze that lingers on her abandoned knife and fork. Would it be a gesture of friendship to offer a total stranger food she has already tasted? After all, if she were younger, perhaps a young man would try to get to know her over such a meal. She offers him the tray politely and cordially. The young man hesitates and blushes. He seems like a well-brought-up fellow who does not eat from the plate of strangers.

"Why not eat it yourself? It's excellent…"

"Please take it." And giving him no time for second thoughts, with a sure motherly hand she calmly shoves the tray his way before the stewardess can pounce and remove it to her cart.

The young passenger grins with embarrassment, but the hunger of youth gets the best of him, and with sheepish care he wipes with a napkin the fork that has lately been in her mouth and plunges the knife into the omelet. She nods encouragingly, but does not want to commit herself to a chat occasioned by the odd kindness she has forced on him, and she therefore gathers up the newspaper that blankets her feet and begins to flip from pictures to text.

THE MAIN ENTRANCE to the design firm is unlocked. Someone has arrived before him. His seventy-five-year-old accountant, who worked with his father for many years, is drinking coffee and enjoying a croissant, his face illuminated by the glow of the news he reads on the computer screen. A year ago, Ya'ari brought him out of retirement and back to active duty to assist in the expansion of the business and compliance with new tax regulations. The expensioner, unwilling to give up his afternoon nap, comes early to the office and disappears before twelve. Ya'ari is not sure that his productivity warrants the handsome salary he earns on top of his pension, but because the man remains loyal to Ya'ari's invalid father and now and then goes to play chess with him and keep him abreast of goings-on at the office, it's convenient to have him on the staff.

"What got you out of bed?" The accountant gathers the pastry crumbs from his pants and swallows them.