A. Yehoshua - Friendly Fire - A Duet

"Ah," Ya'ari says, laughing, "the redhead already drafted you to play chess with him?"

"After I started beating him at backgammon."

"Wait a second, Moran, you want to say something to the children? They're here with me in the kitchen, eating cornflakes. Looking at me."

"No, Abba, not now, there's no time, I'll see them soon anyhow. Just do me a favor, go into Efrat's room and get her out of bed. Because if she doesn't start getting organized to leave, she won't make it here to see me. We're attached to a base of recruits, and visiting hours are strict. Only till early afternoon. Tell her to hurry. The drive won't be so simple; it's been raining cats and dogs for the last few hours."

"In Tel Aviv it's actually like spring, clear blue skies. This country isn't as tiny as people think. So listen, I have an idea. I'll bring everyone to you in my car… it'll be safer in all respects."

"But will you have patience for all of us after not sleeping all night on the sofa?"

"It wasn't so bad; it even turned into a bed at three in the morning."

Despite the authorization that he received from his son, Ya'ari does not even consider entering Efrat's bedroom, but instead knocks hard on the door. When he is persuaded that she has regained consciousness, he conveys her husband's instructions in a stern no-nonsense tone.

"Oh, Amotz, it would be wonderful if you would drive us."

"And even more wonderful if you would finally get up on your feet."

The two grandchildren are glad that it won't be their mother driving them to their father, but Grandpa, in the big car, and so they don without argument the clothes chosen by their mother, and like two little bear cubs, clumsily bundled in warm coats, they agree happily to help Ya'ari move the child seats from car to car and show him how to strap them into place. Meanwhile Efrat proves that when she wants to, she can be quick and efficient even in the morning hours, and she prepares sandwiches and peels vegetables, spreads hummus inside pitas, adds oranges and little bottles of chocolate milk. And when she comes down to the car with the big cooler, pale and without makeup, wearing clunky sneakers, threadbare jeans, and an old oversize battle-dress jacket that seems intended to obscure her figure, it occurs to Ya'ari that she means to punish herself and join in her husband's confinement.

Even on this wintry Sabbath morning the coastal road is packed. There's no knowing whether it is the children dragging their parents into the nervous traffic or the guilt-ridden parents dragging their children to amusements and shopping on the day of rest. But the northerly rains reported by Moran are now compounded by a stiff wind from the east, which buffets the car with such force that Ya'ari has to hold the wheel with both hands. Since there are no tapes in his car of simple Israeli songs likely to distract the children, Efrat attempts to entertain them with a game of Opposites, and Ya'ari gathers that opposition is well entrenched in his daughter-in-law. Quickly and effortlessly she comes up with nouns and adjectives, confident that each word has an antonym her children will know.

And so the highway slips northward between day and night, hot and cold, dry and wet, summer and winter, smart and stupid, tall and short, ceiling and floor, happy and sad, clean and dirty, straight and crooked, husband and wife, sun and moon, door and wall, dead and alive. And since Neta already knows the answers, she fires them off before her little brother can even come close, and although his mother and grandfather try to make her give the toddler a chance, his sister is incapable of curbing her enthusiasm for opposites, and Efrat apparently doesn't want to deprive her of the pleasure.

In the rearview mirror Ya'ari notices his grandson's mounting fury. If he were able to free himself of the straps that bind him, he'd climb out of the chair and start kicking the car door hard.

"Enough is enough with these opposites," Ya'ari orders Efrat and Neta, "the boy's about to explode."

After the Caesarea exit the traffic gets heavier. It's the first parents' day for the new recruits, and entire families are hurrying to the camp to supplement their food and other needs. The rain has stopped, but the area in front of the base is full of puddles, among which barbecues have been set up and picnic tables unfolded and chairs positioned, and here and there shelters against the rain. And between the charcoal grills and the coolers that spot the scene with orange, green, and blue, are Israelis of every sort, veteran and rooted, immigrants recent and otherwise, Russians and Ethiopians; and the recruits in their new uniforms, sitting opposite their adoring parents, diligently downing the meats and the salads, the home-cooked chicken schnitzels, as if over the past month a great famine had afflicted the military camps.

But where is Moran?

Efrat waits in the car with Neta, and Ya'ari goes off with Nadi in his arms toward the front gate, walks by the checkpost, surveys the tall guard, stares into the camp, but among the recruits going in and out there is no sign of the confined soldier who protects his white queen from the black knights. Until finally someone grabs him from behind, pulls the boy from his arms and lifts him high in the air.

Moran is unshaven, red-eyed. In an old work uniform.

"Abba," says Nadi, fluttering in the air, overjoyed, "you are alive?"

YIRMIYAHU STUDIES DANIELA with wonder as she sits in a puddle of light opposite the dirty breakfast dishes and listens with infinite patience to the geologist, who has broken a rock just for her and out of its fragments is trying to furnish her with a short history of time.

"Very good," he praises his sister-in-law. "I see that the young ones are also making good use of your patience. It's okay if you don't understand the explanations; the main thing is the listening. Just wait, soon the others will come down and arrange a symposium for you. In the meantime, Sijjin Kuang will take the malaria patient to a clinic not far away and be back this afternoon."

"There's another clinic in the area?"

"Not exactly a clinic, more like a sanatorium."

"A real sanatorium?"

"Actual but not real," he says jokingly. "Sort of a health retreat, a rehabilitation or recuperation facility for those who want to get away from the world into the bosom of nature in Africa, at low cost and without the annoyances of modern civilization. Not a sanatorium like the Swiss Alps, but operating on the same principle."

"Is there room for me?"

"Where?"

"With you in the car."

"Why not? But as always, you'll have to sit in the back, and this time you'll need to take up less room, because the patient will be beside you. Nothing to be afraid of, malaria is not a contagious disease. The cause is not a virus or bacteria, but rather a parasite, carried by mosquitoes. And the mosquito that bit Zohara al-Ukbi — it's always female, never a male mosquito — is already gone from this world."

"If you're sure you're not endangering me, then why don't I come along, really? I'm leaving here in two days, so I should finally have some idea of the area where you've decided to hide yourself."

She apologizes to the young men for the time-out she is taking, and secretly hopes that maybe on the way to the sanatorium she'll have a chance to see another breathtaking genetic mutation. As she leaves the kitchen, Sijjin is already revving the car engine, and before Daniela takes her regular seat in the back, she greets the Sudanese driver, and seeing her sad expression she wells with deep affection for the gentle animist, bends over, and lightly touches her lips to the ebony cheek. And the nurse, surprised by this unanticipated gesture, lays a hand as delicate as a bird's wing on the youthful hair of the older woman and says, it's good that you are coming with us.