A. Yehoshua - Friendly Fire - A Duet

"Imma, Imma'leh, where are you; Abba, Abba'leh, where are you?" Neta's lament is not a hostile, confrontational complaint but rather a thin, heartrending wail of justified anxiety. Ya'ari sweeps up his granddaughter, her wispy body feeling immeasurably lighter than that of her little brother, and holds her close to his chest. Now the keening pierces him to the marrow — Imma, Imma'leh, where are you; Abba, Abba'leh, where are you, and the more he tries to soothe her, the more he can feel the panic flowing from her into him: There really is no reason to suspect engine trouble in his new car, so the only remaining possibility is an accident.

In the rain-soaked guard post, beside the tall Russian who keeps angrily brushing away the little hand reaching for his submachine gun, his practical engineer's mind churns through the outcomes of all possible situations, from a simple flat tire to a car-mangling wreck. Damn it, he berates himself, damn it, you're standing here with two little children who are counting on you, and you have no right to show any sign of desperation. And even if Daniela is not at your side when you hear the terrible news, you will not run away to Africa or any other continent, but by your very sanity, your practicality and sense of responsibility, you will vanquish the chaos that swells all around you.

In his imagination scenes of horrible catastrophe mingle cru elly with practical considerations. How he will have to ask Daniela to quit teaching to devote herself to the grandchildren; how Moran's apartment will have to be rented out, and for how much; how his firm's lawyer will examine the life-insurance policy; and who will argue in court over the extent of the damages. He makes a mental note of which architect could best add a wing to their house for the children, and considers how he might persuade Nofar to become their legal guardian after he and Daniela have passed away.

A cold wind blows through his wet hair. His knees are shaking. Fear torments him, and the precise solutions he elaborates in his mind offer no comfort. The eyes of the Russian soldier are fastened on the pudgy little hand that keeps pretending to stroke, with consummate delicacy, the submachine gun propped on a stand. And the soft moaning drones on.

Imma, Imma'leh, where are you? Abba, Abba'leh, where are you?

"They'll be right back, Neta, you'll see, I promise. They haven't forgotten us."

And, in fact, a few minutes later, there is a flash of light and a honking sound, and Moran, who has found his family's hideout, quickly crosses the road, enters the guardhouse and sweeps up his children and hurries all three into the warm bosom of the car.

"I'm sorry, Abba, I'm sorry. We lost track of time."

Moran and Efrat's heads are both wet, and his daughter-i n-law's big jacket is spotted with mud and bits of leaves. Ya'ari fixes his eyes on the young woman sitting in the front seat next to her husband and avoiding his gaze, even refraining from touching her two children squeezed beside him in the back, as though her turbulent soul is not yet ready for them.

"Grandpa put me in a tank," the boy announces proudly.

"Well done, Nadi," his father gushes, "see what a great grandpa I gave birth to?"

The two children laugh.

"Not true, you didn't give birth to Grandpa, he wasn't in your belly," Neta declares.

"Grandma Daniela gave birth to Grandpa," Nadi says, chortling.

Moran hugs them and kisses their heads. And Efrat's eyes, their sandy blue color deepened by the rain clouds above, melt for her children, and she extends a caressing hand.

They've made up, Ya'ari concludes in a flash, judging by the confined soldier's effusiveness. And really, why sit in some unfamiliar café and waste the limited time together with gripes and recriminations, when you can go out into nature, and in the cold and rain of winter salve your wounded relationship with a quick coupling? There will come a time to remember well this Hanukkah holiday, the car's owner smiles inside, as he warms himself in the back, cramped between the children's safety seats; maybe a third grandchild will be born of it. Yes, a bright bloom is returning to Efrat's face, and her calm look, lingering on her husband, is not merely free of disdain but even appreciative of a man who knows how to make the most of a short interlude, and how to recognize, under his wife's rain-drenched battledress, the yearning of her flesh.

And really, why not? Disaster, as we have seen, sometimes lies in wait only a footstep away, so why bicker with your beloved, when you could take pleasure in him? In two days Daniela will return from Africa, and he knows she will want, as always, on her first night home, to know what happened to her husband day by day and hour by hour while she was away. And although she does not like him to speculate about their children's sex lives, this time he will insist on telling her how he stood with the grandchildren at the gate of the camp, exposed to thunder and lightning, while her son and daughter-in-law were out making love in the fields. Yes, he will withhold nothing from her. And therefore, on second thought, he will not spare her the blue video hidden between Baby Mozart and Baby Bach, lest she stumble upon it as he did. But really, why shouldn't she know? In three years she will be sixty, and she is mature enough to understand that there is wilder libido in the world than she has previously imagined. After all, she herself, before she disappeared through the departure gate at the airport, was the one who spoke the words real desire.

DIDN'T FORGET HER? Daniela laughs, astonished, and removes her feet from the opposite armchair, a movement that tilts her a bit backward. But how so? We exchanged at most a few words at the end of the flight.

"True," says the elderly Englishman as he elegantly gathers the skirts of his white bathrobe and sits down carefully in the vacant chair. They exchanged only a few words, but he remembers every one of them and regrets that he had not begun to converse with her at the start of the flight, to hear more about the late sister and the soldier killed by his comrades' friendly fire, and especially about herself, who she is and what she was smiling about the whole time with such tranquillity. But since during most of the flight she preferred to look out the window, as if deliberately avoiding him, it would not have been polite to interrupt her. Was the view really so fascinating, or did she think him not sober enough for conversation?

"Both."

But does the lady really believe that such a veteran drinker as he could become intoxicated during a flight of less than one hour? How many drinks did the stewardess bring him? Two? Three?

"At least five," she says, and smiles at the purplish, white-haired Briton, who sits before her naked under his bathrobe, gazing at her with admiration.

Five? Really? She counted them? Nevertheless, he did not depart the aircraft drunk.

"There was no way of knowing, since two stewards came quickly and took you in a wheelchair. Now I gather they were from this farm of yours. But what matters is that now you are completely sober, and you can apologize to me…"

To apologize to a pretty woman is a singular pleasure… but, all the same, for what?

"For giving me a calling card from this farm and telling me it was yours, although you are just a patient here."

Correct, says the Englishman, laughing heartily, he is just a patient, but a senior patient, a perennial patient, who returns here every year of his own free will for treatment, and he may thus be considered a bit of a shareholder too. But if she demands an apology, he will readily supply one. Yes, he is sorry that he misled her. He is sorry. There is nothing easier for an Englishman than to utter those words. From the moment he saw her maintain her aristocratic composure when she was detained at the departure gate, he found her attractive, and even more so during their short conversation at the end of the flight. And so, although he knew that the chances they would meet again were exceedingly slim, as she had told him that her visit to her brother-in-law would be brief, he had the notion of planting a little lure, like a hunter seeking to trap a rare animal. And in the end it succeeded, for here she is.