A. Yehoshua: Friendly Fire: A Duet

BUT SHE HAS not sought out a small, quiet corner; instead, she has tried to improve her seating arrangement in the big cafeteria. A white-haired man helped her relocate her little table to a more remote corner, and after a waiter set down her sandwich and coffee, she wandered among the tables and found two more chairs, set her rolling suitcase and purse on one of them and put her feet up on the other, to rest them thoroughly and restore her ankles to their normal shape. When she opened her suitcase, she was tempted at first by the bundle of Israeli newspapers, but instead, with a small sigh and few expectations, took out the new novel she had bought at the airport.

And so, amid the racket of cups and dishes, the babble of unintelligible languages, and smells of coffee and roasted meat begins an encounter between an older woman, who is an experienced reader, with a fictional woman of thirty or so who from the first page is prone to self-pity. In a feverish but confusing monologue, she seeks the reader's sympathy for her unspecified plight. But what exactly am I supposed to care about or identify with, complains the traveler, if the author has no sympathy with her own character? Out of respect for the written word she keeps turning pages, while now and then glancing at her ankles, propped on the chair as if on the sofa back home. Eventually she kicks off one shoe and then the other, and contentedly rubs together the soles of her small feet.

The windows of the coffee shop are narrow and filthy, and the light that filters through is insufficient. The noise and smells also inhibit concentration, but she has got used to the small territory she has captured and is settled in for a long wait. True, she could right now be enjoying the hospitality of her former student, whose husband would surely have returned her to the airport on time, but then she'd have to listen to her hostess, thank her, smile, and act impressed. Yes, conversation comes easily to her, nor is it hard for her to accept kindness or even coddling from others. But the distress she would have felt over breaking the promise to her husband would have poisoned the pleasant interlude. When she's with him, she can easily deflect or defy his loving concern, but when she is alone it paralyzes her and makes her feel ashamed.

Never mind, she removes her glasses and wipes them clean, thinking the hours will pass. I have no choice, and neither does Time. Despite the chaos around her, she feels confident, and she is close to the departure gate. She takes out her passport to check her boarding pass, which normally her husband would carry, and after trying to decipher its details uses it to mark the page in her book, returns the passport to her purse, and puts the novel in her suitcase. Then she smiles warmly at a young couple seated nearby, a European man and an African woman playing merrily with a child who is an attractive mix of his parents' genes. After securing their agreement to guard her territory for a few moments, she puts on her shoes and heads purse in hand down a dim corridor toward a kiosk she recalls from the previous layover. It's there still, colorful and well-stocked as before, and the vendor, an older, very black man, fills for her a good-sized bag with sweet and sour hard candies and assorted bars of chocolate. After brief hesitation she also selects, from a bright glass bowl, a candy in the shape of a parrot, glittering with specks of colored sugar and perched on a little branch. She'd coveted it the last time, but Ya'ari had vetoed it as unsanitary. Now, loaded with sweetness, she returns happily to her table and after insisting that not only the boy, who is her own grandson's age, but his parents, too, partake of the candies, she opens her novel to the bookmarked page and with dignified and guilty passion begins to lick the forbidden candy.

THE HOURS PLOD along, the rain continues to fall, the wind stiffens. Francisco phones and in his gentle English requests Ya'ari's guidance. Despite the storm, his father is insisting on his morning walk.

From time to time Ya'ari is called upon to adjudicate a dispute between his father and the Filipino, and generally he decides in his father's favor, even when the old man's wishes seem eccentric. He has no reason to believe that the disease that in recent years has caused trembling in his father's hands and feet and greatly slowed his gait has also undermined his judgment. True, since the onset of his illness the old man has sunk into depression and his speech has grown halting and spare, but Ya'ari, who has always honored his father, feels that his core remains strong and that despite being cooped up at home he has kept his clear sense of reality.

"It's okay," the son assures Francisco. "Just dress him warmly, put the black poncho on him, and make sure he wears a scarf and hat."

"But Mister Ya'ari, Abba's hat is missing."

"Then find him another. Just don't take him out without one. The last time you forgot, he caught a cold. Attach the canopy I made for the wheelchair and don't walk around the streets. Take him to the playground, so if the rain gets worse you can shelter under the awning by the slides. It's okay if he gets a little wet. The smell of the rain makes him happy. He likes the wind, too."

"You want to say something to Abba?"

"Not right now. Just tell him that in the early evening I will come to light the candles with him."

"Hanukkah candles…"

"Bravo, Francisco. You've got it."

Still preoccupied by his wife's layover, Ya'ari postpones one of his meetings until midafternoon and sets out early to meet his son. But when he sees that the rain has not let up — indeed has intensified — he decides to detour to the playground near his childhood home to watch his father's excursion.

Beyond the windshield wipers, he sees the slight figure of Francisco, all bundled up, slowly pushing his father's wheelchair among the slides and seesaws of the empty playground. The caregiver has indeed wrapped the old man properly in a scarf, covered him with the black poncho, and placed on his head a red beret from Ya'ari's army days.

He waits till the wheelchair has completed its tour and begins to head in their direction. Although his old beret nearly covers his father's eyes, Ya'ari senses and savors the pleasure of this old man who is stronger than wind and rain.

NEITHER THE AUTHOR of the novel nor the character she has invented succeeds in arousing Daniela's sympathies. She reads conscientiously, never skipping a line, but still has no sense of the heroine's inner life, not even when, on [>], she pays a belligerent visit to her parents' home, intending to bolster her self-pity by reviving a childhood grudge. Daniela finds the nasty fight artificial and unconvincing. The author doesn't seem to understand that at the heart of family animosities there is a warm intimacy that does not exist among warring strangers. She props her legs up on the suitcase that stands on the floor, since the waiter has swiped one of her chairs for a group of tourists who came flooding in, but when he returns to claim the chair holding her big purse — implying that the old white lady's mere coffee and sandwich do not justify her taking root — she puts on her shoes and wheels her bag toward the departure gate.

The gate is at the end of the corridor. The door to the runway is locked, and there is no fellow traveler in the small, desolate waiting area. The three hours remaining until takeoff are a dreary and demoralizing prospect. For the first time since she decided to make the long trip to her brother-in-law in Africa, she is annoyed with her husband for not insisting on joining her. True, she knew that his presence would not always fit in with the memorial she planned for her late sister. But now, in the empty room with the locked door, she needs him. She has depended on his presence for so many years that now it is like a soothing drug in her bloodstream. He should never have allowed her to go off alone. Yes, in a few hours she will be welcomed by her brother-in-law, who calls her Little Sister, but on the phone he seemed unclear as to the purpose of the visit she is imposing on him, and she sensed that he may even fear it a little. For her part, she finds his reasons for returning to the continent where his diplomatic job had been eliminated equally vague. Was it really just to save money for his old age? And what exactly does he do there? He is already past seventy, and she knows that her sister, who loved and trusted him, would be happy to know that someone from the family was watching over him.