A. Yehoshua - Friendly Fire - A Duet

This is her last night in Africa, and perhaps her final farewell to her brother-in-law. There will be no one to bring his ashes in an urn to be buried in Israel. Has she fulfilled the goal of her visit: to reconnect, with her brother-in-law's help, with old memories that in years to come will nourish the love her sister deserves? All in all, Yirmi avoided discussing his wife, preferring to toss twigs of wrath onto the pyre of friendly fire, which he will never allow to die down. And still he complains about the prophets' lust for anger. Even if he truly took pity on Shuli, hiding from her what he dared to reveal to her sister, it's impossible that Shuli was not burned by the fierce flame he stoked inside him against a world that she still loved in spite of the death of her son.

The Israeli visitor, who generally excels at sound sleep, worries that she is in for a wearying bout of sleeplessness, which will burn itself out only as morning approaches, spoiling her good-byes as she takes leave of the place and its people. She could probably put herself to sleep with the unfinished pages of the novel, hoping that its artificiality will help her eyes to spin the first threads of sleep. She is determined to stick to her decision to save it for the two-hour layover between her flights, however, and is already planning to tuck the book into the outside pocket of her rolling suitcase, for easy access in the cafeteria in Nairobi.

Yirmi quickly disappeared after the festive meal and is clearly avoiding her. He is swept up in his idea of disengagement and is probably afraid that before leaving she will make him swear, on his love for her sister, to keep in touch with the family. Maybe he also understands that she will exploit the moment of the parting to speak up and rebut his arguments. Until now she has just listened to him, and with leading questions urged him on, and has been careful not to express any disrespect, lest he fall silent. As a high school teacher she has had to learn how to listen to the immature blather of teenagers. Which may be why she is so impatient with the adolescent rebellions of the elderly.

Actually, not only should she demolish his arguments, she should also be angry over his disappearance. Because Shuli would have been disappointed had she known about her indifferent dismissal by someone who was always beloved by the family, who was thought of as a man to be relied on, and who is now losing himself in a godforsaken place and disconnecting from everything that was important and dear to her sister. But Daniela's anger is surprisingly deflected, blown sideways, and lands squarely on her husband, the weight of whose absence is especially heavy tonight. Although tomorrow evening he will again be at her side, she feels that if he had been wiser in his love, he would not have let her make this visit on her own. He was under an obligation, even if against her wishes, to drop everything and join her, to help her fight the despair of ideas that give hope only to a pregnant suicide bomber.

Perhaps Amotz could have dealt with Yirmiyahu. Not for himself, but for Shuli, and also for Elinor and Yoav, so that they might return to Israel after their studies. Only Amotz, with his straightforward intelligence, could have wrested a commitment from Yirmiyahu to keep in touch with the family, at least till his black mood died down.

But Amotz, she thinks to herself with mild disdain, is obviously taking advantage of her absence to go to bed even earlier. She can see him in her mind's eye in his red flannel pajamas, climbing into their big bed at this very hour, surrounded by the photos of the children and grandchildren on the walls as he gathers the financial pages of the newspapers from the floor and gets under the big quilt, without feeling that he ought to be not in Tel Aviv but here, on a remote African farm, awake and ready to do battle with a man bent on destruction.

True, nihilism can be a mask for terrible personal trauma. But she knows that self-hatred cannot lead to rehabilitation. Yet she herself is helpless in confronting Yirmi and refuting him with serious arguments. She is a teacher of English: she deals with the meaning of words, with grammar, and sometimes with the analysis of characters in short stories and plays. But Amotz's head is filled with facts and figures, and he can remember the number of dead and wounded on both sides not only in Israel's wars but also in the wars of other, far away nations. When he reads at all, he reads biographies and nonfiction, which is why he can come up with examples from times and places she didn't know existed, why he is able to compare Israelis with other peoples and distinguish real blame from imaginary blame. He should have been here by her side to rein in his brother-in-law, not merely for the sake of truth, but also so there would be hope for their children and his, so that Elinor and Yoav could come back to Israel, with or without their doctorates, and produce at least one grandchild to restore meaning to his life and wipe away the strange sweetness he found in the Hebrew of a young Palestinian woman filled with hatred and scorn.

In this fierce need for her husband, mixed with resentment, she fails to notice a gentle knocking on her door, until the door moves slightly and is cautiously opened. Through it, to her delight, walks in Dr. Roberto Kukiriza, with the bones of the prehistoric ape, the one who did not manage to fit into the evolutionary chain.

She blushes and says to him, "I thought you had given up on me, or that you had forgotten your bones."

"We have not given up on you," he answers in a friendly tone, "and how could we forget our discoveries? But a few colleagues were worried that we might be unfairly involving you in a strange and uncomfortable mission. The fact that you concealed it from Jeremy also caused us some concern."

"No problem there," she promises quickly. "I am willing to tell him."

"Very good. This will pacify the doubters. For we wish to be sure that Jeremy is also at peace with what we are imposing upon you. Over at Abu Kabir they are already waiting for you."

She eagerly extends her hand, and he takes from his pocket a small cloth bag, opens it, and shows her three bones, each different from the others in size and color and shape, and suggests that she pack them in her suitcase.

"Certainly."

But he is still reluctant to hand them over and inspects the suitcase lying open on the table to find the right spot.

"Perhaps we should put them in an unlikely place," he suggests. "Perhaps in your toiletry bag. A clearly female zone they will not search."

"That's a good idea," she says, and pulls the bag from his hand.

AND SO IT has come to pass, muses Ya'ari with pride, all because of my quiet authority. Between two and three in the morning the team of six "wind people" have assembled in the brightly lit lobby of the tower, and beside them, beaming, stands a seventh: Mr. Kidron, chief of the apartment owners' association, holding two emergency flashlights powered by large batteries and silently giving thanks to the winds for not betraying him by dying at the moment of truth. The heavyset night watchman has been dispatched to the gate of the car park to ensure that no resident will show up at the last minute and get trapped between floors.

The four elevators have been stopped on different floors and must be brought together and then shut down individually. Only then will it be possible to ride on the roof of one of them, traveling slowly the full height of the shaft, casting a light on its walls. Although he carries both a master key and a triangle key in his pocket, Ya'ari prefers not to use them in the presence of the manufacturer, to avoid giving the impression that maintenance is his domain. The technician brought by Gottlieb summons each elevator in turn, shuts down the group control, and then detaches, with the triangle key, the electrical connection between the shaft door and the door of the cab, and in the end all four elevators stand before them open-mouthed, awaiting their inspection of the winds.