A. Yehoshua - Friendly Fire - A Duet

But the doctor has warned him that Parkinson's disease can get worse during a high fever, and the last thing Ya'ari wants today is illness complicated by rekindled love. So without shaving or changing his work clothes, he drives to his father's house to check the boundary between the physical and the mental.

The old man's eyes glisten. The fever imparts an attractive ruddiness to his cheeks. He sits up in bed, propped by pillows, and asks right away about the winds in the tower. Ya'ari tells him about the organ holes left in the shaft by chance or on purpose.

"This is how it ends," old Ya'ari says with resignation. "When you treat foreign construction workers poorly, they leave a little souvenir in the building before going back to their country, and now try hunting them down in Romania or China."

"Why are you so sure it was done deliberately? Maybe it's just by accident?"

"Accident?" the old man sneers dismissively, " accident is always the easy way out for someone too lazy to think."

The son is too exhausted to argue with the father. Doctor Zaslanski will not arrive for another hour, and since Hilario is already awake, Ya'ari asks Kinzie to change the sheets and make him a fresh bed in his old childhood room. A little nap of an hour wouldn't hurt. The Filipinos are happy to carry out this request. You are very tired, Mister Amotz, they chide him. Instead of your wife's trip giving you some rest, it has tired you out. What time does she land?

"Five in the afternoon."

"You want a clean pajama of your father?"

"No."

His childhood bed gives off a sweet smell, perhaps from something Southeast Asian. The room is familiar and foreign all at once. Still standing is the bookcase they bought him when he entered high school, and his old chair is still in place by the desk. But there's a mishmash of other furnishings from other rooms, such as the night table that stood next to his mother's bed, and a wicker basket from the bathroom, and there are also various accessories from the Philippines — colorful posters and lamps, and a real or fake telephone in the shape of a dragon. Ya'ari takes off his clothes and gets into bed in his undershorts and long-sleeved T-shirt, and hopes for a sound and soothing sleep that will render him fit for the reunion with his wife.

He drops off at once, and his sleep is heavy, though at times real voices drift through. He hears the reassuring bass voice of Doctor Zaslanski, familiar from his childhood, explaining what to give the old man for his fever, adding, Don't worry, let Amotz sleep, don't wake him. And Ya'ari clings to his blanket and silently thanks his childhood doctor, and sinks deeper into the marvelous slumber.

And he dreams. Workers carry a mass of metal and drop it with a clang on the floor and speak Romanian or Chinese. And here he is again in the shaft of the winds, but this time the shaft does not extend up high but lies flat like a tunnel, and the elevators are like cars in a coal mine, and he can walk alongside them as they move. But instead of coal they transport tenants dressed in black, wearing glittering gold chains around their necks. And Ya'ari escorts them, flashlight in hand. He walks between the fencing and the tracks and suddenly feels an urgent need to urinate. But where? Cars filled with tenants pass by incessantly, emanating from a source of light and riding into the darkness, and because the cars have no roofs, and the tenants are all looking in his direction, he has a hard time finding a hidden corner. On the side of the shaft he notices a tangled spider web, and he edges toward it and decides to wash it away with the powerful stream from his bursting bladder.

He wakes up in time and rushes to the toilet. Through the living room window he sees a different light. It's afternoon. At the end of the corridor, near the entrance to the apartment, sits Gottlieb's piston.

"What is this?" he demands. "They delivered my father's piston here?"

"Yes, two workers brought it around noon, because Gottlieb says there's no room for it at the factory."

"Bastard," Ya'ari grumbles, "suddenly he has no room for the piston. Why didn't you wake me? I would have made them take it back."

"It would not have helped," Francisco answers evenly, "because your father agreed. The piston made him so happy."

Ya'ari sighs and leans against the wall, drained.

"How is he?"

"He is getting better. His fever is going down."

Ya'ari looks at his watch. Unbelievable, three-thirty in the afternoon.

"How could you let me sleep like that?" he scolds Francisco.

"Your father wouldn't let us wake you." Francisco says, smiling, showing all his white teeth. "But only till four," he said, "so you don't miss your wife."

THIS TIME, THE small plane lands far from the terminal in Nairobi, and a dilapidated bus is brought over to fetch the passengers. Daniela, who hoped for a direct transit to the next flight, is forced to go once more through passport control and customs. How long will you stay here? asks a policeman, who is also the customs officer. I didn't come here, she answers with a sad smile. I am just passing through, I will stay for only two hours. Nevertheless they open her suitcase and search it, and even remove the contents of her toiletry bag, but the dry bones do not arouse any interest.

And again she goes through the metal detectors, and wheels her suitcase behind her till she locates the same teeming cafeteria where she can wait for the flight home. The layover is not six hours but this time she is not the same confident woman, carving out a territory for herself. She doesn't dare pull over two extra chairs, to put her feet up on one and her bag and suitcase on the other. She makes do with an empty seat in the heart of the hubbub, crowded among other people's tables, and when she tells the waiter with a faint smile, Just coffee, she bows her head.

Fear and anxiety in anticipation of returning to Israel. Merely imagining the possibility that Amotz will discover what happened fills her with horror. That strange look of Yirmiyahu's when she left him — what did it mean? Anger? Hope? Shock? He did not say a word about what had happened that night, perhaps because he felt sorry for her. And although ordinarily she hates the idea of anyone feeling sorry for her, now it is what she wants. Leaving aside the bite on the shoulder, the mere fact that her breasts were touched by his lips means that she gave him, out of pity, a deed of ownership. Now she is in his hands, whether he returns to Israel or not. And maybe precisely because of his sense of honor, and his deep ties to her and Amotz, he will refrain from coming back. Who knows, the strange thought occurs to her, maybe this was her hidden agenda: to prevent him from coming back, so he could not poison her family, her children and grandchildren, with his friendly fire.

The waiter sets down her cup of coffee and requests immediate payment, as he is about to conclude his shift. She pays and tips him well, but is unable to lift the cup to her lips, as if it contained bitter medicine. Crowded and cramped between Africans and Europeans, she suddenly hears some Hebrew. She doesn't lift her head. In this grimy cafeteria, she wants total anonymity. God willing, time will numb her shame.

The digital display now shows a delay of half an hour in the takeoff for Tel Aviv, which pleases her. Two young Hasidic men dressed in black — obviously local emissaries of Chabad who have managed to get into the terminal — circulate among the tables scrutinizing the clientele, seeking Jewish passengers. They take a good look at her too, and she quickly averts her eyes. To avoid giving them any pretext for approaching her, she pulls out the novel she bought for the trip and opens it without enthusiasm to the final chapter.