A. Yehoshua: Friendly Fire: A Duet

"Not in your honor, I just didn't have time. At night we dealt with the winds in the tower, and in the morning Francisco needed me because my father ran a high fever, and while waiting for Doctor Zaslanski I fell asleep in Hilario's room, and then I had to rush to the airport."

"And you didn't shower?"

"I can't shower there, with all of Abba's stuff in the tub."

"You can only sleep there."

"Sleep and dream."

"And what about your father?"

"His fever went down."

"And you didn't go to the office today?"

"They let Moran out of his confinement this morning, and I sent him to the office to replace me."

"So, in short," she says, gently touching his stubble, "you had a wild time."

"If that's what you call a wild time."

"You know, in work clothes and unshaven you actually look young and cute."

"So I'll stay like this."

"And the winds?"

"Just as I thought, the fault is in the shaft. There were lips and holes in the wall, left there by accident or maybe on purpose, that have the effect of a church organ."

"A church?" she says, laughing, "so what will the tenants do? Cross themselves and pray?"

"The construction company should pray for mercy from the insurance company. Gottlieb and I are off the hook. But wait a second, Daniela, we have to call Moran and tell him you landed. This time, maybe since he was sitting in the army camp with nothing to do, he worried about you even more than I did."

"More than you?" she says, slightly stung.

"After hearing your voice and Yirmi's from Dar es Salaam, I calmed down completely."

"And did you miss me?"

"I didn't have time to miss you." He smiles, knowing this hurts her, attempting to prick this thin crust of estrangement that he did not anticipate. He unlocks the car with the remote control, and instead of putting the suitcase in the trunk, he seats it like a passenger in the back.

"As it happens I did have time to miss you," she says seriously as she buckles her seat belt, "and also to be angry."

"Angry? About what?"

"That you didn't come with me."

He is surprised and not surprised.

"And I thought that's what you really wanted. Quiet time for yourself. To revive childhood memories, undisturbed by someone who doesn't belong."

"After thirty-seven years of marriage," she bursts out, "it's high time you understood that my sister is not only mine but yours, and Yirmi, who is stuck out there, is your affair too. You should have insisted, not let me go alone."

"But how?" he says dumbfounded, "it was you… you…"

"You… you…" she mimics him, "yes, but I'm also allowed to be wrong sometimes, and you could have understood and prevented the mistake."

He grins at this. "How could I understand that you were mistaken, if for thirty-seven years you've made sure to convince me that you always know what's right and what's not when it comes to the family?"

She falls silent, only looking at him with a pained expression.

"But what happened there? Why was it a mistake to go there alone?"

"Later."

"At least give me a hint."

"Soon. First you. Tell me about the children, and what happened with Moran and the army."

"He blew off his reserve duty again, but this time they caught him. It was the adjutant of the battalion, an old friend of his from officers' training, who made sure he was confined, and they're going to put him on trial for his previous absences. In the end they'll probably strip him of his rank. That's it, Daniela, no more officers in the family."

"And in your opinion this is a tragedy?"

"Not a tragedy, just a small painful disgrace."

"Not in my opinion. I don't need any more military glory. You should know that Yirmi out there is not just grieving for Shuli, and she wasn't the one we talked about most of the time. He's bogged down in pain and rage over the Eyal story, with ramifications and private investigations we didn't know anything about. The 'friendly fire' you planted in his brain won't let him go."

"I planted in his brain? Me? What is this, you came home ready for combat? Excuse me, I didn't plant any fire, nor could I. He planted it himself. I just tried to soften 'shot by his own forces' with something that's maybe also slightly ironic…"

"Okay, don't get upset, maybe I was wrong."

"Your mistakes are coming at me so fast, I'm not used to it. What's going on?"

"Enough, let it go, I didn't mean to cast blame, just to express regret that you didn't come with me and help me deal with a difficult and miserable man. But not now. I'll try to explain later. Meanwhile, say a word about the grandchildren."

"Sweet."

"And Nofar?"

"Friendly for a change."

"You kept in touch?"

"Kept in touch?" he says, taking offense. "I personally took care of every family member. First Efrati, I made it possible for her to go to a party on Friday, and all night I babysat the kids who screamed and cried. And on Saturday I drove her and the children to Moran's base, and wandered around in the pouring rain with the kids to give her and Moran — I will elaborate later on — quality time. As for Nofar, I was with her in Jerusalem not once but twice. And on top of all this I had my father, who after you left turned into a lion in love and lassoed me into taking care of a private elevator belonging to an old flame of his, an amazing old lady in Jerusalem. You should have seen the way my father schlepped me back and forth. I was not just a devoted father and grandfather to them all but a good son too."

"So you really did have a wild time," she says with a smile.

"Too wild. Life overwhelmed me from every direction. But what's going on there, in Africa? When does Yirmi intend to come back?"

"He's not coming back. He doesn't even think about returning. Africa, he says, enables him to disengage from everything."

"What's that mean, disengage, and what's everything?" Ya'ari says dismissively. "Is there such a thing as everything? And even if there were, how is it possible to disengage from it? Forget it; Daniela, I know Yirmi no less well than you do. He has no choice, he'll come back in the end."

WHY DOES SHE suddenly find so oppressive the glaring urban milieu that surrounds her? The elephantine towers scattered about the Tel Aviv megalopolis, the giant advertisements morphing one into the next, the aggressive drivers to the right and left, entering and exiting the highways? Even the luxurious front seat in the big car flusters her, as if she still yearned for the backseat of a sputtering Land Rover driven by a sad woman from Sudan.

Her husband talks and she listens, but her attention wavers. Because he is used to her fascination with little details, he tries to convey moods and tones of voice, and weather and colors and smells, happy to recount his activities to her to prove his effectiveness and skill. So he loads his wife with every minutia, not even sparing her his discovery of an erotic video between Baby Mozart and Baby Bach.

"So what'd you do with it?"

"I put it back where it was. What am I going to do with a tape like that?"

"Nonetheless, you watched it."

"Only the beginning."

"And what was in the beginning?"

"What else? Some young woman, a little scared."

"So you really did live a wild life when I wasn't here," she says, sticking to her theme.

"And what about you?" he says in jest. "A wild death?"

"I fought against death," she says, seriously.

"What do you mean by that?"

"First finish your story."

"I've already covered the main points. But first let's get organized."

Their house is dark and cold, and she asks him to turn on the heat. Exhausted and sad, she doesn't linger in the kitchen with him but goes straight up to the bedroom, takes off her shoes, and plops down fully dressed on the unmade double bed that her husband abandoned in the middle of the night. The blanket brushes the floor, and his pajamas are in a heap near the pillow. But instead of feeling at home in the most familiar place in the world, she is unsettled by the many possessions around her. After her spartan lodgings in Africa, her bedroom seems stuffed with extraneous objects. Unnecessary closets and shelves, baskets filled with empty perfume bottles and dried-out compacts. Even the family photos on the walls — she and her husband, children and grandchildren, and the last picture of her nephew — seem excessive in number.