A. Yehoshua - Open Heart

And then the guide removed his dark glasses, revealing slightly bloodshot eyes, and spoke of the reincarnation of souls, and the doctor secretly clenched his fists and bowed his head in silence, and after the guide concluded, he paid him the exact sum agreed on between them and sent him away without a tip, and instead of going down to the river again to see it in daylight, as he had planned, he turned slowly, feeling rather depressed, in the directionof the hotel. It was five o’clock in the afternoon, and the softness of the fading light was suffused with unfamiliar scents. By now he was already in possession of a map of Delhi, and he could find his way without having to ask anyone directions. He sat down in a restaurant and looked at the throng streaming past, and to his astonishment, among the many tourists hesuddenlyrecognized Lazar and his wife, who was still wrapped in the morning’s Indian scarf, walking past him at a distance of a few paces away, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and vanishing into a shop that sold textiles and rugs. How strange, he thought, to bump into them of all people in a city of millions, in this little alley of all places. How strange, he repeated to himself, quickly gulping down his tea, waiting for the moment when they would emerge and he would go up to them to dispel his gloom with her smile, and to compare what they had managed to see today with what he had seen, and to find out if there was some additional sightseeing obligation that he might fulfill in his last hours in Delhi. But they didn’t come out of the shop. The cup stood empty before him, he had already paid the waiter, and he smiled to himself at the insatiable lust for shopping displayed by this fat middle-aged couple. In the end he went to look for them in the shop. But they weren’t there, even though the shop was not a large one and there did not appear to be any other way out. Here was a riddle: suddenly they appear and then they disappearagain? This story is beginning to get mysterious, he whisperedto himself, not yet pronouncing the word itself but only its adjective.

He reached the hotel at seven, a whole hour early; he figured they must have emerged from the shop and slipped out of his sight when he was paying the waiter and checking his change. He positioned himself on a soft leather sofa in a corner of the lobby not far from the reception desk, with his suitcase and knapsack next to him. Now he could survey the guests going in and out at his ease, paying special attention to the Indian women, never mind their age, in an attempt to discover the point at which a Westerner, with a rather shy sexuality, like his own, could connectwith them. And then he thought of his parents, and he decidedto call them, not because they would be worried, but simplyin order to hear the reassuring sound of their voices, for they too were to some extent responsible for his being here. But the reception clerk was unable to put through a direct international call from the hotel phone, and told him to go to a post office some distance away. The young doctor had no desire to forfeit the sofa he had taken over and decided to postpone the phone call. It was already eight o’clock, and the duskhad deepened, but the Lazars had not yet appeared. He felt no anxiety or anger, but only a gentle wonder. The street visible through the hotel entrance did not sink into silence and darkness as it had the night before, but took on a festive appearance; many new oil lamps were brought into the hotel lobby, and people walked past in festive attire. With a strange pleasure he said to himself, those two are crazy, their daughter needs them, she’s lying sick hundredsof miles away from here, and they’re strolling around and enjoying themselves like a couple of provincial tourists, looking for bargains among the Indian shmattes. But at nine o’clock he realized that something really had gone wrong. He remembered Lazar’sslogan, “So we won’t get on each other’s nerves,” but still he felt no bitterness or anger, only a sense of profound wonder. His return ticket to Israel was in his wallet; he had all the documents he needed with him. If they really disappeared, he would be his own boss again, and he would even be at liberty to go home.

At five past nine he picked up his luggage, left a message at the desk, and took a rickshaw to the train station. Perhaps they would make it at the last minute, even without their luggage. But from the minute he entered the heart of the storm in the old station — wherethe quintessence of travel fever raged in its purest, most hectic form, flooding the place in a dim yellowish light full of smoke and smells, swarming and groaning in the cars crammed with people, which belched out and sucked in bundles and mattresses from every possible opening — the doctor felt the last vestige of hope of finding the couple draining out of him. Nevertheless, he resolutely elbowed his way through the crowd, passing from platform to platform and finally reaching the right train, and the exact compartment, which turned out to be handsome and modern, with the air-conditioning lending a European chill to the air. The four seats looked comfortable, ready to be converted into narrow bunks for the night. The dark, opaque windows turned the travel fever of the station into a scene on a television screen. Was he going to wind up traveling into the depths of India on his own and against his will in order to meet a sick and unknown woman for an undefined medical purpose? he asked himself with the mild irony he had inherited from his Englishfather. And the wonder and loneliness he had been feeling all day welled up in him with a new intensity and washed away the remnants of his anger and disappointment. Now his soul was flooded with a sweet wave of mystery.

This is not yet the mystery itself, but only its sweetness, which has now been born not from the external reality existing outside the dark window but from the inner depths of this young doctor himself, who was introduced by Professor Hishin to his friend as the ideal person for the journey. For only the superficial eye of a tourist would seek to find mystery in the Indian train, for instance, which suddenly begins puffing and moving slightly to and fro, presumably in order to take on additional cars, toward which tall Tibetan monks in orange robes hurry, gently but firmly rebuffing obstreperous beggars, some of them real lepers with amputated limbs, thrusting themselves between the legs of porters carrying enormous bundles of rolled-up mattresses for a group of merry pilgrims passing along the platform. Delicate women flit among the throngs like moths, an intelligent third eye shining in the center of their foreheads and guarding them from bumping into Sikhs with wild black beards and carrying daggers, who are obliged — even they — to impatiently circumvent the solitarywhite cow which has innocently found its way into the stationand is now nibbling the sparse grass growing next to the platform, indifferent to the savage looks of the lean, half-naked Indians clambering over the cars and struggling with the train officials, who are trying to force them down from the roof of one of the ancient trains, where they are strapping their bundles and themselves between the iron railings and settling down for the night.

No, in all this feverish activity in the old train station of Delhi the young doctor sees no mystery, nor even the faintest shadow of its sweetness. He sits quiet and still, five minutes before the train departs, in the right compartment on the right seat (he has repeatedly checked and asked), his suitcase and medical kit on the shelf above his head. In this serenity, which is almost joyful, submitting to the task to which an invisible hand has appointed him, a clear and genuine sign comes to him, and he cannot resist whispering to himself, as the train starts slowly gliding from its place, It’s not possible, they really have disappeared, those two, and it’sa real mystery. And now a thin-facedold Indian nodsto him as he enters the compartment, dressed in a light-colored Europeansuit spotted with ancient stains and carrying a shabby little suitcase in his hand, and makes him a little bow, careful to avoid the cup of tea that the train steward placed on the tray a few minutes before. He sits down shyly, takes a pair of cheap metal glasses with one cracked lens out of his pocket, and opens a Hindi newspaper. And anyone who now hears the ineffable word whispered naturally and spontaneously in his ear is finally at liberty to put it carefully down on the paper in front of him.