A. Yehoshua - Open Heart

“You know that too?” I cried in genuine admiration. “And even smaller and less significant details too,” said Lazar with a sigh, and closed his eyes in agreeable weariness. “That’s what I’m here for. I also know, for example, that Professor Levine might employ you as a substitute in his department until June.” “July,” I said, trying weakly to correct him. “No, only until June,” he stated decisively. “The position’s only available until June. But what does it matter — June, July, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime we’ll have to wait until he gets better, because he insists on clarifying some little thing with you.” “Clarifying?” I whispered. “It’s no big deal,” said Lazar dismissively. “Didn’t Hishin tell you? He’s bothered by the blood transfusion you gave Einat.”

“Yes, so I’ve heard, but I don’t understand what bothers him about it.”

“I don’t understand what his problem is either. Hishin didn’t get it either. So you’ll have to talk to him yourself and explain exactly what your intention was. He’s a fair man, but impatient.”

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked. “Something or other,” said Lazar, smiling faintly to himself. “But what exactly?” I persisted, consumed with curiosity about my future employer’s mysterious disease. Lazar exchanged a glance with his secretary, who apparently knew the secret of Levine’s disease but warned Lazar with a look not to reveal it to me. “Never mind, never mind.” He waved his hand to silence me, and all of a sudden he cocked his head in a gesture of profound attention. “Here comes Dori, I can hear her footsteps.” Neither I nor the secretary, who also inclined her head slightly, could hear any footsteps — on the contrary, the silence in the wing only seemed to deepen. But Lazar insisted that he could hear his wife’s footsteps in the distance, by virtue of the strong bond between them, which had upset and excited me during the trip to India. And sure enough, we soon heard the sound of footsteps, soft but self-confident, and joy flooded me as I discovered that I too was able to recognize them. She hesitated slightly outside the door of the next room, but then advanced briskly toward the door of her husband’s office, which she opened quietly but without any hesitation, smiling her warm smile. She entered the room, dragging her left foot slightly and definitely surprised to see me, but greeted the secretary with an affectionate hug and kiss before she turned to me and asked, repeating her husband’s formula, in the same tone of mild rebuke, “What have you been up to? Where did you disappear to?”

“Where did you disappear to?” Lazar interrupted her angrily. “What took you so long? You said you’d be here by six and it’s already twenty past seven!” “Don’t get excited.” A tender smile spread over her plump face. “You can’t tell me you didn’t have plenty to keep you busy in the meantime.”

“That’s not the point,” he said petulantly. But he was obviously pleased by her answer, and he stood up to collect his belongings. “Tomorrow I’ve got a crazy day. But look at the nice present we’ve got for you here.” He handed her the photographs, which she snatched from him with a childish cry of delight, and still without meeting my eyes, she slipped her cape off her shoulders and said enthusiastically, “And we thought that we must have overexposed the film by mistake.” She immediately opened her umbrella to dry in a corner of the room, sat down calmly in the armchair between the two giant plants, took off her glasses, and began to examine the pictures one by one, at the same time gladly accepting the secretary’s offer of a cup of tea and overcoming Lazar’s objections that they were in a hurry to get home with a smiling protest: “Just a minute, let me me relax for a minute, I’m freezing to death.” The secretary, who seemed happy to wait on her, now turned politely to me to ask me if I would join them, and although I was already standing poised on one foot, ready and perhaps also eager to leave, I couldn’t refuse, and suddenly I felt the full power of the hypnotic mystery riveting me to this woman, clumsy in her winter clothes, her freckled face flushed, her bun coming unraveled again, crossing her legs, which the black boots made even longer, and studying with open enjoyment and occasional soft laughter the pictures of herself and her husband on the trip, which according to him they had already almost forgotten.

The quick-thinking secretary, who judging by her bare fingers and the time she had on her hands was presumably single, brought in a tray with three cups of tea and slices of a cream cake left over from some private party in the administrative wing. Lazar’s wife thanked her in her usual enthusiastic and exaggerated style. “You’ve saved my life, I’m completely parched. All afternoon I’ve been running around with my mother making arrangements for an old-age home.”

“Your mother’s going into an old-age home?” the secretary asked in surprise. “Why? I met her in a café a month ago and she looked wonderful.”

“Yes,” said Dori complacently, as if she were personally responsible for her mother’s appearance, “she’s just fine, she manages by herself, but when we were in India she heard that a place had become available in an old-age home she had put her name down for a few years ago. We’d almost forgotten about it, because nobody seems to die there, and even though she’s independent and she could go on living alone in her apartment, she’s afraid to lose her place there. What can I do? We have to respect their wishes.” She turned her face to me, as if surprised by my silent presence, and in the almost intimate tone which had come into being among the three of us in the last days of the trip, she repeated the question I had not yet answered: “Well, what have you been up to?” When she saw that I was groping for an answer, as if I weren’t sure what she had in mind, she went on to ask companionably, “Have you recovered from our trip yet?” Although I was gratified by her use of the word “our,” I was still unable to come up with a graceful reply, and I stammered awkwardly, “In what sense?”

“In what sense?” she repeated, perplexed by my pedantic question. “I don’t know … You looked a little sad and depressed at the end.”

“Depressed?” I whispered, completely taken aback, and somewhat hurt by the fact that my secret love had transmitted not warmth but depression. But I was nevertheless pleased that she took an interest in my moods. “Sad?” I smiled at her with faint irony. “Why sad?” Her eyes immediately looked around for her husband, to have her feelings confirmed. But he had lost patience with this idle chatter, and after clearing the papers and files off his desk and snapping his briefcase shut, he stood up and ostentatiously switched off his desk lamp and sent a look of open hostility in the direction of his wife, who was still eating her slice of cake. “We thought you were sad,” continued Dori, “because of losing your place in Hishin’s department.” Lazar, who was already putting on his short khaki raincoat and briskly pulling a funny fur hat onto his head, interrupted confidently, “Don’t worry, we’ve found him a temporary job in Levine’s department.”

“The internal medicine department?” said his wife enthusiastically, and turned to me: “Well, are you pleased?”

“Yes,” Lazar answered for me, “why shouldn’t he be pleased? You heard for yourself what Hishin said about him all the time: he’s a born internist, and he’ll be able to do a good job there.” And when he saw that his wife was still slowly sipping her tea, he said impatiently, “Come on, Dori, you’ve had enough, we have to get home.”