A. Yehoshua - A Woman in Jerusalem

“They don’t get along,” the consul explained to the emissary. “When we came to tell the boy about his mother, he wasn’t home. Neither his father nor his stepmother knew where he was or when to expect him. Since returning from Jerusalem a few months ago, he’s been depressed. He hangs out in the streets, plays truant from school, and appears to have fallen in with criminal elements. His father didn’t want to break the news to him. Besides fearing a hysterical reaction, he didn’t think he would be believed. He wanted us to do it, and we had to wait until midnight for the boy to come home. At first, as the father predicted, he was in a state of denial. He had just received a letter from his mother; how could she be dead? He even took it from his pocket to show us. It had been written a day or two before the bombing and said she was postponing a planned visit from winter to spring because she had to look for a new job. We tried to reason with him. We showed him the postmark and swore to him she hadn’t suffered. But the more we talked, the more he clammed up; we could see that he wanted us to go away. It was only when my husband told him that the coffin was arriving in two days and that he would have to sign for it and authorize the funeral that he changed his tune. He started to cry and scream at us, to curse his own mother, and to threaten that he wouldn’t sign anything. We could bury her in the market where she died! We could burn her body and scatter the ashes in Israel! He wasn’t going to solve our problems for us. And if she did have to be buried here, his grandmother could sign the papers. She had sent his mother to Jerusalem — now let her answer for her blood.”

“ She sent her to Jerusalem? How’s that?” asked the resource manager.

“Who knows? You can’t tell what he’s thinking. Not even his father can explain him to us. We’re stuck with him …”

“Wait a minute.” The resource manager’s eyes were still on the wrestling match, which was now coming to an end. “How old did you say he was?”

“Fourteen at most. But he’s mature for his age, mentally and physically. You’ll see for yourself. Being so isolated in Jerusalem gave him a tough skin. I’m told his mother worked the night shift.”

“That wasn’t our doing. She asked for it because it paid more.”

“Whatever. I understand. But he spent those nights roaming the streets and falling in with a bad crowd.”

“A good-looking boy like that attracts people,” remarked the journalist, who seemed to consider himself an equal partner in the conversation. “Just look at my photographer: he can’t stop shooting him. I tell you, he’ll be the lead picture in my article.”

“Wonderful!” The consul, unaware that the newspaper was only a local weekly, was impressed.

The resource manager turned and strode towards the boy, who was now gripped tightly by his father. In the icy, intensifying light, his pure, finely chiselled face and wet, wonderfully bright eyes were more pronounced. The arch in their upper corner, like a prolongation of the brows, made the emissary’s heart skip a beat.

“I still don’t get it,” he remarked to the consul, who had followed him. “Couldn’t you have found the grandmother and brought her here?”

“What are you talking about?” The consul was flabbergasted. “This is a big, backward country and communications are rudimentary. It was all we could do to get word to her via someone from a nearby village. She’s gone on a pilgrimage for her New Year and won’t return for several days.”

“Well, then,” the resource manager said briskly, “we’ll wait until she does and then fly her here.”

“How will you do that?” The consul’s astonishment was growing. “Do you have any idea where you are? There’s no airport anywhere near her.”

“How about a helicopter?”

“A helicopter?” The consul let out a groan. “I can see you’re in dreamland. What helicopter? Just think of the distance. Who’ll pay for it?”

“We’ll do our share,” the emissary said cautiously. He had an urge to meet the dead woman’s old mother. “A few months ago, I read about a helicopter being dispatched to an oil rig in the open sea, to bring the father of a soldier killed in action to his funeral.”

The consul was growing exasperated. “There’s no comparison! She wasn’t a soldier killed in action. She was a temporary resident of doubtful legal status. I’m warning you for the last time: Don’t expect the world you’re in now to resemble the one you’ve come from. Conditions are different here. They’re tough, and in winter they’re downright primitive. Things you think should be possible aren’t. Forget it!”

“What do you mean, forget it?” The resource manager was losing patience, too. “We’re talking about the legitimate request of a boy who’s lost his mother. Being a temporary resident didn’t keep her from dying in Jerusalem. Like it or not, we’re responsible. It’s our job to let her family attend her funeral. There’s no choice. Why should I apologize for sympathizing with the boy?”

“We all sympathize. But sympathy won’t bring the old woman here, especially in the middle of the winter. Don’t even think of it!”

“But why not?” He flushed at the consul’s bluntness. “You’ll excuse me, but I didn’t come all this way not to think of our government’s incompetence. On the contrary. I’m here to see to it that competence prevails. I’m a human resources manager and I know what a mother’s death means to a boy, even if he pretends not to care. Why shouldn’t we bring his grandmother to mourn with him? If not by air, then by land …”

“You can forget about that, too. The trip from her village takes several days and you can’t count on transportation. She could never manage it by herself even if she wanted to. I don’t understand why you’re so obstinate about not burying a coffin you brought yourself.”

The emissary rebuked her sharply. “First of all, I did not bring it. It was sent by your government and mine. I accompanied it as a gesture of goodwill. And second, the funeral can be postponed. That’s not a problem. I have a document from the Central Pathology Institute. Even if I can’t read it, I’m quite sure it’s satisfactory.”

“I swear, I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“What am I getting at?” It was a question he was asking himself as well. Yet the cold that was shrivelling him couldn’t chill his inner zeal. “It isn’t so complicated. Even if it’s only a matter of making up for a clerical error, one depicted by this journalist as a nasty case of inhumanity for which I’m here to compensate this young man” — he pointed to the boy, who could tell that he was being talked about — “that’s no reason to ignore his psychological distress. It’s based on the genuine, and to my mind legitimate, desire that his grandmother be with him at the funeral. Why shouldn’t we agree?”

“Why not, indeed? But unfortunately, this grandmother exists only in theory. Not only hasn’t she heard the news yet, she’s too far away to do anything about it when she does.”

The resource manager felt all eyes on him — the handsome boy’s and distrustful ex-husband’s too. The driver had joined them as well. Even though the three of them couldn’t follow the Hebrew conversation, they sensed that the emissary from a distant land was struggling with a new idea. Breath steaming from their silent mouths, the photographer and the journalist looked at the manager benevolently, curious to see how far he could push their story against the consul’s practical objections.

“First of all,” he said, addressing the consul with an imperious dryness, “suppose you tell me what we’re talking about. How far is it to the village?”