A. Yehoshua - A Woman in Jerusalem

The ride into town wasn’t long. Even so, when the consul complained of having to miss breakfast because of her husband’s impatience, the resource manager didn’t hesitate. Opening a carton, he took out the bread and cake.

The baked goods took everyone by surprise, as much by their freshness as by their unexpected appearance. The hungry consul was not alone in asking for seconds. The boy wanted more, too, perhaps feeling that it brought him closer to his mother. To the distress of the resource manager, who wished to leave something for the grandmother, their appetites, sharpened by the cold, clear morning, quickly polished off the carton. At least, he thought, the old man will be delighted to know what a hit his products were. Reaching for his phone, he dialled Jerusalem despite the early hour, certain the owner would be happy to hear from him. The housekeeper, recognizing his voice and aware of his mission, reported that the master had gone to synagogue for Sabbath services and would be back soon.

“Services?” The human resources manager was astonished. “I’ve worked for him for over ten years and never seen an ounce of religion in him.”

“What you see from up close you don’t see from afar,” the housekeeper answered sententiously, and offered to take a message. But the resource manager did not wish to reveal his new plan — certainly not in English — to an Indian housekeeper. He asked her to inform the owner that his products had been appreciated and promised to call again later.

The journalist, having helped to carry the coffin, had become a character in his own story and now felt entitled to ask for the use of the phone, a handy instrument if ever he had seen one. Not wishing to appear stingy, the resource manager gritted his teeth and let the weasel chatter with friends and family while the white stone buildings of the city drew nearer. How, he wondered, would his mission, of whose moral sublimity he felt more and more convinced, look in the pages of the weekly?

The weasel was still bantering over the phone as they entered the city, a provincial capital. Their first stop was the large building that housed the consulate — that is, the consul and her husband’s apartment. After backing carefully into the courtyard, they unloaded the coffin, placed it in a shady corner among the garbage cans and piles of firewood, and covered it with a tarpaulin.

The time had come for their little group to split up. The emissary would ascend with the consul to her apartment. The consul’s husband and the driver would go to make arrangements for the expedition to the dead woman’s village — the former planned to take the letter from Central Pathology to a doctor who could tell him how long a trip the corpse might withstand; the latter had to look for snow tyres. The journalist and the photographer were to be dropped off at a small hotel and the boy left at his father’s to prepare for the journey to his grandmother’s. They would soon be reunited, all except for the ex-husband — who, his role ended, must now part from them all. This was more easily said than done, however: he clutched his son as if hoping to trade him for a bounty paid out by a world that had done nothing but betray him. Sensing his despondency, the human resources manager offered him the second carton as a farewell gift. “What’s in it?” asked the man in surprise, reaching into his pocket for a jackknife and slitting the cardboard top. He quickly went through the pads, notebooks, and binders and feverishly ransacked the carton’s bottom; then, eyes burning with humiliation, he spat and swore roundly. The consul and her husband hastened to calm him.

“What did he say? What does he want?”

The man, so it seemed, was enraged more by the affront to his ex-wife’s dignity than by any to his own. She had been an engineer, like him, with a diploma — how could the resource manager have made her stoop to the level of a cleaning woman?

“I made her?”

“In your capacity as personnel manager,” the consul said.

“And what did you tell him?”

“That he should be grateful she was given a job at all and not thrown into the street when her boyfriend left her.”

The resource manager shook his head. “That’s not what you should have said,” he declared, with a compassionate glance at the ex-husband, who was still holding on to his son. Seen in the shadows of the courtyard, the boy’s exquisitely formed features made the emissary feel slightly drunk. If I’m not careful, he thought, his father won’t let him come with us. The man needs encouragement. Taking out his wallet, he extracted several large bills and held them out. As the ex-husband reached for them, the photographer’s camera flashed. The consul and her husband exchanged worried glances. The driver, standing to one side, turned pale. The ex-husband was speechless. Although he had hoped for more than notebooks and writing implements, he hadn’t dreamed of anything like this.

“That’s way too much,” the consul whispered to the resource manager. “You’ll spoil them.”

“Never mind …” The emissary smiled and stuffed the bills into the engineer’s jacket pocket, as much to forestall any objection to his son’s joining their expedition as to draw a final line between him and the dead woman. The man seemed well aware of his role in the bargain. Without even a thank-you, he took the crumpled bills, straightened them one by one, counted them silently in front of everyone, and slipped them sombrely into his wallet before murmuring a few choked words.

“What did he say?”

“That the money is his by right. Just imagine!”

“Perhaps it is,” the resource manager said generously. He laid a hand on the engineer’s shoulder and patted the boy’s head. “You’ll use up all of your film,” he warned the photographer.

“Don’t worry. I brought lots more.”

“He has to shoot a thousand frames,” the journalist said, “to find one he likes. And that’s always the one the editor rejects.”

The consul’s apartment, though old and small, was pleasantly domestic. Taking off her fur coat and wool cap, she went to the bedroom and returned in a colourful house robe that lent a touch of exuberance to her tall, peasantlike figure. After all the bread and cake she was still hungry, and she now went to the kitchen to prepare a late but proper breakfast for herself and her guest. Brandishing a knife as she appeared and disappeared in the kitchen doorway, she told the resource manager about the consulate as he sat sprawled on a creaky, none too steady couch. Basically, her position was honorary. When their farm in Israel failed, during the last recession, she and her husband had decided to get back on their feet by returning to their native land. To avoid the appearance of outright emigration at a time of daily terror attacks, they had proposed establishing, in exchange for the rent, an Israeli consulate that would provide services and advise the occasional tourist who came here from Israel or the even rarer local resident who wished to visit it. Now and then they also had to deal with dead bodies, which travelled in both directions.

“Dead bodies from here, sent to Israel?” The resource manager was amazed. “You mean that happens, too?”

“Of course. An Israeli mountain climber can get killed in a fall, or a hiker may freeze to death in a river. Or else someone is careless enough to be murdered in shady circumstances. This is a big, varied country. It may be poor and primitive, but it’s also fabulously beautiful, especially in summer and autumn. It’s a shame you had to come at this time of year …”

The manager snorted. So did the couch beneath him. No one had asked at what time of year he would like to visit. His own desires had been irrelevant …