A. Yehoshua - The Extra

And as if he had never pretended to be an extra in a torn army uniform, his head in a bloody bandage, or hadn’t silently crept into the adjacent bed at midnight, he now stands smiling and serene, no embarrassment or apology, surveying the apartment he knows well from the years of his marriage, struck by how shrunken it seems.

“Not shrunken,” she replies, calm. “Honi threw out some old pieces of furniture, so Ima wouldn’t long for them in Tel Aviv at th-the—”

“The old folks’ home,” he says, rescuing his ex-wife from the stammer that suddenly seizes her. Not looking at her directly, and careful not to touch a thing, he is mesmerized by the apartment, drawn into the living room and bedrooms as if he were a buyer or broker and not a man come to mourn his humiliation. But Noga knows well that despite the confident façade, the jacket and tie, the briefcase that hasn’t budged from his hand, despite “on my way to work,” he is agitated by the uncontrollable adventure he has just plunged into.

“Yes, the old folks’ home,” he says, almost defiantly, as if it were the source of evil. “And for the life of me, Noga”—he is still careful not to focus his gaze—“I can’t understand why your brother, in such a quick, random encounter next to the toilets, after years of absolutely no contact, had to involve me in your mother’s old folks’ home and the question of yes or no. Obviously, it’s no.”

“Meaning?”

“That she won’t leave Jerusalem.”

At last he looks straight at her, and a beloved face sets her heart pounding.

“And maybe she’ll want to surprise you too?” She smiles.

“Me? What have I got to do with this?”

“Well, you’re here.”

“And all his small talk about the old folks’ home was just a pretext, so he could tell me you were here in Israel.”

“Why a pretext?” she says, defending her brother. “No pretext, just a simple explanation so you’d understand why your ex-wife appeared as an extra on the opera stage, and not be shocked when you saw her there.”

Uriah considers this.

“But why did he need to call attention to your performance?”

“He didn’t need to, no,” she confirms. “It was a big pointless mistake. Honi shouldn’t have mentioned my existence. Better he should have talked about the music, asked you whether or not you enjoyed act one.”

He senses the irony that has evolved over many years of separation, and concedes:

“I saw no trace of you in act two.”

“But I was there!” She raises her voice. “At first I was a smuggler and even carried a sack, and ended up with the chorus at the bullfight.”

“And I wasn’t sure if Honi was just pulling my leg.”

“No, Uriah,” she says, still defending her brother, “Honi wouldn’t pull your leg. Not a chance. He loves you. You know how he mourned over you and got angry with me when you were compelled to leave me.”

“Yes, I assumed he was serious, and so the next night I came back, because I still wanted to see you on the stage.”

“What? You came back to the opera at Masada?”

“But not in the audience. I sneaked onto the stage.”

“The stage? No way. Sneaked in from which side?”

“From the north, Noga, the north. I circled around the orchestra and got close to your little hill and followed one of your Bedouin kids with binoculars…”

“Mine?” She laughs. “How so?”

“In the cart pulled by your donkey.”

“Again mine.”

“Lucky kids. And what kind of extra were you, anyway? A Gypsy woman?”

“Gypsy woman smuggler in act two, but with the children and donkey I was just a simple country girl.”

“And you really did look young, younger than I remembered you.”

“Too bad you didn’t come out on the stage. They would’ve found a part for you too.”

He stares at her coldly.

“The conductor spotted me and got security men to remove me.”

“And then?”

“I went home.”

“But why? If you came without your wife, you could have waited for me and said hello.”

“Why? I had more than enough of you in my life, so why look for you at intermission? I also told myself that maybe a story that wasn’t ours but someone else’s was my chance to understand what was still blocked. In fact, when I saw them wheeling you around in your nightgown with an IV dangling over your head, I felt what I didn’t dare to feel all those years I was with you — that you, Noga, are essentially a crippled person. You have a defect, and so there’s no point blaming you or being angry with you. Even when you’re playing music and apparently acting normal, the sickness is nesting deep inside you. And so the question remains: why, after my decision to let go of you forever, do I come back to you again, in your childhood apartment?”

“I don’t get it either. But if you can let go of your briefcase for a second and dare to sit down, together we might discover something new.”

GLUM, SERIOUS URIAH SITS down in the kitchen, placing his briefcase on the table amid plates and cutlery, perhaps preparing for a quick getaway.

“If you take the briefcase off the table,” says his former wife, “I’ll make sure it doesn’t run away.”

“I keep it in full view not to forget that a whole world awaits me out there, and to remember not to be swept away by you.”

“Nevertheless, it’s not nice of your black briefcase to scare my soft-boiled egg.”

“Soft-boiled egg? I don’t remember your liking your eggs soft.”

“Oh, how good that someone in the world remembers things about me that I’ve forgotten. Yes, I hated soft-boiled eggs. Ima didn’t have the patience to keep boiling them, and the liquid yolk was like saliva. But now, on my own, I make up for her sins, and when I time it right, the egg tastes wonderful, and when the spoon taps the shell, even the chicken that laid it is happy.”

Scowling, he studies the woman in the nightgown.

“I didn’t learn of your father’s death until I ran into Honi at Masada. But even had I known in time, I doubt I’d have come to the funeral, or even the shiva.”

“Why?”

“Because I wouldn’t have wanted to see you.”

“But you and my father were close. I only just learned from Ima that you brought your kids to meet him, to prove that you’re innocent of blame.”

“That’s correct.”

“But who thought you were to blame?”

“Whoever.”

“And now you understand that I’m also not to blame. I just have some kind of mental defect.”

“True.”

“And if you had understood a year or two ago that because of a psychological defect I’m not to blame, would you still have taken your children to my father to prove your innocence?”

“Yes, because the boundary between defect and guilt is not always clear.”

“Would you have taken them even if you knew it caused him pain?”

“It didn’t cause him pain. He was happy and he played with them.”

“The fact that he played doesn’t mean it didn’t also cause him pain. He played with them because he couldn’t kill them.”

“Why kill?”

“So you wouldn’t bring them again.”

“I wouldn’t have brought them again.”

“Maybe you would have enjoyed another chance to taunt my parents. By the way, how did my father play with them?”

“He found an old doll of yours and put on a funny little show.”

“And you told your wife you brought her children here?”

“I don’t hide anything from her.”

“You won’t hide this visit either?”

“Not this visit either. The second trip to Masada, the wounded soldier at the port, all will be told when the time comes.”