A. Yehoshua - The Extra

“When will that time come?”

“You’ll know when it comes.”

“Ima caught a glimpse of your wife during intermission at Masada and told Honi she looks like me.”

“She doesn’t look like you.”

“Or reminded her of me.”

“She doesn’t remind.”

“What’s her name, by the way?”

“Osnat.”

“My mother saw her at intermission, waiting for the restrooms, and not knowing she was your wife, just from a casual glance, she told Honi that she looked like me.”

“She doesn’t look like you.”

“But my mother wouldn’t just make that up. She’s a smart, practical woman, and she also gave birth to me and knows me. And of her own free will she stated that your wife looks like me.”

“She doesn’t.”

“Maybe there’s something similar that you don’t notice?”

“She doesn’t resemble you in any way.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely. If she resembled you, why would I be here?”

“Because you still love me, even though you’re the one who broke off the marriage, not I.”

“True…”

“In which case, why exactly are you here?”

“My love is playing tricks on me.”

“Who is your love? A separate entity from you?”

“Yes, a separate entity. Who tags along even after the separation from you.”

“A love with chutzpah.”

“Yes, separate and rebellious and cannot be tamed.”

“I might tame her, take her by surprise.”

“How?”

“I have a whip. I bought one in the Old City to use on the haredi kids who were breaking in here, but in the end I was afraid to do it. But this disobedient love of yours deserves to be whipped. Wait, Uriah, you’ll see.”

She dumps the remains of the egg in the garbage, puts the dirty dishes in the sink and goes to the bathroom to wash her face and put on makeup along with the appropriate smile, which she checks in the mirror. But she keeps on the nightgown that thinly veils her nakedness. She wonders where she left the whip, then remembers, but when she comes back with it in hand she finds Uriah standing sadly by the apartment door, holding his briefcase, ready to leave.

“Here,” she says, putting the whip in his hand. “An old whip, a real one, which over the years beat many a camel in the desert, will now whip your love until it lets go of you.”

Astonished, Uriah holds the whip. He then snaps it spontaneously to see how far it extends.

“You’re insane,” he declares with satisfaction, “and it’s madness that needs whipping, not love.” He whips the big sofa, the two armchairs, even the television, which trembles under the blow. Then he gives her back the whip and says, “That’s it, Noga, enough. Everything is imaginary and absurd except for work, which I’m late for.”

And as much as she feared he would come, it hurts her now that he’s leaving, for this time it will be forever. When her brother asked her to join the experiment, she never imagined he would also bring in her former husband, yet now she is trying to delay him.

“Wait, Uriah. Before we say goodbye, just tell me what your job is now.”

“Same job.”

“Meaning?”

“At the Ministry of Environmental Protection.”

“How great you’re still there. I was so proud that you worked in a field that had value. Even in Holland I tell friends and colleagues that the man who left me is not only a stubborn person but a positive person.”

“Please…”

“That’s what I thought and that’s what I think. That’s why my love for you never fully died. Tell me, have you stayed in the same department, where you were a deputy? You haven’t been promoted?”

“Now I am the director of a department.”

“A department. How many people?”

“Twenty.”

“A small department, but undoubtedly important.”

“A department that deals with garbage, recycling, packaging…”

“And that’s the most ethical part,” she gushes. “Really important. It’s the future. If only I could recycle myself.”

“Too late,” he quietly hisses. “The rot has proliferated.”

“So why don’t you let go?”

“Because I feel the pain of the unborn child.”

“Then wait, and we’ll make another effort to understand. If you’re the head of a department, nobody will punish you for being late. Don’t go. Let’s talk a little longer, then you’ll go… Just a second, somebody or something is standing outside the door. Please don’t leave now.”

“YES, THERE’S KNOCKING at the door. You expecting someone?”

“No. I wasn’t expecting you either. Maybe it’s your wife, coming to show me the kids.”

“Don’t talk that way.”

“But my father—”

“Your father had the right,” he interrupts angrily. “You don’t.”

Standing at the doorway is a Hasid, dressed in black with a broad-brimmed hat, his beard and sidelocks soft and flaxen, beautiful emerald eyes shining through the thicket of hair. With a gentle smile he proffers a glass bowl piled with fruit and says, “A little something from my mother and father to your mother. They should all live and be well.”

Behind him hides a child, he too wearing black and a hat, a schoolbag on his back, his head bowed but his eyes alert.

“Yuda-Zvi!” she happily exclaims. “Here you are again.”

And now she recognizes Shaya, the handsome son of the Pomerantz family, who in their youth would sometimes chat with her on the stairs with no barrier between them, in complete freedom, before he was dispatched to a distant yeshiva.

“And you too, Shaya,” she adds excitedly, her face burning. “I’ve been living here for three months, and I even had a strange sort of romance with your clever son. But you, where are you these days?”

“I’m not far from here,” he explains graciously, “on Ovadiah Street in Kerem Avraham, but during the week I teach up north near Safed, which is why we haven’t run into each other.”

“A shame, because your Yuda-Zvi would drop in here freely via the gutters and down the drainpipe, and bring along a mixed-up little tzaddik . By the way, where is he?”

Shaya smiles. “The tzaddik , as you call him, Shraga, he should live and be well, was sent away to Safed, to a family with the patience and heart for children like him. But here is Yuda-Zvi, coming to you to ask forgiveness, because we know what he has done. Right, Yuda-Zvi?”

“Right,” the boy confesses in a whisper.

“And the fruit is for your mother, lovely fruit from the Galilee, the vineyards and orchards of Mount Canaan. Your mother phoned my father yesterday to tell him she was returning to the neighborhood, and we wished to congratulate her on her decision and give her our blessing.”

“Of all of us, it was your father she told first,” she murmurs, astonished.

“Maybe it was easier for her that way.”

Insulted, she does not take the fruit from him, motioning for his son to come to her. The boy hesitates, looks pleadingly at his father, who nudges him forward. She clasps the child to her bosom, stares him in the eye and says, “Now do you understand that because of stupid television, you and your little tzaddik could have crashed to the ground?” Yuda-Zvi nods, and she strokes his sidelocks, straightens his hat, lightly kisses his forehead and eyes and returns him to his father, who watches with a smile and sways back and forth with immense devotion.

Only then does she take the fruit bowl from Shaya, placing it on top of the TV and indicating Uriah, who still stands with briefcase in hand. “Maybe you recognize him,” she says. “This is Uriah, my former husband, who is on his way to work.” Uriah, red with embarrassment, extends his hand, but when she extends hers too, Shaya quickly drops his hand and moves it to the doorframe, covering the mezuzah as if to keep it warm, until he and the boy depart.