A. Yehoshua - The Extra

“Strange and profound.”

“Yes, well, Debussy’s Impressionism was inspired in part by Japanese art, and on the cover of the original score of La Mer from 1905 was a huge wave, a tsunami, by the Japanese printmaker Hokusai.”

“I didn’t know that, haven’t seen it. When’s the picture from?”

“Hokusai lived from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. There were devastating tsunamis then too, it would seem.”

“Wonderful,” says the harpist, “wonderful. La Mer is a piece that will lift my soul. When do we leave?”

“In ten days’ time. Dennis returns tomorrow from America, and will rehearse the orchestra and conduct the performances. And so, our Venus, your vacation is over.”

“It was hardly a vacation, but if you insist, you can call it one.”

“I won’t insist if you tell me exactly what happened,” says Herman solicitously. “But vacation or not, now it’s back to work. First of all the music library, to organize the scores for the various instruments, and at the same time check on Debussy’s Danse Sacrée et Danse Profane .”

“The Sacred and Profane Dances for harp and strings!” she shouts. “Herman, I am beside myself, I’m so happy. You mean I can be a soloist in Japan?”

“For now these are ideas — they still need to be discussed. But if you were upset about the Mozart you missed, here are two Debussys to console you.”

Herman reaches for the Jerusalem pipe.

In high spirits, she hurries to the library and finds the score of La Mer: a pocket-size version with small print. She skims rapidly through the three movements: “From Dawn to Midday on the Sea” to “Play of the Waves” to “Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea,” and happily confirms that both parts for harp are rich and varied, sometimes in unison, sometimes in conversation. She rushes back to the orchestra’s main office and gets the key to the basement storeroom. The heavy instruments in storage — the bass drum, xylophone, two contrabasses and an enormous tuba — cast shadows in the sparingly lighted room. Her harp had made the trip to Germany, but the second harp, the old one, stands cloaked in its pinkish case. With great care she uncovers it and begins tuning the strings. It’s not easy to tune the elderly harp, whose presence is needed in but a few compositions alongside the first harp, but she doesn’t give up until all forty-seven strings are proven ready.

This harp, built in the nineteenth century, was a gift to the orchestra by a provincial gentleman who thought he was donating an antique of great value, which was not the case. Despite its regal frame, painted several times over in reddish gold, the wood is quite ordinary, and worms that feasted on it over the years have left little holes that sometimes muffle its tone. But now she holds it close to her heart and for a full hour warms up her fingers with fast and slow glissandi, also improvising her own little melodies. Only after she is warmed up and her yearning has been satisfied, her thoughts turn to her mother, alone in the Jerusalem apartment. Will the new “wealth” she acquired in her imagination help her acclimate without regret to the solitude she chose?

Noga exits the basement and walks out to the street as night slowly falls in the Netherlands. A fine European rain sweetens the air. She goes back to the musicians’ café, where the owners greet her fondly. Her sojourn in Israel to assist an elderly mother has raised her stock in the eyes of the Dutch; they all have parents or relatives whose dilemmas of old age will involve them, or already do.

“She returned to her old apartment in Jerusalem,” Noga announces triumphantly.

Only natural, declare the restaurant owners, and a longtime waiter offers his approval: “Hard to give up Jerusalem.”

Noga corrects him: “It’s easy to give up Jerusalem, but Tel Aviv is too expensive.”

While she enjoys some of her favorite foods, she entertains the woman proprietor, who has sat down beside her, with tales of her adventures as an extra.

“And you didn’t play for three months?”

“Only once, for just a few minutes — in the desert, by a historic mountain covered with ruins.”

That night she phones Jerusalem, but there is no answer. She calls Honi to ask about their mother. He knows nothing, hasn’t called her since they parted the night before. “If she insists on Jerusalem, she should enjoy it however she likes,” he snaps. “You and I have done our part.”

The next day she works for hours at the music library, organizing all the parts in the piece. She makes sure no instrument is left out, carefully marks the cues and phrases for each one. At twilight she returns to the orchestra’s office, carrying in her arms a sizable bundle of scores, and sees the weary musicians get off the bus that has brought them home from Germany and help each other unload instruments from the truck that followed. She watches from afar as her harp is slowly wheeled to the storeroom, but does not yet approach it. Everyone is glad she is back. The aged flutist overflows with affection and calls over a tall, pale woman with hard eyes and a bitter smile. This is Christine, her understudy. Belgian, from Antwerp, French by tongue and temperament, awkward in English and Dutch.

“Your harp, it has a strong sound,” she informs the Israeli. “I tried to play it gently.”

“Thank you,” says Noga, extending her hand to the woman, whose belly, under a light pastel sweater, signals early pregnancy.

“And what is happening with your mother?” asks the harpist who took her place in the Mozart.

“Yes, what did she decide?” chimes Manfred.

Other musicians, despite their fatigue and eagerness to get home, want to know what an old mother in faraway Jerusalem has decided.

These Dutch people have no other worries, Noga thinks, chuckling to herself. Their wars ended seventy years ago, and they glow with self-satisfaction. They knew when to give up their colonies in Southeast Asia and have been spared the new wave of terrorism. The euro is stable, their economy is strong, and unemployment is low — so all they have left to worry about is my mother.

“She decided to stay in Jerusalem,” she tells the musicians gathered around her, “which I expected all along.”

In the evening there is still no answer in Jerusalem, and the daughter leaves a voicemail message: “Where’s the new heiress?” She immediately phones her brother, who spoke with the mother in the afternoon, and reports that now she’s complaining that because of the experiment they imposed on her, she barely saw her daughter in those three months. From now on, will she have to meet her only in films?

Her mother calls that night. Yes, she’s been spending time in town, with friends in cafés, going to movies, but the Uriah story has stayed with her. “Your visit, Nogaleh, still hovers over me like a dream. You were in Israel for three months and I barely saw you. I did learn from you to wander at night from bed to bed, but my sleep is hardly sound.

Noga tells her about the change in repertoire, the trip to Japan and about The Sea of Debussy, which in French sounds identical to la mère , the mother. “So in Japan,” she consoles her mother, “I’ll be playing you on my harp.”

“At least that,” sighs the mother, ending the conversation.

IN THE MORNING SHE GOES to the music library, where she finds a score of Debussy’s Sacred and Profane Dances . She makes a photocopy and gives it to Herman, who says not a word and places it in a drawer. In the evening, the orchestra members gather at the concert hall for a briefing about the trip to Kyoto. In fluent English, the cultural attaché of the Japanese embassy in The Hague provides information about their lodging near Doshisha University in Kyoto, and shows impressive slides of the auditorium and the temples of the holy city and environs. Four concerts are scheduled for orchestra subscribers, and three more are planned in two southern cities — Kumamoto and Hiroshima. Finally, since the musical director has not yet arrived, the administrative director of the Arnhem orchestra goes over the specifics of the repertoire, which will include Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto; a rotation of Haydn symphonies 26, 92 and 94; the Melancholy Arabesques by Van den Broek, for it is important to include a contemporary Dutch composition; and, of course, as requested by the Japanese, the orchestra will perform La Mer . The Japanese pianist who broke her arm playing tennis in Berlin has recovered, and will make her own way to Japan, where there will be two rehearsals of the Emperor , a piece both she and the orchestra know well. The orchestra has also played the Haydn works in recent years, so four rehearsals in the coming week should suffice. The focus will be on Debussy and the Arabesques , which is a complex and difficult piece, but is fortunately only eight minutes long.