A. Yehoshua - The Extra

Slowly the guardian of the pregnancy begins to relax. First he stands by the office door, trying in vain to overhear the conversation inside. Then he sits down on a bench in the hallway, stretches his legs, sees no one around but Noga, takes a single cigarette from his shirt pocket and sticks it in his mouth. But before he can light it there is the sound of rapid footsteps in the corridor, and Dennis van Zwol arrives in a panic, summoned by management to deal with the incipient dropout. Identifying the progenitor of the bad news, he knocks the cigarette from the man’s mouth with the flick of a finger and growls in French, “No smoking!” Turning to Noga, as if she too were responsible, he says in Dutch, “Tell me what’s going on? What’s the story here? What was she thinking?” He doesn’t wait for an answer but disappears into Herman’s office to fight for the integrity of the repertoire.

Noga looks at the boyfriend, who retrieves the damaged cigarette from the floor, shreds the paper and collects the tobacco in his hand. Without a word or a glance at the harpist, he sits back down, determined to guard Christine’s pregnancy at all costs. Now Noga takes a closer look. His dark skin is velvety smooth, his thick curly hair is black as coal, and the northern blueness of his eyes blends the world into one country. Her heart is heavy. From the speed with which the conductor was summoned, she gathers that it will be hard, if not impossible, to find a harpist at the last minute who will be able to get ready overnight for such a long and distant journey. After so many exhausting, exhilarating rehearsals, Noga thinks with a pang of despair, will Debussy be forced to cede his place to some same-old Schubert or hackneyed Beethoven?

And now her memory conjures a movie extra, a disabled woman in a wheelchair waiting outside the closed door of a room that masqueraded as a hospital room. There too, beside her, stood a stranger, a handsome actor whose bare chest gleamed under a white gown. An imaginary doctor whom she would soon be directed to surprise in the midst of forbidden lovemaking, and he, spontaneously, would pluck her from her wheelchair and, with a mixture of anger and pity, carry her in his arms to her sickbed and cover her, as if to blot out the shame he had brought on himself.

But now there is no director to tell her what to do. She has no choice but to direct, produce and write her own script — to give voice and movement to her thoughts so that her harp will play a piece of music whose beauty floods her soul. She gets up her nerve and approaches the man in overalls, who sits on the bench with his eyes closed and head tilted back.

“Excuse me, sir, may I have a few words with you?”

He opens his eyes.

“I wanted to tell you that although I respect your concern, you are going too far. Now you are not only making things harder for Christine, but for the entire orchestra.”

He tenses but doesn’t interrupt.

“Millions of pregnant women,” she says, raising her voice, “travel, fly, go about in the world, and nothing happens to them.”

“It takes all kinds,” he says offhandedly.

“After all, our Christine will not be asked to climb mountains in Japan, or dance in discotheques. On the plane she will rest. Others will lift and wheel her harp, so she will only need to put her fingers on the strings and play.”

“I know,” he snaps, “but still.”

“In general,” she insists, “the female womb is far stronger and steadier than men imagine, and pregnancies have survived wars, poverty and famine, even concentration camps.”

Now he is irate, but remains calm.

“Yes, I also sometimes pay attention to what goes on in the world, but Christine is not in good health and not young, and it was not easy for us to get pregnant.”

Although Noga is rebuffed at every turn, she believes that the fate of the sea is in her hands alone.

“You should also know, sir,” she says, sitting down next to him on the bench, “that in our orchestra there are women who have given birth to children and have a lot of experience, and we have a violinist and an oboist who are grandmothers and were present at the births of many babies.”

With an ironic gesture he salutes the mothers and grandmothers, but does not yield.

“I have respect for them all, but what can they do if she starts to bleed, or if to save the pregnancy she has to stay in bed for a long time, and in a strange and foreign country?”

“Why strange? Maybe foreign in culture and language, but otherwise everything in Japan is modern and rational, often more so than here in the West.”

“You have been there?”

“No, but everyone knows that about Japan. Besides, Christine will not be alone. We will all be with her, look after her.”

His patience runs out.

“But there will be visits to temples and flights to Hiroshima and other cities. Christine is a fragile woman and not young, and this pregnancy is important and precious for us. We cannot take chances.”

But Noga won’t give up. She has not played a concert for three months, and she is desperate to perform in front of an audience.

“Excuse me, sir, can you tell me your name?”

“Saharan.”

“May I ask where you are from? Where you were born?”

“In Iran, in—”

“Tehran?” She tries to be helpful.

“No, in a place you never heard of.”

“Then please,” she implores, “please, sir, trust me. I personally pledge to be with Christine at every moment of the trip. You were at the rehearsal, and perhaps you noticed the dialogue between the two of us, two harpists who have not only a professional partnership but also a human one, so it’s natural for me to take personal responsibility for her well-being.”

“Who are you, anyway?” He tries to get to the root of her stubbornness.

“What do you mean, who am I?”

“Am I allowed to ask a question?”

“Of course.”

“You speak with such confidence — how many children have you given birth to?”

“How many children?” She smiles uneasily and gets up from the bench. “How is that relevant?”

“Why not? After all, you are asking me to trust you.”

She shudders.

“I haven’t yet given birth, but…”

And to her surprise, he is not surprised, as if he anticipated her answer, but instead of puncturing her arrogance, he studies her with interest and asks gently, “Why? Because you couldn’t?”

“No. I could, but I didn’t want to.”

Now he won’t let go, as if her promise to watch over his partner’s pregnancy has exposed her to the same blunt challenge voiced by Elazar, the eternal extra, at their first meeting, though now in a foreign language: “How do you know you could, if you didn’t want to?”

“I know… I know.” She holds on to the scene that is disintegrating in her hands. “If I want to, I can have a child.”

“Of course, and we shall all pray for his health,” he graciously promises, in his name and in the name of his partner, who at the moment is being badgered by her bosses. “Meanwhile, until your wish for a child is awakened, respect our wishes, for we need our child, and no music has the right to stand in the way.”

As he speaks, his fist springs open and flakes of tobacco scatter like sand. Since he is loath to kneel down before her and pick them up, he stands and brushes them aside with the toe of his shoe. And to indicate that the conversation is over, he strides to the end of the corridor, opens wide a small window, lights a fresh cigarette and expels the smoke into the world.

BEFORE THEIR DEPARTURE, the orchestra played a farewell concert for the residents of Arnhem, with tickets for sale at a token price. As a replacement harpist had not yet been found, a frantic request was dispatched to Kyoto to find a musician who could assume the part of second harp in the work by Debussy, but since no reply had arrived, the orchestra held an urgent rehearsal of Schubert’s Ninth Symphony, the “Great,” a piece they’d played dozens of times, so if necessary they could plug the gaping hole in the program. Noga’s trip, and that of her harp, was assured, but it was not clear whether she would have the chance to perform. Will she be reduced to a mere extra in Japan too? She asks Herman to take from his drawer the score for the Sacred and Profane Dances for harp and string orchestra, hoping a way might be found to compensate her with a public performance of this work.