A. Yehoshua - The Extra

Everyone smiles at the word “adorable,” and the cultural attaché translates the adjective for the old man, who erupts with laughter, his mouth nearly toothless. Again he presses his palms together and distributes bows in a semicircle to the entire group.

“And what is his name?” asks Noga. “I should at least know his name.”

“Ichiro Matsudaira,” says the attaché, and the old man who hears his name spoken bows once again.

He just might bow to us while playing, thinks Noga, wondering if she should extend her hand to him, but thinks better of it and instead bows deeply and recites her name: “Noga, which means Venus.”

And the old man whispers reverentially, “Venus,” and bows heartily in return.

At the conclusion of the bowing a monk emerges from the temple and admits only the maestro and the Japanese harpist, and the rest of the group heads into the garden.

AS NOGA PREPARES for the night in the room she is sharing with her seatmate from the plane, her mobile phone startles her. Her brother Honi, his voice as clear and sharp as if he were next door, wishes to know if the flight went well.

“Is it you who’s concerned, or did Ima lay her worry on you?”

“I don’t worry about someone who knows how to take care of herself, but Ima is here with me, and she misses the sound of your voice.”

“Ima is still with you in Tel Aviv?” she asks, astonished. “Why, what happened?”

“Ask her, but I doubt you’ll get a reasonable answer. Anyway, before I hand you over to her — in one word, how was the flight to Japan?”

“We flew over the North Pole.”

“And what’s happening there?”

“The sun. It never sets.”

“And Japan?”

“Pleasant and strange, but it’s only the beginning.”

“Anyway, take care of yourself. Here’s Ima.”

The mother’s voice, soft and tentative, seems to have changed.

“Something happened or is happening in Jerusalem that makes it hard for you to go back there?” the daughter asks bluntly.

“Yes… I mean, no… nothing special… and if there is something, then it’s not clear. But don’t worry, because I realize I’m a burden here and I have to leave, that’s clear to me, so you don’t need to remind me from Japan. Not to worry, I won’t stay, it’s just that all of a sudden it’s hard for me to go back to Jerusalem, somehow because of you.”

“Because of me?”

“Because ever since you left I can’t stop thinking about you… that dream… and on top of that Uriah’s visit. But wait, first you. What’s going on with you?”

“Everything’s fine. Tomorrow is the first concert in Kyoto, but it’s not worth going into at length in an overseas call to my cell. It’s very expensive, also for me—”

“Please, don’t worry about the money. I already explained to you that after my release from assisted living I’m a rich woman, so please, send me your phone bill, just don’t stop me now.”

“Okay, talk, even though it’s late here. But please, don’t talk about me, talk about you. What’s bothering you all of a sudden?”

“About me is about you, and about you is about me. After all, it’s you who promised to play me on your harp, so I’m also playing you, in my heart.”

“Lovely. In other words?”

“The dream you told me about is disturbing, painful.”

“It’s a dream, Ima, only a dream.”

“Right, only a dream, but your visit in Israel also seems like only a dream. You were here three months and I barely saw you.”

“Because you and Honi asked me to look after the apartment.”

“Right, but you looked after it too much, and I was stuck with that pointless experiment in assisted living. But it’s okay, our intentions were good, and with the same goodwill your visit flew by.”

“But Ima, what’s going on now? How’d you get stuck at Honi’s?”

“Stuck, that’s the right word. You know me, this is something new, because I don’t get stuck anywhere. I got stuck here because I’m afraid to go back to the apartment, because maybe Uriah made himself a copy of the key and he’ll surprise me there.”

“Uriah? Ima, why Uriah?”

“You weren’t fair to him. I’m telling you straight. If you’re playing me on your harp, listen to what the harp plays back. You weren’t fair. If you loved him, and you did love him, you should not have aborted his child.”

“Ima, just drop Uriah, he is irrelevant now, he came and went and won’t come back, he has a wife and two kids and he doesn’t need me, and certainly not you.”

“No, it’s not that simple. Don’t think that everyone else is an extra, without a mind of their own or power of their own. You were wrong… I don’t want to make you angry now, before the concert, but if you think you’re playing me, you should pick some better notes… That’s all. I shouldn’t have let you run away from Israel before explaining to me what’s going on with you.”

“I didn’t run away, I came to help you decide. Honi asked me to.”

“Honi has one story, I have a different story… Don’t worry too much about him. He’s fine, and tomorrow I’ll set him free and go back to Jerusalem. What time is it there? Morning?”

“Morning? Why morning? We’re in the Far East, not the West. The sun went down here hours ago. Now it’s late, eleven at night. I’m staying in a room with an older woman who doesn’t understand Hebrew, but would surely like to go to sleep.”

“An older woman?”

“From the orchestra, a contrabass player, a grandmother, a good woman—”

“A contrabass player must be a big strong woman.”

“She actually is as you imagine her, but skinny and delicate people can also play the contrabass, in fact any instrument. Here, for example, the second harp will be played tomorrow by a tiny Japanese man.”

“Tiny Japanese man?”

“Really tiny. A little old man.”

“So you’ll have an interesting challenge, the dialogue with him. Good thing you’re sleeping tonight in the same room as a big strong woman who’s a grandmother — it will give you confidence, as if I were sleeping beside you. Tell her hello from me, and that she should protect you.”

“Ima, what’s with you? Why protect me?”

“Because I still think Uriah won’t give up on the child you didn’t give him.”

“How?”

“Maybe he’ll come again, this time to me.”

“To you? Why? In what way are you responsible?”

“I’m responsible because I gave birth to you. I’m responsible because I didn’t know how to guide you in life. The least I can do for him is sympathize.”

THE SNORING THAT THE CONTRABASSIST had warned of in advance indeed disrupted Noga’s sleep. At first she tried to muffle her ears with a pillow, but it was no match for the snores. With no alternative, she left the room in hopes that the snoring might wake the snorer. The guesthouse was dark and silent, with a dim light in the stairway. She went down to the dining room but found it locked, and the front door was locked as well, but a rear door turned out to be open, with trees whispering in the park beyond.

The night is pleasingly cool, and she is drawn into a thicket of trees whose overcrowded roots have emerged from underground to twist around the trunks. Along the paths are bushes decorated with tiny light bulbs, apparently left over from some celebration, that calm her nerves with their childish innocence. She steps on, bathed in the sweet, familiar fragrance of fresh-mown grass. From the middle of the garden comes a murmur of human voices, borne on a bluish cloud of harsh tobacco smoke, recalling the cheap cigarettes Uriah was addicted to in his army days. She follows the smell and the voices, arriving at a handsome wooden gazebo, in front of which are gathered a dozen or so young men and women, most likely students from the university, smoking and talking, and planted among them, to her astonishment, is the little old man who came from afar to be her partner. He sits on a bench, barefoot, his legs folded under him. He wears the same gray robe, with the same pack tied to his back. But his white braid is unraveled for the night, and the mane of hair framing his face gives him the look of a sweet old Japanese woman from an American movie about World War II.