Five Seasons by A. B. Yehoshua

Author:A. B. Yehoshua
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

12

THEY WORKED TOGETHER all morning in the office, besieged on all sides by the sound of children practicing Passover songs for a school assembly. The music teacher, Molkho had to admit, was a force to be reckoned with; the singing, coming from all the classrooms, filled every cranny of the building and inspired him to fill in the missing gaps in the accounts. By eleven, the job was finished and he knew that it was time to leave; but first he asked to see the Indian girl, who was taken out of class for him to remind her to thank her parents. She nodded, darkly solemn behind her big, funny glasses, dressed in her leotard again, and Molkho, who felt sure that hard times were in store for her, was overcome by pity. Damp-eyed, he could not restrain himself from bending down and giving her a kiss. “You’re a fine girl,” he said to her. “I’ll never forget you. Would you like a little brother or a sister?” “Whatever comes,” she murmured by rote, as though the answer were rehearsed. By now, it was nearly twelve, and he was being warned not to miss the last bus, which left early on Friday, if he did not want to be stuck in the village again.

The bus took two-and-a-half tiresome hours and seemed to stop in every town in the Galilee, and though evening was still far away when he arrived in Haifa, there was already a Sabbath quiet in the air. At home he was surprised to find his three children happily eating together in the kitchen, his daughter still in her officer’s uniform and the college student in high spirits because he had done well on an exam that morning. “You got a nice tan up there,” they told him, and he described the village, with all its Indians, for them and even said a few words about the girl. He peered into the pots, emptied food from one to another, ordered the college student to do the dishes, and went to run a bath, shave, and nap, feeling worn out but satisfied, as if after a long but happily ended ordeal.

It was evening when he awoke and found the three of them eating again in the kitchen. “Why didn’t you wait?” he scolded them. “It’s Sabbath eve!” Even when they explained to him that their grandmother had called to say she wasn’t coming, because she had guests of her own, her Russian friend and the friend’s daughter, Molkho was not mollified. “So what? That doesn’t mean we needn’t have a Sabbath dinner! What’s the matter with you?” Brooking no objections, he made them stop eating, move their plates to the large table in the dining room, and light the Sabbath candles.

After dinner some friends he had long been out of touch with phoned to invite him over, which pleased him greatly, because he had felt abandoned by their social circle since his wife’s death. He had known, of course, that she was more popular than he, for he was considered a dull conversationalist.

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