BARBARA FOUND IT DIFFICULT to believe that in his seventy-three years, Philip had never been out of the country, except for an excursion trip to Mexico and a drive with his wife Agatha to Vancouver. During the war he had been a chaplain, assigned to a camp near Augusta, Georgia, and then to Fort Totten on Long Island. As he explained, he and Agatha had never had much money, and they were saving for a long trip. His wife died, and after that, he had no desire to travel. But over five years had passed, and he was as delighted as a small boy to go to Europe with Barbara. His family had originated in the English Midlands, a farm family, and had emigrated during one of the anti-Catholic fervors that shook England in the seventeenth century. He knew the name of the town, and he had always planned to go there one day.

Barbara, who had lived and worked in France and spoke French like a native, had been to England several times. She had no desire to go to France; there were too many heartbreaking memories that she would not awaken. She and Philip pored over a map of England and found Thornby in the county of Northamptonshire. Her mother’s family, the Seldons, had originated in England, but she had no idea of where and when, and she agreed with Philip that it might be fun to try to track down the name…. Her father’s family came from a small town in the north of Italy, a few miles from Milan.

She loved Italy, although she had been there only once, during the honeymoon after her marriage to Carson Devron. Pompeii and the Bay of Naples had cast a spell on her, and she wanted to return and spend a few days on the Isle of Ischia and to visit Pompeii once again. She thought it would be pleasant to fly from England to Switzerland, where she had never been, and to take a train from Switzerland through Italy, stopping at Rome and going on to Naples and Ischia. Then on to Israel, either from Greece or from Italy. She assured Philip that if they flew with El Al, the Israeli airline, there would be no worry about terrorists.

She had no great desire to go to Israel, where she had been before—and where her son, Sam, had taken his medical training and her first husband, Bernie Cohen, was buried—but Israel was a lifelong dream of Philip’s. He wanted to see Jerusalem and walk in the steps of Jesus and feel for something that had always been deep in him. He wanted to see with his own eyes the Mount of Olives, the location of the Holy Sepulcher, and Calvary. Barbara was still unable to untangle Philip’s beliefs and disbeliefs, but with each day that they were married and lived together, she had come to love and respect him increasingly. If his desire to go to Israel was this deep—well, she would go along with him. The church had given him a bundle of vacation time that he had never used, and Ms. Guthri would take over his pulpit for six weeks. The congregation’s delight in the fact that he had finally found someone was such that they were ready to agree to anything he asked for.

The disagreement between Philip and Barbara concerning their trip was, strangely enough, about the cost of the excursion.

“Let us be practical,” Barbara said. “This is 1984. Women are beginning to be looked upon as human beings, and there are even voices that say we are the equal of the male sex.”

“Superior, if you ask me.”

“That’s a fine statement, true or not. But the plain fact of the matter is, my darling Philip, that you are very poor and I am reasonably wealthy. If we are joined together in the holy bonds of matrimony, then we are joined together in everything else. I have a huge inheritance from my grandfather—”

“You put that in a foundation. I know all about that.”

“I kept some. I’ve earned money. My brother Tom left me two million in federal bonds, which I have never touched, and I’ve earned more than enough money to keep this house, in spite of your insistence that you pay your share. I’m not a fool about money. It means little to me—the fortune or misfortune of having rich parents—but I acknowledge it.”

“Barbara, I’m well paid—”

“Oh yes. I know how well paid you are.”

“Barbara, I’m not poor,” Philip argued. “All the years Agatha and I were married, we saved money for a trip we never took. Since her death I’ve lived like a monk, and I’ve squirreled away over twenty-five thousand dollars.”

Barbara refrained from commenting on that.

“Well, how much will this trip cost?”

“I’m afraid to tell you. I’ve been laying it out with a travel agent. I’m an old woman, Philip; I can’t be satisfied with youth hostels and cheap hotels, and good hotels are expensive. I love you, and I have the right to give you gifts. You drive a car that’s twelve years old and has a hundred and thirty thousand miles on the odometer.”

He sighed and admitted that he’d never won an argument with her. “Suppose we compromise. I’ll pay for the airline tickets, and you can pay for everything else.”

“Do you mean that? You won’t be reaching into your pocket every time we want a cup of coffee?”

“I can afford a cup of coffee,” Philip said.

“Will you stick to that?” Barbara asked. “If you do, I can live with it. But everything else goes on my American Express card. And the travel tickets won’t be cheap. We fly over the pole, nonstop, to Heathrow.”

“The North Pole?”

“Oh, I love you, Philip. Yes, the North Pole. But we’ll be warm and comfortable, and you won’t see a thing. We’ll be in Israel for my birthday in November, and I don’t want any silly jewelry. I want you.”

THERE WAS ONE MORE DINNER at Highgate before Barbara and Philip left. The harvest had been good and the winemaking had begun. Adam predicted a superb Cabernet that would make 1984 a year to be coveted and remembered, and the white grapes were even putting forth Chardonnay that satisfied him.

The whole family was there, including Harry and May Ling, who had just returned from France. Sam, Barbara’s son, and Sally’s son, young Dan, himself a resident at Mercy Hospital, were seated next to Joe Lavette at the far end of the big table, so that they might confine their talk about illness and intrusive surgery to each other; while Mary Lou, Sam’s wife, sat with May Ling and chattered away about Paris. Soon enough the national election would take place, and Barbara and Philip had already filled out their absentee ballots. Adam was intent on explaining to Harry why each harvest was different, and why the wine of one year tasted a bit different from the wine of another year, even though they came from the same vines. Harry and May Ling had spent a weekend at the chateâu-winery of a client of his Paris office, and he used his newly acquired knowledge of French winemaking to sustain the conversation with Adam, whose first appraisal of anyone was at least partly based on their knowledge of wine. May Ling, with Freddie on one side of her and Mary Lou on the other, appeared to be a changed woman. She had kissed Freddie and embraced him tenderly. With Mary Lou she talked about the shops in Paris and how she had argued to stop Harry from buying her things.

As for Freddie and Judith, they had eyes only for each other. Judith’s nose, after a second operation, was still taped, but except for the thin lines of the scars, her face was much the same. She wore no makeup tonight, but she had experimented privately with a concealing foundation, and she already had four photography dates for the time when the bandages would come off her nose. After two dinners with her family, Freddie felt at ease and at home with the Hopes, and the date for the wedding had been set.

Here, at Highgate, Adam had gone out of his way to initiate Judith into the secrets of winemaking, and for this dinner, he had opened six bottles of the prized Rothschild Mouton Cadet, from a case presented to Clair Harvey, Jake’s wife, years ago in Paris.

“This toast and this wine is in honor of the new member of the family,” he announced. “May she know the joy of the grape and the love of our hearts.”

Eloise was overwhelmed. Adam was not given to sentimentality, and the toast was so unexpected that she began to weep, recalling her harsh characterization of him as a racist. As for Judith, her eyes filled with tears. But later that evening Adam spoke privately with Freddie, asking him what his opinion was of the Mouton Cadet.

“Good.”

“Not great?”

“Good. Not great. How great can a wine be when you get past the bullshit?”

“Do you think we could do it?”

“Maybe.”

“Let’s work on it.”

“Nothing I’d like better,” Freddie said.

AFTER THE DINNER Sally took Barbara aside and said to her, using the term she used to address Barbara, “Bobby, dear, we must talk. Let’s walk outside, just the two of us.”

Barbara told Philip, deep in conversation with Freddie and Judith, that she was going to take a walk with Sally and would join him later. It was a chilly night, and both women wore sweaters; they wandered along the curving paths among the stone buildings. After a few minutes of silence, Barbara asked Sally what was bothering her.

“The part was nothing. It was nothing, four words. I’m too old even for the character parts.”

“You’re only fifty-eight, Sally, and you’re lovely.”

“They want forty-year-olds for grandma parts, or old women with white hair. I don’t mean you, Bobby. You know what I mean. Oh, it isn’t that. Why am I always so discontent? I’ve been going to church in Napa, but it does nothing for me. Joe hired a nurse. At least when I was his nurse, I would talk to him occasionally. Now I hardly see him. I sit and contemplate my navel. I wish I could find someone to have an affair with. At least it would break up the day.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No, I’m not kidding. I thought of divorcing Joe, but I could never explain to him why I was doing it, and I do love him—sort of—and he loves me.”

“You really want my advice?” Barbara asked her.

“Certainly I do. Why do you think I dragged you away?”

“OK,” Barbara said. “Get a job.”

“Doing what?”

“You’re a superb actress. Start a playhouse. God knows, we need one here in the Valley; culturally, this place is barren. We all use Highgate and the family as a refuge, but Sam and his wife are in San Francisco, and so is your son, and May Ling and Harry will be living there. Get the local church behind you. They’re always looking for ways to get people inside the not-so-pearly gates. Pull in some of your Hollywood friends, and you can sell tickets up and down the Valley and over in Sonoma, too.”

“Bobby, do you think I could do it?”

“You can do anything you want to, Sally, and don’t tell me you haven’t dreamed of directing a play.”

“Do you know any actor who doesn’t go to bed with that dream every night? Bobby, will you help me?”

“When I come back—yes, surely. But it’s a long drive from the City… You start it tomorrow. Don’t put it off, and when I come back, I’ll write you a play. I’ve always wanted to try it.”

Sally threw her arms around Barbara. “What a neat idea. I will, I will, if it kills me.”

“It certainly won’t kill you,” Barbara said.

RAPTUROUS WAS THE ONLY WORD Barbara could think of to describe Philip’s arrival in London and his first stroll through the city. On the plane she had said to him, “It’s odd to think of a man your age who has never been to Europe,” to which he replied, “Most of the people in this country have never been to London or anyplace in Europe, and here I am, Philip Carter, floating over the North Pole in a 747 the size of a cruise ship.”

“Not really the size of a cruise ship. We haven’t come to that yet. But, Philip,” she teased him, “don’t you think that if God wanted us to fly, he never would have given us the railroads?”

“Absolutely,” he agreed, and she admitted that this was a new Philip. “When Agatha and I left the Church, I felt that I had escaped, that we had been in a prison and somehow we had broken out. You see, I loved her madly for two years before we dared to admit it to ourselves and to each other; and after that for quite a while we looked over our shoulders, so to speak, like criminals always in danger of being caught by the cops. When she passed away, I had the same feeling, that they had captured one of us and taken their revenge on me.”

“And who were ‘they’?” Barbara could not help asking.

“Ah. That’s the question, isn’t it?”

But after customs at Heathrow and the cab ride to Brown’s Hotel, Barbara had the feeling that he would never look over his shoulder again. His face lit up as they rolled into Albemarle Street, and he smiled with pleasure as they walked into the old hotel. She had explained to him that the reason she chose Brown’s was because it was, in her opinion and in Freddie’s—an inveterate traveler—not only the best hotel in London, but also the most English. His eyes rolled over the entryway, delighting in everything. At the desk, for the first time in many years, he signed, “Mr. and Mrs. Philip Carter.” The room was large and comfortable, with an alcove as a tiny sitting room and a huge king-sized bed. It was eleven o’clock, London time, but they were not sleepy. Barbara asked Philip whether he wanted dinner. He shook his head. They had both eaten well on the plane.

“Then as a final step in the process of liberation, I would suggest that we go down to the bar and have a small nightcap.”

He was enchanted with everything. “They likely won’t have your Highgate Cabernet,” he said.

“I am not wedded to Highgate, I am wedded to you, and when Adam is not watching, I prefer a Chardonnay. Anyway, I was thinking of a brandy.”

“Do you mind if I have a glass of their ale?”

“Mind? Why should I mind?” she wondered.

“I’m a neophyte. My England has existed only in the books I have read, but it’s very real. Though not as real as it appears to be. I never read that they shine every bit of brass and that the floor squeaks. How old is this place?”

“I don’t really know—perhaps a hundred and fifty years.”

“And they don’t tear it down and build a high-rise in its place?”

“Heaven forbid!”

They went down to the bar. They made a handsome couple, Philip tall and slender, and Barbara with her shock of white hair, still in sweater and skirt. People smiled and said good evening as they walked to the bar. The handful of people in the bar were at tables. Barbara and Philip sat at the bar and ordered their drinks. Soon it was a half hour to midnight.

Back in their room again, they found that the maid had turned back their bed.

“Take out what you need,” Barbara said. “We’ll unpack tomorrow.” She found a robe and went into the bathroom to change. When she came out, Philip was sitting on the bed in his underwear.

“I couldn’t find my pajamas,” he said.

“Since when do we sleep in pajamas, Philip?”

“Well, we’re in a strange place. Suppose the maid walks in?”

“Philip, darling, we are not in a strange place. We are in London, which is the most civilized city in the world, and maids do not just walk in, and I’m not going to bed with a man in pajamas. I never knew a lack of pajamas to inhibit you in San Francisco or at Highgate.”

“It’s different here.”

“It is no different here, and I suggest we go to bed. And in the morning, we’ll find your pajamas, wrinkle them, and lay them out on the bed, so that the maid is impressed with the fact that you’re a proper clergyman.”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“Yes, I am. Now take off your damn underwear and let’s get to bed.”

BARBARA FELT LIKE A TOUR GUIDE, alternately delighted and provoked. She recalled taking her son, Sam, to the Cemetery of Heavenly Rest in Los Angeles when he was twelve or so. It was a place she had never been to before and would never have visited, dead or alive; but she went because Sam demanded it, having read about it; and in the end she was pleased that she had seen the weird, incredible place. Philip also had prepared a list of places he wanted to see. The list was long and would have required a month’s stay in England, yet she decided that she would do her best. The flight from Los Angeles had befuddled their time sense: nine hours’ difference—or was it eight? Neither of them could get it quite right.

Awake at six, they unpacked their luggage. Barbara wore a pleated skirt, a blouse, and a sweater, and convinced Philip that a pair of comfortable old trousers would not offend Londoners. “A good sweater,” she said. “You don’t know what the weather will be in October, and we’re lucky to have a sunny day to begin.”

In the dining room for breakfast, Philip looked at the menu and blanched. “Do you see what they charge for breakfast in this place? At home—”

“Philip, we are not at home,” she said sternly. “The prices are in your menu, not on mine. That’s an English custom. They relish odd forms of courtesy here. Do you remember our agreement?”

“Agreement? But these prices, when you translate them into dollars—”

“We made an agreement. You pay for the plane tickets. I pay for everything else. We sealed it with a handshake and a kiss. Several kisses, if I recall correctly. I took you for my husband as a man of honor, and you’ve always told me that honor rates very high with the Unitarians. For better or worse, you were foolish enough to marry a wealthy old woman, and I should be very upset at you if you keep raising this issue.”

“I’ll have coffee, that’s all.”

“You will not. You’ll eat a very hearty breakfast—you always lecture me on it being the most important meal of the day.”

“You’re not angry. You’re teasing me again, aren’t you?”

“Yes, my dear, serious Philip. I am teasing you.”

He sighed and nodded.

“And if ever there was a man who should shun macho, it is you, Philip.”

They ate a hearty breakfast and then left the hotel. Feeling that they were proper tourists, they wandered down Old Bond Street, peering in the shop windows, and then down Piccadilly and through Green Park to Buckingham Palace, where they arrived in time for the changing of the guard. Philip admired Green Park, chortled over the clean beauty of the place. They found the Queen’s Guard among a small group of tourists gazing with admiration, and Barbara felt compelled to say that they did not guard the queen at all, leaving that to the police. Then she felt quite wretched and made a promise to herself that she would tease Philip no more, for all that he took it so good-humoredly and hung upon every word she said with utter devotion. No man had ever loved her in so total and uncriticizing a manner, and it was strange that this should have come to her so late in life; yet she could not help recalling a time some years ago, on a previous trip to London, when she sat on the balcony of the House of Commons, surrounded by a group of Labor members who deplored the whole spectacle of the changing of the guard as worthless and costly, a show for tourists and nothing else. But standing here with Philip, she thought of how much less the guard cost than one of Broadway’s bad musicals, and what a delight it was for those who watched. Time, she realized, had tempered her judgments.

They then walked north through Hyde Park, where the magnificent old oaks were turning color, and paused to admire the swan boats on the Serpentine and revel in their memories of Barrie’s Peter Pan. They put off the multiplicity of museums; Philip was not a museum person, and he was delighted with the faces they saw, black men, women in colorful saris, men in turbans—all the modes and colors of the crumbling empire upon which, once, the sun never used to set. Tired, their legs reminding them of their age, they lunched on fried chunks of fish and chips in a small pub. It was delicious, and Barbara had to know what kind of fish it was. The waiter informed her that it was rock salmon, which the Yankees called catfish. Then they returned to the hotel for, as Barbara explained, a lie-down. She dozed off in Philip’s arms, thinking of how ridiculous was all she had ever read and heard about love and sex among the old.

That evening they went to the theater and saw one of those improbable British farces in which there are at least four doors on stage and an actor is exiting one door as another enters by a different door, just missing the first, and the confusion mounts until there is apparently no way of untangling it. They enjoyed it hugely, and Barbara told Philip that she had never been in London without an almost identical play running somewhere. He replied that he wanted to see The Mouse Trap, Agatha Christie’s play that had been running almost forever. Barbara agreed for the following night, though she had seen it before.

The next day they went to Westminster Abbey. Philip went from stone to stone, commenting that everyone in British, history was buried here. A priest in vestments paused beside them and informed them that the service would start in a few minutes, and if they wished to, they could come and receive communion. Barbara whispered to Philip, “I haven’t received communion in half a century.”

“Why not?” Philip asked.

“‘Whatever Gods may be’?”

“That’s a proper Unitarian attitude.”

“It’s the wine-and-wafer thing that gets to me. I can’t drink from a cup that forty people I don’t know have already put to their lips.”

“You don’t have to,” Philip assured her. “Just dip the wafer into the wine. It’s quite satisfactory and reasonably sterile.”

“A fine Episcopalian you are.”

“You’re the Episcopalian. I’m a Unitarian minister trying to convert you.”

“Fat chance,” Barbara said.

But the service was pleasant and simple, and Barbara found herself enjoying it, in spite of her disdain. She dipped the wafer in the great silver cup of wine, and the priest smiled at her, which acknowledged her sanitary doubts. Philip did the same as Barbara. The service lasted only twenty minutes or so, and once outside, Philip told her a story that his Zen Buddhist teacher had related to him.

“He happened to be Jewish,” Philip said. “You know, you can be Jewish Zen or Catholic Zen. It’s less a religion than a belief that every human being has the Buddhist nature within him and. that God is ineffable. Well, my teacher—Bill was his name—was in New York at the time, and he was caught in a cloudburst, and there was a small old church and he popped in to get out of the rain—just as you did, which accounts for our being here. Except that it was a Catholic Church and they were just giving the Eucharist, and being a Zen Buddhist, to whom all religions are the same, he received communion, drinking the wine. I suppose he was indifferent to sanitation. And then Bill walked out, the rain having stopped, and he told me that every person he saw upon leaving the church had a sort of halo around his or her head.”

“That’s a nice story,” Barbara, said. “Do you believe it?”

“I’ve told you, my dear, that I never know what I believe or what I disbelieve.”

“Do I have a halo about my head?” “You always have a halo around your head.”

“That’s a crock,” Barbara said. “But thank you.”

They spent four days in London, and then Barbara decided that they had walked at least fifty miles and that it was time to seek out Philip’s ancestors. She decided to keep the room at Brown’s until they returned to London. It was a hundred and sixty dollars a day, off-season. Philip weighed the thought of a protest, remembered the agreement, and remained silent. Barbara congratulated him. They took the smallest piece of their luggage, and since they had yet to ride on the Underground, they took it to King’s Cross Station, which the concierge at the hotel informed them was the proper place from which to depart for Northampton. Philip, who recalled stories of the Underground used as a bomb shelter in the firebombing of London during World War II, was thrilled to take even so short a journey in that manner. He was easily thrilled, easily pleased, and Barbara had begun to cherish the very fact that he had survived to the age of seventy-three.

At King’s Cross Station, Philip asked the ticket seller whether one could buy a ticket to Thornby.

“Thornby? Well, sir, you’re Americans, aren’t you. Maybe you got the wrong line. I never heard of a Thornby on this line.”

“It’s near Northampton.”

“Ah, well, that’s something else, isn’t it? I can sell you tickets to Northampton for you and the lady, and when you arrive, there’s sure to be a cab. The driver will know every town in the neighborhood. A good many towns in the neighborhood of Northampton.”

It was off the rush hour, and the train car was half-empty. “Anyway,” Barbara consoled him, “it’s a nice clean car, and I’ve never been to the Midlands, and if we can’t find Thornby, we’ll simply consider this a side trip. I never understood why you were so interested in your ancestors. On my part, I couldn’t care less. I had always hoped that I would dig up a pirate or something romantic, but I think the Seldons were all bank clerks, or maybe people like Bob Cratchit. My grandfather Lavette, who died before I was born, was a fisherman—I guess from a long line of fishermen.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I never thought about it until we decided to go to England. I suppose there are thousands of Carters in America. When Jimmy Carter was elected president, I thought he might be a relative. Foolish of me.”

“Not so foolish. You have the name Thornby, and there was probably only one family of Carters in a small town.”

The cabdriver at Northampton knew where Thornby was, a good twenty minutes’ drive over narrow country roads. “Not much of a place. You got kin there?”

“No, we just want to see the place.”

“Nothing much to see, an old church and a few houses. You do better at Brickworth. Old Saxon church there with real Roman tiles in the floor. Most American tourists who come here, they want to see Brickworth.” He pronounced it Brikwo, and Thornby as Thirnee. Barbara asked him for the spelling of Brickworth before they took off. Then she whispered to Philip that the price was outrageous but that she wanted the cab to wait, after the driver had informed Philip that the trip would be twenty pounds and waiting time fifteen pounds.

“Absolutely not,” Philip whispered back.

“We made an agreement”—and said to the driver, “We want you to wait for us—unless you think we can find a cab in Thornby.”

“Cab in Thornby? Hardly.”

“Then you’ll wait.”

Thornby was as small as the driver had indicated. He tried to be helpful by pointing out what had once been the manor house, and then appeared to be at a loss as to what else to tell them. Barbara suggested the church.

The cab waited at the gate to the churchyard while Barbara and Philip wandered through the old cemetery. The names on the stones were difficult to decipher, and those that went back more than a hundred years were the most difficult. An old bearded man, shears in hand, came around the church and asked whether he might help them.

“I’m the gardener,” he explained. “I do the church every other week, cut back the shrubs and vines. They tend to eat up the old place.”

“Where could we find the minister?” Philip asked after explaining about why they were there.

“Ain’t no vicar no more. There’s a rector, lives in Brickworth. Serves four churches. Not here today.”

“Ever hear of a family named Carter?” Philip asked.

“Can’t say I have.”

“Or have you seen the name on any of these stones?”

“Don’t know. My eyes are bad. I don’t try to read the stones. Some names inside where they buried people under the floor. These graves—they’ve been used for three, four, maybe five bodies, on top of one another.”

It appeared to Barbara that Philip had a sudden sense of revulsion. He thanked the old man, took Barbara’s arm, and led her back to the cab, and she didn’t question his decision. The countryside was lovely, gently rolling hills, farms, grazing sheep. Philip was silent, lost in his own thoughts. When Barbara asked whether he wanted to stay at some local inn, he shook his head, said that he preferred to return to the hotel. He spoke little on the trip back to London.

They had a late dinner that night in the hotel dining room. Philip was still listless and only nibbled at his food.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Barbara asked him.

“About what?”

“Your depression.”

“I’m not depressed, Barbara. I’ve been thinking.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“What do you believe, Barbara?”

“We’ve been through that before. I believe in many things.”

“We’re not young. Do you ever think about dying?”

“Not very much. It’s just something that happens. You close your eyes and you sleep.”

“‘Only the sleep eternal in, the eternal night.’”

“I detest Swinburne. What a ghoul he must have been! I like Stevenson better. Do you remember? ‘Under the wide and starry sky,/Dig the grave and let me lie./Glad did I live and gladly die,/And I laid me down with a will.’ He had consumption. He faced death every day. As all of us do,” she added after a pause. “And it doesn’t matter.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Sort of. Years ago I was really depressed, so I went to a psychiatrist. It helped somewhat, but I crawled out of the depression myself. Here I am. I’m Barbara Lavette, for better or worse. That’s all I am. In the enormous scheme of things, I’m of no great importance.” She thought about it for a long moment. “Don’t misunderstand me, Philip. I’m a total pacifist. I believe that the taking of a human life, under any circumstances, is unforgivable. I believe that the dance of death that the human race performs with their demented wars is obscene.”

“Then you do have faith.”

“Philip, darling, I don’t know what faith is. If it’s religion, I have no religion. My first husband, Bernie Cohen, Sam’s father, was not the way one thinks of Jews. He was six feet tall with blue eyes, and an ardent Zionist. He joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and fought in Spain against Franco—as he put it, to learn to be a soldier—so you see, I have changed. He carried my lover, Marcel, off the field, badly wounded, during the awful Battle of the Ebro. Marcel died when his leg was amputated at the thigh. Gangrene. I was living in Paris then, and Bernie came to see me and tell me of Marcel’s courage. I fell in love with Bernie. He enlisted and fought through the North African campaign, and after the war, we were married. Not the best marriage, believe me. In 1948 he directed the ferrying of six old Constellations from California to New Jersey, where he picked up two suitcases packed with two million dollars in cash, flew them to Czechoslovakia, bought guns, and flew those to Tel Aviv. He died in Israel, killed by the Arabs. What should I have faith in, Philip—all the ghosts that mark my life?” She reached over and took his hand. “Perhaps I have faith in love. I love you very much, Philip, and we are the only two people left in the dining room, and the head waiter is watching us, and he’s pleading with his eyes for us to leave, and I’ve talked enough.”

“At the price we’re paying, let him plead. A little humility will do him good.”

Later, in bed, Barbara put her arms around Philip, and said to him, “The last thing I want to do to you, dear Philip, is to shatter your faith. I don’t know what came over you in that old graveyard, and perhaps someday you will be able to explain it to me. I know I say things that hurt you, and you have no way of fighting back.”

“No, no, you’ve never said anything that hurt me.”

“We won’t argue. Here is my thought: I know that deep down you agreed to this trip because of your feeling about what must be to you the Holy Land. Believe me, I can imagine the struggle inside of you that brought you from the Catholic Church to a Unitarian pulpit—and the struggle that let you marry me. I didn’t know, when we married, whether I actually loved you. Part of my uncertainty was the misery of those two years alone. I cannot live alone, Philip. I’ve come to love you a great deal. We’ll go abroad many times in the years that are left to us, but right now, I want to go to Israel. We can shuffle our tickets and reservations tomorrow, and leave tomorrow or the following day.”

“You would? And give up Switzerland and Italy?”

“They’ll be there. We can go on from Israel if we decide to. We can do anything we want to. But right now, something pains you.”

“It’s not pain—it’s bewilderment. I had thought of not going on to Jerusalem at all.”

“All the more reason to go there now.”

“You’re a very wise woman,” he whispered.

ELOISE REMARKED TO ADAM that Freddie had changed a great deal since Judith’s accident. “I’ve noticed,” Adam agreed.

“He works too hard.”

“He has to work,” Adam said. “It’s his way of coping.”

“He’s only forty-three, and his hair is turning white.”

“It happens. He’s been through a hard time.”

“I want grandchildren desperately, Adam. I think Judith’s pregnant. If she is, I’m happy for her.”

“Give him time,” Adam assured her. “It’s not just having kids. He still has some mountains to climb.”

Harry Lefkowitz had also noticed the change from the man he had known in Freddie before Judith’s injury. Harry had driven out to Highgate with an interesting proposition, which derived from his utter fascination with the wine business. He and May Ling had taken a large apartment in San Francisco, and apparently their relationship had some hurdles to overcome.

“Freddie,” he said, after a few formalities, “the Hawthorn Winery, about a mile down the road—do you know the place?”

Freddie nodded. “Yes, I know the place very well. They put out a good Chardonnay. It’s ail right, but it should be better—it’s not their grapes but the way they use them. Old Greenberg isn’t really interested in winemaking. I think he bought the place because he wanted a winter home for him and his wife, and the wine keeps him occupied. His wife passed away a year ago, and he just put the winery up for sale. The price is too high.”

“I’ve been looking into it, Freddie. May Ling is less than happy in the City. She grew up in a small town, and I think San Francisco frightens her a bit. I decided that I can buy the winery—it has a good house and we can improve it—well, if I buy the winery, I’m jumping into the water without knowing how to swim. I love my business; I’m not going to retire from law. My partners will keep the office, and I’ll have the office there and do a very occasional case; but more or less, I want to retire, be with May Ling—I might as well tell you, she’s pregnant again—and make wine. And your son will be much happier back in the Valley.”

“Wonderful about her being pregnant, but before I break out the brandy and cigars, let’s talk about it. Greenberg has about a hundred acres, half of it in vines. The land needs taking care of, work and fertilizer. The untilled acreage is a problem—woodsy. The aging plant needs a good many new casks, and the bottling plant is in fair shape, but not great. He has no sales team to speak of, and with this harvest, I hear he’s selling half of his grapes. I would have bought some myself if Adam wasn’t so set against Chardonnay. Greenberg also has a lot of unsold bottled stock. And, as I said, his price is too high.”

“I know that. He wants five million.”

“And you’d have to put three hundred thousand more into it to get it into proper shape. And, Harry, I know you and love you, but making good wine is a fine art. You can’t just plunge in.”

“I’m not plunging in. I think I know exactly what I’m doing. I want to be with May Ling, and if I remain as I am, it’s twelve hours of work a day. Now, here’s my plan, and please listen. I know Greenberg’s lawyer, and no one’s made an offer on the place. The lawyer knows it’s overpriced, and I think I can get it for four million. We’ll get a mortgage for two million. You put in a million and I’ll put in a million, and the ownership will be either Highgate and myself or you and me, whatever you wish. You buy everything we need to make it a first-rate modern winery, and I’ll pay for it. That will be my share. Your share will be teaching me, and if you want me to, I’ll take a course in vintnership at U.C. I’m a damn good businessman and a good manager, and I have enough money to sit out a few bad seasons.”

“You’ll have them. It’s no way to get rich.”

“Does that mean you’re with me?”

“Suppose I really go through the place with Adam, and he decides it will take four hundred thousand of new equipment?”

“Whatever it takes.”

“Good. It certainly sounds promising. We need more white wine, and we have the sales force and the distribution and the name. You would call it Highgate?”

“Absolutely. I’d be honored.”

“You’ll be putting in more than we will.”

“Not really. You’ve got the know-how and the distribution. It would take me years to match that. The only question is, Freddie, can we make a good vintage with their grapes?”

“I can almost guarantee that, but I can’t guarantee anything else. It’ll be a tough argument with Adam, but I think I can convince him. He hasn’t any money to speak of. I’d put up the money, and we’d have to work out some stock-sharing plan, and maybe I’d finally have the right to drink a glass of white wine at his table. Are you sure you can get it for four million?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Let’s take a run down there this afternoon. I’ll talk to Adam tonight. Will May Ling agree? Are you sure?”

“She’ll be the happiest woman in San Francisco. So get out the cigars and the brandy. We’ll drink to a beautiful little baby.”

IT WAS FIVE DAYS BEFORE the tickets could be manipulated and they could book passage to Tel Aviv on El Al. Barbara suggested a trip to Cornwall or to the Lake Country, but Philip wanted only to stay in London. “We’ve barely seen it,” he argued. “I’m not a scenery man,” he explained. “I get more simple pleasure out of walking along one of the avenues here and watching the faces than I would out of seeing the Alps. A mountain’s a mountain and we’re ridden with them in California. But this city is a history of civilization.”

Basically they were two very different people. Yet they were good companions, and hand in hand, they explored all of London within walking distance of Brown’s Hotel, and returned to the hotel in time for tea—reputed to be the very best tea in London—and then dinner and bed, where he was as loving and kind as any man she had ever known.

It was a new experience for her. Her first two marriages had been far from ideal; she had never been with a man as quietly solid as Philip, a man who could cling to what he believed and accept what she believed, a man who had no other desire in life than to be with her. They were both strong and healthy and wore their age easily and casually. Barbara would remember those days in London with great joy. They explored Harrods, which was the only one of the many great department stores Philip was interested in, recalling for her the old saw about the man who went into Harrods and asked whether they had elephants in stock. And the clerk, not batting an eyelash, asked calmly, “Which kind, sir, African or Indian?” But when Barbara whispered to Philip to ask the same question of the clerk he flatly refused; and she said, with mock bitterness, “We’ll never know, will we? That’s the trouble with apocrypha— no one puts them to the test.”

On Charing Cross Road they found an old and remarkable bookshop where they spent a pleasant hour. Barbara bought a book of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems and Philip a selection of Charles Lamb’s letters. That night, in bed, Philip said to her, “I must read something to you. This is from a letter that Lamb wrote to William Wordsworth in 1801, when San Francisco was not yet in existence. Wordsworth had invited Lamb to spend a week or so in the country with him. Lamb wrote back:

Separate from the pleasure of your company, I don’t much care if I never see a mountain in my life. I have passed all my days in London, until I have formed as many and intense local attachments as any of you mountaineers can have done with dead Nature. The lighted shops of the Strand and Fleet Street; the innumerable trades, tradesmen, and customers, coaches, waggons, playhouses; all the bustle and wickedness round about Covent Garden; the very women of the Town; the watchmen, drunken scenes, rattles; life awake, if you awake, at all hours of the night; the impossibility of being dull in Fleet Street; the crowds, the very dirt and mud, the sun shining upon houses and pavements, the print shops, the old bookstalls, parsons cheapening books, coffee-houses, steams of soups from kitchens, the pantomimes—London itself a pantomime and a masquerade—all these things work themselves into my mind, and feed me, without a power of satiating me.

“Well, my dear—there’s a soul who felt about London much as I do, and that was almost two hundred years ago.”

Feeling not sixty-nine but enchanted with something all her youth had never quite given her, Barbara read from Elizabeth Barrett Browning in response:

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith, I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints—I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life—and if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

AT HEATHROW AIRPORT two days later, an Israeli security man studied them carefully and then examined their passports.

“Americans?”

“Yes,” Philip replied, “of course.”

“Nothing is of course,” the security man said. “Why are, you going to Israel? Business?”

“No, we’re tourists.”

“About your luggage, did you pack it?”

“Oh yes,” Barbara said. “We packed it this morning.”

“Was it ever out of your sight? Did you leave it in your room when you had breakfast?”

“I’m afraid we did,” Philip admitted.

“I’m very sorry,” the security man said, “but I shall have to go through all your luggage.”

Barbara sighed and said, “Yes, I can understand.”

Up and down the long counter, other travelers were enduring the same thing.

“Only a few minutes,” the security man said.

They had three suitcases, two large ones and one small piece. He went through them expertly without removing the contents. Other security men were emptying luggage, taking apart every piece. Following their glance, the security man said, “We have a profile. You can go through now. We’ll be boarding in about thirty minutes.”

As they moved away, Barbara remarked that the security men spoke English with a British accent.

“Because they’re Brits,” Philip said.

“But they’re Jewish, aren’t they?”

“There must be three, four hundred thousand Jews in England. Does that surprise you?”

“I never thought about it,” Barbara said. “Philip, I never asked you. Do you speak Hebrew?”

“Of course I do. I was a Jesuit priest. Altogether, I had seven years of Hebrew—which simply means I can talk to God, via the Old Testament, but whether I can talk to Israelis or understand what they say remains to be seen. For example, I don’t know how to say ‘airplane’ or ‘auto’ or ‘radio’ or a hundred other things in Hebrew, but I should be able to pick it up. We’ll see.”

“I should think ‘airplane’ would be ‘airplane.’”

When they finally boarded the big 747, Philip screwed up his courage and said to the attendant, “We have seats forty-one and forty-two” in what he felt was passable Hebrew.

The flight attendant looked at him strangely, glanced at the boarding passes, and then nodded and said in English, “Yes, sir. This way.” Seated, Philip mumbled to Barbara, “I don’t think that the seats of the mighty are quite the same thing.”

“You’ll get the hang of it,” she said consolingly.

The last one to board, as the plane prepared for takeoff, was a tall man who walked down the aisle, scrutinizing each passenger carefully and coldly. Philip whispered to Barbara, “Notice the way his jacket bulges. I think he has a gun there.”

“I have heard that one of the reasons El Al planes are never hijacked is that they have a guard on board, with orders to kill any hijacker instantly,” Barbara whispered back.

“Oh no.”

“I think oh yes, Philip—but I wouldn’t worry, not after the way they went through the luggage.” After the plane took off, Barbara dozed and then awakened rather abruptly. “Philip,” she whispered, leaning close to him, “there’s nothing I love better than to have you caress my thighs, but not here and not with two people who look as Waspish as you and me. We don’t want to give the wrong impression.”

“I hardly knew I was doing it,” he whispered back.

“Naturally. There’s nothing as wild as a fallen clergyman.”

“Barbara!”

“Darling Philip, I’m teasing. It’s the worst part of my nature, and it’s so tempting. Will you ever forgive me?”

He kissed her.

“That’s better. Kisses are like wine—and that reminds me. Freddie wants us to taste every kind of Israeli wine. It’s become a large export business, I hear.”

“And we’ll roll through the land drunk.”

“Why not?” And then she added, “No—as a matter of fact, Philip, there is little drinking here—some wine, coffee, and tea. Mostly the tourists drink. There is good food and plenty of it, but the Jews here are as different from those we know at home as night is from day. I know that at least twenty percent of your congregation are people who were once Jewish, but they are not enough different from us to be recognized as Jewish. I certainly can’t tell the difference.”

“What is the difference?”

“Well, for one thing, almost half of the Israelis are native born. They’re called Sabras, which is the name of a prickly pear—you’ve eaten it in Mexico, I’m sure, tough on the outside, sweet and soft on the inside. And then, thank God, most of them speak English, at least some English. I’m told that Hebrew is an extremely logical language.”

“Oh, it is. It surely is. I was amazed at how quickly we learned it in school. But I’m listening to some of the people around us. I catch one word in three.”

A middle-aged man, sitting on the other side of Philip and obviously listening to their conversation, tapped Philip’s arm and, speaking in heavily accented English, said, “You’re a rabbi? No. No, you’re not Jewish. So where did you learn Hebrew? I apologize for asking. You’re a diplomat? No, not in tourist class; they ride first class.” His apology for asking was no apology at all. Obviously, on an Israeli plane, he felt secure in interrupting a conversation by total strangers, something Philip and Barbara were to encounter again and again. An independent, self-willed, and generous people, the Israelis cared little for the texts of polite social intercourse. If one heard a question directed elsewhere and one had an answer, one answered.

“No, we’re not Jewish,” Philip said. “My name is Philip Carter. I’m a Unitarian minister. This is my wife, Barbara. She’s an author.”

“Ah-ha, so you learned Hebrew in the seminary?”

“Yes, in the seminary.”

“Let me introduce myself. This is a long trip—not to Israel, but possibly they stop in Geneva, which you don’t know with El Al. I’m Chaim Hertzog. I’m a chicken salesman for a moshav, which is something like a kibbutz, only it’s different because everyone in a moshav is an independent farmer, and sometimes they work a collective. Our collective is chickens. We produce half a million chickens a year and freeze them. So I’m in London, selling chickens.”

“That’s fascinating,” Barbara said.

“Not fascinating, but a good living,” Mr. Hertzog corrected her. “Now, about Hebrew. We call what you learn in the seminary, synagogue Hebrew: very good for talking to God, not so good in Tel Aviv or in Jerusalem. After a few days, you listen carefully, you can talk Tel Aviv Hebrew—maybe not the best, but a little.”

“Do you live in Tel Aviv?” Barbara asked him. “We’re booked into the Samuel.”

“A very fine place. Very fine. No, I live at a moshav, Moshav Akiba. My family grows oranges—that’s personal, the chickens are collective—we have twenty-one trees, real California seedless oranges. You’d be surprised how many oranges you can get from twenty-one trees. My wife, Sara, she takes care of the trees with my two sons when they’re not in service in the army, and thank God I travel.”

“We’re from California,” Philip said.

“Wonderful! I never been there, but someday, maybe—who knows? Chickens are a worldwide commodity.”

As Mr. Hertzog had predicted, the giant 747 made a stop, not at Geneva but at Bonn, to take on passengers and cargo. While the plane stood on the parking strip, a Jeep with a mounted machine gun circled it. The man Philip had pointed out, with the cold eyes and the bulging jacket, spoke to Hertzog in Hebrew, and then Hertzog explained to Philip and Barbara that these were extra security measures, following a bombing in Frankfurt; and Barbara reflected on the miracles of time and change, that the land where she had almost been put to death as an anti-Nazi forty-five years ago should now be protecting a Jewish airplane being loaded with German cargo.

The cargo, Mr. Hertzog explained, was typewriters fitted with Hebrew type. “Germans make very good typewriters,” he said, somewhat apologetically. “They make good machines. I know the guard. His name is Shmuel,” referring to the man with the bulging jacket. “He’s very competent.”

The landing at the Tel Aviv airport was smooth and easy, and Philip and Barbara were delighted by the colorful October sunset. A Mercedes taxicab—the Mercedes were a part of German reparations, and seen everywhere—took them to their hotel. It was the season of the Jewish High Holidays, and while Barbara would have preferred to stay at the Sheraton Tel Aviv, where they were originally booked, she could not change their reservation there and had switched to the Samuel. She was surprised at the elegance of the place, and after they had registered they were shown to a well-furnished suite with broad windows that faced the Mediterranean.

“Well, here we are,” Philip said, “in the Holy Land. How many times I’ve thought of this!”

“We think of it differently,” Barbara mused, almost sadly. “Here is where my first husband died. Sam went to medical school here; he even thought of making his life here. He was a medic in the Six Day War—fell in love here, spoke Hebrew like a native— and then gave it all up and returned to San Francisco and married Mary Lou.”

“Are you happy or unhappy to be here?” he asked her.

“I don’t know,” she answered slowly. “But wherever I am, I’m happy to be with you.”

When he crawled into bed later and moved close to Barbara and touched her face, he felt tears. He refrained from any words as to why she wept, and for that, Barbara was grateful. She was in no mood to exchange thoughts or words of any kind with him. If she could have her own way and if she were willing to bring total chaos into their relationship, she would get out of bed and pack her bag and take a cab to the airport and take the first plane out—to anywhere—and why she felt this way at this moment, she could not for the life of her understand. Her whole life had been threaded through with Jews. Her first husband, her father’s partner, the people at Highgate, Sally; her lawyer, Sam Goldberg, who had cherished her and who left her the house on Green Street in his will; Boyd Kimmelman, who had taken Sam Goldberg’s place in her life after Goldberg died and who worshiped her… And why had it been that way? She had read somewhere that Mark Twain had said that Jews were like anyone else, only more so. Was she also like anyone else, only more so? If there were any real barrier between Philip and herself, it was the fact that he knew who he was and she did not know who she was. When he suggested teaching her to meditate with him, and she asked him why and what it would do for her, he had replied that among other things, she would know what and who she was. “I know who I am,” she had replied indignantly. But the truth of the matter, as she had begun to realize, was that she didn’t know.

Finally she slept, and Philip knew this when her breathing became easy and regular. A three-quarter moon was hanging outside the window. Philip watched it for a little while and then closed his eyes and slept.

In the morning they awakened together and looked at each other, and Barbara rolled over into his arms. “Make love to me, old priest, and try to remember all I taught you.”

“Now? I’m starving.”

“Now. Earn your food.”

They made love, and then they stood at the window, with the sea and the broad white beaches spread out beneath them, and at the edge of the horizon, a freighter sailing north. “Here it began,” Philip murmured. “The Philistines landed on these beaches with their longboats; Gaza to the south, and in the north, Tyre.”

“And we should dress and eat,” Barbara said. “We have three days here before we go to Jerusalem.”

“Why don’t we go to Jerusalem today?”

“Because we have no room in Jerusalem for today. I had to switch things to get you out of your depression, and we’re just past Yom Kippur, which is the Day of Atonement. It’s like trying to get a room at the Mark Hopkins for Memorial Day weekend. In three days, we have a room at the King David Hotel, which is where to be if you’re an American tourist in Jerusalem. The advice of Mr. Hertzog is to take off here in any direction with a guidebook in your hand. There are more museums and theaters here than you can shake a stick at, so let’s go and eat and buy a guidebook.”

Breakfast was overwhelming; the food was laid out on a long table—cereal, milk, cream, herring in sour cream, scrambled eggs, French toast, bagels, five kinds of cheese, fruit, green onions, cucumber, and sliced tomatoes, and coffee and tea and hot chocolate.

They ate well and went out into the cool sunshine, guidebook in hand. For a while they wandered aimlessly. If ever there were a city in constant eruption, this was it: cars honking their horns, buses, people in motion, houses being dismantled, houses under construction, business streets that suddenly became delightful residential areas, a tiny old cemetery tucked between office buildings, tourists speaking half a dozen different languages, neon signs advertising in Hebrew, street peddlers selling quick food—Oriental versions of what at home Barbara would have called junk food. Compared to this explosion of energy, London was quiescent, old, and settled into grateful accomplishment. Finally, having done at least three miles, their wandering brought them to Dizengoff Street’s comparative repose, the string of restaurants and cafes making a not-too-successful attempt to imitate the Left Bank of Paris, small tables and chairs set out on the sidewalk. In a way, these outdoor tables, in the benign fall climate of Tel Aviv, were a sort of social center of the expanding city.

It was past the lunch hour, so most of the tables were unoccupied. At one shop a soldier on leave, his rifle slung over his shoulder, sat with his girlfriend, a pretty redhead. At another table two black men, obviously Americans, drank beer and ate flat bread dipped into a sticky concoction; and at a table in the other direction three old white-bearded men drank tea from glasses and were engaged in a vociferous argument in Hebrew, to which Philip listened intently, proudly able to inform Barbara that he could understand enough to know that they were talking about excavations in an old Jewish cemetery.

“Not that I understand much of it, but I do get the thread when they slow down, words like sacrilege and God’s commandment. It’s absolutely remarkable. Give me another week—they use a word that I think means ‘clutching,’ probably an excavator. Trouble is they talk so fast; but the little fellow with the blue eyes, he’s given to judgments and he speaks very slowly. Now he’s looking at us. Tayar, I think that’s the word for tourist.”

“You’re delicious,” Barbara said. “A Jesuit priest who speaks Hebrew. If I lived a lifetime here, I’d never learn.”

“It’s a beautiful, logical language.”

“Not when they shout at each other.” A waiter came out, and Barbara pointed to the soldier. “Beer for both of us, and that stuff they’re eating.”

“Pita and hummus.”

They drank the beer, broke up the pita bread and dipped it into the hummus, and washed it down with more cold beer. “Cold beer,” Philip said, “thank goodness.”

“Very American,” Barbara agreed. “When I was in Egypt during the war, the GIs stationed there moved heaven and earth to get into Israel, which was not yet Israel, but the only place in the area where they could find ice-cream sodas.”

“Tell me,” Philip asked her, “what is or who is Dizengoff? I’ve heard of Herzl and Ben-Gurion and Yigal Alon, but Dizengoff? You know, we have a Hanukkah celebration at the church every year, along with our Christmas festival, and we do a lot about Israel. But Dizengoff?”

“He settled and I suppose originated Tel Aviv. From what the guidebook says, it was all sand dunes before Mier Dizengoff came here with some sixty families and began a city. Now there’s more than a million people.”

“More than San Francisco,” Philip said with some awe.

“Just about, with parks and concrete sidewalks and asphalt streets, and museums and theaters and all the rest.”

At that moment a bus pulled up to the curb opposite where the soldier and his girlfriend were sitting. He hastily kissed her and then turned to the open door of the bus—and as he set foot on the step there was a tremendous crash and an explosion that flung the soldier off his feet and shattered the windows of the bus and of two cafes. The force of the blast rocked Barbara and Philip but left them unharmed. And the bus burst into flames.

Afterward, as she recollected it, it seemed to Barbara that Philip acted instantaneously, but he told her that he took a moment to see that she was unharmed. Then he leaped toward the bus. The driver, unconscious, was hanging half out of the open door. Philip, with strength she had never known he had, lifted the driver out of the bus and laid him down on the sidewalk. Then Philip plunged into the bus, and as Barbara got to her feet and ran toward the burning vehicle—the redheaded girl meanwhile bloody and screaming in terror—Philip emerged with a small, whimpering, blood-covered child in his arms. He handed the child to Barbara, who had no voice, but took the child and laid her down on the sidewalk, and in that time Philip emerged with a second child in his arms and his own hair aflame. Barbara tore off the light sweater she was wearing and smothered the flames on Philip’s head as he carefully bore the little boy of ten or so away from the bus, shouting to Barbara, “Take the other one! It could explode! Get the child!”

She picked up the child, a little girl, and followed Philip away from the bus to where the three old men had been arguing, and she laid the child down on the table. Philip laid the little boy on the sidewalk. The three old men had not moved; they were staring mutely frozen in place, apparently unable to comprehend what had happened. Then Philip ran back to the bus and started toward its door, as if to enter it again; but the waiter, who had come out of the café, and Barbara held him back, Barbara finding enough voice to plead, “No, you can’t go in there, you can’t! You’ll die! It’s all on fire!”

All of this happened in a matter of seconds, and hardly a minute had gone by since the explosion. Suddenly the whole world was alive with screams and shouts, and soldiers on leave pushing people back from the burning bus, and the distant wail of police cars and fire engines.

“There are children in there!” Philip yelled.

A soldier on leave joined them, helping to hold Philip back. “Fire engines coming—firemen.” The street traffic had halted, and a man came running from his car, shouting in Hebrew that he was a doctor. “Let him through!” someone yelled in English. The soldier hanging on to Philip said, “Mister, two men bleeding on the sidewalk. We take them away, the bus shouldn’t explode. Now help me.”

Philip and the soldier picked up the bus driver, in spite of the doctor’s protests, and carried him up the street to where the two children lay sobbing. Barbara took the unconscious soldier’s feet while the waiter picked him up by the armpits, and they carried him after the bus driver. The doctor, a small man with brass-rimmed glasses and a bald head, was already stanching the blood of the driver’s wounds. He snapped a command at the soldier, who went to the wounded soldier and felt his pulse. The redheaded girl was kneeling by his side. The child Barbara had put on the table saw blood running from her nose onto her dress and began to scream. Barbara lifted her in her arms and tried to soothe her.

And then, suddenly, their role was over. A fire engine went into action and began flooding the bus with water, and an ambulance arrived with people to tend to the two men and the two children, and Barbara fell into the arms of a bloody, blackened Philip, half of whose hair had burned away, and began to whimper, like a small child.

Another ambulance arrived, and a man in a white coat said to them, “Come with us. We take you to the hospital.”

Meekly Barbara and Philip followed them.

AT BREAKFAST AT HlGHGATE, Eloise, opening the folded copy of the San Francisco Chronicle that had arrived that morning, went white, and her hands began to shake. Freddie took the paper from her and read aloud to Eloise and Adam: “Headline, ‘San Francisco Couple Hailed as Heroes in Israel.’” He asked Eloise, “Did you know they were in Israel? Weren’t they supposed to be in Greece or somewhere?”

“Will you read it?” Adam growled.

Special to the Chronicle. The Reverend Philip Carter, minister of the First Unitarian Church in San Francisco, and Mrs. Carter, the former Barbara Lavette, recently married and on their honeymoon, were saluted by Yitzhak Shamir, prime minister of Israel, for exceptional courage in the face of danger.

At two p.m. today, Israeli time, a bus exploded in Dizengoff Circle. The bus was starting its run, and the only passengers were two men and a woman with three children. Apparently a terrorist’s bomb in the briefcase of one of the men exploded prematurely, and the bus burst into flames, killing the terrorist, the other man, the woman, Rebecca Kahn, and one of her three children. A soldier attempting to board the bus at the moment of the blast was severely injured but is in stable condition at Tel Aviv Hospital, as is the bus driver.

At great personal danger, Reverend Carter dragged the driver to safety and then entered the burning bus and carried two of Mrs. Kahn’s children to safety. As he bore the second child to safety, his hair caught fire. His wife, who had stood by the open door of the bus to receive the children, managed to smother his burning hair with her sweater. The Reverend Carter attempted to enter the bus a third time but was restrained by a soldier on leave. Then he and his wife carried the two children and the two wounded men out of harm’s way. Dr. Leon Phagel, a passing motorist, gave immediate medical aid to the two men, who are expected to recover. The two children carried by the Reverend Carter to safety were uninjured, but suffering from shock….

Freddie paused. The story went on with the reaction in Israel to the suicide bombing, and the measures to be taken against terrorist groups.

“I would never have thought it,” Adam said. “He’s such a mild-mannered man. Thank God they’re all right.”

“Poor Philip,” Eloise said. “I can’t imagine what happens when hair burns.”

“It’ll grow back,” Freddie assured her. “There’s a sidebar about Barbara. Shall I read it?”

“Please.”

Mrs. Philip Carter, formerly Barbara Lavette, is the scion of one of the oldest and most respected San Francisco families. Her great-grandfather Thomas Seldon Sr., was the founder of the Seldon Bank. After his death her grandfather Thomas Seldon Jr., continued as head of the bank. Her father, Daniel Lavette, is still remembered as one of the most colorful figures of the post-earthquake era, and Ms. Lavette has had a memorable career as a novelist and a screenwriter. Twice widowed, she married the Reverend Philip Carter this past September. She was a candidate for Congress in the forty-eighth Congressional District and has been active in Democratic politics and in many liberal causes over the past twenty-five years. She is a close associate of Mayor Dianne Feinstein, whose comment on her actions in Israel was that she would expect nothing less from Barbara Lavette.

“Pretty neat, don’t you think?” Freddie said.

Eloise shook her head. “Wherever she goes…” She had tears in her eyes.

“Why don’t you call her in Tel Aviv?” Adam suggested. “You’ll feel better after you speak to her.”

“I don’t know where she’s staying,” Eloise complained. “She called me from England last week to tell me that she was rearranging their schedule to go directly to Israel because Philip was deeply depressed. She was supposed to stay at the Sheraton, but she couldn’t get a room when they altered their plans.”

“Then she’ll either call or write,” Freddie said. “Come on, Mother. There’s nothing to worry about. Aunt Barbara has a charmed life. Nothing is going to happen to her.”

BUT A GREAT DEAL WAS HAPPENING to Philip and Barbara. After the blisters on Philip’s head were treated, with the burned hair cut away in half a dozen places, he asked Barbara what he looked like, and she shook her head hopelessly.

“Philip, dear,” she said, “you’re a brave wild man, and I don’t care what you look like.”

“God giveth and God taketh away,” he said. “I felt very comfortable in England with all that hair. And I’m not brave. I didn’t know what I was doing. If I’d had time to think about it, I wouldn’t have dared to go near that bus.”

“Two beautiful children are alive. The bus driver is alive. The soldier is alive. You saved their lives. It’s a wonderful thing. Allow yourself to have it. Now let’s go back to the hotel and rest.”

“And pray for those poor people who died.”

But there was no time for rest or prayer. Word had gotten out that they were staying at the Samuel, and when they stepped out of the taxicab they were surrounded by reporters from the local newspapers and the Jerusalem Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post; London newspapers, German newspapers, Reuters, the Associated Press; photographers, television cameras, as well as Tel Aviv natives and tourists. The most insistent question was, “What made you act, Reverend?”

Philip disliked being called Reverend. He shook his head hopelessly.

Barbara felt that with the bandages and the tufts of singed hair sticking out here and there, he looked like something out of a carnival. “He acted,” Barbara replied, “because he’s a decent human being.”

Philip managed to say, “I did what I had to do.”

And Barbara pleaded that they were exhausted and that they had to rest. And finally they were allowed to go to their room, where a dozen telephone messages awaited them.

They decided to have dinner in their room, since they were afraid to set foot in a crowded dining room. Evidently the waiter in the cafe had given the entire story to the press, and among the messages was one from Prime Minister Shamir and another from the mayor of Jerusalem, Teddy Kollek, asking them to be his guests at the VIP guesthouse in Jerusalem for a week, where an apartment would be provided facing the Old City. Would they call and confirm?

Philip took some painkillers that they had given him at the hospital, and Barbara began to cry; and when Philip asked her why she told him, “Because I haven’t wept all day. So please allow me to cry.”

Dinner was brought to their room, and the waiter who wheeled in the cart informed them, in very bad English, that it was his brother-in-law’s cousin, Chaim, who was working in the cafe and gave the whole story to the press, and who clung to Philip to keep him from entering the bus a third time, and please, God forgive him for asking, could he have their autographs? Philip dumbly signed a page from the waiter’s receipt book, and Barbara wiped away her tears and signed it as well.

When he had left, Philip said, “Do you know, my dear—” It was hard for him to speak. A burn on his cheek hurt when he spoke. “Do you know, my dear,” he whispered, “I’ve never been asked for my autograph before.”

She didn’t know whether he was pleased or upset. “What has happened to us?” she said woefully. “We come here to walk in the steps of Jesus, which you’ve been practicing for years, and the world explodes”

“Not the world,” he whispered. “Just a bus.”

She took the warmers off the dinner dishes. There was beef stew and peas and potatoes. They sat staring wanly at the food.

“You should eat something,” she told him.

The phone rang again, as it had at least five times since they entered the room. This time it was the manager of the hotel, who wanted to know whether there was anything he could do for them.

“If you could have the operator take our messages for the rest of the day, it would be helpful,” Barbara said. “We’re very tired.”

“Absolutely. Absolutely.”

Philip took a piece of the stewed meat and chewed painfully. “It’s very good,” he said.

Barbara shook her head. They had ordered a bottle of wine, and now she opened it and poured a glass for each of them. “I think I’m going to get drunk,” she said. “Have you ever seen me drunk, Philip?”

“No, not really.”

She raised her glass. “To what?”

“Shalom.”

“Good enough.” She took a mouthful of meat and agreed with Philip. “Very good, but a bit strange. The wine, on the other hand—well, it’s wine… You do look odd, Philip dear. How do you feel?”

“Not bad, except when I lie down on the bed. That hurts. I’ll have to sleep in a chair. They sent us a bottle of champagne, compliments of the house. Did you notice, they didn’t send us a dinner check? Ouch,” he muttered.

“You don’t have to talk, darling,” Barbara told him. “Just sit quietly and bask in glory. I think you’re wonderful—absolutely wonderful.”

“Oh, come on. You’re embarrassing me.”

Barbara burst out laughing. “Oh no! Why am I laughing? An awful thing happened and I almost lost a brand-new husband. What time do you think it is at Highgate? It’s either yesterday or tomorrow.”

“I think it’s tomorrow,” Philip said vaguely, “or maybe this morning.”

She poured herself another glass of wine and filled Philip’s. She was never much of a drinker, and the wine on an empty stomach was having an effect. “Last night,” she said, “which was at least a month ago, I was in the depths of despair. I wanted to pack up and get out of here. Today, for some reason I don’t quite understand, I feel wonderful. Not totally wonderful—guilty-wonderful, because I think of that poor woman and her child trapped in that bus. Still, I feel wonderful. Do you think that’s terrible, Philip?”

“I know the feeling. You saved a human life. In the Talmud, it says that he who saves a human life saves the whole universe.”

“You saved the children, not I.”

Philip stood up, walked around the table, turned Barbara’s face up to his, and kissed her. “I love you, beautiful lady,” he whispered. “My hair was on fire. You smothered it. You didn’t have to think. You just tore off your sweater and smothered the flames.”

Barbara shrugged. “You must eat something, Philip… It was an old sweater, not even wool, cotton knit. Now sit down and eat.”

He sat down and raised his wineglass.

“How do you know all this Talmud stuff?”

“The seminary. I sometimes think Jesuits know more about the Jews than Jews do… Those painkillers work. I can almost talk without any pain. Here’s a toast:

How odd of God to choose the Jews,

But not so odd as those who choose

A Jewish God and hate the Jews.”

“Oh? And where did you get that?”

“Same place.”

THE NEXT MORNING Barbara called Eloise. It was the previous evening in California. “We’re both safe and well. Philip looks somewhat like a Fiji Islander, but they assured us at the hospital that his hair will grow back,” Barbara told her. “We’re going back to the hospital today, and I think they’ll take the bandages off. He wasn’t badly burned—just a few blisters.”

“I’m so glad you’re safe. It was all over the papers today. Barbara, can you possibly stay out of trouble until you return?”

“I’ll try,” Barbara agreed. “Will you call Sam and reassure him? Tell him that we’re not insane and that we don’t go looking for trouble. And call Philip’s people at the church.”

“Barbara, I miss you so,” Eloise said plaintively. “When are you coming home?”

“I don’t know. Teddy Kollek—he’s the mayor of Jerusalem—invited us to stay for a week at a guesthouse that the city maintains for VIPs. Philip is so excited about staying in a place where he can look out and see Old Jerusalem that he can hardly wait to get there. But tonight, if Philip is well enough—”

“I’m well enough,” Philip said in the background.

“—we’re to have dinner with the mayor of Tel Aviv… Yes, Philip is absolutely wonderful, considering his age. And be sure to tell Adam that Israeli white wine is interesting, but that’s the best I can say of it.”

“Freddie wants to speak to you.”

“All right. Put him on.”

“Aunt Barbara—you’re all right?”

“We’re fine, Freddie.”

“Will you do me a favor?”

“Freddie, you know I will.”

“I sold ten cases of Zinfandel—you know, the stuff we still produce for the synagogue and church trade—to a dealer in Jerusalem. His name is Kurt Levinson. He’s on Saladin Street. If you could ask him how it’s taking?”

“Freddie!”

“All right. Don’t get angry. I’m only asking.”

“Freddie, I love you. Good-bye.”

“What was that all about?”

“Freddie sold some wine to a dealer in Jerusalem. He wants to know whether it’s selling.”

“Well, that’s Freddie,” Philip said. “You shouldn’t be annoyed.”

“Doesn’t anything ever annoy you, Philip?”

“Yes, these cursed blisters on my head.”

At the hospital a Dr. Levinson, who had been at medical school in Israel with Barbara’s son, Sam, removed the bandages and talked to Barbara about her son. When he heard that Sam was chief of surgery at Mercy Hospital, he complained enviously about living in a country with a surplus of physicians. “I’m going to put something on the blisters that will tend to dry them. Don’t worry if some of them break… We have too many doctors here. We need laborers and farmworkers, not a doctor for every ten people.”

“Ten people?” Barbara exclaimed.

“Well, maybe every three hundred. Who counts? How is my English?”

“Very good. What shall I do if a blister breaks?”

“Just pat it gently with a clean tissue. I’ll give you some codeine pills and a salve. But use the salve sparingly. I’ll take you to a room, and I want you to wait there until I find the hospital barber, and I’ll send him up.”

“You have a hospital barber?”

“He’s a volunteer. He’s very good.” The doctor, a fat, round-cheeked man, grinned. “Bet you don’t have one at that Mercy Hospital of yours.”

“I never asked,” Barbara said.

The barber, a man in his late sixties, told them that his name was Cosmo Santina. “I was with the GIs in North Africa. I’m from Brooklyn. My pop was Italian, my mother was Jewish. That makes me a Jew by Israeli law. We got a furlough in Israel before they closed the gates. I went AWOL. I like it here. Tel Aviv was just a village then. I get out of one army and they put me in another— in 1948. So I been through it all, and I had the best barbershop in Tel Aviv. My pop taught me the trade. Don’t worry,” he said to Philip. “Just sit down and relax. My son runs the shop now, but I’m better than he is. You won’t feel a thing.”

“Thank you. That’s very reassuring,” Philip said.

“I like that.” Santina nodded and said to Barbara, “Your husband’s a gentleman. You live here in Tel Aviv, you appreciate a gentleman. Don’t get me wrong. We Israelis are the best people in the world—but gentlemen, that’s something else. Not you, Reverend—I hear that before you jumped into that bus, which was a very fine thing, believe me, you had a head of hair like the Brits, nice and full. I can’t give that back to you, but I’ll give you a nice short cut. And even under the blisters, it’ll grow back. Meanwhile, I give you a yarmulke. We got plenty of yarmulkes here at the hospital.”

Back at the hotel Barbara studied Philip thoughtfully. “I kind of like it,” she decided. “You’re almost bald. They say bald men are very passionate. It’s true, it looks a bit like a boiled beet, but they assure me that will pass. Does it hurt very much?”

“No, not too much. With the yarmulke, I’m either Jewish or a cardinal. There’s a man in our congregation at home who always wears a yarmulke.”

“You don’t make him take it off, do you?”

“Heavens, no.”

“We had a call from Teddy Kollek’s secretary. She says that an apartment has been reserved for us at the”—she pronounced it carefully—”Mishkenot Sha’ananim. We are welcome to stay as long as we please. As guests of the City of Jerusalem.”

Philip shook his head despairingly. “Barbara, I am so embarrassed I could just crawl away and hide. I did nothing that any decent human being wouldn’t do, and if I had only been a bit quicker, that poor woman and her child wouldn’t have died—and instead of blaming me for their deaths, the Israelis are making me a national celebrity. I am so ashamed.”

“Of what? Are you completely crazy, Philip? If you had gone back into that flaming bus, there would have been three dead. The bus driver is going to recover and so is the soldier, and there’s no way in the world that you could have gone back into the bus. You struggled like a demon when we held you back. I feel so wonderful—why are you depressed?”

“It could be my hair. At heart, I’m very vain.”

“You’re not vain. You’re meshuga. That’s a Jewish word for ‘crazy’.”

Their argument was interrupted by the telephone. The husband of the woman who had died in the bus was downstairs in the lobby, and the hotel manager asked if they would see him. “Yes, of course,” Barbara replied.

He entered the room slowly, a big, sunburnt man with heavy sloping shoulders that reminded Barbara of her first husband, Bernie Cohen. He held out his hand to Philip, who took it and winced under the crushing grip of the man. “My name—Enoch Shelek. I have not much English to say much—”

“Speak Hebrew slowly,” Philip said in Hebrew. “I have some Hebrew.”

He nodded, and speaking very slowly, he said, “You gave me the gift of life, two of my beautiful children. My wife perished, may she rest in peace, and this morning we buried her and my baby son. But you gave me two lives, my son’s and my daughter’s. God sent you from faraway to stop the hand of the Malakh Ha-Mavet. I don’t know how to thank you. I’m a small farmer, but all that I have is yours.”

Barbara didn’t know how much of what he said was understandable to Philip, but she saw tears welling up in Philip’s eyes, and then he went to the man and embraced him—and for a long moment, both of them were locked in that embrace. Then Philip let go and wiped his eyes, wincing, for the lashes were gone and his lids still inflamed. Then Shelek offered his hand to Barbara and said something in Hebrew. And then he turned to the door and left.

Philip dropped into a chair and closed his eyes. For a few minutes he and Barbara remained silent.

Then Barbara asked, “Did you understand what he said?”

“Mostly, I think. Gratitude—and something about the Malakh Ha-Mayet, who is the Angel of Death in Jewish folklore, and the two children who were saved. Before he left, when he took your hand, he blessed you and all our children. I understood that, very biblical, and somewhat ironic. We have so much, Barbara, that I should not lament the fact that we have no children.”

“We have children,” Barbara said. “All the children in the family. Children don’t belong to anyone.”

That evening they dined with the mayor of Tel Aviv, a tall, handsome man; his wife; and a professor, Zvi Harana by name, chairman of history at the local university; and his wife. The professor was a stout, bearded man, his wife a plump pudding of a woman who reminded Barbara of Eloise. The mayor’s wife was a talkative, pretty woman who wore an elegant evening gown as companion to her husband’s dinner jacket. This surprised Barbara, in a land where the necktie was almost unknown—the first dinner jacket and black tie she had encountered. They were all warm and congratulatory toward Philip and Barbara, and they all spoke English with facility; and then the talk turned to the Carters’ stay in Israel and where they should go and what they should see. There were also numerous questions about Unitarianism, and the mayor’s wife wondered how it was different from Judaism.

“Well,” Philip explained, “we have no given rituals or doctrines. We don’t ask that anyone should accept any concept of God as against another. We read from the Old Testament and the New Testament, and we honor Jesus as a great prophet. We believe in the ineffable nature of God—”

“Please,” Mrs. Harana interrupted, “I don’t know what that word means—ineffable.”

“Unknowable, Hannah,” her husband said. “But that is very Jewish, Dr. Carter. In fact, our Bible specifies the unknowability of God.”

“In fact,” the mayor put in, “in one of the most provoking verses in the Bible, I believe it’s Exodus 3:14, Moses asks God for his name, and God replies, ‘I AM THAT I AM.’ And again, in the next verse, God is the great I AM.”

Philip nodded. “In seminary, we discussed that for hours. I was a Catholic priest before I left that Church and became a Unitarian.”

“A Jesuit?” the Professor asked.

“Yes, a Jesuit. I fell in love with a nun, my first wife. We left the Church together. She died five years ago.”

“May I say that I believe such an act took singular spiritual courage?”

“Perhaps. I don’t really know what ‘courage’ means. Love, yes—but courage?”

“I won’t argue the point,” the professor said.

“Do you have any Unitarian congregation here?” Philip asked.

The mayor shrugged. “I really don’t know. We have total freedom of religion and at least a few of every sect I have ever heard of—but Unitarians…”

Barbara listened with a degree of awe. Their conversation was of matters she had never given any thought to, and later that evening, back at the hotel, she mentioned to Philip that it was odd to hear a group of highly educated people discuss God as a matter of reality.

“They are Israelis,” Philip said. “After all, the Old Testament was written in their language.”

“But I always thought that most Israelis were irreligious.”

“Perhaps, but not in the sense of your use of the term. Jews, I have learned, are very complicated. Even when they become Unitarians, and we have a good many of them, they remain Jewish. As for the Israelis—well, I haven’t met enough of them to dare to generalize, but with them, the Bible is not simply a religious tome. It’s their history.”

“I never thought of it that way,” Barbara said. “I haven’t opened a Bible since Sunday school. Shall I read it, Philip?”

“You might try it. But remember I made a promise to you, and to myself, for that matter, never to try to convert you to anything.”

“You’re against conversion, aren’t you?”

“Somewhat. I think people should find their own way.”

The next day was Saturday, the day they had decided to check out of the Samuel for the trip to Jerusalem, but when Barbara presented herself at the desk to pay their bill, the woman she spoke to said that there was no bill. “The manager’s instructions,” she said; and when Barbara went into the manager’s office, indignant and determined to pay her bill, the manager was equally indignant. “How could I face any of my employees if word got around that we had charged you?”

“But that is one thing and what my husband did is another.”

“You are going to stay at the Mishkenot in Jerusalem. Do you think Teddy Kollek will charge you? You’re our guest. Please say no more about it.”

Barbara nodded. “Thank you.”

“No, thank you.”

Barbara had an understandable aversion to buses, and she wondered whether cabs would be available on the Sabbath. They were, a line of them outside the hotel, and she and Philip seated themselves in a large four-door Mercedes driven by a man who introduced himself as Ezra Cohen. His English was heavily accented but adequate. “Jerusalem?” he said. “Where in Jerusalem?”

“The Mishkenot Sha’ananim,” Philip said.

“Seventy kilometers.” Then he turned from his driver’s seat and studied them carefully. “You’re the man,” he said to Philip. “You went into the bus for the kids, right?”

Philip sighed, and Barbara replied, “Yes, Mr. Cohen. I’m his wife.”

“For anyone else, it’s fifty dollars. You, I don’t charge.”

“Of course you will charge us.”

“Three reasons I shouldn’t, Mrs. Carter. First reason, I wasn’t going to work today. It’s Shabbat. My wife says to me, ‘All of a sudden you’re religious? You don’t go to shul, even on Rosh Hashanah. You smoke on Shabbat. So don’t tell me you will lie in bed all day.’” And turning to Philip, “You don’t mind I take a cigarette?”

“No, I don’t mind.”

“Second reason,” Mr. Cohen continued, starting to drive, “I got my sister in Jerusalem, I haven’t seen her in months. Third reason, I tell my wife I met Mr. and Mrs. Carter, she’s so impressed she don’t make me crazy for maybe two days.”

Barbara relaxed and whispered to Philip, “You can’t win an argument with them. They love to argue.”

“And they’re like family. Everyone knows everyone else, or so it seems. I think it’s wonderful. I never really had family, it was only Agatha and myself. That’s why Highgate is so pleasant for me.”

“I think the church was your family, Philip.”

“Yes and no.”

A few miles from Tel Aviv, they saw on their left a wide green meadow, planted in wheat, that stretched away to the north. Years and years ago, more years than she cared to remember, Barbara had seen that meadow; and recalling it, she said to Philip, “That’s where King Saul fought the Philistines—right there in that meadow.”

“And beat them,” the driver put in. “Gave them a licking they never forgot.”

“I’m sure,” Philip agreed, staring, fascinated. “You can’t imagine what this means to me.”

“I think I can,” Barbara said.

The road wound on, curving through terraced hillsides covered with forests of evergreen. “I read,” Philip remarked, “that when the Jews first declared independence, all these hills were bare. They planted all these trees since then.”

“Millions,” the driver agreed, “millions of trees. The terraces were built in the time of the Maccabees, but the tree planting—each day more.” The air was clean and saturated with the sweet smell of the pines, and as they drove on toward Jerusalem, the climate changed, becoming brisk and cool.

Expecting the walled Jerusalem of the illustrations he had seen, Philip was amazed at the city that appeared, new high-rise apartment houses, tree-lined streets, smart shops, and rows of well-built homes. They finally approached the King David Hotel, swung around, and were at the Mishkenot, a high wall and a pair of large glass doors facing the street. Barbara and Philip said good-bye to Ezra, their driver, who had given them the titles and subtitles of every village they had passed; they thanked him and persuaded him to accept a twenty-dollar bill.

“Enjoy,” he told them. “It’s a beautiful city.”

A young woman rose from behind her desk in the lobby, which was a broad, comfortable room, and told them that her name was Sarah, that she was the day attendant, and that they should call on her for anything they required. She had been expecting them, and since they must be tired, she would take them to their apartment immediately. Sarah spoke a British-accented English as if she had been born to it—she was native to Israel, they learned—an accent they were to hear frequently.

A young man carried their luggage. The apartment, a duplex with a large living room and a kitchen on the first floor and two bedrooms above, had walls of stone, and the floor, too, was stone. As Barbara closed the door behind Sarah, she heard Philip exclaim, “Barbara! Barbara, come look!”

He was standing at a glass door that opened onto a balcony; and joining him Barbara saw, below and across a valley, the Old City of Jerusalem—crenellated walls, towers and pinnacles of churches, and the glistening Dome of the Rock, all of it there as if it had been painted in a large panorama, the walls golden in the light of the setting sun.

“I hadn’t dreamed,” Philip whispered.

“You were so disappointed in the New City.”

“Yes, I thought the old place was gone—but there it is across the valley, so close we could almost reach out and touch it. I can see Jesus riding up to that gate. It’s all there, Barbara.”

“Yes, and you’re a Jesuit again,” she said, putting an arm around him. “I’m glad we came here, Philip. Don’t mind if I tease you. I know how important this is to you.”

“That valley between us and the city—what do you suppose it’s called?”

“I have a map here. Somewhere.” She went to look for the map, and Philip opened the door and stepped out onto the balcony.

The air was cold and sharp, like San Francisco on a winter evening—a place on the other side of the world—and this was the navel of the world; and all the old memories and practices returned, and tears welled into his eyes at the thought that he was here, truly here—something that Barbara would never completely understand. She was of the earth, wholly, completely, and there was a core inside of her that needed no support other than her mind and her body. But wasn’t that the basis of his love for her, this strength that she gave him?

“I think it’s called Meve Shaoaam, or perhaps that’s some other place. Philip, it’s cold out here. I never thought it could be so cold in Jerusalem.”

The valley was deep black now, but the sun still reflected the minarets and church towers of Old Jerusalem.

“Come inside,” she said.

“It’s not real. I can’t believe I’m standing here.”

“You’ll believe it if you get a chill. You’re still doped up with the painkillers and the other stuff they gave you. Come and we’ll have dinner, old man. I’m starved.”

When they asked Sarah where they might find some dinner, she suggested a French restaurant; and when Barbara raised a brow, Sarah attested to the fact that it was a wonderful restaurant, opened some years ago by French Jews. “You see, Mrs. Carter, we have everything here. If your taste turns to Italian food, we have an Italian Jewish restaurant down near the old railroad station, but you’d never find it by yourselves. Tomorrow Mr. Kollek is sending a guide and a touring car for you, and it will be at your disposal.”

Barbara shook her head in disbelief, and Philip asked, “Can’t we just walk from here to the Old City?”

“Yes, if you’re good walkers. But I think you would do better to take the car to the city gate and walk from there. The Old City is a maze, and if you’ve never been there, you’ll want the guide. He knows the Old City, and he’s a charming young man, an Egyptian Jew fluent in Arabic.”

“That would be wonderful,” Barbara decided. “At what time?”

“He’ll be here at nine a.m.—or whenever you’re ready. His name is Abdul Carim.”

“Aren’t we an awful burden to you?” Philip asked.

“No, not at all. This house is maintained by the government for visitors of distinction.”

“‘Visitors of distinction,’” Barbara repeated as they walked down the street to the French restaurant. “Here I am, fortunate enough to be married to a man who is a valid hero, crazy enough to jump into a burning bus and become a national symbol. I know that pride is a sin to your way of thinking, but you married a sinful woman, and I’m very proud of you. So from now on, please, let it happen, pride or not.”

“Heaven knows what will happen. Don’t forget, my hair is gone, and my skull is smeared over with white paste—”

“Pride again. Do I ever protest the white paste when I go to bed with you?”

“I try to blot it off each night.”

“And then you make love to me like a seventeen-year-old—that’s prideful and sinful… I know. I said I would stop teasing you. Please forgive me.”

The food in the French restaurant was very good, and they were seated by a window where they could see the lights of the Old City. The champagne that was brought to them as a gift of the house was valid French brut.

“How do they know?” Barbara wondered.

“I’m sure Sarah called them. There’s something very familial about this country,” Philip said. “Everyone appears to be related. My dear Barbara, let me explain something to you. I went to a Catholic primary school, a Catholic high school, and then a Jesuit seminary. In all this education we were given to feel that the world of Jesus had disappeared with his crucifixion. Well, not really in that sense, but Jerusalem was a religious symbol, not an actual place where one could go. Remember that then, in the thirties, there was no country called Israel, just a handful of Jews trying to scrape a living out of the desert. What happened was a miracle, but I can’t adjust to the fact that tomorrow I will walk in the steps of Jesus, in the streets where he walked. It doesn’t matter that I am a Unitarian minister and have been a Unitarian minister for years. So you, with all your rationalism and distaste for the symbols of religion—you must somehow put up with me.”

Barbara took his hand. “My dear, sweet Philip,” she said. “I never put up with you. It’s the reverse—you put up with me, with my teasing, my nonsense, and my irascibility. I’ll be seventy in two weeks. How many widows of seventy could find a man like you?”

“Now you’re really embarrassing me.”

“I know. But I have to embarrass you to reach you. And we’ve hardly touched the champagne. What shall we drink to?”

“Shalom?”

“Why not?”

THEIR GUIDE, WHOM THEY MET at nine o’clock, was a dark, handsome young man who explained that his name was not really Abdul but Eliazer, but he had been given the nickname of Abdul because his Arabic was so good; he said it should be, since he had lived in Cairo until the age of twelve. His English was also excellent. Sarah had told him of their interest in the Old City, “And since you are both Christians, I think we should enter the walls by Saint Stephen’s Gate. Also, better parking outside for the car.” He went on to tell them that while there were eight gates in the walls, the Saint Stephen’s Gate was preferred by most Christians. “It leads directly into the Via Dolorosa, and there, if you wish, we can follow the stations of the cross. But only if you desire. We call it the Lions’ Gate because our troops entered there when we captured Jerusalem.” Then he added, “If I talk too much, just tell me to shut up.”

“We won’t tell you to shut up,” Philip said. “We’re grateful for all you can tell us.”

“Afterward, we can explore the city. It’s a marvelous place, like a museum two thousand years old. Have you had breakfast?”

“We had coffee and buns. That’s plenty,” Barbara said.

They parked outside Saint Stephen’s Gate and followed their guide through the wall. Abdul explained that the Church of Saint Anne had been built by the Crusaders, and that Barbara and Philip could come back and examine it on another day, but that now they would follow the path of the cross.

“But that’s up to you,” he added. “It is also said that the mother and father of Mary are buried under the church, but I think they invented that for the tourists.”

“Leave it for the time being,” Philip agreed. “Go ahead with the stations of the cross.”

They walked on and stopped at the yard of an old Arab school. “It was here,” Abdul said, “that Pontius Pilate met Jesus. He questioned him and then told the crowd, ‘Ecce homo’ … That’s called the Chapel of the Flagellation. The clothes of Jesus were torn off, and he was whipped and crowned with a wreath of thorns. The Romans must have known of this in advance, because they had the wreath and the purple robe all ready. The scholars disagree about that, but scholars always disagree. Then he was given a cross to drag to his own crucifixion. So we have here the first and second stations of the cross. Only, it was not exactly a cross, as we know it today, but a plank of wood on a square pole, shaped like a T. Again, I’m quoting the scholars.”

Barbara was watching Philip, who stood at the spot as if mesmerized. Abdul did not urge them on, and after a minute or so, Barbara took Philip’s arm and gently moved him forward. Tourists were passing by, some with guides, others simply strolling down the Via Dolorosa. At a small chapel Abdul said, “Here is the third station. He falls here.” Philip nodded. “And here, at the fourth station—,” Abdul said, and Philip murmured, “He falls again. In three of the gospels, Simon of Cyrene takes the cross and carries it the rest of the way. According to John, Jesus carries it the rest of the way. But how could he, a piece of wood large enough to hang a man by his hands? And here his face is wiped by Veronica. This is the sixth station, isn’t it?”

Abdul merely nodded. To Barbara, this was all strange and somewhat troublesome. If she had ever been told in Sunday school what the stations of the cross were, she had long ago forgotten. Sensing her feelings, Philip kissed her and whispered, “Don’t be alarmed, my dear. Tomorrow I’ll be a Unitarian again. Right now this is an emotional experience I can’t shake off.”

“The stations are marked,” Abdul said. “I don’t think I have to explain them.” He and Barbara let Philip walk ahead of them as they entered the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Abdul telling her softly, “The last four stations of the cross are inside this church. I think Mr. Carter knows that. The church was built on the Hill of Golgotha, but I suppose most of the hill was leveled before they built the church. The Old City was much smaller then, and two thousand years ago, this spot was outside the walls. These present walls are only four hundred years old, but the tourists like to think that they are the original walls of the old Jewish city. These little chapels belong to the Greek Orthodox, the Armenian Christians, the Roman Catholics, and others. Protestants are not allowed to hold services here.”

Philip had disappeared in the crowd of tourists gathered around the final stage of the cross, where Jesus was buried and then resurrected. The church itself was dimly lit, gloomy, dirty, and in poor repair—this, the holiest spot in the Christian world, fallen into decay and disrepair, airless and unwelcoming. The smell of the place was rank and disturbing, and Barbara said to Abdul, “We’ll wait for my husband outside.” She shivered.

Outside she said to Abdul angrily, “Everything in Israel is so glistening, clean, and impressive—and this! This means nothing to me, but to my husband and others it’s the center of mankind, and you allow it to rot and decay. You boast of the freedom of religion in your country and you turn this into a slum!”

“Don’t blame us,” Abdul pleaded. “We have no authority here, and no right to touch anything here. It’s the Christian sector of the city, and it’s governed by the Catholics and the Greek Orthodox and by other Christian churches here. We’ve begged them to let us reconstruct. We’ve offered them money to do it themselves. We make this area available to people of every faith. We guard it and keep it safe. But we have no authority to touch any relic or chapel or church.”

Barbara listened and said she was sorry. In any case, why take out her feelings on Abdul?… What had provoked her so? Why did all this make her skin creep? Did she want Philip to scorn this strange display of what had happened two thousand years ago, or was she hardening the rift that had always existed between her and Philip? And if so, she told herself, it must stop. Somehow she must understand without condemnation. Somehow she must accept religion as a thing millions of people required, and without which they could not live, though she had lived without it and lived well—or so she felt when she reflected upon it—and most of the people she knew and loved lived without it, and they lived well and kindly. She had been drawn to the Unitarians, after the first retreat from the rain that led her there, because they appeared to be a group of people who simply felt that gathering together to celebrate life and compassion was sufficient—and yet under that celebration, when she thought deeply, was a need for something more than themselves and each other. Now, she told herself firmly, she must be neither provoked nor impatient with her husband. She would let him take the lead, whether to talk about it or not to talk about it.

Through all of her cogitation, Abdul remained silent, thinking perhaps of his own experiences with those who had come down the Via Dolorosa to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. He had guided people of every religion down the street, Jews and Christians and Muslims and Buddhists, but this woman was difficult to understand. He had been told that the man was a Unitarian minister, but what a Unitarian was, he had not the faintest notion. As for the woman—well, she was a Christian. He had given up any attempt to understand Christians.

After about fifteen minutes, Philip emerged from the church and announced, “I’m hungry. Where can we eat?”

Abdul suggested an Arab restaurant. “Have you ever eaten Arab food?”

“No, but isn’t it dangerous?”

“To go to an Arab restaurant? Oh no. They’re very hospitable people. Many of them are angry with us, but when you break bread with them, they are very pleasant. If you can still enjoy walking, we’ll go through the Arab part to our parking place. It’s very interesting.”

The Arab marketplace reminded Barbara of the Italian market in the North Beach area of San Francisco when she was a child. The stands were filled with fresh vegetables, corn and squash and beans and tomatoes and potatoes and cabbage, and stands of fresh-baked pita bread. “The old bread,” Abdul explained. “It’s why our matzo is round, not like the square matzo we export to the States. They flattened the pita and let it bake in the sun… You do know what matzo is?”

“I should think so,” Philip said. “The winery where my wife’s family lives began its business by selling sacramental wine to the San Francisco synagogues and churches.” Then he bought one of the pitas and broke it up, and they ate the fresh bread as they walked. They passed a butcher’s stand, chickens and cuts of lamb. “Was that during what your country called Prohibition?” Abdul asked.

“The sacramental wine?” Barbara asked him. “Yes, they had to make that legal. This bread is absolutely delicious.” She was tired when finally they reached Saint Stephen’s Gate and the car. Abdul drove down the Jericho Road and then turned onto the Port Said Road. Sunshine had warmed the day. Abdul parked the car and led them to an old Arab structure where a balcony was set with tables. Abdul knew the proprietor, and they bowed and exchanged greetings in Arabic.

Barbara and Philip dropped into their seats gratefully, and Abdul went on speaking to the proprietor in Arabic. Finally those two shook hands, and the proprietor left them. They had the balcony to themselves, and Barbara wondered why the other tables were empty. “It’s a bit early for Arabs, and few of the tourists come here. He’s in an anti-Israel phase now, and he’s pleased that I brought Christians here.”

“How does he know we’re Christians?” Philip asked.

“How does he know I’m Egyptian? My Arabic and the way I look… We tell a story about a religious Jew who goes to Tokyo. He goes to the synagogue and meets the rabbi, who is also Japanese. The rabbi looks at him suspiciously and says to him, ‘You don’t look Jewish.’ Hassan here doesn’t believe I’m Jewish.”

A waiter entered the balcony, bearing a tray of pita bread and cakes and a pitcher of iced tea. “They don’t serve wine,” Abdul said. “It’s against their religion, so they only drink it at home.”

The table and the tableware were clean, but there were no menus. “They don’t have menus here,” Abdul explained. “You tell him what you want and it’s brought out. I didn’t ask what you wanted because I didn’t think Arab food was familiar to you. But if there is something special, I’ll be happy to tell him.”

“Oh no, not at all,” Philip said. “I’d much rather see what you ordered.”

“Just lunch,” Abdul said.

The waiter returned a minute or so later, bearing a great tray that he set down on the next table. There were eight bowls on the tray, and as he set them down in front of them, Abdul listed the contents, “Chopped eggplant and herbs, chopped lamb, peppers and stuff, cucumbers and radish, hummus—and these two I don’t know, but very good. Try it all. And this, I think, is some sort of cabbage. You can either put it on your plate or pick it up with pita bread. Yes, I thought so, pine nuts and olives in this one. For dessert, we’ll have halvah and honey cakes and Turkish coffee.”

They ate everything in the eight bowls, and Barbara, who recalled eating in an Arab restaurant in New York, admitted that it had been nothing like this. Abdul suggested that they return some evening for dinner, when they would be served lamb on a spit—“melts in your mouth”—and rice such as they never tasted. Abdul said that they still had time, if their legs held out, to visit the original wall of Herod’s Temple and a new archaeological site that was being excavated nearby. After which he would drive them back to the Mishkenot, where they could rest before dinner. Barbara would just as soon have gone back to her bedroom at the Mishkenot, but Philip was still filled with enthusiasm, and since his face no longer pained him as much as it had, he was eager to go on with his exploration of the Old City. Once, Abdul told them, there had been nothing but wooden shacks and garbage in front of what was then called the Wailing Wall, but that was all cleared away after the Israelis took Jerusalem, and today there was a great plaza in its stead. Barbara, determined to remain placid and willing, agreed; and off they went to Herod’s wall.

The space before the Wall was governed by Orthodox Jews, as Abdul informed them with some annoyance, and he gave Philip a yarmulke to cover his head and warned Barbara to cover her bare arms with her sweater, telling them that men and women were separated at the great Wall, and must leave their prayers, if they desired to pray, in separate places. The prayers were to be written on bits of paper, curled up, and left in the crevices between the stones, where, so it was said, God received them gratefully. Barbara contained herself, and Philip said he would just as soon whisper his prayers; and Abdul apologized for such foolishness but reminded them that religion was religion.

They were impressed with the height and strength of the two-thousand-year-old wall but found the archaeological dig more fascinating. Half a dozen young men and women were carefully excavating what might have been an old tomb or place of worship. They were blue eyed and blond, and when Barbara asked who they were, she was told by Abdul that they were archaeology students from Sweden.

“They’re not Jewish, are they?”

“They could be Swedish Christians, but these happen to be Jewish. They’re from Sweden, so they look like Swedes.”

BACK AT THE MlSHKENOT FINALLY, Barbara dropped onto her bed, with a sigh of satisfaction. She was silent for quite a while, her eyes closed, and Philip thought she was asleep. But then she opened her eyes and stared at Philip.

“Why not talk about it?” Philip asked.

“To what end?”

“I love you. We’re man and wife, and I hope we’ll be man and wife for the rest of our lives.”

“I hope so, too. But a good part of it is not to hurt each other.”

“Good heavens, did I hurt you?”

“No, no, dear Philip, but if I tell you my reactions, I’ll hurt you terribly.”

“You couldn’t do anything to hurt me.”

“Ah,’ well, Philip, that may or may not be so. I wish we hadn’t gone to that museum they call the Old City. If I were the prime minister of this land, I’d tear it all down and build a park. For two thousand years, we Christians have murdered millions of Jews—six million in the Holocaust, and God only knows how many millions before that—”

“I’m afraid they’d lynch anyone who even dared to suggest that they tear it down.”

“Yes, I suppose so. It’s probably the greatest sideshow on earth. And did you notice the Israeli soldiers who guard the Via Dolorosa every step of the way—not against the Christians but against the possibility that the Arabs might interfere with Christian worship. Why don’t the Jews hate us?”

“Because they’re Jews.”

“What does that say? Explain it to me,” Barbara demanded.

“I can’t. That’s why I became a Unitarian.”

“Were you a Unitarian today?”

Philip smiled, reached for her hand, took it, and kissed the palm. “I suppose I’m many things,” he said gently. “We’re all many things. The Buddhists say that when we become one thing, then we are enlightened. I know that this speck of cosmic dust we call the earth is one of billions of stars and planets in a limitless universe, and now the physicists are saying that all we see is an illusion, a momentary play of forces. And I know all the crimes and horrors of Christianity through the ages—perhaps better than you do. The Jesuits trained me well, and they don’t look for loopholes in the truth. Perhaps the Via Dolorosa and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher are inventions, but I felt something mysterious and heartrending—perhaps a vibration from the people who were there, perhaps something in myself—but I felt it. You didn’t feel it. We are different. I love you for what you are, compassionate and merciful. In my mind, you are the best Christian I have ever known.”

“I’m not a Christian,” Barbara said bluntly. “I had not taken communion since I was a child. What happened in Westminster was for you.”

“Then I love you for whatever you are.”

She broke into laughter. “Philip, my darling, how can I argue with you? And all that white gook has come off your head, so you had better go into the bathroom and smear yourself up again. How are the blisters?”

“They’re coming along nicely.”

“Well, that’s something positive. Sarah told me that Teddy Kollek left a message that he is taking us to dinner tonight at eight o’clock, and it’s after five right now. I want to have a nap, as befits an old lady.”

Mr. Kollek took them to a Jewish restaurant in West Jerusalem, the New City, where they were welcomed like visiting dignitaries. They were overwhelmed with food and wine. Kollek had read one of Barbara’s books that had been translated into Hebrew, the most personal of her books, which told of her journey to El Salvador and her experience there with the guerrilla movement, and he appeared delighted to meet them. He enthralled them with the history of Jerusalem, its captures by the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Arabs, the Turks, the Crusaders, and finally the British and the Arab Legion. “But now it’s ours, and you must see every part of it.” Barbara had the feeling that he was Jerusalem, that there was no separation between himself and the city. The peace in Jerusalem was his peace; every house built, every shop opened, was his house and his shop. Mostly he spoke of the New City of west Jerusalem, the housing, the growth into a great metropolis. The only bit of annoyance he displayed was his anger at the architectural critic of the New York Times, who had dared to complain about the towering high-rise apartment houses. “But we have so little land. If we don’t go up, we take away farmland.”

He mentioned that some members of the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, then in session, had asked whether Philip would appear there and say a few words, but Philip begged off, pleading that he had done nothing worthy of mention. Kollek agreed that if it caused him pain, he could avoid it, and Barbara found herself liking this plainspoken burly man more and more. He embraced the city, and he told them that now that they had seen the Old City he would tell Abdul where to take them. “There are two places here you must visit. One is Yad Vaskow, our memorial to the six million who died in the Holocaust. The other is our museum and sculpture garden.”

“The memorial hill,” Philip said. “Yes, I have read about it.”

“You speak Hebrew?”

“A little. I can understand it when it’s spoken slowly.”

“Nobody in Israel speaks slowly,” Kollek said. “Everyone is in a hurry in Israel. Everything must be done yesterday. But I will give Abdul a dressing-down. Too much for the first day.”

“No, he’s delightful,” Barbara said.

“Yes, but take your time. Stay as long as you wish. You must go to the Galilee and see Lake Kineret, and perhaps to the Negev, where you will see what we have done to the desert. You are a writer,” he said to Barbara. “You must see the miracle we have worked, and then you will be able to write about it in a different way.”

FOR THE NEXT NINE DAYS, Barbara and Philip, with Abdul at the wheel, roamed through Israel. They saw all that Teddy Kollek had suggested and more. They drove to the Lebanon border in the north and to the Negev and the Dead Sea in the south, and for the first time Barbara had a sense of what Bernie, her first husband, had given his life for.

“This is not a honeymoon,” she finally told Philip. “It’s a lesson in something, but I’m not sure exactly what… I’m three days away from my birthday, and I want to go home.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow—if we can get seats.”

The following day they left Israel on a flight to Geneva, the only passage they could get on short notice. They remained in Geneva for a single day, so that they might see at least one city in Switzerland. Then they flew to Kennedy Airport in New York, remained overnight, and then went on to San Francisco.

On the flight to San Francisco, Barbara said to Philip, “I was seventy yesterday, or is it today, or is today yesterday? I think it was yesterday. I’m very tired. I don’t want to ever go anywhere again—except perhaps to Highgate. I gave Abdul fifty dollars. Do you think that was enough?”

“I gave him fifty dollars,” Philip confessed.

“Then it’s enough. He’s a canny Egyptian.”

“Well, we did get to the Holy Land. I got that out of my system.”

“Thank goodness. And it rained all the time we were in New York.”

“So it did.”

“Do you still love me, Philip?”

“That was never in question. Do you still love me?”

“Even with no hair. But I’m glad you got rid of that white gook you had to smear on. You look almost human.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“Well, it’s nice to be married to an old man. You don’t worry about his appearance.”

“Thank you again,” Philip said.