He was disappointed and tired when he returned by taxi to the Hotel Europa at 10:30 P.M. on the sixteenth of February. His intention was to linger for a few minutes in the bar, drink a gin-and-tonic, and analyze the meeting before going up to his room. The Tunisian engineer on whose account he had come to Helsinki and whom he had met earlier in the evening in the restaurant at the railroad station had struck him as small fry: he was asking disproportionate favors and offering trivial goods in exchange. The material he had handed over at the end of their meeting, as a sample, had been almost banal. Even though in the course of their conversation the man had striven to convey the impression that at the next meeting, if there were one, he would bring along a regular Aladdin's cave. And actually along lines that Yoel had been hankering after for ages.
But the favors the man was asking in return were not financial. With judicious use of the word "bonus," Yoel had put out feelers for signs of greed, but in vain. In this matter, and this alone, the Tunisian had not been evasive: he had no need of money. It was a question of certain nonfinancial favors. Which Yoel, in his heart of hearts, was not certain they could grant. Certainly not without authorization at a higher level. Even if it transpired that the man was in possession of first-rate goods, which Yoel was inclined to doubt. He had therefore taken his leave of the Tunisian engineer for the time being with a promise that he would get in touch again the next day to arrange for further contact.
This evening he intended to turn in early. His eyes were tired: they almost hurt him. The cripple he had seen in the street in a wheelchair intruded several times on his thoughts: he seemed familiar. Not so much familiar as not entirely unfamiliar. Involved, somehow, in something he ought to remember.
But that was what he could not do.
The desk clerk caught up with him at the entrance to the bar. Excuse me, sir, somebody called Mrs. Schiller has been trying to get hold of you several times in the past few hours. She left an urgent message for Mr. Hart that the moment he returned to the hotel he should get in touch with his brother.
Yoel thanked him. He gave up the idea of the bar. Still wearing his winter coat he turned and walked out into the snowbound street, where there were few pedestrians and not many cars at this time of night. He headed down the street, glancing over his shoulder and seeing only puddles of yellow light in the snow. He decided to turn right and then changed his mind and turned left, shuffling in the soft snow for two blocks until he found what he was looking for: a public telephone. Again he looked around. There was not a living soul. The snow turned blue or pink like a skin disease wherever the light struck it. He called collect to the office in Israel. His brother, for the purpose of emergency contact, was the man they all called Le Patron. In Israel it was nearly midnight. One of Le Patron's assistants instructed him to return at once. He added nothing and Yoel did not ask anything. At 1:00 A.M. he flew from Helsinki to Vienna. There he waited for seven hours for a flight to Israel. In the morning the man from the Vienna Station came and drank a coffee with him in the departure lounge. He could not tell Yoel what had happened, or else he could but had been ordered to say nothing. They spoke a little about business. Then they talked about the economy.
That evening, at Ben-Gurion airport, Le Patron was waiting for him in person. Without preamble he told him that Ivria had been accidentally electrocuted the previous day. To Yoel's two questions he replied precisely and without embellishment. He took Yoel's small suitcase out of his hand, led him through a side entrance to the car, and announced that he would drive Yoel to Jerusalem personally. Apart from a few words about the Tunisian engineer they drove the whole way in silence. The rain had not stopped since the previous day; it had merely changed into a fine, penetrating drizzle. In the headlights of the oncoming cars the rain seemed to be not falling but rising from the ground. An overturned truck, lying with its wheels still spinning by the roadside at the beginning of the winding ascent to Jerusalem, reminded him again of the cripple in Helsinki, and he still felt the nagging worry that there was some discrepancy, some implausibility, some irregularity. What it was, he could not tell. As they were driving up Mount Castel he took a small battery-powered shaver out of his briefcase and shaved by heart in the dark. As he always did. He did not want to appear at home unshaven.
At ten o'clock the next morning the two funeral corteges set out. Ivria was buried at Sanhedriya, while the neighbor was taken to a different cemetery. Ivria's older brother, a stocky farmer from Metullah named Nakdimon Lublin, mumbled the memorial prayer, stumbling over the unfamiliar Aramaic words. Then he and his four sons took turns supporting Avigail, who was feeling faint.
As they left the cemetery Yoel walked next to his mother. They walked very close together but they did not touch, except once, as they went through the gateway and they were pressed together and two black umbrellas tangled in the wind. Suddenly he recalled that he had left Mrs. Dalloway in his hotel room in Helsinki and the woolen scarf that his wife had bought him in the departure lounge at Vienna. And he reconciled himself to their loss. But how had he never noticed how much his mother-in-law and his mother were growing to resemble each other since they had been living together? Would he start looking like his daughter from now on? His eyes burned. He remembered that he had promised the Tunisian engineer to call him today and he had not kept his promise, nor would he be able to. He still could not see the connection between this promise and the cripple, although he sensed there was one. It troubled him.