The Extra (7 page)

“I didn't come here to make money, only to enable my mother to try out assisted living, and I have no intention of extending my stay longer than necessary. The Mozart Concerto for Harp and Flute is waiting for me in Arnhem, and my fingers are trembling with desire for it.”

He cautiously places his hand on her fingers as if to feel the desire, and his stutter breaks out:

“S-so if not the hospi-pi-tal, maybe someth-thing else, short and special.”

“That sounds better.”

“Where they need extras with m-musical f-f-feeling.”

“That's me.”

“It's a production of
Carmen
, d-down in the d-desert at Masada, and they need extras to be G-G-Gypsies, but it would be without pay.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning there's transportation, and staying in a g-good hotel, and of course seeing the opera for free three times.”

“It sounds attractive. And you'll be there?”

“No, because for this opera they need only f-f-female extras.”

“Then it sounds even more attractive.”

“Why?”

“Because sometimes I get weary of men.”

Crestfallen, he turns silent.

“What now?” she ventures.

“What now what?”

“
Carmen
—”

“Tell your brother to sign you up,” he interrupts, and says nothing more.

After a long while the production assistant rescues them from awkward silence, informing them that their job as extras has ended but they are free to stay until closing time.

“Excu-cuse me,” says Elazar, grabbing the young woman's arm. “Now you can tell us where the c-c-camera is hiding.”

She smiles. This is a deep secret, but the need for secrecy has expired. She points at the ancient domed ceiling, and perched up above, like a strange bird of prey, is a black camera with a big shiny eye.

“You needn't walk me home, I know the way,” says Noga as they leave the Mahane Yehuda market, which at this late hour is already showing signs of awakening. But the defeated extra doesn't stop. As either an escort or a follower he keeps walking, watching her heels strike the silent pavement, until her steps halt a fair distance from the building, signaling the final boundary of the shared evening. He hesitates, his humiliated desire still stinging, and suddenly he looks at her and wants to know how many strings her harp has.

“My harp?” She is taken aback.

“Yours . . . or in general.”

“Why?”

“To know y-y-you better.”

She laughs, then explains that a concert harp has forty-seven strings, with a range of six and a half octaves, almost as many as a piano. Thus it is possible to play pieces on the harp that were written for the piano, and vice versa.

“So the whole difference is that the piano is lying d-down and the harp is standing up?”

“That's the small, unimportant difference. The essential difference is in the sound.”

“Why? They both have the same strings, from the guts of animals.”

“Not necessarily. Some strings are made of nylon or metal.”

“Metal . . . ,” he mumbles.

“Of course,” she says, spurred on by his late-night curiosity. “Besides the strings, the harp also has seven pedals.”

“P-p-pedals? Why?”

“To produce additional tones and halftones.”

“How many?”

“A hundred and forty-one altogether.”

He is lost in thought, as if digesting the great number, then studies the harpist with a mixture of wonder and compassion, and declares, “You need to be very coordinated.”

“Yes, coordination, that's the word. If I miss the right string or pedal, the whole orchestra will notice the mistake.”

“And how long have you been playing the harp?” The former policeman continues his interrogation.

“From quite a young age.”

“And because of the music, you c-c-couldn't have children.”

“I couldn't?” She recoils. “Who told you that? I could have, but I didn't want to,” she says, firmly repeating what she had told him when they first met.

“How do you know you could have?”

“Because I know. I know. My former husband also understood, which is why he left me.”

Darkened streetlights surround them. The moon is gone. No one to be seen. It is the hour of deepest sleep, even in this neighborhood.

“I understand,” he whispers, nursing his humiliation. “I-I understand y-you . . .”

And still he refuses to leave.

“So would you like me to come tomorrow and install the bolt, so the children—”

“Thank you,” she interrupts. “For now there's no point in investing anything in that old apartment, and I'll control the children on my own.”

By now the pain of rejection is turning into anger.

“If you never had ch-children, how will you know how to control them?”

“Precisely because I didn't have children.”

His laugh is short and bitter, and as he disappears into the darkness, she fears that his fondness for her has come to an end.

In the apartment the bathroom light is on. Did she forget to turn it off, or did the little
tzaddik
slip in during the night to relax in front of the TV?

T
HAT NIGHT SHE SLEEPS
fitfully and migrates from bed to bed. In the morning she phones her mother at the retirement home, and is surprised to have awakened her.

“Yes, I get much more sleep here than I need at my age, and more than suits my personality. I was afraid that Tel Aviv would upset me, but instead I feel serene.”

“And the experiment?”

“The experiment keeps experimenting.”

“You think you can complete it, come back to Jerusalem and decide about the future from here?”

“No, Noga, we have no right to stop it. It's not fair to Honi, who made such an effort, and certainly not fair to this facility, which gave me such a lovely room without requiring a commitment. No, we mustn't stop in the middle.”

“But I know you, and you won't stay there.”

“Don't be so sure. We have another nine weeks, and despite the tiny distance between here and Jerusalem, by European standards anyway, I'm getting a new perspective on myself, because here I am free of old obligations and superfluous memories. Now I'm fully entitled to sleep deeply, so I'll also have a chance, like Abba, of taking my leave from you without any long illness or cause for worry.”

“Not a chance.”

“Not a chance? You, with your cruel honesty, may be right, though I get the impression that my experiment is hard for you. You're already bored in Jerusalem? But unlike Honi, you love the city and are tolerant of our pious neighbors. Honi also told me that you enjoy the little roles he finds for you—that they killed you at night on the beach and you enjoyed lying on the sand and looking at the stars, and that you condemned a young woman to death—”

“I didn't condemn anyone, I just said she was guilty. That's all.”

“And you enjoyed it?”

“A little. What can I do, Ima? I'm trying to pass the time until you decide where you want to stay for the rest of your life.”

“And I will decide. I'm not just dawdling, I'm weighing the pros and cons. And you, Noga, please don't put pressure on me, don't begrudge me the three months, and then you'll be able to fly back to the bosom of your orchestra . . . What's bothering you the most?”

“Those children.”

“Which children?”

“The little religious ones you made into television addicts.”

“But Honi said they returned the key I lent them.”

“I had to take it from them by force, but they had apparently made a copy, and they come in whenever they feel like it, and it's annoying, even scary.”

“Scary? You're exaggerating. These are little kids from huge families, and so they're a little lonely and depressed, sometimes a little crazy. After all, they are Shaya's kids, that handsome fellow you used to talk to on the stairway when you were young.”

“Only the older one. The other one, the little one, the strange one, is his cousin, some kind of
tzaddik
.”

“
Tzaddik?
How so?”

“Not important. But to change the lock would mean changing the whole front door, which is falling apart, and that should wait till you make up your mind.”

“Yes, you're right, till I make up my mind.”

“But in the meantime let's put in a bolt to lock the door from the inside. So I'll at least know that I'm safe when I'm in the apartment.”

“Exactly. I'll ask Honi to put in a bolt for you on the inside of the door.”

“You don't need to drag Honi to Jerusalem for that. I'll find someone in Jerusalem.”

“Yes, that's possible. For example, Abadi, Abba's friend. This man, so polite, he and his wife brought food every day to the shiva, and after you left, he was the man who put in the electric bed. He'll install whatever bolts you need, not just willingly but with love.”

“The devil only knows why you gave those children permission to come in.”

“Right, Nogaleh.” Her mother sighs. “Exactly. Only the devil can explain why I did such a foolish thing, but where do I find such a clever devil?”

A
BADI ROSE QUICKLY
to the occasion. Having stayed in touch with the family, he knew about the experiment and even hoped it would succeed, but had not understood why they needed to summon the daughter from Europe. “No reason to worry about the empty apartment,” he said. “I'll be happy to stop by every so often to see that all is in order. What's left there to steal? Everything is old, nothing to tempt a thief.” They had to explain to him that what they feared was the elderly lawyer looking for any excuse to liberate the apartment, and if a stranger like Abadi were to start dropping by, it would only strengthen his claim.

Now Abadi walks through the apartment and is astonished by its emptiness. “It's bold of your mother,” he says, “to get rid of so many possessions without being sure she was leaving Jerusalem for good.”

“She'll come back,” says Noga to the gentle, melancholy man, whom she recalls as a passing shadow among the many visitors during the week of shiva. “I know her well. We're soul mates.”

“So the experiment, bottom line, is just for Honi?”

“Yes, so he can be reassured that he has no choice, that till my mother's final day of clarity he'll be tied to the city that makes him very angry.”

“And you?”

“I love Jerusalem, but I don't come here much.”

“That's an easy way to love.”

“Easy and successful. But come see, Mr. Abadi, how you can support this love, because the little
haredim
are driving me mad.”

“I'll help on one condition—that you call me Yosef and not Mr. Abadi.”

“Yosef. There, I said it.”

And he goes to the front door, whose lock had seen better days. But in order to replace it with a reliable lock, one would have to replace the entire doorpost. It would therefore be best to wait until the experiment in Tel Aviv is resolved, and in the meantime the Jerusalem apartment will be protected by an ordinary bolt. Abadi, at home in this house, makes for the kitchen, opens the father's tool drawer, takes out a folding ruler, screwdriver and pliers, and returns to the front door to remove rusty nails before taking measurements.

From there he goes to the bathroom and stretches nearly all of his flexible body out the little window into the black of night, to estimate the distance to the drainpipe and the gutter. And again, since the window lock has disappeared entirely, and since only if Tel Aviv loses the experiment will it be worth hiring a carpenter to build a new window, all she needs now is a simple hook, which admittedly could be pried open from outside with a screwdriver, which would be a criminal act, not just a prank by kids who slide down the building's drainpipes for fun and accidentally land in their neighbor's bathroom.

She follows him around the apartment, studying him with appreciation. His movements are unhurried, his words level-headed, practical, and it's clear why her father liked him. After all, he is the talented inventor of the electric bed.

“You know, I myself sleep in it part of the time.”

“Why only part of the time?”

“Because sometimes, in the middle of the night, I miss my childhood bed.”

“Are you aware of all the possibilities offered by this electric bed?”

“I should hope so. I have the quick fingers of a harpist, and your bed doesn't have forty-seven strings or seven pedals.”

He laughs. “Not quite. But I do think it has a few possibilities you haven't discovered. This was originally a hospital bed designed for gravely ill patients, designed to meet many needs, but so a healthy person could also enjoy it, I installed an upgraded electrical mechanism. Come on, I'll teach you, because I'm not sure you're aware of all the options.”

“What I know is enough for me. I'm only here for a short time.”

“Even so, it's a shame you won't enjoy it more.”

His excitement is almost childish, but was apparently appreciated by her father, who had appointed him as his successor at the water department. And so, after writing down the measurements for the bolt and the hook, Abadi strides into her parents' bedroom, sheds his shoes, sprawls on the bed and begins to jiggle its controls, elevating and lowering its sections, activating internal vibrations, raising the whole bed levitation-like and finally tipping it over like a canoe, ejecting the recumbent man, who lands on his feet.

“You see?” he says, his eyes sparkling. “You didn't know it could do that!”

“True,” she admits.

“So come here and I'll show you how.”

It's hard to say no to such enthusiasm, and she too removes her shoes and carefully lies down on the bed, and he bends over her, and she can feel his steaming breath, which steams not for her but for his machinery, and he gently takes her hand and guides it to a hidden lever, slick from machine oil. But when she pulls, nothing budges, and a furious gargle emanates from the engine box.