“Is that your big brother?” she guessed correctly.
“Yes, he was killed in an earthquake in Nepal.”
“Oh, Yiftach… I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.”
“Of course not.”
“Would you like to tell me about it? When did it happen?”
“Over seven years ago. Father and I flew there with my brother’s army buddies to search for him after we lost all contact with him. We landed in a helicopter on a ridge where we knew he had done his last trek. There had been a serious avalanche in the area. After searching for several hours, we found a pair ofpants and, in one of the pockets was a map with Hebrew writing. At that moment, we understood that we had found Amitai. We discovered his body a few hundred feet away in a rocky area, difficult to access. We climbed down with ropes and brought his body to a flat surface. We improvised a stretcher and headed to the nearest village, where a helicopter arrived and flew us to the airport in Kathmandu. A few days later, we were all back home.”
She remained silent because she couldn’t find the right words to say. What could one say? she silently asked herself. Nothing, she answered herself. “Somehow, Father and I survived this,” he continued, “but, for my mother, it was too much. She was already sick with a kidney disease. After Amitai’s death, her condition quickly worsened. A year later, she too passed away, and since then it’s just been my father and me.”
They fell silent and she decided to get straight to the point. “You needn’t be alone anymore, ever. Come back to us. It’s not the same without you.” He looked at her and knew that her honest appeal was too short a rope with which to scramble down from the high branch he had climbed onto.
“Did Weissman send you?” he wanted to know. “He didn’t come with you because he is afraid to ask me himself?”
“He may be afraid, but actually he did come with me. Would you like to hear what he has to say?”
“Perhaps…” he squinted with a serious look on his face, not knowing where this was leading. She dialed Weissman on her cellphone. While waiting for him to answer, she explained to Yiftach that she had come here with Weissman, who was waiting outside in his car.
“Yes, go ahead,” Weissman’s voice came across the speaker, and the fact that the senior attorney had thrown aside polite manners and didn’t even address her by her name hurt her far more than she would have thought. She decided not to dwell on it.
“You can come inside,” she told him in a dry tone.
Weissman entered the house. He was way too quiet and was wearing a Lacoste shirt that was way too pink. Why is he casually dressed? Could he have taken a day off work just to get me to come back to the office? Yiftach wondered. The conversation in Max’s living room didn’t last long. “I made two mistakes in your regard,” Weissman cut straight to the chase. “The first mistake was that I let myself get involved in this entire thing and promised you that I would talk with Dr. Kena. The second mistake was that I didn’t talk to him after having promised you that I would. It placed me in a rather uncomfortable situation, look…” he tried to continue.
“If you’ve come here to try to explain to me that the circumstances have changed,” Yiftach said in a scoffing tone, “then this conversation is pointless.”
“Listen to what he has to say,” Melody interjected.
“Hello.” It was Max, who entered the living room from the narrow hall with small, determined steps.
“This is my father,” Yiftach introduced Max to the guests and they stood up and shook hands with him.
“You’ve come to take him back?”
“The orange juice is delicious!” Melody said to Max. “I understand you grow your own oranges.”
“That’s true… why don’t you join me in the garden? I’m on my way out to pick some fruit.” Melody was happy to accept the old man’s offer and they left the room together.
“Your son has a unique charm. He’s so charismatic,” she said to him as they walked through the grove. “But I’m sure you’ve heard that many times before.”
“What makes you so sure of that?”
“All I need do is look at the tree to understand the quality of its fruit...” she winked at him.
“Well, young lady, you are absolutely right,” he answered.“Yiftach is really unique. Now all he has to do is to put some order into his life.” He stood on his toes to reach a nectarine that was begging to be picked. “And, as a first step,” he went on, as he stretched his body and heaved a sigh, “he must put behind him the story with Nicole—it belongs in the past.” The ripe fruit was finally in his hands.
“Who is Nicole?” She had already heard about her more than once, but now she had a chance to gather more information from a trustworthy source, and she wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip by.
“The woman who was by now supposed to be his wife, and perhaps also the mother of his children. He found her in the arms of another woman on the day he returned home from the States and, since then, everything has gone awry. There was a great love between them.”
“And do you really think that a great love can be so easily dispensed to the distant past and forgotten there?”
“Yes, I’m certain of it. You just have to try the ‘Buddhist monks’ method.’ Have you ever heard that story?”
“I’m not sure…” she said, as they both sat down on an old, peeling wooden bench.
