Free Mr. Mani by A. B. Yehoshua Page A
Authors: A. B. Yehoshua
that was the reason I had crashed his apartment again. Anyway, he bowed his head with this sort of doleful acknowledgment and only said with a strange smile that it was a shame I wasnât a man, because he needed ten men for the cemetery, without them he couldnât say the mournerâs prayer...
âIt would seem so.
âYes, itâs very odd ... you would think it was this intimate thing that you said whenever you felt like it, but that isnât the case at all. He even tried explaining it to me ... but suddenlyâhe was talking about it and I was looking out at that field by the old leper hospital, which was covered with these white splotches of snowâsuddenly he said something, Mother, I donât remember what, that affected me so that I got this big lump in my throat and burst into tears, donât ask me why, right there on that little terrace between the brooms and the laundry rack...
âYes, real tears. They came from deep down and kept coming. I couldnât stop them even though I knew they were making me look ridiculous. He didnât say a word, though. He just stood there listening to me cry and calmly smoking another cigarette, as if I were getting what I deserved for hounding him and intruding on him...
âNo, Mother. He was not right.
âNo, he was not, and neither are you. Because what you think of as presumption, or even total irresponsibility, was simply my duty, Mother, a duty that was being spun out of me like the thin web of a spider...
âThe spider inside me right now.
âThe one made by the formula.
âThatâs what we learned in school about the development of the embryo...
âIâm telling you we did ... I remember ... there was even a chart with all these pictures...
âYou must have forgotten. Or else you never studied it.
âDonât worry.
âThere is nothing the matter with me.
âIâm imagining that too? Youâre certainly making life easy for yourself tonight!
âWhy hunt for what doesnât exist?
âThereâs nothing beneath the surface but what you put there.
âMaybe beneath the avocado trees in your orchard, but not beneath the surface of my story...
âI didnât mean to hurt your feelings ... Good God, Mother...
âIâm sorry ... Iâm sorry...
âI know perfectly well what I said.
âI donât care. Thatâs not what I meant.
âWhat?
âWhat did you say?
âNo, what an idea! Youâre too much...
âOf course not. How could you even think it?
âSo thatâs whatâs been bothering you...
âThen why didnât you say so?
âYou can calm down then ... not in my wildest dreams...
âIncredible!
âAlthough I must say in parenthesisâand only in parenthesisâthat Mr. Maniâs charms are considerably greater than his sonâs...
âI canât easily explain it. Youâll see what I mean when you meet them...
âNo. Just in passing. As we were walking back up the hallway past the grandmotherâs room, I said, âI see that the blinds belt is broken again, it looks like a hangmanâs rope.â He let out a big laugh and reddened and said, âSo it does, and the roomâs a mess too, because Iâve been looking there for something I canât find. Youâll sleep in the living room. The couch folds out into a bed ... thatâs where Efi always sleeps when he visits.â And without another word we passed that self-destructing room and went to the living room, where he pulled out the bed and brought me that old, embroidered nightgown again and all those half-torn sheetsâI couldnât tell if I or someone else had last slept on themâand quietly and not at all angrily went about setting me up for another nightâs stay...
âNo. We hardly spoke. We didnât even bother to wrestle, because we had arrived at what seemed like a temporary
âIt would seem so.
âYes, itâs very odd ... you would think it was this intimate thing that you said whenever you felt like it, but that isnât the case at all. He even tried explaining it to me ... but suddenlyâhe was talking about it and I was looking out at that field by the old leper hospital, which was covered with these white splotches of snowâsuddenly he said something, Mother, I donât remember what, that affected me so that I got this big lump in my throat and burst into tears, donât ask me why, right there on that little terrace between the brooms and the laundry rack...
âYes, real tears. They came from deep down and kept coming. I couldnât stop them even though I knew they were making me look ridiculous. He didnât say a word, though. He just stood there listening to me cry and calmly smoking another cigarette, as if I were getting what I deserved for hounding him and intruding on him...
âNo, Mother. He was not right.
âNo, he was not, and neither are you. Because what you think of as presumption, or even total irresponsibility, was simply my duty, Mother, a duty that was being spun out of me like the thin web of a spider...
âThe spider inside me right now.
âThe one made by the formula.
âThatâs what we learned in school about the development of the embryo...
âIâm telling you we did ... I remember ... there was even a chart with all these pictures...
âYou must have forgotten. Or else you never studied it.
âDonât worry.
âThere is nothing the matter with me.
âIâm imagining that too? Youâre certainly making life easy for yourself tonight!
âWhy hunt for what doesnât exist?
âThereâs nothing beneath the surface but what you put there.
âMaybe beneath the avocado trees in your orchard, but not beneath the surface of my story...
âI didnât mean to hurt your feelings ... Good God, Mother...
âIâm sorry ... Iâm sorry...
âI know perfectly well what I said.
âI donât care. Thatâs not what I meant.
âWhat?
âWhat did you say?
âNo, what an idea! Youâre too much...
âOf course not. How could you even think it?
âSo thatâs whatâs been bothering you...
âThen why didnât you say so?
âYou can calm down then ... not in my wildest dreams...
âIncredible!
âAlthough I must say in parenthesisâand only in parenthesisâthat Mr. Maniâs charms are considerably greater than his sonâs...
âI canât easily explain it. Youâll see what I mean when you meet them...
âNo. Just in passing. As we were walking back up the hallway past the grandmotherâs room, I said, âI see that the blinds belt is broken again, it looks like a hangmanâs rope.â He let out a big laugh and reddened and said, âSo it does, and the roomâs a mess too, because Iâve been looking there for something I canât find. Youâll sleep in the living room. The couch folds out into a bed ... thatâs where Efi always sleeps when he visits.â And without another word we passed that self-destructing room and went to the living room, where he pulled out the bed and brought me that old, embroidered nightgown again and all those half-torn sheetsâI couldnât tell if I or someone else had last slept on themâand quietly and not at all angrily went about setting me up for another nightâs stay...
âNo. We hardly spoke. We didnât even bother to wrestle, because we had arrived at what seemed like a temporary
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