Free The Extra by A. B. Yehoshua Page A

moment she sits down and looks for a menu, a plate of the standard meal is plunked down in front of her, with two piping hot pitas tossed alongside and a bottle of soda water with a black straw. She turns to the elderly customer who sits across the way, sizing her up. “What is this,” she asks, “a restaurant or a military base?” He smiles. “A restaurant, but only for believers.” “Believers? In what?” “Believers in the holy trinity of hummus, egg and meatball,” he says, motioning for the waiter to give her more hot chickpeas, which in his opinion are the pinnacle of this dish.
    The taste of the hummus surprises her, and she scoops it ravenously down to the last scrap of pita, to the delight and fascination of the elderly man, who resists yielding his seat to waiting clientele.
    â€œAnd what do you do in life?”
    She is wary of replying “Harpist,” and instead simply says, “Musician, a player in an orchestra.”
    â€œAn orchestra I could go hear?”
    â€œNo, it’s an orchestra far from here, very far,” and she tilts her head back and waves a hand to indicate how far away her orchestra is, and suddenly sees, up on the ceiling, the camera with the big shiny eye, still nesting like a black bird of prey. What’s going on? What’s the truth? Was a film really shot that night? Did it have a plot? Or is this actually a security camera? She wants to ask the elderly diner, but he is gone, apparently rebuffed by her faraway orchestra.
    The meal and the afternoon heat make her drowsy. And since Abadi’s hook and bolt will not arrive until tomorrow, she blocks the front door with two chairs, locks the bathroom door from the outside, lets down the blinds and puts on a nightgown, ready to dive into sweet slumber in her childhood bed.
    But the ringing of her mobile phone persists. She answers and hears a voice she recognizes at once, spoken from a great distance. Manfred, her loyal friend and occasional lover, inquires as to her welfare, and her mother’s, and even the welfare of Jerusalem, but his tentative tone suggests he is about to impart painful news.
    Yes, she is much missed at the orchestra, especially at the music library. The young violinist filling in for her there made an embarrassing error at the last concert, mixed up the scores of two Haydn symphonies, and only at the last moment was disaster averted. Everyone said that with “our Venus” this would not have happened.
    â€œSo far, anyway.”
    â€œCorrect.”
    â€œBut the repertoire is the same as scheduled before I left?” she asks cautiously.
    â€œAs much as possible,” sighs the flutist, “but not entirely. We’ve had some issues. The Japanese or Chinese virtuoso, I can never get her name straight—the one who was supposed to play the Mozart Second Piano Concerto next week—played tennis in Berlin and broke her arm, and since it’s impossible to find a pianist of her caliber on such short notice, we had to replace her Mozart with a different Mozart.”
    â€œIt has to be Mozart?” asks the harpist fearfully. “Surely it can be something else.”
    â€œImpossible. We’ve advertised it and made the commitment that at every concert this season there will be a work by Mozart that the orchestra hasn’t played recently, following the complaints that our repertoire is too repetitive. You know this—you were at the general meeting.”
    â€œI don’t always understand everything you say in Dutch.”
    â€œThat’s that, Noga. We had to find a work by Mozart that hadn’t been played in some time, and we thought—”
    â€œNo, no,” she cuts him off with sudden horror, “don’t tell me.”
    â€œYes,” he mumbles, his voice trembling. “No choice, because we haven’t played the Concerto for Flute and Harp in C in the last ten years.”
    â€œBut