Dancing Bear

  Before your grandfather died, Nahum rented the house and the farm in Kfar-Vitkintoto a nice couple from Tel Aviv who wanted to move to the country, just not too far from civilization. That's when I thought of you and the fact that Nahum doesn't have any children. Legally, the property in the village goes to you as the only member of the family's younger generation, so if you want to, you could move into the house and start your own family, or make some arrangement with the Tel Aviv couple to share it with them. (They seem to be nice people and hard workers who enjoy living in the country, maybe because they didn't grow up there like Nahum and me.) The idea occurred to me when Nahum asked if I'd agree to sell the property. A week later the clown you sent showed up here. Actually, he's a good kid who could be very useful on the farm where I live now.

  You can't imagine how excited I am about writing to you like this. It seems incredible that we have found each other again. I haven't heard from you in fifteen years. At first, I wrote you every year, but then I realized it made you uncomfortable to write back and to be burdened by a mother who had disappeared on you, so I stopped writing and let you grow and blossom. The fact of the matter is, you were with me even if you didn't know it. Would you believe that, as the result of considerable efforts, I got your graduation picture from the Boston University School of Law! My darling David, my heart nearly burst with pride when it finally came. It's hanging in the reception room of this center where I live and which I run, but more about that later.

  All in all, you didn't have a bad childhood, even though your father and I were both very scared to be parents. I was mostly afraid of myself. I'd run away from Kfar-Vitkin. I couldn't stand the suffocating intimacy of the people in the village, the older generation, and the founding fathers. I dreamt of wide open spaces, of fresh air and freedom. Right after you were born - a beautiful baby, you seemed so full of promise! - I sank into depression. I might have come out of it somehow. After all, we villagers are trained to suffer in silence. But then I realized I was all alone, completely alone. Your father - a charming, charismatic man who stole my heart - was even more frightened than I was, frightened of the baby who would rope him in, and even more, of the crazy Israeli he was married to. What had first seemed like a pretty good deal that didn't involve too much commitment, was starting to look like a very bad investment.

  I don't want you to think he was not a good man. But he was scared. I may have been the one who took off, but he ran just as far as I did. He chose, as my father used to say, "to follow his dick."Today, I know that his obsessive need for intense casual sex, and always with a new partner, is a fairly common disease that can be cured.

  I found the support I never had here, of all places, at the end of the world, in this remote God-forsaken corner, with Philip - a good-hearted Canadian truck driver with his feet on the ground and more guts than any of us. I could lean on him and cry on his shoulder and he soaked up all my fears and apprehensions and crazy whims and still loved me and was there for me. He left a family behind. Maybe they got along without him and maybe they didn't. Life is a game and the final score always works out to a goose egg, my darling. One person's happiness is invariably at the expense of another person's suffering - and I think I've had industrial-strength doses of suffering in my life.

  I'm sitting here writing and crying, and not because I've suffered. I'm almost used to that by now. Despite my years with Philip, I still get up each morning and wait for the next punch, but I do smile more and I've started to believe in the possibility of hearing good news too. And that's why I'm crying, because when Danny - such a funny kid - showed up and told me about you, I felt like I'd been waiting for him for years and I always knew he'd come and that you and I would be together again. But I hadn't expected someone like Danny driving a noisy, broken-down tow truck in a tank crew jumpsuit he'd pinched from the army.

  There's a place for you here at Hampton Court, David. You can find peace here and work things out. And I need a brave young attorney. As you may have heard, today I run a center for the protection of animals and the environment. It's not only a fascinating field; it's a critical issue if we want to go on living a life of any value. The need for personal satisfaction, human egotism, is an odd bird. It can only find what it's looking for in large groups. We need other people around us, as many wiser than I have said often enough.

  I know things at the moment are not going well for you, and I'm very worried about you. I've been worried about you from the minute you were born. I saw how perfect you were, how beautiful, how you stared at me with such innocent, trusting eyes, and I was overcome by a terrible wrenching apprehension. But I've already said that. Now I'm worried about you like a normal mother. Imagine that, after we haven't seen each other for fifteen years. Actually, I'm not terribly worried. I want you to know, and this is in the context of what I started to say before, that things aren't that bad. The most important thing is that you have what I never had. You have friends and you have guts. If Danny’s for real, I don't think there's too much reason to worry. And if you've got a couple more like him around you, then you've been blessed with the most important thing in life, and like Napoleon said, you're a lucky man.

  I'm getting carried away and starting to sound like an interfering mother. I meant to write a short note. Something like: "Come to Hampton Court immediately!" You'll get along fine here, take it easy, rest, and work things out. I've got over thirty-five volunteers on a good day, working full-time. It would be good to have you here, a gutsy, young, talented attorney who also happens to be my son. People find happiness in those around them, and governments exploit that and entangle them in a web of deceit and duplicity and illusion. I need help fighting the authorities that collaborate in the devastation of our marvelous planet, destroying the inhabitants at the same time. Life is too beautiful, my darling, for us to give up.

  I'll end here; I've gone on too long already. Maybe I'm still high from that wonderful surprise visitor, or maybe it's just my age. I'll be fifty next summer. Almost the right age for a grandmother. My darling David - I'll be waiting for you to come.

  Love,

  Mother

  "Do you intend to marry her?"

  Allie had woken up. I didn't know how long she had been watching me as I read and reread the letter.

  "You can level with me," she went on when I didn't answer.

  I couldn't give her an answer. I loved Kate enough to risk my life for her, but could I be sure I wanted to marry her when we'd only known each other for a week? The question wasn't even under consideration yet. I remembered our talk of a peaceful home in the country...it seemed very remote now, unreal. She dreamt of Rishpon; she'd certainly have to give up that dream in the years to come. I hoped we could build a life together, but the most important thing was to get her freedom back. What happens afterward, God only knows. I felt like a well-trained son informing his mother that he was bringing his girlfriend home to meet the family. I expected someone to ask me what her father's occupation was.

  "We don't really know anything about her," she offered, her voice deeper than usual. "I'm not at all happy about this whole business, but at this stage we don't have any choice. You know you're going to have to leave tonight. Do you have someone who can take care of your things, pay your bills?"

  I told her there was someone who would do whatever needed doing. I was thinking of Danny, and at least I didn't have to worry about that part of the problem. She was waiting for details, maybe expecting me to ask her to do me another favor. I knew she deserved more attention than I was giving her, but I didn't have it in me. The tension and anticipation were driving me crazy.

  "You've only known her for a short time," she said abruptly. "Is she worth all this trouble? A lot of good people have given it their best effort. I hope we haven't used up our credit for no good reason."

  I couldn't take anymore. I turned to her and snarled furiously: "Allie, enough. You talk as if you never heard the Minister talking. She was the last of his considerations. Leav
e me alone now. Just give it a rest."

  She sighed, stretched out her hand and stroked my cheek gently, totally ignoring my complaint. "You know she has you to thank more than anyone else for this chance she's getting. I never knew you were so strong." She sighed again."Believe me, before this is over we'll do a lot more praying, and you know I'm not a religious person."

  The rest of the flight passed in silence.

  We took a cab from the airport to Allie's house, a large fashionable home decorated as Barbie might have done it, with red awnings and arched windows surrounded by an enormous yard and a low hedge. I knew there was a big pool in the back, but we entered through the front, into a spacious living room with a marble floor and low wooden cabinets that displayed careful arrangements of photographs showing a smiling Allie at important functions. Wasting no time, I sank into one of the soft sofas scattered around the room and fashioned a pillow out of a mound of bright cushions. Allie went into the kitchen to make coffee.

  "David," she said when she returned with a tray bearing two steaming cups and a plate full of Oreos. "David, I don't imagine we'll see each other again for a long time."

  I nodded. "When I decide where I'm going to settle, I'll write," I promised.

  "Yes," she agreed, "and I'll try to get there some time. You understand, don't you? I think I owe it to your father." She was sobbing. "I want you to know, David, I'll always be here in case you get into trouble again."

  "I know that," I answered quietly. "I'll miss you." I closed my eyes and let myself rest.

  *

  I started as if I'd been stung, and it took me a few seconds to realize it was only the phone that had startled me awake. Panicking, I looked at my watch. It was almost an hour since I'd closed my eyes for a minute. The coffee was already cold.

  Allie jumped up to answer the phone. "Hello?" And then, with a certain surprise: "He's here," and "That's fine," and "Yes, I'm sure." Then she gave Eric Albott's address and hung up.

  "That was about Kate," she said."Your girlfriend."

  "Yes?" I was struggling to sound calm.

  "They're leaving that place in West Roxbury in twenty minutes. In forty minutes or so they'll be in Brookline. I told them to bring her to Eric's. I'm not going with you."

  She looked softer and more vulnerable than usual, and couldn't seem to find the right words. "You're on your own now," she said, her eyes filling with tears.

  I got up, went over to her and kissed her. ""I'll never be able to thank you enough. I hope to see you again soon, Allie."

  "You can never know," she said.

  I left, stopping at the phone booth down the street to call Danny.

  It took him only a few minutes to pick me up in another Dodge Diplomat, this one with the license plates of the Texas Tourist Board. I guess he figured I was going to ask to borrow his car again, and this time it would be a long-term loan, so he brought me something a little less conspicuous.

  "No snow in Texas, which means they don't salt the roads, so the chassis stayed in great shape. No rust," he explained as we drove to Eric's.

  I stared at him, not knowing what to say to such a good, loyal friend, when we were about to say goodbye, God only knows for how long. He must have been reading my mind when he said, "I know the way to Hampton Court. I like that mother of yours, so don't miss me too much. I'll give you a week or two before coming over.”

  At Eric's place we had coffee, but he insisted that wasn't enough and started laboring, as usual, over a huge omelet. "You'll look better after you eat it," he promised as he put the plate down in front of me. We sat there for a whole hour, not saying much, but Kate didn't show. Meanwhile, whoever was holding her at the mental home could be transferring her somewhere else, leaving no clues behind for us to follow this time. My nerves were starting to get the better of me. Maybe I was wrong, and Allie wasn't as powerful as I thought. Maybe she wanted Kate to vanish, and was keeping me out of the way for an extra hour or two. Maybe...

  I couldn't take it anymore. I got up. "I'm going out for the morning paper," I announced.

  Danny tagged along - probably just a matter of habit - as well as Eric, who said he needed some air. But I suspected he knew what I was planning, and in fact he didn't look particularly surprised when I instructed Danny, who was driving, to head for the hospital - and make it fast.

  I almost missed the first siren - the one on the police car - as we rode down River way. The next one came from a fire engine speeding past us. My heart was pounding wildly. The accident was on the corner in front of the hospital on River way. It must have happened only a few minutes ago, because another emergency vehicle was just pulling up.

  A huge truck had run a red light just as the ambulance with Kate inside was pulling out into the street. Less than a second before they collided, another car got between them, so that the truck ran into both of them before crashing into a tree. It was now on the sidewalk, beside a tree it had nearly ripped up by the roots. The hood was torn open and steam was rising from the engine. The truck itself hadn't been badly damaged, but the driver seemed to have been crushed behind the steering wheel. The body was already lying on a nearby stretcher, totally covered by a light green sheet. Blood was still dripping from the driver's seat, making a small puddle on the carefully-groomed grass along the pavement. I looked at the other car. It was barely identifiable as a gray Mercedes 480 coupé. It had been hit on both sides, ending up as an appalling mass of crumpled steel - but miraculously, the driver had suffered no injuries whatsoever. On the contrary, he appeared suspiciously alert. I stared at him. It was Avihu.

  "The girl's okay," he told me almost apologetically. "There must be a nearby Metro station here -you know where?”

  I looked at him, amazed.

  "I got only small change," he explained.“I gotta get out of here." He looked very handsome in a tuxedo, no matter how tattered and dirty it was. He could easily have emerged from one of my surrealistic dreams.

  "Sorry," he said, watching as my eyes scanned him. "Nadav dragged me to one of those official receptions when I got the call from Washington. Not much left of his car. The tux is rented," he added, trying to estimate the damages. "Someone on the other side decided to cancel your deal at the last minute, some Defense Department genius. The Americans have their own problems at home. But as you can see, we got here in time, at least this time. Isn't that something?" The startling monologue ended as abruptly as it had begun.

  "Where's Nadav?" I asked.

  "Back in Manhattan. I just took his car. It's rented too, but he'll come up with some excuse. I can't stay here. I'm not good at explanations, and I can see the cops are getting ready to question me."

  Avihu was about to take off. My broken ribs were aching again. He wasn't in much better condition, but I was still in a state of shock. That must have been why I asked, "You going back to Rishpon?"

  "Rishpon?" He looked confused. "As soon I can, I'll be going home to Tel Nof. I've lived there for ten years. Drop in when you get a chance."

  "Ever lived in Rishpon?"

  "I wanted to buy a house there once, but the guy deceived me and disappeared with the money. Listen, I've got to make myself scarce." He turned around and started walking in the direction of West Roxbury. I went over to the ambulance, still not sure I understood what was going on.

  It was rush hour. Cars were slowing down to peer at the remains of the accident. The front of the ambulance was completely crushed. Both the driver and the passenger beside him were injured. They were being lifted out of the totaled vehicle as I got there. A cop opened the back door. Dr. Green, an old friend of Allie's, was sitting on the floor, obviously in shock. Lying on a gurney beside him was Kate. For a second I was afraid she was dead, but then she tried to sit up. She stared at me and I saw how pale, and how beautiful, she was. Dazed, or maybe drugged.

  "Avihu?" she asked.

  "Avihu's gone," I said. "It's David, remember?"

  She reached out with both arms and hugged me tightly. "Oh, D
avid, David," she murmured. "Why did you leave me?"

  I carried her in my arms and lowered her into the Dodge, producing a splitting pain in my ribs. Danny and Eric watched in silence.

  "I'd like to think I'll see you two tomorrow," I said, "but it'll probably be a while. Take care of yourselves and thanks for everything."

  I felt like I was saying goodbye to my family. I hate goodbyes. Danny shook my hand. "If you need anything, just call," he said, as he always did.

  Eric was too upset to say anything. He kissed Kate, and then me, and I saw tears welling up in his eyes. He looked very old and frail.

  *

  It took us six hours to reach the Canadian border. Kate slept for most of the ride, her head on my lap. The sun was just coming up as we crossed the border. The immigration officer didn't waste much time on us or the car. He held out the two driving licenses and said, "Welcome to Canada."

  "Thank you," I answered. "Good morning."

  The air was very cold, but I left the window open. The chill had a good sobering effect. The sun was shining dully through the clouds covering the Canadian skies. We still had a three-hour drive ahead of us till we got to the coastal town of Hampton Court. The adrenaline was draining from my body. I felt extreme fatigue, mixed with relief and joy.