The Extra

Fifty-Four

SEVEN HOURS REMAIN until the concert. Some of the musicians run off to see a few more temples, but most, including her roommate Pirke, go in search of culinary delicacies. Only a few, Noga among them, return to the guesthouse. Her nightgown is still damp, and the morning’s blood spots are still visible. She will need to find a stronger detergent, but where and when? She takes off her clothes and examines with dismay the new spotting on her panties, then wraps them in a bag and buries them deep in the trash. For a moment she deliberates whether to take a shower or immerse her suffering body in the bath. The dream of the woman with her eyes closed, floating in the reddish foam, was frightening yet seductive. But no, it’s too soon. A person must not wallow in her own blood.

After her shower, she curls up under the blanket in a clean, flimsy nightgown, hoping that if the bleeding stops, the pain will too. All is quiet at the guesthouse. The musicians are wandering from temples to restaurants, refreshing their souls before the concert. The warm, clear sounds of a clarinet playing an old folksong waft from a room on the top floor. No, she is sure, these cannot be the signs of a monthly period. Hers ended a good while ago, and why should it return? No, she knows that this is something else, new and serious, plotting against her in this strange and distant land to put an end to the freedom she has allowed herself.

She does not hear the knock at the door, and when her eyes open the French horn player is hovering over her, blushing shyly, here to keep her promise, to which end she has brought her Wonder Horn box.

Ingrid wears no makeup, her clothes are baggy, but her natural beauty triumphs over self-imposed restrictions, and now, with the two of them alone, close to each other in a small room, Noga knows she has no further need to lift her eyes to the sky at dawn or sunset to find the planet whose name she shares, for that planet had descended to her room in the form of a young Venus, a musician in her orchestra, who will try to interpret her pains in order to relieve them.

And since Venus is also the wife of a doctor who between concerts tutors her in medicine, she unflinchingly rummages through the trash to examine the bloodstained panties. She confidently determines that the stains are evidence of menstruation and nothing more serious, and even if her periods had stopped, they have not, on the strength of her age and health, lost their right to return. And the French horn player bolsters her diagnosis with stories of women who visited her husband’s clinic.

“How old is your husband?” asks Noga, basking in a new serenity.

“Forty. Ten years older than I am.”

“And children?”

“Just one for now. Age five, staying with my parents at the moment.”

Noga closes her eyes and asks if there is something in the Wonder Horn that will lessen her pain but won’t knock her out like the sleeping pill the contrabass player gave her at midnight. Ingrid produces a small bottle and shakes out two golden pills, deciding after a moment’s thought to leave the bottle with her patient, to guarantee her peace of mind for the whole Japanese tour. And from the bottom of the box she removes a few sanitary napkins, since the blood flow will increase.

“The main thing, our Venus, is that you stay as sharp and confident as ever. Because in the last rehearsal, if I’m not mistaken, there was a bold new sound, a sort of wailing from your harp strings, or possibly the strings of your fellow harpist.”

As she closes the lid of the Wonder Horn and leaves to get ready for the first concert on Japanese soil, Noga wants to tell her, No, don’t say “our Venus” anymore, you should all just call me Noga. But she is not sure the time is yet right.

The concert hall glitters with bright lights, and along with subscription holders and paying customers are local elders and dignitaries who have been specially invited. Dennis van Zwol has passed up his light, flexible Chinese jacket, much in vogue among conductors, in favor of his old tuxedo, with an artificial lily pinned to its lapel. The male musicians have donned their black suits, and the women have endeavored to look their best. In honor of the orchestra the French horn player has elected not to conceal her beauty. She has let down her hair, adorned it with an orange flower and polished her horn to a dazzling golden sheen. In the wings, before taking the stage, everyone marveled at the metamorphosis in the Japanese pianist — in the morning she had looked like a student or waitress, and in the evening had turned into a woman of mystery in a cherry-colored silk kimono and silver high-heeled shoes that greatly increased her height.

“Listen,” Herman alerted the musicians before they went onstage, “don’t expect a long wave of applause, because the Japanese are restrained. Don’t be demoralized if the audience response seems moderate.”

But the audience response to the Haydn symphony was actually wildly enthusiastic, and the Emperor was awaited with tense anticipation. The house lights were turned off, contrary to typical concert procedure, a hush fell over the crowd, and the soloist entered to the sounds of applause and roars of joy. No doubt the family of the pianist, residents of her home village, friends and teachers, and perhaps her former employers from her days as a waitress and babysitter have not missed this chance to witness her greatness. For she is a local girl who has been away a long time, and her return is cause for celebration. Who knows how many have come to the concert just for her?

Perhaps for this reason, in the first movement she slowed the galloping tempo of the rehearsal. And from the start of the second movement there has been a dramatic change. Her playing has become soft and dreamy, as though the emperor were napping in his chamber and the piano had come not to hail him but caress him. And the slow, soft caress has unsettled the percussionists sitting backstage with Noga, so the waiting musicians have decided to fortify themselves with strong drink before the cafeteria and bar are swamped during intermission. The harpist was invited to join them, but declined, and remains alone backstage in her long black dress with her neck and shoulders bare, waiting for the blood to flow, and to her surprise also yearning for the accompanying pain.

Then a side door opens and into the darkened backstage space comes her partner, the elderly harpist Ichiro Matsudaira, who has replaced his gray robe with a magnificent colorful one, a samurai sword embroidered on it in red silk thread. His braid is neatly combed, and seems for a moment to be a bit blacker. He approaches her with tiny steps and bows deeply. It would appear that in the afternoon rehearsal he came to appreciate her playing. This musician is essentially a teacher and not a competitor, and therefore he can be happy about every student or partner who is likely to surpass him. And as Noga stands up to bow her thanks in return, she feels the bursting flow that soaks the sanitary napkin given her by the good Ingrid, and despite the pain that seizes her, she feels relief. This is indeed her period, no doubt about it.

The wrinkled old man studies her with interest. Soon they will sit onstage side by side, a golden harp beside a black harp, to give sound and color to the sea.

So I was right, she tells herself, when I told them all that I knew I could have a child but didn’t want to. I was right, and the proof now pours through my body. Ima, Honi, where are you now and what time is it? Has Ima returned to Jerusalem, or is she still afraid to be alone and clinging to her son? And suddenly an uncontrollable weeping rises from deep within her. It cannot be that the mother who gave birth to me thinks I am lost. And the little old man sees the tears and trembling shoulders of the first harpist, half a century his junior, and he seems overcome with compassion, for he stands up, and with small, delicate steps, like those with which her father would amuse his wife at night, he floats to her and gently bows.

Haifa-Givatayim, 2012–2014