The Collected Stories

meant for each other.”
    “What would I do in Turkey? No, that’s impossible.”
    “If it’s a matter of money, I’ll be glad to cover the expenses. You can even stay with me.”
    “No, Mrs. Metalon, it’s out of the question.”
    “Well, something is bound to happen. What shall I do with that boy? He’s driving me crazy.”
    We had two days in Madrid, a day in Córdoba, and we were on our way to Seville, where we were scheduled to stop for two days. The tour program promised a visit to a nightclub there. Our route was supposed to take us through Málaga, Granada, and Valencia to Barcelona, and from there to Avignon, then back to Geneva.
    In Córdoba, Mrs. Weyerhofer delayed the bus for nearly two hours. She vanished from the hotel before our departure and all searching failed to turn her up. On account of her, the passengers had already missed a bullfight. Dr. Weyerhofer pleaded with the driver to go on and leave his lunatic wife alone in Spain as she deserved, but the driver couldn’t bring himself to abandon a woman in a strange country. When she finally showed up loaded down with bundles and packages, Dr. Weyerhofer slapped her twice. Her packages fell to the floor and a vase shattered. “Nazi!” she shrieked. “Homosexual! Sadist!” Dr. Weyerhofer said aloud so that everyone could hear, “Well, thank God, this is the end of my martyrdom.” And he raised his hand to the sky like a pious Jew swearing a vow.
    The uproar caused an additional three-quarters of an hour delay. When Mrs. Weyerhofer finally got into the bus, no one would sit next to her, and the driver, who had seen us speaking together a few times, asked me if I would, since there were no single seats. Mark tried to seat me next to his mother and take my place, but Mrs. Metalon shouted at him to stay with her, and he gave in.
    For a long while Mrs. Weyerhofer stared out the window and ignored me as if I were the one responsible for her disgrace. Then she turned to me and said, “Give me your address. I want you to be my witness in court.”
    “What kind of witness? If it should come to it, the court would find for him, and—if you’ll excuse me—rightly so.”
    “Eh? Oh, I understand. Now that you’re preparing to marry the Armenian heiress, you’re already lining up on the side of the anti-Semites.”
    “Madam, your own conduct does more harm to Jews than all the anti-Semites.”
    “They’re my enemies, mortal enemies. Your madam from Constantinople was glowing with joy when those devils humiliated me. I am again where I was—in a concentration camp. You’re about to convert, I know, but I will turn back to the Jewish God. I am no longer his wife and he is no longer my husband. I’ll leave him everything and flee with my life, as I did in 1945.”
    “Why do you keep the bus waiting in every city? This has nothing to do with Jewishness.”
    “It’s a plot, I tell you. He organized the whole thing down to the last detail. I don’t sleep the whole night, but comes morning, just as I’m catching a nap he turns back the clock. Your knocking on my door the other night—what was the name of the city?—when you were on your way to take a bath at that Turkish whore’s, was also one of his tricks. It was a conspiracy to let him catch me with a lover. It’s obvious. He wants to drive me out without a shirt on my back, and he has achieved his goal, the sly fox. I won’t be allowed to remain in Switzerland, but who will accept me? Unless I can manage to make my way to Israel. Now I understand everything. You’ll be the witness for
him,
not for me.”
    “I’ll be a witness for no one. Don’t talk nonsense.”
    “You obviously think I’m mad. That’s his goal—to commit me to an asylum. For years he’s been talking of this. He’s already tried it. He keeps sending me to psychiatrists. He wanted to poison me, too. Three times he put poison in my food and three times my instinct—or maybe it was God—gave me a warning. By the way, I want you to know that this boy, Mark, who wants so desperately for you to sit next to that Turkish concubine, is not her son.”
    “Then who is he?”
    “He is her lover, not her son. She sleeps with him.”
    “Were you there and saw it?”
    “A chambermaid in Madrid told me. She made a mistake and opened the door to their room in the morning and found them in bed together. There are such sick women. One wants a lapdog, and another a young boy. Really, you’re crawling into