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By Root 242 0

the end of Tarpat Street. I paused and bent over to see what was written on it. There was nothing written on it. I picked it up cautiously and turned it over, but the brown paper was smooth and unmarked. After a moment's hesitation I decided not to open the package, but felt I ought to let someone know I had found it. I didn't know whom I should tell. I held it in both my hands and it seemed heavier than its size would have suggested, heavier than a package of books, as if it contained stones or metal. Now the object aroused my suspicion, and so I replaced it gently on the bench. I ought to have reported the discovery of a suspicious package to the police, but my cell phone was on my desk at the office, because I had only gone out for a short walk and didn't want to be interrupted by office business.

Meanwhile, the last light was slowly fading, and only the afterglow of the sunset shimmered at the bottom of the road, beckoning to me, or warning me to keep away. The street was filling with deeper shadows, from the tall cypress trees and the fences surrounding the front gardens of the properties. The shadows did not stand still, but moved to and fro, as though bending down to look for something that was lost. After a few moments the streetlights came on; the shadows did not retreat, but mingled with the light breeze that was moving the treetops as if an unseen hand were stirring and blending them.

I stopped at the broken iron gate of The Ruin and stood there for a few minutes, inhaling the scent of the oleanders and the bitter smell of the geraniums. The house seemed to be empty, as there was no light in any of the windows or in the garden, just the sound of crickets among the thistles and frogs in the neighboring garden and the persistent barking of dogs from farther down the street. Why had I come here without phoning first to make an appointment? If I knocked on the door now, after dark, the two women would be bound to be alarmed. They might not even open the door. But perhaps they were both out—there was no light in the windows. So I decided to leave and come back another day. But while I was making up my mind, I opened the gate, which creaked ominously, crossed the dark front garden and knocked twice on the front door.

4

THE DOOR WAS OPENED by Yardena, the daughter of the late Eldad Rubin, a young woman of about twenty-five. Her mother and grandmother had gone to Jerusalem, and she had come from Haifa to be on her own for a few days and get on with her seminar paper on the founders of Tel Ilan. I remembered Yardena from her childhood, because once, when she was about twelve, she came to my office, sent by her father, to ask for a plan of the village. She was a bashful, fair-haired girl, with a beanstalk body and long, thin neck and delicate features that seemed full of wonderment, as though everything that happened surprised her and afforded her shy puzzlement. I had tried to engage her in a little conversation about her father, his books, the visitors who came to them from all over the country, but she would only answer yes and no, and at one point she said, "How would I know?" And so our conversation was over before it had begun. I handed her the plan of the village that her father had requested, and she thanked me and went out, leaving behind a trail of shyness and surprise, as if she had found me or my office amazing. Since then I'd bumped into her a few times at Victor Ezra's grocery store, at the council offices or at the health clinic, and each time she had smiled at me like an old friend but said little. She always left me with a sense of frustration, as though there were some conversation between us that hadn't yet taken place. Six or seven years ago she had been called up for military service, and after that, people said, she had gone off to study in Haifa.

Now she was standing in front of me at the entrance to this shuttered house, a graceful, fragile-looking young woman in a plain cotton frock, with loose, flowing hair, wearing white socks with her sandals like a schoolgirl. I lowered my eyes and