Scenes From Village Life - Amos Oz [7]
At ten past seven the rumble of the bus could be heard from the direction of Founders Street. Dr. Steiner stood up in front of the bus stop, wiry and determined, with a dark sweater over her angular shoulders and a dark woolen scarf around her neck. First, two older women alighted from the back door; Gili Steiner knew them slightly. She greeted them, and they greeted her in return. Arieh Zelnik got off slowly, from the front door of the bus, wearing fatigues that were a little too big for him and a cap that came down over his forehead and hid his eyes. He said good evening to Gili Steiner and asked her jokingly if she was waiting for him. No, she said, she was waiting for her nephew who was in the army, but Arieh Zelnik had not seen any soldier on the bus. Gili Steiner said she was referring to a soldier in civilian clothes. In the meantime, another three or four passengers had alighted but Gideon was not among them. The bus was almost empty now, and Gili asked Mirkin, the driver, if he hadn't noticed among the people who got on in Tel Aviv a tall, slim young man with glasses, a soldier on leave, quite good-looking but rather absent-minded and perhaps not in the best of health. Mirkin could not recall anyone answering to that description, but said with a laugh:
"Don't you worry, Dr. Steiner, whoever didn't arrive this evening will certainly turn up tomorrow morning, and whoever doesn't arrive tomorrow morning will come tomorrow lunchtime. Everyone gets here sooner or later."
Gili Steiner asked the last passenger, Avraham Levin, as he got off, if there mightn't have been a young man on the bus who got off at the wrong stop by mistake.
"There may have been. And then again there may not have been," said Avraham Levin. "I wasn't paying attention. I was deep in thought."
And after a moment's hesitation he added:
"There are a lot of stops along the way. And a lot of people got on and off."
Mirkin, the driver, offered to drop Dr. Steiner off on his way home. The bus spent every night parked outside Mirkin's house and left for Tel Aviv at seven o'clock in the morning. Gili thanked him and said she preferred to walk home; she enjoyed the winter air, and now that it was clear her nephew hadn't come, she had no reason to hurry back.
After Mirkin had said good night and closed the door of the bus with a sigh of compressed air and was on his way home, Gili Steiner had second thoughts: it was quite possible that Gideon had fallen asleep lying on the back seat without anyone noticing, and now that Mirkin was parking the bus in front of his house, turning off the lights and locking the door, he would be a prisoner till the next morning. So she turned toward Founders Street and strode energetically after the bus, with a view to cutting across the Memorial Garden, which stood cloaked in darkness touched by the pale silver light of the moon.
2
WITHIN TWENTY OR thirty paces Gili Steiner had made up her mind that, in fact, she should go straight home and phone Mirkin, the driver, to ask him to go outside and check if anyone had fallen asleep on the back seat of the bus. She could also phone her sister to find out whether Gideon had actually set off for Tel Ilan or if the trip had been canceled at the last moment. On the other hand, what was the point of causing her sister unnecessary anxiety? It was enough that she herself was worried. If the boy had indeed got off at the wrong stop, he must be trying to call her from one of the other villages. Another reason to go straight home and not run after the bus all the way to Mirkin's house. She would tell Gideon to take a taxi from wherever he was, and if he did not have enough money, she would of course pay the fare. She could see the boy in her mind's eye, arriving at her home by taxi in another half hour or so, smiling his usual shy smile and apologizing in his soft voice for getting muddled, and she would pay the