The Sonderberg Case Read Online Free PDF Page A

running. Whereas I know where he’s going. One look at his face and I know everything about his life. Do you want me to tell you? His wife doesn’t love him; he keeps suspecting she’s unfaithful to him. He has two children who fight over every little thing. A neighbor who hates him. He’s plagued with insomnia. He’s had a greattragedy in his life: his first child, a daughter, was born handicapped. Ever since, he’s been cursing himself day and night.”
    “Can we help him?”
    “Yes. You could.”
    “How?”
    “You could sing a song for him. Go on, run, catch up with him. You’ll change the star controlling his life.”
    Yedidyah looked around for the passerby. Too late. He had disappeared. And Méir noted, “That’s the misfortune. We never do things in time.”
    The words of a lunatic? No, those of a wise man.
    Another day, Méir noticed an old woman in tears. “She’s lost her handbag. It contains all her papers. And all her remaining money: she’d just withdrawn it from the bank. But don’t worry. I’ll help her. She’ll get everything back. And she’ll laugh. And then cry. Out of happiness.”
    “How will you do it?”
    “We’ll do it together.”
    And the amazing thing was, an hour later, Yedidyah saw the old lady again.
    She was laughing.
    Yedidyah finally asked the question bluntly: “Tell me, Méir. They say you became blind, but I know you’re not. They also say you’re mad. Is it true?”
    “It is, my child. I’m mad, a blind lunatic, blinded by madness, blinded by the thick, dark light that envelops this world where we’re condemned to live. And this light affects my reason to the point of diverting it, perturbing it, directingit against itself, against its source. Do you understand what I just said?”
    “No, Méir. I don’t.”
    “Very good. Bravo. You could have lied. To please me. You chose to tell the truth. Beware—one day, you, too, might be called a lunatic.”
    With the years, he stopped being interested in newspapers. He didn’t even ask Drora or Yedidyah—when he came to visit—to read the papers to him. He used to say: “What’s the point? I know what’s in them. The situations and events are always the same; the names alone change. Therefore we might as well leaf through the phone book, right?”
    He recounted how he had met Drora. In a museum in Paris. They were admiring the same Rembrandt painting: Abraham being stopped from sacrificing Isaac. She was oriental, simultaneously stern and dreamy. They left together and, without a word, sat down at the terrace of a café. She asked him to tell her a story. He invented more than one; but he spoke differently to Yedidyah.
    “It was during the Occupation, a boy and a girl. Courageous. Their mission: to follow a traitor and track down where he lived. They saw him go home one night, a summer night. They went back to her house. They made love and were happy for a very long time: for a whole night. A small fragment of eternity. For others, eternity is what comes after death; for lovers, it’s what precedes it.”
    “Who was it? Drora?”
    He smiled but didn’t answer.
    Yedidyah loved him.
    And he loved being loved.
    As for me, I love children. And of course, my twins are the children I love most in the world. Intelligent, respectful of others, they embody the joy of ever-renewed surprises. I need only look at them or listen to them and I thank God for having invented life and happiness and the family. Thanks to them, more than once, Alika and I grew close after a quarrel, big or small.
    Leibele and Dovid’l: the same delicate face, the same dark eyes, the same penetrating and peaceful gaze, the same husky voice. And, give or take a few tiny differences, the same character and the same fondness for medieval music. They’ve always been very close even if each one had his own temperament. Leibele, being pragmatic, studied architecture, whereas Dovid’l chose philosophy of science. The former always sought the company