Read The Extra for Free Online Page B

violet twilight she can make out, beside a bench, a little old man in a wheelchair covered in a blanket, a thin scarf around his neck, dozing or perhaps unconscious, a shriveling intravenous bag connected to his arm.
    A forgotten resident, not brought in for dinner? Or perhaps the IV is his meal?
    She is careful not to wake him, and sits on the bench to ensure his safety in the gathering darkness. But soon, in the warm evening air, she is intoxicated by the serenity of her napping neighbor and closes her eyes—and suddenly an unknown hand clutches her neck.
    For a moment she is terrified that the man with the IV has risen up to strangle her. But the old man is gone. Apparently someone has quietly wheeled him back inside. And behind her, the laughter of her brother.
    â€œYou better watch out,” she says. “At age forty-one my heart can’t handle your jokes.”
    â€œYour heart is the same as ever,” Honi says, holding her wrist as if checking her pulse. “A young heart, a strong heart, a heart of stone, as Uriah used to say.”
    â€œHe complained about me to you too?”
    â€œYes, out of desperate love for you. And how’s the home I found for Ima? The lawn lets her look after the kids while sitting in an armchair.”
    â€œAnd this will be her final apartment, if she wants?”
    â€œThis one, or maybe a better one, providing you don’t weaken her resolve.”
    â€œI didn’t come to Israel to weaken any resolves, yours or hers.”
    He nods in gratitude.
    In the room, a fruit platter assembled by the new tenant awaits her two children, and the three of them now sit, six months after the father’s death, in the peaceful setting of a posh old-age home, light years away from the blackening neighborhood in Jerusalem, discussing the experiment just begun, and the arrangements for the Jerusalem flat under Noga’s care.
    â€œWait a minute,” Noga says. “Those children, Pomerantz’s grandchildren . . . what do I do if they come into the apartment again?”
    â€œThey won’t come in,” decrees her brother, “and if they try, don’t let them. Even if they beg, no mercy. Don’t repeat Ima’s mistake. And make sure the bathroom window stays locked. They managed in the past to climb down the drainpipe.”
    â€œFrom the third floor down the drainpipe? How old are they?”
    â€œThe older one,” says the mother, “is eleven or twelve, the younger six or so. The older one is Shaya’s son. You remember him, Noga? Pomerantz’s middle son, the handsome boy you sometimes ran into on the stairs or in the street. After you got married and left, they arranged for him a bride among the most extreme ultra-Orthodox in Mea Shearim, and though he is more or less your age, he’s already fathered ten or maybe eleven children—I think even his mother gets confused how many. And that younger one is a cousin, and as it happens in these huge families, one of them always turns out retarded.”
    â€œThat’s not a nice word, Ima,” scolds Honi.
    â€œIf not retarded, then strange, a space cadet, but sweet, nice-looking. And because he is hyperactive, they send him with Shaya’s son to let off steam at grandma’s house. But how much can Mrs. Pomerantz keep him occupied? She’s not a well woman. They don’t have a television, of course, just a radio tuned to some religious station, so it’s no wonder the kids get bored and run around on the stairway, up and down, over and over, making noise and yelling. And this little one, the retar—‘challenged’ one, he sometimes makes these blood-curdling screams. So to keep them quiet, I invited them to watch a little television, children’s programs, because they don’t allow television.”
    â€œAnd you got permission from the grandma?”
    â€œI didn’t want to put her to the test, get her in trouble with