Face Tells the Secret

by Bernstein, Jane

  “On my second morning home, I’d woken early and was sitting at my desk. How long, I couldn’t say. Only that at some moment, I turned and saw her standing with her arms crossed and could tell she’d been standing like that for some minutes. On her face was a look of contempt. That tightening of the lip corners. She’s leaving me. The thought was not even complete when she said those same words: ‘I’m leaving you.’”

  “Before that morning, you had no clue she was going to leave?”

  “She’d been unhappy. For a while.”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “The clues were there. I hadn’t been looking.”

  How can you not know? I wondered. How can you live with a person who radiates despair? How can you live with a woman who insists you forget your own child, a woman who… and here I closed my eyes, to block out what filled my head. How do you live with a man in your basement? How do you live in a city where the sky is always gray, or in a country, where a fence has been erected, a wall between us and them? How can you live, knowing death awaits?

  “I knew she was unhappy, but since she never spoke of it, I believed it would pass. You’ve been married so you know there are times when you’re very close to your mate and other times when you’re disconnected, maybe for a while, until something brings you together again. Isn’t that how it is?”

  “I guess,” I said, then backtracked. “I’m not sure I had that.”

  “My wife said it was my doing. I wanted to be married, but I no longer wanted her.”

  “Is that true?”

  “I suppose it is, though it took me a very long time to recognize this.”

  “Do you know why?”

  The smell of pot wafted toward us. “What do people say when this happens? ‘We grew apart.’ I suppose this is what happened. Raising children is a long collaboration. Maybe we didn’t see what had changed between us until that project ended. I’ll tell you a story, though. Six months before she left, my wife had minor surgery. I took her home from the clinic and helped her get settled. I asked her if she was comfortable and what could I do for her, and she said, ‘go to work,’ and shooed me out of the room. So I went.”

  “Oh, but she didn’t want you to go,” I said.

  “That’s right. She wanted me to stay and look after her.”

  “You’re a face guy. How come you couldn’t just look at her and see that?”

  Baruch leaned over to slip off his shoes. “In the years before computer vision, we used videotape to record mother-infant interactions, I spent countless hours advancing and rewinding videotape, trying to see the micro-expressions I’d initially missed. After my wife left, I found myself going over and over past events, trying to find what I’d failed to see. And I realized I’d registered her discontent. I’d taken it in. But at the time, I hadn’t seen it. Maybe it was too threatening. Or I was too self-absorbed. We’re human beings; we miss things. We forget.”

  “Maybe what we need is a checklist, like the ones at Chaverim. Maybe it should be required, like a blood test. Before you get a marriage license, you have to answer two hundred questions that let your partner know exactly what you like and don’t like. And then there’d be a second section, the next level, where you have to give details like, ‘When I say go, I mean stay.’”

  The sea was very tranquil, unlike the ocean where I grew up, where once at midnight, drunk and giddy, I swam into the waves with my friends. The undertow dragged me out, flipped me around, spat me back onto the sand, and left me breathless. It was crazy, dangerous, intoxicating. I’d wanted to do it again, to let go, to be dragged and spun, powerless.

  And now I wanted to walk into the water. To strip off my clothes, curl into a ball, and let the ocean carry me away.

  

  Later that night, beneath the perfect moon, we walked on the sand and worked on sensory checklists for ourselves. It was warm, nearly windless. We were on a second loop and again passed the kids sitting around the bonfire, two of them silently swaying.

  “Do you persistently seek touching?” I asked.

  “Is a woman doing the touching?”

  “Yes,” I said. “A woman.”

  “Then I like the touching very much.”

  “Touching where?” I asked. “More data are needed. For my checklist.”

  He was shy, glanced at me, averted his eyes. “Face, arms, chest, back, body. Inner thighs. No knees, not the knees. No feet. They’re very sensitive, my feet.”

  “Lips?”

  “Of course.”

  “Kind of touch?”

  “Loving.”

  “Oops—sorry,” I said. “‘Loving’ is not on the list.”

  “Soft,” he said. “Firm.”

  The kids at the bonfire were singing softly. I listened, arms crossed, hands cupped around my elbows and not on him. “When you sleep, what’s your preference, regarding a woman’s touch?”

  Now he let his eyes linger. “Very close.”

  “And when you’re upset?”

  “Even closer. And you, Vered?”

  “Everywhere. All the time. Except knees. Like you, no knees.”

  “How do you react to movement?”

  “Hesitant to move unless holding onto someone. Loses balance easily. Does not catch self when falling. The waves are so gentle. Do you swim?”

  “Of course,” he said, and went back to the checklist. “What about clothing? Fabric against your skin. Does it distress you?”

  “Prefers wearing as little as possible. Dislikes shoes.” I unbuttoned my cotton sweater. “Persistently strips off clothing. That’s one on the list that stopped me. What do you do when your mission is to make people comfortable and you have someone in your midst who can’t stand wearing anything at all?”

  I let my sweater fall onto the sand. His smile was inscrutable. I could not say what it signaled and grew anxious. “You need to go home, is that it? Get me away from this nut job?”

  “So you’re a mind reader?”

  “No.” I laughed nervously. “Just the opposite. I can’t tell what you’re thinking.”

  “Are you planning to swim?”

  “I want to,” I said. “Will you come in with me?”

  “Of course.” Then just the slightest gesture with his chin. “You’ll want to take off your jeans. You’ll be very uncomfortable if you wear them in the water.”

  I held onto him for balance while I slipped off my jeans. The night was so dark and still, only the distant singing. When I was down to my tank top and underpants, he touched the hem of my shirt disapprovingly. “Cotton is a bad choice for swimwear.”

  “Yes, I know. Cotton, the death fiber.”

  I wove my fingers between his. This simple gesture, exquisite, intimate, almost unbearably so. “Excuse me, what was your name again?”

  “You’re American? Then for you it’s Barr-ook.”

  “So Barr-ook, are you the type who dives right in?”

  “Never. And you?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I don’t know that I believe you. There is some wildness in you still.” He took off his jacket and lowered it onto the sand as if to avoid getting it creased. “I can tell there is.”

  “Has trouble with transitions. Cannot shift well from one activity to the next.”

  He said nothing, his gaze deeper, more candid, overriding our game.

  I put my hand against his face. “You’re a very kind person. Not a saint; you’ve made that clear. Not selfless. I wouldn’t dare call you selfless. Just decent. You’re a decent man. I can tell.”

  He put his hand over mine. “Which name do I call you?”

  “The one you like.”

  “Vered. It’s an old-fashioned name, but it suits you.”

  “Say it again.”

  “Vered.”

  He un
zipped his pants, held onto my shoulder as he worked his legs free. I lifted my tank top over my head and we walked down to the water’s edge, like children, dressed only in briefs. In that short walk, we entered a place where there were no voices or music, no people, no moon. The tide was very low. We walked in soft sand until our feet were wet and then our ankles. “Their journey was epic,” I said, in my narrator voice.

  I shivered when the water reached my thighs, and when at last it was waist-high, I lowered myself to keep warm, and paddled out until my feet could not reach bottom. We bobbed to keep warm, and he put his arm around me and said, “Vered, I feel as if I am starting to know you.”

  “Oh, wow, no,” I said. “I wish, but I’m afraid you aren’t. At all.” I bobbed and submerged myself, as if to wash off this sadness.

  “So there will be surprises?”

  “I’m not as evolved as you.” We fluttered separately. “Vered G. is a troubled child.”

  I bobbed close, wrapped my arms and legs around his waist, became aware of his fragility and mine—skin and blood, bones so easily broken.

  “So what is your crime? You rob banks? Is that what you do?”

  “What does my face tell you?”

  “I like your face. It’s a good face, a beautiful face.”

  I kept my legs around him and closed my eyes so I could not tell if it was Baruch or the sea that rocked me. His lips brushed against mine as we were pushed together. The bobbing jostled us apart.

  “Do you believe in the soul?” I asked.

  “Do I believe that God must first breathe into one’s nostrils? No. But every human has a soul. A life force.”

  “Even Danny?”

  “Danny too.”

  “And Aviva?”

  “Aviva, yes. Of course.”

  “Do you believe that the soul slips from the body at death?”

  “Yes,” he said. “In a manner of speaking.”

  Our kiss was deeper and the waves more determined to keep us apart. I drew him close and tried to reach beneath his knees so I could hold him in my arms the way he’d held Aviva, and when he resisted, worried he would hurt me, I said, “Don’t you remember what you said to me? ‘In the water, we’re very light.’ Why is that? Do we leave our history on land?”

  He worked his way free and in a quick move, cradled me in his arms. “We always have our history, Vered. It’s like gravity, you cannot separate yourself from it.”

  I had been separated from my history, I thought. This is what had happened to me.

  After a while he said, “You’re shivering. My jacket is on the sand. Come. We’ll get you warm.”

  I didn’t want to leave, but I paddled with him toward the water’s edge. When we reached the sand, he hurried ahead to retrieve my sweater and his jacket, to layer them across my shoulders. The air had cooled. Now I could hear the loud, frenetic music that had been inaudible to me before. “You need that jacket more than I do,” I said.

  “I live nearby. Come back with me. You can shower and change into something dry.”

  These words weakened my knees. I wanted to take off my clothes and make love to him, but to get to his apartment meant dressing and walking on sidewalks; it meant the jingling of keys, doors unlocked, lights switched on. It meant being plunged back into the bright unavoidable world. I kissed him for a long time.

  “Vered. You are something else,” he said.

  “Something. But what?”

  “Something very special.”

  “No, you are,” I said, and some time later, “Oh, wait. I’m not supposed to suggest you’re nice because you aren’t at all. You have no moral compass. You’re just a selfish man.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “And a good lover. I bet you’ve been told that, too.”

  He did not say, “Yes, of course.” But I could tell by his kisses, by his straightforward gaze and broad, loose, youthful stride. If I were young, I would have pulled on him until we sank to our knees. That’s what I would have done. Nothing would have stopped me. “I’d like to stay all night with you,” I said.

  “What stops you?”

  I listened to the faraway kids laughing. “Fear,” I said and could not explain. Fear that it would not be enough, that I would never be able to leave.

  He took my hand and we walked up a narrow path from the beach through a small, unlit park, until with every step, the long urban hum of traffic got louder. Then we were in the city again, in ordinary life, with streetlights and cars. He sensed the change in my mood and said, “What is it?”

  “Life. I hate to leave.”

  A boy with a boogie board balanced on his head swerved past on a bike. Baruch put his arms around me and pressed me against the cool white wall of my mother’s building. My legs were trembling, and I said, “Hold me up,” and he pressed harder.

  “So. Shall we drive to Chaverim together tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll bring your bathing suit and some good shoes. B’seder?” He kissed me again. I pulled back, thought, bathing suit, and tried to regain my balance.

  I found my key and clumsily worked it into the lock on the outside door. Before I entered, I turned back. He was still standing, waiting until I was safely inside. I held up my hand, and he put his fingers to his lips. The look on his face—I thought it would melt my bones.

  Twenty-Three

  As soon as the door closed, I was hit, as if by a club. I took a step, and the light flickered on, barely illuminating the dim hallway. I took another step, shivering hard. My hair was ropy from salt, my clothes were clammy. My mother dying in her room, my mother dead. It was three a.m. I was stunned by the way I had pushed this aside, deeply ashamed. I thought of the evening decades back when I’d brought Ronit home late and felt like that same heartless teenager.

  My mother’s apartment was dark and still. When my eyes adjusted, I tiptoed through the kitchen, past the canvas cot in the living room where Not-Sunny slept, covered with a sheet. Then further. I could see the flickering candles through the half-closed door. My mother was breathing. The shomer was folded over, his forehead on his knees.

  I stumbled and he sprang up and the prayer book slid from his lap. “I’m allowed to sleep!” he whispered. He picked up the book and kissed the binding. “It’s permitted. The rabbi will tell you.”

  It was hard to imagine this young plump man able to guard anything, least of all something as insubstantial as a soul. And still—while I had eaten dinner, walked on the promenade, took in the world around me and lost the world completely, while I met Baruch’s eyes and while I avoided them, while I faced him fully clothed and then disrobed, while I stepped into the water so he could hold me and when I walked out—this young man was the one who sat beside my mother.

  “Rest,” I said. “It’s very late.”

  I washed my face and changed into a nightgown. I could not go to Chaverim with Baruch. As soon as it was morning, I’d call. It’s me, Vered. I’m sorry, but I can’t go. I brushed my teeth and imagined floating to his apartment in my thin nightgown and bare feet, and Baruch, opening the door, taking me in his arms. Forgetting everything, making love, never leaving. The candles flickered and the building breathed and the shomer sat beside mother, so she would not be alone in her dying.

  I tried to sleep, drifted, and could not sink. Images floated in the air. Squares of torn-up postcards. The curly-haired twins I’d seen at Chaverim, one pushing her sister’s wheelchair, their identical, freckled faces. How it might have been for us, had we not been separated. The newspaper photo of Amber Chatsworth. The blunt, deadened look on her face. The shomer’s reverent kiss.

  Sister, I thought, and wondered what night was like for Aviva, if it was peaceful, pleasurable. And waking? Did morning signal expectation? Did she open her eyes and know something good was on its way—sunshine, voices, a transf
er from her bed? Or was it waiting, uncomfortable, untended; her needs unanswered, hour after hour. Hadn’t it seemed that way for me, able-bodied, alone in the house, waiting. How did she soothe herself?

  Vered. His tender voice had cracked the shell, exposing a raw wound. What I wanted, what I could not have.

  In the dark room, I felt the waves push me toward him, then sweep me away. Maybe I would go with him after all. The shomer was here. Sunny. Dr. Berenbaum. My presence didn’t matter to my mother. Once it had, I suppose: when I cried and tugged on her, looking for attention, surely I reminded her of the one whose name could not be mentioned, the sister who’d been buried alive. What effort it must have taken, if not for her, then for my father, for all those years until he lost people’s names, and the promises he’d made, until all that remained was a dim, persistent ache—Aviva. Now that I could say there’d really been no space for me in their house, I found myself asking, “Don’t I deserve a chance at happiness?”

  You deserve bupkis!

  I deserved more than bupkis, but I couldn’t go to Chaverim with my mother so close to death. I needed to call Baruch and tell him. I’d have to edge past the shomer to reach it. It’s Vered; it’s Roxanne. I imagined his eyes on me. I’m so sorry. What could I say? I’ll see you next time I’m here. And when would that be? What could I say next? Hey, don’t fall in love with anyone while I’m gone! It was so pointless, all of it. The night before, the days ahead, anything I might imagine. Thinking, wait for me.

  Then a key turned in the lock, and half awake I heard someone enter. Sunny? The room was hot and my arms were folded across my chest like a giant bandage. Light came through the pinholes in the shutters, and in a dreamy state, the two of us in the water. The waves pushing us together, pushing us apart. Our lips touching.