Our last trip was to America. It was winter there, and I took his father’s fur coat out of storage, the Russian sable that he had brought with him from Leipzig. It smelled of the cedar trunk, but it was still beautiful. Wrapped in that fur that almost touched the floor, he was something strangely impressive, and people turned to look as he passed. The coat made him talk more loudly, as if he couldn’t hear himself in it, which drew even more attention. He refused to take it off, even indoors, and sometimes, as he was eating in the hotel’s grand breakfast room, a little bit of food would fall into the fur and lodge there, food that I would later try to brush off when he wasn’t looking, or when he had fallen asleep in the back of the taxi after a long day of walking. At those times, I saw how old he was getting, and a panic would come over me. How could I keep everything in its proper place? Shoes under the bed. Glass on the table. Dove in the hand. Chair by the door. Trowel at the ready. Cook in the kitchen. Sun in the sky. Leaf on the ground. Light on the lake. It was too much, like one of those dreams where every time you turn, something else has moved behind your back. But he would always wake up, and, still sunk in that enormous fur, he would begin to talk again (to himself or to me, I never really knew), and I would go back to listening as usual, nodding now and then but otherwise not saying much, close to nothing at all, and everything was exactly as it had been between us, as it always would be.
The Husband
1
On a freezing gray winter ghetto of a day in March, her mother calls to say that the lost Husband has arrived. She doesn’t begin the conversation that way, of course. She begins casually enough, the way stories so often begin, stories of everyday life onto which is sprung a sudden intrusion: The other day the doorbell rang, though I wasn’t expecting anyone.
Tamar is eating lunch in the West Seventy-Eighth Street office where she sees patients, but in Tel Aviv it is already evening. Her mother still lives there, in the same apartment where Tamar and her brother grew up, on Tchernichovsky Street, behind Gan Meir, whose trees can be seen through the large, dirty windows.
Who is it? her mother shouted into the receiver. But when she pressed the button to listen, no one was there.
Tamar spears a pineapple chunk and settles in for the story, just like she has for countless of her mother’s stories over the years: often long, usually funny or absurd, sometimes rudderless tales whose only point was to keep Tamar attached to the distant life of her family. Looking out at a slice of the sky that had been dumping slush on the city all morning, she sees the old door of the family apartment with its peeling brown laminate chipped at the bottom edge, and the plastic intercom covered in fingerprints inky from the newspaper, and is filled with a pleasant warmth.
I thought someone had pressed the wrong buzzer, her mother tells her, it happens all the time. When the baby upstairs was born, they pushed my buzzer like the flusher of the only toilet in a crowded bus station. But eventually everyone left, and since then it’s been quiet except for the sound of the baby screaming. The parents do their best, her mother said, but sometimes they shout at each other. They used to be so happy, so in love, but since the baby was born, they can’t agree on anything.
Sounds familiar, says Tamar, since she and the children’s father had stopped agreeing not long after their difficult first baby was born, though they’d hung on for nine or ten years before finally separating. After that, both Tamar and her mother had been single, her father having died a year earlier of a heart attack. There had been four of them in the family—her mother, her father, her younger brother, and Tamar—and for a long time three of them had been married, and only her brother remained unmarried. Then their father died, Tamar got divorced, and Shlomi married his boyfriend, making him the only one with a husband.
Her mother buzzed down to ask who was there, but when she pushed the button to listen, there was only the sound of a car driving past, of night in the city, a humid one by the sea. She went back to the kitchen, filled the kettle, and set it on the stove, but a minute later the buzzer sounded again. This time she ignored it, but it started up more impatiently: a few quick bursts and then a long angry buzz. All right, all right, her mother shouted. Who is it? And once more she pressed the button to listen.
Special services, a man said.
So that’s the way they get in to rape old women nowadays, her mother thought.
No, thank you, she said into the intercom, I don’t want any special services.
Social Services, the man shouted back.
Thank you but no, she said, because what’s the difference, really?
Mrs. Paz? Ilana Paz? It’s Ron Azrak from Social Services here. Can you please buzz us in?
What do you want? her mother asked, but forgot to press the button to talk and was apparently still listening, so that she heard him softly say: Perhaps you’d like to talk to her yourself?
She jabbed the button again: Who’s with you?
That’s what I want to talk to you about, the man said.
He had a kind voice, her mother explains to Tamar, not the voice of a murderer or a rapist.
What’s it about? her mother demanded.
Mrs. Paz, it really would be better for everyone if we could come up to talk in person—
Give me a synopsis, she interrupted.
Special Services replied that it was a sensitive matter, and if she would just open the door for them, he’d be happy to give her his card. Tamar’s mother considered telling him to go away, but curiosity got the better of her and she gave in. But before buzzing him in she turned off the stove (Tamar knows she would never leave the apartment with the stove on for even a moment, someone she knew as a girl had burned to death that way), climbed the stairs, and knocked on the door of the couple with the baby. The husband answered with a stained burp cloth over his shoulder. He looks terrible, Tamar’s mother tells her; since the birth, his eczema has flared up.
I’m sorry to bother you, Tamar’s mother said to him, but someone is outside claiming to be from Special Services. In case it happens that I buzz in a thug or a lowlife, would you mind keeping your door open and listening out? If our own thug of a building manager would install a security camera, none of this would be necessary, but hell will melt over before that happens, apologies again for bothering you, especially with the baby, such a sweet child, it’s a joy to see how your family is blossoming, all right then, thank you, if you really don’t mind, I’ll go and buzz him in, no, no need to come down with me, just stay right where you are but with the door open just like that so you can hear me if I scream.
Back in her apartment, she called down to the entryway.
All right, I’m buzzing you in. Come through the first door, then wait in the entryway until it closes all the way behind you, then I’ll buzz a second time to open the inner door.
It’s like getting into the vaults of Bank Leumi, he said.
But with no money inside, her mother replied, to nip that idea in the bud.
She waited, watching through the peephole until two blurry figures appeared, a tall man carrying a briefcase and a little old one wearing a hat. The tall one took out a handkerchief.
Tamar imagines them: the little one with a brown felt hat, and the tall one whose forehead has begun to glisten with sweat, a high forehead, the hairline receded considerably, by next year he’ll be bald, but with a nice curly black beard, and delicate glasses. She sees her mother opening the door a crack without unhooking the chain that Tamar installed four or five years ago, just before she returned to New York and installed an alarm system in her own house, since she, too, was newly on her own.
Social Services slid his business card through the opening.
Thank you, I apologize for the trouble. Ron Azrak. May we come in?
What kind of name is Azrak?
He smiled. He had a nice face, her mother tells her, very warm eyes.
Turkish, my grandfather was born in Istanbul.
Really? I’ve always wanted to go to Turkey.
You mean Social Services, Tamar says, tossing the rest of her lunch into the trash and glancing at the clock: still twenty minutes before her next patient.
Right, says her mother.
The Bosphorus! her mother had probably said to Social Services, showing off the knowledge she’d absorbed from countless hours of late-night TV. If there’s a river in the world with a better name, I don’t know it. And to think that it divides two continents! she’d have said, because her mother also knew how to turn on the charm if she wanted to.
I’d like to explain why I’m here, Ilana, said Social Services. I think you should sit down, it all may come as a bit of a shock.
He led her to the sofa. She hadn’t exactly invited him in, her mother tells her, give an inch and they take a foot.
I didn’t expect you to recognize him right away, it’s been so many years. Social Services glanced back at the door, and again her mother caught sight of the old man in a hat and dark suit, standing mutely in the hallway. We just found him a few days ago, he’s still a little out of sorts, Social Services said. Do you recognize him?
I thought he was your sidekick, her mother said, shifting uncomfortably on the sofa and trying to remember if there was someone to whom she owed money. Social Services laughed, showing his big Turkish teeth.
Now, he said, suddenly serious. Since you asked about my family, would you allow me to tell you a little story?
Her mother looked at the clock and was dismayed to discover that it wasn’t yet eight thirty. It had been years since she’d fallen asleep before midnight. But I thought to myself, the television can wait, she tells Tamar. Who am I to turn away such a polite Scheherazade?
All right, she said, trying to ignore the old man that someone spilled at her front door like a puddle.
Social Services took out his handkerchief, and once more blotted his forehead.
Shall I open the window for some air? her mother asked.
Why not?
Because someone with a knife might come through it.
What?
A little breeze would do me a world of good, too, but I live by myself, Mr. Azrak, my daughter lives in New York, and my son is a long story.
Call me Ron.
I live by myself, Ron, and I’m no longer young, as you can see, so I have to be cautious.
Tamar imagines the warm air wafting in, carrying the sound of a moped and a couple arguing as they pass on the street below, and Social Services beckoning to the old man still standing at the door, who, without removing his hat, enters, walking slowly, until a few feet in front of her mother he stops, and with a calm and unreadable expression studies her hair dyed copper, her broad face with its freckled cheeks, still surprisingly smooth, her sharp brown eyes, her T-shirt that says “Trust Me, I’m a Doctor.” Tamar imagines how suddenly her mother wishes she’d worn something that might have made a better impression, because it has been a long time since anyone looked at her with such care. How she gestures to a chair, trying to ignore the skin prickling at the back of her neck, and how he takes off his hat and holds it to his chest and takes a seat by the open window, sitting upright as if waiting for the plane to take off before daring to recline. How her mother puts the kettle back on the stove, and when she returns Social Services is also peering at her curiously through his silver-rimmed glasses, since when did she become so interesting to everyone?
And then, her mother continues, Social Services launches into a story about his grandparents. Not the Turkish ones, the ones on the other side, his mother’s parents, who came from Salonica.
An international family, Tamar says.
But all from the same small corner of the world. When his father met his mother, he was delighted to learn that she already knew how to cook all his favorite dishes.
Tamar waits for her mother, who has been off the hook of having to cook for anyone since Tamar’s father died, to say something snide about this, but she doesn’t. Instead she recounts the story Social Services told her, about how his grandparents met as teenagers in Salonica, though it took time for his grandfather to convince his grandmother to love him. How they finally married in 1939, and moved into a small apartment together outside the old walls of the city, and his grandfather began to work in the dry goods store that had been in his grandmother’s family for two hundred years. As he spoke, her mother could practically smell the Aegean lapping in the old port and the fuel of the ships, and could hear the doves cooing in the quiet street where the couple lived. Behind her, the dark puddle also listened, the room was quiet, even Tchernichovsky Street was quiet while Mussolini’s bombs fell on Salonica. But she couldn’t relax with those eyes resting on the back of her neck.
My grandparents lost each other during the war, Social Services told her. Each made it to Israel, each was told that the other was dead, and neither could bear to return to Salonica, where fifty thousand were deported and almost no one survived. And then one day, two weeks before my grandmother was supposed to get remarried to an older man, also a widower from the war, my grandfather saw her in the window of a bus passing in front of him on Allenby Street.
There was a moment of silence in the room. How extraordinary, her mother finally said, what a story! But now I really must ask what your business is here. Surely Social Services has better things to do than send storytellers to pay house calls on elderly women.
Yes, of course, he said with a gentle laugh, I was only telling it because it happens more often than you think. The lost are found, couples and siblings reunited, and, well, as you’ll see—have you really not guessed already? Of course, it’s a perfectly natural response, we can take things as slowly as you’d like.
Take what? her mother demanded, and by now she really was beginning to feel irritated, she tells Tamar. I have no idea what you’re talking about, will you please explain exactly why you’re here?
At that moment Ron Azrak got up, straightened the pleats of his khaki pants, cleared his throat, came to her side, and with a gentle smile, laid his hand on her arm.
You see, he said, gesturing to the wrinkled old man sitting by the window, we’ve found him at last.
Who? her mother asked, pulling her arm away and patting her head for her reading glasses.
You must have given up hope.
Hope? For what? she demanded, not bothering to hide her growing aggravation.
Your husband, he whispered, his eyes fluttering lightly as if to protect themselves from violence.
My husband? she nearly bellowed. What about him? To which Social Services, who must have been used to the frustration elicited by the ways and means of his agency, replied:
Here he is.
Laughter shoots from Tamar’s mouth as her mother delivers this line. Her mother had also laughed, she tells Tamar, she laughed so loudly that it must have sounded like a scream, because suddenly the husband—not the one sitting by the window, and not the one who has been dead five years, but the one from upstairs—burst through the door, cradling the baby with her red, grimacing face.
What’s going on here? he shouted, looking from the curly-haired Turk to the old man to her mother. She tried to explain, but every time she opened her mouth to speak, she collapsed back into peals of laughter. The baby spiked the air with a balled fist and let out a shriek. The husband from upstairs began to jiggle her, and when that didn’t work, he began to bounce from foot to foot, still waiting to know whether his help was needed.
It’s okay, her mother finally managed to get the words out, dabbing her eyes with a crumpled tissue from her pocket. There’s been a misunderstanding, th
at’s all! This man has confused me with someone else.
Hearing this, Social Services didn’t balk, only offered another of his calm and pleasant agency smiles.
I assure you we haven’t confused you with anyone.
Oh, but you have, Mr. Azrak, her mother said.
Ron, he insisted.
I’m sorry you’ve had to waste your time on me, her mother said, but my husband isn’t missing at all. I know exactly where he is: buried in Yarkon Cemetery, next to his mother.
The husband from upstairs looked wide-eyed from her mother to Social Services, who wiped his palms on his pants, snapped open the brass latches of his briefcase, and removed a thick file. Through all of this, the old man continued to sit silently under his hat, rubbing his thumb and forefinger as if in the universal symbol for money. In the short time that he had been there, her mother observed, he seemed to have shrunk just the slightest bit.
The kettle now let out a shrieking whistle from the kitchen. Social Services turned expectantly to the husband from upstairs, who raised his eyebrows as if to say, Me? then frantically looked around for a place to put the miserable baby. At that moment the old man by the window opened his arms wide, as if to accept the baby, and the husband, so startled by the gesture and, frankly, by the whole scene, handed her over and hurried off to deal with the screaming kettle. As soon as the old man began to bounce the baby on his knee, she became quiet, and her eyes widened in wonder. His lips began to move, and a moment later, when the kettle suddenly went silent as well, the only sound in the apartment was the first sounds that came from the Husband’s mouth, a quiet, wordless song that went: Lyla ly, lyla ly la la la ly.
And that is as far as her mother gets with her story, because now Tamar’s own buzzer rings, and she tells her mother to hold while she lifts the receiver to ask who is there, and pushes the button that allows her patient to enter the lobby. As she does, juggling between her cell-phone headset and the ancient receiver connected to the door buzzer in the office, she could swear she hears her mother say, very quietly, The chicken will be ready in twenty minutes.
To Be a Man Page 14
