Panes of clear glass cover the pool like a raincoat, protecting it from the storm, and the pleasant dimness of a winter afternoon hides the bites of age, and I see Udi’s arms beating the water, if I told the people here that only yesterday they were paralyzed they would laugh in my face, absorbed in his miracle he advances, not noticing me, we pass each other in the narrow swimming lanes but I ignore him, his existence evaporates, as if we have not yet met, as if I am still in another time, in the small living space I had at my disposal before he took over my life. In the pool at the edge of our village I am swimming now, my tears swallowed up in the chlorinated water, soon the pool will overflow and only I will know the reason why, and at my side I see my parents’ eyes accompanying me like two brightly colored fish, back and forth, watching me tensely. Before we all sat on the lawn, my mother cut a big watermelon in two and told us that they were getting a divorce, and from now on we would have two homes, because our father was staying here in the country and she was taking us to the city, and my brother hopped on one foot and shouted, yay, two homes! And I stared at her stunned and started to run, fleeing from the news, hiding from it in the bushes edging the area of the pool, and suddenly I felt a stab in my bare foot and I screamed, Mommy, I’ve got a thorn in my foot, and my father came running and picked me up in his arms, even though his back was wrecked and he wasn’t allowed to carry things, but sticking to the soft pad of my foot was a bee whose fate was sealed, its sting was buried deep inside me and it fluttered for a moment and fell to the ground, and I screamed in fear, Daddy, pull out the stinger, what are you waiting for?
I can’t find it, he mumbled and put me down on the warm grass, bending over me, his jaw thrust out like the jaw of a boxer, above it the chubby red cheeks of a baby, I can’t find it, and my brother asked if they would have to operate on me, open up my whole body in order to find the stinger, and I lay there, between their legs, the pain of the sting radiating throughout my body, and the sun dived into my eyes, terrifying and ravenous as a yellow vulture, and I felt the sorrow engulfing me until there was nothing left but the pain in my foot, which proved to me that I was still alive, without it I would already have been dead, which at that moment didn’t seem such a bad thing to me. Better to die now than to move to the apartment my mother had rented in the city, better to die than to start going back and forth between them, to see him wallowing in his grief, to see her in her disgusting attempts to live, to justify her crime, and I thought that if I died perhaps they would stay together, to preserve what little was left. I won’t let them do this to me, I closed my eyes tight, violate my life like Cossacks breaking into Jewish homes and destroying everything, we had just studied the subject in school, and I thought in a panic about school, what was I going to tell my classmates, there was only one other kid in the class whose parents were divorced, and he was a crazy kid anyway and nobody took any notice of him, and now he and I were partners in a ghastly common fate, and a wave of hatred flooded me, making my head spin with its violence.
My mother bent over me, her face worried, not wanting me to spoil her plans, and I turned over on the grass so as not to see her loathsome beauty, digging my fingers into the earth, and she said, calm down, it isn’t the end of the world, it will be better for all of us this way, and I screamed, it will be better for you, not for me, it will be worse for me, I’ll be miserable forever because of you, you’re the bee that just stung me and the sting will stay inside me forever, but at least it’s dead and you still think that you deserve to go on living after you’ve stung me, and then I stood up and hopped on one foot, holding on to the bushes, the folding chairs, falling into the water and diving wildly, strewing tears around me, trying to hold my breath, seeing them in my mind’s eye fishing out my dead body, it’s so close, it’s in my hands, all I have to do is stop breathing, overcome the despicable habit of breathing, and now in this closed, protected pool, with the thin drizzle tapping on the glass above, surprised to encounter the transparent roof, I try again, but not so wholeheartedly, diving to the bottom and holding my breath, and then a hand comes down and pulls me up, what’s the matter with you, he says, I’ve been talking to you for half an hour and you don’t answer me, and I stare at him, for a moment he looks like a stranger, the water has darkened his hair, his lips are slack, and I lean on the edge of the pool and pant apologetically, I didn’t hear you, I was thinking about something else.
The rain is coming down harder, but Udi pulls me outside, onto the veranda, in the middle of which a black well is bubbling, and we jump into it, the heat of the water stinging our skin, the combination of the heat and the cold makes me come alive and my heart pounds, jolting my body. Purple clouds hide the landscape, here and there a distant light glimmers, sending me signals I don’t know how to decipher, and Udi pulls me to him by my hair, kisses my neck, my lips, and I murmur, stop it, someone’s coming, and he says, good, she can join us, and she stretches out a cautious foot and smiles, she has curly hair and a long brown body that is immediately swallowed up in the dark water, and I feel uncomfortable in this togetherness, let’s go back to the room, I whisper into his ear, licking it to show my intentions are serious, and he looks at the girl for a minute but immediately follows me out, his penis bulging in the tight trunks, and we run down the corridors, sopping wet under our white robes, holding hands in the elevator like youngsters in love, and I say to myself, how simple it is here, not like at home with Noga asleep and all our old scores awake.
A gray light is nestled against the windows, wrapping his body in a dark furry layer, like the ground in the wood at the end of the village, which would cover itself in a fuzzy blanket after the first rain, and I would tread carefully among the baby grasses, looking at the road. Every hour a half-empty bus would arrive and leave the same way, sometimes it would seem to me that the passengers who arrived were the same as the ones who left, refusing to stay in the neglected village, and sometimes Udi got off the bus, short and thin, his straight hair falling into his eyes like a horse’s mane, and I would lean against one of the pine trees and examine him in disappointment, almost in shame, this wasn’t what my first love was supposed to look like, but his strides as he came up to me were confident, as if they knew that one day he would be tall and handsome, and I would say to myself, in time to the rhythm of his steps advancing toward me, hang on to him, he’s all you’ve got now, because everything around me was coming apart. My mother had rented an apartment for us in the nearby town, opposite the school, but I preferred to go home to the old house, to my father who stared at me as if I were a ghost, his victim’s face lengthening, I did all I could to please her, said his face, no mortal could do more. At lunchtime I would open and close the empty fridge in despair, and go out to the orchards, picking oranges in the winter, peeling them and weeping, and in the autumn fleshy red and white guavas, whose smell stuck to my fingers, and in summer plums, and when Udi approached the wood, waving enthusiastically, I would detach myself from the pine tree which had planted a gummy kiss on my shirt, and join my steps to his until we shut ourselves in my room, where he would push me onto the bed and clamber up my limbs as if I were the plum tree, and I would hear my father pacing the empty house and coughing, whole sentences of coughing pouring from his mouth, and my body would close down, how could I be happy when he was so unhappy, and sometimes I would fill with aggressive rage, I will be happy, just because he’s so unhappy, and then I would pull the surprised Udi to me, put his hands on my breasts and moan out loud to vanquish the lamentation of his coughs. Sometimes I would hear him crying, through Udi’s panting, through the sweaty friction of our bodies, the quiet crying of a neglected baby who knows that nobody will come in any case, and now too, as I fall onto the bed the familiar whimper steals into my ears, and I can’t concentrate, his lips annoy me, how do they manage it, pecking my body all over at once, and I push him away from me, that whimpering is driving me out of my mind, why does someone always have to suffer when I am enjoying myself?
With
an insulted expression on his face he retreats from the bed, his chin jutting out, have something to drink, maybe it will help you to relax, he quickly opens the bottle of wine waiting for us in the room, as if it’s some urgent medicine, maybe you need a new man, he adds sourly, with me you can’t escape yourself, I remind you of every minute of your life, and I am quick to deny it, what nonsense, even though I have been thinking exactly the same thing myself, a new love has the power to make things go away, at least at first, there in the studio on the roof among the paintbrushes nothing bothered me, but I drink the wine and try to cheer up, give yourself this gift, give it to yourself, everyone will benefit. I begin to fill the bathtub, the jet of water covers my weak lies, and Udi comes in after me, consenting to give me another chance, and already the foam covers us, clean as new snow, and he contemplates me with a glum, almost despairing look, in his brown eyes a green spot glitters, a little oasis in each eye. If I were a new man you would make more of an effort, he complains quietly, I’m sick of being taken for granted by you, I want you to make an effort too, and I mutter, I make enough of an effort, why does everything have to be an effort, and he says, it hurts me, that you don’t really want me, that you’re only doing me a favor, to put me in a good mood, or for some other purpose of your own. Of course I really want you, I say, I don’t want anyone else, isn’t that enough for you? And he closes his eyes, it wouldn’t be enough for you either if you were in my place, and I feel like pulling the plug and getting out of the bath and leaving him alone with the residue of the foam, with his never-ending resentment, but the burden of this day rests on my shoulders, we didn’t come here in order to quarrel, we came here to love, to feed the exhausted animal of our love whose stomach is shrunken with fasting.
You’ll be sorry for provoking me, I say in a seductive voice, and he grins, let’s see you, opening a curious eye, and I listen to the beating rain, again a cloud has burst over our heads, like on that morning in the rooftop studio, why did I stand at the window with him then, instead of dragging him to the bed in the recesses of the apartment, tearing off his sweater, snuggling up against his broad chest in its black undershirt, hearing everything Udi didn’t dare tell me and saying, me too, me too, me too, how absurd to pay such a heavy price for abstinence, and in sudden rage I grip his slippery penis between my feet, as if it’s a fish I have to snare in my net, its mouth full of foam, and I dive down to it, his surprised hands pushing my head down under the water until I almost choke, struggling to push them off and breathe the air. Take more wine, he says, pouring the sweetish gush into my throat, straight from the bottle, and I open my mouth wide, this is how we used to try to trap the first drops of rain, my tongue thirsty for the wine, seeking its traces on the stiff member swaying like a drunk, probing between the testicles, and he presses me to him, the empty bottle against the nape of my neck, the oases in his eyes expanding as he lets out a heavy groan, the fist of his clenched body suddenly relaxing.
Come to bed, he whispers tenderly, wrapping me in a towel and pulling me after him, like a child being put to bed after her bath, and already my eyes are closing but he laughs, this is just the beginning, you still have a lot of surprises for me, and I mumble, really, and he says, you bet, you have to make up for years of indifference in one night, and I turn over onto my stomach, let’s sleep a little first, and have something to eat, but he doesn’t stop, a cold smooth object rolls down my back, flattening me like a rolling pin, what do you think, will this bottle satisfy you in the meantime, he breathes into my ear, and I say, stop it, Udi, that’s enough, but the round mouth of the bottle is already pushing up between my legs, its lips thrusting toward me in a deep cold kiss of glass.
At supper he beams at me over a full plate, I am giddy with the abundance of the food and the drinks, and the smells and lights, and the abundance of love he showers on me, I examine him in wonder, his prickly, attractive tan, his lips proclaiming a lust both delicate and aggressive, he is wearing a denim shirt and pale pants, he chews his food calmly and gracefully, unlike me, my plate is already empty, and he scolds me, slow down, you don’t know how to enjoy yourself, and I get up to refill my plate, smoothing my black dress down over my thighs, a man at the next table eyes me but I take no notice, what have I got to complain about, in fact, pits open so easily, all you have to do is give the ground a little kick and suddenly there’s a gaping pit that you think will never close. It’s true that at first it was me, I didn’t want him with all my heart, and I envied my friends who changed their partners while I was still stuck with my little boyfriend from the same class at school, and I thought that if I were strong enough I would try to part from him, look for someone new who would excite me more, but I didn’t dare, and he was so keen on me that it was sometimes irritating, too easy. Let her grow a little, my mother would scold him, give her some air, you’re suffocating her with that love of yours, even in Yemen people don’t get married so young, but he stuck to me, my breasts grew inside his hands, and if an occasional rival arrived on the scene he would succeed in getting rid of him with his childish stubbornness. That’s what he was like, a little boy ruling me, I’m the only one who really loves you, he would threaten me, you think anyone else will love you like I do? They’ll seduce you and discard you, believe me, and I would sit chastened by his side, considering his words, disappointedly examining his short stature, the silly fringe falling into his eyes, and I would know that outside his stifling house, with his aged, bitter parents, a whole world waited, exciting and turbulent, and only I was unable to either reach it or ignore its existence, until one evening he said, I’m sick of seeing your sour face, I don’t need anyone else but if you think there’s something better waiting for you out there, go ahead and look for it. I stared at him in astonishment, instead of the enticing magic of freedom I was seized by terror, and a void gaped inside me, like a cavity growing bigger and bigger in a tooth, hammering from ear to ear, and I went home crying, and my mother said, at last he’s doing the right thing, don’t waste time on weeping, go out and have some fun. I was barely seventeen then, and I felt that my life had ended, all my interest in the world outside evaporated in an instant, in his arms I could dream of other loves but when I was without him all I wanted was to get him back, and as if to spite me he suddenly shot up and broadened out, at recess I would see him in a huddle with other girls, I would see the gleam of pride on their faces, the defiance on his, and I felt like a mother whose son has chosen another mother. With a hollow in the pit of my stomach I would beg him to come back to me, wait for him after school, surprise him at home, but you loved me, you can’t suddenly stop loving me, and in the end he returned, after a few months, but something had changed beyond recognition between us, a bitter, demanding suspiciousness usurped everything that had once been natural and self-evident, and suddenly I found myself appeasing him all the time, trying to prove to him with signs and wonders that I had chosen him wholeheartedly and not for lack of an alternative, and without any intention on my part this turned into my life’s mission.
With a smile of satisfaction he looks at me as I sit down, pours me a glass of wine, the round mouth of the bottle sends an agreeable shiver down my spine, and he laughs, you enjoyed it, didn’t you? And I stroke his hand, it was wonderful, and he says, I’ve got a few more ideas for you, and I giggle, I didn’t know you were so creative, and he says, what can I do, one of us has to be. My mouth is full of fish bones and I don’t reply, what do I care if he teases me a bit, when all’s said and done he only does me good, reminds me that my body is more than a boring collection of organs with useful functions, that beyond the labor and anxieties of existence there is also the possibility of pleasure, and at that moment a couple about our own age walk past, both good-looking and well dressed, engaged in animated conversation, with a little boy and girl trailing behind them, she’s about Noga’s age and he is much younger, almost a baby, and I watch them enviously, why didn’t we bring Noga along, and why haven’t we got a cute, chubby little teddy b
ear with a running nose like them, and Udi says, don’t start now, and I swallow the tiny bones in silence, ever since he let Noga fall he’s refused to discuss the possibility of having another child, repulsed my every attempt to bring up the subject, but this time there’s a new tone in his words, more indulgent, and I raise my eyes to the window, it seems to me that two benevolent hands are making their way toward us, the old hands of an ancient patriarch, spreading over our heads in a blessing, bringing our heads closer together, and suddenly everything seems possible, even a sweet, stubborn, bad-tempered little boy, like the one who sits down at our table by mistake and immediately bursts into tears, because we are not his father and mother.
Eight
We’re not one flesh, one body, but two bodies that have changed places, I am wearing his body and he’s wearing mine, each renouncing his own, and it seems as if all our lives we have been striving for this renunciation, ever since we were children in the same school uniform. With a profound sensation of relief I cast off myself, my thorny, restless consciousness, measuring his compact limbs, his fierce desire, it’s me he wants and what could be better, it’s mastery he wants and what could be easier, from the depths of my body he smiles at me, and his smile is warm and maternal, my love, he says, and I put my arms around his neck, fainting with weariness, with drink, with love, I feel as if I am rocking in a giant cradle, to and fro, the rocking turns into a ritual that seems like sex but it’s different, what can it be, it’s like a birth, where the sexual organs play a different role, burning in a completely different fire, and this fire licks my groin with its little tongue, the fire of an ancient, painful covenant, the covenant we should have made many years ago, consuming all doubts, frightening and consoling, if you are true to it no harm will come to you.
Husband and Wife Page 10
