Husband and Wife

by Zeruya Shalev

  His fingers hurt me so much that I let go of his throat, drop my hands and follow him to the bedroom like an obedient dog, behind the pile of laundry, and he takes his knapsack out of the closet and begins folding the clothes with his crooked folds, at the end of arguments I’ve always broken and gone to his aid, and now too I sit on the bed and begin to fold, shirt after shirt, and he looks at me in embarrassment, it was more convenient for him when I yelled and cursed. Where are you going, I ask, and he says, I don’t know yet, first I’ll go south for a while and then we’ll see, I have to think about everything quietly, to be with myself, and I try to find encouragement in his words, it isn’t for real, he’s just going on a trip, in a few days he’ll be back and everything will come right, I won’t even say anything to Noga, but then he says, I left Noga a letter, I tried to explain a few things to her.

  A letter? I flare up again, what do you mean, a letter? You drop a bomb on her and I have to absorb the blast? You have to talk to her and be here when she reacts, not leave a letter and run away, but he says, I can’t, I’m doing it in my own way, and I yell, there’s no such thing as can’t, you’re too easy on yourself, you have to make yourself do it, and he snaps, so when you leave you can do it in an exemplary way, I’m such a failure in your eyes that I don’t even know how to leave. But that’s precisely the difference between us, I yell, I would never leave, I wouldn’t be capable of going off as if I didn’t have any obligations, you don’t even say where you’re going, how to get in touch with you if anything happens, and he says, I’ll call in a few days to tell you where I am.

  I watch the clothes being swallowed up in the belly of the knapsack, the corduroy trousers I bought him last winter in the store across the road, the beautiful denim shirt Noga and I gave him for his birthday, the striped sweater he wore that morning under the broken cloud, how can he leave when all his clothes are marked, and again I fill with rage, I’ll never forgive you, I declare, and immediately feel ridiculous, he doesn’t care how I feel, that’s what it’s all about, I have no power over him, if he cared he wouldn’t be leaving, and as expected he takes no notice of my declaration, goes on feeding his hungry bag, the new, dust-covered Bible, which has never been opened, he leaves behind to rot with me here, and I try to think urgently, what else can I say, I have to find something that will arouse his doubts, that will keep him here tonight, and then I suddenly understand, the words have lost their power, I have lost my power, nothing I can say will change his cruel, heartless decision, something I was never afraid of because it simply never occurred to me that it could happen. After so many years in which one word from me could provoke his rage, his fear, his pleasure, tonight I can threaten, blame, plead, and nothing will change, and when I realize this a murderous exhaustion descends on me, the exhaustion of a terminally ill patient who no longer has the strength even to mourn for himself, and I push aside the superfluous garments, the ones that didn’t fit into the knapsack, and curl up next to them, close my eyes swollen with weeping and feel as if I’m sleeping, but at the same time I hear his footsteps, the familiar sound that will soon no longer be heard here, becoming as rare as those of an extinct animal, who remembers the footsteps of the dinosaurs on the ice-bound desolation of the planet, and it seems so inconceivable to me, that soon the only footsteps to be heard here will be Noga’s and mine, that I want to share my astonishment with him, and I raise my head and whisper, Udi, but he answers by turning the key in the door, and I leap from the bed gasping for breath, he can’t leave like this, without a kiss, without a hug, when he left for a week we would part with a kiss, and now he’s leaving forever, and I run to the door and try to open it, but it’s locked, my key is probably hidden in the depths of my purse, and I can’t run after him down the stairs and pull him back inside, like I sometimes did when we fought, and I hurry to the porch, wait a minute, I try to shout but only a hoarse whisper comes out of my throat, wait a minute, I still haven’t said the most important thing.

  He’s already striding up the street, tall and obdurate, the huge pack on his back, like a tireless tourist, in a minute I won’t see him anymore, even if something terrible happens I won’t be able to contact him, I have to stop him, but my voice creaks when I scream at the receding backpack, full of his clothes, and all of a sudden I feel the enormity of the catastrophe and I scream, leave a few tee-shirts for Noga, how could I have failed to think of it before, but the street is empty of his presence, his vigorous strides, only the trees stand opposite me, the silhouettes of the cypresses, the Persian lilac, the poplar, breathing in relief in the night, freed for a while of the tyranny of the rule of the sun. Soon it will come back to reign over them, but in the meantime they confer in whispers behind its back, and I stare at the deserted street driving into my heart, and a terrible pain tears me apart, where is he hurrying at this hour of night, how does he intend to get to the south at all, the simplest things are hidden from me, suddenly I know nothing about him after growing accustomed to knowing everything, and this reversal is so extreme, so unexpected, as if all my blood has been drained out of me, and I lean over the balustrade, dry sobs tear at my throat, the barks of a dog run over by a car, Udi don’t go, I bark at the empty street, come back to me, I can’t live without you, Udi, my Udigi, come back.

  It was here that I sat and waited for the sunrise, here that I saw Zohara running in her white dress to save us, why did I make such an effort to cure him, it would have been better for him to remain imprisoned in his illness, and when I think of the inevitable sunrise I shudder, Noga will wake up in the morning, what will I tell her, how will I face her, I have to find his letter and hide it until I pull myself together, and I stumble into her room, I’ve been leaning over the balustrade so long that I can’t straighten my back, and I walk with a stoop, like prehistoric man in his cave, steal into her room, treading on the piles of clothes and the notebooks thrown onto the carpet, where’s the goddamn letter. I hear her sigh, turn over in her sleep, she turns her face to me and it’s beautiful, calm, the wonderful eyes closed, the lips parted in a mysterious smile, the face of not knowing. She doesn’t know yet that tomorrow morning her life will be broken, and this certainty, that I know the full cruel truth about her life and she doesn’t, is so shocking to me that when I stand over her bed I feel like God looming over his mortal creatures, not just knowing but also guilty, I could have prevented it and I didn’t, and I grope over her desk with trembling fingers, so many papers, where is that goddamn letter, I have to hide it, I want her to get up in the morning and go to school as usual, I can drag it out for at least a week before she realizes that something is wrong, and in the meantime he may regret it, but it’s impossible to see anything in the dark, and I return to the kitchen to look for a flashlight or a candle, I can’t seem to find anything today, only a box of matches, match after match licks my fingers and falls black and weightless onto the rug, in a minute I’ll set fire to the room, as long as that letter burns, without leaving a trace. No, it’s not on the desk, maybe it’s on the rug, lying in wait for her among her clothes, did he take the trouble to put it in an envelope, or are we talking about a piece of paper here, and I crawl on the carpet, groping blindly, and suddenly she sits up in bed, Mommy, what’s going on, and I say, nothing, Nogi, go back to sleep. But what are you doing here, she insists, and I say, I just came to tuck you in, and she lies down again, I can smell fire, she whispers, I dreamt that the house burnt down, and I pick up the burnt matches and murmur, sleep, sleep.

  I have no alternative but to wait for the first light of dawn, at sunrise I’ll steal into her room again and find it easily, I encourage myself, as if this will change everything, and I go back to bed, curl up again among his faded clothes, shivering as if my skin has been stripped from my body, burning with cold, a consumed, blackened match, disintegrating underfoot, and I grope around me, seeking his long limbs, his head resting on this pillow, plotting dastardly schemes. Worn out by hatred I beat the mattress, Udi how could you do this to me, hating
you means hating my life, hating Noga, hating myself, we’re all entangled with each other in knots that can never be untied, and now you attack us with sharp scissors, scattering the corpses of our lives like severed limbs after a road accident, until it’s impossible to tell what belongs to who, that’s what you’ve left me here, in your sickbed, and I seize the pillow furiously, sink my chattering teeth into it, the smell of his cheeks and hair, the smell of the saliva dribbling from his mouth in his sleep, suddenly I see Geula’s little Daniel before my eyes, how we took him from her to the children’s home, and how he begged us to bring him the pillow she slept on at night every morning, and he would snuggle up to it like a kitten, sucking it as if it were soaked in milk, and suddenly I am seized by hunger, to the bottom of my empty body, and I jump out of bed and rush to the kitchen, where I stare into the fridge. Here are the vegetables he left me as a souvenir, cucumbers and tomatoes and peppers, but they’re on his side, not mine, I’m looking for something warm and sympathetic, that will embrace me inside, and I take out milk and Quaker Oats and begin to cook myself some porridge, stirring the heating saucepan wearily, I’m so tired, but the hatred won’t let me sleep, it will wake me every minute, now it’s clear to me that I’ll never sleep again, I’ll drag out the rest of my life without ever closing my eyes again.

  Standing over the bubbling saucepan I try to work out how much time I have left until I can part from this life, which has become so burdensome, like a sentence I have to serve, at least ten years, I calculate in disappointment, until Noga turns twenty, and then my anger rises against her again, because of her I have to go on living, night after sleepless night, if it wasn’t for her I would be able to fill my belly with pills and be done with this agony, how can you live after you’ve been stripped of love, that’s exactly what he’s done, stripped me of the skin of his love, which even if it wasn’t always felt was rooted in my consciousness, we don’t feel the earth turning either but still we know it does.

  Again I smell burning matches, maybe I left one in Noga’s room and it’s gone up in flames, but no, it’s the oats burning at the bottom of the saucepan, I can’t even cook cereal anymore, and I taste it, a repulsive black taste, as if I’m eating smoldering coals, but I don’t care, as long as I fill my belly, I swallow it down straight from the saucepan, breathing in the bitterness of the fumes, my whole mouth one big burn, it hurts so much I don’t feel the pain, I’ll only feel if I stop and I don’t stop, I scrape the bottom until there’s nothing left and stumble back to bed, perhaps my full stomach will put me to sleep, I have to sleep, and my hands grope hesitantly between my legs, perhaps this will help me calm down and fall asleep, but a wave of nausea floods me when I touch the bush of hair, a kind of frizzy beard, a rejected hairy animal, its lips drooping in humiliation, it is his, it reminds me of him, of his fingers, his tongue, what has it got to do with me, and I run to the toilet, crouch over the bowl and throw up a stream of burning cereal, like a dragon spitting the fire of its hate at those coming to slay it.

  Fifteen

  He won’t pee here anymore, I tell the open mouth of the toilet bowl that swallowed his waters day after day, year after year, staring at him submissively as he stood before it with an unsheathed penis, frothing its jaws with golden showers, he’ll have another toilet to urinate in, and already its insult merges inseparably with mine, the insult of the porcelain tiles surrounding the sink, the window broken in one of our quarrels, its cracks bandaged with masking tape, the towels hanging on the arched necks of the hooks, all the deserted spaces of the house, the old furniture I’ve been meaning to replace for years, the dusty carpets, the countless objects, necessary and unnecessary, accumulated over the years, and all of them ruled by the high hand of Noga’s insult. Like an orchestra attentive to the slightest movement of a demanding conductor we all gaze at her dark room, whence a smell of burning rises, as if a bereaved bear is lying there, threatening to rise to the full height of its grief and devastate everything in its path.

  With half-closed eyes I glance at my watch, hardly an hour has passed since he left, if time drags so slowly, how will the whole night pass, and the nights to come, the rest of our lives, and I get up with difficulty, how can I shorten this night, how can I induce consoling sleep, perhaps a hot shower will help, but the strong jet of water almost knocks me over and I lean swaying against the plastic shower curtain, how I loved taking a shower here in the dark, after we made love, and he would come in and send me a smile I couldn’t see with my eyes, only soak up with my wet naked body, and now I wash this body with disgust, a rejected body, what has it to do with me, for it was Udi who always mediated between us, it was he who loved it, and now without his mediation it is alien to me, even soaping it makes me shudder, the prickly armpit sagging to the heavy breast, the belly that was once taut and is now flabby, the full thighs and the great dread between them, and finally the flat feet, broad as a duck’s, which always caused bad blood between us, because I walked slowly and he ran ahead, and I aim an almost boiling stream of water at them, and they hop frantically as if on blazing sea sand, but I don’t care, their pain is not my pain, just as this burning sensation belongs to my throat and not to me, and between the pain at the bottom of my body and the pain at the top are only a shaky scaffolding, rusty nails, the filth of humiliation that no knife can remove, how could he leave, simply get up and go with his pack on his back as if he were free, as if I were some site on a dusty map that could be abandoned, a dried-up creek he left behind in order to search for a better one, taking with him all I had, all I thought I had. If only I knew where he was I would go to him now, without even drying myself, I would persuade him, I would threaten him, what he’s done is clearly illegal, people can get thrown into jail for less, abandoning a wife and child after so many years.

  Sometimes he would wait for me with the towel spread out, wrap me in it like a baby, it never occurred to me that it could end, I never imagined that even these few luxuries would be taken from me, and again the weeping bursts out of my bruised throat, I thought it had gone and now it’s back again, hiding between the blankets, lying in wait for me because I am all on my own, without a shield or a savior, an easy prey, a snail without a shell, a soft slimy slug, and I cover myself with the wet blanket, sleep won’t come, it won’t give me even a moment of grace, it won’t come, but apparently it comes in the end, and even stays too long, because suddenly Noga’s pale face looms above me, Mommy, it’s late, she whispers, and I sit up abruptly, my head almost colliding with hers.

  The letter, I think in alarm, I never had time to destroy the letter, and I quickly scrutinize her face, what does she know, she looks worried but she always looks worried now, her eyes slide away from each other, like two grapes scattered on a plate without any connection between them, and she averts them from me and goes to her room, and I get up with an effort, my body hurts as if I’ve been wrestling all night, my face is swollen, my mouth dry and bitter, all I want is to go on sleeping, send her to school and go back to bed, but she isn’t dressed yet, sitting on her bed in her pajamas, an overgrown little girl covered with clowns and teddy bears, and I try to feel her out, is everything all right, Nogi? But she doesn’t answer, she knows, there’s no doubt about it, she found the damn letter before me, and I stagger to the kitchen and make myself a cup of coffee, staring at the empty house, Udi isn’t here, that I can’t hide, the sun is already attacking the porch, crossing it with sharp rays, illuminating every corner of the house, broadcasting the news of his absence.

  Noga, come and eat, I say in a creaking voice, putting an empty plate in front of her chair, and here she comes, still barefoot, you know it’s not, she whispers, nothing’s all right, and I say, show me the letter, I can barely conceal my eagerness, but she shakes her head defiantly, I threw it away. What did he write, I ask, pouring coffee into my cup with trembling hands, and she stammers, I didn’t understand exactly, that he has to get well in a different place, that he has to change his life, that he loves me, and al
l at once I realize the tremendous advantage she has over me and I am seized with violent jealousy, he loves her, in his flawed, incomplete way, but still he loves her, and not me, he doesn’t love me anymore, and I burst out, so why did you throw the letter away if you didn’t understand it, I would have explained it to you, and she says, I threw it away on purpose not to show it to you. But why, I shout, why don’t you want to show it to me? And she says, because it’s for me, not for you, with the same pathetic pride, the same miserable importance that I felt last night when he said, don’t go, I want to talk to you, and I like an idiot said to him, we’ll talk later, not understanding anything, and apparently she too doesn’t understand, directing a new hostility toward me, instead of recognizing our common fate we’re quarreling like beggars over a last crust of bread, but to my surprise I feel more comfortable with her hostility than with her love and I hurry her up, eat your breakfast, it’s late, I’m not interested in heart-to-hearts with her, and she chews her roll with a strange voraciousness, pouring herself more and more milk, everything she does this morning seems strange to me, but I don’t want to go into it, all I want is for her to leave the house and let me have a few hours to pull myself together. He needs to get better in a different place, she repeats, her lips white with milk, the main thing is for him to get better, right? And I say, right, almost grateful to him for the vague phrases, and now she’s already at the door, parting from me with a stiff bye, Mother, and I kiss her on the forehead, quickly lock the door behind her, three loud turns of the key, just don’t let her change her mind, just let her go to school and leave me by myself.