Husband and Wife

by Zeruya Shalev

  With sudden appetite I lick his stomach, his flesh is warm, our teeth meet in a strong bite, a tooth for a tooth, what’s the point of pretending, only pain consoles, his teeth wander over my body, at the bottom of the slender ankle where I imagined feeling the dog’s bite I feel a shiver of pleasure. His hands press my thighs apart, making room for his fingers, his tongue, it seems as if he is trying to split my body in two, why are you fucking me, he suddenly asks, his hand hushing the stirring animal between my legs, go on, tell me, I haven’t got all day, I’ve got a new baby, I’ve got a wife and children, and I whisper, just because I am, I’m fucking you for no reason at all, and he smiles in satisfaction, stopping with his broad penis the mouth of the animal that moans with pleasure, it seems to me that I should weep, but instead wild laughter escapes my mouth, in all my life I’ve never allowed myself to do anything for no reason, I thought I was intended for other things, and he pants above me, his face turned to the bare hills, which bathe it in a strange light, the weak, disturbing light of the moon at midday, just because, he whispers into my mouth, I like those words, and suddenly he freezes, his face turns pale, as pale as Udi when he was sick, but then he collapses on top of me with a sigh of relief, not bad, he groans, you learn fast, Na’ama, there’s hope for you yet.

  In a minute we’ll get up and gather up our bones, like picking up objects scattered about the house, we’ll shake the cover of the model bed and spread it out with four hands, we’ll separate the muddle of our clothes which are mixed up together like a ball of colored Play-Doh, we’ll leave the new suburb to the mercy of the bulldozers and the banging of the hammers and the long shadow of the cranes, and at the door he’ll say to me, when your husband comes back you should move into a new house, I’d be happy to design it for you, you’ll see what a great bedroom I’ll build you, and I’ll say, he won’t come back, why should he come back?

  Twenty

  Is she waiting for me or is it just a coincidence that she’s standing at the entrance to the shelter, a formidable sentry, her clumsy body draped in festive black, her glasses magnifying her eyes, Na’ama, she spits out in a hurry, as if my name is disgusting to her, I have to go and get the new girl’s signature, and I say in horror, get Yael’s signature? But she decided to keep the baby!

  Really? Hava twists her lips in sour, false surprise, how do you know? And I stammer, she told me right after the birth, I was there with her, and her voice pounces on me again, seizing hold of my body from the soles of my limp feet to the top of my steaming head, she told you? Are you sure she told you, or perhaps you told her?

  We talked about it, I say evasively, it was quite clear in her case, don’t you think? and she cuts in, her flabby cheeks quivering like a hungry bulldog’s, it really makes no difference what I think, Na’ama, but it makes no difference what you think either, our role is to help the girl understand what she thinks, or have you forgotten?

  I haven’t forgotten, but I wanted to help her more, I falter, pressing my sunglasses to my eyes, in a minute the tears, my detestable enemies, will line up against me in transparent battalions, maliciously betraying everything I’m trying to hide. Helping more is helping less, she pronounces, overidentification is destructive, have you forgotten what our role is here? Unless we’re able to step back we can’t help them, your identification with her was destructive, because it stemmed from false motives, you were trying to solve your own problems through her, you were trying to help yourself, not her.

  Stunned I stare at her surprising décolletage, lying right in front of my eyes, whitish, strewn with babyish pink freckles, skin that had aged in hiding, without seeing the sun, completely different from the rough texture of her arms, and in a crushed voice I say, even if you’re right, she mustn’t give up the baby, I have to go to her and try to repair the damage, but Hava puts out a sturdy arm and bars my way, I’m sorry, Na’ama, she specifically asked for you not to come, she doesn’t want to see you again, she only wants to see me. Good, she glances smugly at her glittering gold watch, I’m late, wait for me here, I have a few more things to say to you, and she goes out of the gate, leaving my face on fire, and I watch her with hostility, is this what she got all dressed up for? Waddling like a goose on her high heels, cramming her fat into a cocktail dress with a ridiculous décolletage, to see Yael making the mistake of her life, a young, capricious girl, who would never forgive herself as long as she lived.

  I hear her starting the engine indignantly, turning the back of her brand-new car toward me, maybe I should get in my car and follow her, what have I got to lose now, I can’t let Yael sign those papers, but her arm has remained behind her, unequivocal as a red light, gluing me to the steps, I’m the one who made the mistake of my life, how could I have said those things to Yael, imposing my views on her, all I did was incite her against me, both by what I said and by what I did, and especially by what she still doesn’t know I did. Everything I meant for the best has turned into the worst, and maybe I didn’t even mean well, maybe I wanted to make her rebel so that she would remain as empty-handed as me, I tried at one and the same time to live her life and to empty it of content, I took her man and tried to lay my hands on her baby too, it’s all my fault that she’s giving it up, today she’ll sign the papers and tomorrow she’ll return to her previous life, what did she say, a couple of weeks’ diet and that’s that. I could have given Noga up too, those first months were so hard, day after day, night after weary night, surrender after surrender until there was nothing left of me, until I was a dried-up, empty shell, and sometimes from the depths of that prison of exhaustion, and boredom, and depression, I would have a vision of freedom, of kindly people reaching out to me with imploring hands, give her to us, in a single moment you’ll be free, and she’ll be happy, and I put her squirming body into their hands and wait for a divine silence to descend, all I want now is to sleep, but before I can change my mind her demanding wails wake me up, she hasn’t gone anywhere, she’s here forever, a heavy weight on my heart, growing heavier from day to day, our quarrels like wreaths around her head. Be more sensitive to her, I would scold him, spend more time with her, and he would immediately rebel, don’t tell me what to do, you’re not such a saint that you can preach to me, and she lost the most, robbed of all that should have been hers. You’re right, Udi, I’m not such a saint, why was I so insistent that you love her if not to cover up my own dull, hesitant love, it was from her I escaped then to that rooftop studio on top of the tall building, from her never-ending demands, her hands clutching my neck, sitting there bathed in his admiration, wallowing in my own self-love, forgetting all about her. What kind of a family did I build, with what hollow, eroded building blocks, how could I have been so stupid as to believe that it would endure, and I stand up with difficulty, supporting myself on the bars of the gate, this was where I first saw Yael, her doe eyes fixed trustingly on mine, I didn’t want to harm her, I only wanted her to love her baby, because I didn’t succeed in loving mine. A car speeds past and I breathe a sigh of relief, it isn’t Hava, not yet, but soon she’ll be back, sweeping through the gate, the signed forms in her hand, a childless couple will win great happiness, wait for me, she said, I have a few more things to say to you, but I won’t wait, Hava, I have to talk to myself first, every day I am assailed by astonishing, heartbreaking news, as if I am surrounded by prophets with the word of God on their lips, too many new truths are baring their teeth at me, if only I could calm them down like Mica calmed the dog Elijah on the deserted building site.

  Hesitantly I open the shelter door, Anat sends me a worried look, she is sitting with the girls in a group discussion, all of them quiet as usual in the morning, pinned up on the notice board is their daily schedule, what does it have to do with me? I walk past them quickly and go upstairs to my office, saccharine pictures surround me provocatively, flaunting their hypocrisy, beautiful pregnant women hugging their bellies and looking serenely at the window, how did I stand it all these years, and in revulsion I strip the wall, t
ear up the pictures, and on one of the scraps I write a note to Hava, and put it quickly on her desk before I can change my mind.

  In one of the cupboards I find a plastic bag and I empty the contents of my drawers into it, how little I have accumulated over the years, a few letters the girls sent me after leaving the shelter, rare photographs of babies in the proud arms of their mothers, it’s only thanks to you that I’m a mother, someone wrote me on the back of a photograph, and I am terrified by the explicit words and the threatening opposite hiding within them. Without a word of good-bye I make for the door, casting one final look at the girls sitting round Anat, threatening her with their unhappy stomachs, and she is trapped between them, boyish, solitary, and suddenly my anger against her sharpens like a bayonet, you’re the first one who abandoned me, I hiss, who gave you the right to judge me so severely, you were never my friend if you could treat me like that, and I open the shelter’s gates wide, like Udi I’m leaving home, with a little plastic bag in my hands, leaving with nothing after so many years. In urgent haste I get into the car and begin to drive, without knowing where I’m going, all I want is to be in motion, subject to clear rules, stopping at the red light like everyone else, slowing down when children cross the road. Here’s the road to the hospital, only yesterday I drove here burning with fever, frantic, Yael lying on the backseat, a baby knocking at her door, at the door of the world, while I struggled with the lock with all my might, as if I were the gatekeeper, and now there’s nothing for me to do here, wrapped in her pink robe she sits and signs the papers, giving up the baby she gave birth to forever, and it’s all because of me, it’s all because I wanted a family.

  Above my head the sun goes up in flames, burning with fire but not consumed, it seems to have grown arms and legs and they beat me about the head and I try to defend myself, letting go of the steering wheel, behind me cars honk their horns impatiently, and I escape into a side street, I don’t believe it, in my distraction I’ve landed up outside his office, his car lies calmly anchored by the curb, all kinds of people are sitting there, treading on the red carpet, planning their houses, and he spreads out his promising designs in front of them, undisturbed by the fate of his new baby, by tomorrow he’ll have forgotten him, and her, and me, and I don’t stop, only slow down for a minute, continuing my journey through the exhausted town, the streets are as familiar and tedious as people I once met and now have nothing to say to, and I hurry past them, so they won’t recognize me, so they won’t say, look, here’s Na’ama. Here’s that street, long and curved, for years I haven’t dared to visit it, not even in my thoughts, and exactly in the middle of the curve stands his building, stooped like a tower children build on the carpet, and I stop there, staring at the black street, the asphalt has recently been renewed, covering the traces of my panic flight, only in me nothing has been covered, everything remains fixed in an impossible interim state, like a dying which has no end, cut off from the annihilating salvation of death.

  I get out of the car and raise my eyes to the top of the building, where is the spiteful window that exposed my nakedness, my disgrace, a sharp radiance rises from it, a single sun ray is refracted on it, long and slender as the blade of a heavenly sword, and I study the sight in astonishment, what can anybody see from the street, barely a vague silhouette, unidentified limbs, what did he see that morning, the landscape of his feverish brain, the frontiers of his mind, and I, like a trained circus animal, jumped through the hoops of his flaming consciousness, cringing at his feet, expecting his punishment as if it were a prize. He didn’t see anything, he couldn’t have, I confessed before he asked, I turned myself in rashly, giving him tremendous power, I was so afraid of my own.

  This is how I remembered these steps, steep and crooked, tripping up my excited feet, I’m coming back to you my dearest, emptyhanded, I was so afraid of remembering you that I never forgot you, I was so afraid of loving you that I lost the ability to love. What will I say to him when he opens the door, the paintbrush in his hand and his eyes narrowed, hiding his surprise, show me that painting, I’ll ask, let me see myself beautiful for a minute.

  Outside his door I stop, steady my breath, it was always blank, mysterious, but now there’s a sign stuck to it, Na’ama, it says in a curly script, and I stare at it wide-eyed, for a moment I think it’s a letter meant for me, who knows how many years it’s been waiting, and I feel it in excitement, try to rip it from the door, but the sign is blank, it hides nothing, only my name is written on it. He must have left, he doesn’t live here anymore, and some other Na’ama has taken his place, my place, but I refuse to recognize her existence, it seems to me that she must be me, and without any hesitation I knock on the door, louder and louder, as if someone is sleeping in there and I’ve been asked to wake them up, but no stir of life is heard from the little apartment I loved so much, Na’ama doesn’t open the door, and I descend the stairs in growing disappointment and fall on his mailbox, Na’ama Korman, it says, that’s it, she isn’t me, just a coincidence that doesn’t mean a thing.

  Slowly I drive home, the car wheels groaning under the weight of my empty life, what’s heavier, a sack of feathers or a sack of iron, there’s nothing heavier than an empty sack, and I enter the stifling apartment, go straight to the bathroom as if I’ve returned from an exhausting journey and I’m filthy all over, fill the tub and sink into the water, letting my head fall back until it covers the roots of my hair. He didn’t see me, everything could have been prevented, I brought it all on myself, I was so blind with guilt, how could I have failed to understand what was self-evident, that it was impossible to see someone standing at the window from the street, I was sure that if I recognized him it meant that he recognized me too, I didn’t realize that we were two different entities, that my being was completely different from his, even though we were husband and wife. Dismayed by the freedom revealed to me among the paints and canvases, I preferred to live under a reign of terror, to pay the price of terror and not the price of freedom, and in return I paralyzed him with infinite anger, how suited we actually were, who but him would have succeeded so well at imprisoning me inside him, who but me would have succeeded so well at containing his weaknesses, with four busy hands we ruined our lives, in perfect harmony, while Noga looked on like a confused apprentice, observing our behavior with eyes like green grapes.

  How I had enjoyed wallowing in his injustice to me all those years, even encouraging him to hurt me so as to experience its purifying force to the full, using Noga to make his life a misery, judging him, magnifying his guilt, paying him back with a terror of my own, coated with good intentions, don’t preach to me, he said, you’re not such a saint yourself. If only it were possible to rid life of guilt, that cunning secret counselor all of whose motives are malicious, to not bow beneath the burden of the other but to each peek from a different corner of the picture, and I drop my head and dive with my eyes open, coral reefs are hidden at the bottom of the bathtub, infinite riches, I could refuse to raise my head, ostracize my lungs, ignore my body’s desire for the next breath, the primary desire, fiercer than any desire for a man, for the fruit of the womb, the desire to breathe, without expecting anything in return, to live in order to breathe, not in order to love, not in order to raise children, not in order to succeed, not in order to realize noble goals. I raise my head from the water and take a long, surprisingly joyful breath, gulping in the moist air, drunk on air I lift my foot and examine it forgivingly, the five short untidily arranged toes are happy to meet my face, this is the joy of the union between the two ends of the body, this is what remains to me, simply a body that wants to breathe, and all the rest is luxury, and it makes no difference if this man or that loved it, left it, just as the earth barely notices the footsteps of those who tread upon it, its only concern is for what is coming into being in its depths, the creeping of the boiling magma beneath its thin crust, the slow shifting, millions of years old, of continents yearning to be reunited.

  Wrapped in a towel I go to the
closet and absentmindedly take out the gray pantsuit, I wore it only once, when I went with him to the hospital, and it seems that the smell of that morning still clings to it, the smell of terror and surprise, and at the same time a secret anticipation of change, and to my surprise it fits me again, turning my body into an official, uniformed body, hard to hurt, and I comb my wet hair, spray myself with perfume, as if I am on my way to a decisive meeting, but without any oppressive tension. I enjoy making myself beautiful, taking pleasure in the body that has become attached to itself again, and when I go out into the midday heat I’m not sure where I’m heading, I follow snatches of conversation lingering in the street, the remains of a friendly smile, and suddenly I find myself in front of the café I haven’t dared go into for years, walking past with stolen, slavish looks, but now I open the door, how it’s changed, black tables sliding on a shiny marble floor, not a trace remains of the heavy, old-fashioned furniture whose charm lay in the very fact that it did not set out to charm, of the woodpaneled walls that soaked up the seductive words of courtship. I order a glass of red wine, even though I have no apparent reason to celebrate, I’ve lost my husband and now my job, years of effort gone down the drain, and nevertheless currents of gaiety animate me, pulses of enjoyable liberation, and I order another glass, my head is spinning, through the plate glass wall the world looks confidence-inspiring, cars stream through the street like blood through the arteries, and people stream through the veins of the pavements. Order has descended on the world, a modest, neighborhood order, and it seems that even I have some small place within it, and then I see a familiar figure advancing, her slow steps slightly upsetting the order, because walking uphill is hard for her, the couple behind her are obliged to pause, and then to separate in order to pass her, but she doesn’t notice, sunk in a complicated daydream, her eyes fixed on the place where the street and the pavement meet, her lips seem to be moving, what is she muttering there? I stand up and press myself to the glass, to sense her being from close up, a tall, sloppy little girl, her beauty unformed, her feet tending to turn absentmindedly toward the street, but she corrects herself immediately and gets back on course, and I stare at her receding back, slightly stooped, incredible that we are so connected, live together, sometimes even sleep in the same bed, and only when she walks away do I remember to call her, an uninhibited tipsy cry leaps from my throat, and she turns round in surprise, enters the cafe and approaches me suspiciously, Mother, what are you doing here? Why aren’t you at work? Why are you all dressed up?