I hug her shoulders and lead her to the table, you finished early today too, didn’t you, I say, and she says, yes, today the summer program ended, the long vacation has begun. The long vacation has begun for me too, I announce gaily, I left my job today, and she asks, really, why, and immediately takes fright, then what are we going to live on, we won’t have any money, and I say, don’t worry, I’ll get severance pay, and afterward I’ll find something, and she asks, but why, Mommy, and I sigh, it sounds like a cliché, but I have to take care of myself before I can take care of other people. She gives me a deep look and says, actually it sounds logical, Mommy, and I laugh, yes, banalities are usually more logical than most things, and I immediately order a toasted cheese sandwich and a cola for her, it feels good sitting opposite her, her face is tanned, emphasizing her rich eyes, two bottles of colored sand, and her cute nose is almost amusing, and her lips are so beautiful when she smiles. What are we going to do during the vacation, she asks, and already I feel threatened, what have I got to offer her, all her friends are probably taking trips in the country and abroad, whole families, I can never compete with them. We’ll go to the pool, I answer hesitantly, we’ll see movies, we’ll read books, maybe we’ll go to that hotel in the north where I went with Daddy, it’s lovely there, and she says, yay, let’s go there! And then she falls silent, examining me apprehensively, a modest happiness has joined us at our table, and we are both very wary, careful not to chase our new guest away by talking too loudly.
With a sigh I watch her muddled movements, already she has dropped her fork, giving me an ingratiating look, and right after that a piece of tomato stains her shirt, her cheeks are covered with toast crumbs, how sweet and funny she is when she eats, her innocent confidence that she is entitled to this food, that it will always be available to her, chewing with unaffected naturalness, feeling wanted as she eats. I fall enthusiastically on her leftovers and afterward we walk home arm in arm, a couple going home after a particularly successful blind date, and on the way she says, it’s my birthday soon, and I tense, right, what do you want to do? And she says, just an ordinary party, I’ll invite the whole class, we’ll play the games we learned at summer camp, and I am cheered by her enthusiasm, apparently she is happier with her classmates now, but I don’t dare ask, afraid to show my anxiety.
No problem, Nogi, I say, there’s still lots of time, but in fact the time passes quickly, sometimes I remember in astonishment how much I used to get done in one day, because now the days slip by so fast, like silent, slippery eels, impossible to hold. We wake up late, usually I get up a little earlier, go to the stores for fresh rolls and vegetables and make us breakfast, Noga watches television and sometimes I join her, looking enviously at the well-groomed heads on the screen, their fame guards them like a sheepdog, anybody whose existence so many people are aware of can’t just disappear, like us, where it sometimes seems that if we failed to wake up one morning nobody would notice our absence. Maybe only my mother, who lives her hollow life not far from us, sometimes invites us to supper, looks at us in silence, her lips with their crown of wrinkles sealed, letting us make friends without interfering. At noon we go to the pool, sink into the water facing each other with our eyes open, sunspots trembling between us, sheets of glorious blue unfurling in front of us, from time to time children from her class wave at Noga with a lazy hand, and I see her approaching them timidly, trying to join in their games, but quite soon her bare, defeated feet return to me, and I clam my lips shut, not allowing them to disturb my rest, it seems that the gates have closed, the wall has tightened around me, not like once, when it was as full of holes as a sieve and every anxiety moved in to live inside my soul. Now I am almost impermeable, and it is only when confronted by a baby in a carriage that I become as startled as if I have seen a ghost, examining it with bated breath, wondering if it is the tiny adopted Mica, veils of sorrow choke me and I hide behind the newspaper or a book, what’s happening to her now, how is she coping with the loss, and when I think of my part in her tragedy I sink again but extricate myself with all my might, there are too many denunciations condemning me from outside, why should I rush to join in the chorus, I have to balance them from inside, otherwise I won’t be able to survive.
We hardly talk, so many words have already been said, we should leave them to sink before casting new stones into the water, and for the time being we are content with what is growing up between us, a quiet, relaxed comradeship, her troubles are clear to me and mine are clear to her and we exist beyond them, not at their heart, not jumping into the fire like we used to but standing on the fringes of the great conflagration, keeping out of the way of the sparks. Sometimes it seems to me that these opaque, empty days are the happiest of my life, because I hardly feel anything, as if I am lying in the dentist’s chair with my mouth open after the anesthetizing shot, knowing that charges of pain are exploding inside me but not feeling their full force, and it seems to me that if I only ignore them they will ignore me in exchange.
So this is how you all live, this is the great secret of your survival, this is what Zohara tried to show me, this is how Udi tried to rescue himself, this is how you all walk serenely down the bypass roads, and only I insisted on feeling everything, marching down the exposed highway on my flat feet, not missing a single nuance, digging up the festering emotions to the roots, and I wonder what Udi would say about my new, dormant existence, a daring revolt against the tyranny of feeling, I think of all the things I could tell him if he were here beside me now, about the baby given up for adoption because of me, about the gates of the shelter that had closed behind me, but immediately I remember, he wouldn’t have listened, everything turned into a contest between us, every mistake of mine proved that he was better than me, every achievement was enlisted and appropriated to the ends of the inner struggle, we never saw each other as independent figures with the right to lives of their own, to failures, moods, everything was narrowed down to the stifling circle of the connection between us, we looked at each other from such close quarters that we didn’t see anything, and at the same time we were distant, he had to travel to Tibet for me to feel close to him, and when Noga asks, what are you thinking about, Mommy, I say, nothing in particular.
Sometimes I think, maybe this silence is good for me and not for her, maybe I should try to get her to talk, it’s strange that she’s stopped talking about him, as if she never had a father, but I can’t bring myself to do it, it appears that there is such a thing as can’t, for so many years I thought I could do everything I had to do, and it turns out that I can’t, I’m comfortable with our silence, and that’s enough for the time being, but one night I find her sitting up awake in bed, spreading a crumpled page out on her knees. What’s that, Nogi, I ask her, and she says, the letter Daddy left me before he went away, and I fall silent immediately, once I nearly set the house on fire to get hold of this letter, and now it’s boring, irrelevant, I have no need to read it. Do you think that Daddy’s all right, she asks, and I make haste to say, of course, why not, and she says, it’s strange that he hasn’t contacted us, maybe something’s happened to him, and I put my hand on her tousled head, Nogi, you prefer worrying about him to being angry with him. But maybe something really has happened to him, how do you know it hasn’t, she insists, planting a muffled anxiety in me, and I can’t fall asleep, and reach out for the Bible lying rejected by his side of the bed, perhaps he left a letter for me too, perhaps it’s hiding between the lines, and I page through it, where are the prophesies of consolation that came to my rescue then like a chorus of good friends, why are they hiding from me, and suddenly a swarm of stinging words pounce on me from the page, awakening the memory of an unforgivable insult, what did he say to me then, in the blooming garden of the hotel, on the last moment of the spring, the rare moment of our happiness, if you could call that fragile, burdensome creature by the name of happiness at all. I can’t go up to the hotel with you, he said, I can’t eat and drink and return by the way I came, I have t
o escape from here before someone makes me sin like they did the man of God, and now the story he found so threatening confronts me in all its wickedness, the story of the man of God who came out of Judah to Beth-el and prophesied the burning of the altar and the destruction of the sinful Beth-el, and God had forbidden him to eat bread or drink water there or to return by the way he came, but an old prophet from Beth-el tripped him up on purpose, I too am a prophet, he lied to him, and an angel of the Lord told me to bring you to my house, to give you food and drink. The man of God, who was already hungry and thirsty, was tempted to believe him, and while they were sitting at the table, eating and drinking, the word of the Lord was heard, thy carcass shall not come unto the sepulchre of thy fathers, for thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the Lord, and indeed, after he left there a lion met him by the way and slew him, and the old prophet buried him in Beth-el and he asked his sons to bury him by his side after he died, lay my bones beside his bones.
I put the book down angrily, indignant at the bitter fate of the man of God, who failed to pass the test, how could he have known that he was being lied to, how is it possible to distinguish between the word of the Lord and a lie, before my eyes I see in sharp focus the picture of Udi kneeling among the trees and prophesying, prophesying the destruction of our little family, not knowing that the false prophetess is already waiting at the door to our house, her hair venomous snakes, words of encouragement and reassurance on her smooth tongue, you’re holding on to him too tightly, she said to me, you’re crumbling him like a clod of earth, you have to let go, but the minute I let go she grabbed hold of him, dragging him behind her, pulverizing us all into gray crumbs. I feel the sheet next to me, for a moment it seems to me that his long bones are lying on the bed by my side, fast asleep, I mustn’t wake them, but suddenly they sit up and begin to dance a farewell dance before my eyes, bowing and curtsying, creaking hollowly, and I stifle a scream, he’s going to die there, in distant Tibet, his carcass will not come unto the sepulchre of his fathers, we’ll never see him again, a malicious false prophecy removed him from our home, I have to change my life, he said, I’ve been given a warning here, how could he have known that he was being tested, and I jump out of bed and go to the porch, and look at the silent street, the bathing suits dripping above my head, giving off a misleading smell of wet dust, like the smell of the first rains.
Here I saw him walking away, the knapsack on his back, with a hoarse throat I tried to stop him, casting stones of anger and insult at him, how did he suddenly turn into my sworn enemy, on that morning in the blooming garden of the hotel, strangling our infant happiness, but a new understanding slowly covers the porch like a canopy of peace, he didn’t sin, he shouldn’t be punished because he didn’t sin, he didn’t eat or drink, he didn’t return to our beautiful room in the hotel, to the huge, seductive bed, he obeyed the word of the Lord for all our sakes, for the sake of the purity of our little kingdom, perhaps this was the test and he passed it, so what if our holiday ended in depression and disappointment, perhaps a completely different logic lay hidden beneath the events that upset us so much, a deeper, even completely contradictory logic, because if he ever does come back, he will have to return by another way, to be another person, and I go back to the bedroom and page quickly through the book, eager to reach the moment when the prophecy of the man of God comes true, his carcass may have been buried in the earth but his prophecy remained, and here is King Josiah gathering to him the remnants of the house of Israel and purifying the land of its corruption, the Topheth in the valley of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Moloch, taking the bones out of the sepulchres and burning them on the altar at Beth-el, but the bones of the man of God who came out of Judah he does not touch, and they let his bones alone, together with the bones of the old prophet that came out of Samaria.
Before my eyes I see the desolate Kingdom of Israel, strewn with the rubble of the altars and the high places, testimony to its sins, its people exiled, turning their stiff necks on their country, on their homes where strangers were housed, like Udi roaming in strange landscapes, a strange baby on his back, and I wonder if he has another Udi inside him, that I never knew, that I managed to miss all these years, perhaps by my side he withers and by hers he blooms, and for a moment I observe his blooming with an aching heart, see him turning his head and laughing, and she looks at him admiringly, but there’s nothing real in it after all, like there was nothing real in the spring flowers surrounding the hotel, struggling to hang on, refusing to accept their destiny, to astonish for a moment and then withdraw into little bulbs under the earth. A gust of compassion shakes me, when he lay here sick and suffering on this bed I was unable to feel compassion for him, and now that he is healthy, covering vast distances on his strong legs, a new woman by his side, I fill with compassion, I see his heart trying in vain to stretch, a too-narrow bridge between two receding banks, soon its remains will be swept away in the rushing river, and then his guilt will pounce on him like a hungry lion, greedily devouring the feast that has come its way, leaving only disappointing scraps, a disturbing memorial to what was and will never be again. You wanted to be loved, you wanted to be reconciled, but as long as you go on running you’ll have no rest, merely the snatched sleep of an escaped prisoner, only if you confront the guardians of your mind face-toface will you be able to be happy, or unhappy, but it will be your unhappiness, or your happiness, not Noga’s, not mine, I’m out of the picture already, not even the heel of my foot peeps from it, I even feel sorry for Zohara, she’s holding the remains of a ruined kingdom in her hands, and she still doesn’t know it, who am I to blame her, I too am culpable, I removed a day-old baby from his mother’s arms. I close the book and put it down on his side of the bed, on the pillow that was once his, I’ll never find those soothing prophecies of consolation again, but when I am about to fall asleep I remember the last prophecy, demanding and binding as the last words of a dying man: Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
It seems that I have just this moment fallen asleep but the room is already dazzling, the whole sun has crowded through one narrow slit in the blind, and Noga bursts into my bed, Mommy, get up, tomorrow’s my birthday and we haven’t bought anything yet, and I get up and dress myself wearily, the fate of the man of God trailing behind me incomprehensibly, how could he have known that the old prophet was lying to him, the word of God can break forth even from the mouth of an ass. Absentmindedly I buy snacks and balloons and modeling clay and all kinds of cutouts and stickers, and a few discs that Noga says are absolutely essential, and at home we play them one after the other, our silent house fills with rhythmic, discordant sounds, which disturb me at first but gradually give me a sense of relief, as if this is no longer my house and whatever happens in it is not my responsibility. From time to time she looks out of the corner of her eye at the silent telephone, do you think Daddy will remember my birthday, she asks, do you think he’ll call tomorrow, and I think of the man of God, don’t return by the way in which you came, the obligation to change is a divine commandment, but who knows what change is required, and what it costs, you can only know when the false prophecy is refuted, when the lion is already sticking its teeth in your flesh. I stand at the window and look at the street, yellow leaves speckle it, giving it a new air of expectancy, is there another way to come here, not by this street, to enter the house not through this door, and she says, Mommy, why don’t you answer me? And I say crossly, I don’t know if it’s even possible to phone from there, but she keeps on, do you think that he’ll remember? How do I know if he’ll remember, I say, and I stare at her distractedly, I imagine that if he remembers you’ll know.
In the kitchen I surround myself with sugar and cocoa, eggs and milk and flour, silently preparing her birthday cake, a
chocolate cake in the shape of a heart, like she requested, and the house fills with a pungent family smell, and only in the evening do I remember that we forgot to buy decorations for the cake, and I hurry to the supermarket, vacillating in front of the shelf with the cake decorations, what should I get, colored candies, or marzipan teddy bears, or gilded hearts, maybe that would be too much, decorating a heart-shaped cake with hearts. A hard object suddenly pushes me from behind, so that my forehead bangs into the shelf, and I turn round to protest to the person who’s just bumped me with a shopping cart, but then I see that it isn’t a shopping cart, it’s a baby carriage, and the baby begins to wail, and I drop my eyes, I can’t see such things, they remind me of Yael, and suddenly I start, is it my imagination or is it really Yael, with her hair dyed a new color, a demure honey-brown instead of that violent red, with a body that has shrunk beyond recognition, is it really her, can it be possible that she changed her mind, that she took the tiny Micah home with her, to be his mother forever. I follow her stealthily, peeping in tremendous excitement between the shelves, afraid of being seen, where has she disappeared to, I scan all the aisles and she isn’t there, and when I am on the point of giving up I suddenly see her next to the cash register, in tight jeans and a tee-shirt, slender as if she’s never given birth in her life, putting dairy products on the counter one after the other, and next to them baby bottles, and diapers, and milk powder, is it her or isn’t it, but when she looks in my direction I have no more doubts, those eyes can only be hers, and I freeze between the shelves until she moves away, and then I flee, running and crying all the way home, my arms fluttering in the summery air like broken wings, and when I reach our street I sit down on a bench, trying to calm down before I go home, my joy mixed with a wild fear, as if I have been saved from a traffic accident and only now can I permit myself to realize how terrible it could have been, she didn’t give the baby up, she’s going to raise it herself, the catastrophe I almost brought down on her head has been averted, Hava succeeded in repairing the damage, in changing her decision, why didn’t she tell me, I might have finished my life without knowing.
Husband and Wife Page 32
