So We Said Goodbye: A Contemporary Fiction Novel

by Rama Marinov-Cohen

  That was the second time in our life that I saw him crying. The first time was that noon, a few hours before the wedding. I was with my mother in my parents’ bedroom by her dressing table. Yael had just finished doing my make up, and had started on my hair. The door was open, Yaron walked by in the corridor, he already had his tie on and the marriage contract in his hand. And then my mother said, “Come, Hagari, my child, now it’s the dress.” He saw my mother holding out the wedding dress in both her arms as she carried it to me. It must have been too much for him.

  Lucky that he arrived in time for the birth, I wouldn’t have been able to forgive him if he’d missed it. But when I was pregnant with Michali, right from the start of the eighth month, every evening he made sure to write down for me where he would be the following day and he would stick it on the fridge. Strange how all this came back to me on our ride. We had reached the end of the road by now. “That was some climb, wasn’t it? Let’s rest a bit,” he said and got off the bike breathing heavily, and looked at me, “You’re in great shape, Hagari. It’s so great.” And we leaned our bikes against some eucalyptus trees and sat ourselves down on the grass, like we used to, back to back. “Here, let me peel you an orange, you don’t need to get sticky as well,” and he slowly gave me the segments, one by one. We finished the orange and I lay on the grass, leaning my head on his leg. The eucalyptus trees were above me, and behind them, a blue sky. Completely blue, from end to end, not a single cloud. “Look how lovely it is here,” he said, his hand caressing my hair.

  I almost told him about the letters.

  Maybe I need to just leave them alone. To try to forget. It’s such a long time ago that she wrote them to him. Put them back in the black leather box, and put it back in its place, on the top shelf in the bedroom.

  To tell Yoav that I want to forget them. And maybe even stop seeing him.

  In a little while. I’ll do that soon. I can’t do it yet.

  What’s up with you?

  “What’s up with you Hagar, you haven’t been saying much lately.” Yael said this to me today. We both had a free day; she suggested that we spend it together and sit on the seashore. I didn’t feel like it, so we stayed home.

  “Hagar, you’ve been going to Yoav for a couple of months now. Is it helping?”

  “I don’t know, Yael, I really don’t know.”

  “Is it still those letters…?” she tried to draw me out.

  “Actually, less so now.”

  “So perhaps Yoav has helped.”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “Why? Tell me why…”

  “I can’t stand going to him. It’s really myself that I can’t stand. It reminds me of how I used to be.”

  Until I learned how to keep my head up, hold it a bit higher, it took me years. People were always bringing up the same word with me, ‘assertiveness’. Once, in the staff room, a substitute teacher joked about it, “Hagar, tell me, have you heard about assertiveness seminars? Take it from me – an assertiveness seminar would fit you like a glove.” I didn’t say anything, what could I have said? It took me years till I plucked up the courage, and stopped being afraid. Even fought back sometimes. Miri, the head-teacher, such a nasty piece of work, was always giving me the worst hours in the timetable, the most difficult classes. It was the easiest thing for her to dump all that on me; she knew I would just accept it. “You don’t understand, Hagar,” Yael would try to tell me, “if you would only talk back – people would start to appreciate you. Stand up for yourself; don’t act like you’re an ashtray into which everyone can tip their dirt. You are always trying to do the right thing, you don’t understand that people just don’t value it; on the contrary, they’ll trample on you. People at work can be nasty sometimes, this kind of hidden nastiness, and if there’s someone weak in the vicinity, it only brings out this side of them more and the nastiness comes out. Either straight out, or it can be in disguise, slyly, as if jokingly. And I don’t know why, but just take a look around, the more senior they are, the more they have this side to them.” And how proud Yael was of me, when I went to Miri after she had finished drawing up the timetable. I told her, I simply told her, that Wednesday was my free day and I did not intend to come in for two hours in the middle of the day. Just like that. It worked.

  And now, with Yoav, I can’t bring myself to tell him anything. Can’t tell him that it’s really hard for me to talk to him; that I can’t get used to seeing him. Does everybody find it so hard or do others get used to it more easily? And it bothers me that I don’t know anything about him, and I’m angry with myself that it bothers me. I know that we’re not friends; I really didn’t come to him to speak about him, but about myself. And I don’t know what he thinks about me, what his opinion is, and that bothers me too. Maybe he doesn’t have an opinion. Maybe he shouldn’t have one, after all, they’re not supposed to be judgmental. And it’s hard for me to think about what happened to me at his place, things he knows about me. The meetings with him are expensive, and I don’t know if they help or not, maybe they do, maybe going to him does help a little, how can you tell? And nine-thirty at night is too late for me. I’m not at my best in the evenings. I’d prefer afternoons, or Wednesdays.

  But why am I moaning about him, after all, it was me who wanted to go to him in the first place, it was urgent for me, and he didn’t have time, so he suggested that he could see me in the evening.

  And the risk of running into other people at Yoav’s office – I get stressed about it each time, the thought of running into someone I know.

  If only he could leave a little gap between appointments.

  But why should he? For him, that would just be wasted time.

  And why does it annoy me that he treats so many people; it’s not as if he owes me anything.

  Once, when I came out of there, there was a woman waiting outside. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her, with curly hair, a really young girl. She was looking down at the floor, she had this kind of abandoned puppy look, a puppy that you want to take in your arms, pick up and stroke. Perhaps she overheard a bit of what I was saying when I was near the door? What on earth would I have done if that had been someone from my school, a teacher, or one of my pupils? Heavens, what if it had been the mother of one of them? Or even someone who works at my bank?

  And even when I stop going there, what if one day I meet someone and suddenly he says, “You look familiar, what’s your name? I’m sure I’ve seen you before. Ah, yes, I’ve just remembered. It was at Dr. Marom’s clinic, you were there, weren’t you?”

  Then what would I do?

  Is this thing going to haunt me for the rest of my life?

  ***

  He doesn’t even know that I run. That I got second place in the half-marathon. And for that past half year I’ve been working towards a full marathon. I downloaded a training programme from the Internet all by myself, and in three weeks I’ll be doing the Northern Galilee Marathon. I’m now training four days a week, at five in the morning, even in the rain.

  People really respect me for it.

  It’s a shame that I didn’t tell him, just so he’d know.

  I can’t tell him now. It’s not even connected to anything, I didn’t come to him to just talk about anything, the way people talk with friends.

  There are a million people who run; they do full marathons, triathlons, Iron Man competitions. What’s a half-marathon, a half-marathon doesn’t even count.

  I’m nothing, just hot air, what’s to be proud of? Poor yet proud, I once came across that expression, it was in Judith Rotem’s novel, Who Doesn’t Need Love? You’re a complete nothing; at the very least don’t be proud of it. “If there are people whom God really hates then it must be them.”

  So you ran a half-marathon, who are you, anyhow? What are you worth?

  Good that I didn’t tell him.

  ***

  “Hagar,” Yael said to me, “I know that it was my idea. I thought that perhaps it would be worth going
to someone. But now I’m not sure it was such a good idea – look what it’s doing to you.”

  My mother would also have said the same thing, had she known. Once, she said, ‘Everyone goes to a psychologist nowadays. It’s become a profession that’s so in demand. Once there was no such thing, for sure not for us, living in the village as we did. We lived close to one another, everyone together, family, friends. People would speak to one another, help each other. Now everyone’s so busy, isolated; people live alone in some villa, chasing life. They pay money for what should come from the heart.”

  ***

  Maybe Yaron really shouldn’t have told me that he met up with Aya. Then I would never have come across her letters. Maybe it really is best not to know.

  These letters have started to ruin my life. And Yaron sensed it, but didn’t understand what was going on. I’ve even stopped getting dressed near him. How could I tell him what’s going on with me? Or what I’m thinking of when he touches me?

  Thinking about what he used to think when he would touch me, way back. And about whom.

  Had he known about those letters, without me telling him, if he had just found out somehow, maybe he would simply have said the things that might have calmed me down. Just like that.

  Maybe he would have told me that Aya no longer exists for him. That it was then, long ago. We were in our twenties, and yes, it’s true he found it hard with me at the beginning. He knows and I know. And it took him time to forget her. But it’s no longer like that now. We’ve been together so long, so many years. And his life with me is good. I think he thinks that it’s good.

  ***

  If only he could say it to me like this. That I’m his woman. That I’m good for him. Just as I am. And that he loves how we are together.

  Then I wouldn’t need to go through all this with Yoav.

  To ask myself a thousand times over whether to tell him or not to tell him that I signed up for the Upper Galilee Marathon.

  And to break down like I did, in front of him.

  And, to pay him for it. And to say thank you at the end.

  Maybe I need to talk about all of this with Yoav. Maybe he expects me to tell him how I feel when I come to him. I also read that somewhere. That’s where you’re supposed to speak about everything.

  ***

  “You don’t think it’d be worth just stopping?” said Yael. “Yoav himself has suddenly turned into a problem. You went to resolve something, not to begin getting yourself all worked up about what you said, whether you should have said it, what he thought, if he thought anything, and if he has the time to think about you at all. And then to have to speak with him about all this; to continue going there so you can therapise the therapy. Just leave it and that’s it.”

  I didn’t answer her.

  “Hagar, if you’ve begun to put the letters aside a bit, perhaps Yoav has helped you after all. And maybe now you’ll be able to stop.”

  “I don’t know if it’s down to him. I’ve simply stopped thinking so much about them.”

  “Perhaps it’s because of Yaron, he’s changed. It seems he’s softened up a bit. I would always leave the minute he walked in the front door. But now, you saw how I sat with him at the computer for two hours, when we worked on his pictures. The truth is, I really enjoyed it.”

  “Yes, he really has changed. It’s as if something has loosened up in him.”

  Everything has changed. When I think about it, recently everything with him has changed. Even our “intimate relations” as Yoav calls them. Even that has changed.

  I suddenly discovered this spot behind his knee, and what it does to him when I tickle him there. How could I only have discovered it now?

  How could there be such a change, after so many years?

  ***

  Yael thinks that I should stop. “Therapy or no therapy, call it whatever you like. It’s not doing you any good. Definitely more bad than good.”

  I’ll be stopping soon. A bit longer. I still can’t leave Yoav yet.

  I have to show him that I’m different, so he’ll know the real me. Then I’ll tell him that the problem about which I came to him no longer bothers me; and then we’ll call it a day.

  Just like that.

  It’s such a shame that he hasn’t seen the article about me in the local paper. They wrote about me running in the Upper Galilee Marathon, the only one in my age group. It’s coming up fast, there are only three weeks left. I never dreamed that I would be able to do something like this, run non-stop for twenty-six miles. I’ve been preparing for it for the past six months. I’ve missed out on only three training sessions this whole time. And I’ve already managed to complete twenty-two miles. I’ve done that. “You’re great, Hagari, really great. I told you that you’d make it, do you remember me telling you?” he said when I finished the twenty-two miles. He was waiting for me with a towel and cold water, leaning over me. “You sit here, I’ll take off your shoes for you.”

  There are easier training sessions this week. And on Saturday I only have to run eighteen miles, but with uphill sections.

  ***

  May 10

  The twenty-sixth of May. Every website that I go into, that date looms large. The Upper Galilee Marathon. Another sixteen days, it’s getting close. I must try to stay calm. I’ve been preparing for this date since November.

  It’s scary. Although I’ve done so much preparation, stuck strictly to the plan. But how could I not be scared.

  “You’ll do it,” Yaron told me. “Don’t be nervous, you’re ready for it. You’ll see that it’ll be just fine. I know you, Hagari.”

  The day before yesterday I was at Yoav’s, it was a Monday night. I managed to speak a bit freely, easily. Sometimes I can. Eventually I told him about the article as well.

  “You know, Yoav, there was an article about me in our local paper.”

  “Was there? Nice. Why?”

  “Just was. Because I run.”

  “Really? You never mentioned it.”

  “Well, it was nothing to do with the things we’re talking about here.”

  “What did they write about you?”

  “Would you like to see? I have a copy here.”

  He said he would, so I offered to leave it for him.

  “Absolutely. Gladly. Leave it here for me,” and he pointed to the little corner table, where there’s always a pile of newspapers. I was so happy, I took out a crisp copy from my bag, put it on the newspapers, I paid him and we opened our diaries. “I won’t be able to see you in the next two weeks, sorry about that. If you like, we can fix a date for three weeks’ time.” I didn’t ask if he was travelling or something, or if it was a holiday, or if he was going on his own. I restrained myself. I’m used to holding back with him. We fixed the date.

  Suddenly I’m glued to my mobile again. Like then, when I wanted to get started and it took him two months to return my call.

  I waited and waited for him to read the article. True, he’s not supposed to call me up, it’s not as if we’re friends. But still, after all I’ve been through with him, and everything that I’ve told him.