Deja Vu

by Michal Hartstein

  Two years after I became a CPA, I’d finally found a new job. Smart Green, which engaged in the development and production of ecological goods for industry, was a stable company, and the work was very interesting. Shoshana, the chief bookkeeper I was replacing, was retiring, but sat with me for a month and patiently shared the secrets of the role. The accounts department included two other employees: the bookkeeper who worked with the customers and the bookkeeper who worked with the suppliers. My job was to supervise them, to work with the banks, make adjustments and prepare salaries.

  I’d found a job that was fun and challenging, and my salary jumped significantly. I should have been happy, but I was ashamed to tell people that I was employed as a bookkeeper (a chief, mind you) and not as an accountant. When friends or family members took an interest in my new job, I told them I was employed as head of the accounts department, and sometimes I just lied and said I was the accountant or even the CFO. I didn’t want them to know that the woman who had been on the Dean's List, who was sure she would become a senior manager by the age of thirty, was actually a bookkeeper, although a chief bookkeeper.

  I told Daria and Inbal that I was an accountant, a job I considered more prestigious. I knew they wouldn’t check, and for all they, or anyone else not in the field, knew there was no difference between a bookkeeper or an accountant or a chief accountant. Most people didn’t understand the difference between a CPA and a bookkeeper, so I didn’t bother to be precise and say that I was chief bookkeeper and not an accountant. I wanted to be considered the successful one in our little group, as I’d always considered myself to be.

  I wanted to be envied too. I was tired of being jealous.

  Within a few months, I’d established myself in the company. The CEO, the two bookkeepers who worked under me and many other workers had come to know me and my abilities. I often stayed in the office until late in the evening to finish another special report for the managers or to complete other tasks. I enjoyed taking the initiative, and I loved the appreciation I got from the CEO and the looks of respect other employees sent my way when they saw me still sitting in my office while they waved goodbye on their way home. I knew, however, that not everyone appreciated the sacrifice I had supposedly made as a young mother. One morning, when I arrived at the office, I was so pressed to use the bathroom that I went straight there without stopping at my desk. Rina, the company secretary and Deganit, the bookkeeper who handled the suppliers, entered the bathroom after me without knowing that I was in one of the stalls.

  “The chief’s not in yet?” Rina asked sarcastically, and I realized immediately that she was referring to me. I was aware from the very beginning that Rina couldn’t stand me. It was hard for her to face the fact that a girl ten years her junior was her manager.

  “I haven’t seen her yet.”

  “Aaron told me she was here till ten o'clock yesterday evening.”

  “Then she’s probably late because of that.”

  “What work could she possibly do until ten o'clock at night?”

  “I have no idea,” Deganit replied. “She asked me for some data yesterday before I left.”

  “Just trying to make an impression.”

  “Well, that’s her right. She's a young woman, and she wants to prove herself.” Deganit won a few more credit points in my book.

  “She has a really small baby at home. Doesn’t she want to see her? Doesn’t she need to take care of her?”

  “What are you talking about? She doesn’t have a little baby.” Deganit pondered. “I'm pretty sure her daughter’s almost two years old.”

  “That picture on her desk,” Rina persisted, “is of a cute, smiling baby.”

  “That’s not a current picture. She showed me a different one a few days ago on her cellphone.”

  “Does it seem normal to you for a mother not to have a recent photo of her child on her desk?”

  “Yes,” Deganit replied in a dry tone, which only made me appreciate her more.

  “Well, I think it’s a little weird. I mean, even if we put the picture issue aside, a two-year-old girl needs her mother. She often works late. You'd think she manages the entire world from here.”

  “You might be right.”

  “I’m definitely right. I told you from the very first moment – she’s as cold as ice. Be careful around her.”

  Rina and Deganit’s conversation aroused mixed feelings in me. On the one hand, it definitely didn’t feel good to hear my parenting criticized. I was already so critical of myself to begin with. Although I didn’t consider myself friends with Rina and Deganit - their age and status in the company didn’t suit me and I aimed for higher social connections - it's never nice to hear that someone’s so disgusted with you. On the other hand, I liked that they thought of me as an assertive and forceful woman. I knew that you couldn’t get very far at work if you were nice all the time.

  To look a little less abnormal, I asked Amir to take some more recent pictures of Nofar and a few weeks later, I put them on my desk in my office. Rina thought they were very nice.

  I’d been with Smart Green for a year when, in January, Inbal and David had their second daughter, Adi, a little sister for Coral, who was a little more than a year old. During Inbal’s first pregnancy, I’d had trouble coping with her happiness. This time, I was too busy with my new job for her happiness to bother me. Mesmerized, I watched Adi hungrily sucking at Inbal’s plump breast, and I remembered how Nofar refused to nurse from mine. Coral entered the room with the clumsy run of a fourteen-month-old toddler and wrapped herself around Inbal.

  “I think she’s jealous,” I smiled. “She probably wants some too.”

  “She’ll get some soon.”

  “What will she get?” I asked, surprised.

  “A breast.” Inbal looked at me quizzically. She didn’t understand why I was surprised.

  “She's a year and two months old, and she still gets breast milk?”

  “Sure.”

  “You're not normal.”

  “Why not?” she said, raising Adi to her shoulder.

  “Because she’s a big girl.”

  “She's only just over a year… and I still have milk, so why not?”

  “If you say so...” I shrugged.

  I thought breastfeeding a fourteen-month-old toddler was a bit extreme, but I couldn’t help feeling the same old jealousy throbbing inside me again. Inbal's girls were wrapped around her from all sides and my Nofar barely wanted me at all. She didn’t nurse at all, certainly not at the age of fourteen months. She was an independent little two-year-old. Everyone admired her independence, and I knew that, just as I was trying to run away from her, she ran away from me and tried to be as independent as possible in order to not need me. While I was sitting with Inbal and her daughters, Nofar chose to play with Amir and David in the living room. Her preference for Amir had always been obvious, and Amir tried to reassure me that it was just because she was daddy's little girl.

  The harmony between Inbal and her daughters hurt me no less than her romantic relationship with David. I looked at Inbal’s two girls and did the math in my head: Coral was four months old when Adi was conceived. I tried to remember if Amir and I had resumed having sex four months after Nofar was born. Nofar's birth was difficult, and I ended up having an episiotomy. I found it difficult to even sit for two weeks, and the pain didn’t subside for months. Even after the pain abated, the frequency of sexual encounters between Amir and I was substantially reduced. Between work and taking care of Nofar, we were simply exhausted.

  I was sure that Inbal and David were exhausted too, but it seemed that their parenthood, despite having two daughters, didn’t affect the intimacy that existed between them. While we were all sitting in the living room, David couldn’t stop stroking Inbal and looking at her with admiring eyes. I admired her too. She had patience and mothering skills I had rarely ever seen in any other mother. Her happiness and serenity rattled me. Maybe I chose the wrong approach. Maybe I should ha
ve devoted my life to Nofar and rather than staying in the office until late at night every time I could find a sitter for her. Maybe I should have stopped looking for sitters and came home early every day. Maybe I should have stopped working completely, as Inbal had.

  Inbal planned to stay home at least until her youngest, who, according to her, was yet to be born, started school. Inbal could afford to put her career on hold. She was a literature teacher. Seniority wasn’t as crucial in her field as it was in mine. I also had to admit to myself that I was more materialistic than her. Inbal was satisfied with the little she had. I liked to buy myself new clothes, eat in restaurants and go on luxurious vacations. For Inbal, camping on the shore of the Kinneret was a wonderful vacation while I shuddered at the very thought of sleeping in a tent. I didn’t want to give up on the pleasures of life, even at the cost of having someone else taking care of my daughter.

  That night, after Nofar fell asleep, I laid in bed and read a book. Amir sent a few emails and joined me in bed. I watched him as he took off his clothes. In his boxer shorts and an undershirt, it was clear that he hadn’t been taking care of himself. Although he wasn’t fat, he was far from the handsome officer I’d met more than ten years ago. He didn’t eat well and snacked on sweets. He was addicted to caffeine, drinking at least six cups of coffee a day, which made him look perpetually tired. I, myself, didn’t look the way I did on the day we met, either. I hadn’t lost all my baby weight yet, but I knew I looked after myself better than he did. My mother once remarked that I should worry a little more about Amir, making sure that he ate well and watched his weight. It got on my nerves. “We don’t live in the 1950s,” I replied angrily. I shouldn’t need to worry about my husband - he could look after himself, just like I looked after myself. Gone were the days of the man being the sole breadwinner and the wife taking care of him as she did the rest of the children. We both worked. We both provided.

  David looked great. When we’d arrived at their house that day, he’d just returned from his shift and was still wearing a white undershirt, trousers and his heavy work boots. He was much sexier than I remembered him being in high school. Then, he was a teenager, and now he was a really sexy guy. His tanned, muscular body contrasted with the white undershirt he wore. Unlike Amir, he worked in a physically strenuous job. When Amir complimented him on being in such good shape, he told us that part of his workday included training in a purpose-built gym at the fire station. They had to be fit to withstand their tough work. No wonder Inbal slept with David so soon after giving birth. She was married to the live, human version of the famous statue of David.

  Amir lay down next to me, and I put the book down. I began to stroke him and he smiled with pleasure. My hand went sliding under his boxers. Amir flinched and pulled my hand out.

  “I'm wiped out.”

  “Don’t you want to?”

  “Sure I want to, but I’m too exhausted… let’s do it tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow, you're working late… you’ll be exhausted then too.”

  “So let’s plan a date for the weekend and do it properly.”

  “We haven’t done it for almost a month.”

  “Right...” he said sadly.

  “Aren’t you attracted to me anymore?”

  “Are you crazy? You know I am. I'm just tired.”

  “I'm sure David isn’t tired, look how fast they had two girls. They’re probably fucking like rabbits. And if you ask me, I look a lot better than Inbal.”

  He rose slightly, laid on his side, resting his head on his right hand. “I think you’re much sexier than her.”

  “So why won’t you sleep with me?”

  “Of course I want to sleep with you. Now’s just a busy time, so I have a little less strength in me. Three days ago, when I wanted to, you were tired… that's how it is when you have small children. We didn’t invent the wheel. Everyone has less sex when they have small children.”

  “It's a wonder more children are born.”

  “True,” he laughed.

  “But here are Inbal and David with another baby and they look like a couple with great intimacy.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “I don’t know. Just a hunch,” I shrugged.

  “I’ve told you a million times to stop imagining that other people have it better than you. Everyone’s the same. They all have the same problems with their children, the same money issues and the same amount of sex.”

  “It really doesn’t look that way.”

  “When you meet with Inbal and Daria, do you tell them about the problems you have at work? Problems with your boss?”

  Daria and Inbal didn’t even know that I was merely a bookkeeper, not an accountant.

  “No,” I replied in a whisper.

  “So why do you think they’d tell you about all their troubles?” he repeated, resting his head on the pillow. “No one hangs out their dirty laundry for everyone to see,” he declared.

  “So what are friends for?”

  “For problems more serious than a small overdraft or a child who's scared of the dark. If something really bad happened, you can be sure they’d be there for you.”

  I remembered how Inbal and Daria hadn’t left my bedside for weeks after the accident I’d had in my youth. He was right. Maybe they were jealous of me and I just wasn’t aware of it. I always had the feeling that I was the only one busy examining Daria and Asi’s prosperity and Inbal and David’s love life. Maybe they looked at me and found reasons to be jealous?

  CHAPTER 6

  In my first year at Smart Green, I blossomed professionally. Apart from the fact that I was repeatedly embarrassed by my demeaning and undignified job description, the work was interesting and challenging.

  Over time, I got to know more and more employees who didn’t work in my department: engineers, technicians, production workers and product designers. At first, they were all names on my payroll list, but gradually I began to associate faces with names. Being acquainted with the people I worked with while making up their paychecks every month was very difficult for me. In my mind, I saw everyone’s salary flickering over his or her head. I couldn’t remember the exact amount, but over time I could remember more or less each employee’s wage. This troubled me. Before working at Smart Green, I’d never had to make out employee paychecks. Now, when moving through the crowds of people at work, I would constantly rank them according to the privileged information I had.

  I was amazed to find that there was often no connection between the quality of the employee and the wages he earned. There were good and loyal workers earning lower wages, while other workers doing the same job were lazy and exploitative, yet earned more. I discovered an inverse relationship between efficiency and loyalty and the ability of workers to demand their rights. My stomach turned every time my manager informed me that a lazy employee or one with a poor work ethic was getting a raise, especially when there was another employee, whom I thought was more deserving of a salary bump, who didn’t get one. I was angry with my boss for not recognizing the injustices occurring in the company’s salary division.

  Over time, I added myself to the list of employees who were rewarded properly.

  “Today, Gideon notified me about another wage adjustment,” I told Amir that evening. “He gave someone from the development department an extra 2000 shekels a month.”

  “Very nice.”

  “What's nice about it? I know this man. Although he’s a fairly good worker, he's not even an engineer, he’s just a mechanic.”

  “I thought that, since Shoshana showed you that some bookkeepers have wider skills than accountants, you no longer cared about a person’s job title.” Amir reminded me of my predecessor.

  “True, but this guy doesn’t put that much effort into his work, either. I have to go through the time sheets… he does almost no overtime.”

  “Maybe he's just efficient?” Amir was starting to annoy me.

  “I’m efficient… Gideon doesn’t raise m
y salary like that. This guy's salary was higher than mine to begin with, and now the gap’s even bigger.” I sat on the couch feeling angry. Nofar approached me and handed me a paper she’d scribbled on vigorously in the last few minutes. “Good job, Nofar,” I said listlessly. She looked at me, full of hope. She wanted me to admire her doodling, but it was always difficult for me to lie to her. It was just a messy scribble.

  She took the drawing to Amir. “Daddy, hang it!” she ordered him in her baby voice. Amir took the doodle and praised it as if he was holding a rare work of art and then pinned it on the refrigerator with a magnet. “Go and make me another beautiful picture like this one,” he said softly, and our little girl ran to her room full of motivation.

  “Where was I?” I asked when we were left alone again.

  “The growing gap,” Amir laughed.

  “It's not funny,” I said angrily. “It drives me crazy that there are people who contribute less to the company than I do, yet they earn more than me.”

  “How do you know they contribute less?”

  “Believe me, I know,” I said flatly. “This guy I'm talking about works fewer hours than me. He’s also less qualified, and yet he earns more.”

  “How old is he? Maybe he's been working there for many years?”

  “He isn’t much older than me, and he’s only been working for Smart Green for six years.”

  “Only?” Amir chuckled. “He’s been working there five years longer than you. That's a lot!”

  “Don’t forget I was buried for four years in that accounting firm. In terms of job seniority, we have almost the same experience.”