“No.”
“Then what did I do wrong? For better or worse she’s one of us now. Let her know. It’s not something that can be kept hidden. Why must you keep feeling ashamed?”
“I’m not ashamed. I just want you to know that if I feel scorn, it’s for that. It’s not intellectual. I never looked down on you intellectually. On the contrary, I learned a great deal from you. You were a teacher too, and I’ve followed in your footsteps, although in a somewhat different field. But this sentimentality of yours ... this uncontrollable need to talk ... without the slightest sense of discrimination...”
“Where are we turning now?”
“I don’t know. Why are you so worried about the bus?”
“I don’t want to be late. Are you sure he’s going straight to Haifa?”
“Of course.”
“But that’s how I am. That’s my nature. Take me or leave me, as the Americans say. It’s my nature to be frank.”
“Don’t be absurd. Frankness has nothing to do with it. Nobody asked you about it. Don’t you see why I didn’t want you to visit her parents? I was afraid you’d start telling them everything, that you’d stand there and open your shirt...”
“Did you really think I was capable...?”
“Why not? Recently you’ve proven yourself capable of astounding things.”
“That’s Connie. It’s she who gave me new hope. It’s she who saw the potential still in me when I came there a beaten, desperate man ... who restored my faith to me. I’d like so much for you to meet her. You’d understand me much better if you did. It would be wonderful if you and Dina could come spend some time with us ... if you could see our little Jew-child when it’s born ... what a miracle! I still haven’t told you everything ... I have grand plans for you ... it’s just that ... Look, there’s the ocean at last! It will be a chance for you to get out into the world ... I’ll arrange something for you at the university ... how is your English? You can lecture about your terrorists, or about Judaism and Jewish history—that’s a hot item there now, and they pay well. We’ll live together for a while.... Could you open the window a bit or is it too windy? I’m suddenly gagging ... I feel nauseous ... you’ve really done a job on me ... squelched me completely ... you don’t know the meaning of compassion ... why can’t you understand what I’ve been going through?”
“That’s enough, father. Never mind. Let’s drop it for now. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. I’ll try to sleep too.”
And the pale young man so rudely plucked from his work—that thinker of never-before-thought thoughts that were to astound the few intellects of his age that could grasp them—that man shut his eyes. He sat with his head thrown back in the speeding bus that drove one dull spring day through hot dusty winds toward the ridges of the Carmel and the bay that looped at their feet, passed on the left by soundless cars whose drivers, sprawled limply at their black wheels, had not the slightest inkling who it was they had passed sitting at the window by his father, that blurred, concupiscent figure of a man now wiping away tears whose traces too would be stalked one hundred years from now by an eager young biographer, who—if he meant to do the job property—would have to travel all the way to Minneapolis and burrow there through old papers to determine what, if any, had been the paternal influence on that world-shaking, seminal mind. He curled up in his seat, savagely kneading his own silence, upgrading raw libido into intellectual power, contemplating space rushing by upon the face of the historical time that meandered within him. Flowing past borders, shooting white water, navigating the hydra-headed river, crossing the alluvial swamp in the midst of dead cosmic time, there he would find the bottom, the true bed in which it all flowed. The time had come to make order, to gather the defiant facts into one grand system, to bare the underlying laws, the sudden cascades, the disappointing channels that blindly petered out only to burst forth unexpectedly again, the missed, the impossible opportunities.
To understand the pulsing shuttle of the historical grid: with that he was to begin the first of his series of essays, which, appearing one by one at regular intervals, were eagerly snatched up by his few mental compeers ... The theoretical approach to history and its laws is still alive. No doubt it has suffered a severe setback in the course of this century, in which certain malignant phenomena in the human organism have revived absurdly chaotic ideologies of a mythical, religious or fatalistic nature that exist side by side with the most banal sociological generalities. Yet the historical process itself has continued; it is inherent in human behavior and has its own laws that render it both predictable and quantifiable. It moves irreversibly forward, never revolving in place, though increasingly complex and tortuous attempts to shortcut it have frequently blurred its clear course. Is it possible to construct a reliable and measurable method that will account for the success or failure of such shortcuts, which are the essence of practical politics, within the readily discernible outlines of the historical process itself? Are even the most chimerical attempts to oppose or circumvent this process governed by laws of their own? In this series of essays I shall attempt to build and verify such a model based on a study of the history of the nineteenth century taken as one homogeneous unit. Undeniably I have taken upon myself a highly ambitious task ...
We were exhausted when we got off the bus in Haifa. Father stumbled going down the stairs and had to shut his eyes and lean against one of the big concrete columns of the terminal. I took his valise and he walked slowly on, head down and arms dangling, through the dark wide passageways that echoed with the screeches of the buses. All at once Kedmi popped out of some exit.
“It’s about time! What happened to you? I was about to try the lost-and-found department. The two of you look as depressed as though you’d just landed on the moon.’’
Father looked right through him. He glanced about, then left us without a word and crossed the passageway to the men’s room. Kedmi winked jovially.
“This is his big day. Believe me, though, he never should have come. All I needed was one more time alone with your mother to get her to finish thinking. But who can stand up to you all? Come, there’s another Kaminka-and-a-half eagerly awaiting you.”
He took me to a corner table in the cafeteria. Once again I was struck by the sheer size of Gaddi, who sat there with a big shiny bright toy locomotive. I smiled at him and mussed his hair. He didn’t smile back.
“We’re old phone pals, aren’t we, Gaddi?”
He nodded.
Ya’el sat hunched, soft and pensive, in a big gray windbreaker, her smooth, unlined face looking broader than ever. I dropped into a chair by her side. Should I kiss her? She made a face, then shut her eyes, put her arms around my head, and kissed me. Her so feminine skin.
“Who’s looking after the baby?”
“Kedmi’s mother,” answered Kedmi with a twinkle.
“Dina couldn’t come with you today?”
“No. And it wouldn’t have been a good idea.”
“I don’t suppose it would have. How is she? I haven’t seen her for so long.”
“The same. She’s still working on and off at the same place.”
Kedmi chuckled abruptly at a joke he’d just told himself. Ya’el smiled nebulously. She started to say something but Kedmi beat her to it.
“You’d better hustle, Asa, if you want to eat something. The train is leaving soon. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”
“The train? What train?”
“Surprisingly enough”—he laughed—“there is one. And you’re going to Acre on it. Relax. I promised Gaddi. It will be an experience for you too. The station in Acre is near the rabbinate building. From there you’ll take a cab to the hospital, and I’ll pick you up at five. It’s been all decided. I’ve got to run to see my murderer now. I still have to earn a little money here and there, your father hasn’t put me on a retainer yet...”
Through the plate glass I saw father come out of the men’s room. He halted confusedly, then headed in the wr
ong direction. Kedmi grinned and roused Gaddi. “Go get your grandpa before we lose him.”
“What’s with him?” asked Ya’el. “How was his visit with you?”
“Fine. He actually seemed in good spirits.”
“Yes. He seems happy.”
Gaddi ran up to father and poked him in the back. Father bent and hugged him warmly, then picked him up and kissed him with an emotion that surprised me. The toy looked excited too and kept pointing at the locomotive that he held. They returned to us with their arms around each other. Ya’el got up to hug father. His face was wet, his hair damp. There was a faint smell of vomit about him.
“I didn’t feel good. I don’t know what happened to me all of a sudden.”
“It was your fear,” blurted Kedmi without looking at him.
“Fear of what?”
“Never mind...”
A nauseating man with a nauseating sense of humor.
Father made a move to sit down but Kedmi began giving him orders too.
“Go eat something. It won’t help any to be hungry.”
“Sit, father,” I said. “I’ll bring you something. What would you like?”
“Just tea and cake or something. But wait a minute...”
He reached for his wallet and took out some dollar bills.
“I don’t need them,” I said.
Kedmi hovered jocularly around us. “You still haven’t changed your dollars, eh, Yehuda? You’re a rational man, you know a dollar changed tomorrow is worth two changed today ...”
Father interrupted him short-temperedly. “Where is there a bank around here?”
“Not now ... not now...’’ we all exclaimed together.
“But I have to. I must.”
“Come here, I’ll change them for you. How much do you want?”
Father gave Kedmi a hundred-dollar bill. Kedmi held it up to the light, grinning impishly. “There are counterfeits making the rounds.” He picked up a newspaper to check the exchange rate and showed it to father.
“Fine, whatever you say,” mumbled father with loathing.
I went to get lunch and returned with it. I said nothing, watching them remotely from some tenuous, still point inside me. Gaddi stared at the loaded tray that I’d brought. Father forced some pound notes on me. Kedmi grinned. Ya’el kept her eyes silently on father. Where is Dina now? People came and went. Dishes clattered. Jerusalem seemed a world away. The morning’s lesson. Kedmi scurried about, conversing with people, scanning newspapers. At one point he furtively slipped me some document. “If you can catch her between the acts, see if you can’t gently get her to sign this. It’s a copy of the agreement that I gave her. If you don’t stay cool, who will?”
I said nothing.
At two o’clock we were standing by the train. Kedmi put us aboard as though we were luggage, finding us our seats, buying us our tickets. He’d put father’s valise in his car and given him a yellow cardboard file holder which said Chief Rabbinate on it. There was nothing he hadn’t made his business in his revoltingly jovial way. How did the two of them live together? But Ya’el was her usual patient, passive self, thoroughly held in check, always ready to give in, to let him poke his nose everywhere, even go through her purse.
“Why do you all look so alarmed?” he called to us from the platform. “Don’t worry. It’s an honest-to-goodness train. It will be an experience. I’ll come to get you at five, five-thirty. Gaddi, don’t forget your locomotive on the train. And ask your uncle to show you around it.”
He waved at us and departed, leaving us out of time in the still, empty train. A hell of an experience to have to go through for the boy’s sake. What was I doing here? I wondered. I felt paralyzed, dog-tired. I watched Ya’el open a large plastic bag and take out a big blue woolen shawl and a flowery robe to give father to give mother as presents. He accepted them gratefully, and together they removed the Israeli labels. Slowly the train began to move. It crept along through the freight yards of the port, among cranes, past ugly factories, warehouses and grim garages, stopping for no reason and starting up again, nearing some blocks; of public housing. Father was restless. He chain-smoked, asked about relatives, sighed, combed his hair. “I won’t say a word there,” he promised again. “I’ll let you do the talking. Asa will go first.” He opened the cardboard file holder that Kedmi had given him and studied its contents.
I took Gaddi for a tour of the train. We walked to the last car and, from a rattling passage by the rear window, watched the unweeded rails slowly receding. The boy stood silently by me, a softer edition of Kedmi but terribly earnest, the locomotive still in one hand and the other on his chest. He stood glued to the window. I took out the document that Kedmi had given me and leafed through it. Their divorce agreement. Brutal legal phraseology spelled here and there by sentimental cliches. The last page enumerated the joint property to be divided. With what perverse pleasure Kedmi had listed all the furniture, inventoried everything, estimated its value down to the last cent. I shook with anger. Where is Dina now? What am I going to do with her?
It took us a ridiculous hour to reach Acre. At the station we found a taxi and drove to the rabbinate building in the walled seaport, not far from the old citadel. “Here you’ll leave it to me,’’ announced father with a sudden show of firmness. “It won’t take me long.” And so we waited in the taxi, bus stops and felafel stands around us, old stones from the citadel piled on the curb. The driver got out to clean the windshield. Gaddi drove his locomotive back and forth in the front seat. Ya’el sat huddled next to me with a guilty look on her face. Does she ever actually think? Think, Ya’el, think, we used to beg her whenever she would suddenly go blank.
“You know ... he’s going to have a baby over there ... with that woman...’’
“Yes. He told me.”
“Have you told Tsvi?”
“He knows.”
“What did he say?”
“He just laughed.”
“He did? Why didn’t he come with us today? I phoned him last night but got no answer.”
“I spoke to him.”
“Why didn’t he come with us?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want them to get divorced. He likes having their apartment...” She didn’t finish the thought. But it was Kedmi’s anyway, not hers.
“Is that what he said?”
“No. All he said was that he didn’t like hospitals.”
“I couldn’t sleep last night. I kept tossing in bed. That baby slays me.... Who would have thought it of him?”
She didn’t understand, though. Her eyes grew large with wonder.
“What makes you say that?”
I shook with anger again. My lost time. I missed Jerusalem as though it were years since I had last seen it. Father was taking his time. The driver had gone to sit in a nearby café. I glanced at the vaults of the citadel, at a strip of sea on the horizon. I opened the car door.
“Come on, Gaddi. I’ll show you something.”
We strode along the seawall until we came to some steps that zigzagged down to a recessed apse at one end of it. A dry, gray day, with a hot desert wind from the east. The U-shaped bay was a blur, the Carmel range a purple mass. I grasped Gaddi’s fat hand to keep him from slipping on the guttered stones, the locomotive still under his arm, explaining to him what we saw and showing him the hills across the water where he lived, although he preferred looking at a column of flame rising from the oil refinery on the bay to flicker in the foul wind.
1799. From a hillock nearby Napoleon gazed down on these walls, reached out his hand to them. Had he wished to take them or merely to comprehend, to palpate the pulsebeat of history with his sensitive touch? And then he retreated. This was not the place. Never mind. It was through this trivial defeat that he came to know himself, his true powers, the mission entrusted him. That he found the necessary point of connection. The last years of the eighteenth century were where I must begin.
I wanted to he myself again but co
uld not. The boy was in the way. Scrutinizing me. My trampled time, my papers left by my books. In far, clear Jerusalem. Clear thought. Hard light. Dina in its streets, free with our money, free with strange men. And you, stranded high and dry here.
We descended the wall. Ya’el was; still in the taxi, eyes shut, arms folded on her chest. The driver looked at us.
“Father isn’t back yet? What’s going on in there!”
I climbed the steps of the rabbinate building. A large, long hallway with narrow doors. From somewhere came a sound of muffled sobs. Father’s? In a fit I opened one of the doors. A dark young woman sat at a bare desk in a room that made the sobs resound like a weird echo chamber. She rose to speak to me as though I were an office clerk, but I beat a hasty retreat, letting go of the door, which slammed behind me. At the end of the corridor, through another door, I saw father’s head beneath a black skullcap. Two young, dark-bearded rabbis sat on either side of him, evidently explaining something to him while he nodded his agreement. I collapsed onto a bench in the hallway, my head in my hands. An endless day. Two black-suited men climbed the stairs with a folded stretcher, threw it on the floor at my feet, and continued up another flight. At last father emerged, seen out by the rabbis, to whom he hadn’t stopped nodding. He bowed his head and shook their hands with submissive gratitude. “Everything will be all right, Professor Kaminka,” they assured him. I rose quickly and started down the stairs with him hurrying after me while removing the skullcap and sticking it into his pocket.
“Really, they’re being most considerate. They’ll bring the rabbinical court to the hospital. They’ll arrange it with the management, even though it’s Passover eve.”
The exit below was blocked by the yawning doors of a hearse.
With an angry movement I slammed them shut. It was already half past three. We were late. The taxi drove to the hospital and left us at the front gate. Suddenly I had second thoughts: shouldn’t Gaddi wait for us outside? But father insisted.
A Late Divorce Page 16
