The Lover

by A. B. Yehoshua

  Obviously they didn’t think he was the man I was looking for, but if I wanted to see him a vehicle and a driver would be immediately at my disposal to take me to Dimona.

  I must get out of here –

  Perhaps I should make inquiries at the hospital, perhaps his grandmother could tell me something.

  They wouldn’t let me go.

  Heavy rain falling outside. The brightness of the morning turned to heavy gloom. I sat sprawled in a comfortable armchair, three girl-officers listening to me attentively. Every word I said, every thought, was taken and written down. The empty file was not so empty now.

  Voices rose from the next room. A man’s voice shook the partition between us. He was protesting, in a clear voice, with stubborn logic. He couldn’t accept the explanation, of course he had no illusions, but he knew for a fact that his son was never in sector (he gave a long number) nor in tank number (another number with a lot of figures). He repeated the numbers with speed, it seemed he’d been studying them for weeks, he knew them by heart. He’d spoken to his friends, he’d spoken to the officers, he had no illusions, he only wanted another sector and another tank number, that was all he wanted to know. He broke down and wept, and slowly, in the silence, embarrassed voices began to console him.

  Listening in silence in the next room, we exchanged glances. I stood up, determined to leave, but I was asked to fill out another half page with my own personal details, leaving an address, taking a document bearing the address of the bureau, the phone number, the major’s name, promising to get in touch if I heard anything new.

  The strange thing is that I did visit the bureau again, not once but twice. When I was in Tel Aviv to buy spare parts I passed that way. The bureau had shrunk in the meantime. Two of the shacks had been taken over for other purposes and the vehicles had gone, but the girl-officers were still there. The second lieutenant had become a lieutenant, the lieutenant was a captain and the major was in civilian clothes and several months pregnant. She was even more beautiful than before. She had cut her hair and what I saw of her soft bare neck was a most alluring sight. They smiled at me and took out the file, to which nothing much had been added except the name of another Arditi who’d come to light. We discussed him briefly, to make sure that he wasn’t the man we were looking for. Then they offered me one or two unidentified corpses, but forcefully I turned them down.

  At the beginning of spring I passed that way again. The bureau had gone, there was just one room left in a wing that was now used as a recruiting centre. The major had given birth and been discharged, the captain had gone too, there was just the lieutenant left with the files. She was reading a magazine. She remembered me at once.

  “Still looking for him?”

  “Sometimes …”

  I sat down. We chatted a little about her work. She too was due to be discharged in a few days. Before I left she took out the familiar file, just as a formality, and we were both amazed to find a new document in it, an armoury receipt for a bazooka and two containers of bombs, signed by Gabriel Arditi on the seventh of October.

  She herself didn’t know how this document had got there. It was possible that the clerk had filed it in her absence.

  But I shuddered suddenly. If, then, he had gone somewhere after all, if he had been issued a bazooka and ammunition, if all this was so, was it possible then that he had been killed?

  But this was another blind alley. Where could I go with this document? The lieutenant had already been discharged, the bureau was closed, the files had been transferred to the archives, and I, searching for him again on the road, said not a word to Asya.

  ASYA

  I was going around and locking door after door, pulling down the blinds. Adam was in the bathroom, screwing a large bolt on the door to the balcony. It was dark in this house to which two rooms from our previous home had been added, furniture that we had sold or thrown away had come back to us. We switched on the lights. A fine clear day outside, blue sky, and through the cracks in the blinds I saw a double view, the views from both our houses, the open sea, the wadi, the harbour with its cranes, and the houses of the lower city. I was uneasy, waiting for Dafi to come home from school. There was a wave of murders in the city. See, there on the table is a newspaper, banner headlines, underlined for emphasis, printed in an antiquated script. A wave of murders in the city, a gang of murderers settling private scores, pursuing one another. And even law-abiding citizens who are not involved and have nothing to fear must take precautions, lock their houses. The people have imposed a curfew upon themselves, of their own free will. And I am waiting for Dafi, furious with myself that on a day like this we sent her to school, on a day when murderers are roaming the streets, settling their private feuds in our neighbourhood. I look out into the street, it’s empty, no man, no child. But there she is, at last, walking alone in the empty sun-drenched street, the satchel slung over her shoulder, wearing the yellow uniform of the primary school, and she really does look smaller, as if she’s shrunk, and now she’s standing at the street corner with a man, a short man with reddish hair. She’s talking to him intimately, calmly, smiling, without fear. And again I fall into a dreadful panic, I want to shout but I hold back. The man looks dangerous to me, though there’s nothing special about his appearance. He’s wearing a broad summer suit. I run to another window to get a better view of them and they’ve disappeared, both of them. But I hear her footsteps, she comes into the house. Running to her, bending over her, she really has grown smaller, unfastening the broad straps of her satchel, giving her a drink, taking her to her room, undressing her, putting her in her pyjamas, treating her like a little child. She protests, “I can’t sleep.” “Just for a few minutes,” I plead with her, putting her to bed, covering her up, and she sleeps. I feel relieved, I close the door of her room, go out into the hallway and see Adam standing looking at the front door, which has been left open. Dafi forgot to close the door after her. Suddenly I understand. He has come in after her, that man, he has got inside, he is here. I don’t see him, but I know. He is here. Adam knows it too and he starts searching for him. I run back to Dafi’s room, she’s fast asleep, breathing deeply. Again she seems to me very young, seven years old perhaps, and growing smaller, the bed with its big blanket is half empty. I hear Adam’s footsteps in the hallway. “It’s all over,” he whispers, smiling.

  “What is?”

  And I follow him, stumbling, to the other, extra rooms, the rooms of the old house, the old nursery, the toys, the cars, the big teddy bear on the blue dresser, and under the old cradle with its peeling paint, with its bird pictures and broken beads, someone is lying, a body under a blanket. The head is visible. I recognize the reddish hair cropped short on the thick neck. A white hair here and there. Adam has killed him, as you kill a bug. For this was one of the murderers roaming the streets. Adam identified him at once. Killed him with a single blow, there is not a sign on his body. For a moment I feel a stirring of pity for the man who lies there, dead. Why? Who asked Adam to get involved? Without asking questions, without consulting me, why did he kill him in such haste, how did he do it? And now we too have joined in the chain of murders. Oh God what has he done? The great distress, my heart stops beating. Who asked him to do it? A fearful mistake, our lives are ruined. How shall we explain it, justify it, we shall never be free of the weight of that heavy corpse. What an idiot you are, I want to shout as I look at him, the smile has faded from his face, he’s become serious, horrified, beginning to grasp what he has done. Trying to hide the big screwdriver among the toys. Oh what have you done to us.

  DAFI

  Does she dream sometimes? Does she allow herself to waste good sleeping and resting time just on some silly, meaningless dream?

  At night I quietly go into their bedroom, to look at the sleepers. My parents! My good bearers! Daddy lies on his back, his beard spread on the pillow, his hand stretched out feebly over the edge of the bed, the fist lightly clenched. And Mommy with her back to him, curled up like
a foetus, her face pressed into the pillow, as if she’s hiding from something.

  Is she dreaming? What does she dream about? Not about me, that’s for sure, such a busy woman, laden with obligations.

  Mommy isn’t here, I’ve begun to realize over the last year, Mommy isn’t here even when she’s at home, and if you really want a quiet, heart-to-heart conversation with her, you have to book a week in advance. Between 3.00 and 3.45 in the afternoon or between 8.10 and 8.42 in the evening. Mommy is chasing time.

  She works full-time in my school, teaching history in the upper grades, preparing three senior classes for the matriculation exam. On her worktable there are always piles of homework and test papers. All day she’s correcting papers. I don’t envy her pupils. She gets a real kick out of writing “Not good enough” in red pencil at eleven o’clock at night.

  But she doesn’t spare herself either, she too is always writing tests and projects. She hasn’t finished studying yet, and she never intends to finish. She’s always running off to the university, to seminars, public lectures, teachers’ conventions. She’s registered for a doctorate, writing essays, being tested.

  A woman forty-five years old, with a bird’s face, sharp but delicate, lovely eyes. No make-up on principle, there are streaks of grey in her tied-back hair, but she won’t dye it on principle. She likes clothes that are out of fashion, broad and absurdly long skirts, dark woollen dresses with a monastic look about them, flat-heeled shoes. With her lovely long legs she could make herself look really attractive, but she’s not interested in distracting people from their important business just for the pleasure of looking at her. That’s a principle too.

  We live here according to a number of principles.

  For example, not to employ a maid, because it isn’t reasonable that outsiders should clean our house and cook our meals, even in return for wages. So Mommy does the housework as well, energetically and aggressively.

  Is there any house where the floor is washed at nine o’clock in the evening? Yes, ours. Daddy and I are sitting in front of the TV relaxing in armchairs and enjoying this bald man Kojak after the depressing news and she suddenly appears, wearing an apron, with a rag and a bucket, and orders us to lift up our feet so she can wash the floor beneath us. Working quietly but with a sort of restrained ferocity, not asking for help and not getting it either, bending down to scrub the floor.

  “A revolutionary woman,” Daddy once said with a laugh, and I laughed too, even if I wasn’t sure exactly what he meant.

  When she cooks it’s for several days at a time. At ten o’clock at night she comes home from a teachers’ meeting, goes into the kitchen, takes a big saucepan, slices up two chickens and cooks them. Two weeks’ food for the family. Lucky for her she’s only got one daughter who doesn’t much like the food she cooks.

  In the morning, when I go into the kitchen for breakfast, I have to pick my way between test papers of pupils of the eighth grade (which of course I’m forbidden to touch or to look at) and headless fish dipped in flour and stuffed with onion, ready to be fried for supper. Such efficiency.

  No wonder she suddenly stops working and falls fast asleep at eight o’clock, most of all she likes to sleep in front of the TV screen. In the armchair, all curled up. On the TV there’s a gun fight and she sleeps peacefully for an hour, two hours. Until Daddy wakes her, to get up and go to bed. She opens her eyes, rouses herself a bit and goes to correct exam papers. Sometimes we try to help her with the housework, even I make an effort, but by the time I’ve picked up a cup, or washed a spoon, the work’s all done. We simply have different rhythms, the two of us.

  So in principle I’m on his side, even though there’s something a bit reserved and primitive about him. He hardly ever talks. Wanders about in overalls and with dirty hands. At least that beard of his is something remarkable, growing wild, making him look like an ancient prophet or an artist. Something special, not like all the others, not like a labourer anyway. When I was at the primary school I was ashamed because he didn’t look like all the others. When they asked me “What does your Daddy do?” I used to say innocently “Daddy works in a garage,” and at once I felt that they were a bit disappointed. Then I started saying “My Daddy has a factory.” “What kind of a factory?” they’d ask. “A garage” I said and then they’d explain that a garage isn’t a factory. Then I used to say “My Daddy has a big garage” because it really was a very big garage. Once during the vacation I went down there with Tali and Osnat and they were amazed to see all the cars standing there, and the dozens of workers rushing about. A hive of activity.

  But then I thought, oh, to hell with it, why should I need to apologize, why add “big,” as if I’m defending him. And I used to say simply “Daddy has a garage,” and when somebody particularly irritated me with this question I used to say “My Daddy is a garage hand” and look him full in the eyes, enjoying his astonishment. Because in our class most of the pupils’ parents are professors at the Technion or the university, architects, scientists, executives in major companies, army officers.

  And what’s wrong with a garage? Not only are we never without a car, we’re the only family with two cars, some of the children in the class don’t even have one car at home. And Daddy has a lot of money too, though you don’t see much evidence of it at home. This is something that I’ve realized in the last few months. I don’t think even Mommy realizes how much money Daddy’s got. For all her education it seems there are some things that just aren’t clear to her.

  A strange couple. I wonder why they ever got together. What do they want? I don’t remember ever seeing them embracing or kissing. They hardly talk to each other.

  But they don’t quarrel either –

  Like two strangers –

  Is this what they call love?

  Again and again I used to ask them, together and separately, how it was that they met, and it was always the same story from both of them. They were in the same class at school for many years. But surely that’s no reason to stay joined until death, to have children.

  In their school they weren’t particularly friendly. Daddy finished studying in the sixth grade, as he makes a point of reminding me whenever I ask him for help with my homework. Mommy of course went on studying. After a few years they met again and got married.

  As if someone forced them –

  When do they make love, for example, if they make love at all?

  On this side of the wall I don’t hear so much as a whisper –

  And at night I walk around the house a little –

  Strange thoughts, maybe, sad thoughts.

  Sometimes I’m terrified they might split up and leave me all alone, like Tali, whose father disappeared years ago, leaving her with her mother, who can’t stand her.

  I hear their breathing. Daddy moans softly. At the window faint signs of dawn. Accustomed to the darkness, my eyes pick out every detail. My legs feel weak. Sometimes I wish I could go and crawl in between them under the blanket, like when I was a child.

  But it’s no longer possible –

  The faint, early chirping of an early bird in the wadi –

  PART TWO

  ADAM

  How to describe her? Where do I start? Simple, the colour of her eyes, her hair, her style of dress, her habits, her manner of speech, her feet. Where do I start? My wife. So familiar, not only from twenty-five years of marriage but also from the years before that, childhood, youth, from the days that I remember in the first class of the little school near the harbour, the green and stuffy huts with their smell of milk and rotten bananas, the red-painted swings, the big sand pit, a derelict car with a giant steering wheel, the broken fence. Days of endless summer even in winter. Like in a blurred picture, no distinction between me and the world around me. She is there among the children, sometimes I have to search for her, there are times when she disappears and then returns, a thin girl with plaits sitting in front of me or behind me or beside me and sucking her thumb.

  Un
til now, when I see her engrossed in reading or writing with her clenched fist to her mouth and the thumb moves restlessly with a slow movement, a relic of the days when she used to suck her thumb. She didn’t believe it when I told her once that I remembered her sucking her thumb.

  “But I don’t remember you at all from that time.”

  “I was in the class the whole time.”

  The strange and funny stories about the many years when we sat as children in the same class, told mainly to satisfy the curiosity of Dafi, who sometimes asks us how we met, why we became involved, what our feelings were. She thinks it strange that we sat for so many years in the same class and didn’t know that in the end we would marry.

  None of the mystery of a woman who springs suddenly out of the darkness and you remember the first time that you saw her, the first words that you exchanged. Asya was beside me always, like the trees in the yard, like the sea that was visible from the windows.

  In the seventh or eighth grade when the boys began to fall in love, I fell in love too, not with her but with the two or three girls that everyone fell in love with. Falling in love not because you wanted to be in love but to be freed of some burden, as if it was a duty. Falling in love so as to be free for the really important things – trips, games, the events going on outside. The Second World War was at its height and there was a great army all around us, soldiers, artillery, battleships – all this demanded deep concentration. She wasn’t among those chosen for love. A quiet girl, not pretty, a serious and distinguished pupil whose homework it was sometimes necessary to copy. In the morning before school they used to wait for her, to have a look at her exercise books, which she handed over without protest but with such a scowl, watching them copy from her all the good ideas and the correct answers, sometimes having to explain impatiently what they meant. I didn’t copy from her, I copied from those who copied from her. Even then, at the end of primary school, my work was beginning to deteriorate, not because I was incompetent but because at home they were already telling me that I shouldn’t continue with my studies, that I’d have to work with my father in the garage. Already in the afternoons I was required to come and help him, to fetch tools, wash cars, change wheels. What point was there in making an effort in studies that were beginning to seem more and more irrelevant to whatever was real.