Colors of the Shadow

by Nava Dijkstra

  “Congratulations,” Eyal said when he came to visit her with a bunch of flowers in his hands. He kissed her then filled the vase with water and put the flowers inside. “How does it feel to be a mother?”

  “I still don’t feel like a mother,” she replied vaguely.

  “I actually feel like a father and it makes me feel good. I didn’t have any idea that I would feel so happy.” He carried the baby out of the cradle and couldn’t stop kissing him. “I don’t know how I succeeded in being away from him. Maybe, the time has come to leave the army.”

  Sherry was silent.

  The baby was crying and one woman told her to breastfeed him, but Sherry ignored her.

  Eyal gave her a puzzled look, and she looked back at him indifferently.

  “Why don’t you nurse him?” He was surprised.

  “I can’t adapt to it.”

  “What do you mean you can’t adapt?” he grinned.

  “I prefer to give him food in a bottle. What’s the problem?”

  “A bottle? I think breastfeeding is the closest thing to being a mother.” Eyal waited for a response that never came. She took out her breast and fed the baby, just for Eyal to feel better. He kissed her forehead. “You will be a wonderful mother, I’m sure of it.”

  Sherry was not sure.

  After Eyal went out, she looked at the cradle and explored the baby’s face, looking for something that would remind her of Eyal. She looked at his eyes, hair, fingers and arms, but she only saw similarities to her or perhaps, to Amir.

  Eyal picked her up from the hospital and took her home where a big bouquet of flowers was waiting for her. Sherry puts the baby in the cradle and noticed that Eyal was following her movements. He felt her flinch to the baby and Sherry didn’t know how she would be able to pretend and act in love with the baby while Eyal was in the house for his schooling.

  “The flowers are so beautiful,” she said.

  “I’m glad you like them,” he said, and walked towards the cradle to get the baby. Sherry noticed that while she couldn’t get connected with the baby, it was Eyal, who held him in his arms with an admirable naturalness.

  “How about if we call him Ofek? No limit for the possibility of success for him.”

  She shrugged indifferently.

  At night, Ofek cried and Sherry got up out of a feeling of duty. She left him crying in the cradle and went to make him a bottle of milk from the box of Similac. When she returned into the room, she found Eyal holding him and talking to him. She handed the bottle to Eyal. “Would you like to feed him?”

  “You don’t breastfeed him?” He was surprised.

  “I told you, I won’t.”

  He gave her a long and blaming look before handing Ofek to her. “You feed him. And by the way, I hope you left him crying in the crib because you were hoping that I’d wake up and calm him down.”

  “I can’t prepare food and hold him in my arms at the same time,” she defended.

  “So, breastfeed him.”

  Eyal lay on his back with his hands behind his head. He looked at her indignantly while she fed Ofek from a bottle. When she finished, she lifted him up to emit air and laid him back in the cradle.

  After giving birth, she went to study on the rooftop while Ofek was lying in the cradle next to her. She was delighted to find out that taking care of Ofek didn’t bother her studies. He was a quiet and comfortable baby. She saw Eyal waving a paper. “You have a letter.”

  “From the publisher?” she said, excitedly.

  “Yes, they want to meet you.”

  She took the letter and after reading, dialed them excitedly.

  “They want me to go to their office today,” she told Eyal with a happy smile after she finished talking with them.

  “Yes, I understood it from your conversation.”

  “Do you want to come with me?”

  “No. It’s your business. I don’t take you to my war. Don’t take me to yours.”

  “So you agree to take care of Ofek?”

  “Willingly.”

  She entered excitedly into the publishing office.

  She sat in front of a woman who introduced herself as Yona. “We think that you illustrate so well.”

  Yona handed her a plastic bag with some papers in it. “Here’s a book that we want to publish. Do you want to try to illustrate it?”

  Sherry took the plastic bag and pulled out the pages. She began to read. The story was about the adventures of a child from Eilat on a dolphin farm.

  She did not like the story. For her, the story was more focused on the abuse of dolphins than the adventures of an animal-lover boy. On the other hand, she had to make a living. Sherry was arguing with herself for a long time if she should go with her conscience or perhaps to think of the income.

  She handed the book back to Yona. “I’m sorry, I can’t relate to this book. It will be hard for me to illustrate it.”

  Yona looked at her in amazement.

  “It’s not educational,” Sherry explained.

  “Every book here passed through a serious evaluation. You can calm down.”

  “It could be, but I personally could not relate to the book and therefore, I can’t give you my personal expression.”

  There was a moment of awkward silence.

  “Okay, for now, this is all we have. We’ll call you if we have other books.” Sherry kept sitting, but when the silence continued, she got up and walked away.

  She got into the bus, angry with herself. ‘Arrogant fool, who are you anyway to refuse a job?’ She scolded herself. ‘How dare you refuse a job while you need money to pay for your studies?’ She continued to scold herself until she got home.

  She entered Eyals’ study room. Ofek, as usual, was lying next to him.

  “Did he bother you in your studies?” she asked quietly.

  “No, how was the meeting? I see in your face that it didn’t go so well.”

  She nodded.

  “What happened? Why did they invite you to a meeting if they didn’t like your illustrations?”

  “They loved my illustrations. It was me who didn’t like their books,” she admitted.

  A rueful smile was displayed on his lips. “Can you elaborate?”

  “The book that they wanted me to illustrate was not educational.”

  “You refused the job because of educational reasons?” He was shocked.

  She nodded.

  He held his face and stretched his fingers over his eyes as if from fatigue. “It’s all right, money is not a problem. You have the privilege to refuse. You refused to take what your grandfather gave you. You refused the job that they were giving you…”

  “I know it sounds silly, but there was a story...”

  “I do not care what the story was,” he interrupted angrily. “And it must not interest you either. Keep it up and you won’t go far.”

  “I can be where I want. It’s just that I cling to my values.”

  “Sherry, there are situations that we have to put aside our values. So am I. I don’t attack terrorists because I am aggressive, but because of my job. This doesn’t make my values less than the values of the people who don’t do my job─on the contrary. Listen to me, call them, apologize and ask them to let you illustrate the book that you screwed up.”

  She nodded.

  “Why do I know that you’re not going to do it?”

  Ofek cried and this was the first time that Sherry was glad to approach him and get rid of the pressure that Eyal was forcing on her.

  Four days later when she returned from school, she saw two letters from two companies in the mailbox, which explained that they have enough illustrators. After a few days the pessimistic feeling left and the last letter landed, bringing her back to that familiar feeling of rejection.

  “Are you depressed again?” Eyal asked.

  “I got another rejection letter today. They have enough illustrators and they don’t need an additional.”

  “Never mind, the
re are still two, three, how many?”

  “They already gave me negative answers. Maybe I’ll find a job as a secretary somewhere. I’m not even sure now if I want to engage in painting as a profession. If this is the response now that I’m looking for a job, how much more will there be when I want to get recognition as an artist, a painter?”

  “You are a special painter because of what’s in you, not because of external recognition.”

  “Those are great words of comfort.”

  “Come, ma Sherry.” He pulled her hand and helped her get out of bed. “Every time you are depressed you lock yourself in the bedroom. You will soon forget what this room was really intended for.” He pulled her into the kitchen and made her coffee, sitting beside her.

  “A few months ago, I wanted a job in the army, but they didn’t give it to me. Rather, they gave it to someone whose father was a senior officer. You don’t know how I felt. I was sure that it was because he was ‘the son of.’ I was angry for a couple of weeks until my commander told me that they were sending me to school. This meant that they saw in me a great potential for military service promotion. They didn’t say that to the son of a commander who took the job that I wanted. So, I guess there are other reasons to why you were rejected. In any case, it doesn’t tell anything about your work.”

  “The next payment in the University is coming close and I don’t have money to pay,” she said.

  He smiled. “I admit that I thought that if I refused to help you with the payments, you would get over it, but now that I see that nothing can stop your studying, I will pay for it. It’s not that there is much money left at the end of the month, but we will manage.” He gave her a supportive hug and she felt better.

  “Thank you.”

  During the following month, the examinations that were approaching and the daily care of Ofek didn’t give any space for other problems. The phone rang just a moment before she left for the examination in the University. She stood at the door considering whether to leave or answer the phone. She finally picked up the phone.

  “Sherry?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Yona from Dagan Publishing Company. There is a new book here for illustration. I hope that this time it will pass your selection of values.”

  Sherry smiled.

  “So, just come to sign the agreement, and you can take it for illustration.”

  “Can I come tomorrow at noon?”

  “Yes, certainly.”

  Sherry arrived at the publication office and found that the meeting was with the managing director. When she entered his office, he stood up and shook her hand.

  “I saw your illustrations. I think they’re very good.”

  “Thank you.”

  He glanced at her. “I have a book, and I want you to try to draw the cover. I hope that this time, you won’t refuse,” he joked.

  “For me, painting is part of the soul, this is my real signature and therefore, I only need to paint what suits my truth.”

  The secretary entered his office and handed her the agreements and the children’s book to illustrate. He took out the agreement and brought Sherry to the matter. “By this contract, the company undertakes to give you at least two books a month for illustration, of which I thought there should not be a problem to commit to exclusivity. The payment is not bad, see section F.”

  She looked at the payment section on illustrations and tried to hide the joy that welled up inside her. She signed the agreement.

  Only when she left the office did it occur to her that she needed to pass it to an attorney for inspection. Anyway, the agreement seemed fair and right for her.

  She went back home. Eyal was studying in his room and Ofek. As usual, was lying in the cradle next to him. She put the two books on top of his textbooks.

  “What’s this?”

  “They want a cover picture for one of them.” She pointed to the novel for adults. “And the second─they want me to illustrate it.”

  “Who wants it?” Eyal was surprised. “I didn’t even know that there were developments.”

  “Yesterday, Dagan Publication, the company that I rejected because of educational reasons, called and asked me to drop by their office today. They agreed to give me a minimum of at least two books a month, in exchange for my exclusivity to them. Apparently, they knew that I am worth something.” She smiled and sat down on his knees. “Celebrate?”

  “Sorry, today I can’t, you know, just like you, this is the season of tests and I have to study,” he apologized.

  “It will not take more than five minutes.” She pulled the cradle out of the room. She stripped off her clothes and got naked in front of him. She unzipped his pants and tucked her feet to both sides of his body.

  23

  Sherry’s illustration job put more pressure on her busy schedule, and she had to employ a nanny for many hours. There was nothing left for her except to console herself with the money she made in her job. Eyal tried to ask Sherry to spend more time with Ofek, but his words fell on deaf ears. At the end, he released the nanny in the late afternoon hours and took over the job of taking care of Ofek. He comforted himself that it was better for Ofek to be with him than with Sherry, who was indifferent to him.

  Friday nights were the time that Sherry and Eyal disconnected from school and from other activities and allotted time for themselves. They would sit for hours on the roof of the house, drinking wine and talking peacefully. Unlike the past, when Eyal was spending most of his time in the army, the closeness between them was now much deeper and intensified. According to Eyal, Ofek was the greatest gift that someone gave him and was the strongest bond that could connect him to Sherry. His words ripped her heart. It was clear that Ofek signified contrasting things for each of them. For Eyal, it was strengthening their relationship, and for her, it was a threat to the relationship.

  “Sherry, why are you not giving Ofek motherly attention?” he often asked. “You didn’t fail to do everything for him, but do you love him at all?”

  She would comfort him by saying that she really loved Ofek, but she had a problem externalizing her emotions, which would mend in time, she promised. If only she could tell him, if only she was sure that he would forgive her. In one of the heart-to-heart conversations between them, she asked his opinions about cheating and realized that for him, the concept of cheating was very broad and included lots of categories. Therefore, the chance that Eyal would stay with her after he discovered her secret was low, especially now that they were in their early stages of a relationship.

  The meaning of exposing the secret was, therefore, giving up everything she achieved. She studied in the university; she had a good income that allowed her to pamper herself; she could buy luxurious things and even learn to drive. Most importantly, she had a great love that she was not ready to give up. Her status had never been better.

  There was only one flaw in her beautiful life: Ofek. She continued to treat him coldly and caused Eyal to take the responsibility of a father and mother. He had to cram four years of study into three years, and for him, the hours that the nanny spent in their house was a sign of neglect on Sherry’s part. In desperation, he turned to his mother for help. At first, he was surprised that Sherry didn’t oppose her frequent visits, but then he realized that Sherry was ready to endure anyone that would keep Ofek away from her. He was wrong. Sherry saw in his mother another person who entered to her circle of lies, and it burdened her. It was clear to her that when the secrets would be exposed, it would be better if fewer people felt that they were taken advantage of because of it. On the other hand, she had no choice. Eventually, Eyal’s mother was integrated into the life of Ofek. Eyal saw a savior angel in her that would give his son the love of a mother that he was lacking.

  Instead of Eyal visiting his mother every other week during Fridays, it was his mother who was willing to come twice a week and on weekends to take care of Ofek and allow Eyal and Sherry to study. Eyal was glad to see that Sherry didn’t m
ind, although his mother would occasionally express her opinion on issues that should be off limits.

  One Saturday when they sat down for breakfast, Talia turned to Eyal. “I think it’s time for you to advance a little in life and move to a larger apartment that has a garden. It’s not good to live on the fourth floor with a small child, especially when the roof has no railings. It is dangerous. My sister said that there is a house for sale in the neighborhood of Eran and Ronit. I thought it would interest you.”

  “No, I’m not interested in buying a house when the army is paying us the rent. This is convenient for me,” Sherry said.

  “Sherry is right, especially now that I’m studying and my military salary is lower.”

  “That’s not a problem. I’ll help you,” his mother suggested.

  Eyal looked at her with appreciation.

  “You’ll be more peaceful when you return to your active duty in the army and you know that your family is close to Eran and Ronit, right?” Talia pressured Eyal.

  The argument worked like magic on Eyal. “With that, I agree with you.”

  “Then, let’s go and see the house,” his mother urged him.

  “What do you think, Sherry?” Eyal asked.

  “...That both of you will go and see the house and decide if you will buy it,” Sherry said sarcastically, without taking her eyes away from the plate.

  Eyal stood up. “Let’s go. Let’s just hope that they’ll let us see the house. If not, we will go and hang out with Ronit and Eran.”

  Sherry went into the bedroom to get dressed and when she went out, they were already waiting for her in the car. Sherry sat in the back with Ofek and Eyal drove off. They drove slowly down the street where Ronit and Eran lived, looking for the house for sale. “Here it is,” Talia said when she saw the signboard.

  Eyal pulled over. “I’ll go and ask the tenants.”

  He came back a minute after and opened the door of the car for his mother. He went to Ofek’s seat, released the straps and lifted him up. A woman in her sixties showed them a small sitting area with an exit to the pergola. From the kitchen, the parking lot and the highway could be seen. The interior was more of a big living room, and there was a huge door that opened straight into the backyard. At the center of the living room was a pillar with shelves on all sides, and a wider shelf for a television and liquor bar. The design of the pillar was attractive to Sherry. It was clear to her that someone had invested a lot of thought in it. On the other side of the living room was a bathroom and shower for guests. Behind the wall were stairways leading to the second floor. They went to the bedrooms, each with a balcony. From there, they went out to the backyard. There was an olive tree that was more than 100 years old. The rays of the sun penetrated between the branches and wrapped the tree with radiance. They went back to the car. “What do you think Eyal?” Talia asked.