Apart From Love

by Uvi Poznansky

  Since that day I followed in his footsteps—I mean, literally—even in broad daylight. I trailed him, usually at a safe distance, about half a block behind him, and could feel the sweat welling up in my armpits, and running down my spine, even in cold weather. When necessary I took cover behind parked cars. If it became evident that he was distracted I moved a little closer, and so, learned everything there was to know about him, every habit that had escaped me before:

  What time my father would leave for work. How he would raise his head to see Anita up there, leaning her elbows on the windowsill or combing her red hair. Where he would spend his lunch hour. How he would run his finger across the laminated menu, straining his eyes under his ill-fitting by-focals. His manner of nodding to the waitress to ask for his bill. Her manner of flirting with him. The slant of his pen, the way it rested on his fingers as he scribbled something, hastily, on his napkin.

  Perhaps it was some expression that came upon him, some words that were just right, and could be put on the lips of this or that character in his book—or else, it was her name and phone number.

  I was envious of him, and had no doubt he could get any woman he wanted, because my father was a strikingly handsome man, still, and the pomade in his sleeked-back hair could detract nothing from that, nor could the gray. Besides having Anita, he could get any other woman, which from time to time, he did—except, of course, for one woman. The one I had blamed him for losing.

  Which brings me to what I see, having followed him just now into Sunrise home. He has just entered the dining hall through the heavy double doors.

  I am holding them slightly apart, as if they were two parts of a fractured shield, and with one open eye I am trying to watch, as best I can, through the chink.

  Seated at the head of the long Formica table, there he is, gazing at her. I mean, at my mother. Here is my family, the way it used to be, almost.

  If I were to focus strictly on my parents, ignore the entire background of this place, and let the clutter and the smell of it just fall away, this could take me back to a different time, a time in my childhood, when our kitchen table was set for the Passover meal. What comes back to me first is the tinkle, as my father finished blessing the wine, and clinked his glass against hers, against mine.

  I remember: the table was draped, all the way down to the floor, with mom’s best, rarely used tablecloth, made of the smoothest ivory satin you ever touched. Dad sat at the head of the table, mom to his right, I opposite her.

  All day long she had been cooking, which infused the air with a wonderful aroma. In it you could detect a sharp whiff of horseradish and of gefilte fish and sweet brisket and red cabbage and roasted potatoes, all of which made my stomach growl. It went on growling until he finished reading the long, archaic text in the Hagadda, which meant little to me, except a vague notion of the utter futility of patience.

  I remember: my mother ladled the clear, golden chicken soup and set it here, steaming before my eyes, with three matzo balls floating inside, which was her way of giving. “It’s hot,” she said. “Make sure to blow on it first.” Yes, the smell of her cooking was good, but then, the taste! Just wait till you took the first bite—

  At this point I must snap out of my thoughts, because I can sense—even from this distance, through the interval I hold open between the doors—a subtle movement inside. I put my eye to the crack: yes, it is him. My father dips a tablespoon in a bowl, which is set directly in front of her, and raises it. Some kind of thick soup can be seen rolling in it, dripping over its rim. From here, I can see his lips moving, and guess at the words.

  “Here, Natasha,” he leans over to her. “You must be hungry.”

  She stares at it, not saying a thing.

  Then he brings the tablespoon ever so carefully under her nose, so she may first smell the food, while he is keeping a napkin ready right there, under her chin.

  I have not seen them together for ten years, so what he does in these circumstances surprises me. Even more so, what he says.

  “Here,” says the old man, holding out the tablespoon. “Open up, dear.”

  And he touches it gently to her lips. Which is when she parts them, and you can see her licking, tasting, head coming forward, hungrily now, for more.

  “Now, now! Wasn’t that yummy,” he says, as if to cheer up a child.

  And he smiles at her, a painful smile that tells me one thing: he knows that—unlike a child—she is bound to forget this moment, and unlearn the little that is left in her, I mean, the little that is left of her skills.

  He knows—how can he not?—the futility of his efforts, of his care. Still he goes on, wiping the dribble from the corner of her mouth. Which suddenly brings back to me a memory of how she would do this for me, once upon a time.

  “Wait,” he tells her. “Not so fast.”

  One spoonful after another he feeds her, with boundless patience. I cannot imagine where he finds the strength in himself to go on.

  Every time she swallows, he tilts a bit closer, looking up at her face as if, hoping against hope, he is still trying to find a glint, maybe of some recognition, some awareness—finding none.

  “There, there,” he says when at last, the bowl has been scraped clean.

  It becomes clear to me that in spite of their divorce, in spite of his remarriage, things here stay the same. In sickness and in health, my mother is—and will remain—his responsibility. Here is my family, the way it is.

  And yet, where she is going, he cannot allow himself to follow. Nobody can.

  My father pushes the bowl away and gets up, looking tense, and older than usual. His expression makes me forget, in one instant, all his flows, and the reasons for the quarrel between us. It must be incredibly hard for him. Is there any point in him being here? How would he know if she can still receive what he gives? Has the last line been crossed?

  I recall what I learned in medical school about Alzheimer’s. By a strange twist, it makes me imagine the disease spreading, over time, from the neocortex part of her brain all the way down to the reptilian one, which inevitably forces her to go back, way back in time from who she used to be. Her mind is receding, step by step, on its rocky journey, a journey to a different place, where she is no longer a middle aged woman, no longer a girl, or even a toddler, and who knows at this point if she is a baby, still.

  Then, on a sudden impulse, my dad bends over her, so his cheek is suddenly right there, next to her face, only a breath away from her lips, and I know, I just know what he wants, what it is he is waiting for.

  And this, this is the moment when the truth comes to me, clear and naked in its full ugliness, and I cannot deny it, cannot ignore the horrific meaning of what she who used to be my mother does next:

  Sensing a presence next to her, she stirs back, as if by instinct, and for a split second smacks her lips. He may think this is a sign, perhaps of gratitude. I can see the sudden relief, the surprise in his smile. His eyes start closing, as if in anticipation of a kiss.

  And then, then she opens her mouth, like some animal—a lizard comes to mind—hungry for its prey. She stays there, seemingly lazy, utterly motionless, jaws dropped, chin hanging, waiting for her feed. Waiting, waiting, waiting for more. Waiting without a word. Waiting with a need that can no longer find its satisfaction, the need of a body, an empty shell of a body whose mind has finally left it. Waiting, because mom will never be able to give.

  At once I let go of the double doors so they swing, and come to a close. And I turn, and I run, run out of that place as fast as I can, so as not feel her eyes, looking at me without taking me in.

  I am still running. I have to, because I find myself held still in that moment, when the truth has come to me, damn it. Who can be so brazen as to deny it, and who wants to take a second look.

  Chapter 33 Not The End

  As Told by Anita

  He’s been so busy, punching away at the machine and crumpling page after page into the trash bin, that lately I can’t
get a word through to him no more. Oh, he’s replacing this tape with another and like, listening to my voice all the time—but not to me.

  Which makes me wish sometimes that I was some written piece, some character in his book, ‘cause I would be more real to him that way. I see myself as her, a thing of fiction springing to life, like, right out of them letters—which are so dense, so crammed on that sheet of paper, that there isn’t no space to breathe—and smoothing all them creases in me with a slight, crispy rustle, which for sure, would win his attention right away.

  I bet he would let himself stretch the truth about me to create her, ‘cause like, the paper can take it. His story would draw the longest legs and the sexiest ass and the most perfect pair of boobs you could ever dream up. What’s more, she would become a mouth, like, for things that go on in his head, things so fucking raw and intense that they frighten him.

  Them words he writes, they would all come out of her lips, stained with ink and scratched out here and there, to say the things that in real life Lenny wishes he could blurt out, yet holds himself back, as best he can, from doing so. But then, that Anita won’t be me.

  By now I’ve learned my lesson, I learned it good: I won’t leave no more pieces of me laying around. When I’m done with the tape recorder I pop my tape out, and stash it away at once, like, behind Beethoven’s bust or under it or some other such place, and I cover it with papers and stuff.

  This way Lenny don’t get it in his hands, to listen to my voice, to study the way I enunciate things, so he don’t have no excuse to ignore the real me. And what’s more, he can’t get hurt by what he don’t hear, by what wasn’t meant for his ears in the first place, so he don’t feel so jealous no more, and like, he don’t try to forget it, to blank out how hurt he is.

  Which is good, ‘cause then there isn’t no need to argue between us, like, if he’s the one betraying my trust by listening to my tape—or I’m the one betraying his, by what I say.

  Anyhow, this evening he’s different. I hear him pacing around the balcony, between his desk and the wall behind his chair, which is a small feat all by itself, ‘cause like, there isn’t barely room to move out there. Then, after two hours of this Lenny throws his hands in the air, and comes in to tell me he’s stuck.

  Which makes me raise one of my eyebrows, like, “You sure don’t look stuck to me, ‘cause here you are, running around.” And what I mean by running around is clear to both of us.

  What can he say to that? Nothing, that’s what.

  Anyhow, I don’t want to sound bitter at him, ‘cause I care for Lenny, really, I do. So I ask, “Now, how d’you mean, stuck?”

  And he says, “Oh, stop it. You are never going to understand me.”

  And I say, “Just try me, Lenny.”

  And he goes, “I am stuck, stuck, stuck! Stuck in a rut! I will never succeed in getting anything done. I am wasting time here, exhausted, not being able to think, and why? Because unwittingly, I am too busy complaining to myself over my wasted time.”

  And before I can tell him to stop talking nonsense, or else put it in writing, he goes on to say, “Damn it. I cannot write a single line.”

  “But like, why?”

  “Because,” he groans, “every word gets me closer to The End.”

  So I try this, I say, “Maybe there is no end, really, and all you can do is just cut off at any point, because life just goes on, like, even if you leave me right here, right in the middle of a sentence. That,” I say, “could be The End, too.”

  “No, no, no! It is not that simple.”

  “I bet it’s simpler than you think.”

  “No,” he says, “I am not that tired, not yet. Cannot abandon it, cannot leave off just like that, in the middle, because the story needs something, it needs to be completed—but then, I do not know where it goes from here, and for the life of me, I cannot find The End, even though I know—I know it’s closing in on me.”

  “If you can’t add no words, don’t you think you’re already done?”

  “No,” he says. “At this point, no. I cannot stop writing—and I cannot write. I am left in the midair, hanging from a cliff.”

  “So? Just let go.”

  And he stares at me strange, “Wouldn’t you like that.”

  I ain’t exactly sure I get what he means by that, but instead of explaining Lenny runs back to the balcony and leans over his desk, scribbling something real fast in the margin of a page, like he is chasing some idea with his pen. Then he waves his hand, pretty wild, calling me to come out there and listen.

  He pushes his by-focals up his nose, which is totally useless, ‘cause they just slip down again. And this is what he reads to me:

  She knew not to expect hearing the end of the sentence, because the old man had already slammed the door behind him. She could guess where Leonard was heading, probably to that fake old blond, who lived on the southern fringe of town.

  The next morning she woke up to the sound, the insistent sound of knocks at the door, and a sudden fear squeezed her heart as she opened it, to find two grim-faced cops.

  When they hesitated to say what they came in to say, she screamed. She did not want to learn that the old man had been found lifeless, nor did she want to see the snapshots they had taken, right there at the scene, snapshots that revealed all the tedious details of how he had ended up lying there, with a half crooked smile, in the other woman’s arms.

  “Awesome!” I tell Lenny. “I’m so glad to hear this.”

  His eyes pop, “You are?”

  “Sure!” I say. “Me, I was kinda afraid you’re writing something real, like, something about us. Now—with what you’ve come up with, right there—I can see awful clear that it ain’t nothing but fiction.”

  By way of an answer Lenny crumples the page, and sinks back in his chair, muttering something about how I don’t understand him, him and his creative ideas and this particular blueprint he is drafting, for a new kind of a novel, and what a damn fool he is, like, every time he repeats the mistake of using me for a listener.

  “Then,” I say, “find yourself someone else to listen. Me, I don’t much like the sound of how you wrote it.”

  “The sound?” his eyes widen once more. “What sound? And, what is wrong with it?”

  “Noise,” I say. “Just too much of it! That’s what you get when you try to end things, like, with a bang. Me, I don’t even want to imagine all that slamming, and them knocks at the door and what not. Come here, I want you to hear something.”

  I take him by the hand, and somehow Lenny lets me. He’s curious, I bet, so I lead him straight to the bedroom. I come to a stop right there, under the musical mobile, which I hung just last night in the window, between one blind and another.

  Then, I pull the little string, so the thing starts turning around, and playing its tender notes. “There... Hear this? Now here’s a sound I do like.”

  He closes his eyes to listen, so I ain’t exactly sure what he sees in his head. After a while Lenny says, “You know, I like it too. Just a delicate little whisper of a lullaby. Maybe you are right, Anita. Maybe that is what I need. Maybe that is what is called for, I mean, not just to heal both of us—but also, to complete the story. Listen! Here is a note—I could just detect it, just now—a note that could mark the end.”

  “But then,” I say, “it could mark a beginning, just as well.”

  And for the first time this evening he looks straight into my eyes. At that moment I can tell that he sees me, like, for what I am. I mean, he sees beyond what he’s put on paper, with them longest legs and that sexiest ass and them boobs and what not. Yes, now he sees in me something more than all that, something else: a woman, expecting.

  At that instant a sudden pain makes itself known in me, right down my back. It starts turning there, deep in my belly. Which is when I figure that I’ve felt it before. It’s come and gone several times this evening—only it seemed awful dull up to now, which like, let me ignore it.

  This ti
me it’s sharper, and it lasts quite a while, which makes me wince. “Aw,” I say.

  But anyhow, Lenny don’t even hear me, ‘cause he’s back to scratching his head, on account of being confused about his story, and about what this music could tell you, and how he could use it in his story, like, to mark the end.

  “Yes,” he whispers. “Just a sound of bells, chiming, chiming, chiming. And behind that, the breath of a baby asleep in the cradle, rocked to sleep by a mother’s hand. Maybe that is what is needed.”

  “Aw,” I say again.

  And he says, “Such a gentle sound. No doubt, Ben would like it.”

  I stare at him in surprise, ‘cause for several months Lenny’s been so mad, so angry at his son, that he didn’t hardly mention his name—nor did he allow me to mention it.