Don’t worry, you’ll soon be feeling better, he hears her whisper, and nods gratefully, as if the encouraging promise had been addressed to him, you’ll soon be feeling better, don’t worry, but how can he not worry when he has no way out. For years he’s been wrestling with the same questions, what am I doing with this wife, what am I doing in this job, what am I doing in this country. Until not so long ago he still believed that if you do what’s required of you, you make the world a better place, but recently it has seemed that a kind of legal principle has been lost, something which, even if never proved, was at least intelligible: false steps lead to disaster, the right steps may be your salvation. More and more he has been feeling that the forces beneath the surface are much stronger than the logic that once regulated them; if there was an opportunity it has been lost, but perhaps there never was one.
I’m trapped, he wants to tell the woman in the red satin blouse. At twenty-three I found myself married to the first girlfriend I ever had, to this day I don’t understand how I was seduced into that. For many years my work was a refuge but recently I’ve lost the strength, the hope, but the man beside me still has hope, it turns out, because in a low and pleasant voice he says to his wife, I know, and for a moment it seems that this knowledge of his is set to confound what the doctors know, what the research and the statistics say, I know there’s no cause for concern, I know I’ll soon be feeling better.
Resplendent on his finger is a thin wedding ring, identical to his wife’s ring, and both of them sparkle on their hands as if they married only yesterday, and their eyes sparkle too. Is it the proximity of death that enlivens their love, or is this indeed a newly wed couple, plucked at the very outset? Even if they aren’t young, it seems their love is young, and already he’s trying to construct their story: for years they lived in isolation until they met in miraculous fashion, or alternatively, two families were dismantled to form this brief love that is being curtailed before his eyes. His heart has always been in the theatre, and if he hadn’t taken it on himself to fulfil his father’s dream and study the law, he might well have found himself there, and now he consoles himself with the delusion that these two partners are merely hollow ciphers awaiting the biography that he will invent for them, but then he sees the woman turn her head and wipe away a tear with the ringed finger, and in the process her eyes meet his. It seems she is noticing him for the first time, although he has been moving the curtain aside, gradually but persistently, eager to cancel absolutely the partition between them, and it wasn’t out of interest that she turned to face him but in an effort to hide the sudden onset of weeping, restrained indeed but visible to the eye, and she raises her shoulder to wipe away the tears on the fabric of the short sleeve, and when this doesn’t work she bends down and dabs at her eyes with the hem of her blouse, in the process exposing a smooth midriff, and on the blouse there is a rapidly spreading stain, the moisture of tears blended with black mascara. Avner takes from his pocket a somewhat used tissue, the one that absorbed his bizarre weeping this morning, in his mother’s bed, while she was stretched out on the floor by the window, and holds it out with a shaky hand to the woman facing him. She tries to smile at him gratefully, but her lips tremble, and after thoroughly mopping up her tears, almost damaging the delicate skin under her eyes, she tucks the tissue into the pocket of her trousers and turns to the invalid’s bed, her back to him, and he stares at her and thinks wonderingly of their tears blending on the paper tissue, of her piercing, sharply focused pain meeting his own, inexplicable pain.
And if I were the one about to die, with my wife sitting beside me, he wonders, in our case too would the approaching end generate such tenderness? Apparently not, since already he could feel in his flesh the intensity of the anger that would flood the corridors of the hospital like a mighty whirlpool. His anger at her for not letting him break free from her until the last day, anger at himself for always yielding in the end, and even when he imagines her and not himself on the deathbed, his anger is undiminished, since both her illness, if she were to fall ill, and her death, if she were to die, would be directed against him, to destroy what remains of his life with bitter memories and guilt, with untimely orphans. Yes, as far back as he could remember, he had always been trapped, at too young an age he was tied to her, and it didn’t occur to him that this first love for a diminutive, short-haired girl, which was in essence youthful curiosity and a confused inclination to find a refuge from his mother, would turn into a trap in which he would flutter all his life, unable to escape or to adjust; sometimes he almost managed to extricate his body there but always left one or other of his body-parts trapped in remorseless pincers, even if it were only the nail of his little finger – the pain would still be unbearable and liberation impossible.
The deep, seemingly eternal sleep of his mother, the whirring of the ventilators and the ringing of telephones amid the coughing and the mumbling, gradually lull him into a state of soothing inertia, as if all these mechanisms are designed to protect him. He leans back and covers his eyes with his arm and apparently slumber takes hold of him, since when he wakes with a start a little while later, the curtain has been removed altogether and the bed beside him is empty. The lean man, with the yellowing skin and the winsome smile, and his beautiful and aristocratic wife, are no longer there, they were his neighbours only briefly, it has turned out, and although his tears are in her pocket he has no idea who she is or where they have gone.
Did he die just a moment ago, give back his soul to his maker, whereupon his body was immediately disposed of, or had he been admitted to one of the wards? Perhaps their love had defeated the disease, and he rose unexpectedly from the bed and they walked home arm in arm, leaving him traumatised by the premature parting, for which he was entirely unprepared. He had been convinced that long hours were still in store for him as their neighbour, as is typical of casualty wards, hours in which he would succeed in finding out their names, their business, their love story, and now he is afflicted by such a deep sense of lost opportunity that he beats his forehead with his fists, as he used to do as a child in moments of frustration. You’ve missed it again, you’ve gone wrong again, you thought you had time, you thought that even someone whose days were numbered would wait for you. That’s the kind of person you are, dozing while more opportunities pass you by, and although it isn’t clear to him precisely which opportunity he’s lamenting, what those two partners could have taught him, he stands up sadly from his seat and moves to the bed beside him, maybe there’s some scrap of information left there that can help him. But the chart attached to the bed is blank, nothing has been left on the sheets, and he wanders among the patients looking for the nurses, until he catches sight of one some distance away and summons her with energetic gestures, as if his mother needs her urgently. Tell me, he tries to smile when she approaches him, perhaps in spite of it all she’ll remember him from his television appearances, the patient who was in this bed, have they admitted him to one of the wards? And she replies, I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to divulge any information. Are you a relative of his? And he says, no, but I lent him a book and I have no idea how to find him. And she whispers, they went home, you’ll find them at home.
Then that’s a good sign, isn’t it? he tries his luck, but she answers dryly, I don’t know, there are people who like to die at home and some who prefer hospitals, and already she’s walking away, leaving him stunned and aghast. People like to die at home! What a cruel expression, as if it’s about something mundane, like diet or accommodation. Are you out of your mind? How can you say anyone likes dying? he wants to reprove her, as if she were one of his interns, caught expressing something in slovenly style, but of course she’s gone, leaving him beside the empty bed, and he sits on it with some diffidence, smoothing the sheet with his hand the way the woman in the satin blouse caressed the bony forearm, and when it seems to him no one is watching he lays his back on the mattress, followed by his thighs and his knees and finally his feet, black courtroom
shoes and all.
Before his eyes he sees with a kind of transparent, dazzling knowledge, how they will get into their car; slowly and cautiously she will settle him down in the back seat, sit down at the wheel and flash him an encouraging smile via the mirror, driving gently, as if she’s transporting a day-old infant, and he sees how they will arrive at home, and she will lead him to their bed, the bed of their lovemaking and the restful sleep that followed it, and the days that lie ahead of them he sees as if he has already faded and died once, in a different past, the heavy twilight hours, neither day nor night, as if they are already detached from the processes of the sun, the grief of the departure of souls he sees, a dance without movement, a song without sound, and when he lies on the narrow bed, keeping watch from there over his mother, who is stretched out beside him, over his empty chair, he whimpers again, but he has nothing to wipe the tears away with because his handkerchief is in her pocket and they fall from his eyes and are absorbed by the sheet, and he has no one to hide them from, since no one is looking at him, and all the time he’s scanning the corridor, maybe he’ll see her again, maybe she’s left some document behind here, perhaps she’ll return to give him back his tears and he’ll be capable of eliciting from her mouth the end of the thread that will help him to follow their fate. For a moment he is jolted by the sight of a red radiance, a fleeting distant phenomenon that vanishes, leaving behind it a mirage-glow, and again he sits up with pounding heart when a female form appears, rapidly approaching his mother’s bed, but it isn’t her. The tall and lanky woman in the black blouse and the narrow skirt, also black, naturally, is his sister Dina, two years his senior, and although he has been waiting for her all morning so he can escape from here, he closes the curtain that separates them and before she notices him, he lays his head on the pillow and pretends to be fast asleep.
Chapter Two
Dina knows she has to hurry; at this age anything can happen. In a single moment people depart this world, and even those who have hung on there year after year may suddenly collapse, like guests outstaying their welcome at parties, harassing the hosts and then slipping away abruptly and discourteously without a goodbye or a thank you, with no pause for leave-taking, no opportunity to forgive or to ask a final question, nor to appease, gratify or compensate, and yet when she finds herself in the hospital lobby it isn’t her mother she hurries to see. Instead of heading for the cold sterility of the casualty ward she makes her way to a building set back a little from the others, surrounded by lawns, where heavy-bodied women pad around slowly but with faces full of longing, where the smell of blood is blended with the smell of milk spraying from swollen breasts and the whiff of delicate baby skin meeting the air of the world for the first time; the smells of life, which changes in an instant, hang back and make way with reverence for the new kings of glory, and this is where she wanders about, feeling awkward, peering into the rooms, pretending she’s looking for some new mother, but her empty hands and grim expression undermine the camouflage. She walks down a long corridor, eyes darting about, looking for the room where she herself gave birth, sixteen years ago.
It was the last room, she remembers, the one closest to the hills, and beside the window she lay, suckling her winter baby while the flakes of snow began to fall on the treetops, and when Gideon arrived in the morning he found them by the window with its veneer of misty vapours, and he smiled with feeling and kissed the pair of them; they were so close together that one kiss was enough, and then he raised the camera that was hung round his neck and shot them wrapped in the viscous mist, her face beaming at him beside the face of the sleeping baby, and since the fixed space between them was filled precisely according to the baby’s proportions, this picture which still hangs opposite their bed dazzles her every morning with the brightness of the snow that was quick to melt, blurring her with the touch of the violet vapour. Usually there’s nothing to be seen there and it’s only in rare moments that pale figures emerge from the gloom like ghosts, like two ancient souls given the right to be born again, one in the arms of the other.
This is the room. She stands wavering in the doorway, thinking that is the window, those are the hills, that is the last bed, where a girlish figure is lying on her back covering her face with her arm, her hair a shade of chestnut brown. Look at this thin arm, reminiscent of Nitzan’s arm, but that’s impossible, Nitzan’s in school now, she remembers with relief, as if only this fact serves to refute the notion, since for one scary moment it seemed to her that in the gulf that has recently opened between her and her daughter a full-term pregnancy could easily be fitted, along with clandestine birth and the whole process from beginning to end. With quick steps she approaches the bed, just to be sure these are foolish thoughts that she’ll be ashamed of straightaway: Nitzan is at school now, her body as slim as ever, Nitzan has never known a man, Nitzan wouldn’t hide such a traumatic thing from her, but all the same this body is familiar to her, that posture, frozen and intense, and she whispers, excuse me a moment, and it’s only then the young woman moves her arm and cries out in a astonished voice, Dina? What are you doing here? And Dina nods her head at a loss for words; after all what can she say to her? Relief at finding this isn’t Nitzan has turned to acute embarrassment in confronting her student, who has indeed since time immemorial reminded her of her daughter with her slender physique, and despite this or perhaps because of it her presence arouses unpleasant tensions in her, and the girl herself, Noa, adds to these tensions with her excessive argumentativeness in class, veering between lack of interest and overstated, tiresome involvement.
In recent weeks she’s been absent from class, to Dina’s relief, and someone had indeed reported that she was on pregnancy leave, another detail that had slipped from her memory, who could count their pregnancies anyway, and here she is, on her bed, making it seem that all the hundreds of women who have occupied this bed since then have been erased completely, and before she can find words to explain her presence in this place Noa smiles at her and says, it really touches me that you’ve come to see me, and Dina tries to smile back at her, blending truth and lies, my mother was admitted to this hospital, and I heard you had given birth, so I dropped by for a moment to see how you are, and when Noa repays her with somewhat overplayed interest in the state of her mother’s health, her embarrassment increases, because she doesn’t know what state her mother is in. Perhaps at this very moment she is breathing her last, perhaps even calling her name, wanting to say goodbye to her daughter, who for some reason prefers to sit at the bedside of a woman in the maternity ward, an acquaintance but certainly not a friend, and she decides to cut short this unplanned visit. You know what, I’ll come back to you later, I’ve left her alone and I’m not comfortable with that, and to her surprise she sees disappointment on Noa’s face, as she says, stay with me for a while seeing that you’re here already, and you haven’t even asked about the sex of my baby.
Oh, sorry, Dina apologises hastily, I’m so confused this morning, boy or girl? Noa grins, as if she’s played a trick on her and caught her out, a boy and a girl, she announces, twins, and all at once the repulsion and the attraction intensify beyond endurance, because she can’t wait to escape from this place, take to her heels and run, without salutations, without goodbyes, race down the corridors and push aside anyone who stands in her way – and simultaneously, at this very moment she longs to go to the young woman’s bed, clasp her to her bosom and never let go.
Tell me, did you feel strange too after the birth? Noa whispers suddenly, looking round to check that no one’s listening, it’s the opposite of what I expected, I was so happy to be pregnant and now I feel my life is over, and babies disgust me, they look to me sort of uncooked, like raw meat, did you feel like that? And Dina stands and faces her entreaty with a heavy heart. Don’t worry, Noa, it happens to lots of women, the days following childbirth are hard and turbulent, it will be all right, I promise you, but when she looks into the eyes moistening before her she sees deep gloom, as if she
were on her knees and peering into a well, and she says, if you don’t feel better in a few weeks go to the doctor, it could be post-natal depression, and he’ll give you some medication and you’ll be fine. I didn’t feel that way but it happened to my mother after I was born, she blurts out the words that surprise her too, much more so than her interlocutor, because they were never expressed aloud, the thought was never even explicitly thought, but now, confronting the two dark pools she knows, an intense knowledge that needs no explanation, not that any explanation is possible at the moment, or ever will be.
Her strength exhausted, she flops down on the empty chair beside her mother’s bed. Her brother has only just now slipped away, apparently, because his scent is still around and it seems she should have fumigated the seat before sitting down, the scent of a man who’s trying too hard to blur the traces of his body, smothering himself with heavy, suffocating sprays. No one on their kibbutz in those days had heard of perfume for men, and only Avni made himself a laughing stock with his concoctions and his meticulous coiffure. Sometimes she suspected he was secretly dowsing himself with the toilet air-freshener. How dare he desert his post before she arrived, she wonders, but at the same time she isn’t too upset by his absence; this way there will be no need to pretend, to hide the tempest of the soul that has an embarrassing source, not the murmuring of the mournful heart confronted by the elderly mother stretched out before her, her nightdress torn as if she’s been cruelly raped and her bosom exposed, mottled with white pock-marks like the love-bites of the angel of death, her toothless mouth agape in constant complaint alongside the detached oxygen mask. She takes in the alarming sight impatiently, as if since time immemorial her mother has been exposed to her in her clumsy latent ugliness; she has always seen her like this, even when she was young and healthy, dreamily walking the paths of the kibbutz.
The Remains of Love Page 4
