It’s because I’m your Dad that I’m not leaving you alone, he retorts sagely, because I care about you and I can’t bear to see this decline, and his son replies bitterly, oh, you can’t bear to see it? Then just don’t look, and Avner tries to moderate the tone of his voice, hey, that’s no way to talk, listen to me, Tomeri, we need to sit down together and think of healthier ways you can spend your time. I still don’t know why you left the karate club and Tomer shoots him an accusing look, why? Because I wasn’t any good and the other kids laughed at me! This was a look he inherited from Shlomit, as if Avner’s responsible for each and every one of his problems.
So what if you weren’t any good, he growls at him, it wasn’t the Olympics, and you were only in the beginners’ class, you’re supposed to be there to learn and improve! and his son protests, but they were all better than me and I didn’t like it! But his father isn’t letting go, I didn’t like it! he repeats scornfully, since when did everything have to be liked? You do what’s necessary, even if you don’t like it. So why don’t you join some other club, judo or football, what’s wrong with that. Anything’s better than what you’re doing now, and here she comes, homing in, she won’t miss an opportunity to attack him and defend her son. From which standpoint are you speaking, precisely? she hisses, her venomous voice preceding her body into the room, anyone would think you’re working out every day or taking care of your body, look at that paunch you’ve grown these last years! And Avner breathes heavily, his fists pressed into his stomach; he must not lose control, not be like his father.
What’s wrong with me trying to prevent him making my mistakes, his voice is heating up, he’s still a child, he can change, and why are you defending him all the time? Don’t you see how much damage you’re doing to him? You’re making him feel weak, needing his mother to defend him, and worse than that, you’ve got him thinking his Dad is some kind of monster he has to be protected from. Your brain is deteriorating too! he adds, and this is obviously a step too far, since Tomer gets up from his seat and shouts, his face swelling up, leave me alone! Stop arguing about me! I’ll jump off the balcony to make you stop arguing about me! And Shlomit hugs him, there there, it’s all right, darling, we’re not arguing about you, we’re arguing about ourselves, and he whimpers in her arms like an overgrown cub, you never argue about Yotam, and Avner remembers with a shock that Yotam has been left in the lounge unsupervised and he hurries away to find him, but he’s not quietly nestling by his box of toys, maybe he went out to the balcony and climbed on the balustrade and he runs out there and calls his name, finally finding him sitting in the bathtub surrounded by smiling plastic ducks, and he’s smiling too but his smile is anxious, Tomeri crying, he says sadly, Tomeri bad? and Avner is quick to deny this, putting on a childish voice, no, Tomeri not bad!
Tomeri not bad, the infant repeats thoughtfully, then Daddy bad? he launches another question, a turbid soap bubble, and Avner replies emphatically, no, Daddy not bad! Again the infant repeats it with relief, but this leads to a conclusion ten times more worrying, then Mummy bad? And Avner says no, absolutely not, Mummy not bad, but all of this fails to reassure the canny little boy, who needs to identify the rotten apple, and he makes one final attempt, then Yotam bad? And Avner holds out his arms and hugs his little shoulders, almost squeezing into the bath beside him fully clothed, as his heart goes out to him and he says again, what a thing to say, no and no! Yotam isn’t bad! No one in our family is bad!
And when the children are finally asleep he’ll find her stretched out on the sofa in the lounge, after the little one has been imprisoned in his bed, submitting with surprising obedience, as if trying not to spoil the effect of the litanies of reassurance, so carefully put together, and after he has sat for almost a whole hour at the bedside of his first-born son, who was lying on his back with a blanket pulled up over his head, with only the movements of the blanket showing that at intervals he was inserting his index finger in his nostril and from there to his permanently open mouth, and Avner laid a hand on his shoulder and apologised again for hurting him but also repeated his assertion that this was only because he cared for him so much, he loved him and worried about him, and finally he suggested the two of them go out running every evening, although there were no decent routes in their suburb. You know what, I have an idea, he came alive suddenly, we’ll go to a different area and run there, because I know a wonderful route; in his mind’s eye he saw the two of them climbing up the narrow asphalt road, sweating and feeling purified, alongside the wadi exuding the scents of straw and dust, sage and rosemary. We’ll leave the car in the parking space at the bottom and run to the last house and back, what do you say, eh? He slaps his son’s shoulder enthusiastically and tries to pull the blanket off him, while the boy hastily removes the finger from his nose. And Avner is a little taken aback by the sight of the face revealed to him, he was more comfortable when he lay there covered up, and he’s shaken when he remembers the threat that neither of them dared to address directly, I’ll jump off the balcony to stop you arguing about me, and immediately he bends down and kisses his brow with clenched lips. An unpleasant smell rises from the blanket as it’s rolled back, something reminiscent of an unventilated and mouldering tent, and he thinks of his son a few years from now, years which will pass in a flash, in pitiless army encampments, grinding his teeth in the effort to keep up, issued with webbing and helmet and rifle, surrounded by shouted commands and humiliations, without a mother to protect him and cater for all his needs, and that’s even before the real war starts, and how will he cope with that? His head is weighing so heavy on him, he suddenly flops down on the chest of the bemused child.
Are you all right, Dad? his son inquires cautiously and Avner perks up at once: it will be many years yet before that happens, six at least, and he tries to take comfort in this, no point in worrying about it now, and he leaves on a cheery note, so good night, sweetie, we’ve decided to go for a run tomorrow evening, don’t forget, and he turns out the light and walks a little unsteadily to the corridor, looking around him. Where is she now, and how great is the effort required of him when he tries to do the right thing, it isn’t logical, having to extinguish three fires every evening, it wasn’t supposed to be like this, and again he thinks of the dead man when he was still alive, when he was still healthy, was he too forced to wander like this between his wife and his children? Probably not, a wonderful family, the neighbour said quite clearly, and he accepts her testimony at face value, although things concealed from her have been revealed specifically to him; in wonderful families things happen naturally, without the expenditure of so much effort.
What do you expect, you’re the one who started it, he knows she’ll say if he dares to complain, and perhaps she’s right, at least in certain cases, that venomous heat of hers must testify to correctness, or at least to a strong inner conviction that he himself finds it hard to feel in relation to family matters, and perhaps in judicial matters too he’s already lost it, and he remembers the testimony of the platoon commander. Just a few years ago he would have confronted him with the superiority and aggression expected of a defender of humanity, making him ashamed of the most natural impulses such as zest for life and love of country, whereas today he mumbled, consumed by doubts, quibbling over details of lighting as if he were an electrician, dragging his flip-flops back and forth while swift-footed justice danced between one body of evidence and another, leaving behind clouds of dust, and he goes hurriedly into the lounge, trying to catch the tail-end of an item on the television news, it seems it’s precisely his petition that’s been mentioned, or perhaps he’s again imposing his internal world on reality; in the past the media used to deal with these issues all the time, but in the nature of things interest has waned.
What was that? he asks his wife, stretched out on the sofa, and she says, I wasn’t paying attention and immediately turns off the set, the news has already moved on to the next item, a fire somewhere in the north, and he wonders how it is that hi
s presence curtails her routine activities: a phone conversation nipped in the bud, the TV silenced, all the gadgets that she operates around herself are muted, for no good reason really, after all she’s keeping quiet enough herself, or so it is until she flashes him a malicious look and says, I won’t let you do to him what you’ve done to me.
What have I done? he asks, taken by surprise, what are you talking about? And she says, I’m talking about what you’ve been doing to me all these years, making me feel I’m not good enough for you, not beautiful enough, not clever enough, don’t you see you’re doing precisely the same thing to him? And he sits in the armchair facing her, staring at her bare feet, the only segment of her anatomy which seems to have retained something of the delicacy that was there before, her small and narrow feet are being forced to bear the weight of an increasingly cumbersome body and yet they are still beautiful; he’s filled with compassion for them and he wants to take them in his lap like little puppies and caress them.
Are you listening to me at all? she says, all the time you’re yelling at him and humiliating him, but he’s starting to grow up now and he needs the support and presence of a father to help him turn into a man, not criticism, it’s as if all the time you’re saying to him: I was expecting a higher achiever than you’ve turned out to be! Don’t you realise how much damage you’re doing to him?! And Avner take a deep, heavy breath, you’re exaggerating a bit, aren’t you? It’s over-protective, what you’re doing; when he’s in the army are you going to run after him like this, defending him? And she utters a derisive snort that dilates her nostrils, what has the army to do with it? What’s the army to him?
You’d be surprised, he says, just how quickly the years pass, and at once he adds, I believe it’s my duty to wake him up when he’s obsessed with shit, eating it or watching it, that’s how I show him I value him and I’m not giving up on him, and you don’t back me up in this! But his voice sounds to him weak and defensive, as in the courtroom this morning – when justice abandons you, you stay abandoned – and he tries to formulate an attack, why don’t you take a close look at what you’re doing, he’s caught up now in the flow of his words, becoming more and more convinced, you’re the one creating distance between us when you defend him against me as if I’m a monster, that’s the worst damage, you’re not only weakening him, you’re also depriving him of a dad, the only dad he has! he adds from the heart, unnecessarily, as if all the other kids can choose from a range of dads. What did I say to him, anyway? he presses on, there was no need for you to intervene! You’re the one who’s incapable of abandoning the symbiosis between you, and you’re prepared to sacrifice me for the sake of it, and worse than that, your beloved son too! And she leaps up from the sofa as if stung by a scorpion, I’ve heard enough of this rubbish! You’re confusing me with your psychotic mother! I have no interest in keeping him for myself, on the contrary, I just want the two of you to be closer. He feels his stress levels rising; now she’s thrown his mother into the fire, excellent combustible material in all conditions, soon to be followed into the flames by his father.
Your fancy declarations don’t impress me, he snaps at her, what counts is what you do, and the way you stand by him and oppose me is destructive and absolutely unnecessary, and why bring my mother into it? She had good cause to defend me, as my Dad’s aggression towards me in those years was extreme. Today I’ve no doubt it was connected with his disease; he had a brain tumour and it changed his personality completely.
Then perhaps you’ve got a brain tumour too, she suggests with an ugly smile, gathering her legs into an oriental posture, her thick thighs exposed as her dress rides up, and he stands before her trembling with rage, how unloved am I, if he only dared he would put a hand to her mouth and wipe that smile from her lips, how unloved am I, and he turns his back on her and goes out. Where will he go now? He longs to sit for a while on the balcony, to breathe the air of a cool summer evening, one of the unique pleasures that this city has to offer on a lavish scale, but the iron shutter is already closed and if he opens it the boys might be woken up, and he strips in the dark bedroom and goes into the shower with a towel round his waist, as if afraid of being exposed to her in his nakedness, and only when the water streams over his shoulders does he let go of the towel and it falls to the floor of the shower and absorbs the scalding water that seethes with disappointment and hatred. What’s the matter with her, how has she become so malicious, it seems to him her heart is sprouting poisonous weeds, and is this just down to neglect? He sees himself uprooting them with a firm hand, one after another. Perhaps you’ve got a brain tumour too! She’s prepared to sacrifice his health on a whim, just so she’ll be seen to be in the right, and he remembers his father standing before him and yelling, shorter than him but bristling with anger, like a spiteful cat that doubles in size, out having fun again? Done your homework yet? Nothing will come of you, nothing, nothing is what you are, and one time when he stood in front of the mirror and combed his hair, how handsome he was then, even he himself recognised this and he smiled at his reflection, and then the angry face popped up behind him. You Nazi! he yelled at him, and Avner turned to face him, stunned. You’re crazy, he mumbled, I’ve got a crazy dad, what do you want of me? And at once his mother appeared from the kitchen, get out of here right now, she shouted at his father, brandishing the big wooden spoon in her hand, if that’s the way you talk to your son you’re not living here any more, and his father wasn’t giving in that easily, how do you intend to support your family if I’m not living here? You can’t go on dreaming for hours by the window and scribbling in your notebook.
I’ll get by very nicely without you, she replied, I just want you out of here now, but it was the son who went, packed a few clothes and travelled to the kibbutz, to Shlomit, who caressed and consoled him, and it was impossible to imagine then that twenty-five years hence she would be using this pain against him in such a shameful fashion, just as it was hard to believe it was his father’s hidden disease that made his responses extreme. Could it really all be blamed on the tumour? It’s a fact he never attacked Dina, it was only him he envied, begrudging him his youth, his beauty, his mother’s love, and he punished him for all this by denying him his love, and again he remembers his mother’s stories about fishing in the lake, how they used to trick the fish with a trawling net, a double net with crude and tight mesh, and any fish making a heroic escape from the first net would immediately be caught by the second.
The water gathers up his tears and sweeps them away into the convoluted drainage system of the building, spoilt kid, mummy’s boy, again he hears the scorn of the children and he tries to suppress his weeping, crushing the slippery bar of soap with his hand, and when he starts meticulously soaping his body his paunch protrudes between him and his genitals and thighs and feet, so he can’t see the lower segment of his body at all, as if it were suspended in space, out of reach, and giddiness attacks him, and he leans against the wall of the shower and pinches his flesh angrily. It’s as if his stomach is nothing but a tumour that has attached itself to his body, and he remembers with jealousy the slim build of the dead man on the last day of his life; his yellowing skin hung on his face and yet he was beautiful and boyish, this is the slimness he aspires to and he’s going to get it, he swears to himself, and at once an extra oath is added, he’s going to leave her, he’s never getting any closer to this woman, and it makes no difference how upset the children will be, no difference that the little one is so little and the bigger one is just starting to grow up, there’s no good time for separations and he can’t do this any more, he wants to be loving and loved, like the deceased on his last day, and before he sees in his mind’s eye the packing cases filling the house and the misery of his sons, he turns off the hot tap and turns on the cold, surprising himself with this courageous act and all his flesh tingling.
But when he emerges, treading on the cold and wet towel and wrapping himself in another, she’s already in their bed, wearing the nightdress h
e bought her one birthday, its blue colour has faded to yellow following repeated laundering and inadvertent over-exposure to the sun, her eyes peer at him over the binding of an open book, and he hurriedly gets into the bed, turns his back on her and pulls the blanket over his head as his son did, next he’ll be furtively picking his nose. How sharp the sense of smell becomes when there’s no partition between you and your body, although he’s only just soaped himself he senses an unpleasant smell rising from him, heavy and pungent, thus he apparently lay stinking in his mother’s womb day after day, and thus he will stink in his grave, and when he feels her finger on his back through the blanket he freezes like a trapped animal, if he plays dead perhaps he’ll be left alone.
Leave me alone now, he moans, I don’t want to talk to you any more, and she grins a throaty grin, who said anything about talking? Her breasts are pressed against his shoulder, I’m sorry, Avner, maybe I was exaggerating a bit, I’m just worried about Tomer, I’m not sleeping at night for worry, and instead of being beside me you’re against me, and he moves the blanket down from his face, I’m not against you, it’s you who’s against me, he mumbles, you’re not giving me a chance, you attack me as if I’m the enemy of humanity, and she presses against him, so why don’t we both make an effort, OK? For Tomer’s sake. He listens to her dubiously, what exactly is she suggesting, sexual intercourse for the sake of the child? Why not for their own sake, since when have adults not been allowed to make an effort? And more than this, he wonders what signals her body is sending him, does she really want him or is this part of the deal, how demeaning for him and really for her too, it’s been months since they did it. When was the last time? Her birthday or his, whichever came later, suddenly he can’t remember, long ago sex had lost its routine presence and turned into a bourgeois ritual, like a bottle of champagne that’s opened on special occasions although no one particularly likes the taste, except that year when she wanted to be pregnant with Yotam, then every morning she was chasing up the mysteries of her ovaries, and the need for precision dictated their sex lives for almost a year, and although they were both practical and not romantic by nature, in the spirit of the entire process a kind of serenity dominated them then. But once she got what she wanted it seems she lost all of it, and although he felt as she did he held this as a grudge against her, and even now her body annoys him, like his own body in fact, and not only on account of its weight but also its weightlessness, and therefore the breasts that are pressing into his back seem to him like envoys without power and without attraction, and he mutters coldly, I’m bushed, good night, and in silence she gathers her limbs together and moves to the other side of the bed and within a few minutes she’s fast asleep, as always, so much for her claim that she isn’t sleeping at night. Her steady breathing has accompanied his insomnia for years, a kind of family curse shared by him, his mother and his sister Dina, almost the only thing that unites them.
The Remains of Love Page 20
