Her hands holding the wheel are narrow and their skin slightly wrinkled, under her chin too he sees the beginnings of a dewlap, the signs of ageing are more perceptible in her than he remembers, or perhaps it’s only this last month that her age has caught up with her. In the palaces of his memory she transcended time, made of marble and porcelain, and now her skin is set out before him in all its vulnerability, enfolding thin arms on the verge of decay, a long neck with delicate grooves scored in it like the footprints of birds. It seems that the moment she was deprived of the love of Rafael Allon she was exposed to the onset of time, but he is going to take her under his wing and protect her from it the way he protects his powerless clients, and for a moment he wants to tell her all about them and especially about himself, to boast, gather together all his past achievements and present them to her as a gift, the innocents whose rights he fought for, children whose education he fought for, women whose divorces he succeeded in preventing, the house demolitions he blocked, all the petitions, the judgments, the debates and the claims, all down the years.
Furtively he goes back to scrutinising her profile as she moves her hair back behind the lobe of her ear, in which a tiny earring sparkles like a distant star, her high forehead, lips bright with lipstick and the eye, its colour obscured from him by the dense lashes, twitching nervously, as he rehearses his accumulated data again and again as if he’s still searching for her, his secret love, an unacknowledged widow with no rights, a mistress. Now she peers at him briefly, smiles a faint smile and presses a button, sighing as the vibrant sounds fill the void of the car, a low and melancholic male voice, a solo French horn, more and more wind instruments joining in and yet still it seems every note is lonely.
This is what Rafael loved hearing most of all in the last weeks, she says, as if remembering she’s been asked to talk about him, do you know it? It’s Mahler’s Kindertoten Lieder, he didn’t understand German but when I offered to translate it for him he refused point-blank, and Avner hesitates, wondering whether he should ask her to translate for him, or would this be a breach of trust, a subversion of the memory of the deceased, but before he has made up his mind, with an abruptness that seems to surprise her too, after all what is the point of driving for a long spell in silence and turning on the music a moment before the journey ends, she parks in a space reserved for the residents of an old stone building; he has no idea where he is, as if his eyes have been blinkered all the way, as if she was all that he saw.
When he steps out of the car and looks around him, scouring the dark and narrow street, he realises to his surprise how close he is to his home, and for a moment it seems to him everything is the exact opposite of what he has assumed; in fact she’s the one who knows all about him, down to the last detail, and now she’s driven him to his home and in a moment she’ll be parting from him with a wave and continuing on her way, but she’s already locking the door and signalling to him to follow her, along a side path skirting the main entrance, framed by a sparse bamboo hedge, and he wonders about her decision to invite him into her house rather than one of the cafés in the neighbourhood, a decision fated to answer straightaway certain questions that have obsessed him in recent weeks: does she have a husband, does she have children, apparently not, and the lack of balance between her and the dead man distresses him when he enters the dark ground-floor apartment, in an alleyway running at a tangent to the busy main road, and when he remembers the sumptuous house where the deceased used to live in the quiet garden suburb he feels for the little woman in the little apartment and all kind of impractical vows reverberate in him, and even when the light comes on to reveal the heartening sight of colourful curtains descending to the gilded floor and a cream-coloured sofa strewn with cushions, he’s still feeling sad: who is all this for?
It’s nice here, he remarks, and she says, thanks, it isn’t quite finished yet, I only just moved in after the renovations were done, this was my parents’ house, and he remembers the commotion of the construction work in this side alley in recent months, when he used to pass this way with Yotam in the pram, cursing because access was blocked by heavy machinery. And it was all for her benefit, as it’s turned out, and apparently for his benefit too, as he has the pleasure of relaxing on the sofa and looking around him, at the tiles with the motif of blue diamond shapes like little fish, at the dining corner with the wicker canopy shading it, at the stormy landscape paintings, strong in colour and in expression, and as he’s answering her questions, wine or coffee, water or lemonade, he notices a photograph on one of the bookshelves and gets up from his seat to take a closer look; it seems it was that very day it was shot. Arm in arm they are standing, leaning against the car, is that the hospital in the background? She’s wearing the red blouse that he remembers so well, and he’s in the grey cotton shirt, masking his fearful emaciation, there’s no doubt they were photographed that morning, and he reckons if he strains his eyes he’ll see himself peering at them from the hospital entrance, and he asks in astonishment, who took this photo? And it seems she’s equally astonished by his question, saying as she pulls a cork from a wine bottle, we asked someone who happened to be passing, and he’s almost offended at not being asked himself, how happy he would have been to immortalise them, immortalising them has been his sole obsession these last few weeks.
Did you know? he asks cautiously, did you know there wouldn’t be another opportunity? And she says, yes, of course, as if talking of some fact easily digested, and he wants to ask, so why did you make that promise, why did you promise him, but then he sees another picture on the shelf, smaller and faded, of a girl and a boy arm in arm and leaning on the trunk of a tree. The boy he identifies at once because his smile hasn’t changed, that’s also the way he smiled the last day of his life, and it seems to him, to Avner, he recognises this look, a kind of pensive melancholia and overriding it, the smile that erases it almost entirely, but the girl beside him with the long black hair is harder to identify, since the indignant expression on her face is quite unlike her adult appearance, and he wonders aloud, is this you? although he knows the answer, and she nods, almost apologetically, have I changed that much?
Yes and no, he says, your face hasn’t changed much but your expression has, and he holds the framed photo and moves it close to his eyes, smoothing it with his finger although there isn’t a single grain of dust on it, gliding over the impressive porcelain cheeks, the outlined lips and the black, supercilious eyes, and he puts the other picture beside it; impossible not to try spotting the differences between them, some of them obvious and some of them concealed from the eye, a kind of game of superiority and inferiority which becomes clear to him at once, since in the youthful picture she’s holding his hand in hers in a kind of supplication, and in the later picture it seems the supplication is hers but it isn’t directed at him, and he slumps exhausted on the sofa, the pictures in his hand, as if he himself is compelled to bear for their sake the burden of the decades that elapsed between one picture and the other, the weight of lost opportunities, and in the meantime the table is filling up with cups and plates, a dish of purple grapes and bright cherries, a dish of nuts and almonds and a jug of iced water, but he can’t let the pictures alone, like evidence presented in court they are set out before him, telling a closed and gloomy story until it seems there’s no need to add anything. Is that why she isn’t talking, working away in the kitchen in silence, taking a tray of cheeses out of the fridge, slicing bread, as if it was all set up in readiness for his arrival, and not only for him but for other guests too, calling in at the end of the thirty-day interval. Where are they, then? Why don’t they come? And he’s waiting for her to suspend her activities and sit down facing him in the flowery armchair, and then he will address to her the only question that can possibly be asked with those two couples looking on from the pictures: how did this happen, I mean, why? How did you miss your chance if you were together in your youth? Why didn’t you marry and have children and set up a family? How has it come abou
t that you’re alone here in this doll’s house while he’s living with another woman, or rather dying with another woman, and yet in spite of that I saw you there, the last day of his life.
When she finally sits down facing him in the armchair and pulls off her high-heeled shoes he notices to his surprise that her toenails are painted black; he’s never seen such a colour on the feet of a grown woman, is that how she expresses her mourning, and he wishes he could sit at her feet and wipe the black dye from her toes with his tongue, and in fact he doesn’t want any more conversations, hearing or being heard, since there are only a few words that he wants her to whisper in his ear, words known from the outset, tomorrow you’ll feel better; in fact these are the only words that don’t provoke him, that don’t cause him almost unbearable pain, like the words she is about to say as she pours wine for both of them and raises her glass to him with a gloomy smile and drinks thirstily, her skin reddening as if it’s the liquor colouring it from inside, and on her forehead beads of sweat are gleaming as she holds out her hand to him and takes the photographs back, studying them earnestly as if she hasn’t seen them in a long time. This was his idea, she grins, indulging the tragic caprice, having our picture taken in exactly the same pose, he had all kinds of private jokes like that, she explains for his benefit, as if striving to comply with the wishes of the strange guest, and Avner hears himself asking, why didn’t you stay together?
What business is that of yours, really? she asks, but there’s no hostility in her voice, only puzzlement, and he tries to answer lightly, I myself don’t understand this, but ever since I saw you there together I’ve been thinking of the two of you, your radiation goes with me, and to his relief she’s satisfied with this, I left him, she says, her diction constricted and controlled as in the lecture she gave just a few hours before, we met at the university, we were together several years, Rafael wanted to marry me but I wasn’t ready for it yet, the future he offered seemed too bourgeois to me then, and already she’s refilling her glass with the dark and prickly wine, crossing her legs. I left him for some musician, she reports briefly, as if delivering some judgment which is almost superfluous, since the two of them have already learned that actions exist even without the words that accompany them, I lived for some years in New York, and when I came back to this country he was already with Elisheva and with two children, and everything was lost, for me at least, she concludes, and Avner finds himself listening to her with dropped jaw, why lost? he protests as if all this could still be changed, people dismantle families, people correct their mistakes, or make new mistakes, it happens all the time, although not to me, he hastily makes the exception, it happens to other people, and she agrees with him, yes, it happens all the time to other people, and already she’s filling her glass yet again, and he wants to put his hand on her wrist to soothe the tense movement, but contents himself with a grape that he plucks from the bunch, sucking it in the void of his mouth. He never managed to do that, she says, when I left him he had a serious crisis and Elisheva helped him through it, he didn’t dare leave her and he was afraid of hurting the children and afraid of putting his trust in me, and so the years passed.
And all this time you were together? he asks, and she replies, not all the time, and whenever we met we tried yet again to separate, excessive guilt on his part and excessive anger on mine, and it was only this last year after his children left home, our relationship seemed to have a future, he helped me renovate this apartment, we planned to live here together, he finally decided to tell Elisheva and leave home, but just then he fell ill.
And did Elisheva know? he asks and she says, there are all kinds of knowledge, it isn’t unequivocal, and besides that we worked together, we had joint research projects, and just when he decided to tell her and leave her the disease was diagnosed, she repeats, and there was no point hurting her unnecessarily. I put so much pressure on him, she sighs, who knows if that caused his illness, I wanted him to myself and I ended up with a dead partner, perhaps if I’d been prepared to go on sharing him he’d still be alive, when you want too much you lose too much.
Don’t blame yourself, he tries to reassure her, eager to be of service, this particular illness doesn’t need any specific cause, who do we know who isn’t ill? he asks as if they have many friends in common and she says, it’s hard not to lay blame, although he himself wanted this very much, he wanted to live with me here, and she points weakly around the cherished little room, he was really into home improvements, she stresses again, it was symbolic for us because this was where we fell in love, I was living here with my parents when we met, we thought we would succeed in recreating the universe, what a foolish idea, she says, and for the first time he detects a hint of bitterness in her voice, and when she reaches again for the wine bottle he offers his glass, as if volunteering to drink on her behalf, but she isn’t content with his glass and she fills hers too, with an alacrity he’s not used to among his acquaintances, taking hasty gulps; the wine colours her teeth purple until her mouth looks as empty as his mother’s mouth, and he flinches slightly, looking down. You see, her story is laid out before you, served up to you like the grapes and the cherries, is this what you wanted? Will the information satisfy you, or will you try now to dismantle the story into chapters, into its inflamed components? You wanted to know but where will you take this knowledge, what will you do with it now, when you have it in your hands?
So here’s another life story, there are more bitter ones, another love story and there are sadder ones, what’s he to you, what’s she to you, how do their lives connect with yours? He’s surprised that she herself isn’t seeking further clarification, entrusting her life story to him without probing his motives. Is it because she’s so steeped in her sorrow, she’s stopped noticing him, or is this the way she normally conducts herself in the world, inert and wrapped up in herself, and apparently he can go now, this is the story and it isn’t going to change, it’s impossible to lodge an appeal or an objection, the verdict has been handed down, the case is closed, and a kind of emptiness spreads through him, a heavy emptiness indeed, a prodigious weight. You’ve got what you wanted, so what will you do now? Why not get up and go home, respond to the tetchy text message from Shlomit that’s just come through, where the hell are you? Home is only a few streets from here, and you’ll see this woman from time to time in the main street or in the grocery store and exchange pleasantries, wishing each other a good week and a peaceful Sabbath, have a happy New Year and enjoy the festival, what else can people say to one another, and as he’s sitting back on the soft sofa that wasn’t meant for him, it seems to him he has nothing to say to his wife either besides have a good week and a peaceful Sabbath, have a happy New Year and enjoy the festival, likewise to his children, his mother and sister and all his acquaintances, to be on the safe side just add, may you know no more suffering, and that really is everything. And he sprawls exhausted on the sofa, he doesn’t want to go and doesn’t want to stay; to be taken from here is what he wants, gathered by a mysterious and concentrated force with a stronger will than his, as Rafael Allon was taken from here, since suddenly it’s clear to him that they came here that morning in the gold car, she brought him here from the hospital after she was told his hours were numbered.
There are people who prefer to die at home, the casualty nurse had whispered back then, as if letting him into a secret, but this man definitely preferred to die in this place where he planned to live out the rest of his life, and he lays his head on one of the cushions, the wine that he isn’t used to drinking so copiously fuddles his consciousness and it seems to him he too has given up the struggle, his train of death is speeding too and he is inside it, from the place he was born to the place he will die, from the moribund lake bordering on the sea of death, via the ruins of Beit She’an and Jericho buried in the desert, to the city where since time immemorial members of his race have aspired to be buried. How well he came to know this long route, there were years when he recognised every thistle a
nd every flower on the way, every station, but this time the train isn’t stopping at stations, being meant only for him. Now and then they wave to him along the way, the single traveller changing from baby to child, to youth and adult, growing up from junction to junction, is he really travelling or are they moving away, after all time and space need to join together to create movement, like a man and a woman, whereas with him space is detached from time when he reaches the valley under the hills reddening in the east, between the bathing sites of the secret Jordan and the promises that were given here and will never be fulfilled; sparkling are the golden towers and silver turrets of Jerusalem, and he passes by the tents that are so familiar to him; stay with us, his ghostly clients will plead along with their wives and children, after all they’re used to their pleas going unanswered, stay with us his children will plead, and he sits up all at once, his hands twitching and he looks around him in bemusement, his gaze meeting her eyes, which are red like the eyes of a rabbit, the wine glass in her hand and she’s drinking in silence.
Sorry, I seem to have fallen asleep, he mumbles, I’m not used to drinking. How strange, in his own bed he has whole nights of insomnia, whereas here on a stranger’s sofa he nods off in spite of himself. Perhaps he should ask her to lease him this sofa and he’ll come here to sleep from time to time, they are neighbours after all, even if she doesn’t know it, clearly she doesn’t know and isn’t interested in knowing, and suddenly he wonders about this almost with indignation: is it so obvious to her that strangers will be interested in her depressing story, she needn’t bother to respond with so much as a hint of reciprocity, and he pours himself a glass of water, forgive my bad manners, he says, I’ve fallen asleep on your sofa and I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Avner Horowitz.
The Remains of Love Page 24
