Oh, but it is, she sighs, I never wanted to have a little brother, I was happy with the way things were and I always felt sorry for my friends with their irritating brothers, I always told my Mum they shouldn’t even dare to think about it, and now because of me she needs to adopt some fucked-up kid from the ends of the earth, and Hemda strokes the damp cheek with her finger, I too was an only child and I so much wanted brothers, she says, we had a little boy on the kibbutz whose mother died giving birth to him and I so much wanted my mother to adopt him, I think it’s wonderful when you can take a child who already exists in the world and give him a home and love.
What kind of home and what kind of love will that be with a mother who’s totally insane and a father who doesn’t want to know? the girl complains, he told me if this happens he’s going to walk out and leave her alone with her lunacy, but I’ll be here with you, Grandma, I don’t need to watch this happening, and Hemda sees before her eyes the scrawny legs of her daughter at three years old, how she snatched her baby brother from his cot and ran with him as if possessed by a dybbuk, this is my baby, I’ll be his good mother. It’s true this is an extreme act, she says, but it doesn’t seem insane to me, on the contrary, there’s a lot of strength in it, a lot of hope.
I’m so tired, Grandma, can I sleep in your bed with you? she asks and Hemda lifts the blanket, of course, come and sleep with me and hide from rejection, hide in my heart, and when the girl snuggles against her she watches the rays of light softening between the slats of the shutter, it seems evening is approaching and pangs of hunger rise in her for the first time in weeks, the carer will be here soon, she’ll ask her to cook porridge for both of them, hot porridge with honey and cinnamon. Tell me, Grandma, the girl whispers inside her heart, do you think if my twin brother had been born Mum would be happier now? Would that be enough for her? You know he was the only one I wanted, he was the only genuine brother for me, and Hemda says, yes my dear, I know. It’s a pity we haven’t talked enough all these years, the girl sighs and Hemda whispers, it isn’t too late, I promise you, we’ll have plenty of time to talk, and she wraps her in the blanket and lays her hand on her shoulder, and that’s how Avner finds them when he arrives in the night at his mother’s house in an overwrought and feverish state.
Chapter Ten
Again and again he’s up before the judge who changes her face every night. Sometimes it’s his wife with her square features, her eyes flashing rancour and resentment at him, and he presents her with scores of documents, some of them already crumbling from repeated use. I did the best I could, he’s trying to argue, give me the benefit of the doubt, don’t blame me and I won’t blame you, we both made a mistake, got hitched to each other too soon and didn’t dare separate, come on, let’s salvage what remains of our lives. I disappointed you and you disappointed me, I hurt you and you hurt me, and I really believe all this was done in innocence, the innocence of children who have no awareness of what changeable creatures they are, and I’ve realised something recently, he wants to tell her, at dictation speed of course, so the stenographer can type it all and not miss a word, I’ve understood something about myself, I’ve realised that I don’t want to live without love, or more to the point, die without love, even if I’m fated to discover that to love and be loved is too much to ask for in this life, I’ll be content with one of those, and with us there’s neither one nor the other, we both know, so let’s cool things down, the children will benefit too, we’ll share their upbringing, relieve them of the burden of the struggle between us.
Why didn’t we think of this before, he wonders at times; in fact he thought of it constantly, but with the kind of defeatism that renders any turnaround impossible, and now that this has been removed as an ugly stain is excised from the retina of the eye, the sight is precisely the same sight but vision has changed, and even if he reminds himself again and again about the pains of separation, the unhappiness of the children and the stress of holidays, the fear of loneliness and the dread of old age, still sight is as clear as an equation to which there’s only one solution: he won’t and can’t and is under no obligation to try, living alongside a woman who does nothing but scowl at him and mock him in front of his children, and all her aspirations are focused on the project of proving to him that he’s her inferior, belittling his achievements and exaggerating his shortcomings, and if he exerts himself some of these nights when she’s sleeping beside him and tries to remember the good times, he can barely find isolated moments in recent years, perhaps during her maternity leave when she used to come with the new baby in the pram to meet him at Sheychar, but how fragile all this was, since one moment of distraction on his part was enough to arouse her bitterness, and as for him the same applied, if the truth be told: it didn’t take much to make him recoil from her, one crude gesture on her part was enough to send him back into his personal exclusion zone, and now as he is more and more obsessed with death it’s becoming ever more clear to him that this isn’t the way he wants to die. For the purposes of living this would be almost tolerable, apparently, but he wants to die with another woman beside him, kind and noble-spirited, who even if she doesn’t love him will consent to receive his love from him, and even if she doesn’t consent she won’t be capable of wresting it from him; sometimes he sees her there, sitting in the judge’s chair, and he lays his appeal before her, Talia, let me do for you what the dead man didn’t succeed in doing, let me leave my wife and my sons, redeem you from your loneliness and perhaps thereby redeem myself too, let me console you for an injustice that I didn’t cause, let me teach myself to love, because more and more he is realising to what extent love is detached from its object, and he certainly realises this where she is concerned, in her well-kept apartment, which he has visited almost every day this past month on some excuse or another, and he’ll always find her there alone, planting flowers in her little garden, sitting in the armchair with a book in her hand, or busy at the computer, and she’ll always smile at him her hesitant smile, and he’ll always feel how the void in his heart is being filled by her heart, heavy with love, and he understands that just as her love for the dead man continues to exist even after his death, so his love for her can also exist without any response from her, as if she were his dead lover.
Again he sits facing her and tells her what he’s been doing, about his visit to the Bedouin school in the heat of midday, just unbelievable how overcrowded they are, he says, but so eager to learn, perhaps some time you’d like to come with me, see the place for yourself, and she listens with interest, speaking little; since she moved into her parents’ house her main concern has been with them and pictures of her childhood are returning to her in full vigour, and sometimes she shares with him a little of the confusion she feels; in particular she’s focused on the dead man, and when she talks about him in her restrained way it seems to him again it’s him he’s falling in love with, and he wonders if this is really the only thing that unites them, but for the most part he doesn’t try to clarify anything, preferring to concentrate on the sweet delight that he feels in her company, a delight familiar to him only from his own company and that only on rare occasions, and when he parts from her he kisses her cheek, which is slender as a fallen leaf and doesn’t say when he’ll be back and she doesn’t ask, smiling at him the same reserved smile on his arrival and his departure, such that he doesn’t know which of them makes her happier, if at all, and it seems to him sometimes this blank tablet of hers allows him for the first time in his life a degree of relaxation, since he isn’t responsible for her pain and her desires aren’t aimed at him, he has nothing to offer her, only to himself can he offer the love that at the moment is turned towards her, but maybe one day it will be perfected and polished and elevated to the point where she feels she can turn to the other person who genuinely wants her, since the more powerless he is when confronting her, the more he feels arising in him an impulse of manly emotion, such as he never knew before except in youthful fantasies, a mysterious and comfortin
g strength when facing up specifically to the grieving woman, who doesn’t want anything from him.
And yet sometimes it isn’t she who is there in the black pleated robe but his mother, and to her too he presents papers yellowing with age, pointing to them in silence, and the stenographer waits for his words, while his opposite number is quick to deride him, what is the matter with my learned friend, why the sudden lapse into silence, has he not prepared for this case, I will not agree to another adjournment, and he mutters from a parched throat, the facts speak for themselves, the witnesses have testified, I have nothing to add to my former submission.
My learned friend is holding this court in contempt, the lawyer sneers at him, why are we gathered here if he has no new evidence, and suddenly he notices it’s his sister Dina, her hair dyed raven-black and her face carefully made-up, before their mother they stand so she may judge between them, the three of them in black gowns, like a family of bats, but in front of their eyes she is ageing fast, already her mouth is agape and her head slumped, her skull almost bald and her eyes closed, and he wants to say words of valediction to her, but only a babyish whimper emerges from his throat, and he wipes his eyes with the edge of his gown. What am I to do with your love now, Mother? he mumbles, I always hated it, it constricted me, it drove me away, how dangerous was your love, combined with the full force of your loneliness and your misery, which I of all people am supposed to be assuaging, and here he is awakened by his plaintive voice, fearing lest all this has already happened and he’s finding himself alone, without wife and without children, in an alien and neglected rented room, and he tries to snuggle up to Shlomit’s body in the sticky night. Relax, nothing’s happened, just thoughts and since when have thoughts changed reality. Your wife is here with you and despite all her shortcomings you’re committed to her, and she’s the mother of your children, and you share an address and so it will be for ever. In your imagination you go the full distance, but will we see you daring to say to her one single word from all the speeches you are formulating here, he challenges himself and stands by the ventilator fan, which blends all their breaths into one giddying blast, and agrees with himself that thought is much easier than action and dream much easier than speech, and for the time being he should avoid taking any hasty steps, but when she sits beside him in the car in a black evening dress on their way to Anati’s wedding – as usual they’re running late, the clock on the dashboard shows 6:55 and the wedding starts at 7:00 and they’re still stuck in traffic jams on the outer city bypass – he knows tonight it’s going to happen, he feels in all his limbs and extremities the itch of imminent change in the offing, as if his body were the rickety track for a train that’s already set out on its way, even if he wanted to he’d be incapable of stopping it, all the more so when he doesn’t want to do that.
You should have driven through the forest, she reproaches him, at this hour all the exits are blocked, and he retorts, oh, really? So why didn’t you mention that before, you’re such an expert in hindsight, and she says, I was sure you knew, I didn’t think you were stupid enough to fall into this trap, and he hisses back at her, if I was stupid enough to fall into your trap and get stuck there for the rest of my life, why are you so surprised, and she says, no one’s keeping you here by force, as far as I’m concerned you can get up and go, we’ll all be better off without you, and he flexes his itching fingers irritably, unintentionally hitting the wheel with his hand and setting off the horn, annoying the driver in front, who signals back to him with a lewd gesture, and she grins maliciously, why are you hooting? What exactly are you expecting him to do? He’s got wings and he’s going to fly over the obstruction? And Avner pants heavily and opens the window, there’s no air in the car, she’s gobbled up all the air with her hatred of him, but a sweltering and polluted vapour comes wafting in from outside and she’s rebuking him again, close the window, what’s the matter with you?
He stares at the rapidly rising glass, sealing in the air-conditioned space, and for a moment he wants to insert his fingers in the gap, get them crushed, why not, the pain spreading through his body will ease his resentment, and he growls, that’s all right then, I might just as well get up and go if I’m so superfluous to you, turning her and the children into a single entity, for his convenience, and she’s quick to pinch his vulnerable spot, sure, we’ve heard all about you and your heroic exploits. How exposed are the partners in a long-term relationship, he sighs, everything is known and remembered and kept and will be exploited to your disadvantage until the day you die, and already he’s thinking about the day of his death, will she regret all the harsh words she’s thrown at him over the years; they won’t be forgotten either, like his youthful failings, but from this moment, Tuesday afternoon, late August, to the day of his death is still some distance, who knows if it will be long or short, and on this journey he doesn’t want her beside him, and he shakes his head this way and that, the classic refusal gesture of Yotam when they’re trying to feed him against his will, grinding his teeth and closing his eyes tight.
Why aren’t you driving? she nags him, the blockage has cleared at last and you’re still standing here? He pumps the accelerator pedal abruptly and nearly collides with the car in front, which is making the transition from stationary to mobile at an appropriately gradual pace, and his wife mutters, maybe I’d better drive if you still want to get to this wedding alive, it’s too dangerous to let you drive, and he feels his blood bubbling; it’s as if a dam has been breached and is flooding his brain, this woman is dangerous to me, and he pulls up at a flickering green light to the sound of the protests of the driver behind, by all means, you drive, he snaps and steps out of the car and for a moment he wants to leave her there and carry on walking, wander for ever amid the islands of traffic like one of those tramps. With deliberate slowness he circles the car and gets in, not sitting beside her in the front but in the back, beside Yotam’s safety seat, and he sees her lifting her bum over the gear-stick and moving laboriously into the driving seat without leaving the vehicle, and he reckons he detects a faintly sadistic smile on her face; she’s driven him out of his mind, and she takes pride in being a woman who can show that her husband is still drawn to her, as a wave of nausea shakes him, how shameful it is, what an insult to arrive at a wedding like this, spreading the spores of an unhappy marriage, endangering public health.
They are certainly accustomed to quarrels and yet here he identifies that leap from a higher to a lower step on the staircase, since this time there’s no pain in their hearts, only perverse pleasure, and that’s why he’s suddenly so alarmed, sitting in the back seat, his whole body full of revulsion and his whole being crying out for change, and again he says, I’m getting up and getting out, I’m leaving the house, but she doesn’t hear, at that very moment she’s turned the radio on, looking for traffic bulletins, and from time to time he catches her eyes in the mirror and notices a deep groove of concern etched between them and on both sides of it an unhealthy flash, but most of the time he’s looking out at the cars alongside them, all determined to overtake the slowcoach. His eyes wander over the passing travellers, couples sitting conventionally in the front seats, bickering like them or deep in relaxed conversation, and for some reason this evening he’s no longer convinced they’re all happier than he is, this evening he skips without interest over the faces of the random couples, as it’s the lone drivers he’s looking for, the lonely travellers with no one sitting beside them or behind them, to whom no one turns in conversation, just themselves they are transporting from place to place, and when he sits like this in the back seat, harnessed by the safety belt that’s stretched tight across his paunch, he realises how this evening is different from all other evenings; in his own eyes at least he is no longer a partner in a couple.
He has always loved weddings, and even now he’s gripped by childish relief that in spite of everything they haven’t missed the ceremony. How slender and pure are the moments preceding it, while the banquet afterwards alwa
ys seems to him insipid and crude. They should finish the wedding the moment they’re done with the canopy, he tells himself, just shower a load of felicitations on the happy couple and go, and there’s no point saying any of this to his wife, since they’ve seized the opportunity to argue about it a number of times before. It just shows how unreal you are, she used to mock him, that’s your problem in a nutshell, you’re trapped by romantic conceptions, you’re expecting the whole of life to be as radiant and glamorous as the canopy and anything less than that disappoints you, and now once again he wanders disconsolately on the lawn, her thoughts attacking his thoughts even when they are both silent, yes maybe she’s right, it’s his expectations that leave him always dissatisfied, a destructive blend of guilt and unease. But in the meantime he can enjoy the wide open green expanses and the vista of the Jerusalem hills. White cushions are strewn liberally on the lawn, there are low wicker tables and some Spanish tune warbling in the background, the skies are soft with a smattering of white clouds, almost transparent, and it’s a long time since he saw such a harmonious match between heaven and earth and this has to be a favourable sign for the young couple. He looks around for the bride to share this thought with her; perhaps this portent will resolve her doubts, although he doesn’t even know if they have persisted. Since that evening she hasn’t been sharing her personal concerns with him, it seems she resents him for all the advice he showered on her so hastily, advice based solely and entirely on his own experience, with no recognition of her or of her partner, and she has avoided intimate conversation with him as if he were doubt personified. He has tried to find opportunities to qualify his words, but he himself has been involved in other urgent issues, and he hopes that she no longer needs this portent, that even without it she is whole and her heart full of happiness and love as his heart has never been, even on his wedding day. When he takes two glasses of wine from the tray and hands one to his wife he remembers the woman now sitting alone in the garden of her house, a glass of red wine in her hand and her teeth already turning purple, and he wishes he were sitting there beside her, the flimsy bamboo fence insulating them from the hubbub of life; although he wants everything from her and she wants nothing from him, only at her side is he content.
The Remains of Love Page 28
