“My mother,” said Einat in a sneering, hostile tone, “hardly knows what she’s got in her own bedroom.” And suddenly, without warning, I felt my face flushing and my throat choking up, as if the mere mention of my beloved’s bedroom were enough to conjure up a flickering but very vivid memory of her heavy white body and pampered little feet, before which I had knelt in the bedroom next door, from which Michaela now emerged with a plastic bag for the forgotten pajamas to give to Einat, who was standing and smiling to herself in blissful ignorance of what was going on inside me.
In the meantime more guests knocked at the door, and I quickly returned the sofa to its original state. Two “Indian” friends of Michaela’s and Einat’s arrived. Both of them had recently returned from India after spending more than a year there, and Michaela pounced on them to hear details about new places and especially to hear news of acquaintances, Israelis and others, who had been or were still wandering around the country. Suddenly the great subcontinent was transformed into an almost intimate place, like some big kibbutz full of private corners and friendly people—until I felt that my own short trip to India had not taken place on solid ground at all but in a distant, floating daydream. Accordingly, I sat silently and listened, occasionally asking a brief question. I found it strange that Einat participated in the conversation enthusiastically, mentioning places and people as if she too had been a big heroine and not a poor sick girl whose mother and father had had to come and rescue her and take her home. I could not take my eyes off her. She was attractive in her way, but there was nothing in her movements or gestures which reminded me of her mother. Her face was different, bearing more of a resemblance to her father’s, but more delicate and very fair. Had her liver really emerged unscathed? I wondered suddenly, and congratulated myself on still remembering the results of her transaminases levels. There were a number of medical questions on the tip of my tongue, but I repressed them, not wanting to appear in the role of the doctor this evening. In the meantime one of Michaela’s “Indian” friends noticed my prolonged silence and suggested changing the subject. “But it’s his own fault,” Michaela smilingly protested. “He could have stayed a little longer and not gone home like a good little boy with Einat’s parents. It won’t do him any harm to hear a few stories—maybe it will whet his appetite to go back again with me.” But then the doorbell rang, and Amnon, who had found a guard to take his place for a few hours, came in with a bottle of red wine, followed by another two couples who had come to strengthen our spirits in anticipation of our marriage, and behind them a few gate-crashers, and the apartment was soon “as crowded as the Calcutta train station,” as I said with a smile to the “Indian” friends. But nobody heard me, for the group had already broken up, and some people had went into my bedroom to sprawl out on the grandmother’s big bed. Einat too went into the bedroom, slipped off her shoes and her pretty bolero, and lay down on the bed with the others. I sat down next to her and managed to speak to her quietly in the middle of the din, asking her first about her grandmother, and enjoying with her the thought of how the old lady would react to what was going on in her apartment now; then I proceeded to questions about her parents, casually collecting new items of information about her mother and tactfully prodding her to reconstruct her feelings and sensations from the moment we first met in the monastery in Bodhgaya. Her replies were hesitant at first, but they gradually began to pour out freely and eagerly. Her face glowed prettily in the dim, shadowy light. She too considered the blood transfusion in the pilgrims’ hostel as the turning point in her illness. Her mother agreed with her, and even her father had stopped belittling the decision lately, though he was still a little angry at my hysteria in the airport, when I had forced the stopover in Varanasi.
“Hysteria?” I was astounded to hear this word coming so naturally out of her mouth. “Are you serious? Did I seem hysterical to you?”
“Yes,” said Einat, and on seeing my offended expression she added, “A little. But you were right. It’s just that when my father makes up his mind to do something, it’s hard to budge him. You’d have to have been hysterical to interrupt the flight to New Delhi.” But I remained flabbergasted. Nobody had ever called me hysterical before. I had always been well known for my supreme rationality. I had, in fact, been accused of being phlegmatic at times by various women I had dated. Had I really shown signs of hysteria at the Varanasi airport? If so, perhaps they could be considered portents of what had happened four nights later in the hotel in Rome, when I suddenly realized I was in love with the heavy woman who only a few weeks ago had been lying next to me on this big bed, where a bunch of giggling strangers were now sprawling, giving off a faint smell of sweat as they talked softly to each other and looked benevolently at me and Einat. Einat sat with her legs crossed, small and withdrawn into herself, nervously folding the bedspread between her fingers, staring at me intently as if she wanted to say something to me, and finally saying it: “You know, I’m very happy about you and Michaela getting married, I even feel a little responsible for it.”
“Of course,” I laughingly agreed, “it’s all your fault. You were our secret matchmaker.” And after a pause I added, “And your parents too.”
“My parents?” she said, startled. “How come?”
“Perhaps they infected me with the virus of their relationship—there’s such a special bond between them.” She laughed, an unpleasant, spiteful laugh. Suddenly I was afraid that she would tell her father that I had called his love a virus. I had to watch the words that came out of my mouth more carefully. “Do they know that I’m getting married?” She shrugged her shoulders; she had left home a few weeks before to live in a rented room. “I’ll have to invite them,” I said. “Why should you?” she asked sadly. “Because they deserve it,” I replied shortly, and her face fell, as if I now had taken away whatever little happiness I had given her.
I still didn’t know if my decision to give Dori the invitation personally stemmed from a sincere desire to have her and her husband at my wedding, or whether it was just an excuse to see her face to face again, so that I could say to her, You see, I’m a serious man who keeps his promises; I’m going to get married to protect you from this wild, impossible passion that sets my thoughts on fire, but also so that you’ll permit me to be with you from time to time and to lay my head on your soft, round belly. But I didn’t want to turn up at her office without warning and be squeezed in like a beggar between one client and the next, so I called her to ask for an appointment. I sensed a slight hesitation in her voice, but also excitement and happiness. She knew, of course, about my marriage, and perhaps she also understood its significance without my having to tell her, but when I suggested that we meet in the apartment, she immediately said in alarm, “No, no, not there.” We arranged to meet at her office, after working hours, when the secretaries had already left and the offices of some of her colleagues were already dark. She wasn’t alone in her room when I arrived, but with a young couple who were discussing some criminal matter with her, and I sat behind the half-open door and listened to her patiently holding forth in her clear voice. I felt my muscles stretching delicately with the sweet pain of the lust beginning to stir inside my body. This time I restrained myself from bringing a gift, in order not to alarm her again, and when her clients left and she went on sitting silently in the room, I got up and knocked softly on the door, and without waiting for an invitation I went inside, ducking my head so she wouldn’t see the violent blush spreading over my cheeks.
Was she blushing too? It was hard to tell, for I found her busy making rapid repairs to her makeup. She certainly looked embarrassed, although not too embarrassed to flash me her famous smile, which I now realized how much I loved. The time that had passed since our last meeting in this room made things harder rather than easier. But she was so much older than me that even if I had wanted to, I could not have saved her from the duty of rescuing us both from our embarrassment and guiding us into an exchange that would consist of more tha
n empty evasions. I saw her hesitate for a moment, uncertain whether to stand up and come toward me, but in the end she remained seated, perhaps to hide the elegant suit which I wanted to believe she had worn for me, or at least for our meeting. Without waiting any longer, I held out the invitation, and she took it with an exclamation of delight that might have seemed exaggerated or even false if I hadn’t known in my heart that it was sincere. She really did hope that my marriage would free her from me. She raised the invitation to her eyes to read it slowly and thoroughly, first in the Hebrew version and then, according to the gentle movement of her eyes, in English too. I examined her carefully. She seemed to have dyed her hair recently, for it was much redder. There were two little pimples on her neck, whose creases seemed to have deepened in the weeks since I had kissed it, and her face was a little swollen; perhaps she had her period, or maybe she was taking hormones. Again I confirmed what I already knew: no one would call her a beautiful woman, but nevertheless I was trembling with desire. She couldn’t put the invitation down; she read it again and again, and asked me exactly where the hotel was in Jerusalem, and after I had described the place to her, she wanted to know why we hadn’t looked for a more attractive place, outside town. I explained Michaela’s objections to a big wedding and said that there was no point in holding a small-scale affair out of the city. This explanation appeared to satisfy her, and she smiled and asked, “Is this a genuine invitation or only a diplomatic one?”
“Absolutely genuine,” I said quickly. “In that case,” she said, “we’ll try to come. Why not? I’m really happy for you, and for Michaela too, who still seems a little mysterious to me even though she’s been to our house a number of times, maybe because of those astonishing eyes of hers. But Einati always speaks well of her. And she deserves a good husband like you—it was thanks to her that we got to Einati in time.”
“And thanks to her that I met you too,” I quickly added. She looked pleased, smiled, and held out her plump, freckled hand in a friendly gesture. I bent over and kissed her fingers, and to my surprise she didn’t pull her hand away but only laughed and said in a whisper, “Be careful, Lazar’s on his way to fetch me.” But the light touch of my lips on her fingers aroused me so much that I had to press my knees together to suppress the silent stirring of my erection, which may have also been provoked by the agreeable thought that she couldn’t trust herself alone with me, and that was why she had asked Lazar to pick her up at the office this evening. “According to our contract,” I said with a smile, “I have to ask your permission to bring another tenant into the apartment.”
“Really?” She laughed in surprise, as if she herself hadn’t drawn up the contract. “You have to ask my permission? Then I give it.” And her face suddenly grew grave, and she added, “But when you have a baby, we’ll have to see what my mother says.” And for a moment it seemed to me that she expected me to ask her about her mother’s health, so that she could boast about the vivacious old lady, but I had no intention of wasting time on such questions or on empty wisecracks about babies—I knew that Lazar was on his way, and I didn’t want him to come in before I had said a single real word about the pain of my continuing longing for her. As for the baby, I had no way of knowing that the hypothetical baby she was talking about was already real in Michaela’s womb.
I stood up abruptly and went toward her, and in a weak, imploring whisper I asked, “But what about you?” She moved back in her black executive chair and looked up at me with a panic in her eyes that I had never seen there before. Before she could reply, I added in despair, “Because in spite of all this”—I waved at the invitation lying open on the desk—“I think about you all the time.” Then the panic vanished from her eyes and the smile returned. “Never mind,” she said soothingly. “I think about you too. Never mind. Nobody dies from thinking.”
“Are you sure?” I said in confusion, flooded with happiness, and I bent down to kiss her, but she flung out her hand and gripped me by the shoulder to stop me. “Have you told anyone about me?” she asked anxiously. “No, nobody,” I replied. “Then please don’t, if you want to go on seeing me.”
“But why on earth should I tell anybody? Who would I tell?” I said indignantly. And then the hand holding me at bay fell from my shoulder and I could bring my face close to hers and smell her perfume, and kiss her quickly too, and all this was more than I had hoped for from this meeting, even though she protested, rising quickly from her seat on her high heels and pushing me firmly away. “Do you want to wait here for Lazar?” she asked me now in a mischievous tone. “Because he wants to see you.”
“Does he know that I’m here?” I asked, extremely taken aback. “Of course,” she replied in a matter-of-fact voice. I felt too happy and excited to meet Lazar then, and I said good-bye quickly and rushed out into the street, which was already growing dark.
But then I stopped, because I wanted to make sure that he would come, that he wouldn’t forget she mustn’t be left alone in this deserted place rapidly being absorbed into the darkness of the spring evening. I hid behind the trunk of an old tree covered with white blossoms until I saw his car, which I recognized from a distance by its headlights, entering the little side street and driving slowly, looking for a parking space. In the end he gave up the attempt and parked on the sidewalk, and instead of the door bursting open immediately, as usual, a few seconds passed before he got out, with an unfamiliar heaviness that didn’t suit him, and suddenly I felt a surge of intense curiosity, and I asked myself, What does he want of me? All of a sudden my fear of meeting him fell away, as if the existence of Michaela by my side gave me a new strength and status to face him.
Twelve
Is it permissible to begin to reflect on death? For then we will have to seek the secret door through which it can be smuggled into the soul, so the soul can grow accustomed to its silent presence, as if it were a little statuette brought into the house as an innocent gift or an ill-considered acquisition and irresponsibly set down in an intimate place, let’s say on a little bedside table, with a lace doily underneath it, and all this without anyone imagining that what appears to be an innocent inanimate object might suddenly rouse itself one night, kick away the lace doily, and with a swift, stealthy movement choke the astonished soul to death.
Otherwise, how will death be accomplished, with a bevy of doctors determined, in spite of disagreements between them, to fight against it with the most sophisticated instruments and the most efficient drugs at their command? So we will have to find our forgotten old relation again, that ancient retired fellow on leave from a lunatic asylum, the skinny black-clad mystery with the wire glasses on his nose, and prevail on him to sit down beside us and finally drink his tea, which has long since grown cold, and expound to us his fantastic views on the earth, which is eternally still and in which every hour is final and sufficient unto itself. And thus to lull our terror of the death bundled into the inside pocket of his coat in the form of a little bronze statuette.
But at the last minute, although I was only a few steps away from him, I gave up the idea, because I was afraid he would smell his wife’s perfume, which I firmly believed was still clinging to me; and also because I knew that he would ask me to go inside with him, in order not to leave her alone there, and I didn’t want to confuse her by suddenly reappearing at his side. If he had something to say to me, he would find an opportunity to say it at my wedding, for now I was sure that they would both be there, a thought which filled me with joy. For the first time, though, I felt a kind of jealousy of him, as I returned to my hiding place behind the old Tel Aviv tree and watched them opening the doors of the car and getting into it as they talked with that deep and marvelous intimacy they shared. Even total strangers like my mother noticed their connection and wondered at it when they appeared, because of Lazar’s restless efficiency, among the first guests at the wedding, and stood close together, somewhat embarrassed, in the hall of the old Jerusalem hotel, which was decorated with fresh flowers that Michae
la had chosen in order to cover up the faintly musty smell. They came without Einat, who arrived later by herself with a fancily wrapped present. The next day, when we opened the gifts and it turned out to be a little clay statuette with many outstretched arms, Michaela was overcome with excitement, and she cried out and covered her face with her hands. When she took her hands away I saw that her cheeks were burning and her eyes were damp. It appeared that a holy man in Calcutta had sold them both identical statuettes, which they had greatly admired. Since Einat knew that Michaela had lost hers on the way back to Israel, she had decided to make her a present of her own statuette. In contrast, the gift brought by Einat’s parents—a turquoise bedspread, which made my heart skip a beat—was not at all to Michaela’s liking, and she went back to the store and exchanged it for a big cushion. I kept quiet, not wishing to give her any grounds for suspicion.
In general, Michaela was inclined to exchange most of the presents we received, as if by doing so she could wipe out the memory of the wedding, which went on oppressing her for a long time to come, because in the end it turned out to be a very crowded affair, perhaps precisely because of my parents’ sincere efforts to hold a medium-sized wedding in a medium-sized hall. Many of the guests my father had listed categorically as guests who wouldn’t come, did come, among them, to our amazement, a number of relations from England, who saw my wedding as a good reason to visit Israel. My mother’s sister and my father’s sister had naturally been invited to stay with my parents, together with their husbands, and my parents gave them their bedroom and of course my old room, which made it impossible for Michaela and me to get ready for the wedding there. So that we would not arrive at the ceremony directly from Tel Aviv, sweaty and crumpled, Eyal, who saw himself correctly as the catalyst for this marriage, offered us the use of his mother’s house before and after the wedding. His mother was delighted to have us, and after serving a rich and delicious lunch, she told us to go and lie down in Eyal’s old room, where I adamantly refused to make love to Michaela, who I had already noticed was always particularly turned on in strange places. On no account was I prepared to risk embarrassing Eyal’s mother, who did not go to her room to rest but sat racking her brains for a way to make Michaela’s simple white dress more festive. In the end she succeeded in persuading Michaela to take two heavy antique silver brooches which she produced from the depths of her jewel box, and with the addition of some artificial flowers the dress became, if not more elegant, at least more original. But in spite of all these efforts to improve Michaela’s dress, which she also ironed twice, Eyal’s mother was secretly planning to avoid the wedding reception. When Michaela’s parents arrived, as planned, to take us to the hairdresser’s, and from there to the wedding, she stopped me from going with them on the grounds that it was not right for the bride and groom to arrive at the wedding together, and suggested that I remain with her and go later with Eyal and Hadas. This sounded reasonable to me, especially since I had no desire to get involved in possible tensions between Michaela’s divorced parents, about whose quarrels I had already heard sensational stories. I therefore stayed to wait for Eyal, and in the meantime joined his mother for a drink of bitter-tasting herb tea, which glowed with a dull red color in the Jerusalem summer light, the sweet light of the long vacations of my childhood. She was still wrapped in a light bathrobe, her hair untidy and her face not made up. When I asked her tactfully when she was going to get dressed, she realized that I understood her intentions, and with a strange expression on her face, both sad and imploring, she said, “Let me off, Benjy, I beg you. I haven’t been feeling well for several days now, and I’m afraid I’ll feel suffocated there. I know that hotel—there are a lot of stairs to climb there too. Let me off, Benjy, and don’t be offended. You know how much I love you.” I began to stammer something about my parents being disappointed, but she dismissed that. “They won’t miss me. And if they do”—she smiled slyly to herself—“tell them that you gave me an exemption on medical grounds. It’s wonderful that you and Eyal are both real doctors now. I remember the two of you as if it were yesterday, such sweet little boys, playing doctor and turning the whole house into a hospital, and making us lie down in bed and close our eyes and groan so that you could examine us and cure us with medicines and bandages.” Suddenly she laughed happily, and a wave of warmth engulfed me at the dim but real memory of the two tiny boys bending over the big, beautiful woman, dusting her feet with white powder and wrapping them in bandages. The memory was so deep inside me that I had to close my eyes to bring it up. Then I looked silently at the very heavy woman drawing the edges of her bathrobe together with a slightly mechanical movement. She interpreted my silence as consent, tilted her head to listen, and said happily, “They’re here,” and as she went to open the door, she suddenly said, “Your Michaela is a very independent girl. Do you really love her?”
Open Heart Page 33
