“So what’s going to happen now?” I asked, carefully and gently moving my lips down her body. Her head froze on the pillow and she did not reply. “Has it always been this way?” I raised my head for her response, and beyond the white hill of her belly she nodded in confirmation, her eyes closed, swooning in the intensity of her passion and the heat of her fever. I advanced my lips to the glowing coal of her vulva, and with the last vestiges of her strength she began to move on my tongue, moaning with pleasure, but also pleading for mercy and warning me that I was going to be infected with her germs.
Before her illness could interfere with our lovemaking, over which the threat of my failure in London was still hovering, I hurried to get up and switch off the light, leaving only the little reading light on, and with the practiced speed acquired in the changing room next to the operating room, I took off my clothes and gently but firmly undressed her too, while continuing to shower her with the words of love and affection she desperately and stubbornly demanded, so that I could penetrate the core of her dread and calm the terror of her loneliness. And only afterward did the doctor and the lover join together in one man, who not only hastened to cover her with two big blankets but also turned his attention to her dry, barking cough. “Now I’m going to be your doctor too,” I assured her, thankful that the illness had not been the pretext for her call. She lay curled up in the fetal position, limp and exhausted. I got dressed quickly and went downstairs to fetch my bag. I took the key from the door and put it in my pocket so she would not have to get out of bed to let me in. In spite of how late it was, the boulevard was full of gray-haired, elegantly dressed couples, evidently subscribers to the Philharmonic, whose concert must have lasted longer than usual. I hurried to the pay phone on the corner, behind which I used to hide to spy on the Lazars’ comings and goings. Who would have guessed then that a night would come when the key to their apartment would be stowed in my pocket and she would be lying in their double bed alone, sick and helpless, waiting for me to come and help her as if we were an old married couple? I pushed the phone card into the slot and waited for the number of units I had left to be displayed. Did I really have to call Michaela now? I asked myself, and if I did, what should I say to her? If she were given to worrying about my lateness, I could have reassured her with a few words. But Michaela felt very secure in the world; she was not in the least prone to anxiety or panic, about me or anyone else, and she was always surprised when she heard that anyone had succumbed to an attack of anxiety about her. I knew that when she picked up the phone she would not ask where I had disappeared to or when I was coming home. She was far more likely to ask if I had already turned into a Brahmin.
The little green screen on the telephone showed that I had three units left on my card, plenty for a conversation with my parents in Jerusalem, whom I had forgotten to phone earlier in my excitement. But my mother, whom I got out of bed, was very surprised to get my call, since only half an hour before she had spoken at length to Michaela, who told her about Shivi’s exploits of the day, and mentioned that I had been called out to treat the sick Mrs. Lazar. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know, I haven’t been home yet,” I explained. “So where are you phoning from now? Are you still there?” she questioned me anxiously. “No,” I hastened to reassure her, careful at the same time not to tell a lie. “I’m speaking from a pay phone in the street. I simply remembered that I forgot to phone you today as I promised.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t have,” said my mother, even though she was evidently touched by my concern. “When we speak to Michaela it’s the same as if we spoke to you. But how come you’re only through there now? What’s the matter with her? Is it really something serious, or just a false alarm?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said, scrupulously avoiding a lie. “She has a high temperature but no other symptoms. It looks like a viral infection. I hope the Indian hepatitis hasn’t returned through the back door,” and I laughed a strange, brief laugh, surprised to see that despite how late it was the screen already showed two units less, leaving me only one unit to call Michaela. “But why did she call you?” my mother said with some annoyance. “Where are all their friends?”
“I don’t know, Mother.” I tried to cut the conversation short. “She asked me to go, so I went. What could I do? Refuse? Look, I’m in a hurry. We’ll talk tomorrow. Good night.” But when I inserted the card into the slot to call Michaela and give her, in the metaphor she favored, the first flicker of the flame that would soon burn our house down, the last unit had vanished into thin air. If only the white-haired symphony-goers had still been strolling down the street, I would have shamelessly approached one of them and offered to buy his telephone card at its full price, never mind how many calls were left on it. But the boulevard was already deserted except for one young man, who could only offer me a telephone token, which was useless on this phone.
Suddenly I felt a strong temptation not to go back to her, not even to return the key, but to leave it in the mailbox and disappear, in order to stop my impossible fantasy from turning into a real love affair, full of suffering and disappointment. Could a woman like her really love me? I asked myself despairingly. Would she really want to take me in? And what would her children say? Her mother? Hishin? What would my parents say? And what kind of love could she give me, a woman who had a little girl inside her, abandoned by her parents in a dark empty house, running in the street to look for a little friend to come and spend the night with her? It was only because I had fallen in love with her that she was clinging to me like this. Perhaps I should warn Michaela that something bad was going to happen in the story in which Lazar’s sudden death was only the beginning. But when I went to the car and opened the door, I felt again a vague stirring inside me, which was not only the result of my weariness after a long day’s work but also the longing of a lonely, tired soul who wanted to go home, now that the key was within his grasp. I took the little medical bag my parents had bought me for my graduation from medical school out of the trunk and went upstairs, and while I pressed the bell lightly with one finger—to warn her of my arrival with the shrill, birdlike whistle—my other hand opened the door with the key, and I asked myself if it would be worth waking her up if she had already fallen asleep.
But there was no need to wake her. In spite of her exhaustion she could not settle down, and she had gone to take a shower, after which she had changed Lazar’s old sweater for the black velvet jumpsuit, put on white socks to warm her feet, and stuck bits of cotton wool in her ears, and thus attired she sat down on the sofa in the living room to smoke a cigarette, sunk in her fear of abandonment as if it were the fear of death itself. When she saw me come in she flashed me her old involuntary smile, watching silently as I put my bag down on the low glass table, where a map of India had been spread the first time I met her. But then the smile faded and she asked me sadly, “How long does it take you to take a bag out of your car?” I didn’t reply but only smiled, pleased but also agitated by the thought that she was already becoming dependent on me. And in order not to sweep away all the boundaries between us, I asked her if Michaela had phoned to ask for me. “Here?” she asked in surprise. “Does she know that you’re here?”
“Of course,” I answered immediately, and by the decisive tone of my voice I wanted to let her know that now that Lazar had died, there would be no more need to lie to anybody in the world. She seemed somewhat confused by this reply, and looked silently at the medical instruments I removed from the bag, most of which were still new and gleaming, since I had no private patients so far and I used the clinic’s equipment when I paid house calls during my night shifts at the Magen-David-Adom station. I took a chair and drew it up to the sofa, and with a quick, light movement I whipped the cigarette from her fingers, something which even Lazar had not dared to do. I put it out in the ashtray, said firmly, “You shouldn’t do that,” and took her wrist to feel her pulse, which was rapid but not as rapid as I had expected, as if her temperature had gone down a litt
le during my absence.
Her blood pressure was normal, even low for her age, the diastolic less than eighty, and her heartbeat, which was rapid because of the fever, sounded soft and clear. In the narrow beam of light from the otoscope I looked into her throat and ears. There were no obvious signs of infection, only a redness due to excessive dryness. “You must have something hot to drink,” I said. But it turned out that her electric kettle had broken down a few hours before. I interrupted my examination to go into the kitchen and see what was wrong. Standing among unwashed cups and glasses on the gray marble counter was the electric kettle, which had nothing wrong with it apart from the fact that the plug had come loose from the socket. I showed her the source of the problem. “Is that all?” She smiled incredulously. “I don’t believe it.”
“That’s all,” I said firmly. “How come you didn’t see it for yourself?” But she was apparently incapable of seeing anything. Miss Kolby had already told me how she shrank from electrical appliances as if they were capable of harming her. But now, when the red light on the kettle went on and she was convinced of the insignificance of the “breakdown,” she decided to trust me and showed me the toaster, which had also stopped working a few days ago, hoping that here the problem would prove equally easy to fix. In fact one of the screws had come loose, and with the aid of a kitchen knife I soon returned the red glow to the coils. And then, for no apparent reason, while the electric kettle began to whistle in the silence of the night, tears suddenly welled in her eyes, as if only now she realized the depths of the new abyss of dependency into which she had been cast by her husband, who had abandoned her for the world of the dead. I stood still and didn’t make a move toward her. The sorrow and the pity in my heart prevented me from touching her, and she returned slowly to the living room and sat down in an armchair to finish her sad, soft weeping for the catastrophe that had suddenly become concrete. In the kitchen I poured two cups of tea and added a few cookies which I found in one of the drawers. I found the sugar bowl, and cut a few slices from an old melon I found in the refrigerator. I went into the living room and put the tray down on the glass table next to my stethoscope. Was she really a woman who would have to be taken care of all the time? I thought in a sweet panic, remembering how Lazar had danced attendance on her in India, and how naturally she had accepted his services, as she now accepted mine, nodding her head in thanks and picking up a teacup and beginning to sip the hot lemony brew gratefully, until I asked myself if this was already the dependency I hoped for, which would make it impossible for her to send me away.
“But how can you leave Michaela for so long?” she rebuked me, her eyes still red from crying. “She must be worried.”
“No, Michaela isn’t the worrying type,” I said, and I respectfully described her independent spirit and inner serenity, and how she was at her best on occasions like this. “She isn’t waiting up for me. I’m sure she’s been fast asleep for hours.” But I wasn’t sure at all. Just the opposite—I thought that Michaela might have stayed up, if only to strengthen me with her thoughts from a distance, so that I could rise to the demanding occasion she knew was before me. And if she hesitated to call, it wasn’t on her own account or mine but only out of her concern for Lazar’s wife, whose grief might turn into panic and terror owing to a careless move on my part. Michaela did not yet know that before Lazar’s death there had been a bond between us, which even if it did not cause the death at least prepared us for it. If she had known, she would have been as sure as I was of the trust the woman sitting here put in me. For instance, after she finished the last drop of tea, while she was wondering whether to ask for another cup, I stood up and put the stethoscope around my neck to conclude the interrupted examination. And without hesitating, she stood up submissively, and at this deep hour of night she pulled down her jumpsuit and stood facing me, half naked, white and heavy in the breasts and arms, exposing the secret map of beauty spots on her shoulders, and although she seemed slightly embarrassed, she showed no trace of fear that her young doctor would turn into a passionate lover again. As the diaphragm of the stethoscope began to warm up between my fingers, I listened carefully first to her heart and then to her lungs, which seemed a little congested but without any suspicious wheezing, and accordingly left me without a clear diagnosis, since I had no desire at this time of night to draw blood, as I had in Einat’s little room in the monastery in Bodhgaya, in order to run tests. Since I was not in the habit, like some of the young doctors on night shifts in the emergency room or the Magen-David-Adom station, of throwing out sly psychological hints to people who thought they were ill, I stopped myself from making some critical remark to this beloved woman about the deceptions of the mind and only advised her to get back into bed and give both body and mind some rest. And although she was now alert and even a little vivacious, like a lot of patients who need no more than a doctor’s examination to free them of their feelings of illness, she accepted my suggestion and only asked for another cup of tea before she went to bed, and she even went to put the kettle on herself, in order to make sure that nothing else was wrong with it, waiting to break after I left. But I had no intention of leaving her, not only because I knew that in the depths of her soul she couldn’t stay by herself, but also because I was certain that Michaela, if she had indeed succeeded in staying awake, would both accompany me in her thoughts and actively support me in the attempt to return the soul that had invaded my body to its proper home and bed.
Dori obediently swallowed the two pills I gave her to bring her temperature down and went to take off her clothes and put on a fresh, flimsier nightgown. Then she got straight into bed, asking me only to cover her with three blankets and put the light on in the hallway before I left. But I didn’t want to leave yet, certainly not before I heard the deep breathing of her sleep. I remained in the hall next to the open bedroom door, looking through the dark windows at the new restlessness of the treetops, constantly buffeted by the autumn wind. And as my eyes returned to gaze quietly at the contours of the figure buried beneath the mountain of blankets, I kept asking myself how I would be able to leave her. Even when her breathing became deep and rhythmic and was joined by a faint snore, which I remembered from the night in the train compartment with the Indian clerk, I still could not bring myself to leave. Waves of love and desire began swelling in my double soul, and a thrilling new pleasure kept me rooted to the spot. I could have gone into the bedroom and sat down for a while on the edge of the big bed without waking her, but I went on standing in the hallway, leaning against the doorjamb, keeping myself awake thanks to long experience on night shifts and hours of standing next to the operating table. But when the faint snoring became loud and coarse, because of the position of her neck on the pillow or congested sinuses, I remembered Lazar climbing onto the upper bunk in the train racing to Varanasi to take hold of her and make her stop. I went into the bedroom to follow his example, but my hold must have been too strong, or lasted too long, for she woke up, and with her eyes closed and her hair wild she sat up in bed and cried in alarm, “You?” I let go of her and retreated, because I knew that she meant him, and only him, as if through the touch of my hand she had felt the dead man’s hand. But all this lasted no longer than a second, and by the expression of pain on her face I knew that the illusion had already been shattered. She groped for the switch of the reading light, but quickly gave up the attempt, dropped her head, and curled up into herself again, to seek the even rhythm of her breathing. But she did not find it, and she woke up and opened her eyes.
“I’m bothering you,” I whispered when I saw her putting on her glasses to see me better. “No,” she said at once in a clear, wakeful voice, as if she had not been sleeping for the past hour. And when I kept quiet, as if I thought she was only being polite, she raised her head from the pillow and said, “You’ve never bothered me.” Then, as if to reinforce her words, she added, “You never bothered Lazar either. Before the trip we were wondering whether to take a doctor with us, because you k
now how it was with us, always together, wanting to be alone together. But already on that first evening, from the minute you came in, we felt that we would be able to get along with you. And we weren’t wrong. Throughout the trip we marveled at how you always managed to be at our side without bothering us. Is it all due to the English manners you learned at home? The British temperament you inherited from your family? Is that what keeps you from getting on people’s nerves, from pushing yourself forward, even though you too want to go far?”
“Far to where?”
“Very far.” Her voice rose clearly in the silence of the night. “Very far?” I snickered. “Yes, very far,” she repeated without hesitation. “Lazar always used to say about you, That’s a man who wants to go very far, and he’ll get there too, but quietly, the way I like.” She fell silent for a moment, her eyes closed, as if she were about to go to sleep again. “But go where?” I insisted, a new fear stirring inside me. “Far to where?” She bowed her head patiently, like a mother facing a son who demands explanations for things that can’t be explained. “Far, the way he saw himself going far.” “You mean in the hospital?” I demanded with a tremor in my voice. “Yes, in the hospital too, of course,” she said. “That’s why he insisted on fixing you up with a permanent job, even if only half-time. When Hishin let you go, he was afraid that you would leave and go to another hospital. Because like him, you not only notice things that other people don’t notice, but you also know how to absorb them and contain them in yourself, so that when you need them they’ll always be there, without your having to worry about it.”
Open Heart Page 50
