“I didn’t call him,” I said to defend myself. “I called the ward, and he picked up the phone and told me to send the patient back upstairs.”
“Okay, okay.” Hishin waved his hand again and continued in a harsh voice, “Forget it. But in future leave him alone. He’s having a very rough time at the moment. He’s afraid of his own shadow, let alone the faintest hint of criticism from anybody else, especially you.”
“Me?” A cry of amazement escaped me, which in spite of its genuineness held the knowledge that Levine was now afraid of me. “Yes, you, you,” said Hishin impatiently, even angrily. “What have you got to be surprised about? Ever since the operation and what happened, with all the diagnoses flying around, you somehow managed to get stuck inside his head, and he can’t stop thinking about you. So until he calms down, do me a favor and just leave him alone. Don’t talk to him about anything, medical or anything else. Just keep out of his way. He’s completely out of control. We had a terrible fight today.”
The excitement that gripped me now was so great that I didn’t know where to begin. Alongside the intense embarrassment Hishin’s words caused me, I also felt pleasure and satisfaction. I should have protested against Hishin’s strange outburst, or at the very least been astonished, but given his serious expression I knew that he’d appreciate it if I held my tongue. We both turned to Dori, who now entered the room still coughing, as if everything she had choked back when she was with her clients were now coming out. She had changed and was dressed in a strange assortment of garments: a white embroidered blouse and thick woolen trousers, old slippers on her feet and a muffler around her neck, as if she did not yet know what to expect from the evening or the people now gathered, who were dear and close to her. I rose from my place, flushed with lust and love, impatient to begin my battle here and now, but I was surrounded by people who were obligated to protect her and send me away. I waited for Michaela to join us, which she soon did, with Shivi in her sling, alert and curious in spite of her long, active day, as if she had already begun the trip to India. Michaela’s great shining eyes scanned the room and looked so penetratingly at Dori that I was afraid she was about to make a public declaration of my love, and suddenly I felt terrified and wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. Einat urged Michaela to sit down and have a cup of tea, but I firmly declined her offer. “Enough. We have to go. Shivi’s been away from home all day, and your mother should be in bed.” I looked at Dori, who broke into a cough again but still obstinately refused any medicine. Einat would not take no for an answer, however, and implored Michaela, almost tearfully, not to leave. Was it only Michaela’s intention to set off for India again that so excited Einat and drew her to my wife, or was it something else? There was something that wrung my heart in the way that Einat took Shivi out of her sling and began rocking her in her arms. Michaela was in a quandary. She was perfectly willing to accede to Einat’s pleas and sit down for a cup of tea, especially since it would give her an opportunity to satisfy her curiosity about the woman I had made love to twice the night before. But she sensed my agitation and my unwillingness to remain at their home. Since she was so happy and satisfied with her preparations for her journey, she decided to be nice to me and gave in to my demand to leave at once. And I was right to insist, for when we got home and I removed Shivi’s diaper, I saw that the long day had left its mark in a red rash between her legs and around her tender little groin. I decided to bathe her myself, and when I had finished getting her ready for bed and Michaela was sunk in a profound reverie in the tub, I picked up the phone and called my parents. It was intolerable that twenty-four hours should have passed since I had issued my challenge to the world, and nobody had yet noticed it.
Since it was relatively late, I was surprised to find my mother alone in the house. My father had gone to a general meeting of the employees of the Agriculture Ministry. His absence encouraged me to begin my confession immediately. Without beating around the bush, to the sounds of Michaela splashing in the bathtub, I went straight to the heart of the matter. I had something to tell them. Michaela had decided to return to India with Shivi. Yes, with Shivi. Stephanie was coming from London to join them. I was staying here. In the meantime. Not only because I had nothing to look for in India, but also because I had found what I looking for right here. I had found love. An old-new love for a married woman, now suddenly made possible. Possible in the sense that her husband had died. She’s older than I am, much older, and you can guess who she is. Yes, you can guess. Yes, you know who she is. If you don’t know, I’ll tell you. So you do know. Yes, it’s serious, and yes, I’ll have the strength to cope with it. How do I know? I know because the dead man is supporting me too. The dead husband. In what sense? In a mysterious sense, which you’ll never be able to understand, because I don’t understand it myself, but I don’t have to understand, because I can feel it inside me. My mother now sank into a silence so stern that I had to move the receiver away from my ear. In the end she was brief. She was too intelligent to try to argue with me now, especially since she could feel my tremendous agitation. She only asked me to promise her one thing: that I wouldn’t say a word about it to my father. I promised her at once. But she wasn’t satisfied by my promise, and for the first time in my life she asked me to swear to her. And I swore by the life of Shivi, who was soon to set out on a long journey.
Nineteen
For now, after the mystery finishes eating the porridge served him by his young wife and enjoying the sight of his three laughing, frightened children throwing crumbs at the windowsill to appease the impudent, obstinate bird, he rises to his feet, picks up the new briefcase given him by his wife, and with sweet solemnity takes his leave from his family to go to his daily work. Although judging by his status as a subsidized ex-patient of a reputable institution for the mentally ill, no real work is waiting for him, when he emerges into the bright, sunny morning his body, which is as supple as a dancer’s in its elegant suit, is still bursting with energy, and his furled, folded umbrella begins to wave vigorously in the air as if an entire orchestra were following in his wake. And even though we can assume that he has not disclosed his destination to anyone, the second bird, circling faithfully above his head, precedes him to the windowsill of the travel agency, where he is warmly welcomed by the travel agents, eager to know at last where he is bound.
Yes, the earth has suddenly begun to move, he admits with a shy smile shining in his black eyes, now clearly visible behind the polished lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses. But the mystery of its movement, he continues, is no different from the mystery of its stillness. Is there really any need to travel to all the fascinating and seductive places whose pictures are hanging on your walls, he asks, when if we only rise a little above time, trying to sweep us along like a strong river in its current, where we want to go will come to us wherever we are, thanks to the revolutions of the earth itself. If you don’t believe me, please be so good as to ask the bird tapping on your windowpane.
Is a new sense of humor budding here to replace the one that was withered? wonder the travel agents, whose computers stopped working as soon as he entered the office. If so, maybe there is hope that an unconscious too can be implanted, to replace the one that was amputated.
It was only when my head was already heavy with sleep on the pillow, while the calm breathing of Michaela—who had no objection to sleeping in the same bed next to me—murmured in my ears as I tried to close my eyes and mobilize the darkness inside me to overcome the splinters of light constantly coming into the house from the outside world, that I realized I had made a mistake. I should never have agreed, certainly not on oath, to my mother’s request not to say anything to my father, for in this way I indirectly admitted that there was something perverse about my love, which was apt to upset my father so much that the whole thing had to be hidden from him in order to spare his feelings. How else was I to understand my mother’s request? My parents had always been scrupulously open and aboveboard with each other
, especially in everything concerning me, not necessarily because the bond between them was particularly strong but out of fairness and loyalty, which were the guiding principles of their lives—and now my mother was suddenly breaking the rules and betraying my father. Did she think that she would be able to convince me to give up Dori without his help? Or maybe the opposite—was she afraid that in the battle that had already begun between us, he might cross the lines and become my ally? In the feverish confusion of my thoughts I could not come to any clear conclusion about what my mother might do or how she might react, but I was sure that tonight she wouldn’t sleep a wink, and she might not even go to bed. I felt sorry to think of her suffering alone, awake in the night. If I were really a good, sensitive son, not only in the superficial manner in which I fulfilled my obligations, I would call her and tried to comfort her and reassure her, or at least give her an opportunity to express her anger, in words or silence. But since I knew that my father might pick up the phone instead of my mother, or during the course of our conversation, I did nothing. If she had decided to engage me in single-handed combat, she would have to do so without the solidarity of their marriage.
From that moment on, this principle ruled the relations between my mother and me. I was silent, and any initiative for further clarification was in her hands, just as the initiative for setting the date for the journey to India was in Michaela’s hands, and the only initiative left to me was in the pursuit of my relationship with Dori. But while my mother and I seemed to have been struck by a slight paralysis, Michaela continued her preparations energetically and efficiently, until the trip to India was drawn tight as a bow and all that had to be done to deliver the arrow was touch the string. Deliver in the sense of redeem, for Michaela’s devotion to the dream of the return to India was so great that it gave her journey a spiritual, almost religious status. Not redemption from me, of course, but from the materialistic and achievement-oriented reality around us, which Michaela was not yet resigned to spending the rest of her life in. And her joy was intensified by the fact that she was enabling others to benefit from the journey too. Not only Stephanie, who was calling us almost every day from London, but even Shivi, whose tender mind Michaela believed would absorb impressions that would last for the rest of her life.
In order to prepare Shivi for the journey, Michaela painted a third eye on her forehead every morning, red, blue, or green, which made her look adorable and increased her excitement over their departure. I tried to spend as much time as possible with her, picking her up whenever she held out her little arms to me. Michaela often could not take her along when she went about the business of preparing for the trip, since the car had already been sold, half the proceeds going to the trip and the other half to buying a motorcycle for me, not as big and strong as my old one but quick and light enough to be effective on the flat, clogged roads of the city. When Stephanie arrived on a charter flight from London in the middle of a clear winter’s night, I saw no problem in taking the motorcycle to the airport to pick her up, for her luggage consisted only of a backpack, which even my modest little motorcycle could take with ease.
Indeed, there was a kind of lightness hovering over all the preparations for the trip. The date had been set, and since Michaela had chosen to fly from Cairo, which could be reached by a cheap bus ride, the tickets turned out to be exceptionally inexpensive, especially in view of the fact that Shivi was not yet one year old and was thus entitled to fly for free. This was Michaela’s reason for refusing my mother’s request to postpone the flight until after Shivi’s first birthday party, which might have consoled them a little for the separation from their granddaughter, the bulletin of whose doings was the high point of their day. Although they relied, as I did, on Michaela’s resourcefulness and experience and her grasp of the mysteries of the Indian mentality, the fact that the trip was open-ended naturally caused them profound anxiety, which Michaela tried to assuage to the best of her ability, not only because she was fond of them but also because she had learned to respect and appreciate them when they had visited us in London. Accordingly, she found the time to take Shivi to Jerusalem and spend a day with my parents to say good-bye and set their minds at rest with a detailed and practical discussion of the solutions to all kinds of problems that might crop up. In order to reassure them even further, she took Stephanie with her, to remind them of the solid common sense of her friend from London, who would act as both her traveling companion and a substitute mother for Shivi if, God forbid, something happened to Michaela, or if she simply felt like taking off for a couple of days to places unsuitable for small children.
As I could have predicted, my mother succeeded in persuading Stephanie to accompany my father and Shivi on a walk in the park so that she could remain alone with Michaela and tactfully try to find out what had really happened between us and whether there was any substance to my declaration of love for the “older woman,” whose name my mother still refrained from mentioning, even though she knew very well who she was. Michaela’s replies to her questions astounded her, not only because they were frank and explicit, for which she may have been prepared, but because they were given in terms of reincarnation and the transmigration of souls, as if the trip to India had already begun and Michaela were sitting with her friend on the banks of the Ganges, not in a Jerusalem neighborhood opposite a woman whose mind was as uncompromisingly clear as the Israeli light coming through the windows. My mother had grown used to Michaela’s rather obscure and esoteric manner of analyzing human situations in London, and as long as it concerned other people, usually unknown to her, she could react with tolerance, but now they were talking about me, her only child, and my marriage, which was in danger of breaking up completely. But my mother understood that the infidelity was only a pretext for Michaela to realize her dream of going back to India, a dream that had been hovering over our marriage from the first day. In the middle of the conversation she therefore changed her tactics, suggesting to Michaela that her trip with Shivi was not something that must necessarily deepen the rift in our marriage but rather something that could open the way to a future reconciliation. Michaela agreed immediately, perhaps because she suddenly pitied this stoic woman who was longing for reconciliation and suffering torments of guilt over my behavior. And in order to gain my mother’s support for her trip, she explained how her and Shivi’s absence for the next few months could help me to extricate myself from a situation that would probably lead to suffering and misery. She believed that my feelings, if only for Shivi, would take me to India too, where it would be possible to strengthen me, precisely because reincarnation and rebirth were a natural part of daily existence there. “The two of you are welcome to come with him,” added Michaela in complete seriousness. “We’ll be happy to have you.” And her great light eyes were radiant with generous hospitality, as if the expanses of India were rooms in her private home. “It would be really wonderful to meet there, as we said we would in London.”
My mother hurried to report this conversation to me before Michaela, Stephanie, and Shivi returned to Tel Aviv. She even went out to buy another carton of milk, and called me from a pay phone on the way so that my father would not overhear. Her anxiety was no longer for my endangered marriage, nor for my love for Lazar’s wife, which she still saw as a passing and unrealistic fantasy. Her anxiety was now focused on Shivi, for this was the main thing she grasped in all Michaela’s confused eloquence: that Michaela wanted to use Shivi as bait to draw me, and perhaps my parents too, after her, even at the price of dragging Shivi irresponsibly around India, in places full of sickness and suffering. And so she suddenly demanded, in a tone that was almost hysterical, that I put a stop to the trip immediately, or at least prevent Michaela from taking Shivi. “It’s impossible, Mother, to prevent a mother from taking her baby with her,” I replied quietly, trying to maintain my composure, my heart aching at this display of irrationality on the part of so rational a woman. But I promised her that I would make arrangements with Michaela s
o I could send for Shivi if I decided at any stage to do so. In spite of my sorrow at the idea of parting from her, which grew as the date of their departure drew closer, it was not of Shivi that I was thinking now but of another baby, whose helplessness, which Lazar had tried to make light of and conceal, only fanned the embers of my desire, which had remained alive and burning ever since the unexpected lovemaking on her sickbed. If my mother had really succeeded in persuading Michaela to leave Shivi with me, I would have lost my freedom and flexibility in the battle for my love, which kept returning to its starting point and leaving me at square one again, especially since Dori had once more succeeded in surrounding herself with loving companions so she would not have to be alone. Not only had her son found a way of coming home every night from his base, but Hishin too was a frequent caller in the evenings, and who knew if she hadn’t succeeded, with the power of her ingratiating smiles, in persuading even her mother to stay over from time to time, in order to introduce a little structure into the accumulating chaos that gathered in her bedroom and close the open drawers behind her.
Open Heart Page 54
