Waiting Room, The

by Kaminsky, Leah

  ‘Let’s speak after tomorrow. We’ll know more then.’ She opens the door and waves her hand towards the corridor.

  ‘Thank you so much for everything you have done, Dr Dina.’

  Dina follows Sousanne and the girls out and, feeling like she is about to throw up, rushes to the bathroom. She locks the door behind her and stands there, staring into the mirror. Her mascara smudges as she splashes cold water onto her cheeks. Taking a few deep breaths, she braces herself to go back in to the waiting room and call the next patient. As she turns away from the sink, she catches a glimpse of her reflection walking off in the opposite direction, into the depths of the mirror. Dina’s doppelganger peels off her white coat like dead skin, and disappears.

  ‘You should have told that woman about her test results, instead of running to the bathroom,’ her mother says.

  ‘And you should stay out of it.’

  Dina has always liked to hide in bathrooms. When she was teetering on the edge of puberty she stood barefoot on the cold, white tiles at home, washing the greasy film of her mother’s dead kin from her body, a ritual bath to cleanse them from the pores and cracks in the patina of her skin. Dina’s memory is filled with all sorts of other rooms too, her mind a kind of architectural haunted house, littered with icons of dusty cots, prams, toy rabbits, children’s drawings, notebooks and vinyl records. Years of junk, piled high. Shelf upon shelf stacked with arguments, tears, lovemaking, music. Rooms dank and musty with the stench of the past. In each room of memory lies a corner reserved for her mother’s dead; the family lost in the war.

  The rooms in Dina’s head feel like museum installations to her: moments frozen in time, the drone of conversations playing over and over again in the background, stuck in the scratched groove of history. Occasionally, through the years, she has left them open for inspection, hoping lovers would flop down on a couch and stay for a month, a year, a lifetime. But all of them ran as soon as they saw a corpse laid out on a metal table. All except Eitan, that is. He felt at home with Dina’s ghosts, right from the start.

  The bathroom is where Dina has always lived out her nightmarish fantasies, a gateway to somewhere else, another place in time, where she also belongs. She lifts the body off the table and drapes it around her like a coat, dead hands clamping onto her life, searing into her skin. In the mirror she can see it is her mother fixed to her back.

  Something pulls Dina down. It is her mother, who drags her hurtling through time, flying wildly out of control. Dina keeps telling herself she cannot know this, cannot feel this; she is alive and her mother is dead. But her mother grasps her even tighter, refusing to let go, the muscle fibres of her own chest torn apart, exposing her heart as scientific proof the dead live on. She tosses strips of flesh, like dirty laundry, into the basket on the floor.

  If Dina were to wait long enough in the past, she would follow her mother as she led her to the kitchen. Dishes would be piled high in the sink, the smell of chicken stock filling the room. Standing by the stove, she would stir the soup, the chicken legs sticking out over the rim, their talons trying to grasp the edge and climb out, run away.

  ‘I was the best cook in the camp,’ her mother says. She prepared gnocchi for the SS soldiers in Bergen-Belsen, feeding the very man who sent her family to the gas chamber. ‘When the doctor on the ramp ordered my mother to the other side of the line, I was left alone.’ Days later she cupped drops of water tinged with ash in the palms of her hand. Mother-rain. She drank her in, thirsty to pool her deep inside, gulping her greedily like a sapling in a drought. And once inside her daughter’s body, she twined herself around like a snake; squeezing, clamping down on a swollen heart. Bodies fused.

  Later, when she made Dina, she was making the woman that she had always wanted to be. A snake-like trail of memory emerged and wrapped around the tiny child, grew as she grew, her suit of armour, as well as her prison. It transformed into the snake of the healer’s caduceus, slithering out of sight the first time Dina slipped her arm through the sleeve of her white doctor’s coat.

  Dina finally emerges from the bathroom to find Evgeni standing in the corridor right outside the door.

  ‘Doktorsha, please,’ he begs, ‘I need my certificate before ten o’clock.’

  She looks at her watch. It’s only been a couple of minutes since Sousanne and her girls left the consulting room, even though it feels like hours have passed. Dina is about to cave in to Evgeni when the door to the clinic opens. She looks over, surprised to see Jane, Mrs Susskind’s carer, saunter across to the desk, followed close behind by none other than Mrs Susskind herself.

  Sousanne’s daughters stand with their backs to the wall, still holding the jelly beans Dina gave them after they had their shots. Dina has known them since they were born, checking each tiny body carefully for imperfections, absent reflexes, clicky hips, closed fontanelles, always relieved to find everything in place, all in order. Over the years Dina has weighed them in turn, measured their height, listened to their hearts, all the while watching them become beauties, Christian lambs swimming in a sea of angry Muslims and Jews. The girls are chatting to each other.

  ‘Halas. Shwoi, shwoi,’ Sousanne whispers to her daughters, urging them to speak quietly in public. Jews are wary of them because they are Arabs, and Muslims don’t trust them because they are Christian.

  Mrs Susskind turns to look at Sousanne and the girls.

  ‘Yafyoofot!’ the old woman proclaims to everyone. ‘Such beauties, these girls.’ Mrs Susskind spits three times to ward off the evil eye. She grins at Nadia and reaches out to pinch her cheek. ‘My enemies should be as ugly as you are gorgeous.’ A compliment, a kvetch and a curse all rolled into one.

  ‘Shoukran,’ the girl says, blushing. ‘Thank you.’

  Hearing the Arabic expression, Mrs Susskind quickly draws her hand away from Nadia’s face, as if she has touched an electric wire. Dina sees the words ‘beauties’ hanging in the air above Sousanne’s girls like a cloud of coloured chalk dust, suddenly dissolved, wiped away as quickly as Mrs Susskind’s smile. Beauty is reserved for Jews, it seems. The old lady grips her handbag close to her side and promptly heads down the corridor towards Dina’s room.

  CHAPTER 8

  ‘You’d think Arik would be grateful for all the help I’ve given him, wouldn’t you? But I hardly see him nowadays.’ Mrs Susskind picks at her nail polish.

  Dina unravels the bandage from her foot.

  ‘As soon as they become men, they forget all about their mothers, you know.’ Mrs Susskind is biting her lower lip. ‘When they are small it’s like holding a piece of clay in your hand; they’ll do anything for you. But just wait till your Shlomi grows up, I’m telling you. He’ll leave you for dead.’

  Mrs Susskind blows her nose loudly, scrunching up the tissue and tucking it into her sleeve.

  ‘I gave up everything for my Arik. Not that I am completely free from guilt, mind you. But my guilt is about other things.’

  Dina carefully pulls the gauze off the festering ulcer.

  Mrs Susskind continues her homily. Dina is swept up into her story, led along like a reluctant sleepwalker. Meanwhile, Jane has pulled out a set of tangled earphones from her pocket and plugged them into her Walkman. Music blasts out into the consulting room before she shoves the earphones into her ears.

  ‘I married too late, you know,’ Mrs Susskind says. ‘I had Arik just before my change of life came along. Soon after he was born, they tore out my womb. Just like that.’ She clicks her fingers. ‘I shouldn’t have let them. Heartless, those doctors; they bled the soul right out of me. It would have been so nice to have more children. A daughter, perhaps. Yes. A daughter would have stayed around to look after her poor mother. Maybe then I wouldn’t have needed this good-for-nothing Filipina.’

  Dina looks up at Jane, who remains poker-faced and silent, curling into herself as she listens to Whitney Houston.

  Mrs Susskind suddenly shrieks at her. ‘Will you turn that blasted thing off! I pay yo
u to look after me, not listen to your stupid music.’

  Jane fumbles with the volume.

  ‘Oy, what’s the use?’ Mrs Susskind turns to Dina again. ‘Nobody gives a damn about old people in this country anymore. It’s not like it used to be. The youngsters are the ones who get all the attention nowadays. Us alte kakers are just a burden on everyone. Believe me, it’s no fun falling apart.’

  Dina cleans the leg ulcer with antiseptic, growing tired of the woman’s endless complaints.

  ‘Better to grow old than die young.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ Mrs Susskind continues, undeterred. ‘This generation thinks they know everything, but I’m telling you, kids today hardly even know they’re alive. It’s old eyes that can see things young eyes refuse to look at.’

  ‘She’s right, you know.’ Dina’s mother is standing just behind Mrs Susskind. ‘When you are young, your hands hurt from carrying heavy bags. But when you are old, your heart hurts because you have to rely on others to carry them for you. And youngsters are too busy with themselves to give a damn.’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, I lead a full life.’

  ‘What? You and your ghost friends?’ Dina asks, picking dead skin from the wound.

  ‘You think it’s funny, but you know something, when you get old, each day you wake up and find yourself above ground is a good day,’ Mrs Susskind chuckles.

  Dina looks up, realising she had mistaken the old woman for her mother for a moment.

  Mrs Susskind drones on, oblivious. ‘I play bingo twice a week at Beit Rothschild and do my own shopping at Weller’s, buy the few groceries I need – a loaf of bread, some butter, a bit of meat for the cats.’

  The damn cats. The old woman knows the feline family tree of every mangy moggy in Dina’s street. Mrs Susskind is a Cat Feeder. There is one like her in every neighbourhood, all across the country, hovering around rubbish bins, venturing into back alleys; the old women, the paunchy men, puss-puss-puss-ing their whispers to the shadows. They hold out their offering – a piece of stale bread, a bowlful of chicken wings – to the scrawny strays who bestow upon them a moment of warmth, the soft rub of flea-bitten fur against lonely hands.

  Last week, when Dina went to throw out the rubbish just before dinner, she heard Mrs Susskind calling them, as usual.

  ‘Here, puss. Here, my little children.’

  Wearing a crimson dress, an unlit cigarette hanging between her lips, the old woman cornered Dina beside the large green bin across the street. Mrs Susskind’s hair is blonde, although sometimes she turns up as a redhead, only the roots revealing her true colour. She followed a tortoiseshell cat that day, trying to coax it towards her with a chicken wing she held in one hand. She told Dina that Mr Levi, the widower living across the hall, had complained bitterly to her that the entrance to her apartment smelled like a cat toilet.

  ‘But what can I do? I am a lonely woman. These cats are my family now.’

  The tortoiseshell came over and rubbed its head against the old woman’s calves. She noticed Dina staring at the bulging veins crisscrossing her legs, like tributaries running into the delta of her thighs.

  ‘I know. I know. I should be wearing my elastic stockings, but who can bear that in this heat?’

  She threw the chicken wing onto the grass. Suddenly she heard her phone ringing and, picking up her walking stick, rushed off inside, sending all the other chicken wings flying out of the bowl at once.

  The cats pounced on the food, tips of tails curled, bum-holes exposed. From behind they looked like a tribe of little question marks, dancing around an altar.

  The pomegranate flowers had come and gone. Fat fruits from last season hung overripe in the trees, full, fleshy and pink. A tabby cat brought her litter into Dina’s garden, carrying each kitten in her mouth, one by one, transferring them from their hiding place behind the gas cylinders. She lay around licking kitten bedlam. Dina watched Mrs Susskind sneak into the yard in the evenings to feed them.

  ‘You know she drowns the male kittens,’ Eitan told Dina one night after Shlomi went to bed.

  ‘She’d never do a thing like that.’

  ‘I’ve seen her. Whenever there’s a new litter, that old harpy comes down and takes one or two away. I was out on the balcony the other day hanging out washing and saw her hovering around the back of her building. She filled an old bucket from the tap. When she thought no one was watching, she lifted a tabby kitten out of her basket and shoved it under the water.’

  ‘What? Are you sure it was her?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘I think we should report her’.

  ‘No! Don’t do that,’ Dina blurted out. Then, trying to sound calm, she lowered her voice. ‘Mrs Susskind is a woman who only lives to cause trouble, and I certainly don’t want to get involved in a fight with a neighbour, let alone a patient. Besides, as gross as it is, maybe it’s not such a bad thing. At least it helps a little with controlling the stray cat population, which is more than the Haifa animal control people do.’

  ‘Why are you so nice to that woman? Nobody else can stand her.’

  Dina looked down.

  ‘Someone’s got to stop her. She’s nuts.’

  ‘I promise I’ll do something about it,’ Dina said, even though she knew how hard it would be confronting Mrs Susskind. ‘Please, leave it to me.’

  The next afternoon, Dina stood at the kitchen window staring out onto the garden below, while dinner simmered away on the stove. Shlomi was watching the mother cat lick her kittens clean. His own lips coated in milk, shirt stained with pomegranate juice, he played in the dirt. His thick hair was blond and soft, while Dina’s was already thinning out. Every day she searched vigilantly for the first streaks of grey in the mirror and saw the lines around her eyes deepening, her skin becoming dry and sallow. She slathered cream on her face each morning. She saw herself becoming a wooden doll, paint cracking, eyes glazing over. She wished she could cradle her little boy in her arms, but he no longer wanted cuddles, the dirty little tyrant.

  She watched him from the kitchen window. He of his father: beautiful, blood-red, angry lips. Only his eyes, like crystallised sky, belonged to her. Lint collector, dirt collector, snail and shell and stone.

  He bounced his soccer ball several times then picked white hyacinths from the garden. He gathered pebbles in his insect hands. He had wings. Dina saw them shimmering in the sun some days. Glassy, sugary wings with golden sparkles and tiny beaded stars. He sat down on the grass near the mother cat and Dina heard him singing to butterflies, kittens and assorted garden friends.

  It was then that Dina noticed Mrs Susskind shuffle into their yard, her basket empty and waiting. She held a chicken wing in her left hand. The mother cat stood and arched her back, stretching lazily as she greeted the old woman with an affectionate headbutt. The kittens rolled onto the dirt and mewed loudly. Mrs Susskind patted the mother cat, scratching her under the chin.

  Shlomi was staring at Mrs Susskind, who hadn’t noticed him standing there. Neither of them saw Dina watching them from the open kitchen window. Mrs Susskind placed the basket gently on the ground and reached forward, lifting each kitten’s tail. Apparently Eitan was right; she appeared to be searching for males. Shlomi moved over to where Mrs Susskind was squatting.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Dina heard him ask.

  Mrs Susskind looked up at him, taken aback.

  ‘Just playing,’ she answered, her face turning red.

  Shlomi stood with his hands on his hips. Dina could see his wings turn purple. Mrs Susskind picked up a grey male kitten and placed it in her basket.

  ‘That one’s my friend,’ said Shlomi. ‘Where are you taking him?’

  Mrs Susskind stopped and looked up. The kitten, mewing loudly, clawed up the edge of the basket.

  ‘He’s the strongest,’ said Shlomi. ‘His name is Esh, because he’s like fire.’

  The kitten climbed out, landing on the ground in a tangle of legs. It rushed towards Shlomi and rubbed up
against his leg. Shlomi grabbed him and sat on the ground, barricading the squirming ball of fur with his arms. Mrs Susskind looked a little stunned, but soon she lowered herself carefully down beside Shlomi. They sat together under the pine tree in silence. Shlomi smiled at the old lady as she tickled the kitten’s belly.

  ‘Esh,’ Dina heard her say. ‘A strong name.’

  The very next day when Eitan found little Esh dumped behind the public bin, he brought the body upstairs.

  ‘You promised to speak to that old bitch.’ He held the tiny, lifeless kitten out for Dina to see.

  Dina felt the blood drain from her face. She would have to confront Mrs Susskind now.

  Dina prods at the ulcer with a pair of forceps, carefully picking out pieces of dirt, cleaning away the yellowish-green ooze. The rancid smell of decay seeps into the room. No matter how often she tells Mrs Susskind to keep the wound clean and dry, it seems the old woman just doesn’t listen.

  ‘I don’t need anybody. I can look after myself. I used to help out my girlfriend, Bella. We would have coffee together at Kessler’s every Friday morning. We have been meeting there for the past twenty-three years, you know. But she died last month.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.’ In her rush, Dina rips open a sterile dressing, accidentally dropping it on the floor.

  ‘Ha! Don’t be ridiculous! No need to be sorry, darling. I wish we could all go that way. My dear Bella stayed a lady right to the end. You know, she was still wearing her fox fur when she dropped dead?’

  ‘Really?’ Dina takes another dressing out of the cupboard.

  ‘Yes, it’s true. I told her to sit down at our usual table at Kessler’s, while I went to order coffee and krantz. You know, my cholesterol’s always been a problem for you doctors, but never for me, and I am not going to give up my Kessler’s cake.’ Mrs Susskind looks at Dina, checking for her reaction. ‘You know Kessler’s? On Hanassi Avenue? It’s down the little alley behind Garber’s ticket office. They make the best krantz cake in Haifa. You should go there. I know the owner quite well. Tell her I sent you. As a matter of fact, she told me recently she’s starting to have enough of the konditorei business. She’s thinking of retiring. Anyway, so there I was waiting for our order and I looked across at Bella who was sitting at the table smiling at me. I brought everything over on a tray and put the coffee and cake in front of her. Actually, come to think of it, I ordered a cremeschnitte that day; Bella was the one who ordered the krantz. So, okay, I sat down, spooned some sugar into my coffee – I know, I know, you always tell me I should avoid eating sweet things, but what harm is a little nosh here and there? Well, I took a bite of cake and Bella was just sitting there staring at me. ‘Bellinka,’ I said, ‘ess a bissl.’ But she didn’t eat a thing. In fact, she didn’t move. I could see my Bella was already a goner. Blessed be her memory. Dropped off her perch right there at the table, with a smile on her face, not even her lipstick smudged.’