by I J Shur
“I totally understand you. It’s just bad timing for me right now.”
“When can I get back to you? You’re taking a huge risk!”
Oded’s enthusiasm to close the deal began to annoy Udi. He felt that Oded was trying to manipulate him.
“Let’s talk in another month or so. We’ll see what’s happening,” Udi replied.
Chapter 30
The week dragged on. Udi still checked the various building sites that he managed on a daily basis, but he reduced to a minimum the amount of time he spent on each one. He looked at the people who came to him with offers, but he wasn’t interested in any of them. He tried to feign interest, but his thoughts wandered and he couldn’t focus on the people he spoke with.
“Where are you?” asked the architect who had made an appointment with him and had arrived impeccably dressed. The gentle fragrance of her perfume wafted through the air.
“Here with you,” he said, not even able to convince himself.
“Are you sure?” She raised her eyebrows.
“Really, everything’s okay. I’m just having one of those days when your thoughts are swirling through your head and you don’t know where to begin.”
“I hear what you’re saying.” She smiled. “But you ought to know that you haven’t convinced me. You know, I am a woman…”
“Maybe we can talk about it another time,” he said, sending her a pleading look that asked her to drop it.
“Well, at least we can wrap up our meeting so I won’t end up leaving empty-handed.”
Udi agreed, and within half an hour she was thanking him for his time and delicately shaking his hand.
He was disappointed with himself. What’s happening to me? Can’t I just disconnect from my thoughts and tune in to reality? Not everybody will show me this kind of patience, and in the end, I’ll find myself burning bridges with people whose confidence I worked so hard to gain.
For the rest of the week, he tried to concentrate on his work. He cut down on his conversations with Rona. He hadn’t seen her for a while. Then, on Saturday, he decided to visit his parents. He asked Varda to go along but wasn’t surprised that she turned him down. Again, he stifled a feeling of frustration and rage. She never seemed to find the time to join him for one of those visits.
He left early on Saturday morning. He hadn’t maintained much of a relationship with his father over the years. From time to time, his father had tried to make amends, but Udi rejected the feeble attempts to get closer, and not always in the most pleasant fashion.
He spent the drive lost deep in thought. He had lacked a father figure as a child, and his problems during adolescence had caused his father to withdraw. Udi had barely felt his presence during those critical years when he had most needed a father. He remembered how, time after time, his father would promise to go see class performances or attend parent-teacher conferences. Time after time, he’d looked at the empty seat next to his mother and dreamed of the moment when the door would open and his father would stride in, take a seat, and give him his full attention.
That never happened. He remembered falling asleep with uncontrollable tears pouring down his face. He was embarrassed to tell his mother how he felt, and he thought that children were supposed to suck it up, to get over it, to not constantly want their mother or father to be by their side. He tried to gain his father’s attention in different ways, and he was often disappointed when his father never said anything to him or asked him how things were going in school, or with his friends—or about anything whatsoever. Udi had sat next to his father waiting forever for him to finish his conversations with his friends so that, just for a moment, Udi would be able to get in a question or a word of his own or, at the very least, offer his opinion.
Many years later, from conversations he had with Assaf, Udi learned that his father’s apparent disinterest in him and in what he had to say caused him to think that his words were worthless and nobody cared what he thought. As he himself became a father, he knew that he would not let his children go through life without feeling that he was there to listen to them, to steer them in the right direction, to give a high priority to their concerns. Have I succeeded? Did I become the one thing that I tried so hard not to be?
As he drove down the highway, he felt, for the first time, compassion for his father. The old feelings of anger dissipated, and for the first time in his life, he felt that there was no room for the mountain of resentment that was lodged firmly between them. It all seemed so superfluous and unimportant. Why did I have to wait so many years to reach this insight? Why only now, when he is ill and dying, am I finally allowing myself to chop down this tree of grievances that I have grown and cultivated all of these years?
He arrived at his parents’ home and parked his car, short of breath and with his heart pounding. He was going to see his father. What will he have to say? How will I respond? Will he touch me? Kiss me? Ask how I am? Will I tell him about myself? Udi decided to go with the flow and see what happened.
Chapter 31
Udi’s father didn’t realize Udi had entered the room. He sat at the dining room table, fingers rummaging through a bowl of chocolates. He had the same face, the same body, the same eyes—but a different look, different movements. He was slower, clumsier, maybe even a bit more child-like.
Udi studied the bowl his parents had brought from Shanghai thirty years earlier. Painted on its wooden lid were three golden dragons, each one holding the tail of the one in front of it. As a child, he had spent hours staring at those three startling animals, but now, all of a sudden, he saw them morphing into three friendly creatures sitting atop a small black container that had sweetened his memories.
Udi sat down next to his father and placed his hand on his back. His father turned toward him and his eyes lit up.
“Son,” he cried out in happiness. “I’m so happy you came!”
“How are you?” Udi asked.
“Considering the circumstances, I’m doing all right.” His father’s answer was direct, making it clear that he was still alive and kicking. Udi’s mother walked into the room, and her eyes lit up at the sight of them.
“I’m so glad you came. Your father has been waiting for you.”
“Yes,” said Udi. “I’ve also been waiting to see him.”
Then, whispering over his father’s head, he asked, “How is he?”
“Don’t ask her.” The old man looked up at him. “Ask me. She doesn’t understand anything. She thinks I’m sick, but look at me. Do I look sick to you?”
“As you can see, the patient is completely fine.” Udi’s mother smiled at him.
Udi laughed and reached out to his father. “Do you know that after you eat chocolate, you need to take a walk to burn off the calories? So let’s go for a little stroll…”
Chapter 32
The street was totally empty and cooled by a light breeze. Udi took hold of his father’s arm and steadied him as they walked. His father moved in slow, measured steps, and his sentences often began but did not always end. Udi asked if he was cold and suggested that they turn back.
“No, it’s doing me good to be here with you on the street. They say that I forget things, that I forget who I am. I don’t feel that it’s true. I mean, here I am with you. Isn’t that enough of a sign that everything’s okay?”
“Do you feel that you can manage on your own?”
“Yes, at the end of the day. Apart from that, your mother is always with me.”
I wonder how he really feels about that. Does he know how lucky he is after everything he put her through?
“Do you love her?”
“What kind of a question is that?”
Udi sighed and looked at his father. He’s not going to get away with it this time. “It’s a question that I’m interested in hearing the answer to. It’s also important to me to know if you tell her tha
t you love her.” After a pregnant pause, he continued. “In fact, I’d really love to go home now and hear you tell her that you love her.”
The old man shrugged his shoulders and raised his palms skyward. “She knows that I love her. What more is there to say?”
“I think she’s probably unsure, because it is unlikely that you told her how much you love her for years. All of this time, she was by your side, during the good and the bad, and I think that it would make her very happy to hear it from you.”
The old man walked on, waving his hands at Udi dismissively. “I’ll tell her. I’ll say that you asked me to do it.”
Pushing his advantage, Udi continued. “I don’t care what you say before or after, but you need to look her in the eyes and tell her that you love her.”
The two men walked on in silence for a few minutes, past the white apartment blocks. Then, out of the blue, Udi’s father turned to him and frowned. “All right, my son. I love you, too, and I don’t have any problem saying that to you. I don’t know if I ever told you that I love you. I don’t know if I ever had enough free time for myself to even be able to think about if I loved all of you. Maybe I was too busy loving myself, and maybe I even hated myself a little bit. Anyway, I didn’t see how much we all needed each other.”
He drew a deep, sobbing breath, and his shoulders shook as his eyes filled with tears. He stopped and looked straight ahead. Udi hugged him, and then they slowly walked home. Once in a while, his father would stop walking and he’d breathe deeply, as if he had started to say something, but he remained silent.
Chapter 33
“How was it?” asked Udi’s mother, glancing at her husband. “I can see that it was a little emotional. What did you talk about?”
Udi looked into her eyes. “About love, Mother. We were talking about love.”
His father grasped his arm. “Come, my son, I like it that you’re here. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
Udi looked at him and decided then and there, as long as his father was still lucid, he’d come to see him as often as he could. In spite of everything that had passed between them, he decided he would give his father as much love as possible. How hard can that be? He looked at his watch.
“Do you have to go?” his mother asked.
“Yes, I must.” He hugged her and turned back to his father, who was busy again with the bowl of chocolates. He seemed disconnected from what was happening around him. Udi hugged him too.
“Goodbye, Father. Feel well! I’ll see you soon.”
Chapter 34
The next afternoon, Udi finished a meeting at one of his worksites. The meeting had included many participants, and it was both long and complicated. All he wanted to do after the meeting was go to the nearest coffee shop to recharge his batteries. He was pulling his car out of the building site and onto the road when his phone rang and he saw a name he loved on the screen.
He clicked on the message. Please meet me at the parking lot by the beach and don’t answer any unidentified calls until we meet!
His heart began to pound.
At the side of the road was a symmetrical row of cypress trees, and a bit behind them, a grove of banana trees, their drooping leaves covering the ground, tent-like, creating a thicket that appeared impenetrable. Horror movie scenes flashed through his head. The tone of Rona’s message seemed ominous to him. Why did she ask me not to answer any unidentified phone numbers? Maybe it’s her husband, who’s found out everything?
Udi’s phone rang, echoing through the car. He didn’t recognize the number, and quick thinking prevented him from pressing the screen to answer the call. The incessant ringing made his heart rate increase. After what seemed like several minutes, the phone finally stopped ringing and a quiet beep notified him that the caller had left a voice message. Udi took a deep breath before listening to the message.
“You bastard!” barked a metallic, threatening voice from the speaker, and his heart, which was already beating fast, threatened to burst out of his chest.
Udi reduced the car’s speed, knowing that in a few minutes he’d have to deal with Rona. He wanted to catch his breath first, and he wanted, more than anything, to show Rona that he was calm and in control of the situation. Her car was at the far end of the parking lot, facing the sea. He parked next to her. Her head rested on the steering wheel, and her arms hung at her sides. Despite revving his engine as he approached, she didn’t move, and he began to worry. He instinctively swiveled his head in a wide circle, checking out the area before getting into her car.
His worst fears were confirmed when he heard a sniff and a stifled sob. He put his arm around her back. Her voice cracked when she spoke.
“My husband! He’s a divorce lawyer. He’s been through many ugly divorces with his clients.” A cold sweat dripped down his spine to the small of his back, and he began to shake.
“I understand that we’re no longer a secret. How did he find out?”
The tears that rolled down her face smudged her makeup along the sides of her cheeks, turning a portrait into an abstract. Her nose was running. A brief, uncontrollable laugh escaped his dry throat.
“You think this is funny?” she asked.
“Only the boogers,” he replied, and she smiled.
“Yesterday my husband and I were at school for a conversation with our son’s teacher. While we were waiting for our turn, you sent me a love message, remember? I looked at it and placed my phone in my bag, planning to check it later on when I wasn’t being watched so closely. Then I had to pee, so I went to the restroom. When I got back, I saw this look on his face, and then I put two and two together and realized that he must have read the message that you sent. Luckily, we were called into the conference at that moment so I was able to avoid a big scene…”
“And what happened afterward? How did he respond?”
“We didn’t talk on the way home. We put the kids to bed, cleaned up the house, and went up to the bedroom. Then, in a chilling voice, he all of a sudden said, ‘Are you sleeping with him?’ Even though the blood started rushing around my body at high speed, I told him that I had no idea what he was talking about. That was when he said that he’d seen the message and that I shouldn’t play games with him, so I acted hurt. I told him that I thought I had some right to privacy in my own house and we shouldn’t be reading each other’s messages. And then I read your message again and realized that there was no doubt—it couldn’t be interpreted any other way. He tried to corner me, but I learned something.”
She blew her nose again. “Never admit anything. Keep playing the game of ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about’ so that in the end you can sew some seeds of doubt in the head of the interrogator. I knew that I couldn’t break down and admit it. I know how much my husband loves me and how much he was pleading for me to say that it wasn’t true, that this hell that had dropped on him from nowhere (on top of him of all people) would shrivel and disappear. I told him that I wasn’t denying that we have a work relationship together. I said that lately you have been sending me messages with hints, and that I’d found myself wondering if you were just kidding or if you were serious. I told him that I hadn’t bothered to actually ask you, so as not to make a bigger deal of this than necessary…and then he told me that he’d call you today. Then when I started defending you to him, that broke him, and then we had a fight and I cried all night long. I’ll understand if you want to break this off. I understand…”
Udi looked into her eyes. “I won’t give up on you,” he said softly. “I think that we should not be in touch with each other for a few days, at least until you can compose yourself and feel stronger. Things will calm down between you and him, so it won’t be that great of a risk. We wouldn’t want the tragedy of breaking up our families…”
Her eyelids began to droop and she fell asleep, her head leaning on his shoulder. He knew that she needed sleep
after the long night she’d had, so he tried not to move.
This hell could fall on me. It would only take Rona’s husband phoning me or Varda for my already uptight world to become a living hell. Maybe Varda knows. She is, after all, a woman, and women are far from stupid.
Udi tried to calm himself by thinking that the wife usually finds out last, even when all of the red lights are flashing and the writing is on the wall. He wondered what was going on with her. He couldn’t imagine how she might respond if she found out. She’s my wife—I care about her, and I don’t want to break her heart. His pulse increased and his breath quickened. What kind of discussion would I have with Varda if she placed all the cards on the table? Would I be evasive? Would I deny it? Would I admit it? How hard would that conversation be? Would she scream? Would she kick me out of the house? Would she listen to me, and would she be willing to forgive me if I promised her that it was only a one-time thing? Would I be willing to give up Rona?
As he contemplated whether or not he’d be able to give her up, Rona’s eyes opened. She emptied the contents of the water bottle that had been on the back seat. “What happened? Are you stuck in my car? Don’t you have anything to do?” she asked with a devilish grin, one that he was, by now, familiar with.
“If you continue with these scenes, I really won’t have any work…and besides, there are things that are more pressing than work lately.”
When he parted from Rona, he called Yinon and told him about Rona’s husband. “I’m really worried,” he said. “This husband can light a fire that all of the fire trucks in the world won’t be able to put out.”
“Are you sure that’s what the husband wants to do? I think that you should stay away for a while and give Rona some time to manage this crisis. Just be there for her, listen to what she has to say, and be careful—just be careful, the two of you. You knew that this wasn’t going to be easy, didn’t you?”
