Love Conquers All

by Galia Albin

  Chapter 27

  Talia spent all of the next day traipsing around town with Na’ama, from one children’s show to another, to penny arcades, amusement parks and children’s clothing stores, trying to distract herself. Her heart empty, her arms full of shopping bags, she squeezed into a phone booth to call Jenny. No, Mr. Schwarz had not called. Yes, the children are fine, the girl replied in a somnolent voice.

  I’m miserable, and I don’t know what is happening to me, Talia thought, trying to sort out the confusion in her mind. Her anger at Jonathan increased with every passing hour. But there was also fear. Her heart beat violently every time she called home; had Jonathan called in the meantime? What was his message? His long silence—since Friday morning—could mean only one thing; he had decided to stay in Israel, leaving her to her own devices.

  There was also the nagging, threatening pain at the small of her back. She had to sit down on a bench or at a cafe, to recover from her fatigue and nausea. It was late in the afternoon by the time she realized she’d forgotten to go to the doctor, the doctor who had opened the clinic especially for her.

  They returned home in the late afternoon. Jonathan had not called, Jenny repeated laconically. But there had been a lot of other calls. Jenny walked to the refrigerator and handed her a list.

  Talia examined the list; her mother had called from Haifa, then Mody Barzel, Dan Malhi, her brother Shai, four reporters, two of whom were familiar to her, Nahum Rimmon, Ditty. All these people had called earlier.

  “Did they want to talk to Jonathan?”

  “No, they all wanted to talk to you.”

  Her confusion increased. They already knew that Jonathan has left me?! What business is it of theirs, anyway? She wanted to crawl into bed and bury herself under the thick comforter.

  The phone rang. It was her brother Shai.

  “Talia, please sit down, I have something to tell you,” her brother was speaking in an unusually gentle tone, as if she were sick and needing care.

  He sounded excited and she wanted him to get to the point. “I’m terribly sorry, Tali, this is not going to be easy. On Friday afternoon, Jonathan was summoned to the police station for some urgent questioning. He went there not knowing why he’d been called. He didn’t tell anybody about it, not even Nahum, who was waiting for him. He probably assumed they’d release him right away. But the police decided to keep him in custody overnight. Without a warrant from a judge. Can you imagine this, Jonathan in detention?! For an entire night! Saturday morning, at ten thirty, the officer who was with him left the room for a few minutes and when he came back, he saw Jonathan downstairs, on the asphalt. He had jumped from the third floor.”

  On hearing the first sentences, she felt the room whirl about her, although she was still able to hear and take everything in that her brother said. It seemed to her that she emitted a terrible shriek, repeating again and again, “Jonathan! Jonathan! Jonathan! Don’t leave me! Na’ama was staring at her, terrified. Jenny handed her a glass of water, but her shaking had dropped it. Her heart beat violently and her lungs wheezed and hurt her. She stopped shrieking, realizing, despite her terrible distress, that she might wake up the little ones and scare them. She was still holding the phone. “Shai, I’m sorry I screamed,” she blurted out wildly, and hung up.

  The confusion that had surrounded her all day dispelled at once. Jonathan is dead, killed. He’s gone. She’ll never see him again. The pain was unbearable, invasive, brutal, as if a team of surgeons were operating on her without anesthesia. Tears streamed down her cheeks, scalding her skin, leaving little scorched spots that joined together to cover her entire face.

  “A car will pick you up in half an hour. Take your passport, enough money for a plane ticket, and a few clothes. You’ll have to stay here for at least a week.” Nahum was calling from Zurich, where he had gone to tell Jonathan’s mother of her son’s death. He was childhood friend of Jonathan, and it was his duty. But he had to down a whole bottle of whisky before he could muster up the courage to tell the old woman. “A terrible tragedy has occurred. Our Jonathan is dead,” he told her. The old lady did not shed a tear. Her facial muscles contorted for a moment, then regained their composure. Only the cane in her hand trembled.

  Nahum’s words barely registered in Talia’s mind. The thought that she would arrive in Israel before her mother-in-law was of some consolation. At least she would have one day to be alone with Jonathan.

  How easy it would be to be a robot, not to think, not to feel, just to carry out orders. Mechanically, she did everything Nahum had instructed her. She found an envelope Jonathan had left in the passport drawer containing five thousand English pounds, neatly packed into five little bundles. Before his departure, he insisted on leaving her a larger sum than usual. “Why should you worry about money, Talia? You don’t know London very well, so you should have enough money on you. Go shopping, splurge, enjoy yourself.” She had never understood Ditty’s complaints about Micah’s stinginess. Other girlfriends, too, complained of their tight-fisted, husbands. With us, it’s always the reverse, she though, and a wave of love and longing engulfed her; it was he who wanted to shower me with the treasure of the world, and I had to stop him, but as usual, the last move was his, for all my protests. She opened the bundles of money and absentmindedly fingered the notes. She was overcome by shame and guilt; on Jonathan’s last day, she had wasted her emotions on anger, jealousy, unfounded suspicions. Her heart cried and went out to Jonathan, her husband, who loved her and cared for her until his very last moment.

  A car was waiting for her downstairs, its lights dimmed, and an Israeli chauffeur drove her to the airport in heavy silence. Somebody had facilitated all the procedures for her until she boarded the plane; she did not go through any check-ins or inquiries, but was led directly to the first call compartment. Behind a curtain that shielded her from the other passengers, she was assisted by Miri, an air hostess who was actually Ditty’s sister, a quiet, young woman with a round face and straight, blond hair. For the first time in her life she had become an object of pity and although she was fully aware of it, her anguish had made her indifferent; she no longer had the strength to resist.

  The curtain was opened and the captain, Absalom Gur, came to see her. He told her what had happened to Jonathan, information gathered from articles published in newspapers that she had not had a chance to read and from discussions that centered on Jonathan. She listened to him with her mind split in two; one half absorbing, the other half rejecting the information. Tormenting “what if’ thoughts began to haunt her, tearing at her inwardly. If only she had urged him to stay! If only she had allowed her pains, her insecurity, her fear of the disease to get the better of her! Hadn’t Jonathan himself said that “you don’t fool around with the liver?” But she’d played the heroine, she wanted to be the perfect woman, the ideal wife that bends her will to her husband’s. As she had urged him to go, she had wanted him to stay, and the more she wanted, the more entrenched she’d become in her pretense. The dauntless woman indeed! One word from her, and Jonathan would have stayed; he would never have gone to his death, the road from which no traveler returns.