It’s the children’s lives that break my heart. Roaches, rats, asthma. Schools with so many kids dying, they reserve a Grieving Room for classmates. Streets so dangerous that children are kept indoors after school—they’re kept in lockdown, Maya, children already in lockdown as soon as they can walk. It’s perfect training for doing time at Rikers Island, don’t you think? Try to get the politicians to understand that.
So I cry. It’s my secret, and now yours.
Your Mother
The rhythms of this neighborhood have become as familiar as my own pulse. In the afternoon, the cry of the rug peddler alternates with the calls of other Arab men selling knickknacks in the streets. “Alte zachen,” these vendors shout. Gil explained to me that this is Yiddish for “old junk.” He told me that’s how Israelis refer to the vendors—“Call over the alte zachen.”
At every hint of wind these rooms shuffle like a restless river of paper. Sometimes I can’t tell whether it’s the whisper of the palm tree outside that I hear, or the breeze passing through the drawings Gil has hung from walls, clotheslines, shelves. Now there is hardly any time, day or night, when the apartment is silent.
The other day Gil brought home three flat parcels and a small box, and stood smiling at me as I guessed: cloth, books, old maps? He had me check the parcels for airholes; he swore the box moved if you left it on a table; he said I should be careful not to go near it at night. “Don’t you like surprises, Maya? So why not let my new materials be a surprise?” Finally he took me in his arms. “Look,” he said, “you’re the most important person to me. I want to watch your face when you see the whole thing. I want to show it to you when it’s complete, not before.”
Gil has asked me to leave the living room to him during his work hours, and he’s become meticulous in his cleaning, so other than the sketches hanging on the lines there’s no trace of his work when he’s through—only a lingering scent I don’t recognize, a musky and ancient smell. I know by the tension in his back when he climbs into bed each night that he is unsure of himself. I massage the knots slowly, waiting for the few morsels he’ll let slip: trouble getting used to a different kind of surface, something about the thickness of ink. I keep my guesses to myself, and after a few days the excitement of the game grows in me and the faces of the blacks in the living room become almost friendly, partners in a conspiracy.
When Gil can’t sleep, he reads in bed half the night—books of art theory and history, and newspaper after newspaper. The light penetrates my fluttering lids, the pages scrape against the sheets.
Some mornings the pillowcase beside me is smudged with newsprint. I blink in the sunlight and curl beside the empty spot where Gil was, concentrating as if my prayers could be heard along with the blacks’: Let his work be well received, let him be pleased. Let his anger stay away and leave behind the loving, arrogant man I adore.
Two weeks after the end of exams, I receive my grades. As soon as I see them, I’m impatient to write to my mother. But no matter how many times I try that afternoon, I can’t find a way of reporting my 90s and 95s that doesn’t seem to beg for approval. Irked by the nakedness of my hunger, I tear the pages to pieces Then, on a new sheet of airmail paper, I write that I’m pleased with the results, that I think she would be, too.
Gil’s new materials are proving difficult, he paces the apartment with rings under his eyes. I watch the tightening of his jaw from day to day, and try to banish my fear. The least noise sets him on edge. Once, as I struggle with the rusty shutters in the bedroom, I hear his chair scrape on the living room floor. He comes in and strides toward me, arm raised. Just before reaching me, he stops. I stand against the window. We look at each other. He lowers his arm without a word, and shuts his eyes. Then he returns to the living room, slamming the door behind him.
The next afternoon I accidentally drop a pot in the sink. I cringe at the clatter, and whirl to find Gil behind me, laughing. Laughing, that’s all, with nothing else behind it. My own laughter leaves me weak.
I dream that he is in danger. I wander the city searching for him, I dodge through courtyards and twist through empty marketplaces. I know I’m the only one who can help him, but I’m lost in a snarl of unfamiliar alleys. My steps slow until I rest under an archway, and in my fatigue I struggle against the temptation to become part of the architecture winding around me, a stone fence or column, unable to move. I feel him growing farther away, and I know he’s anxious for me to find him before it’s too late.
Waking to the momentary silence of the radio newscaster drawing breath, I know that my attraction to Gil is gravitational.
August 1, 1993
Dear Maya,
Isn’t it funny how our letters cross in the mail. I hardly ask a question before I find your answer in my box. . . .
August 12, 1993
Dear Maya,
I’ll make another confession. During those difficult years with you, I often wished I had a friend I could consult. But you know how it is with me. Faye and I discuss work mostly, and since the divorce I’ve gone it alone.
I know that often the things I say come out all wrong. I don’t mean to hurt anyone. There are times when I offend people and I can’t understand why. Faye has always said I’m too brusque with the volunteers. I suppose I’m just that busy, I don’t have time to worry whether I’ve ruffled someone’s feathers. Is that too much to ask, that people take care of themselves?
What I’m trying to say is, maybe I was too hard on you.
Sometimes I wondered whether you would ever forgive me for the divorce. I wondered whether you and I could ever get along. You were so wrapped up in your own concerns. Understanding you was hard for me. When I was in college, I was so different from you.
But there’s no need to dwell on the past. Everything here is fine. I think of you often.
And it makes me happy to feel like I’m seeing Israel again, after so many years. You’re my eyes and ears there. And more. As I told Dr. Green, it’s not the treatment that’s helped so much. It’s the news from my daughter living in Israel. It’s knowing she’s thriving there.
I sound like a fool, don’t I?
Your Foolish Mother
The murmur of shifting pages fills my nights; the tide of Gil’s anger breaks against the tumbled wall of my body. A shove, a single slap; an apology.
When I open the shutters to morning, the light that flashes off the white sheets in the living room is blinding.
This Friday I will go on a picnic with the Shachars. But in my letters to my mother it will be my third or fourth visit with them, not merely my second. I won’t mention that the Shachars invite me out at least once a week, and that I’ve declined every invitation; instead I’ll enlarge every story Nachum tells, send brightened reports of each conversation.
If I could write the truth, I would tell her that I didn’t accept Michal’s invitation to go with her friends to the north because I’m afraid to leave Gil overnight. I didn’t accept the invitation, though I knew it would be Michal’s last, because I don’t want to miss a day’s happiness. Because I don’t want Gil to forget me while I’m gone. Because I don’t want to return to find him sad.
Because I don’t want him to hit me.
I came to this country to learn. I came in order to see everything, to do it all right. Only I didn’t expect life here would be so hard to understand. I didn’t expect that the fear of getting things wrong would paralyze me. I want to ask my mother: Would it be better to be one of the tourists my cousin scorns, to travel the country with experience fed to me over a tour-bus microphone? I want to write: I don’t know why it’s so hard to leave this apartment.
Here America seems so far away, is what I write instead. It’s difficult to explain what Israel is like, entirely.
Gil works at the gallery only mornings now, and spends his entire afternoons at the drawing table. The heat is more intense every day, and Gil’s eyes water with headaches that a cool washcloth can’t cure. Sometimes he abandons his wo
rk before sunset. He’s too tired to move, he says, too tired to eat dinner. We sit on the balcony, shielding ourselves from the last of the sun’s rays, hopeful for the first evening breeze. Now and then the breezes don’t come; we sit suspended in a still pool of air. I find myself chastising Gil over nothing—a chair left askew, a book laid carelessly across the top of a bookcase, plant leaves crushed by the closing of a shutter. Before I know it, accusations fly reckless from my mouth. I have become the protector of small things; Gil disturbs their order and, thinking of the chaos that spreads under his hands, I am choked with fury. Hateful words rip out of me, some bring him to tears. Selfish, I call him. These damn drawings, why should anyone want to look at pictures of people who won’t even meet their eyes.
And then I am apologizing to him, apologizing desperately. When at last he forgives me, I know that he would forgive me anything. No one else would ever love me enough to forgive me this.
Summer parches our throats, shunts our lives into narrow channels of words so that a missing beat between question and response can signal the beginning of a struggle that will leave me staring off the balcony that night, listening for hours to the steady sound of my own breath. In the morning I stand dumb and exhausted before the empty hours ahead.
Sacher Park is a wide bowl of scrubby grass bordered by trees. Several boys run across the uneven field, kicking a soccer ball.
“Sure you don’t want?” Nachum Shachar offers the container of green olives again, then sets it on the blanket and pops one into his mouth.
Fanya’s voice warbles on from chorus to verse. “We were beginning to think we’d never see you again, Maya. I told Nachum, Maya must have enough friends and admirers to keep her busy. Either that, or that boyfriend of hers keeps her locked up.”
How quickly words flicker through the air, and pass.
“But at least you’ve come to our picnic. Dov will be here soon, too. He called and said he’s letting his boys go early this weekend, they’ve worked hard and need a rest.”
We’ve eaten our first round of lunch. Tami stands to take Ariela on a walk, and I watch the two of them make their way across the field. Ariela seems to be telling a story, her small fists shape grand circles in the air. I can’t tell whether Tami is listening.
The two of them are halfway across the park when Dov appears. The steep slope from Ruppin Street sets him jogging, and he passes us with a wave. In seconds he’s across the field and scooping up Ariela, spinning her in the air and setting her, giggling and shrieking, back on her feet. The soccer players hail Dov by name and race to him, then cluster around him with shy delight as if he’s their local hero.
The shade in this breezeless afternoon could lull a person to sleep.
Fanya’s speech is a seamless fabric of sound. It’s rare that she looks at me, and when she does I’m nodding agreement. So I’m surprised when she turns abruptly silent and faces me directly.
“Tell us about this boyfriend.”
Words come thick and slow. “What about him?”
“‘What about him,’ she asks.” Fanya is shaking her head. “Start with everything.”
“He draws.”
“This we knew.”
Behind Fanya, Nachum chuckles appreciatively.
“He’s very tall.” My words come from a distance; it’s an effort to speak in this afternoon heat. “He has red hair. He reads a lot. He used to be an art student, then he left his program.”
“What did he do in the army?” Nachum asks.
“Tanks,” I fabricate on the spot. “He has a gallery showing in just a couple of weeks,” I add. “He’s working, that’s why he’s not here today.”
Dov settles on the blanket beside Nachum and begins investigating the plastic containers.
“Now, tell us why you liked him when you met him,” Fanya prompts.
“Don’t feel you have to answer all her questions, Maya.” Nachum leans back on one elbow and dips a pita into hummus. “What do they say in America—’You have a right to remain silent.’” He wags the pita at me before taking a bite. “Now please tell me, so how come if this right is so precious to Americans they don’t use it more often?” Nachum winks and holds the container of hummus out to Dov. “Oprah Vin-free,” he pronounces, satisfied. “I read about this in the newspaper. The things people confess on television, I couldn’t believe.”
Fanya smacks Nachum lightly on the shoulder with a plastic lid. “Don’t interrupt. Maya hasn’t told us anything yet.”
I feel the hostility in my voice even before I speak. “I love him,” I say, and look away. I wish I were somewhere else. I wish I were resting in my dim whispering apartment.
“Love?” Fanya seems startled. “What’s your hurry?”
In vain I try not to sound peevish. “It’s true.”
“Love”—Fanya considers each word—“is a very serious thing.” Now she smiles. “It’s different from just having a boyfriend, you know. Tell me, how did you decide all of a sudden it’s love?”
I’m not in the mood for Fanya’s joking. I say nothing.
“But I’m asking you seriously, how do you decide?” Fanya is looking into my face with a concentration I don’t understand. My throat is too tight to permit a response, so I pretend absorption in the hummus Nachum has passed me.
Fanya waits a long while for my reply. “Just remember,” she counsels at last, “don’t commit yourself. Remember, one day at a time. Keep him on his toes. And always be sure he knows to treat you like a queen.”
Beside me, Nachum is stretched out on the blanket. In the hope of diverting Fanya’s attention, I turn and address him as cheerfully as I can. “How did you and Tami meet?”
Nachum stifles a yawn as he speaks. “In the army. We were on the same base.”
“Tss.” Fanya presses her hands to her knees and stands. “This story I know already.” Shading her eyes, she looks toward Tami and Ariela on the far side of the park. I watch her step onto the field, gesturing to the soccer players to tame their wild game while she crosses. They obey. Once on the other side of the field, Fanya joins Tami and Ariela. The three of them walk together until they disappear down a tree-shaded path.
“We met on the base,” Nachum begins, and the corners of his eyes crinkle with pleasure; it’s the expression I’ve come to think of as his storytelling look. “Tami said we’d known each other in high school. I didn’t remember her at all. Still, I noticed her in the army. She was very”—he searches for the proper word—“quiet.”
Dov sighs. The air escapes him like a leak from a bicycle valve, slow and hardly audible. He lies on his back, and while his father speaks he keeps his eyes closed, so that I can’t tell whether he is napping or simply doesn’t want any part of our conversation.
“But not just quiet, something more. Everyone else would be joking, and she would be looking out the window. Thinking. She was always thinking.” Nachum reaches to pick a blade of grass. His glance at me is almost bashful. “Sometimes it took a lot of work, you see. She would be so serious. But I could make her laugh.” He squares the grass between his thumbs and raises his cupped hands to his mouth. But then, instead of whistling, he lowers them. “That’s why I married her,” he says.
Dov’s eyes open in astonishment.
For an instant Nachum’s face falters. He looks tired. Then his mischievous smile returns; he lifts the grass stem to his mouth, and blows.
Dov is staring at his father; I have only a second to notice this before he sees me watching him and shuts his eyes once more. His face hardens in resentment. By witnessing his surprise, I understand, I’ve violated his privacy. I want to pacify him, but can’t think of any way to apologize for learning something about his father just as he learned it for the first time.
Dov lies so still I might almost believe he’s asleep.
The only way I can think of to break the silence that has fallen upon us is to mimic Nachum with a grass stem, and he gives energetic instructions while I blow hopelessly thr
ough my hands. After a few minutes Dov sits up, and soon he and Nachum are deep in speculation about the rumored retirement of a Maccabi-Tel Aviv forward. I puff into my hands, dizzy and relieved.
“So what’s the weekend plan, Dov?” Nachum says. “Are you and Rina going to the beach?”
Dov looks cornered.
Nachum nods cautiously; this is a cue he’s been waiting for. “You two had your same fight again?”
It seems to me that Dov’s complaint is a request for guidance. “I don’t have that fight. She does.”
“Well, she’s a smart girl, maybe. Maybe she’s right to want you to consider university instead of life with the army.” Nachum toys with an empty cup. “You have a good head. Maybe you ought to consider that engineering program.”
Dov’s eyes tighten, registering his father’s betrayal.
The sound of Fanya’s greeting from close by sets us all into energetic replies. She walks briskly up the incline, apparently oblivious to Tami and Ariela behind her.
While Dov moves to make room for his grandmother, I’m aware of Nachum trying to catch Tami’s attention. Tami, her head averted, is busy pouring Ariela’s juice.
Nachum wants to tell you, a vindictive part of me is tempted to announce, that he tried to talk to Dov about something but he’s not sure it worked. How, I wonder, would they feel being put on the spot?
Fanya settles onto the blanket. “Did you ask her, Dov?” she says.
Dov does not answer her but turns to me instead, his face impassive. “Some friends and I are planning a camping trip in the desert in a couple of weeks. Do you and your boyfriend want to join us?”
Fanya sets a hand on my shoulder. “You will,” she says. “Won’t you?”
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