by Batya Gur
Even though Michael had repeatedly explained to himself then that he couldn’t possibly have known that Uzi—who had gone off to the western Galilee after their final exams, to relax and “let his hair down” at the beach at Ahziv—would come back the same day, even though he consoled himself with the thought that Uzi had no way of knowing that the affair had been going on for a year and a half, he couldn’t look him in the eyes again.
It was only after the meeting with Noa, who complained to him about Uzi’s reserve, about the fact that it was impossible to have a warm, open relationship with him, that he was barricaded inside his own world of fish and marine vegetation, cut off from people—only then did Michael think that it might be possible for him to meet Uzi again one day.
He heard the pleased surprise in his old friend’s voice when, with trembling fingers, he had called the Diving Club in Eilat the week before, five full years after the conversation with Noa in the Jerusalem café. They spent the first evening in laughter, bringing each other up-to-date. Uzi’s parents were scarcely mentioned. Of his father’s death Michael had heard ten years before, a slow, agonizing death from cancer. He had heard too, from a former classmate, that his wife had cared for him devotedly, that she had remarried, and that she had gone to live in Paris.
Uzi himself did not mention his mother, only his father’s death, to which he referred in passing, and Michael, who was longing to bring up the subject and had imagined, almost in detail, how they would discuss it and explain it and resolve everything between them, felt profoundly disappointed. Uzi avoided emotional subjects, and all Michael’s attempts in this direction were rebuffed with jokes, which were usually pointless. Even the bottle of wine they polished off with the delicious meal Uzi had cooked for them didn’t help.
For the first time, Michael noticed the resemblance between Uzi’s features and those of his mother—the shape of the lips, the slanting eyes—and he even hoped to recapture that marvelous smell of hers, which he had sought ever since in every woman he met, and found finally in Maya. But Uzi’s smell was the smell of the sea.
Michael couldn’t deny the relief he felt, after the tension and initial joy of the reunion, when he noticed that Uzi had put on weight and even begun to go bald. There was something consoling about it. Time had not spared even this eternal youth, despite his vigorous way of life, despite his tan, despite the luxuriant beard and the eyes that were almost always laughing. The eyes that were now veiled with panic.
“What happened?” Michael repeated his question, and Uzi explained that that was precisely the problem, he didn’t know what had happened, and he pointed to the diving apparatus lying on the beach. “They took the air tanks,” he said. “We’ll see; maybe there was a leak. I asked him routinely before the dive, and he said he checked the equipment two months ago. I don’t know what happened, but he wasn’t alone; he was with an instructor. We’ll have to wait for the results of the examination. Things like this are really rough on one. Now I’m waiting for everyone to come out. Here comes your kid.”
And Michael remained where he was and watched his son sit down on the sand a little way off and begin removing his mask, his regulator, his flippers, and finally his black diving suit, listening attentively all the while to his instructor, Guy, who was standing next to him and rapidly taking off his gear, talking and gesturing vigorously with his hands. Now, seeing his son alive and alert, Michael realized just how frightened he had been.
“Who was the fellow who drowned?” he asked Uzi, and Uzi replied distractedly: “Some guy from Jerusalem, but not originally. His name’s Iddo Dudai, a bit serious but okay, someone who always wanted to do it but didn’t have the dough. He began the course a year ago, but he got stuck for money; one of those university types. I’m still hoping he’ll come out of it. I’m waiting for them to call me; the instructor went with him. What can I tell you—he’s got a wife and a little girl. Well, maybe he’ll pull out of it,” he said in a weak voice. “It’s not our equipment; he got it from someone as a present when he began the course, I don’t know who. I don’t know anything about the tanks either. Maybe there was a leak.”
“And maybe there was something wrong with the regulator,” said Michael, seeing in his mind’s eye the article in the magazine that he held folded in his hand, and Uzi looked at him appraisingly and asked: “Since when have you become an expert on diving apparatus? Are you planning to specialize in that, too, now?” Michael handed him the magazine, and suddenly he remembered, vividly, the rage that would flare up in Uzi when they were studying together for their final exams, especially the history exam; and thick, tedious books they had to read would inspire in his friend a mighty desire to sleep in the middle of the first book, while he, Michael, had already read all five of the texts for the second time.
Uzi began telling Guy the details of the accident, and Yuval listened tensely. Guy, a red-haired young man, became increasingly upset. His round freckles grew more and more pronounced as his face grew paler.
Michael scrutinized Yuval’s face, which, at first radiant with the thrilling experience of the dive, was becoming grave, and as words like “atmospheric pressure” and “diaphragms” began to fly around them, all Michael could think of was whether Yuval would forgo the last dive of the weekend. It was hot and he was longing for a dip in the deep-blue water, but he knew that in the circumstances it would look like a demonstration of indifference to what had happened, like something indecent.
The question of the last dive was settled when Uzi announced that there would be no more diving this day and assembled the instructors—four tanned young men who looked as if someone had cast them in bronze in their bathing trunks, as if they had never worn anything else in their lives—and accompanied them to the office, where he sat next to the telephone, biting his nails in a way that flooded Michael with a wave of acute longing for the boy he had once been, for his mother and father, and even for Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and the whole experience of that first encounter with European culture, which had been so powerfully transmitted to him through the delicate filter of Becky Pomerantz, Uzi’s mother.
They sat in the office, waiting for the telephone to ring. Uzi refused to budge, and Michael waited with him. The two of them smoked in silence, the stubs mounted in the ashtray, and at four o’clock the phone finally rang. Uzi let it ring twice and coughed deeply before he picked up the receiver. Michael heard the words “Yes, I understand” and then pricked up his ears as Uzi said: “How do you want me to handle it?” and after that: “I don’t mind going up there myself. I feel responsible, anyway.” Finally he replaced the receiver and asked with downcast eyes if he could drive back to Jerusalem with Michael that day, “actually, now, if you wouldn’t mind cutting your holiday short,” and Michael went to look for Yuval, who didn’t protest and, on the way to collect their belongings from Uzi’s flat, said to his father: “I spoke to him a bit and he seemed a really okay guy, that Iddo. He told me he taught literature at the university.” Apparently it came as a surprise to him that anyone who taught literature could be interested in a sport like diving.
After Michael let Yuval off outside his flat, he offered to accompany Uzi to Ruth Dudai’s address, to inform her of her husband’s death in a diving accident, “in unclear circumstances,” as he would say in the living room of the Ramat Eshkol apartment, with the Saturday evening television news as accompaniment, to the woman with big brown eyes that stared at them in horror from behind round spectacles.
Uzi, in the briefest of shorts, with “biblical” sandals on his feet and a wild, unkempt beard, looked like a desert creature transplanted to a zoo, as if he was completely out of his element and didn’t know what to do with his body.
So, once again, Michael Ohayon found himself playing a role to which he was accustomed, and he broke the news.
She didn’t cry, the plump little woman who tightened her hands on the flimsy stuff of the shift she was wearing. Because of the heavy khamsin that had descended on Jerusalem
a week before and had still not relaxed its grip, the windows, which overlooked the street, were wide open, and the noise of the cars and buses driving past on Eshkol Boulevard sounded as if they were coming from inside the apartment. The sound of the television set, which nobody had thought to switch off, merged with the din from the street and the voices coming from the televisions in the apartments surrounding them.
“What’s going to happen now?” asked Ruth Dudai in a dreamy voice, and Michael recognized the signs of shock. Quietly, slowly, he began to explain to her that they would have to wait for the results of the postmortem examination in order to discover the cause of the accident, and only then would it be possible to make the funeral arrangements. “It will be necessary for someone to identify him,” he said carefully, “and you should have someone close to be with you now.” And then he asked gently if she had any family. “Only my father and his wife, and they’re in London now, and someone will have to tell Iddo’s parents—oh, God!” And only then, it seemed, did the news sink in, and she burst into tears.
Uzi stood there in horrified embarrassment, and Michael made her sit down in the only armchair in the room and handed her a glass of water that he had quickly brought from the kitchen. As she sipped the water, he asked her who could be with her now, immediately, and she said “Shaul Tirosh” and gave Michael the telephone number, which he made haste to dial.
There was no reply from the home of the man of whom even Uzi, who was blatantly uninterested in literature, had heard. Michael remembered him clearly from his university days; he had taken some classes with him when he was studying for his B.A. As he dialed the number, he conjured up the image of the dark suit, the carnation in the buttonhole, and especially the yearning looks of the female students. Discreetly he asked if Tirosh was a member of the family. “No,” said Ruth, and her ponytail swayed as she shook her head, “but he’s close to Iddo. He was Iddo’s supervisor for his doctorate, and I thought . . . ” She burst into tears again. “We can’t tell Iddo’s parents over the phone; they’re old and sick, and his father’s recovering from a heart attack, and his brother’s traveling in South America, and I don’t know what to do.”
Michael leafed mechanically through the telephone book lying next to the phone and asked again whether there was anyone she would like to have with her now. “Perhaps a close woman friend?” he asked. In the end she gave a name, Michael dialed the number, and the woman on the other end promised, in a shocked voice, to come right away. After that he called Eli Bahar, the inspector he had been working with for years, gave him the information he had extracted from Ruth Dudai, who between bursts of crying had answered all his questions in a matter-of-fact way, and asked him to notify Iddo’s parents, “with a doctor; they’re old and there’s a heart problem.”
Afterward Ruth Dudai asked them to inform the secretary of the Literature Department, Adina Lipkin, which Michael did, and finally, when a forceful young woman called Rina arrived, embraced Ruth—who remained frozen in Rina’s arms—with a dramatic expression on her face, patted her on the shoulder, and announced: “I’m going to put the kettle on,” they left. Outside, Michael brushed aside Uzi’s thanks aside impatiently, never imagining for a moment that this was not the end of the affair.
3
The telephone rang next to Ruchama’s ear with a shrill clamor. She hastened to pick up the receiver, still almost in her sleep. Then she noticed that Tuvia was not in bed and assumed that he had fallen asleep on the sofa in his study, as he frequently did. She heard a trembling, hysterical voice at the other end of the line. Ruchama saw that it was not yet half past seven in the morning. “Hello,” said Adina Lipkin again, this time in a firmer voice, and Ruchama replied with a weary “Yes?”
“Mrs. Shai?” inquired Adina, and Ruchama envisioned the rigid waves of the department secretary’s hair and her plump hands stirring cucumber into a container of yogurt.
“Yes,” said Ruchama. She kept her relations with Adina on a strictly official level, never exchanging recipes or health information or personal experiences with her, with the result that Adina never dared to call her by her first name.
“This is Adina Lipkin, the department secretary,” said Adina, as she had said to Ruchama almost every morning for the past ten years. Ruchama had never done anything to break the familiar pattern.
“Yes,” she said, with businesslike brevity, hoping her tone would prevent any attempt at a conversation.
“I wanted to speak to Dr. Shai,” said Adina with a certain despair.
“He’s sleeping,” said Ruchama, and waited for the usual explanation.
“Ah,” said Adina, and sure enough began to explain that it was convenient for her to call at this early hour since she had a lot of work waiting for her during the day, “and later on, you know, all the lines are busy.” Ruchama said nothing.
“Perhaps you can help me yourself?” and Adina went on without waiting for a reply. “I’m actually looking for Professor Tirosh. I’ve phoned and phoned, and there’s been no answer at his house since yesterday. I need him urgently, and I thought that perhaps you might be able to help me by telling me where I can find him.”
“No,” said Ruchama. Her head began to clear, and at the same time she felt the oppressive uneasiness of the past few days returning. When Adina Lipkin said that something was “urgent,” as Ruchama knew only too well, it predictably meant that it could, and usually did, wait for weeks.
“All right. Thank you, anyway. I’m sorry to have bothered you. I only thought that perhaps Dr. Shai would be able to tell me where I could find him. In any case, if Dr. Shai’s coming in today, and it seems to me that he is, would you please ask him to contact me first?”
“Yes,” said Ruchama and she put down the phone.
Adina couldn’t have known that ever since the departmental seminar, ever since Wednesday night, Ruchama’s world had collapsed around her. Even Shaul Tirosh, who had broken with her without any warning on Thursday, the day after the seminar, couldn’t have known. He had hardly been conscious of her then. There was a strange fire burning in his eyes as he examined his well-manicured nails and then looked at her, his head on one side, and, in a lighthearted tone that contradicted the fire in his eyes, said that she must have noticed that for some time now the relationship between them had lost its flavor and become routine, the kind of routine he had been trying to avoid all his life. “That’s the way it goes,” he concluded. “In the words of the poet: at first it’s ‘I loved you more than I could say,’ and in the end it’s ‘Then we came to town and Havazeleth pinned me down,’ if you understand what I mean.”
Ruchama didn’t understand, but she thought of Ruth Dudai. She didn’t know what poet he was quoting; she had no idea of the process described by the poem. Her incomprehension was apparently evident on her face, and in response Tirosh indicated the book by David Avidan that was lying on his desk and, drawing her attention to the poem “Personal Problems,” said that reading poetry could be very helpful in one’s life and that she ought to try it.
Ruchama had often, in dread, imagined their parting. But she had never guessed that it would hurt so much, never envisaged, despite all she had been told, despite all the signs, how cruel he could be. “What have I done?” she wanted to ask, but she choked back the question when she saw him resume examining his fingernails and sensed that her presence was superfluous.
She counted to herself the days that had passed since then: “Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday—and Sunday’s only beginning.”
Since Thursday afternoon she had been in bed. Tuvia had informed the hospital that she was sick and had taken care of her with distant concern. Behind the familiar domestic gestures she was aware of a new energy, of something she had never sensed in him before. Something that spoke of rage and despair.
Shaul’s name was not mentioned between them. Tuvia went out and stayed away for hours on end. She didn’t know where he was. On Friday he went to a department meeting at eight in the mo
rning and came home late at night.
She had spent the days since Shaul’s farewell ceremony in continuous sleep, interrupted only by drinks of water and trips to the bathroom. When she awoke for a moment, the feeling of loss would return to torture her with such intensity that she felt as if her body could not bear the separation. The pleasure she had known since meeting Shaul, the physical pleasure, had become an addiction, and she did not know how she would overcome it.
When Tuvia urged her absentmindedly to eat something, she shook her head. It was hard for her to talk, and Tuvia did not try to draw her out.
For once, Ruchama wanted him to break through the wall, to help her. And precisely now, of all times, she felt that he was relieved by her withdrawal, her lack of interest in his activities. He had spent the whole of Saturday in his study. Now, after Adina’s phone call, she went there for the first time since Friday and found him lying on the sofa with his eyes open, staring at the ceiling. On the threadbare carpet at his feet lay scattered all the volumes of Tirosh’s poetry.
Ruchama began to wonder if Tuvia was actively participating in her intimate grief at no longer having a place in Tirosh’s life.
She put the thought into unspoken words; surely Shaul couldn’t have told him; surely he wouldn’t have dared. Surely Tuvia couldn’t possibly know. She looked at him. His eyes went on staring at the ceiling and then slowly turned to her. They terrified her. There was something lifeless in them. Disengaged.
“That was Adina,” she said quietly. Of all the words in the world, these seemed the safest.
“What Adina?” asked Tuvia, and then she saw that he had disconnected the telephone on his desk.
“Adina. On the phone, looking for Shaul,” said Ruchama uncertainly.
“Why’s she looking for him here?” asked Tuvia.
“I don’t know. She hasn’t been able to find him since yesterday. Has he gone somewhere out of town?”