He coughs behind my back, puts a hesitant hand on my neck. Don’t be angry, he says, and I recoil, why should I be angry, you’re free to paint whatever you like, I say, and he laughs in relief, that’s what I’ve been doing all week, painting what I like, you didn’t come so I painted you from memory, and already he’s in the kitchen blowing into the beaker, and I watch his movements anxiously, as he stirs the coffee, as he sprinkles sugar into it, I’ve never asked myself what he does when I’m not there, his whole existence was confined to those thrilling mornings with me, and now he leaves me no choice, and I sit down in the armchair, embarrassed, and he stands in front of me, without a paintbrush in his hand, utterly exposed without his weapon, and asks in a hoarse voice, do you want to go or stay?
Aren’t you sick of painting me, I ask, and he says, on the contrary, the deeper you go the more interesting it becomes, when I studied painting we would draw the same model every day for three years, from year to year it grew more thrilling, and he takes a paintbrush and looks at me and at the paintings on the walls, but the canvas remains empty as if my presence disturbs him, and I look at the red roofs, fields of roofs flowering beneath us, not far from there I could make out our building, at the bottom of the neighborhood, and then I look at him, he’s wearing a white sweater with holes in it over his black undershirt, and for the first time I notice that he’s a little stooped, like his building, and his nape is covered with gray curls, and the brush is trembling in his hand, and I hear myself ask, do you want me to get undressed?
He nods wordlessly and leaves the room, and I take my clothes off in mounting excitement, folding them neatly like at the doctor’s, and when he comes in I ask, why did you go out, and he says, I don’t like to watch a present being opened, I want to see everything at once, and he looks at me with grave attention, limb by limb, and it seems to me that he’s disappointed and I quickly apologize, my body’s more beautiful in your paintings, and he says, perhaps, but less interesting, I’m not looking for beauty, and he takes the nude painting and rips it up in front of my astonished eyes. Don’t be alarmed, he laughs, that’s what I do with most of my paintings when I realize how superficial they are, now that I see you I understand how wrong I was, and he turns his back to me and begins to mix the paints, a huge canvas is waiting for him on the easel and he steps backward and forward, completely concentrated, feverishly changing brushes, and I relax in the armchair, the shame gradually leaving me, like a bad memory that suddenly seems trivial, and I examine my thighs, white, almost transparent, tired, smiling at them forgivingly, filled with compassionate generosity, forgiving time, that tower of years like building blocks stacked one on top of the other until the tower collapses, and Noga is always disappointed, why did it fall, why do all the towers fall in the end?
On the canvas in front of me a painful sweetness spreads, winking at me with orange eyes, biting my nipples, and he massages them on the canvas, his lips pursed, bringing them to points with his brush, sweeping down with strong stokes to my pelvis, setting my pubic hair on fire, the paint pours down my thighs, and I am heavy with desire, parting my knees, making room for him, let him come to me now, take off his trousers and fill the aching hollow gaping inside me. I lower my eyes and see his feet approaching me, delicate, feminine feet, and he raises my face to him, dips the brush in water and wipes it on his sweater, staining its whiteness with a ruddy memory, and already he’s sending shivers down my neck, sliding down to my breasts, circling giddily round my nipples, painting transparent whirlpools on my nakedness, faster and faster, my whole naked body is one big ring, as if a stone has been thrown into water, a precious gemstone, I’ll never be able to retrieve it from the depths, and the soft hairs of the brush caress my pubic hairs, merging with them into one sweet strong flame, breathing in and out, and all the time his face is tight with concentration, seeking a rare color that can barely be seen by the eyes of the flesh, until he hides his face from me, resting it with a sigh on my lap.
Wayward hairs grow on the back of his neck, gray under the line of his haircut, and it seems to me that he’s whispering something into my lap, I can’t make it out, I put my finger on his lips, what did you say? But he gets up in silence and goes to stand opposite the big window, pulling me behind him, and I stand next to him, leaning my languid limbs on him, and we look out of the window at the roofs, and the narrow curving road, people are hurrying along it, bundled up in raincoats. Suddenly it starts raining hard, lashing the asphalt, and a young man stops, looks in surprise at the cloud bursting right above his head, he hasn’t even got a coat, only a brightly striped sweater, just like Udi’s, he looks up at the source of the rain and his astonished eyes pierce my shining nakedness, flickering like a candle in the window at the top of the building, and I go rigid, a cardboard cutout on the diabolic firing range of chance, as if I’ve been electrocuted by his gaze, as accurate as the hand of a sniper who never misses. It’s Udi hurrying home to play with Noga, Udi with a bag of oranges in his hand, vitamin C for her red throat, and I fall blindly on clothes that have lost their identity, trying to push a trembling foot into a shirtsleeve, and he seats me on the armchair, his face lengthening sorrowfully, and dresses me like a child, kneeling to tie my shoelaces, and then he picks me up and supports me downstairs, until the cold air outside hits me like a burn on my exposed face, how imaginary is the difference between cold and heat, and the rain jumps on my head as I run home, with a mouth full of explanations, pleas and promises, falling and getting up again, but he won’t be there.
Here’s Daddy, Noga shouts and runs toward him, and I raise my eyes and see him in the doorway, wheeled to us in a wheelchair, his face drooping, falling sideways, gray and haggard, as if old age has snared him in his absence, and I get up quickly, bend down to him as to a toddler in a stroller, how did it go, Udigi? And he mumbles, they’ll only get the results in the morning, his whole body shrinking as if in humiliation, and I ask sympathetically, did it hurt, and he says, no, it was just unpleasant, and Noga announces proudly, Daddy, I’m not going to eat anything until you get better, and he smiles with slack lips, indifferently acknowledging her sacrifice.
Udi, tell her to eat, I protest, tell her you’ll only get better if she eats, but he stares at us as if our logic is strange and alien to him, as if he doesn’t understand our language. A kick of loneliness makes me recoil, he isn’t with us, he’s already in another world, and I watch them putting him in bed, covering him with a blanket, I hear him say, Na’ama, go home, I want to sleep, and Noga protests, but Daddy, who’ll be with you, I want to be with you, and he sighs, all I want is to sleep, I don’t need anyone when I’m sleeping, if I need anything I’ll call you, and I who wanted so badly to get away find it difficult now to accept the harsh sentence, even from his sickbed he banishes us, we’ll be cast out forever. Udigi, I try, maybe later Noga will go to my mother and I’ll come back to you, and he says, there’s no need, it’s easier for me alone now, truly, until we get the results I prefer to be alone, it’s not against you, he tries to placate me, and I sigh, but not for me either. Noga kisses him warmly on his cheek, Daddy Ugi, she whispers to him, like when she was a baby, I want you to get out of bed tomorrow and walk like before, okay? And I bend down and kiss him on his narrow lips, I love you Udigi, you’ll see how happy we’ll be when you get better, and he nods impatiently, his dry hair sending electricity through my hand.
In the doorway I put my arm around her shoulders and we look back at him sadly, it seems that he’s gone to sleep already, and we walk defeated down the corridor, next to the nurses’ room Jeremiah waves at us enthusiastically. Have you got a cigarette, he shouts, and I say, no, I haven’t, and he comes up to us, still almost naked, I’m free, he announces, just like you, they’ve gone to get me clothes and shoes from some storeroom, but I haven’t got anywhere to go.
What about your mother, I ask, dragged into a conversation again against my will, and he says, my mother won’t let me come home, maybe I can come to your house, he asks
suddenly, while your husband’s here you must have room in the house, take me with you, he begs, I haven’t got anywhere to go, and Noga tugs at my sleeve, why don’t we take him, Mommy, as if we’re talking about a stray cat. Have you gone completely mad, I whisper, the boy’s not right in the head, he needs special care, can’t you see? And he pursues us, a frightening Tarzan with a loincloth of torn pajama pants, I’ll come, you’ll see, he yells, I’ll follow you home, and I say, I’m sorry, Jeremiah, we live in a small apartment, there’s no room for you, and he shouts, soon you’ll have plenty of spare room in your house, and I push Noga into the elevator, the doors close opposite his clenched fist, but his curse has invaded the empty elevator and it reverberates there, beating against the silver walls, soon you’ll have plenty of spare room in your house.
Five
All night long I held her close in the big bed, and we slept very little, dropping off and waking up in feverish delirium, nightmare slaps hitting our faces, and between them pockets of happy wonder, look, something’s happening, something’s happening at last in this life where I thought nothing would ever change, and then condemning fists punch my ribs, the ceiling bends over me with a sullen scowl, in a minute it will cover us like a concrete blanket, bury us beneath it, and I raise my hands, trying to stop it from collapsing, and Noga mumbles, what are you doing, Mommy, and I rouse myself, with a feeling of relief I see the ceiling lift, and immediately I sink again, before my eyes his tests whirl giddily, terrifying details that only in the morning will join together in the verdict, for good or ill. The test tubes red with his frothing blood, the pale shadows of his bones, slices of his back, the recesses of his brain, the dim masses of his muscles and nerves, all this fateful potpourri uniting now against us both like a cruel conspiracy that must be frustrated before morning, and I pray, please don’t let them find anything, just something that can be easily cured, ready for new vows, new penances to undertake as long as he gets better, and then sleep snatches me into a savage journey, fierce and violent as a sandstorm, and throws me back even more exhausted onto the bed, opposite Noga’s open eyes, were you sleeping, Mommy? And I mumble with a mouth full of dust, no, I’m watching over you. Do you think Daddy’s sleeping now, she asks, and I say, yes, I’m sure he is, you sleep too my little girl, and she asks, what will happen if Daddy can never walk again, and before I can reply she falls asleep and wakes up immediately, Mommy I’m hungry, and I get up heavily to make her a sandwich but she refuses to eat, I’ll only eat when Daddy’s better.
At the entrance to the school, which is fenced in like a pen, I say good-bye to her, to the wayward curls that seem to have shrunk in hunger, drooping limply round her face, to her eyes shining with a dry fire of obstinacy and weakness, I watch her walk alone, groups of children pass her, exchanging giggles and secrets, no one stops next to her, to let her drown her troubles in his. With a heavy heart I continue on my way, on my right I see the ruined café again, white smoke rising from it, dense and curly, workers in pale overalls drift about like angels, weapons of destruction in their hands, to flatten everything, to leave nothing behind. For years I would pass the café in embarrassment, seeking his delicate feet, his white sweater full of holes, with the red stain, his face I could barely remember, seeking not in order to find, like a letter not intended to be sent but nevertheless written with concentration and feeling and care. I never saw him again, as if he never left his house again, bringing the painting up to date, season after season, year after year, adding the traces of the ravages of time, spotting the hands, thickening the flabby thighs, muddying the complexion, darkening the skin around the eyes, and I go past dark and elusive as a shadow, burying my face in the pavement, so he won’t see me, and stealing secret glances, it’s him, it isn’t him, what does he look like at all, one minute every man I see looks like him, and the next I’m sure that even if he walks right past me I won’t recognize him, I never really looked at him, I never allowed his features to be engraved on my memory, I never allowed his words to reach my ears, what did he whisper into my lap then, his breath melting the sweet syllables so that they poured onto the soft skin, warm and sticky.
The traffic light changes while I am still staring at the white smoke, my fantasies merging hazily into it as if it is meant for me, a dense curtain over my eyes, separating me from the road signs of reality, and I wait for a signal from the cars next to me, to make sure that I really have to go on driving now, to advance to the verdict, what vows can I still make that I didn’t make then, eight years ago, when Noga lay unconscious, I swore that I would never see him again, that I would never fall in love again, what more can I promise now so that Udi will get well, and I can hear Anat’s weary laughter already, who needs your sacrifices, who’ll profit from your suffering, and I argue with her silently, if it doesn’t help, it won’t do any harm, and she says, it will do harm, it will harm you, can’t you see? And I don’t see anything now, sticking stubbornly to the car in front of me, as if it holds my salvation, the white smoke from the café accompanying me all the way like an ominous train, confusing my vows.
In the shadow of the hills I park, far from the hospital, as if I am on my way to a picnic in the bosom of nature, a moment before summer pounces on the mountains with unsheathed claws, they are still covered in a mantle of innocent green, in a few days’ time an army of yellow uniformed thorns will defeat it, and after that the fires will come and spread their black blanket everywhere, upsetting the balance in one blazing night. I gulp the sharp morning air, trying to adjure the trees and the grass, advancing slowly, step by step, and already my feet are hurting, I’m not pampering myself, I would always counter Udi’s suspicions, it really hurts. He runs on ahead and I trail behind him, insulted, wait for me, but he shoots forward like an arrow, long and pointed, unable to stop after being sent on its way. What will happen to him now, how will he be able to live without his legs, he needs them more than anything else, I would give mine up for him, they’re not worth much anyway, and already I imagine myself quiet and noble in a wheelchair, moving from room to room with a melancholy whisper, and tears of sorrow for myself well in my eyes just as I walk into the ward, it doesn’t seem to be the same ward at all, all the faces are different, or maybe it’s just their expressions, like a landscape that looks completely different in summer and in winter. The nurse with the beautiful hands walks past me, and I ask her tensely, how’s Udi, and she says, he’s fine, but her look is reserved, as if an unpleasant rumor about me has just reached her ears, and I try to ignore it, have the doctors seen him yet, I ask, and she stops me at the door to the room, you can’t go in now, and I recoil, the curtain is drawn round his bed, a heavy shadow leans over him, is he being examined?
Yes, the psychiatrist is examining him, she says reluctantly, sending me a stinging look, and I exclaim in alarm, why, what has he done? Her suspicion immediately wraps me in an obscure guilt, and she says, the doctors will explain, I don’t know exactly, and she abruptly turns her neck in a different direction and disappears, and I sit down outside the room, my legs stretched in front of me, threatening to snarl the busy traffic in the corridor. Why a psychiatrist of all things, what did they find, the remnants of any certainty I still possessed crumble between my fingers, Udi would never agree to go to any kind of therapy, together or alone, why should he ask to see a psychiatrist now, and why did she look so reserved, yesterday she was so sympathetic, when we undressed him with four solicitous hands, and today she’s avoiding me as if I’ve committed a crime, and I peek into the room again, a sad old man is lying on Jeremiah’s bed, attached to tubes, his face fills with life when he sees me, he thinks someone is coming to visit him, but it immediately empties in disappointment, what does he know that I don’t, everything that happened here since yesterday afternoon is hidden from me and revealed to him, the stranger.
I look resentfully at the thin curtain, trying to pick up some key word, what secrets are they telling there, how come I’m suddenly excluded from his world, everyone k
nows more about him than I do, he doesn’t belong to me anymore, he belongs to the disease, and all these people, the nurses, the doctors, even the old man, are his new in-laws, the family of the bride, and in them he confides, revealing his most cherished secrets to them, and I return to my place on the chair at the door, where the policeman sat yesterday, his treachery burning my back, as if a flaming orgy is taking place behind the curtain.
The man who finally emerges from the room doesn’t give me a glance, he’s tall and broad, a giant, thick gray hair covering his head and thick glasses on his eyes, his back as square as an empty blackboard turned to me as he makes haste to disappear, they all have the same amazing capacity, these relations of the disease, to suddenly melt away, agile and elusive, leaving a train of bewildered insult behind them, and I enter the room, the old man sits up expectantly again and then falls back disappointed onto his pillow, but Udi doesn’t move at all, surrounded by his tent, as on his hikes, and I part the curtain with hard brightness, Udigi, what’s new, and he answers me with a miserable smile, his face stunned and bewildered, like Noga’s. What did they find in the tests, the question escapes me in a shrill squeak, I rehearsed it so often last night that now I lose control, and he says, nothing at this point, and I breathe a sigh of relief, I feel as if I’m drinking water at last after a long thirst and it streams through my veins, bearing a message of comfort from organ to organ. That’s wonderful, I say carefully, so everything’s all right then? And he says, but my legs aren’t all right, and then a frightened whimper suddenly escapes him, they want to transfer me to the psychiatric department, he wails, and I put my arms around him with a feeling of dread, his body under the pajamas is cold and thin, almost that of a stranger.
Husband and Wife Page 6