Husband and Wife

by Zeruya Shalev

  I sit listening to her gasping sentences, merging into her distress, again the familiar feeling of another’s pain thrust onto my shoulders, sacks of despair and insult, the picture fills with colors and sounds, I can hear the hoarse quarrels, see the blazing nights, they well up in me like memories, and again the raging helplessness that overwhelms me at such moments, how can I help her, the situation is really difficult, however you look at it it’s difficult, and I say weakly, you know, you can always prove paternity and demand child support, but she shakes her head tearfully, I don’t want anything from him after what he did to me, if he’s capable of leaving me like this I don’t want his money or his child either. Her hands beat her frightened, hidden stomach savagely, and I put my arms around her shoulders, my eyes fixed on her feet next to mine, the toenails painted red to match her lipstick and her hair, how beautiful feet can be, I marvel, encouraged by her well-groomed appearance, things can’t be all that bad if she can still pay attention to every little detail, and I say, try not to poison yourself with negative thoughts, it will weaken you and you need strength now, you need to prepare yourself for the future, any decision you make will be hard but possible, we’ll help you.

  The trouble is that every decision is impossible, she wails, nothing I can do will be right, if I keep the baby my life will be ruined, my family will ostracize me, no man will want me with a baby, I don’t even want myself with a baby, but if I give it up I’ll never forgive myself, I’ll never stop thinking about the crime I committed, giving up my own child, and I’ll be punished for it all my life long, and I won’t have any more children. God forbid, I say quickly, why do you deserve to be punished? If you give the baby up to give it a better life, you’ll be doing something mature and noble, which certainly doesn’t deserve punishment, but on the contrary, only admiration, and she’s immediately on the alert, so you think I should give it up, you’ll force me to give it up. Of course not, I say, it’s your decision and yours alone, it’s up to you, I can only help you to see the whole picture, and I rise wearily to my feet, it’s already nine o’clock, in a minute the meeting will be over, and suddenly I see this morning sparkling in front of my eyes again, the sunrise that didn’t happen, the cool blue light, Zohara’s hair panting on her shoulders as she ran down the empty street, and I ask her, what’s your name, and she whispers, Yael, and I look at her with the same concentration as I was looked at this morning, listen, Yael, you don’t have to decide today, you have another two months at least, but try to change your attitude, try to think of what’s happened as an opportunity, not a disaster, try to get something good out of it. Something good, she cries in protest, just as I did yesterday, what are you talking about, how can anything good come of it? And I say, I don’t know enough about your life, perhaps it will enable you to free yourself of unhealthy patterns of relationships with men, perhaps it will bring you closer to your parents, mature you, it’s still too early to tell, go home, try to relax, and if you want our help we’re here, but she clutches at my dress again, nervously crumpling the flowers blooming on it between her fingers, drowning me in a stream of words, but I haven’t got anywhere to go, I can’t hide my stomach anymore, and if my roommates find out it will get back to my parents, I haven’t told anyone about it, not even my best friends, if I give the child up for adoption I don’t want anyone in the world to know, and I nod my head, the fewer people that know the better, but from now on it will be harder and harder to hide.

  So what should I do, she wails, I’m afraid to come to you, I’m afraid you’ll try to influence me, I’m afraid of the other girls, and I say, Yael, I really have to go now, think about it for a few more days, and she raises her wet eyes to me, stretching her lips imploringly, but I simply can’t stay with her any longer, I punch in the familiar code, the gate opens and I send her a busy smile, I’m here if you need me.

  She follows me with a disappointed look, now I too have abandoned her, but I don’t look back, even though they need me a lot less in the shelter, I should have stayed with her, in any case the meeting’s over, and I am already thinking of going back to her, but then Anat comes down the stairs toward me, in the distance she looks like an aging boy in her narrow jeans and cropped gray hair. Where were you, she says, Hava’s looking for you, and I sigh, I knew she wouldn’t let it go, and she adds, you remember that Etti gave birth yesterday, you’d better go to her later with the forms, and I go inside without answering her, whenever I walk into the shelter I marvel at its beauty, like all the girls when they first arrive, three elegant, spacious floors, I wish I had a house like this, they say, and sometimes so do I, but today I don’t linger in the hall, I go straight to Hava’s office, where I find her sprawled in her reclining plastic chair, a kind of beach chair she brought in because of the problems she has with her back, her reading glasses make her eyes bigger but she removes them when I come in and puts the pile of papers on her knees.

  Good morning, she announces brightly, did you just wake up? And I think of the azure beginning of this morning, whole seasons have passed since then, and I stammer, no, far from it, I took my husband to have tests, and she sighs, how is this going to end, Na’ama, and I am about to justify myself but she attacks with unexpected warmth. I see how hard it is for you, she says, why don’t you take a short vacation, a week or two, take whatever time you need, take care of him until he recovers, and then come back to work, so that you won’t be torn between him and us all the time, and I am embarrassed by her sympathy but I shake my head firmly, no, that’s the last thing I need now, to be stuck in the house with him all day, how can I take care of him until he recovers, I haven’t got a clue how to take care of him, or when he’ll recover, and to her I say, thank you, Hava, but I prefer to carry on like this, and she puts on her glasses again and examines me with huge, magnified eyes, I know you think I’m too strict, she says, and perhaps you’re right, but I have no alternative, none of us has any alternative, we can’t allow ourselves to overidentify with all the misery around us, identification is the easy way out, we have to rise above it. Would you like a cup of tea, she asks and rises heavily from her chair to brew her insipid herb tea, and I look at her big, swaying body, seeing its vulnerability for the first time, what’s happened to her all of a sudden, Hava with her perfect life, her rich husband and beautiful home and successful children, and she seems to hear my thoughts, I have hard times too, she says, I’ve had all kinds of problems lately, but I don’t let them take me over, Na’ama, and you devote yourself to your trouble, and I say, I don’t want any tea, thank you, and she sighs, pushing a gray curl off her forehead with a surprisingly feminine gesture, just be honest with me and with yourself, if you feel that you haven’t got anything to give at the moment then take some time off, and be careful of overidentification, she adds sternly, when we have a sorrow of our own it draws us like a magnet to the sorrow of others, and that’s extremely dangerous.

  I leave her office exhausted and look around me, trying to sense the general mood this morning, everything here is so sensitive and fragile, every birth upsets the equilibrium, every form that’s signed, immediately they gather round, how is she, what did she decide, there’s always someone to denounce, if I had conditions like hers I would never give up my child, and someone else retorts, it’s a good thing you haven’t, poor kid to be brought up by you. I see Ilana standing at the sink, washing the dishes roughly, splashing soapy water all around, and Hani sitting at the dining table, balls of pink wool in her lap. I have to finish this sweater before the birth, she tells me agitatedly, I have to leave something with my baby, and Ilana bangs the dishes together defiantly, stirring up trouble as usual, she won’t need that sweater, believe me, she snaps, she’ll have plenty of sweaters in her new house with her new parents swimming in money, you and me should only have so many sweaters, I bet they’re all folded up already waiting for her in a new chest of drawers with pictures of Snow White on it.

  But I want her to have something from me as a memento, Hani insists,
I want it to be her favorite sweater, and Ilana laughs her jarring laugh, what an imbecile you are, they’ll throw it straight into the trash, they don’t want any memento of you, all they want is to forget you, aren’t I right? She turns to me with her dull little eyes, and I say, llana, I understand how hard it is for you, but don’t interfere with Hani’s efforts to help herself, it’s important to her to leave something with the baby and that’s just fine. But why a sweater, says Ilana, let her leave a letter in the adoption file, that’s what I’m going to do, and when she opens the file, when she’s eighteen, she’ll come back to me, they’re just raising her for me in the meantime, and I say, eighteen years is a long time, more years than you’ve lived, you can’t know what your daughter will feel, whether she’ll want to see you or not, and she says, that’s why I’ll write her a nice letter, so that she’ll want to find me, I’ll write that I’ve got tons of money, or that I’m a famous model, and I smile in embarrassment, not knowing whether to laugh or cry in front of the stout, short body, the compressed face. llana, I say, her wish to see you has nothing to do with things like money or glamour, you have to base the relationship on the truth, you have to tell her how old you were, and about all the difficulties you had at the time of her birth, which are the reasons you’re giving her up, so that she can have a better life, don’t try to prettify anything.

  You won’t tell me what to do, she says, turning resentfully back to the sink, and I hurry to the office, with Hani trailing behind me, you know what I want, she says, I want to dress her in the sweater myself after the birth, and when the adoptive parents come to get her they’ll see her in the sweater I knitted for her, I want them to tell her about it when she grows up, that her real mother knitted a sweater for her, and I smile at her, all right, Hani, I promise you that’s what we’ll do, don’t worry, but she clings to me with the wool and the knitting needles, I want it to be the first thing she wears, you see? And I say, sure I do, but you’d better hurry up, your stomach has already dropped and you’ve hardly even begun, and when I look at her I am astounded again at this cruel choice of nature’s, pregnant women had always seemed imposing to me, superior, officers in nature’s army, and since the day I started working here I haven’t been able to stop wondering at this crude joke of hers, recruiting child soldiers, almost babies themselves, into her army, and loading additional babies onto their narrow shoulders, and again I am angry with Udi, whenever I have a bone to pick with nature I am angry with him, her eager advocate, and I think furiously of his emaciated body covered with needles, and the smoke of the incense rising from his head.

  When I enter the office to take the forms their deliberate, naked words confront me, the terrible words of renunciation, formulated as dryly as if they concern the renewal of a passport or the changing of a name, I put them into my bag and take a package containing soap and body lotion from the gifts cupboard, and when I bump into Anat in the corridor I say to her, tell Hava I’ve gone to the maternity ward, and she says in surprise, already? You’ve just arrived: I want to get it over with, I say, just keep an eye on Ilana, she’s in a lethal mood, and Anat smiles, she’s not the only one, and only at the gate I remember to wonder, who did she mean, me, Hava, maybe herself, what does it matter, the only thing that matters is that Yael isn’t here anymore, she’s disappeared on her high heels, taking the fear of her future with her, without leaving me any way of contacting her, only the shadows of burning leaves caress the pavement in the spot where we were sitting.

  But this place where life begins, this brightly lit corridor, lacking any mystery, these limp bodies that hide nothing, their painful gaits, aching but proud, like that of war heroes who know that there is a point to their pain, this place draws itself to me with strong arms, and as I walk among the tottering women I am seized by the certain knowledge that I will never be like them, I will never limp down this corridor stooped and happy, I will never have another baby. There were years when I still thought that it would work out, that Udi would come round in the end, but now I know for sure that it won’t happen, and the knowledge that all is lost hits me like a blow, I will never be given a second chance. I sink onto a chair next to the wall, exhausted, as if like many of the girls around me I have just given birth, for I too have painful stitches, ancient stitches that have become infected and refuse to heal, but then a woman in a hospital gown dragging a baby in a transparent box on wheels sits down opposite me, and I get up at once, her gaze follows me without curiosity but it fills me with uneasiness, as if I am an impostor, and I hurry to Etti’s room at the end of the corridor, with a forced smile on my lips, this is always the most difficult moment, what exactly am I supposed to congratulate her on, how can I wish her mazal tov, when the day of birth presages the day of separation. Ettileh, good for you, I venture, I hear you were a real heroine, and she looks at me with sullen eyes, it was a nightmare, don’t ask, he stuck to me like a tick, and I stroke her bony arm, it’s terribly hard but with time you’ll forget, and she says, like a leech he stuck to me, thirty-six hours, he wouldn’t come out, with all the inducings and everything else, it hurt like hell, it almost finished me, I don’t know what I did to him to make him stick like that, and I ask, have you seen him already, and she says, what are you talking about, I never want to see him, he disgusts me.

  But Etti, I coax her, he’s your baby, he came out of you, and she says coldly, that’s why he disgusts me, if he came out of you he wouldn’t disgust me, don’t you understand, he’s nothing, just like me, he isn’t worth a damn, and she stretches her skinny arms indifferently, utterly detached. I’m dying to get out of this hole already, she grumbles, and to be alone, without you people watching me all the time. What will you do when you’re alone, I ask, even though I know the answer, she’ll shoot heroin into her arm and lie on her stinking mattress and feel like the queen of the world, and I look at her sorrowfully, her face is completely dark, her neck is wrinkled, this isn’t the first child she’s given up, in her youth she gave up a baby who must be at least twenty years old today. She isn’t a whore, she claims, she only goes with men to get money for the drug, and if it results in an unwanted baby, like the side effect of a necessary medication, then you get rid of it and carry on. I thought I was too old for this to happen, she sniggers, and I hold her hand, she looks ageless, sexless, perhaps there is some dent in her tough skin, a moment of understanding, and I say, let’s go and see the baby, you have to know who you’re parting from, it’s important for you to see that he’s a sweet little living creature, not a monster, and she recoils, leave me alone, Na’ama, I don’t want to see the little leech, and I surprise myself by volunteering, then I’ll go myself and describe him to you, and she shrugs her shoulders, if you haven’t got anything better to do with your time.

  With a heavy heart I go into the neonates’ room, like freshly recruited soldiers they lie there on parade, crib after crib, and I remember how I would lift little Noga out of her transparent crib, the tiny heart-shaped face, the pouting rosebud lips, and once I got mixed up, I stood amazed in the middle of the night opposite a different little face, and only then I looked at the label and discovered that he wasn’t mine at all. Here he is, Etti’s baby, there’s no mistaking him, he looks so much like her, an angry little elf, his hands trembling, not only them, his whole swaddled body is trembling, and the nurse sighs behind my back, he’s in withdrawal, poor little creature, he was born addicted, we’re detoxifying him now. It will be all right, little elf, I whisper to him, stroking his crumpled cheek, we’ll change your fate, we’ll plant you in a different soil and you’ll flourish, and a ferment of pride suddenly awakens in me, raising my head high, you see, I turn to Udi in a whisper, we save lives, soon this child will get new parents who will raise him with love, take care of all his needs, instead of seeing his mother screwing strange men and shooting up he’ll see cartoons and play with Lego and read books.

  And what will you do if he falls into bad company in high school and begins shooting up heroin, I hear U
di arguing with me, imagine if he lands up in exactly the same hole as his mother, maybe she’ll even supply him, or he her, and I retort angrily, anything can happen, but we’re giving him a chance at another life, if he stays with her his fate is sealed, and I think of Noga in her transparent box, what would have happened if different parents had taken you home, perhaps a different father wouldn’t have dropped you from his quarrelsome arms, from his vengeful heart, perhaps another mother wouldn’t have infected you with her guilt, imposed a hopeless repair on you, Udi’s right, knowledge is a grotesque illusion, the eyes of the flesh are covered with an opaque film. I stroke the tiny hand in farewell, and suddenly his fingers grip mine with surprising strength, and a bleat escapes his lips, what is he trying to tell me, that in spite of everything he wants to stay with his mother who loathes him? a moment before I take the forms out of my bag and the nurse comes up with a bottle, he’s hungry, poor mite, she says, picking him up and freeing my fingers, his eyes are closed, they haven’t even opened yet, so why do I feel as if he’s looking at me, and I hurry away like a criminal, and return to Etti who’s waiting for me with her eyes shut, the resemblance between them is startling, there’ll be no way of ignoring it if they walk the same streets, but why should they walk the same streets.

  Ettileh, he’s really sweet, I say, he looks just like you, and she waves her hand contemptuously, I’m not interested, for all I care he can look like you, and I hand her the forms, I want you to read them first, and she grumbles, get off my back already, I don’t care what’s written there, I don’t want him, I told you, but I insist, you have to read them, Etti, this isn’t a small thing that you’re giving up, you have to understand what it means, and she says sullenly, it means that at this time tomorrow I’ll be free, but I refuse to give in, slowly I read the thundering words aloud, they smash against her skin without leaving a trace, and then she takes my pen and signs, her eyes half-closed, a bunch of threads of blue ink at the bottom of the page, and the job is done, even when it’s easy it’s hard, and I sigh, her indifference depresses me despite making things easier, with no need for hesitations and explanations, coaxing and consolation. She pulls a packet of cigarettes out of her locker and hurries me on my way, come on, let’s get a move on, I’ll go to the lobby with you and we can sit and have a smoke, and when we pass the neonates’ room she doesn’t even give it a glance, walking past the parade of swaddled babies without curiosity, without guilt, as if it’s not her little cub quivering there, wanting her milk, her love, and when we sit down in the lobby I can’t resist saying, Ettileh, isn’t it worth the effort to try and break your habit, look at the price you pay, we could help you, isn’t it worth a try?