Husband and Wife

by Zeruya Shalev

  What’s the matter with you, can’t you even turn off the gas, I yell at her, you’re nearly ten years old, girls your age cook whole meals, and she tries to turn the knob with clumsy fingers, almost tearing it out of its socket. I’ve already turned it off, can’t you see that I’ve turned it off, I scream and run to the porch, I can’t breathe for the smoke, and she runs after me, her multicolored eyes shooting rays of blue hatred and green hatred spotted with yellow at me, why did you have to come back at all, she bawls with her mouth wide open, we were happy before you came. I have never heard her say anything like this before, but now that the words have been said a strange feeling of relief descends on me, a wild feeling of freedom, no doubt about it, it’s a lot less oppressive than receiving a compliment. You’re right, I whisper, I should have stayed there on the lawn and looked at the clouds instead of hurrying back here, nobody needs my sacrifices, and again I fill with guilt, like the smoke filling the house, and I cough hoarsely, and contemplate the afternoon heat flooding the porch, it’s a pity it’s not night yet, what will we do with the rest of the day, it drags like a wounded leg, it needs to be bandaged, taken care of, I haven’t got the strength for it.

  It seems to me that I hear the phone ring for a moment and stop, he must have answered it, to my surprise I hear his voice in the distance, since the day he fell ill he has taken no notice of its ringing, and now he approaches us, making his way through the smoke, and sits down next to me, I put a conciliatory hand on his knee and ask softly, who was it on the phone, and he says, it was Avner, he has to guide a tour in the Negev tomorrow, and he has the flu, he wants me to substitute for him, and already I feel insulted, again he’s running away from us the first chance he gets, the minute he begins to feel better.

  But Daddy, you still need to rest, Noga pleads, you’re not better yet, and he says, it will help me to get better, I have to get out for a bit, but I know that if we were sitting at the table now and eating the meal he prepared, he wouldn’t have answered Avner at all, and Noga knows this too, and she gives me an accusing look and says, I’m hungry, why don’t we go out to eat. You two go, he shrinks, I want to rest, and I grumble, if you’re strong enough for a trip to the Negev, you’re strong enough to come with us to the restaurant across the road, and he sighs but he doesn’t object, I see budding signs of moderation in him today, he holds back from exhausting his rage, and this is ostensibly desirable but gives rise in me to a strange melancholy of parting, like the melancholy at the end of summer, because in spite of all the complaints about the heat of the sun it’s hard not to be offended when it grows cold. Great, we’re going to a restaurant! Noga shouts, but her enthusiasm wanes when she sees my worried face, and I follow him to the bedroom, an embarrassing question at the tip of my tongue, do you still love me, watch him pulling on a pair of shorts over his underpants, like two flags waving on his shrunken thighs, flapping as he walks, tensely I follow his movements, he hasn’t left the house for weeks, and I pray for him not to change his mind, or fall, making this little celebration of his recovery vanish before our eyes.

  Where are my sandals, he asks, and I begin to search the house, it’s been a long time since he needed them, where can they be, they’re not in the closet drawer or under the bed, I search feverishly, as if our lives depend on it, what did they look like, I scarcely remember, two brown leather straps, and he begins to lose his temper, I can’t go barefoot, he leans against the wall, apparently it’s hard for him to stand, how will he be able to guide a tour tomorrow. I’m going back to bed in a minute, he threatens, I have to rest, he rakes his fingers through his greasy hair, and Noga begs, wait Daddy, wait, and she runs to her room, rummages in the closet, with me behind her, what are you doing, why should they be in your closet? And she blushes, I hid them once, swear you won’t tell him.

  Her clothes fly wildly out of the emptying closet, and I whisper, have you gone completely mad, why on earth did you hide them? And she wails, I dreamed that he left us, a few days ago, so I took his sandals, so he couldn’t go without telling me, but I don’t remember what I did with them, it was in the middle of the night, I was half-asleep, and I stare helplessly at the heap of clothes, there’s nothing to be done, there’s a curse on this trio, that’s what we are, a trio and not a family, we can’t even manage to go out together, and I lie down exhausted on her bed, watching her efforts indifferently, I too have suddenly grown milder, I’m not responsible for what happens here, I’m only one of three, what was the game we played as children, slapping dirty hand on hand, pulling them out, shouting, one out of three is out!

  I shift uncomfortably on her mattress, trying to straighten it, strange lumps are growing out of it, what’s the matter with this mattress, I snap, it’s brand-new and look how crooked it is, I sit up and try to lift it, I don’t believe it, Noga, just look what you did, under the mattress two brown straps peep out at me, thick, flexible soles, how on earth could you sleep like this, on top of his sandals, and she blushes, mutters in a whisper, just don’t tell Daddy, remember, and I say, don’t worry, and I wave the sandals in pretended triumph. We found them, Udi, I announce, let’s go, but he answers me with a jarring snore, two saws sawing each other into little pieces, he no longer hears me or himself, he’s fallen asleep on the living room sofa, his long narrow back examining us doubtfully, his bare feet clinging to each other like orphaned kittens.

  Thirteen

  What am I doing here between the bushes, hesitating at the gate, almost pressing our entry code and retreating again, walking up the street, returning to the car as if I’ve forgotten something, trying to give her an opportunity to call me, to suddenly pop up from some corner, yes, no doubt about it, it’s her I’m waiting for, it’s her I thought about all night, not Udi, who went on sleeping on the living room sofa, vacating our double bed that I abandoned long ago, sour with the breath of his illness, and I had a hard time falling asleep in the strange bed, as if I’d landed up in some filthy bachelor apartment, and I thought only about her, not about Udi and Noga, on purpose to punish them, about her shamed belly and hurt eyes and tangled fate, and the longer the night lasted the more clearly I understood the depth of her distress, how could she sleep at all, the blow of his abandonment churning in her stomach and filling her bed with hate, how could he have jumped out of the ship of her life, leaving her to the cruelest of decisions, and I hoped that she wouldn’t come back to me, for how could I help her, but now I’m waiting for her, scanning the empty street, a river of boiling asphalt, with thirsty cars crouching on its banks, what will she do, she has no one to turn to, and I have let her down. In the end I have no choice but to go inside, and I press the secret numbers of the code reluctantly, the girls are already clearing away the breakfast dishes, the smell of greasy omelets and salad with lemon rises from their clothes, I snatch the last roll from the breadbasket and furtively dip it into a plate full of leftover salad and little triangles of omelet, I don’t even care whose leftovers they are, as if they are all my children here, and here’s Hani smiling at me in embarrassment, even more embarrassed than I am at catching me red-handed, falling on the leftovers like an alley cat. Is this your plate, I ask, and she nods hesitantly, but she’s obviously lying to make me feel less uncomfortable, and I smile at her and pick up a cold triangle of omelet in my fingers, to show her that I stand behind my decision, just as I urge them to do, and it seems to me that I see a gob of Ilana’s spit sparkling there, she always sprays spit from her mouth, but I have to swallow it, my stomach is already turning over, and with an effort I ask her, how’s the knitting getting on, and she proudly waves a pink cloud in the air, in a few days I’ll finish it, I can’t give birth until it’s finished, and I say, wonderful, and give her an absentminded pat on the shoulder.

  In the distance I hear Anat’s voice telling the girls to hurry up, don’t tell me you forgot, she comes up to me, we’re going to the maternity ward today, and of course I have forgotten, every now and then we take them to see the delivery rooms, the new
born babies, like you take children to the zoo, and they walk round heavy and glum, pressing their bellies against the transparent cribs, as if trying to connect the visible babies to the mystery inside them.

  How did it go yesterday with Etti, she asks, her clean blue gaze on my face, and I say, smooth sailing, no problems at all, and take the signed forms out of my bag. Go and give them to Hava, she urges me, she was angry with you for not coming back here yesterday, and I hurry to Hava’s office and submissively hand her the forms with the precious signature, as if making an offering to a greedy goddess, a wretched human sacrifice, a little child. Were there any problems, she asks in a satisfied tone, and I murmur, none at all, it all went off smoothly, and then I leave before she can read my rebellious thoughts about the dubious success which smells of failure, and I know that the lenses of her reading glasses are following my steps sternly and that a disapproving frown has appeared on her forehead.

  Na’ama, someone’s waiting for you at the gate, Anat calls from one of the rooms, and I ask, who, trying to hide the happiness dancing inside me, and she says, I have no idea, they asked for you to come down on the intercom, just keep it short, we’re leaving in a minute, and I charge down the stairs, it has to be Yael coming to try me again, this time I have to help her, suddenly it’s clear to me what she should do, and I’ll tell her in no uncertain terms, without any hesitation, sometimes out of the maelstrom of doubt a moment emerges when you have to act firmly to prevent a tragedy.

  But no one is waiting for me at the gate, I look round expectantly, a man in a blue shirt is sitting on the opposite pavement, his head between his knees, how hot it has suddenly become, I can hardly open my eyes, seeking her blindly in the glare, Yael, I’m here, I whisper into the silence, don’t be afraid, I’ll help you, and only when I come close to him do I recognize first the sandals, two brown straps that only yesterday I waved in the air like a trophy, and then the tee-shirt that I’ve been nagging him to get rid of for years, and I shout, Udi, what are you doing here, trying to hide my disappointment, my growing panic, what happened to the trip to the Negev?

  He raises a gray, sweating face to me, it was called off, he whispers, I couldn’t remember anything, and I sit down next to him on the pavement, what couldn’t you remember, I don’t understand, but it’s already clear to me that it’s bad, he’s never stopped a tour in the middle before. I took them to Lachish, he groans, all the time I was sick I longed for that tell, and I wanted to teach them about the history of the city, the letters that were found there, I know them all by heart, and suddenly I forgot everything.

  But Udi, it happens to everyone, I put my arm around his shoulders, trying to ignore the smell of sweat breaking out of his body, you just have to wait a little and it comes back, and he says, you think I didn’t wait, I called a break and they sat down to eat and I walked round by myself and tried to remember where I was, but when they gathered round me I forgot everything again, I didn’t have a clue what to say to them, and his head sinks again, I’ll never guide a tour again, Na’ama, you have no idea how humiliating it is, and I feel my stomach contracting in anxiety, what will become of him, what will become of us, what will we live on, but I immediately pronounce in a firm voice, this isn’t the time for decisions, Udi, you have to calm down, you probably got out of bed too soon, and he groans, you know what it means to send people away in the middle of a tour, you know how they looked at me? What’s going to happen, Noam, what are we going to do?

  I get up heavily and give him my hand, dragging him behind me like a reluctant child who doesn’t want to go to kindergarten, the leftover omelet I furtively swallowed burning in my stomach, as if the sun is continuing to fry it in the depths of my body, and my gorge rises, this time he really is broken, his hand lies limply in mine, what will become of him, he was always so proud of his memory, whipping out dates, historical processes, sites and names, what will he have left now, the bitterness will swell into a tide and pour out of his throat and engulf us all, and already I see Noga and myself trying to keep afloat in the swamp of his bitterness, heavy algae sticking to our legs and pulling us down, with nothing to hold on to, her curls are black with mud and I try to cling to her hand with the remnants of my strength, Nogi don’t sink, but her hand is slippery, it escapes my grasp, finger after finger. You’re hurting me, Na’ama, he pulls his hand away, and I rouse myself, help him into the car, sit down heavily beside him, I haven’t got the strength to go upstairs and tell anybody, in a minute Anat will discover for herself that I’ve disappeared, that she has to shepherd the girls on their excursion alone in this heat, another working day gone down the drain, two working days, his and mine, both of us are already outside the healthy, functioning world, beyond the pale. Locked in the speeding car, our breath whistles between the closed windows, all I want is to get home quickly, but what will we do at home, what else is there to do that we haven’t already done, who will help us? What would the healer with the baby say now, is this good news too, is this too an opportunity, I think of her with resentment, as if it’s all her fault, and then in a burst of hope, that’s what we’ll do, we’ll call her, and she’ll come at once, and fill the house with her innocent smoke, so that at least it will seem as if we’re doing something, and I say to Udi, as soon as we get home we’ll phone Zohara, sure that he’ll object, but he nods in agreement, I was just thinking the same thing, and then his face comes alive as he says, for we cannot see Azekah.

  Who, I ask, and he says, Azekah, a large fortified city in Judah, it’s the line I love best in the Lachish letters, all morning I was trying to remember it and now it’s come back to me: May Yahweh cause my lord to hear tidings of peace, this very day, this very day! And let my lord know that we are watching for the signals of Lachish, according to all the indications which my lord hath given, for we cannot see Azekah. I listen reluctantly, what good are those ancient letters to me now, please let Zohara be free, and come quickly, so I can leave her with him and go back to work, I can’t go on like this day after day, and when I call her from our house she is free, and she listens to me with hurried affirmations, confirming my frantic report, as if this is exactly what she expected, and everything is proceeding to her satisfaction, and promises to come immediately, and he hurries to the bathroom, mumbling the remembered lines to himself, like a bar mitzvah boy learning his Torah portion by heart, washing his humiliating forgetfulness away in the water, and I look at him, sitting in the tub with his knees up, his bones pressed together, and when he opens his eyes and sees me a smile of helpless embarrassment spreads over his face. Something seems to be missing in him, and I scan his body anxiously, like a house after a burglary, what has he been robbed of, how misleading the revealed limbs are, the important thing is inside, concealed under the faded blanket of skin. No, all his limbs are there, and nevertheless something is missing, something that held them in a tight grip, sex, that’s what it is, the sexuality that compressed him into one stubborn, assertive will has suddenly disappeared, lost its control over his body, and without it he is almost insignificant, a creature without a purpose. What does he want now, whenever I got into the bath with him before a movement would start to stir throughout his body, as if a wind were blowing through him, and now he looks at me indifferently as I undress, his body is still, I’m getting out in a minute, he says, but I send out a groping foot and sit down opposite him, there’s room for both of us, Udi, have you forgotten?

  My white hips which have grown wider lately press against the sides of the tub, blocking the water like a dam, and it crowds up behind my back, mocking my fat, he actually liked it when I put on weight, but now he seems not to notice, what does he want, what is it that unites his limbs into one purpose now, perhaps the desire to be well, perhaps something else, a hidden wish that threatens me because I have no part in it, because it no longer depends on me, what will fill the space that has grown empty now?

  He soaps himself punctiliously, lathering his whole body, bending over his feet and scrubbing
each toe, even between his toes, as if he has been wallowing in filth, muttering unintelligibly from time to time, utterly absorbed in a conversation with himself, now I remember, he announces triumphantly, To my lord Yoash: May Yahweh cause my lord to hear tidings of peace this very day, this very day! Who is thy servant but a dog that my lord hath remembered his servant? Thy servant Hoshaiah hath sent to inform my lord Yoash: May Yahweh cause my lord to hear tidings of peace, for the heart of thy servant hath been sick since thou didst write to thy servant. And let my lord know that we are watching for the signals of Lachish according to all the indications which my lord hath given, for we cannot see Azekah.

  Once I remembered what was written on every potsherd, now it’s all muddled up in my head, he smiles apologetically, and I ask, what are they, those potsherds, and he says, the Lachish ostraca? The earliest personal documents in Hebrew to be found in Palestine, dating from about the time of the prophet Jeremiah. So why can’t they see Azekah? I try to show an interest, and he explains gladly, Azekah was a fortified town not far from Lachish, on the way to Jerusalem, and it had apparently already been conquered by the Babylonians, and therefore it was impossible to light signals from it, and the writer had to watch for signals from Lachish, and he is waving his hands about enthusiastically, drawing me a map in the thin foam between us, here’s Lachish and here’s Azekah and here’s the little fort the letters were sent from, and here’s Jerusalem which will also be destroyed soon, sitting in the cooling bathwater and delivering an impassioned lecture, as if he’s standing on the heights of the ancient ruins, everything the tourists missed this morning I’m getting now, a private guided tour I never asked for, and I force myself to listen even though I haven’t got the faintest desire to do so, I have far more important things to think about, far more urgent than some affair that took place two thousand five hundred years ago, but he doesn’t notice my indifference, he goes on telling me enthusiastically about some prophet from Kiryat Ya-arim whose prophecies of destruction weakened the will of the people and the army in the last months of the Kingdom of Judah, and the king and his men want to kill him, and Hoshaiah, the writer of the letters, is pleading with his master to prevent the catastrophe. The water is already cold, outside it’s so hot but in the tub I’m shivering with cold, as if I’m getting sick with something, and I ask without interest, so what happened to him in the end, that prophet, and he says, apparently he fled to Egypt, but they brought him back and killed him, imagine, they thought that if they eliminated him they would repudiate his prophecy, and I say, so he died without knowing that he was right, that his prophecies of destruction would come true, and Udi nods, yes, it was only after the Kingdom of Judah was destroyed that it was possible to distinguish between the false prophets and the true prophets, all the ones that prophesied peace and quiet were proven wrong, and only Jeremiah and that other prophet, whom nobody believed, proved to be true prophets.