Husband and Wife

by Zeruya Shalev

  Why are you so interested in dead prophets, I complain, and he says, I’m interested in the past, and the past is full of the dead, both the false and the true prophets, their bones are mixed, they cover each other, you remember the story of the man of God who came from Judah and the old prophet from Beth-el who led him astray, and how they were buried in the same grave?

  My teeth are already chattering, but he doesn’t even notice, the past heats his blood, not my breasts spread out before him, floating in the water like fat fish that have given up the ghost, their one eye open, he would always chase my naked body all over the house, reaching for me with all ten fingers, whenever I got into the bath he got in after me and tried his luck, and I would snap irritably, a person can’t get undressed in this house without it being construed as an invitation. You should be pleased, he would retort, wounded, would you prefer me to be indifferent? And I would answer in the depths of my heart, maybe I would, but now I don’t know which I would prefer, my teeth are knocking into each other, no, it’s not my teeth, someone is knocking at the door, it sounds so close, almost as if it’s the bathroom door. I jump out of the tub and wrap myself in a bathrobe, I feel as if a stranger is prowling round the house, seeing us naked, and now the front door creaks open, a dark figure moves in the doorway, I’d completely forgotten that I asked her to come, my memory’s gone too. How quickly she came, I marvel, hasn’t she got anything to do with her time, and I go to the door, come in, Zohara, thank you for coming, examining her enviously all the while, a tricot dress clinging to her slender body, no one would guess that she’s just given birth, I’m the one who looks as if I’ve just had a baby, with the old robe and wobbling fat, but there’s no point in arguing, the proof is in her arms, a fair baby girl whose features are gradually growing clearer, like an ancient text hard to decipher, and again I say, thank you for coming, I wouldn’t take a baby out in this heat for anyone, a note of reproof underneath the appreciation, and all the time the doubt gnaws at me, why is she so devoted to us, is he really so sick?

  He doesn’t look sick at all, hurrying into the living room, a towel wrapped round his waist like a skirt, and she looks curiously at us both, it’s obvious that she’s gotten us out of the bath, but we don’t look close, that’s for sure, only very clean, soaped, shampooed, without the glow of physical intimacy. Her black eyes encompass us with impersonal compassion, broad and all-embracing, and she puts the baby down on the sofa, building a wall of cushions round her, her hair caressing the little body, long dark ropes down to her waist, today she’s almost beautiful, still too angular but it’s hard to take your eyes off her, every movement she makes flows serenely out of the one before it. She doesn’t seem affected by my implied criticism, or by my thanks either, she isn’t thinking of herself at all, I suddenly realize, she isn’t thinking about what my every word says about her, but about what every word of mine says about me, she hasn’t come to be judged, she has come to help.

  It isn’t a failure, Ehud, she says to him quietly while she rummages in her bag, fishing out little cloth bags, lining them up on the table, don’t see it as a failure or a punishment, everything that’s happening to you now is only a reflection of the past, and he passes his hand thoughtfully over his hair and asks with a shy smile, what do you mean by that? What you are now is what you were, she replies, what you will be in the future is what you do now, do you understand, the results of our actions ripen slowly, they catch up with us long after we forget what we’ve done, every bad action comes back to us, it leaves shadows of self-loathing behind it, but those shadows belong to the past, Ehud, the pain you are experiencing now is the completion of the results, the ripening of the fruit, and there is relief in knowing that it’s already the end of the process.

  What do you mean, the end of the process, he says, maybe it’s just the beginning, and she smiles, that depends on you, if you change your inclinations in the present, you can change the future. Look at your body, she says, her eyes measuring his bare chest, lingering on the red towel, the negative feelings accumulate in the centers of energy of the body, the seeds of hell can be found in the soles of the feet, where anger accumulates, the seeds of the hungry ghosts are found in the base of the spine, where greed gathers, the seeds of jealousy hide in the throat, we’re going to work on purifying these areas of your body, she promises, this is actually an exercise which is usually performed after death, but we’re going to do it ahead of time.

  But how do you do it, I burst out, it seems to me that I haven’t spoken for hours and my voice comes jerkily out of my throat, how do you purify, how are you changed, they’re only words, and she looks at me calmly, we can only change through suffering, suffering spurs our spiritual capacities, it wakes us up, forces us to release the wonder imprisoned within us. As we advance along the spiritual path all our old ideas about ourselves and the world evaporate, and then a completely new way of looking at things develops. You may have begun to recover but you haven’t changed, she turns to him in gentle rebuke, you set out on the tour this morning with negative feelings, you have to change now, or else you’ll pay the price in the future. Aren’t you exaggerating a bit, he sniggers, who hasn’t got negative feelings, and she opens her eyes wide in pretended astonishment, I’m exaggerating? Have you any idea of the influence exerted by every thought you’ve ever had, every word you’ve ever uttered, every feeling you’re ever felt, how they affect the weather, the plants and the animals, the earth and the air, not only other people, and he hangs his head in shame, his mouth a little open, his hands loosening their grip on the towel, and I look at the sagging towel in suspense, in a minute it will drop to the floor, but I immediately turn my eyes in her direction, looking only at her, in any case we stand naked before her.

  I heard anger in your voice, Na’ama, her rebuke shifts to me, you were angry with him for disturbing you at work today, you’re angry about all these weeks that he hasn’t been functioning, you have to cleanse yourself of this anger, you have to awaken the compassion within you, not the pity, which is a violent, patronizing emotion stemming from fear, and I defend myself immediately, looking at him uneasily out of the corner of my eye, it’s just that I got such a fright when I saw him this morning, it isn’t easy when something goes wrong nearly every single day.

  But you have to understand that you have no reason to be angry with him, only to thank him, she says, through his suffering he awakens your compassion, thereby granting you the greatest gift of all, you know that in Tibet they say that the beggar who asks you for alms or the sick old woman needing help could be Buddha in disguise, crossing your path in order to arouse your compassion and lead you to spiritual transformation.

  I examine him doubtfully, a hostile skinny Buddha in a red towel skirt, a Buddha without light, trying to avoid my eyes, once we would exchange gossipy glances, secret skeptical smiles, but now we are estranged, as if we have never met, two students landing by accident in a private lesson with the same tutor, united only by her rebukes.

  So how do we arouse our compassion, I ask, and she answers immediately, for every question she has a ready reply, she never pauses for a minute to reflect, try to see him as you see yourself, not in the role of husband or father, but as a free being, just like you, with the same desire for happiness, the same fear of suffering. Try to imagine someone you love very much in the same situation, let’s say your daughter, imagine what you would feel for her, and now take this feeling and transfer it to him, but I push her words away, God forbid, I couldn’t bear to imagine Noga in his situation, and she says in a reassuring voice, you’re quite wrong, Na’ama, the thought would only liberate Noga and help her, you still don’t really understand how powerful and miraculous the action of compassion is, it blesses everyone who takes part in it, the one who awakens it, the one who is awoken by it, and the one at whom it is directed.

  Again I examine her with suspicious admiration, sitting erect opposite us, stretching her neck toward us as we stand before her, one hand lying on her
baby’s back, her hair floating hazily in the hot wind coming from the porch, her voice welling moist and fresh from her throat, and I feel as if I could go on listening to her forever. Thus the children of Judah must have listened to the prophecies of consolation and encouragement, so what’s the wonder they wanted to silence the somber prophet, destroying their happiness with his threats, O daughter of my people, gird thee with sackcloth, and wallow thyself in ashes, make thee mourning as for an only son, and bitter lamentation, for the spoiler shall suddenly come upon us, for death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, and it seems to me that I have to do it for her sake, to flood myself with compassion, and I try to imagine Noga lying paralyzed in bed, suffering from a mysterious disease. No, it’s not compassion that awakens within me but a great fear, and I glance quickly at my watch, today she’s coming home early, she mustn’t see Udi here like this and realize that something has gone wrong again, she was relieved this morning to see that our hateful routine had returned, I have to catch her before she comes home, take her for a walk or something, and suddenly I feel doubt, like the sun going in and out of the winter clouds, darkening and illuminating the landscape, it moves inside me, changing my colors, and I look with animosity at the little bags she is holding in her hand, taking out brown pills, like the turds of small animals, the Dalai Lama blessed these pills, she tells him, and he looks at them admiringly. I turn my skeptical back on them and go to get dressed, hearing their muffled conversation as I do so, your enemy pulse is strong, she warns him, that means you will soon come across an enemy, or that you already have an enemy in your life, and he says, there are always enemies, the problem is to recognize them, it’s only with hindsight that we know who really endangered the Kingdom of Judah, Babylon or Egypt.

  I’ll pick Noga up at school and take her out to eat, I don’t want her to see you at home now with the doctor and start to worry, I say to him, and he looks at me with a frown, recoiling from me as if I am the enemy, and Zohara says, you can go, if you like, even though I don’t think you should hide things all the time, she returns the pinprick I thought she hadn’t noticed, and I say, it isn’t all the time, I just don’t want to worry her, that’s a form of compassion too, isn’t it?

  They flock out of the gates, in wild, stormy torrents, I can hear the roar even through the closed windows of the car, here and there I recognize a familiar face, children who once came to our house, a year ago, maybe two, shutting themselves up in her room with the television, emerging occasionally to ask for a drink, leaving sticky puddles of raspberry cordial behind them, and I want to stop them and ask, why did you stop coming, why are you ostracizing her, come back, I’ll bring you whole trays full of raspberry cordial to the room, Coca-Cola, ice cream, snacks, whatever you want, just come back. They don’t recognize me, imprisoned in their clamorous worlds, even if I were lying next to the road they wouldn’t notice me, and already the stream is thinning out, a weakening torrent, here are Shira and Merav again, inseparable, both wearing the briefest of dresses, almost identical, but where’s Noga, why is she missing? Perhaps she came out first and I missed her, and I am on the point of turning round and driving home when I see her in the distance, what relief I suddenly feel, almost joy, she isn’t alone, she’s talking to someone, there’s someone interested in what she has to say, a little taller than she is, with round glasses and thin hair, who on earth can it be, he doesn’t look like a child, he’s an adult, who can it be, he talks and talks, waves his hands in the air and she is silent, her eyes downcast, and not far from me they stop, I see her smiling good-bye at him and walking away, and he gets into a car parked nearby, and I go on staring at her receding figure until I rouse myself and open the window and shout, Nogi.

  The book bag bounces on her back as she turns to face me, Mother, she says in surprised rebuke, what are you doing here, why aren’t you at work? Just as I said to Udi only a few hours ago, a series of surprises we’re giving each other today, he surprises me and I surprise her, that’s family life for you, every event gives rise to a chain reaction, and I answer with false cheerfulness, I finished early today so I came to take you out to lunch in the mall, and perhaps we’ll buy you a dress, you can’t go on wearing those rags all the time. But my cheerfulness fails to infect her, has something happened, why did you finish early, she insists, looking at me with an expression of disbelief, and I say, nothing happened, Anat took the girls to see newborn babies, and I wasn’t needed. She gets into the car next to me, and I can’t resist asking, who was that man, and she says, Remi, the history teacher, I told you about him, and I nod, she must have told me while I wasn’t listening, how hard it is to listen to them. He’s so young, I marvel, he looks almost the same age as you, what did he want? And she shifts uneasily in her seat, nothing special, but I saw the way he was waving his hands about, and now it’s my turn not to believe her, and I say, what was he so excited about?

  Nothing, she says sulkily, he thinks I don’t show enough interest in his subject, so he was trying to arouse my interest, to make me see that everything we study is connected to our lives, and I say, really, how exactly, remembering Udi’s impassioned lecture over the pale foam in the bath, and she replies evasively, I haven’t got a clue, I didn’t understand what he was talking about. I examine her doubtfully, neither of us really believes the other, and I only hope that she isn’t going to fall in love with this childish history teacher, anything can happen for lack of a functioning father figure. So what do you want to eat, I ask, and she says, I’m not hungry, I want to go home, and I say angrily, but I am hungry, I’m a person too, you know, and I can feel a scream rising inside me, all I’ve done is put myself into an unnecessary trap, Zohara was right, why try to hide things, she can feel that something’s wrong, but it’s clear to me that I can’t retreat now, and I step on the gas, stealing a sidelong look at her, her head is bowed, her lips twisted as if she’s about to vomit, but I refuse to give up, I park aggressively at the entrance to the mall and get out of the car, hearing her footsteps trailing reluctantly behind me.

  Once she loved coming here with me, extorting little presents from me, what’s happened to her all of a sudden, she isn’t an adolescent yet, so what is it, and I try to give her a hug but her body stiffens, what’s wrong, Nogi, I ask, and she says, nothing, I’m tired, I want to go home, but I push determinedly through the crowds taking refuge here from the heat, holding her hand so she won’t get lost. Long lines of people are waiting hopelessly at the food counters, the only place with empty seats is the pizza joint at the end of the mall, and I sit down exhausted on a plastic chair, pulling up a chair for Noga, and chew the hard, lukewarm pizza, so that’s why the place isn’t full, there’s a reason for everything, including her hostile silence. So how was it at school today, I ask, and she answers automatically, all right, and I persevere, what do you do at recess, and she lowers her eyes, sucking cola from the bottle, nothing special, I go outside or I stay in the classroom. I saw Shira and Merav, I say, and she says dully, what about them, and I whisper, you used to be a trio, remember, you never moved without each other, what happened? She shrugs her shoulders, trying to maintain a façade of indifference, I don’t remember, she says, they started to get on my nerves, I’m not interested in them anymore. Convenient as it is for me to hear that the choice is hers, I don’t really believe her, did you have a fight, or did it happen gradually, I ask, and she replies, I don’t remember, lowering her eyes, above them her thick, untidy eyebrows stare at me, and I ask, have you got any other friends, and she says, here and there, and I don’t know if she’s deceiving me or herself, but a pang of sorrow silences me suddenly and I have nothing to say, all I want to do is weep, lay my head on the table and weep unclear, unjustified tears, what is it compared to real, terrible trouble, it’s nothing, only my Nogi, my only child, apathetically chewing her pizza, her skin soft and milky, a few new freckles have settled on her snub nose, her golden curls swelling round her head like a halo, Nogi who has nothing t
o say to me, who hides her loneliness from me, who keeps me at arm’s length as if I have some dangerous disease, or she does. Once we were so close, she wanted to look like me, talk like me, dress like me, she was my little double, and we walked hand in hand, here in this shopping mall, stopping to window-shop, and she would pick things out for me to try on, and sometimes I would take the three of them, her and Shira and Merav, and I would have fun spending money on them, buying them stickers, hair ribbons, ice creams, seeing their pleasure and excitement, and now this silence rising from her, flooding the marble spaces, it seems as if every corner where she rests her eyes answers her with a tense silence.