by Ilana Haley
It’s nothing, I said. It doesn’t hurt at all. Yah, sure, he said. I saw he didn’t believe me, and I had no words to comfort him. I squeezed his hand and noticed his face soften. He looked at me, and I felt as if he were looking into the most secret place in me. For only a second, I felt his hand close on mine; then he pulled his hand away and lowered his eyes. It was as if the entrance to his soul had closed forever. A sense of a terrible loss came over me; I wanted to weep from shame and frustration and love. At that moment, it seemed that everything important in my life was retreating. It felt like in a dream, when the heart strains and you want to scream but you can’t utter a sound. I didn’t weep because I was Commander Liat, a soldier in the IDF. But at that moment, this thought made me so sick that I hung over the side of the truck and vomited, terrified that the boys would laugh at me. No one even smiled.
When we reached Beer-Sheba, we were taken to the army hospital where they cleaned out the cuts on my face and stitched and bandaged my leg and let me go. But I was confined to my room until a decision was reached about me. For three days, I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling and thought of Emil. Sometimes I would fall into semi-sleep, and my sleep would be infested with dreams of pits and crawling things, and I would wake up sweating and breathless, my heart palpitating. And at night, unable to sleep, I’d stand by the open window and gaze at the desert’s stars and sniff the desert scent of faraway bonfires and hot dust and think of special moments I had shared with Emil, like the night we smoked the hashish, that night when Zaki took the boys for a special night training session. Emil had complained of a migraine headache, and so he and I stayed behind. We sat very close without touching, without words, and watched as the moonlight spread a death mask over the distant hills. Emil was smoking. After a while, he said, Here, take a puff. I don’t smoke, I said, and you shouldn’t either. I thought you had a headache. But he merely laughed and said, Try, it won’t kill you. His voice was hoarse, and his mouth seemed very dry. I took the peculiar-shaped cigarette, inhaled, and almost choked; but Emil didn’t laugh.
I want you, he said, but he didn’t move. I had no idea what was going to happen next. I felt strange, not unpleasant, as if detached from myself, and very quiet inside. I talked with an effort because my tongue felt somewhat paralyzed. I don’t think it’s a good idea. It will ruin everything. He didn’t answer. He only reached out and took my hands and held them in his, but he didn’t make love to me. I sat very still. But he only continued to hold my hands and gaze at me with his eyes half closed, a kind of vacant smile on his face. And that was all we did: looking at each other, smiling, dreaming, and holding hands. Probably looking utterly ridiculous.
Near Tel Aviv, a few months later, I was sitting at my open window, feeling the sea breeze caress my face, breathing the perfume of apple blossoms, watching the night sky above my head, and trying to smile with trembling lips at the cold light of blurred stars that looked as if they were mocking the entire world and especially me. Suddenly the telephone rang. I got up, annoyed and a little frightened. Who could it be at such an ungodly hour? I picked up the phone expecting anyone but the voice of my commander.
Liat? he said. Gideon? I said.
I have bad news.
I sat down on the bed. Liat, are you there?
Where are you? In Beer-Sheba.
Tell me.
He was silent.
Gideon, talk to me.
Emil was rejected by the army. The medical examiner said that he has a mental disorder. At eight o’clock this morning, he shot himself in the head with his brother’s gun. He died instantly.
Silence.
Liat?
Yes.
The funeral is tomorrow at four in the afternoon. Shall I pick you up?
Gideon.
Yes?
Thanks. But . . .
I hung up the phone and went back to the window and looked up at the sky. I thought about Emil and how—for only one moment—I felt his heart drumming on my breasts, how his mouth tasted, how it was to smoke hashish. Then I went into the room and sat on the floor and stared at the darkness. My eyes were dry, but I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t go to the funeral. After three days, Gideon came; and when he took me in his arms, I began to scream, and I screamed and screamed. And Gideon just held me without saying a word. What was there to say? Emil’s death was as empty of reason as can be, and I had never even told him how much I wanted him. One wouldn’t believe things like that are possible, but it was possible then, and for Emil, perhaps it was the only way.
Chapter 21
Gabriela
There is another story I wish to tell you, about someone I will call Gabriela.
When Gabriela came home that evening, she dropped her bag on the couch and walked to the window. Gazing at the oak tree, all she could think about was that day a year ago when she left her father at the hospital in Jerusalem to fly back to Boston to be with her husband, Neil. She remembered how, immediately upon arriving home, she had called her father’s doctor. How is he? she asked. Call your mother, Gabriela, he told her. He’s dead. Yes, Gabriela, I’m sorry. He died a few hours after you left. For a long moment, she just stood there, clutching the receiver in her hand until her fingers became numb. Vaguely, she heard the doctor’s voice say, Gabriela, are you there? Gabriela? All she could think of was that she had to go back to Jerusalem. She didn’t unpack or even change her clothes. She didn’t call Neil. She called the airlines and took the first flight back to her country. For fourteen hours she sat on the plane, and the only feeling she could remember was a sense of urgency that burned inside her.
When she arrived at her parents’ home, it was Friday. Her father’s body was at the hospital’s morgue. Stunned, she stood at the door. Her father wasn’t buried yet and already her parents’ home was crowded with people. What are they doing here? A rage filled her brain. She saw her mother moving among the callers, bewildered and exhausted, her skin hanging like a rag on her face, gray rings etched under her eyes, and her hand clutching her chest from time to time as if trying to hush her heart. For a moment, Gabriela felt like a sharp stone had been turned round in her chest, but she wasn’t able to attend to her mother. The tremendous feeling of urgency she felt throughout the flight turned into a feeling of suffocation—she must see him now, immediately, to affirm with her own eyes that he was dead, to touch him, to ask his forgiveness for not being there with him in his last moments. The urgency was so great within her she could not lean upon the comforting illusion that she was dreaming and soon she’d wake up. Her friends were shocked when she said she wanted to go to the hospital now. She must have lost her mind. They’ll refuse to let her in, they whispered. You can’t go now, they cautioned her. Only her cousin, Daniel, a heart surgeon at Hadassah Hospital, took her hand gently. I’ll take you to see him, he said.
At the hospital, she walked along a gray concrete corridor, trembling with pity and anger, refusing to believe the fact that her father had passed through this corridor without her. She hadn’t been there as she had promised, and she could make no amends now. She was overwhelmed by a sense of guilt and confusion.
When they reached the morgue, Daniel explained to the attendant that they came to see the body of Michael Wolk. She remembered well the attendant, a small man with a beak-like nose and shoulder-length side curls. A long black coat was hanging on him like on a hanger, and his body emitted the odor of mildew and tobacco. It’s forbidden for the woman to be here, he muttered angrily as he plucked at his long black beard. She’s my responsibility, Daniel said. The attendant pointed to a wall. He’s there, he said sourly. But don’t stay long, the Sabbath is coming. I’m closing at four. Please open it. Daniel said. The man pulled at a handle protruding from the wall, and the box glided out soundlessly. Her father’s head appeared first, like in birth, she thought. His body was covered with a white sheet. She uncovered his body, baring his chest. Here he is, she he
ard herself say. She felt as though he was lost and she had just found him. She bent and kissed his forehead, his cheeks, delicately, as if afraid to hurt him. She passed her hand over his face, over his shut eyes, over his slightly opened lips. His skin felt cold to the touch, unnatural, but the feeling was not repulsive to her or even unpleasant. He was her father.
Daniel bent over and carefully opened the dead man’s eyes. She gazed into her father’s eyes. For a moment, she expected him to say, enough, Gabriela, let’s go home. She waited, her hands two blocks of ice. After a while, she rested her cheek on his chest; but when her cheek touched his flesh, she burst out crying. Her entire body shook; chills ran down her spine. She told him she loved him, that she longed for their talks on lazy Sabbath days when he would sit in the soft leather chair and she on the floor, her back leaning on his legs, and his hand would caress her head. She told him how terribly she missed the times they used to spend riding through the flowering hills in winter, breathing the fragrance of wet grass. How she yearned for their walks between the narrow walls of the Arab market in old Jerusalem, inhaling the odors of musky perfumes and ancient spices. She told him how devastated she was not to have been with him when he died.
She talked for a long time. She heard Daniel call her name and felt his hand stroking her hair, and although she could not see him, she knew that he too was crying. Finally, she lifted her head off her father’s chest and stood up. She remembered that as the saddest moment of it all, for she knew that now they would close the box, and she would never touch her father again. Full of sorrow, she looked at him. But she was not ready to grieve. Not yet. She did not see death in his still body. She felt rather that he had undergone some shift, some metamorphosis.
Suddenly she saw two tears rolling down his face, leaving a silvery line on each cheek.
Daniel, look, she said, my father is crying. She saw Daniel wince. Let’s go, he said and took her hand. But when she lingered, he said, his voice choking, Gabriela, he isn’t crying, he’s thawing.
She stared at him with huge unblinking eyes. If Jesus could rise from the dead, she said, my father can cry in death. Daniel only smiled and squeezed her hand. At that moment, the attendant came in. He seemed to swoop down upon them, his black coat flying wildly behind him. Dark and mean, he reminded her of a raven. He whispered something in Daniel’s ear. Daniel took her hand and said they had to leave now. With her frozen fingers, she wiped her father’s tears, then covered his body with the sheet.
On the day of the funeral, she felt quiet and distant. But at night, stunned and lonely, she went back to the cemetery, gathered all the flowers from his grave, and brought them to the house. There she put them, without water, on the floor of his library. During the next seven days, Gabriela looked after her mother. She ran like a maniac between the ringing phone and the screaming doorbell. An endless stream of relatives and people she didn’t know came to pay their respects. Many wanted to know how life in America was and whether she was thinking of returning to Jerusalem. It was too bad, they had said, that Neil, her wonderful husband, couldn’t come to the funeral; but Gabriela didn’t explain. Those most concerned took her aside and wondered how her mother would manage. Maybe it will be better if she were to stay for a few months and take care of her—her husband would surely understand. Gabriela smiled and nodded. Mother will be all right, thank you. It’s so sweet of you to be concerned. You’re so kind.
The days were chaotic. But at night, after everyone left and her mother took a sleeping tablet; Gabriela would go to her father’s library; and there—among his pipes, books, and papers—she lived for a few hours among the aromas of her childhood. Nostalgia, like a drug, coursed through her veins. She sat in the dark, her hands caressing the polished wood of his desk. The windows were open, the night bright, and the scent of the jasmine wafted in with the whine of the jackals. Moonlight poured into the room, casting a blue shadow on the alabaster horse on her father’s desk, the winged alabaster horse that always seemed ready to leap toward the sky. Absently, she caressed it, caressed and waited. It took the memorial flowers seven days to wilt.
A year had passed since her father’s passing; and now on the anniversary of his death—at her home in Boston, so far from Jerusalem—she leaned her forehead on the windowsill and wept. Yes, she said to the motionless tree as much as to herself, I really believed that he was crying.
At night, she fell on her bed, determined but unable to subdue the pain. She tossed and turned; everything churned within her, shifting like desert sand in a windstorm. Toward dawn, she fell into a deep sleep and dreamed she was a little girl riding on a blue horse, her arms around her father’s waist, her cheek pressing against his back. They ride through a field crimson with poppies. Butterflies—purple, yellow, and gold—fly around the horse’s legs. A cool breeze plays with her hair, caressing her face. Only father and her, galloping toward the sun, and she is happy and light in the glittering air.
But suddenly the red field becomes a sea of moving shadows. Black clouds sweep the vast expanse of blue sky. She clutches his waist tight, but he pries her arms loose and dismounts. She tries to follow him but is unable. Don’t leave me, she cries. How will I find the way in the darkness? I miss you terribly, Father. Please stay.
Gabriela, she hears his voice, don’t you remember? I am dead. A tide of darkness sweeps him away. But, Father, she shouts, I didn’t bury you, you can’t be dead. She is shouting, but her voice is thin, scarcely a thread of a sound. Silence. The only sound she hears is the drumming of her heart. The blue horse gallops through the storm, and she holds tight to its mane. Suddenly the horse stops. Neil, her husband, appears before her. His hands are clasped in prayer, his face gleaming white and wet. I knew you’d come back to me, he whispers. I’m so glad. And she says, No, you’re no longer part of my life, I can’t stay. A thick mist envelops his face. Gabriela, my wife, we can try again. No! Move out of the way! You’re selfish, Gabriela. He continues to weep. You were always selfish. He grabs her hand and tries to pull her off the horse’s back, but the blue horse gallops away, and Neil is left cradling her severed hand to his heart. She wants to get off the horse. She wants to retrieve her hand, but the blue horse is flying, floating again in the dark through the storm. She must leave Neil with something. She can do without her hand.
And again the horse halts, scraping its hooves along the ground. Sparks are flying in the darkness. A full moon hangs suspended in space, illuminating the blackness. The face of her lover Paul floats up toward her, radiant in the darkness. Gabriela, he says, I knew you’d come, you always came back to me. No, she says, you left me, you went back to her, you lied to me. He laughs; come to me, my love. We’ll be together again, only you and me. His hand is on her chest, squeezing her heart, and an awful sense of suffocation grips her. He tries to pull her off the horse’s back. But the blue horse bolts forward, and Paul, her lover, floats in the air with her heart in his hand. I can’t help you, she whispers. I must bury my father. Give me back my heart, I can’t live without a heart. Gabriela! Gabriela! His rumbling voice is drowned by the howling of the wind and the shrill ringing of bells. Gabriela, you’re so selfish, you promised to love me forever. But the horse is flying faster, the wind roars; bells ring.
Father! Father! she shouts and hears his voice. Faster. Don’t listen to them, Gabriela. They’d all try to stop you. Go! Go fast! She holds tight to the blue horse’s back, and both of them are swirling through endless space.
Sad book. So sorry. But so is life. Moments of pleasure are precious - only moments. Words repeat themselves again and again, muttering, whispering, singing, laughing, shrieking, tripping and disappearing - it seems they won’t return, and yet they do come back, tired, a little pale, murmuring in my ear about life being empty bustle, futile, meaningless, their hum fills me with a sense of the hollowness, the inanity of existence in the light of infinite eternity, the banality of space and time. Beyond certainty and uncertainty, the Spir
it is undermined. I must finally acknowledge that life - despite those I love and who remain like a lost citadel – is chaos, that I am lost and must adapt to being lost so that I can be saved and feel a pleasurable freshness in my body: elation, and a joyful freedom bordering on a sense of merging with all that exists. I destroy and recreate myself daily. It’s exhausting, so exhausting; it generates a spherical, utterly internal feeling of loneliness.
Eric’s orchid has withered and, in its place at the window, in all its delicate glory stands my Teddy’s orchid which will also wither soon. And you my dearest friend, are there, you are there, and how are things there? Tell me about the skies, the flowers; what do they tell you? Do you see butterflies? I don’t, so my smile wrinkles every day. I will end here, my dying swan song, with fond words: like a caressing hand you hover over the tissues of my soul, your laugh illuminates the darkness within me; like a twilight breeze your voice soothes the madness in my blood. You went, because you always go – come back, because you always come back to the place forever reserved for you within me.